Emma and the Angel of Central Park: A Talk with Maria Teresa Cometto
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
ISSUE #1399
FROM THE STACKS
NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
As our 2023–24 exhibition Women’s Workenters its final weeks, we at the Center for Women’s History are in a reflective mood. New York City doesn’t always lend itself to quiet introspection, but it’s worth remembering that, even among the hustling pedicabs and bustling bridal parties, Central Park was created expressly for this purpose. Park architects Frederick Law Olmstead (1822–1903) and Calvert Vaux (1824–1895) sought to provide weary urbanites with a peaceful oasis—a beautiful, pastoral setting in which they could refresh their bodies and minds.
And at the center of the Park lies the Bethesda Terrace with its iconic fountain, topped by the Angel of the Waters. “This is my favorite place in New York City,” reflects Prior Walter in the Epilogue of Tony Kushner’s award-winning Angels in America. “No, in the whole universe, the parts of it I have seen…This angel. She’s my favorite angel. I like them best when they’re statuary…They are made of the heaviest things on earth, stone and iron, they weigh tons but they’re winged, they are engines and instruments of flight.”
Bethesda Terrace, ca. 1873. Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society
The Angel of the Waters in Bethesda Terrace is all of those things and more. Based upon a passage from the Biblical Book of John, the fountain was commissioned in 1863 to commemorate the completion of the Croton Aqueduct and the incalculable benefit it brought to New York in the form of clean drinking water. As such, it symbolized a major victory in the fight against cholera and the other deadly diseases that plagued the 19th-century city.
The Angel of the Waters also represents a landmark in women’s history. As journalist and author Maria Teresa Cometto writes, it is “the first and only sculpture commissioned as part of the Central Park plan and funded with taxpayer money,” and the artist, Emma Stebbins, was “the first woman in New York City to be commissioned to create a large work of public art.” Stebbins, though born into a wealthy and well-connected New York family, created the Angel in her studio in Rome. She had gone to Italy in 1857 to study sculpture and live in a community of like-minded, independent women artists. Among them was the famous 19th-century actor Charlotte Cushman, acclaimed for her facility in playing male roles, including Romeo and Hamlet. Stebbins and Cushman maintained a romantic relationship for many years, and it is thought that Stebbins may have modeled the figure of the Angel after her gender-bending partner. In addition to acting, Cushman worked as a model; a bust representing her form is currently featured in our special exhibition, Women’s Work, alongside a discussion of her relationship with Stebbins.
Charles Autenrieth (active 1850), artist. Croton Water Reservoir, 1850. Color lithograph. Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society.
Ten years after a cholera epidemic swept New York, the city celebrated the opening of the Croton Aqueduct, which brought fresh water from what is now Westchester County to this reservoir, which occupied the site where Bryant Park and the New York Public Library’s Schwartzman Building now stand. You can learn more about the Croton Aqueduct at our exhibition Lost New York, on view until September 29, 2024.
To learn more about Stebbins, we spoke with Cometto about her recent biography of the artist, entitled Emma and the Angel of Central Park. Our conversation appears below, lightly edited for length and clarity:
Charles Autenrieth (active 1850), artist. Croton Water Reservoir, 1850. Color lithograph. Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society.
Ten years after a cholera epidemic swept New York, the city celebrated the opening of the Croton Aqueduct, which brought fresh water from what is now Westchester County to this reservoir, which occupied the site where Bryant Park and the New York Public Library’s Schwartzman Building now stand. You can learn more about the Croton Aqueduct at our exhibition Lost New York, on view until September 29, 2024.
To learn more about Stebbins, we spoke with Cometto about her recent biography of the artist, entitled Emma and the Angel of Central Park. Our conversation appears below, lightly edited for length and clarity:
Miss E. Stebbins (Emma Stebbins, 1815-1882), Cartes de visite portraits of nineteenth century artists, 1856. American Art and Portrait Gallery Collection, Smithsonian Institution.
Emma Stebbins is a rather opaque figure. As you write in your Introduction, she was “very shy, reserved… she left no diary, she destroyed her private correspondence with Charlotte [Cushman]…here are few traces of her in the archives of universities, museums, and research centers, from New York to Rome.” Why do you think this might be the case? And given her enigmatic nature, what prompted you to take on Emma Stebbins as a subject?
“(I am) a soft-shelled crab, forced by circumstances into hard-shelled positions.” This is how Emma Stebbins described herself. So yes, Emma was very shy and reserved. She destroyed the letters she exchanged with Charlotte [Cushman] because Charlotte had asked her to: they were too scandalous and would have compromised the image of Charlotte herself, the very famous actress happy to be remembered as a “virgin queen of the dramatic stage,” as the New York Times wrote in her obituary.
As for me, I am a journalist, curious by nature. I was struck by the gap between the popularity of the Angel of the Waters versus the silence about the artist who created it. Even today, very few know the story of this iconic New York monument and the woman behind it. My book is the first and only biography of Emma Stebbins. I decided to write it when I started looking for news on the Angel of the Waters—which I love very much—and I realized that its creator, Emma Stebbins, was a true pioneer as an artist and as a woman who, together with her companion Charlotte Cushman, defied prejudice and social conventions, living openly as a married couple 150 years before marriage equality in the United States.
Although we often think of artists as solitary geniuses toiling alone in their studios, you’ve demonstrated that Emma Stebbins was part of several very distinguished social and artistic circles, through both her family of birth in New York and later, her chosen family in Rome. Can you describe some of the key players in Stebbins’s life, and how they impacted her and her career?
The first key player in Stebbins’s life was her brother Henry, an early supporter of her artistic career. He was president of the New York Stock Exchange and a patron of the arts— one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in fact. He was also a commissioner of Central Park, which led some critics to say Emma got the commission for the Bethesda Fountain because of nepotism. But she was already pretty famous when she got the commission, and Henry Stebbins was always praised as an upstanding citizen, devoted to improving life in New York and fighting corruption.
The other key player was Charlotte Cushman. As I wrote in my book: “Strong, decisive, passionate, a shrewd steward of her own image and financial fortune, Charlotte was also generous to her expatriate artist women friends in Rome. She hosted them, helped them, promoted them within the art world, and defended them from the envy and attacks of male competitors.” Emma became part of Charlotte’s “family” when she moved to Rome in 1856. And Charlotte became not only her partner but also took on a managerial role, helping her solve all the practical problems of artistic activity, from getting commissions to getting paid.
Henry Inman (1801-1846), artist. Henry G. Stebbins (1811-1881), 1838. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Josephine S. Stebbins, 2001.269
David Richards (1829–1897), artist. Portrait bust of Charlotte Cushman (1816–1876), ca. 1870. Painted plaster. New-York Historical Society.
Emma Stebbins’s process was different from other sculptors of her time; you mention that Stebbins insisted on “being 100 percent the author of her sculptures,” which was not the way that her contemporaries and friends (such as Harriet Hosmer or Edmonia Lewis) worked. How would you characterize the differences between these artists, and how did Stebbins’s creative process affect her career?
Harriet Hosmer and Edmonia Lewis worked as all neoclassical sculptors did, starting with the master of neoclassicism Antonio Canova. They employed Italian craftsmen to rough out marble blocks based on their models and then engaged with the chisel only in the final stage of statue creation. (Indeed, access to high-quality Carrara marble, skilled yet affordable assistants, and nude models—none of which were readily available in the United States—was the reason why so many women artists made their way to Rome.) This process allowed Hosmer and her colleagues to make several copies of their more popular and successful statues.
In contrast, Emma did everything herself, with maniacal perfectionism. It was a matter of professional pride and a desire to be independent, to maintain control of her work, without interference. So Emma limited much of her production to small statues and didn’t make many copies of her statues. But the hours and hours spent using hammer and chisel on marble, breathing in the dust, were harmful to the lungs and eventually proved fatal to Emma.
You’ve gathered so many interesting stories about the creation of the Angel of the Waters, it’s difficult to focus on just one—but if there was one thing that you wanted everyone who saw this statue to know, what would it be?
