DYLAN BROWN PRESENTED A GREAT OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF OUR ISLAND FROM THE 1960’S TO THE PRESENT TIME. A FULL AUDIENCE WAS TREATED TO THIS TIMELAPSE OF WHAT WAS IMAGINED AND THRE RESULTS ALMOST 50 YEARS LATER. GREAT WORK DYLAN!
THE PROGRAM WILL BE AVAILBLE SHORTLY ON THE ROOSEVELTISLANDER BLOGSPOT.
A SPECIAL THANKS TO DANIELLE SHUR OF THE NYPL BRANCH THAT GRACIOUSLY HOSTS OUR PRESENTATIONS.
WEDNESDAY
MARCH 20, 2024
GREAT PROGRAMMING IS COMING FROM THE R.I.H.S.
ISSUE # 1208
JUDITH BERDY
UPCOMING PROGRAMS
TREASURES REDISCOVERED This is an original poster that publicized the exhibit “Welfare Island: An Interim Report” which was presented at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for two weeks October 6 through October 19, 1970
Did you know that there was a scale model of the future island exhibited at the Met in 1970?
This is just one historical item that is stored in our office/archive in the Octagon
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Quayola, Storms. Photo courtesy of Times Square Arts.
A stormy sea will take over Times Square this March as images of frothy, crashing waves fill the giant billboard screens. Presented in collaboration with Artnet, the Times Square Arts Spring Midnight Moment series kicks off with London-based artist Quayola’s digital video series, Storms. Storms is a digitally rendered version of the ocean, with realistic waves that collide on a stormy night. Known for her immersive audiovisual installations, Quayola captures the crashing waves of Cornwall, England’s sea, to show the challenging relationship between nature and technology. Storms will be on view from March 1 to March 31.
Credit to Woomin Kim
Love arts and crafts? Material for the Arts textile artist Woomin Kim plays with an assortment of materials and quilts to make The Warehouse, a series of textile works inspired by the MFTA’s expansive inventory of art supplies. In her solo exhibition, Kim examines themes of immigrant life through landscapes filled with a clutter of objects like discarded mannequin pieces, clothes, furniture, and a whimsical horse. The quilts hang together in colorful pieces. Kim’s work shows visitors what can be created with the materials and found objects at MFTA and how you can give the formerly discarded items a new home. The installation will be on view until April 12.
Courtesy of Shushank Shrestha
The Rubin Museum of Art will close its physical museum this fall, so don’t miss out on the new exhibit Reimagine: Himalayan Art Now! Reimagine features 32 contemporary artists from across the globe and a collection of artworks that explore diverse perspectives of heritage, culture, and identity. The exhibition marks the museum’s 20th anniversary year and will be on view from March 15th to October 6th, 2024.A centerpiece of the exhibition is a large-scale installation by Asha Kama Wangdi. The site-specific piece is made of hundreds of repurposed prayer flags from religious sites. Wangdi’s installation will cascade down the museum’s spiral staircase. Bidhata K C’s interactive piece Out of Emptiness highlights connections between discarded objects and broader themes of life. LuYang explores Buddhism through a 3D animation of the Wheel of Life. Prithvi Shrestha’s paintings make a commentary on technological effects. Roshan Pradhan’s piece uses robots to explore the topic of gender. Tenzin Mingyur Paldron’s Power, Masculinity and Mindfulness also highlights gender fluidity as an outlet of their own experience of coming out as transgender. Uma Bista’s photo series Stay Home, Sisters showcases cultural taboos surrounding women.
Dennis RedMoon Darkeem blends indigenous culture and inspiration from old maps in his poster, Direct Connection on Turtle Island. Darkeem depicts a colorful version of the New York City skyline sitting on the shell of a turtle as the sun rises in the background. The entire scene is bordered by a wampum, a traditional indigenous bead. Catch a Line by Erin Robinson celebrates subway travel and the graphic design of New York City subway maps through a vibrant collage of subway lines and symbols.
Just off the coast of Astoria, Queens, at the confluence of the Harlem and East Rivers, is a narrow tidal channel. Hell Gate. Its fast currents change multiple times a day and it used to be riddled with rocks just beneath the surface. Even today, visitors to Randall’s Island Park can see the swirling churn and watch pleasure boaters struggle through. American author Washington Irving wrote an essay about it: “Woe to the unlucky vessel that ventures into its clutches.”
But many a vessel did venture into those clutches over the centuries. Traversing it could save sailors navigating between New York Harbor and Southern New England days of travel around Long Island. This expediency often came at a cost. Hell Gate is the final resting place of literally hundreds of ships. Most of them are forgotten but one continues to captivate. Because down there, under the minor maelstroms, is the promise of gold.
