Mar

18

Monday, March 18, 2024 – NOTES FROM THE PAST AND PRESERVATION FOR THE FUTURE

By admin

NOTES FROM

ISLAND HISTORY

&

PRESERVING ISLAND HISTORY

This letter arrived in my mailbox today and tells one more story of our island’s past.  Thanks

The Sid Kaplan photo of the trolley station under the Queensboro Bridge brought back vivid memories of my youth in Manhattan and Queens.  My father was an oral surgeon and his rounds took him to Welfare Island once a month from the end of his stint in the Army in 1955 through the mid-1960’s.  While we never rode the trolley, we accessed the Island from Queens many times via what everyone
called the “Upside Down” building.  In that structure, elevators (for
automobiles, trucks and  people) connected the middle of the bridge with the land below.  Several times, after coming up in the
elevator in our automobile, we waited while the westbound trolley to the “city” stopped to pick up or drop off passengers.  I was captivated by this little “train” which traversed the bridge and I begged to take a ride. 

My request was not granted —  I was probably four — but ever-after I watched for the orange and cream cars and was always delighted to see them.

Then, one day, they stopped.  “The electric company”, my Dad
explained, “made a deal with the city to run cables over the bridge – and under the road – where the trolley tracks used to be”.
I was heartbroken.  “Why?  Why??”,  I asked my parents.  “Why couldn’t the trolley continue  running above the electric cables like all the automobiles?”  “Well,Luddy”, said my Mother,
“the trolley is obsolete….”

Obsolete?  How could something so wonderful to my innocent eyes go away? Alas, this was the first of so many things in my life to disappear “forever”.  Penn Station and the Singer Building in Manhattan met a similar fate to my beloved trolley.  Luckily, Grand Central remains and a lot of other trolleys in other cities have been saved, or rebuilt or expanded.  How great would it be 
if those Queensboro Bridge streetcars – and a modernized “Upside Down” building – still connected our Island to Manhattan and Queens?

If there is a lesson in this, it is that something which today is 
“obsolete” may one day be quite valuable – and 
useful.  But I can tell you – from personal experience – that this
notion is of little comfort to a small boy riding over the bridge, looking in vain for the quaint trolleys of another time,
never to run again.
guy ludwig

westview

Trolley on Queensboro Bridge | hjw3001 | Flickr

Get this image on: Flickr ] Creator: hjw3001  Copyright: Henry Wagner

https://rihs.us/donation/

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WEEKEND PHOTO

A “COYOTE” THAT WAS PLACED AT
THE FDR FOUR FREEDOMS PARK A FEW
YEARS AGO, TO SCARE OFF THE CANADA GEESE.
SUCCESS WAS NOT ACHIEVED FOR MUCH TIME

Text by Judith Berdy

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

www.tiktok.com/@rooseveltislandhsociety
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THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2024 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
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Mar

16

Weekend, March 16-17, 2024 -A STREET NOW VANISHED INTO A PARK

By admin

WEEKEND


MARCH 16-17, 2024


ISSUE # 1205

THE STORY OF THE


GHOST STREET

IN A

LOWER MANHATTAN PARK


EPHEMERAL NEW YORK

Just like the city itself, the New York City street map is always in flux.

Alleys and lanes that were well established in Gotham’s early years have disappeared without fanfare; roads that once had a solid presence in a neighborhood get chipped away until nothing remained thanks to the shifting contours of the cityscape. (RIP Thirteenth Avenue.)

But the ever-changing street grid has left something mysterious in a Lower Manhattan park: a ghost street sign, but no trace of the street it marks.

This ghost sign is for Temple Street. It’s mounted at the edge of Zuccotti Park, a small patch of green in the commercial canyons of Lower Manhattan. But there’s no road, no driveway, no asphalt at all pointing to remnants of the street—just concrete benches and neatly spaced trees.

Zuccotti Park forms a rectangle between Broadway, Liberty Street, Trinity Place, and Cedar Street. These streets were all on the map by New York’s post-colonial era. So what happened to Temple Street, and where did it lead to in pre-20th century Manhattan?

The story begins more than 300 years ago, when New York City was a colonial outpost under British rule. Temple Street was on the map by 1695, according to the map reproduced in this 1901 book about the city’s origins. Just two blocks long, it ran parallel to Broadway and a now-vanished Lombard Street from Cedar Street.

Why is the street named for a temple? The origin isn’t clear. But Sanna Feirstein, author of Naming New York, suggests it stems from the street’s proximity to Trinity Church. (The first Trinity Church was in the works in the late 1690s, so perhaps the street name reflected the plans for a house of worship a block over on Broadway.)

The name might also be derived from Sir John Temple, the first British consulate-general to the United States, adds Feirstein.