I would like to draw attention to the fact that for Emma, the Angel is a woman. When she explains the significance of the Angel of the Waters in the program printed for its inauguration, she speaks of her angel as a woman: “She bears in her left hand a bunch of lilies, emblems of purity, and wears across her breast the crossed bands of the messenger-angel. She seems to hover, as if just alighting on a mass of rock…”
It struck me, because it is not a customary way of depicting angels. In the collective imagination the association of angels with the male gender prevails. The cherubic angels are definitely male, and the Archangel Michael is a warrior, wielding a sword to defeat the dragon, that is, evil.
In fact, the Angel of the Waters has a woman’s breasts, although overall the body is as powerful as a man’s. The face, on the other hand, is androgynously beautiful. So Emma’s statue anticipates by a century and a half the concept of gender fluidity. Its beauty also lies in being open to ever new interpretations, which is the essence of true art.
Fritz Bjorkman (1892–1967), photographer. Bethesda Fountain, Central Park, New York City, ca. 1905–1919. Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society
The Angel of the Waters took a long time to plan and execute, and it had a very fraught journey from Emma Stebbins’s studio in Rome, to the foundry in Germany, to its final placement in New York. Can you describe the statue’s journey, and some of the problems that stood in its way? And, in the end, when it was finally installed, how was the statue received?
It took 10 years for the Angel of the Waters to appear in Central Park. It was 1863 when Emma got the commission, and 1873 when the fountain was finally inaugurated. One reason is that Emma was a perfectionist: it took her four winters, between 1864 and 1867, to create the clay and plaster models of the Angel and the fountain. But Emma was also unlucky. In 1869 the statue arrived in Munich to be cast at the Royal Foundry, the best in the world for artistic works. But because of the Franco-Prussian war, the statue remained stuck in Germany until 1871.
The statue didn’t arrive in New York City until July 2nd, 1871. At that time, the City administration was in the hands of William “Boss” Tweed and the Tammany Ring, who, among other things, mismanaged Central Park. The corrupt Tweed administration was defeated during the municipal election in 1872, in part because a commission chaired by Emma’s brother, Henry Stebbins, had publicly enumerated and denounced Tweed’s misdeeds. Tweed’s thefts left the public coffers in shambles and to restore them the comptroller of New York City, Andrew Green, drastically cut spending, including spending for Central Park. That is probably why the inauguration of the Bethesda Fountain was a very low profile event.
The inauguration took place on May 31, 1873, “without ceremony, without even any spoken words of introduction by a Commissioner, and with a simplicity that it was not possible to attenuate,” wrote the New York Herald. There was only a little music played by a band. The spectators were mostly Americans of German descent, entire families, flocking not so much for the Angel itself as for their pride in the work of the Royal Munich Foundry.
For the New York Times the Angel was a great disappointment: “From a rear view the figure resembles a servant girl executing a polka pas seul in the privacy of the back kitchen; from the front it looks like a naughty girl jumping over stepping-stones, while the wind drives back the voluminous folds of her hundred petticoats, which, however, are so diaphanous in texture as to clearly reveal the form. The head is distinctly a male head, of a classical commonplace, meaningless beauty, the breasts are feminine, the rest of the body is in part male and in part female.” The article closes with a message that seems actually paid for by the American foundry lobby: The casting of the bronze Angel made in Munich is “infinitely inferior” to that of the Shakespeare statue made by a Philadelphia foundry. It sounds like the slogan “Buy American” that is popular now!
Fortunately, other newspapers and magazines loved Emma’s Angel. The New York Evening Post wrote that the Angel of the Waters elicits “emotions of delight and admiration.” And the New York Herald—the most influential newspaper at that time, and with the largest circulation—praised the Angel.
Emma was not surprised by the bad reviews. She wrote to a friend: “I confess I dreaded the comments of the press which in this country respects nothing human or divine and is moved by any but celestial influences.” But by this time, she was totally absorbed by caring for Charlotte Cushman, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 1869.
Towards the end of her life, Emma Stebbins devoted much of her time and energy to Charlotte Cushman—first caring for her as she battled breast cancer, then writing Cushman’s biography after her death. This seems to have been a terribly painful time for Stebbins, especially since she was in poor health herself, and could not return to her own artistic pursuits. How do you think she viewed her own legacy—as a person and as an artist?
It was indeed a terribly painful time for Stebbins. But towards the end of her life, she tried to find her own dimension by looking to the future, even though lung disease always plagued her. She proposed to her friend and colleague Anne Whitney that they write a book together, in epistolary form, exchanging views on art. Emma wanted to share her approach, explaining that she always tried to resist “the pressure of outside influences,” and felt that the pressure to complete work quickly often harmed the final product. Stebbins wrote Whitney that sculpture as a form was the “saddest of all, because what we do is so imperishable.” She added that if she could write exactly about her experience as an artist, that “would teach many lessons.” Unfortunately the book project didn’t materialize. But from her letters you can understand that she wanted to be remembered as an artist who was true and honest.
I think that Emma gave her sister Mary instructions about her grave in the Green-Wood Cemetery, the Brooklyn cemetery where she is buried. And that gives us a hint about how she viewed her own legacy as a person: a brave woman who remained faithful to her partner all her life, resisting the pressures of family and society. On the simple, small marble headstone you can read: “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” It is part of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans. The apostle summarizes all of God’s laws in one precept: “Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to its neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.” I believe it’s a way of saying that loving another woman is the fulfillment of the law too.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
“OUR LADY OF NOMAD”
CREDITS
N-Y HISTORICAL SOCIETY JUDITH BERDY
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The eminent biochemist Pierre Boucard was an ideal subject for Lempicka, who ‘loved art and society in equal measure’ — and she portrayed the venerated man of science as the embodiment of Art Deco urbanity and glamour
Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980), Portrait du Docteur Boucard, 1928 (detail). Oil on canvas. 53⅛ x 29½ in (135 x 75 cm). Estimate: £5,000,000-8,000,000. Offered in the 20th/21st Century Evening Sale on 5 March 2025 at Christie’s in London
In the années folles between the two world wars, Tamara de Lempicka was one of the most sought-after portraitists in Paris. She socialised with — and painted pictures of — numerous members of her era’s elite, from the Marquis d’Afflitto to the cabaret singer Marjorie Ferry.
For Lempicka, the personal and the professional were intricately intertwined. Not for nothing did Jean Cocteau claim that she ‘loved art and high society in equal measure’. A chic hostess, she used her apartment-atelier on Rue Méchain in the 14th arrondissement not just as a space to live and work, but as a venue to throw lavish cocktail parties. Spread over three floors, the property — designed by the modernist architect Robert Mallet-Stevens — was viewed at the time as the epitome of modernity, renowned for its sleek interior complete with chrome fittings and an American bar.
Lempicka purchased and moved into the atelier in the late 1920s. Financial stability, provided in part by the patronage of the medical scientist Pierre Boucard, had enabled her to do so. A keen art collector, Boucard owned a number of the artist’s works, and also commissioned her to produce a series of portraits of his family. One painting from that series — that of Boucard himself, from 1928 — is being offered at Christie’s in London in the 20th/21st Century Evening Sale on 5 March 2025.
The doctor is depicted in the bold Art Deco style for which Lempicka is famous, oozing cool elegance. Adopting a dynamic pose, Boucard twists his body towards a shaft of light from beyond the picture’s left, which illuminates him. He rests one hand on a microscope, and clasps a glass test-tube in the other — both of them tools of his trade.
Boucard was a successful man. He had made his greatest contribution to medicine in 1907, when he invented the probiotic pharmaceutical Lactéol, a drug still widely used today to improve digestive health.
At first glance, his attire in the portrait seems to be a formal laboratory coat, as befitting a scientist. Upon closer inspection, though, one sees that it is in fact a stylish white trench coat, an item of clothing more readily associated with a detective. Is the suggestion that Boucard’s scientific discoveries were every bit as noteworthy as any detective’s criminal ones?
His collar fashionably upturned, Boucard sports both a trim moustache and a gleaming pearl on an emerald-coloured tie — all contributing to the sense that this is no regular biochemist. This is a highly sophisticated man of the world.