The East River runs up from New York Harbor with Manhattan on one side and first Brooklyn then Queens on the other. At Randall’s Island it splits. To the west, it becomes the Harlem River, which skirts around the top of Manhattan to join the Hudson. In the other direction, it connects to the entirety of Long Island Sound—but it’s easy to miss that this connection comes only via a single, slim channel. Each time the tide turns, the Atlantic forces its way through this passage in one direction or the other, with the discharge of the Harlem River adding to the chaos.
Hell Gate, seen in a Hammond’s map from 1909, is where the East River skirts two islands. On the upper left, it turns into the Harlem River and connects to the Hudson. At the upper right, it leads out. to Long Island Sound. THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY DIGITAL COLLECTIONS/PUBLIC DOMAIN
“Because those volumes are large, and the opening at Hell Gate is small, it means the velocity is going to get very high and that makes it difficult to navigate,” says Roy Messaros, a coastal engineer and professor of hydraulics at New York University.
“Even on a calm day the current is boiling,” says John Lipscomb, who regularly patrols New York Harbor on a 36-foot wooden boat for the environmental nonprofit Riverkeeper. “It’s a boisterous place. There are whirlpools and the wind against the tide causes interesting, short, aggressive waves. You pay attention when you’re in Hell Gate.”
That’s today. Conditions in the past were even worse. Most rocks in the area have now been removed to facilitate navigation, but Hell Gate used to be a minefield. It sounded like Hell, too. The whirlpools could be heard from “a quarter of an hour’s distance,” according to one 17th-century Dutch traveler. During the 1850s, it was estimated that about one in 50 ships that crossed Hell Gate was either damaged or sunk.
“You’re talking about centuries of navigation,” says Bronx Borough Historian Lloyd Ultan. “Everything from rowboats to large ships have been sunk by hitting those rocks. One on top of the other on top of the other on top of the other.”
Out of all those wrecks, one in particular has obsessed people for over 240 years—HMS Hussar. The whole gamut of underwater exploration technology has been employed in the search for its purported treasure, from 18th-century diving bells to modern sonar scanners. The cast of characters who have invested significant time and money into salvaging the ship is equally wide-ranging. Thomas Jefferson had a go, as did the inventor of the modern submarine. Alongside crews of schemers and hustlers, serious underwater archaeologists have tried, too. Most recently the most prominent attempts to find the wreck were the brainchild of a Bronx man who calls himself Joey Treasures.
The coveted ship was a frigate of the Royal Navy that arrived in British-occupied New York during the Revolutionary War, in November 1780, reportedly carrying the payroll of British troops in gold coins. Shortly after arriving in the city, Hussar set sail for Gardiner’s Bay on the eastern end of Long Island (though some accounts say it was headed to Newport, Rhode Island). While traversing Hell Gate it hit a submerged formation known as Pot Rock and began taking on water. The ship drifted down the East River until it sank to a depth of 60 to 80 feet, somewhere off the coast of the Bronx. This much is known. The rest, much like the waters of Hell Gate, is murky.
Accounts differ on how many, if any, of the crew were lost, but most agree that around 60 American prisoners of war who were shackled below deck went down with the ship. Crucially, whether Hussar still had gold on board when it sank has also been the subject of much debate over the past two centuries. Modern historians tend to think not. Contemporaneous news articles about the accident made no mention of treasure, nor do the minutes from the Royal Navy court martial into the loss of the frigate.
“It’s a pie-in-the-sky romantic notion that you could find gold in the waters of the Bronx,” says Ultan. But this did not stop generations of people from trying, beginning in the early 19th century. It was known that the ship was carrying gold when it arrived in New York, and in the decades after Hussar sank, “the legend began to grow that the gold was still on the ship,” says Ultan. “The East River at the southeastern end of the Bronx suddenly becomes the Spanish Main.”
Captain Charles Morice Pole (left) was in command of HMS Hussar when it wrecked, but was acquitted of wrongdoing at a court martial. This British gold George III guinea (right) from 1777 represents the coins that were rumored to have been carried in the ship. PUBLIC DOMAIN; THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART/PUBLIC DOMAIN
By the 1810s, the notion that a fortune in gold was lying near the bottom of Hell Gate had become an almost-uncontested truth in the New York press, and would remain so well into the 20th century. “You have to remember it’s a good story,” says Ultan. “It sells copy.” This frenzy may have been initially fed by the British themselves, who, despite denying that there was gold in Hussar when it sank, sent over a team of experts to salvage the ship in the 1790s, “with results wholly ineffectual,” according to a New York Times article from several decades later.
Press speculation on the value of the gold varied wildly. The “large amount” vaguely referred to in early articles suddenly became the oddly specific sum of £600,000, and then $1,000,000, then $5,000,000. In the 1980s, an international coin dealer told The New York Times that the bullion said to be in the Hussar wreck could fetch a whopping half a billion dollars in the rare coins market. “Everything gets distorted,” says Ultan. “It’s like a game of telephone.”