Whatever its origin, two-block Temple Street continued to exist on street maps in the early and mid-19th century, still running alongside Broadway but now between Liberty Street and Cedar Street and ending at Thames Street. Based on advertisements for a “fire-proof ware-room” and shops, this was likely a commercial stretch of the bustling city.

Temple Street at this time would have been hemmed in behind the City Hotel on Broadway (above in 1831), one of New York’s first luxury hotels and bounded by Cedar, Temple, and Thames Streets. Later in the 19th century, the street was home to taverns, like “Old Tom’s” and “Old Reynold’s Beer House” (below), according to a 1902 New York Times article.

In the early 1900s, with lower Broadway becoming a mini-city of bank and insurance towers, Temple Street was reduced to one block, “the southernly half was wiped out by consent of the city when the United States Realty Building was erected,” wrote the New York Times in 1912.

The little one-block road held out until the early 1970s, when Liberty Plaza (later renamed Zuccotti) Park got the green light. “When developers demolished the buildings in 1972 to make way for the park, they demolished the street as well,” stated the Times in a 1995 F.Y.I. column. “The sign was remounted after the development was complete.”

Okay, but why remount a street sign for a street that no longer exists? I like to think someone at the DOT decided that a little road which served no major purpose yet hung on for 300 years should be properly memorialized with a sign.

Thanks to Justine V. for letting me know about this sign!

https://platform.remix.com/project/d6368ff6/line/f7efc4d4?dir=0&latlng=40.75452,-73.93954,13.157

WEEKEND PHOTO

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THURSDAY  PHOTO OF THE DAY

ENTRANCE TO TROLLEY STATION AT 60TH STREET FOR 
TROLLEYS ON ROUTE 102, NOW THE Q102 BUS, CIRCA 1940’S
ED LITCHER GOT IT 

Text by Judith Berdy

[Third photo: NYPL Digital Collections; fourth photo: Wikipedia; fifth photo: NYPL Digital Collections]

Tags:Ghost Streets of Old New York CityHow Temple Street in NYC Got Its NameOld Maps Demapped Streets NYCTemple Street Ghost Sign New York CityTemple Street Lower ManhattanTemple Street Sign Meaning NYCTemple Street Zuccotti Park NYC
Posted in Lower ManhattanRandom signageTransit | 

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

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THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2024 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com

Mar

14

Thursday-Friday, March 14-15, 2024 – TO BE A STREET YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE BIG

By admin

Manhattan, New York

THE AVENUES OF MANHATTAN ARE some of the most famous thoroughfares in the world, counting 5th Avenue, Madison, Park, and The Avenue of the Americas among their ranks. But hidden between 6th and 7th Ave and running between West 57th St and West 51st St is a secret street rarely visited or recorded in tourists guidebooks: 6 1/2 Avenue.

Currently the only street with a fractioned number in New York City, 6 1/2 Avenue was given its official signposts in July 2012 by the Department of Transportation. The secret street was already well known to midtown workers who had long used the public spaces between 57th and 51st to cut through the city, avoiding having to walk around to 6th or 7th Avenue.

The thoroughfare is part of the over 500 areas in the city that are known as Privately Owned Public Spaces. These POPs originated in the 1960s when the city gave property developers incentives for creating public spaces as part of their new buildings. These privately owned public spaces usually took the shape of plazas, atriums, walk through arcades.

The 500 city POPs have received mixed receptions. Often the spaces are abandoned and make passersby feel as they were trespassing on private property and so the Friends of Privately Owned Public Spaces started an initiative to raise awareness, starting with 6 1/2 Avenue in Midtown. The Department of Transportation even created crosswalks and installed street signs to make it official. So next time you are strolling down one of Manhattan’s grand avenues, why not take a detour to visit one of its secret ones, just a literal half a block out of the way.

51st Street on 6 1/2 Avenue

Walking thru at night

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WEDNESDAY  PHOTO OF THE DAY

SKETCHES MADE BY EDWARD HOPPER FOR
HIS  PAINTING “BLACKWELL’S ISLAND”

Text by Judith Berdy

ATLAS OBSCURA

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

www.tiktok.com/@rooseveltislandhsociety
Instagram roosevelt_island_history


THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2024 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com

Mar

13

Wednesday, March 13, 2024 – OUR ATTIC IS FULL OF GOODIES …TAKE A PEEK

By admin


ISSUE # 1203

STUFF IN OUR ARCHIVE

OR

WHAT WE HAVE COLLECTED

IN 46 YEARS

(JUST A SMALL EXAMPLE)

Over the last 40 years we have collected all sorts of island  artifacts  Luckily we have storage unit in the Octagon as well as our office.  We have hundreds of photos and paper documents that can be used for research.  Here a some of our unique collection.

Spidel from original Octagon staircase

Hardware from Central Nurses Residence

Tefillen case from Goldwater Jewish Chapel 

Strap from original tram cabin and wheel from same

Signs from original tram cabins

Part of the roof beans from Blackwell House (circa 1789?)