For her part, Lempicka came to be known as ‘the Baroness with the Brush’, true to the striking public persona she had crafted for herself in Paris as an aristocrat-émigré. Very little is known for certain about her early life, including the place and year of her birth.
She grew up in Poland, before moving to St Petersburg as a young woman. Following the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, Lempicka (then probably in her early twenties) fled Russia, along with her first husband Tadeusz and their infant daughter. They settled in Paris, where she would train in the studios of Maurice Denis and André Lhote.
Success came relatively fast. The first Parisian exhibition to which she contributed was the Salon d’Automne of 1922, and she showed in numerous other salons thereafter. ‘Among a hundred paintings, you could always recognise mine,’ Lempicka said in later life. ‘The galleries… put me in the best rooms, always in the centre, because my painting attracted people.’
The golden period of the artist’s career is widely agreed to have been the decade between the mid-1920s and the mid-1930s. Her pictures evoked the glamour, optimism and extravagance of that age, and Lempicka herself welcomed media attention, regularly inviting photographers to her studio to shoot her.
One such invitee was the esteemed society photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue, Boucard’s brother-in-law. In 1928, shortly before the artist’s move to Rue Méchain, he took a set of pictures at her atelier-residence on Rue Guy de Maupassant, one of which shows Portrait du Docteur Boucard in progress. The canvas can be seen on an easel, with the composition sketched out fairly comprehensively in charcoal. Lempicka would go on to complete the work in oil paints in her distinctively glossy style.
In her best works, the artist achieved a masterful blend of the classical and the contemporary. Apropos of the former, she often cited a teenage tour of Italy with her grandmother — ‘taking in the treasures of the Italian Old Masters’ — as a formative influence. ‘[It was then] that my love of painting, and my desire to become a painter, were born,’ she said.
For the Boucard portrait, Lempicka embraced the Mannerist ideal of the figura serpentinata, where a figure rotates around a central axis, so that the lower limbs face in one direction and the torso in almost the opposite direction, thus creating a sense of movement.
As for the modern aspects of Portrait du Docteur Boucard, three are perhaps worth highlighting. The tight cropping and atmospheric lighting, for a start, are devices used in the cinema of the day. The Cubist backdrop hints at an urban mise en scène, with several tall buildings. Finally, there’s the metallic sheen with which Lempicka finished this painting and many others, a feature alluding to the advances of the Machine Age.
The artist died in 1980, yet her fusion of old and new continues to prove popular. She is currently the subject of her first retrospective in the United States (which recently closed at the de Young Museum in San Francisco and will be on show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from 9 March to 26 May 2025).
In the picture coming to auction, Boucard doesn’t look us in the eye. He knowingly looks away. Like many of Lempicka’s subjects, the scientist is imbued with an urbane self-confidence that reflects the aspirations and worldly success of the haute société to which he belonged.
Led by the 20th/21st Century Evening Sale and The Art of the Surreal on 5 March 2025, Christie’s 20th and 21st Century Art auctions take place in London and online from 26 February to 20 March. Find out more about the preview exhibition and sales
PHOTO OF THE DAY
AFTER A GLOOMY WEEKEND, A GLORIOUS DAY AT MADISON SQUARE
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IT’S PRESIDENTS DAY & NEW YORK AND PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER
WEEKEND, FEB. 15-17, 2025
ISSUE #1397
New York Municipal Archives
New York City government offices, including the Municipal Archives, close on the third Monday in February for Presidents Day. Banks, schools, the United States Post Office, and the New York Stock Exchange also observe the holiday.
Archives collections document some presidential moments in the City’s history, highlighted in For the Record articles.
In 1968, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Uniform Holiday Bill that set specific Mondays to celebrate Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day as well as establishing Columbus Day as a Federal Holiday, effective in 1971. The goal was to establish a minimum of five three-day weekends for federal workers. As Johnson stated in his approval message, “The bill that we sign today will help Americans to enjoy more fully the country that is their magnificent heritage. It will also aid the work of Government and bring new efficiency to our economy.”
President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, was never a national holiday but was a State holiday in many places, including New York. In 2018, the For the Record article Bodies in Transit displayed an entry about the assassinated President Lincoln as an example.
Presidents Day officially celebrates Washington’s birth, which was made a federal holiday in 1885, and is still named Washington’s birthday for federal workers. As noted above, some states and municipalities mark both births, closing government offices on Lincoln’s Birthday, February 12, and Presidents Day on the third Monday. Conversely, it is business-as-usual in ten states that do not mark Presidents Day as a holiday. Clever marketers coined the term Presidents Day in the 1980s to combine the commemorations.
Mayor Edward Koch, President Jimmy Carter, New York Governor Hugh Carey, on the steps of City Hall following approval of Federal loan guarantees for New York City, August 8, 1978. Mayor Edward Koch Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
The Presidents featured in these For the Record posts made significant contributions to the nation. Let us honor their work during this holiday weekend.
On October 5, 1977, President Jimmy Carter visited the South Bronx. “The Presidential motorcade passed block after block of burned-out and abandoned buildings, rubble-strewn lots and open fire hydrants, and people shouting, “Give us money!” and “We want jobs!” Twice Mr. Carter got out of his limousine, walked around and talked to people. He said the Federal Government should do something to help, but he made no specific commitment.” —The New York Times, October 6, 1977.
The pleas Carter heard from the residents of the South Bronx are essentially what the President heard from New York City officials throughout his administration: We want money, and we want jobs!
Beginning in the 1930s, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia established a financial relationship between the City and the Federal Government that has continued to this day. It began with Federal funds from President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs that the LaGuardia administration used to lift the City out of the Great Depression. With seven million inhabitants and dozens of “shovel-ready” public works projects, New York received more funding than any other city.
Since then, City finances have been inextricably linked to, and reliant on, federal sources. For a while, it worked. From the 1930s through the 1960s, federal funding flowed, with support for highways and housing as notable examples. By the 1970s, however, new administrations in Washington with different priorities became less sympathetic to urban needs. For New York City, the famous New York Daily News headline on October 30, 1975, “Ford to City: Drop Dead,” summed up the change in relationship.
The election of Jimmy Carter to the White House in 1976 gave New York officials hope for an improved relationship with their Federal counterparts. Researchers interested in documenting the history of the connection between City finances and the Federal Government will be well rewarded by information in the Municipal Library and Municipal Archives collections.
The Municipal Library’s vertical files on Federal-City Relations are a particularly rich resource for investigating the dramatic story of New York’s fiscal crisis, and recovery, in the 1970s. Although the immediate peril to the city’s economy had passed by the time Carter took office in January 1977, intense negotiations between City, State, and Federal authorities continued throughout his administration. “Carter Cool to Plea on New York’s Loan,” (New York Times, February 1, 1977), and “Carter Opens Drive for Passage of Bill on Aid to New York,” (New York Times, May 9, 1978), are just two examples of the many, almost daily, clippings in the vertical file that chart the ups and downs of efforts to fix the City’s budget
Delving into the Municipal Archives collections to document President Carter’s relationship with the City brings researchers to the Mayor Beame collection. During the Abe Beame administration mayoral correspondence was sent to “central files” where clerks separated letters into different series, e.g. Subject Files, Departmental Correspondence, General Correspondence, and Correspondence with State and Federal offices. The clerks further refined this arrangement by separately filing “President” correspondence.
Mayor Beame’s “President” file for 1977 contains copies of the letters he wrote to President Carter recommending people for jobs in the new administration. In April, the Mayor began to address economic conditions in his correspondence with Carter. On April 20, 1977, he sent a dense three-page letter urging the President to consider the effects of defense spending on employment. “The Mayors of the nation’s older urban centers want our cities to continue their historic role as major contributors to the American economy… by assuring that these communities receive a fair share of authorized Defense spending, the federal government can provide an important stimulus to the private sector economics of these cities.”
The file does not include a response from Carter directly addressing Beame’s concerns regarding unemployment, but on May 11, 1977, the President wrote to the Mayor about the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA): “I am writing you to emphasize the continuing urgency of our battle against high unemployment. I anticipate that Congress will soon approve the funds we have requested… to double the number of public service jobs provided under CETA.” Carter went on to urge Beame to “…do everything possible to minimize procedural delays… in filling these new jobs.”