Early attempts to salvage the ship, including by the British, involved diving bells, a technology that dates back to antiquity and is still used today. Divers descended in a small metal chamber with an open bottom, with the air pocket that allowed them to breathe at depth as they more or less felt around the bottom. At and around Hell Gate, this yielded few results. Diving was only possible for short windows, and even then the currents would toss the bell around, making any kind of concerted search impossible.
A Charles Pratt diving helmet which is on display at the Worcester Historical Museum in Massachusetts. JOAQUIM SALLES
But even for him the waters around Hell Gate were a worthy opponent. The bottom lived up to the tempestuous reputation of its surface waters. Currents remained fierce, visibility was near-nonexistent, and the submarine armor was cumbersome. It was made of a combination of rubber and metal and weighed around 70 pounds. Its copper helmet had to be bolted to the diver’s neck piece. A rubber hose connected the helmet to a hand-cranked air pump at the surface.
Over the course of 13 years, Pratt salvaged numerous artifacts from Hussar. He raised cannons and cannonballs, bottles of wine and swords. He found human bones still in shackles—likely the remains of the American prisoners. Tantalizingly, he also found several 18th-century gold guineas, but far from the promised windfall. The coins probably belonged to the crew and were not a part of a larger haul, but were more than enough to keep the legend alive. Like others before him, Pratt had difficulty breaching the wreck’s lower deck, where cargo was traditionally stored. He dove on Hussar for the last time in 1866. (Fast forward to 2013, when Central Park Conservancy employees were cleaning a cannon from Hussar that had likely been donated by Pratt and kept in storage for many years. They were surprised to discover it was still loaded with gunpowder and a cannonball. The NYPD bomb squad was called on to diffuse it.)
McGowan’s Pass, now in Central Park, was a British position during the Revolutionary War. Today, a cannon from HMS Hussar marks the site. In 2013, the Central Park Conservancy discovered that it was still loaded, and called on the NYPD bomb squad to defuse it. STATION1/CC BY-SA 4.0
Several salvage companies worked on Hussar over the ensuing decades, without Pratt’s success. One notable attempt was led by a less-than-reputable street preacher named George W. Thomas, who, like Davis before him, convinced investors to back his effort. They gave him $70,000, roughly equivalent to $2 million today, though he was later accused of using the money to buy a lavish house in New Jersey. In 1900, divers trying to salvage a yacht in the East River found an anchor with “H.M.S. Hussar” inscribed on it and sold it to a junk shop. After a century of regular media coverage, it would be almost 40 years until Hussar made headlines again.
Four decades is a long time in a place like Hell Gate. Somewhere along the way, the location of the wreck was lost. Hell Gate itself had changed significantly over the course of the 19th century. Its rocks had been blown to bits to facilitate boat traffic, first by a French civil engineer in the 1850s and later by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Pot Rock, the hazard that sank Hussar, was the first to go. The greatest of these blasts happened in 1885, when 300,000 pounds of explosives were simultaneously set off in the waters of Hell Gate, lifting a geyser of foam and rock high in the air. Journalists at the time hyped it as the single largest explosion in history. The blast was felt as far as Princeton, New Jersey, 50 miles away, according to the New York City Parks Department website entry for Mill Rock Island, where the explosives were prepped. One can only imagine the effect that this blast and the ones that came before it, all over Hell Gate, had on the remains of the wrecks below.
But even after dozens of failed attempts and the bombardment, there were still those who believed there was a fortune waiting to be discovered. Simon Lake, one of the inventors of the modern submarine, began looking for Hussar in 1935 in a “baby-submarine” of his own creation, adapted to the conditions of the East River. A year later he gathered journalists in his hotel room and announced that he had found the ship. “Within six weeks I expect to step within her hold,” he told The New York Times. This never came to pass. Whatever Lake had found, it was not Hussar. He ended the 1930s in dire financial straits.
Fifty years later, another underwater explorer would continue the search. Salvage expert Barry Clifford came to the project with a pedigree. He had just discovered Samuel Bellamy’s treasure-filled pirate ship, Wydah, off the coast of Cape Cod. Hussar seemed like the next logical step. Clifford and his team began taking sonar images of the bottom of Hell Gate in 1985. The same technology had just been used to locate the wreck of Titanic that same year. Within months, in an echo of Simon Lake’s hotel room press conference, Clifford announced to the world that he had found the wreck. “My opinion is there is a very strong possibility that there is treasure on board the Hussar,” he told The New York Times. But when divers got in the water it was a different story. In the end, Clifford and his team encountered abandoned cars, washing machines and seven other shipwrecks, but none from the Revolutionary War era.
And with that, the era of serious salvagers and underwater explorers was deep-sixed. The latest to take up the mantle left by others before is an actor and demolition worker from the Bronx named Joe Governali, who goes by “Joey Treasures.” Governali has been trying to secure exclusive salvage rights over the wreck since the early 2000s. In a deposition, Governali claimed to have found an old map in the Rare Books Room of the New York Public Library that revealed the location of the ship. His salvage company conducted several exploratory dives, but have little to show for it other than some grainy video of what Governali claims is the wreck of Hussar and an 18th-century beer pitcher of British origin. Governali produced a reality TV pilot of his escapades. Alas, he is also being accused of fraud by one of his investors, James Kays, who was convinced to pitch in $100,000 after being shown gold coins purported to be from Hussar. According to court records, they were allegedly “junk bought on eBay.”
It’s difficult to predict what the next phase of this centuries-long treasure hunt will be, but it’s likely to continue in some form. James Kays’s lawyer wrote in a letter to the judge presiding over the case that his client intends to continue the search, just as soon as he gets his money back.
The next big development might be with Hell Gate itself. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has proposed major civil works in the area to protect New York City from storm surges. Some versions of the proposal include large storm barriers that could permanently alter the tidal exchange between the East River, Long Island Sound, and New York Harbor, potentially weakening Hell Gate’s infamous currents. Although such barriers would only close during rare storms, they “threaten to choke off the tidal flow” even when open, according to Riverkeeper. The Army Corps of Engineers indicated recently that they are leaning towards a less invasive alternative but the storm barriers have not yet been ruled out. “It remains possible that other alternatives or components of those alternatives may also be advanced,” according to New York/New Jersey Harbor and Tributaries Project Manager Bryce Wisemiller.
“It’s a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit everywhere.” For now at least, the currents of Hell Gate will keep on flowing unobstructed. As for Hussar, the promise of its gold remains alive and well, even if the same may not be true for the ship itself. After two centuries of salt corrosion, violent tides, salvage attempts and maybe explosives, it’s a safe bet that whatever remains of it is probably beyond recognition. “I think the Hussar is hither and yon,” says Lloyd Ultan. “It’s a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit everywhere.”
In his essay about Hell Gate, Washington Irving mentions how he had grown up hearing fantastic stories about the remains of a ship that lay scattered among the channel’s rocks, one of the many that fell victim to its currents. As an adult, he tried to find the truth about those stories. “I found infinite difficulty, however, in arriving at any precise information,” he wrote. “In seeking to dig up one fact it is incredible the number of fables which I unearthed.”
OUR HEARTS GO OUR TO OUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS IN ISRAEL
FROM THE ARCHIVES
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2023
NEW SEWER ALLIGATOR
ART IN
UNION SQUARE
IS INSPIRED BY NYC MYTH
ISSUE# 1108
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
In 2015, Untapped New York writer Thomas Hynes asked a pressing question to a representative of the NYC Department of Environmental Protection. “Are there now or have there ever been alligators in the New York City sewer system?”
Legend has it that in the early 20th century, wealthy New Yorkers would vacation to warm states like Louisiana and Florida, bringing back with them baby alligators as souvenirs. Once these gators got bigger and their owners realized New York was not the appropriate home for them, they would be flushed down the toilet to live and reproduce in our city sewer system. Despite the response that came back from the Department denying any existence of sewer alligators, New Yorkers have remained fascinated with this mythical concept
Photo by Jane Kratochvil
The myth comes back to life with a new statue unveiled on Tuesday, October 17th; a life-sized bronze alligator perched on the back of a manhole lid. This piece of alligator art, titled NYC Legend, was crafted by Swedish artist Alexander Klingspor, famous for his gorgeous bronze work. A smaller version of the gator was displayed at the 2022 London Art Fair, only now having the full-sized piece unveiled in exactly the city where it belongs.
In Klingspor’s description of the sculpture, he says that it’s inspired by two themes he noticed in our world. The first is the fact that our civilization still very much needs gods and mythical creatures as did the humans that came before us. Our natural desire for the supernatural is simply not as visible as it once was, but it surely still exists in the backdrop (or sewers) of our daily lives. The second theme aims at exposing our modern habit of taking animals out of their natural environment and putting them where we see fit, creating an endless cycle of invasive species.
Photo by Jane Kratochvil
Alligators themselves have made themselves an integral part of mythology spanning thousands of years, symbolizing survival and the ability to regrow and adapt. New Yorkers have consistently proven they have the thick skin of a gator- through a pandemic, economic downfall, a terrorist attack, and beyond. Klingspor’s statue is a personification of this resilient New York spirit.