When Mayor Edward Koch took office as Mayor in January 1978 the “central file” system, with correspondence arranged in series, seems to have been abandoned. Although this makes research in Koch administration records somewhat more challenging, archivists created a key-word searchable inventory for a portion of his records—essentially what would have been his subject and departmental files.
Typing ‘Carter’ into the search box identified a folder of correspondence between the Mayor and the President. In a letter to President Carter, dated February 20, 1980, Koch got right to the point: “I wish to bring you up to date on the progress being made to close New York City’s projected budget gap and to acknowledge the assistance being provided by your staff in identifying additional sources of federal aid.” In three typed pages Koch delineated measures related to Medicaid, Welfare, and Education Aid, and attached a six-page memorandum prepared by the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget that detailed “Federal Actions.”
Four months later, on June 20, 1980, Koch wrote to President Carter’s Chief of Staff, Jack Watson, about funding needed for the CETA program, and scrawled “Please Help!” under his signature. Koch again used the personal approach in an August 1980 handwritten note to Carter: “Here is the memo you asked that I send to you when we traveled together to the Urban League. Congratulations on the outcome of the Convention. Now we have to pull it all together.” He signed it, Your friend, Ed. Although the convention went in Carter’s favor, the general election in November did not.
Jimmy Carter’s connection to New York City did not end with his Presidency. His work for the Habitat for Humanity organization brought him back to New York. In 1985 he met with Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Anthony Gliedman on the roof of a building on East 6th Street in Manhattan where Carter had been working with the Habitat group.
MORE THIS WEEKEND?
CREDITS
NEW YORK CITY MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES KENNETH COBB
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Relive monumental public art installation ‘The Gates’ in Central Park, 20 years later
Friday, February 14 2025
ISSUE #1396
Untapped New York
“The Gates,” the public art installation that took over Central Park with saffron-colored fabric panels for 16 days in 2005, is returning to New York City—virtually. To celebrate the installation’s 20th anniversary, New Yorkers can relive the monumental artwork from Christo and Jeanne-Claude through an augmented reality experience on the Bloomberg Connects app. Plus, an exhibition now open at The Shed in Hudson Yards titled “Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates and Unrealized Projects for New York City,” explores the legacy of the artists and their work, as well as the journey behind bringing “The Gates” to life.
Artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude first proposed the installation in 1980, when Central Park was in a fragile state. There was concern the park’s deteriorating conditions could undermine the artwork’s purpose: to celebrate both the park and New York City.
After a successful revitalization of the park by the Central Park Conservancy, the project received newfound interest from former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and was approved in 2003.
The immersive installation featured 7,503 saffron-hued gates that weaved their way along 23 miles of pathways in the park. The gates measured 16 feet tall and varied in width depending on the park’s walkways.
Vertical poles were secured by narrow steel base footings weighing 613 to 837 pounds each and fastened atop the paved surface. The project was completely financed by the artists themselves, and free to the public, according to TimeOut.
Bringing a burst of color to New York City’s bleak winter, the installation attracted four million visitors and generated an estimated $254 million in economic impact during its two-week display.
Using the Bloomberg Connects app, viewers can experience a portion of the installation between East 72nd Street and Cherry Hill. The experience is available through March 23.
The immersive AR experience showcases the installation in stunning detail, with each gate swaying as though caught in the breeze. The app also adapts to the weather, with the scene mirroring an overcast sky on cloudy days, while sunny days feature a brighter display.
The Shed in Hudson Yards is hosting a two-part exhibition that delves into the making of “The Gates.” The first section focuses on the iconic installation, featuring original artworks by Christo, including drawings, scale models, and actual components from the project.
Visitors can also explore a virtual, animated model displayed on a large-scale map of Central Park, following the 25-year journey from conceptualization to completion.
The second part highlights a selection of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s unrealized proposals for New York City. Though never brought to life, these projects showcase the duo’s ambitious vision and deep connection to the five boroughs, where they lived from 1964 until their passing.
For the first time in the United States, these works will be presented using scale models and digital reproductions of Christo’s drawings, offering a close look into the creative process behind the project.
Tickets are available on a pay-what-you-wish basis, with a suggested price of $10.
SAY NO TO THE LOO
At this weeks RIOC Real Estate meeting, they introduced the idea of placing “Portland Loo” public bathrooms near the Firefighter’s Field/Tram area to serve the public.
RIOC staff did not provide and image. I pulled one up on my phone and the reaction was very negative to this metal structure.
Imagine this in the heat of summer or the cold of winter!
(reminds me of Paris Pissoirs of days past). It is ugly and completely inappropriate to our island.
photo: portland loo
This or some similar design is appropriate similar to the comfort stations at Southpoint Park and Lighthouse Park.
CREDITS
6 sqft
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The stunning floral images featured here are the work of Ogawa Kazumasa, a Japanese photographer, printer, and publisher known for his pioneering work in photomechanical printing and photography in the Meiji era. Studying photography from the age of fifteen, Ogawa moved to Tokyo aged twenty to further his study and develop his English skills which he believed necessary to deepen his technical knowledge. After opening his own photography studio and working as an English interpreter for the Yokohama Police Department, Ogawa decided to travel to the United States to learn first hand the advance photographic techniques of the time. Having little money, Ogawa managed to get hired as a sailor on the USS Swatara and six months later landed in Washington. For the next two years, in Boston and Philadelphia, Ogawa studied printing techniques including the complicated collotype process with which he’d make his name on returning to Japan.
In 1884, Ogawa opened a photographic studio in Tokyo and in 1888 established a dry plate manufacturing company, and the following year, Japan’s first collotype business, the “K. Ogawa printing factory”. He also worked as an editor for various photography magazines, which he printed using the collotype printing process, and was a founding member of the Japan Photographic Society.
At this weeks RIOC Real Estate meeting, they introduced the idea of placing “Portland Loo” public bathrooms near the Firefighter’s Field/Tram area to serve the public.
RIOC staff did not provide and image. I pulled one up on my phone and the reaction was very negative to this metal structure.
Imagine this in the heat of summer or the cold of winter!
(reminds me of Paris Pissoirs of days past). It is ugly and completely inappropriate to our island.
photo: portland loo
This or some similar design is appropriate similar to the comfort stations at Southpoint Park and Lighthouse Park.
CREDITS
THE PUBLIC DOMAIN REVIEW
The exquisite hand-coloured flower collotypes shown here were featured in the 1896 book Some Japanese Flowers (of which you can buy a 2013 reprint here), and some were also featured the following year in Japan, Described and Illustrated by the Japanese (1897) edited by Francis Brinkley
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Europe’s first exposure to the New York Bay was during the voyages of Giovanni da Verrazzano (1485–1528). An Italian from Florence sailing for Francois I, the king of France, he left European waters in January 1524 to find a route to China.
His vessel, La Dauphine, named after the French heir to the throne, measured 100 tons and was manned by a crew of 50. In early March, after a tempest-tossed crossing, he came close to Cape Fear, North Carolina. By mid-April Verrazano had coasted far enough north and east to enter New York Bay, passing Sandy Hook en route.
After some brief reconnaissance he continued on his voyage and returned to France in July. Being a competent seaman and navigator, Verrazano was able to conclude that he did not reach China, but rather a new world. However, the French did not follow up on Verrazano’s discovery of the best harbor in the Americas.
Henry Hudson (ca. 1565 – disappeared 1611), an Englishman in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, investigated portions of the American east coast in 1609. Hudson was the next European to enter New York Harbor; he then sailed 150 miles up the river that was to bear his name.
The Dutch were a bit more industrious and inaugurated European control of the region. Headquartered at Manhattan, private trading operations were established on the Hudson River in 1613. Numerous exploratory ventures occurred after the founding of the trading post, and by the mid- 1610s much of the area was well known.
The Dutch expansion caused conflict with the English by extending east toward New England. To the south, the Dutch absorbed the Swedish settlement of New Sweden at present-day Wilmington, Delaware. Trade connections were established with the Chesapeake Bay colonists, South America, and Europe.