Alligator art sculpture in Union Square
At the Thompson Central Park New York, a short distance uptown from Union Square, there is a highly-anticipated public art exhibition featuring more of Klingspor’s work where visitors can also get a behind-the-scenes into the artist’s creative process of bringing NYC Legend to life. This exhibition will be on display within the hotel’s newly unveiled ground floor atrium through November. The alligator sculpture, NYC Legends, will be on display in Union Square’s Triangle Park through June 2024.
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MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK THE DESCRIPTION SAYS:BELLOWS, UNKOWN MAKER, C.1820 WOOD,LATHER, BRASS AND PAINT GIFT OF MYRS.LYMAN RHOADES, 1953 (5394)
“ThIS ORNATE PAIR OF BELLOWS WAS CREATED BY AN UNIDENTIFIED INMATE ON WELFARE ISLAND AS TODAY’S ROOSEVELT ISLAND WAS SOMETIMES KNOWN BECAUSE OF NUMEROUS PRISONS , ASYLUMS AND ALMSHOUSES LOCATED THERE. THE INMATE CREATED A SET OF BELLOWS, FOR REASONS THAT ARE UNKNOWN, FOR WIVES OF TEN OF THE MOST PROMINENT NEW YORKS OF THE DAY.
Credits
UNTAPPED NEW YORK JUDITH BERDY
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
What exactly attracted William Glackens to Washington Square, leading this founding member of the Ashcan School to create more than 20 paintings set in this iconic Greenwich Village park between 1908 and 1914, according to Washington Square Park Blog?
“Washington Square Park,” 1908]
Proximity likely had something to do with it. After Glackens left his home city of Philadelphia and relocated to New York City in 1896, he found a studio on the southern edge of Washington Square, according to the New-York Historical Society. Over the years, he occupied studios at different locations on the Square.
Glackens also moved with his family into a circa-1841 townhouse at 10 West Ninth Street, steps away from Washington Arch. Here, the painter dubbed the “American Renoir” lived and worked from 1910 to his death in 1938, explains Village Preservation in a 2019 Off the Grid blog post.
[“Descending From a Bus,” 1910]
But there might be something more to it than the Square’s convenient location. At the time Glackens established himself in Greenwich Village, Washington Square “represented the demarcation between the old and new communities of New York,” according to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (MFA).
While the descendants of many old New York families still lived in the stately brownstones of Washington Square North, “the less fashionable neighborhoods around Washington Square attracted newly arrived immigrants who worked in the factories and sweatshops nearby and also artists (including Glackens) who were drawn to the bohemian lifestyle of the district,” the MFA states
[“Italo-American Celebration,” 1912]
The presence of this new population mix in Washington Square is evident in Glackens’ 1912 painting of an Italian immigrant parade celebrating Christopher Columbus. Per the MFA: “The juxtaposition of the Old World and the New is further enhanced by the prominence of the Italian and American flags standing side by side in the lower foreground.”
What else may have influenced his decision to paint Washington Square Park, particularly his many full-color depictions of moments of leisure and pleasure?
[“29 Washington Square,” 1911]
Perhaps he was inspired by the simple loveliness of this historic square, as so many ordinary New Yorkers are as well.
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OUR HEARTS GO OUR TO OUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS IN ISRAEL
FROM THE ARCHIVES
MONDAY , OCTOBER 16, 2023
A WEEKEND OF
ADVENTURES
ISSUE# 1101
JUDITH BERDY
HISTORICAL AMERICAN
RAINY SATURDAY, A PERFECT TIME FOR HAT PAINTING WITH GEORGE KRASSAS, SPONSORED BY I DIG TO LEARN AND COLER LONG TERM CARE.
PHOTOS BY GHILA KRATZMAN AND JUDITH BERDY
George encouraged the kids (and adults) to use the paints and enjoy the fun of free flow art.
Nina and Oona with a freshly painted masterpiece
George has made cap art for years and is eager to share with others
It took two artists to work with all the kids and families
George Krassas, Chrisina Delfico and Judith Berdy enoying the activity.
The joy of free flow art!!!
It takes concentration!!!
SUNDAY, IN SEARCH OF THE ILLUSIVE TAGUA JEWELRY STORE.
It took me a while to find 145 Front Street in Brooklyn, Today the BQE was closed and the streets around DUMBO were jamned with impatient drivers, lots of cops and someone who has no talents with a Google map, me.
After wandering thru the hip and crowded street near York Street I finally located the small arcade where The Tagua is located. GREAT!! Wonderful displays of jewelry and creations on exhibit in this closed shop. The sign on the door said the shop would reopen October 24th.(Please change your listing on Google)
What is a Tagua nut? From Wikipedia:
Vegetable ivory or tagua nut is a product made from the very hard white endosperm of the seeds of certain palm trees. Vegetable ivory is named for its resemblance to animal ivory. Species in the genus Phytelephas (literally “elephant plant”), native to South America, are the most important sources of vegetable ivory. The seeds of the Caroline ivory-nut palm from the Caroline Islands, natangura palm from Solomon Islands and Vanuatu,[1] and the real fan palm, from Sub-Saharan Africa, are also used to produce vegetable ivory.[2] A tagua palm can take up to 15 years to mature. But once it gets to this stage it can go on producing vegetable ivory for up to 100 years. In any given year a tagua palm can produce up to 20 pounds of vegetable ivory.[3]
The material is called corozo or corosso when used in buttons.
An early use of vegetable ivory, attested from the 1880s, was the manufacture of buttons. Rochester, New York was a center of manufacturing where the buttons were “subjected to a treatment which is secret among the Rochester manufacturers”, presumably improving their “beauty and wearing qualities”.[5] Before plastic became common in button production, about 20% of all buttons produced in the US were made of vegetable ivory.[6]
Vegetable ivory has been used extensively to make dice, knife handles, and chess pieces. It is a very hard and dense material. Similar to stone, it is too hard to carve with a knife but instead requires hacksaws and files.[1]
Vegetable ivory is naturally white with a fine marbled grain structure. It can be dyed; dyeing often brings out the grain. It is still commonly used in buttons, jewelry, and artistic carving. Many vegetable ivory buttons were decorated in a way that used the natural tagua nut colour as a contrast to the dyed surface, because the dye did not penetrate deeper than the very first layer.[1][7] This also helps identify the material.
The display of jewelry in the closed shop.
My interest was peaked by purchase of a ring.
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On a cold, snowy January evening in 1874, Anna Elizabeth Dickinson became one of the first women of national prominence to speak on women’s suffrage in Clinton County, NY. Those gathering to hear her at the Palmer Hall, located upstairs at 60 Margaret Street in downtown Plattsburgh, were described as the most intellectual and cultivated in the community.
The crowd that night would have known her reputation.
Dickinson was born in 1842 into a Philadelphian Quaker family. Her father was an abolitionist. She was educated at the Friends’ Select School in Philadelphia and acknowledged as a gifted speaker and prodigy.
Her first speaking engagement was in 1860 at age 18 when she addressed the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. In early 1861, when she spoke in her native city on “Women’s Rights and Wrongs,” her career on the speaking circuit began.
By 1863 Dickinson’s reputation had grown and her name appeared around the country for her anti-slavery stand during the Civil War. She was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party, though not always of Abe Lincoln, whom she felt was too moderate. Because she was a young phenom, she was elevated by some as the “Joan of Arc” of the United States’ ongoing battle to end slavery in the South.
In 1864 she was the first woman to speak before Congress and after the war she resumed her speaking career, equality for African-Americans and women’s rights. The speech was attended by Lincoln.
By 1874 she had been on the speaking circuit for nearly 15 years. During the 1871-72 lecture season she spoke almost every night from October to April commanding from $150 to $400 a night, a very large sum for its time. At her peak, she earned more than Mark Twain.
Dickinson’s spoke on “The Rights and Wrongs of Women,” Reconstruction, “Women’s Work and Wages,” and “Between Us Be Truth,” on the social evils of venereal disease. Before arriving in Plattsburgh, she had started an acting career, climbed Pike’s Peak, and traveled the nation to give her orations on African American and women’s suffrage. (is is believed to be the first white woman to summit Colorado’s Longs Peak, Lincoln Peak, and Elbert Peak, and the second to climb Pike’s Peak.) It is unclear which organization in Plattsburgh sponsored her lecture or if admission was charged.
She entered the Palmer Hall stage not as the audience expected a radical, nonconformist to appear. Her rich brown silk dress included a train. There were diamonds on her ears, neck, and fingers. Her passport described her as 5’ 2” with large gray eyes, a fair complexion, a large Grecian nose, full lips, a round chin, and a round face. Her voice was rich, deep, and mellow, with a style betraying her Quaker training using biblical words.
Her stage presence was not that of a petite woman, and she used the entire stage to deliver her speech. She was a dramatic actress with a message. The title of her address was “What’s to Hinder Women from Helping Themselves?”
She began with the premise women are weak and dependent and need to understand how to overcome their “disabilities.” Women are their own worst enemy, she said, due to their typically gentle upbringing, women are not toughened for real work as their brothers are. Further, in order for women to do men’s work they needed to have the same training.
There would be no free ride, she argued. One will not get something for nothing. If all women are waiting for is marriage, they are not fitting themselves for good work and will not receive rewards for good work.
“The key of a woman’s success is in the brain and in the skill and cunning handle craft that come only with practice,” the Essex County Republican quoted. The reporter felt she did far more than other female orators in the country to create “a correct public sentiment for the best interests of her sex.”