New Amsterdam was growing, and rivaled Boston as a center for maritime trade, with furs, fish, beef, and flour being exported, tobacco, slaves, and sugar being trans-shipped, and European goods imported.
The community appeared to be the rising star of American colonial ports. However, with the restoration of Charles II in England and a more aggressive colonial policy, the English took the colony in 1664.
Soon after the beginning of English rule, New Amsterdam was renamed New York and flour replaced furs as the port’s main export, shipped mainly to the West Indies. In the eighteenth century exports included whale oil, beaver pelts, and some tobacco to England, and flour, pork, bread, peas, and horses to the West Indies.
Imports from England and the West Indies included manufactured goods and rum, molasses, and sugar respectively.
Shipping increased considerably by the mid-1700s. Imports included “fish oil, blubber, whale fins, turpentine, seal skins, hops, cider, bricks, coal, lamp black, wrought iron, tin, brasury [sic], joinery, carriages and chairs. Exports included chocolate, lumber,” and import goods from both the West Indies and Europe.
New York did not confine her shipping activities to trade; her vessels were also heavily involved in privateering. Preying on enemy commerce led to the inevitability that some would tum to the often-glamorized activity of pirating.
The infamous William Captain Kidd (ca. 1645–1701) and various lesser-known pirates made New York a rendezvous around 1700. Not only was New York a rendezvous, her merchants supported trade and reaped a profit by supplying pirates inhabiting such far-off places as Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
Frederick Philipse (1626-1702), a merchant of New York and first Lord of the Manor of Philipsburg Manor (Philipse Manor), loaded ships with clothing, liquor, naval stores, guns, and ammunition, and had his local agent Adam Baldridge sell them to the pirates in return for their ill-gotten gain. Commerce, with varying levels of ethics, was driving the growth of the port.
By the second decade of the eighteenth century, the interior settlements surrounding New York were sufficiently established to allow for the production of significant amounts of export goods.
As a result of the increased trade, the port expanded accordingly, as did its need for larger, more economical vessels with which to ship goods. Port records indicate that prior to 1720, few vessels entering the port registered over 100 tons.
Larger vessels became more common within the next few years. In 1770, New York stood fourth after Philadelphia, Boston, and Charleston among the American ports in total tonnage arriving and clearing.
With inter-colonial trade well established and foreign imports and exports on the increase, the port of New York continued to grow. By the last decade of the eighteenth century, the port of New York had surpassed Boston in importance; by the first decade of the nineteenth century, the port was larger than Philadelphia.
Two-thirds of all the nation’s imports and one-third of its exports went through the port by 1860, with only London and Liverpool exceeding the port in the volume of shipping and value of imports and exports in the Atlantic World.
Population growth mirrored the increase in shipping activities, declining only through war and epidemics. Associated reductions in maritime commerce occurred while the British occupied the port during the Revolutionary War, the yellow fever epidemics of 1795 and 1798, the Embargo Act of 1807, and the British closure of the port during the War of 1812 (1812-1815).
During the nineteenth century, sailing vessels of varying sizes and shapes entered and exited the port of New York. These vessels included sloops, coastal schooners, merchantmen, and packet ships, which increased in size as time and technology progressed.
The late 1840s and 1850s saw the famous clipper ships entering the port, to be followed in the 1890s by the last of the American square-rigged, deep-water sailing ships (the “down easters”).
These were followed by large, multi-masted schooners-the largest sailing vessels ever constructed. In addition to these major vessel categories, other vessel types present in the area included schooner barges, pilot boats, lighters, fishing boats, and other types of small craft.
The invention of the steam engine in the late eighteenth century and its application on vessels at the tum of the century played a profound role in the history of the port, and cut into the trades previously controlled by sailing vessels.
After Robert Fulton’s North River Steam Boat completed its successful voyage from New York to Albany in 1807, steam power became the dominant method of vessel propulsion and would form the catalyst for the evolution of not only vessel shape and type, but trade and economics as well.
The advent of steam heralded the creation of the famous river and coastal sidewheel steamers, several of which are listed as having wrecked near the approaches to New York. Huge transatlantic liners followed in the wake of the sidewheel steamers, making New York the center for passenger travel to and from foreign ports.
Steam also allowed the ever-important “tug boat” to evolve. After 1860 the tug boat industry expanded rapidly, with steam being employed on the tugs until just after World War I.
With the port of New York immediately to the north, some of the many vessels transiting the waters were wrecked by storm, accident, or poor seamanship. It is known that numerous vessels wrecked while approaching or leaving New York.
Long Island to the east and the shores of New Jersey to the south act as a funnel through which vessels enter New York Harbor. During the age of sail, vessels were dependent on the capricious winds for motive force-many were reported lost due to contrary winds.
However, early steam vessels, without modern navigation aids such as radar, loran, or GPS, have had accidents in the ever-confining waters that mark the approaches to New York. In the modem era, technology has yet to abolish accidents caused by human error.
To ameliorate the affects of maritime disasters, numerous organizations were incorporated around the coasts. Local organizations took the responsibility of aiding the victims of shipwrecks.
In an era of a small Federal government, each locality took responsibility for situations occurring within its immediate jurisdiction. However, during the mid-nineteenth century the port of New York rose to such prominence in commercial and emigration activities that the local resources could not sustain a full service for wrecked mariners and passengers.
A Congressman from New Jersey, William Newell (1817-1901), once witnessed a shipwreck where no effective rescue was possible. In 1847 he persuaded Congress to appropriate money to provide lighthouses with lifeboats in the Newell Act. However, the money was not spent for that purpose.
The next year he obtained more funds for life saving equipment to be used between Sandy Hook and Little Egg Inlet, New Jersey, under the direction of the Revenue Marine (later the United States Revenue Cutter Service, and the U.S. Coast Guard).
The following year Congress extended the network of stations to include the rest of the New Jersey shore and to the coast of Long Island, New York. Thus, the Federal government took its first tentative steps toward a remedy for mariners in distress.
Rosies quandry….Youth Center or the Library?
COMING TO THE NYPL BRANCH ON FEBRUARY 18TH
SAY NO TO THE LOO
At this weeks RIOC Real Estate meeting, they introduced the idea of placing “Portland Loo” public bathrooms near the Firefighter’s Field/Tram area to serve the public.
RIOC staff did not provide and image. I pulled one up on my phone and the reaction was very negative to this metal structure.
Imagine this in the heat of summer or the cold of winter!
(reminds me of Paris Pissoirs of days past). It is ugly and completely inappropriate to our island.
photo: portland loo
This or some similar design is appropriate similar to the comfort stations at Southpoint Park and Lighthouse Park.
Illustrations, from above: Illustration of Henry Hudson’ ship Haelve Maen (Half Moon) at in Hoorn, Netherlands (Hoorn Museum); Redrawn 1916 version of the Cortelyous Castello Plan (1660) by John Wolcott Adams and Isaac Newton; New York Harbor in 1793; New York’s harbor as seen from Williamsburg, 1848 by Eliphalet M Brown, lithograph by Edgar W Foreman; Currier and Ives, “The City of New York,” 1870, (Library of Congress); and Thomas Nast’s 1877 political cartoon “Death on economy” with a caption reading “I suppose I must spend a little on life-saving service, life-boat stations, life-boats, surf-boats, etc.; but it is too bad to be obliged to waste so much money.”
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Ever take the NY Ferry to Brooklyn South, Red Hook or the IKEA ferry? The all take you to the Erie Basin. Here is some history on this man-made port, still in active use,
The Erie Basin Project Transformed Red Hook’s Docks
With the construction of the Atlantic Basin on Red Hook‘s western shore in the 1840s, Brooklyn became the region’s great bulk goods handling center. The material dredged from the basin provided fill for other areas of Red Hook.
This project, completed in 1880, occupied most of Red Hook’s remaining undeveloped marsh, beach, and land – primarily sand spits and islands – between Gowanus Bay and the Atlantic Basin.
When completed, Erie Basin was a manmade harbor, surrounded by a hook-shaped protective breakwater and lined with piers and warehouses.
The construction of Erie Basin involved creating a narrow, temporary breakwater around the projected outer edge of the basin, and dredging the area behind it; the dredged material was then used to create inner bulkhead lines.