After Dickinson’s 1874 lecture, Plattsburgh organizations started to host lectures by other noted suffrage supporters such as Wendell Phillips and Susan B. Anthony. But it would be 43 years before the city’s women would win the right to vote in state and federal elections.
Also a writer, Dickinson published the radical novel What Answer? (1868), supportive of interracial marriage. She made arguments for worker training, prison reform, assistance for the poor, and compulsory education for children in A Paying Investment, a Plea for Education (1876).
In the meantime, Anna was committed to against her will by her sister Susan Dickinson to the Danville State Hospital for the Insane in Pennsylvania, before being transferred to a private hospital in Goshen, Orange County, NY, where she quickly began giving lectures. She sued newspapers who claimed she was insane and those who had her committed, winning the case against her kidnapping and three libels suits in 1898.
Once released, she lived with George and Sallie Ackley in Goshen for more than 40 years. According to letters between them, and confirmed by George Ackley and his sisters, Dickinson and Sallie Ackley were lovers. When Sallie died, she left a large portion of her estate to Anna.
Anna Elizabeth Dickinson died in 1932 at the age of 89 and was buried in Slate Hill Cemetery in Goshen. A marker at her grave (next to that of the Ackleys) reads “America’s Civil War Joan of Arc,” and quotes her: “My head and heart, soul and brain, were all on fire with the words I must speak.”
WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
READY FOR NEXT YEAR NINA LUBLIN, PRESIDENT OF THE R.I. JEWISH CONGREGATION STORES ITEMS FOR OUR NEXT HOLIDAYS.
TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
COUNCIL SYNAGOGUE OPENED BY THE NATONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN IN 1927, TO SERVE THE RESIDENTS OF THE CITY HOME
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Anna Elizabeth Dickinson: ‘America’s Civil War Joan of Arc’ NEW YORK ALMANACK
Illustrations, from above: A Mathew Brady photo of Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, taken between 1855 and 1865; an Anna E. Dickinson photo and autograph; and a lecture poster from 1891.
John Warren contributed to this article.
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
In 1993, the Roosevelt Island Jewish Congregation (RIJC) moved into it’s new home in the Cultural Center. We were the only tenants along with the Main Street Theatre and Dance Alliance (MSTDA).
The RIJC held its services in the same room all year and expanded to the adjacent dance studio for high holidays and and occasional celebrations.
The MSTDA thrived under the direction of Worth and Nancy Howe, and subsequent directors.
Many other island and outside organizations used the space and it thrived as a cultural headquarters.
In the 2000’s the Cultural Center suffered two massive floods that closed the facilties for years. RIOC decided that the RIJC and MSTDA would now rent their space and other groups would also use the facilities.
The constant delays and construction issues, along with RIOC politics lead to extensive delays and postponements of usage.
Our sanctuary was no longer ours, stripped of all removable furnishings. Anyone can now rent the space for any event. We agreed to the changes and worked to reserve the space when we needed it for events.
Other groups used the space and left in frustration of dealing with RIOC. Only two groups have persevered with use of the center.
We are thirilled to be back in our “home” even for they most holy of holidays and welcome all to our Succah this Friday evening on the roof of the CUltural Center, at the 540 breezeway (on the senior center terrace) RIJC.ORG for more information.
Rabbi Laurie Gold and Cantor Sandra Goodman welcoming congregants for our Yom Kippur service
The torah is read and congregants follow in person or on Zoom.
The end of the holiday is celebrated with Havdalah
NINA LUBLIN AND RABBI LAURIE GOLD AFTER THE LONG YOM KIPPUR SERVICES.
VACATION TIME I was just away on a long-needed cruise. Our trip was to start on Monday, September 4th. The ship, the Norwegian Joy was delayed due to the hurricane in Bermuda. This gave the 4,000 passengers an extra day in New York (at the cruise lines expense). I asked many of my fellow travelers how they spent the day. Here is one families story.
The father was in New York, in 1942, a member of the Royal Navy and waiting to sail to Europe to the battle front. As any good sailor, he found his way to Jack Dempsey’s Bar on Times Square. He sent a postcard home to England. His family kept the card and his story of having Jack Dempsey autograph it personally.
They came to our city with the mission to photograph the Jack Dempsey’s.
When told the site was the Brill Building I knew there was another story behind the address; the home of many in the music industry.
I could not wait to get home and read Daytonian in Manhattan to find our more about the Brill building.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2023
JACK DEMPSEY’S BAR
&
THE BRILL BUILDING
ISSUE# 1078
The current Jack Demsey’s is a reproduction of the original at a new location.