Then, outlines of the outer break-waters and bulkheads were completed (ca. 1864), enclosing about 60 acres of water, and the temporary barrier was removed.
The initial phase of construction on the long outer breakwater was begun about 1873. At this time, a 1,700-foot-Iong bulkhead was built facing the inside of the basin, with an unretained pile of fill outside, and an open pile bridge at the elbow.
Another open pile bridge connected this uncompleted breakwater to the mainland where Columbia Street is today. The breakwater consisted of crib-work extending 20 to 25 feet deep below mean low water, probably laid on level trenches excavated underwater.
Bulkheads, rising 10 feet above mean low water, were usually square timbers fitted onto crib-work logs. According to local legend, Beard filled his breakwaters with European rock ballast that had been carried on returning American ships, charging the ships to unload the material.
Development of Atlantic and Erie Basins transformed Red Hook into a major shipping and warehousing center for grain and general cargo storage.
Erie Basin became an important center for shipbuilding and a focus for local industries, and, for several decades, was one of the major grain storage and handling facilities in the Port of New York.
By about 1910, most of the basin’s warehouses were converted from grain to general cargo handling, and a large shipyard occupied part of the basin.
By the end of World War I, the Todd Shipyard in the basin was the largest in the Port of New York, and shipbuilding support industries surrounded the basin, along with large lumber yards and sugar and firebrick manufacturing.
About 1920, a second phase of construction on the project site completed the long outer breakwater: the breakwater’s outer bulkhead, which had been an unretained pile of fill, was completed, and the open pile bridge connecting the breakwater to the mainland was filled in.
This involved building up and retaining the mass of fill behind the finished inner face of the breakwater. New York City soon took over this new section of the breakwater and rebuilt the bulkhead with steel sheet piling and a concrete wall to support a paved road, the extension of Columbia Street.
At the same time, surfaces along the rest of the breakwater were waded and new sheds were built.
By the early 1930s (and continuing at least until the 1950s), the bulkheads around the basin were gradually but extensively rebuilt. Often, this work involved replacing rotted timber bulkhead sections with new concrete walls on pile supports. Earth fill behind the new walls supported new concrete decks in the place of original earth surfaces.
In the late 1940s and 1950s, the Beard company modernized Erie Basin for changing shipping practices, replacing the old frame and metal sheds on the project site and continuing the complete rebuilding of the bulkheads there.
On the inner face of the south breakwater, all the crib-work was removed and replaced with an anchored steel sheet pile structure containing solid fill and surfaced with asphalt.
Handling a variety of commodities from South America and Asia, Erie. Basin served as a major shipping facility during World War II and the Korean War. However, the general decline m the port’s trade as a result of containerization led the Beard company to sell Erie Basin to the Port of New York Authority in the 1950s.
Construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway further isolated the Red Hook area and use of the basin continued to decline. A bargeport remains.
Erie Basin Bargeport is the metropolitan region’s largest berthing facility for tugs and barges, and one of the last sections of working waterfront in New York City. Located in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, it is the homeport to over 200 tugs, barges, ferryboats and other working vessels. It is zoned M3-1 for heavy manufacturing, and is located within the recently established South Brooklyn Industrial Business Zone (IBZ) to nurture industrial businesses and protect them from rezoning.
The Bargeport is owned and operated by Erie Basin Marine Associates (EBMA), a partnership, which is owned by two barge companies, Hughes Bros., Inc. and Reinauer Transportation Corporation, both of which have been family businesses for more than four generations. Hughes and Reinauer jointly purchased Erie Basin from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 1992 to be a home port for their vessels and to ensure their long-term growth.
Erie Basin Bargeport is an essential component of the City’s working waterfront. Due to its natural configuration and deep water, this resource is unique and irreplaceable. It is one of the largest privately held marine facilities in the Northeast United States.
The Bargeport is also part of a thriving industrial district in the Red Hook section of Southwest Brooklyn. Today there are approximately 500 manufacturing and industrial firms in Red Hook, over a 60% increase in the number of businesses since 1991.
Erie Basin is vital to the maritime industry in NY Harbor. There are at least 750 tugs and barges in NY Harbor that must have space to tie up between jobs for in-water construction and transport, as well as repairs, crew change, and storage. Approximately 25% of these vessels homeport at Erie Basin.
We and our tenants employ 681 workers at Erie Basin, including 334 crewmembers, and we have been a presence in the Red Hook community for over thirty years. Reinauer’s barge movements of fuel eliminate 567,000 fuel trucks on area roads each year. Another tenant, Buchanan Marine, moves 6,000,000 tons of aggregate annually (used to make concrete and asphalt).
The Bargeport is one of only a handful of such areas in the City, and was identified in the City’s own Maritime Support Services Study in 2006 as an area that must be preserved for maritime use. Various city agencies have recently voiced their support for Erie Basin as a critical piece of waterfront infrastructure. There is no other location in New York City that has the depth, shelter, and docks to accommodate the more than 200 vessels home-ported in Erie Basin. Clearly, Erie Basin is a piece of New York Harbor that is necessary to the maritime industry and the economy in general.
Erie Basin Bargeport is the Northeast’s premier private berthing facility for barges and tugs. Our location in the center of New York Harbor enables us to service our customers and partners in a safe, timely, and efficient manner. Feel free to contact us for information about doing business.
Erie Basin Bargeport 700 Columbia St. Brooklyn, NY 11231
At this weeks RIOC Real Estate meeting, they introduced the idea of placing “Portland Loo” public bathrooms near the Firefighter’s Field/Tram area to serve the public.
RIOC staff did not provide and image. I pulled one up on my phone and the reaction was very negative to this metal structure.
Imagine this in the heat of summer or the cold of winter!
(reminds me of Paris Pissoirs of days past). It is ugly and completely inappropriate to our island.
photo: portland loo
This or some similar design is appropriate similar to the comfort stations at Southpoint Park and Lighthouse Park.
CREDITS
NEW YORK ALMANACK
Reprinted from an assessment of the archaeological sensitivity of the site of the Erie Basin, July 1991, submitted by Allee King Rosen & Fleming, Inc.. and available online here. Erie Basin map from the collection of Maggie Land Blanck. eriebasinbargeport.com
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The New-York Historical Society was founded in 1804 and operated out of rented or donated spaces for about half a century before it settled into its first permanent home in 1857 in the fashionable neighborhood located around Second Avenue and 11th Street. However, the Society’s ever-expanding collections almost immediately demanded more space.
The seventh home of the New-York Historical Society from 1857-1908 at Second Avenue and 11th Street. Box 1, Folder 2, New-York Historical Pictorial Archive.
New-York Historical’s leaders considered the new Arsenal building uptown at 64th Street and Fifth Avenue, admired for its green surroundings in the city’s most exciting new attraction—Central Park. The Society sought approval for their move from the New York State legislature and the Central Park Board of Commissioners and put plans in action to renovate the fortress-like building, which was designed in the 1850s as a storage repository for munitions.
The Arsenal building in Central Park was one proposed home for the New-York Historical Society in the 1860s. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs. New York Public Library Digital Collections.
In 1862, New-York Historical enlisted the talents of the young, Paris-trained architect Richard Morris Hunt who proposed to transform the mundane military Arsenal into a whimsical neo-Gothic French chateau. Discord brewed between the Society and the commissioners of Central Park over Hunt’s plans. Their disputes centered over the proposed size and managerial control of the property and a strict completion date for the new construction.
Architect Richard Morris Hunt proposed to renovate the Arsenal building in Central Park into a neo-Gothic chateau as a home for the New-York Historical Society. Box 1, Folder 1, New-York Historical Pictorial Archive.
By 1866, negotiations about the Arsenal building came to a head and the leaders of New-York Historical settled on an entirely new site, stretching from 79th to 84th Street along Fifth Avenue—the grounds that now house the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They again enlisted the talents of Richard Morris Hunt to design a building on this site on the Upper East Side.
Richard Morris Hunt submitted this building design in January 1866 as a proposed home for the New-York Historical Society. New York Historical Society, Exterior / Designed by Richard M. Hunt, architect, 1866. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Once again, New-York Historical encountered numerous hurdles and objections from the Central Park board of commissioners. They found their plans stymied by spatial constraints and were unable to raise the necessary funds within the city’s required three-year window. Moreover, the Society flatly refused one of the demands made by Central Park leaders: to set aside office space in their building for the park commissioners. In the meantime, the New-York Historical Society remained in the Lower East Side until the 1880s, when they once again prioritized relocation. This time, the Society initiated a concerted fundraising campaign to purchase property and construct a new building.
An interior art gallery of the New-York Historical Society at Second Avenue and 11th Street. Box 1, Folder 2, New-York Historical Pictorial Archive.
Various Manhattan real estate agents offered a trove of tantalizing properties to the building committee. Many of these prospects hovered close to Central Park. Remarkably, several of the properties rejected by the committee have since become some of New York’s most iconic landmarks: the Juilliard School at Lincoln Center, the Hearst Building, Carnegie Hall, and the General Motors Building at the southeast foot of Central Park (now home to an Apple Store). The committee even sent out an inquiry in May 1889 (recorded in the meeting minutes below) to the Lenox Library, located at Fifth Avenue and 70th to 71st Streets—the site of today’s Frick Museum—to inquire about the availability of the eight lots located behind the library on Madison Avenue.
Page from the minutes of the New-York Historical Society Executive Committee Records, May 21, 1889.
Finally in February 1891, the building committee purchased 10 lots of land on Central Park West between 76th and 77th Streets, New-York Historical’s current location. Curiously, the Society’s records do not contain any evidence of an agent’s proposal for these lots of land. It seems highly probable that the lots were not on the open market, but that Robert Schell, the treasurer of the Society and a member of the selection committee, made the deal possible. In 1890, Schell himself acquired a lot on Central Park West for $38,000 from landowner Harriet Fearing and then sold it to the Society the following year for the exact same amount. The total purchase price for the ten lots was $286,500.
Robert Schell was the treasurer of New-York Historical in the late 19th-century and helped to select the Society’s current location on Central Park West. John Henry Dolph, Robert Schell (1815-1900), ca. 1875, oil on canvas, New-York Historical Society.
Before it became home to the New-York Historical Society, the lots on Central Park West changed ownership several times during the 19th century. David Wagstaff, a wealthy merchant, farmer, and civic leader, acquired the land between 76th and 77th Streets as part of his estate in 1811. Among his assorted holdings, he loved his country home at the crossroads of Fifth Avenue and the 79th Street Transverse Road. In the 1820s, Cedar Hill (now Central Park’s beloved winter sledding hill) was part of Wagstaff’s estate where he cultivated asparagus, which he considered “among the finest brought to market.” It was on his Cedar Hill estate, complete with an icehouse and greenhouse, that Wagstaff and his wife Sarah raised their five children.
A part of David Wagstaff’s estate, now the American Museum of Natural History, is marked on this map with a square of green trees, circa 1815. “Bounded by W. 94th Street, Eighth Avenue (Central Park West), W. 74th Street and Hudson River,” Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, New York Public Library Digital Collections.
When David died in 1824, he bequeathed the lots on his half block between 76th Street and 77th Street to his three daughters and his son, who also served as the executor. Like their father, the four Wagstaff children held on to their property, recognizing its worth as a valuable investment. However, the next generation (David Wagstaff’s grandchildren) cashed in on their inheritance. In 1887, developers had begun constructing an unbroken string of residential rowhouses on West 76th Street and in 1890, Charles, William, and Caroline Lowerre sold three of the lots (1, 3, and 5 West 76th Street) to real estate speculator William B. Baldwin. Baldwin announced plans to erect carriage houses on a wide plot stretching along the north side of 76th Street, a prospect that ignited vehement opposition from the block’s wealthy landowners. They argued that having carriage houses in their midst would surely ruin their property values. Within months, the neighboring landowners collectively bought back the large plot from Baldwin at a higher price and created a legal agreement that only allowed the construction of private dwellings, the largest houses going up closer to Central Park. The Real Estate Record and Builder’s Guide applauded the result of such actions on West 76th Street to “raise the standard of buildings… against nuisances and cheap structures… [and admit only] a desirable class of residents” (May, 30, 1891).
William T. Evans and his family lived in a large house on West 76th Street, property that is now part of the New-York Historical Society. Wyatt Eaton, William T. Evans, 1889, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum.
In 1890, Irish immigrant William T. Evans and his wife Mary purchased three lots formerly owned by Baldwin. Evans had amassed his fortune by investing in real estate and moving up the ladder to become president of Mills & Gibb, a New York firm that imported silk, linen, and dry goods. Though Evans had initially studied architecture, his passion for art had made him a major collector of masterpieces by the early 1880s. The same year he acquired his 76th Street lots, he surprisingly sold off his entire European art collection, largely consisting of French oils. In their place, he became a champion of American artists, whose works at the time were deemed inferior and financially risky by the art world’s cognoscenti. Evans befriended, corresponded with, and collected the works of such American artists as George Inness, Winslow Homer, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Childe Hassam, John Twachtman, Mary Cassatt, Ralph Blakelock, Worthington Whittredge, Frederick Remington, Albert Bierstadt, Winslow Homer, Rembrandt Peale, and Eastman Johnson.
This home was built in 1891-1892 by William T. Evans and demolished 1937 to build the south wing of the Society. Annex No. 1 of the New-York Historical Society, 5 W. 76th Street, 1936. Box 2, Folder 4, New-York Historical Pictorial Archive.
Evans set out to design a sumptuous brownstone on the widest of his three lots (no. 5) where he could exhibit his new acquisitions. The four-story residence on 76th Street boasted a spacious gallery at the rear of the house which he quickly filled with American works. But his passion for art knew no bounds, spilling into every nook and cranny of the home. Art critic Charles De Kay marveled at how the collection “lights up the walls of drawing, dining room and vestibule, [and] overflows into the corridors, mounts the staircase, and invades the billiard room and sky parlor.” The Evanses opened their doors to visitors on Sunday afternoons from November to May, allowing people to enjoy their collection. In 1892, the Evanses sold their two other plots on 76th Street (lots 1 and 3) which buttressed their home to the New-York Historical Society. In March 1901, the family sold their brownstone in New York and moved to an even larger mansion in Montclair, New Jersey, likely to accommodate their growing art collection and their seven children.
William T. Evans eventually donated more than 160 paintings, including this one of his wife and son, to the National Gallery in 1915. Henry O. Walker, Mrs. William T. Evans and Her Son, 1895, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum.
During the first decade of the 20th century, Evans continued his relentless pursuit of American art, buying it at an even more feverish pace than before. In eight years, he purchased more than 200 artworks. His buying spree carried on until 1913, when Evans’s shocking secret was revealed. Unbeknownst to his friends and family, and shrewdly concealed from his colleagues at Mills & Gibb, Evans had illegally withdrawn more than $700,000 from the company’s accounts to fuel his insatiable passion. Evans sold much of his cherished collection in 1913 as well as his opulent Montclair mansion and other valuable properties in 1915. To make amends perhaps, Evans donated 160 paintings to the National Gallery in Washington (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) as well as 60 other artworks to smaller museums in New Jersey. The firm of Mills & Gibb went into receivership in 1916 and he died two years later of, according to his obituary, a “general breakdown caused by illness and overwork.” It was a tragic conclusion to the illustrious career of one of the earliest and most fervent patrons of American art.
The next and last installment of this series will chronicle the story of Oscar and Sarah Straus, who bought the Evans’ home on 76th Street as well as several other fascinating landowners, who sold their lots to the New-York Historical Society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
COMING TO THE NYPL BRANCH ON FEBRUARY 18TH
SAY NO TO THE LOO
At this weeks RIOC Real Estate meeting, they introduced the idea of placing “Portland Loo” public bathrooms near the Firefighter’s Field/Tram area to serve the public.
RIOC staff did not provide and image. I pulled one up on my phone and the reaction was very negative to this metal structure.
Imagine this in the heat of summer or the cold of winter!