The 1931 Art Deco Brill Building — Tragedy and Musical History
Nothing, it seemed, could go wrong for Abraham E. Lefcourt prior to 1930. Born on New York’s Lower East Side, he started business manufacturing ladies’ apparel. In 1910 he built his first building, a 12-story structure at 48-54 West 25th Street that housed his factory on two floors.
In 1914 he created the Alan Realty Company–named after his 2-year old son–and continued building, erecting structures throughout the Midtown area. In 1924 Lefcourt gave his now 12-year old son ownership of a $10 million office building being erected at Madison Avenue and 34th Street. His purpose, he said, was to “inculcate in his son…a sense of thrift and responsibility.”
By 1929 Lefcourt not only commanded a vast real estate empire, but was president of the Lefcourt National Bank & Trust Company. On October 3 of that year he announced that he would build the tallest building in the world at the northwest corner of Broadway and 49th Street – the Lefcourt Building. Exceeding the Chrysler Building by four feet in height, it was to cost an estimated $30 million. Negotiations began for leasing the land from brothers Samuel, Max and Maurice Brill, where their Brill Brothers clothing store stood, and the architect Victor A. Bark, Jr. was commissioned for the project.
Nothing, it seemed, could go wrong for Abraham E. Lefcourt.
Suddenly, however, Lefcourt’s fortunes plummeted. Three weeks after his announcement, the stock market crashed. The plans for the skyscraper were quickly reworked, reducing the structure to a $1 million, 11-story office building.
Tragically, one month after the lease of the site was finalized in January 1930, 17-year old Alan Lefcourt died suddenly of anemia. Coupled with the intense grief caused by his son’s death, Lefcourt was forced to deal with a crumbling empire. In August he resigned his bank presidency to devote more time to his real estate holdings. By the end of the year he had sold no fewer the eight Manhattan buildings and investors brought suit against the bank alleging “improper investments.”
The developer continued to lose millions even as the Lefcourt-Alan Building was completed in 1931. By the fall of that year Lefcourt defaulted on the agreement with the Brill Brothers, who foreclosed. The building which he intended as a monument to his son was renamed the Brill Building.
In November 1932, with a judgment pending against him and his world collapsing, Lefcourt suddenly died. While the official report blamed a heart attack, rumors of suicide persisted. His one-time $100 million fortune was reduced to a few thousand.
The polished brass portrait bust of young Alan Lefcourt over the main entranceCompleted in 1931, the striking Art Deco Brill Building remained, in a sense, a memorial to Alan Lefcourt. Above the entrance doors an elaborate niche holds a brass bust of the handsome youth. Another, larger bust, possibly terra cotta, graces façade at the 11th floor. Only the smaller bust is documented as being of Alan (mentioned in Abraham Lefcourt’s obituary in The New York Times as “his son’s bust over the entrance”); however the New York Landmarks Commission feels the evidence suggests the larger bust “too, represents the son, or, perhaps, an idealized male tenant.”
The Lefcourt-Alan Building rises above Broadway on September 10, 1930 with the upper-story bust in place — photo by Edwin Levick — NYPL Collection
Perhaps more significant than the Brill Building’s striking Art Deco architecture, with its contrasting brass and polished black granite, and terra cotta reliefs, it is subsequent place in American music history.
Early tenants were music publishers, many having roots in Tin Pan Alley. Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Tommy Dorsey had offices here along with their music publishers.
By the 1950’s radio disk jockey Alan Freed and Nat King Cole leased space here. Leiber and Stoller wrote for Elvis Presley here; Red Bird Records, famous for its “girl groups” was on the 9th Floor, and Burt Bacharach and Hal David met here in 1957 after which they wrote over 100 songs together.
Throughout the years the building was home to publishing houses such a Lewis Music, Mills Music and Leo Feist, Inc. and composers Johnny Mercer, Billy Rose, Neil Sedaka and Rose Marie McCoy. By 1962 there were 165 music businesses here.
The larger, possibly terra cotta bust above the top floor
Initially the entire second floor –approximately 15,000 square feet—housed The Paradise, a cabaret where music for the floorshows was supplied by bands like Glenn Miller and Paul Whiteman.
Later it became the Hurricane with tropical palms and flowers, headlining Duke Ellington. In 1944 it was Club Zanzibar where Nat King Cole, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Jordan and the Ink Spots entertained guests in evening attire.
In the 1960’s the songs for the girl groups and teen idols that emanated from the offices here gave rise to what was called “The Brill Building Sound.” It was, according to Robert Fontenot, “poppier, more laden with strings, more giddy with romantic possibility than some of the earthier R&B stuff…This was, in other words, sophisticated pop for teens in the first blush of love, and it’s precisely that combination of classic songwriting technique and post-rock modernism that helped it get over and kept it fresh and exciting in the years since.”
Abraham Lefcourt’s striking Art Deco monument to his son was designated a New York City landmark in 2010.