(reminds me of Paris Pissoirs of days past). It is ugly and completely inappropriate to our island.
photo: portland loo
This or some similar design is appropriate similar to the comfort stations at Southpoint Park and Lighthouse Park.
CREDITS
NEW -YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Sara Cedar Miller is the historian emerita of the Central Park Conservancy, which she first joined as a photographer in 1984. Her most recent book is Before Central Park (2022).
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
76 DAYS FROM TODAY IS THE 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST RESIDENTIAL TENANT MOVING INTO ISLAND HOUSE, THE FIRST OCCUPIED BUILDING. HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO CELEBRATE THE ISLAND’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY? SEND IN YOUR SUGGESTIONS TO JBIRD134@AOL.COM
One of the best, if at times maddening parts of any reference librarian or archivist’s job is solving a mystery. What appears at first to be just another query turns into a bona fide challenge. My colleague and I had one such query recently, involving a photo of a clapboard house on East 83rd Street that was incorrectly identified on the back, in pencil, as the Constable House. Eventually we were able to determine that it was in fact a house that belonged to a host of owners, and remained on its plot in the shadow of Fifth Avenue high-rise apartment buildings well into the 1950s.
Thus reveals the magic of the Department of Prints, Photographs and Architectural Collections’ Geographic Images Collection (formerly called the Geographic File). With 160 boxes and 124 flat folder drawers, it is one of the Department’s largest collections, consisting of both prints and photographs of streetscapes and aerial views of cities around the world and across the country, but its strength is New York City prints and photos. It has been culled from myriad sources over the years (including donations from Christopher Gray’s Office for Metropolitan History) and is still being added to; the oldest material dates ca. 1600.
While this is the collection I pull for authors, graduate students and architectural preservationists, it is also the collection I pull when researchers come into the Reading Room hoping to find a photograph of their great-uncle’s bar/bakery/butcher shop. It is not exhaustive, but sometimes we hit pay-dirt. What makes the collection so interesting to me, though, is how random it is, frankly. It is both quaint and impressive. In an effort to prove my point, I pulled twelve images from just a single box–no. 34–of street views between 55th and 72nd Streets.
The first entry here is a print of the Brevoort Estate and its surroundings, including the Youle Shot Tower, which manufactured the “lead shot” used in ammunition, on East 54th Street and First Avenue, ca. 1830. The shot tower was designed by John McComb.
Brevoort Estate and Youle Shot Tower, East 54th Street ca. 1820s; Geographic Images Collection, PR-20, box 34, New-York Historical Society.
National Broadcasting Company, Fifth Avenue and 55th Street ca. 1930; Geographic Images Collection, PR-20, box 34, New-York Historical Society.
This charming three-story house was at 134 East 56th Street. Looking at this small photo, one can’t help wonder about the former occupants; what kind of life they lived? Who took this photo and why? The site is occupied by a typical 1960s white-brick apartment building now, but on the street level there is a small pizzeria I happened into one night last summer. It’s funny to think of all the history that exists in one tiny spot.
On the other side of Fifth Avenue, at 58-68 West 56th Street we have a photograph of five 5-story buildings that were once homes of prominent New Yorkers. These buildings still stand and many restaurants and shops are in business on the ground floor.
North on 57th Street, now affectionately known as “Billionaire’s Row,” are two photos that I find particularly interesting: one of the Osborne Flats apartment building at 205 West 57th Street ca. 1890, and the other of “Midtown Chevrolet” at the northwest corner of Broadway and 57th Street, in December 1967. I walk by both of these buildings on a daily basis and it’s fascinating to see so many vacant lots surrounding the Osborne Flats, and to think that there was a time one could buy a Chevy on Broadway and 57th. Today the address of the Chevrolet building is “3 Columbus Circle” and the entire facade is sheathed in glass.
Next up is a photo of car 638 of the Third Avenue Railway System on East 59th Street, just south of the Queensboro Bridge (a.k.a. the “59th Street Bridge,” but, officially, the “Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge”). This picture is dated March 12, 1942; after the line was replaced by buses in 1946, this car, along with 42 others, was sent to Vienna to help rebuild their fleet of trolleys after WWII. Also of note here: the gas tanks on East 61st Street, at left.
Here is a sweet photo of a man shoveling snow off the platform of the 66th Street station on the Eighth Avenue “El,” ca. 1935.West 66th Street, Eighth Avenue El (now Columbus Avenue), ca. 1935; Geographic Images Collection, PR-20, box 34, New-York Historical Society.
At one point, there existed the Clinton & Schermerhorn Chapel on East 67th and Avenue A, as it was known at the time (now York Avenue).
For a time there stood a beautiful mansion on Madison Avenue and 67th Street; it is now yet another white-brick apartment building.
243 West 70th Street, ca. 1970; Geographic Images Collection, PR-20, box 34, New-York Historical Society.
Finally we have a photo of the former Tiffany Mansion, ca. 1887, which stood on the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 72nd Street for a little over 50 years. The mansion had 57 rooms and was designed by Stanford White, of the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White.
COMING TO THE NYPL BRANCH ON FEBRUARY 18TH
SAY NO TO THE LOO
At this weeks RIOC Real Estate meeting, they introduced the idea of placing “Portland Loo” public bathrooms near the Firefighter’s Field/Tram area to serve the public.
RIOC staff did not provide and image. I pulled one up on my phone and the reaction was very negative to this metal structure.
Imagine this in the heat of summer or the cold of winter!
(reminds me of Paris Pissoirs of days past). It is ugly and completely inappropriate to our island.
photo: portland loo
This or some similar design is appropriate similar to the comfort stations at Southpoint Park and Lighthouse Park.
CREDITS
NEW -YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The post is by Jill Reichenbach, Reference Librarian for the Department of Prints, Photographs and Architectural Collections
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
76 DAYS FROM TODAY IS THE 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST RESIDENTIAL TENANT MOVING INTO ISLAND HOUSE, THE FIRST OCCUPIED BUILDING. HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO CELEBRATE THE ISLAND’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY? SEND IN YOUR SUGGESTIONS TO JBIRD134@AOL.COM
Construction on the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. PR 20, Geographic Images Collection, New-York Historical Society
Among the many treasures in the Department of Prints, Photos and Architectural Collections in the Klingenstein Library is the Architect & Engineer File, which, as the name suggests, is a collection of architectural and engineering drawings culled over many years from myriad sources.
While retrieving other material in this collection for a researcher a couple months ago, I happened upon a folder of graphite drawings for the future Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. (The spelling of the name was recently corrected to include the second ‘z’!) Their creator, Dr. Erwin T. Mullerin, donated the perspective studies to the Society in 1975. Created on waxed trace paper between 1960-1962, the largest is 21 x 38 inches. While not technical, the drawings are beautiful in their elegance and simplicity, reminiscent of fine art prints.
When the lower deck was completed in 1964, the suspension bridge, which connects Staten Island to Brooklyn, and hence, the rest of New York City, was the longest in the world. It was so long, in fact, that engineers had to factor in the curvature of the earth when designing it. Though this is no longer true (it is presently the 14th longest bridge), it retains the notable distinction of being the only bridge ships have to pass under to enter New York Harbor from abroad, which accounts for its name; it honors Giovanni de Verrazzano, the first European explorer to do so.
Construction on the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. PR 20, Geographic Images Collection, New-York Historical Society
Detail of “Perspective Study, Retaining Wall at Ramp K, Brooklyn Anchorage,” 1961. PR 53, Architect &Engineer File, New-York Historical Society
Perspective Study detail of access road to Shore Parkway. PR 53, Architect & Engineer File, New-York Historical Society
Detail of Brooklyn approach to Verrazzano Bridge perspective study. PR 53, Architect & Engineer File, New-York Historical Society
Detail of Verrazzano Bridge East Tower perspective study. PR 53 Architect & Engineer File
COMING TO THE NYPL BRANCH ON FEBRUARY 18TH
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Swirling dancers entertained the Coler residents today celebrating Lunar New Year. A fun afternoon with lots of colorful entertainment.
CREDITS
NEW -YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The post is by Jill Reichenbach, Reference Librarian for the Department of Prints, Photographs and Architectural Collections
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