Piece of cable, hook and pulley from storehouse elevator building. These were found when the site was being excavated for the  Trolley Kiosk building.

Coin counter from Tram Token Booth, when tokens were the the fare.
We also have a collection of slugs that were used at the turnstiles.

RIGI toy cable car toy  set from the 1950’s 

LEGO tram and Spideman set from 1990’s.

Parts of Welfare Island Bridge control panel that was replaced and this one was mounted and donated to the RIHS

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WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

SEND YOUR RESPONSE TO:
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TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

PROPOSED ESPLANDE AT MARIE CURIE AVENUE AT EAST 63 ST. TO 70 STREET BY THEO KARETZKY

Text by Judith Berdy

NYC MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES 

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

www.tiktok.com/@rooseveltislandhsociety
Instagram roosevelt_island_history


THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2024 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com

Mar

11

Monday, March 11, 2024 – NEWS OF THE ISLAND AND HAPPENINGS

By admin


ISSUE # 1201

IMPORTANT THINGS

HAPPENING ON OUR ISLAND

https://rioc.ny.gov/DocumentCenter/View/6888/March-2024-Newsletter-FINAL

https://platform.remix.com/project/d6368ff6/line/f7efc4d4?dir=0&latlng=40.75452,-73.93954,13.157

WEEKEND PHOTO OF THE DAY

ABANDONED BIKE AT THE 63/ LEX STATION ON FRIDAY

MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

WE CAN DO BETTER. THIS FRUIT STAND HAS
BEEN HERE FOR YEARS AND IS AN EYE-SORE.
IT IS TIME TO IMPROVE  IT TO BETTER SERVE OUR COMMUNITY.  THERE ARE MANY CREATIVE  WAYS TO SELL FRUITS BY THE SUBWAY. 

Text by Judith Berdy


MAIN STREET THEATER AND DANCE ALLIANCE

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

www.tiktok.com/@rooseveltislandhsociety
Instagram roosevelt_island_history


THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2024 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com

Mar

9

Weekend, March 9-10, 2024 – NEVER A DULL MOMENT WITH LA GUARDIA

By admin

La Guardia’s Stunts:

Prohibition, His Airport,

and the

Sunday Funnies

La Guardia’s Stunts: Prohibition, His Airport, and the Sunday Funnies

March 6, 2024 by Bruce Dearstyne 

New York State history is full of exciting characters who made a real difference in our historical development.

One of the most colorful is Fiorello La Guardia (1882-1947) who served in the Army air corps in the First World War, and later as a member of Congress (1923-1933) and Mayor of New York City (1933-1946).

LaGuardia transformed that city, sidestepping or overcoming political opposition and using city resources and federal assistance to tear down slums and replace them with good housing.

Terry Golway’s excellent new biography, “I Never Did Like Politics”; How Fiorello LaGuardia Became America’s Mayor and Why He Still Matters captures the policy accomplishments but also the personality characteristics that made La Guardia great.

Golway’s narrative is flowing and lively, engaging readers while putting La Guardia into the historical context of his times. The book presents a good deal of history in a very interesting way but also a good deal about a key history-maker.

The book includes three little-known episodes in La Guardia’s career that capture the spirit of the man in the context of the tenor of the times.

Congressman La Guardia opposed Prohibition on the grounds that it cut into personal liberties and that the Volsted Act, passed to implement it, was practically impossible to enforce in a city like New York. He sometimes resorted to drama and grandstanding to get his point across.

In Golway’s masterful narrative, La Guardia, in 1926, invited reporters to his Capitol Hill office to witness an act of defiance. He produced bottles of malt liquor (considered medicinal and legal under the Volsted Act) and “near-beer” (a beverage with an alcohol content just below the legal level), skillfully combined the two, and produced something approaching pre-Prohibition beer.

He offered the reporters glasses; they loved it. And it was all legal, the congressman explained, just blending legal substances, and an illustration of how people were skirting the law.

A few days later, he repeated the stunt on a sidewalk in front of a drug store in New York City. A local police officer witnessed the show and just shrugged his shoulders and walked away. La Guardia continued to mock Prohibition until it was repealed in 1933.

A pilot himself, La Guardia was determined to build a major airport in his city. In 1934, returning from a conference in Chicago, the plane he was on landed at Newark Municipal Airport, which then served as a de facto commercial airport for the city. The aircraft’s pilot announced they had landed in New York.

All the passengers deplaned except the mayor. He refused to leave, saying his ticket read “Chicago to New York” and Newark was not New York.

The mayor stayed seated and demanded to be flown to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, a small airport that commercial airliners shunned. The pilot finally gave in. Tipped off, reporters were present in Brooklyn when the mayor landed.

As Golway notes, “it was an amusing stunt, all right, but there was a larger purpose at work.” It was part of La Guardia’s campaign for an airport suited to his city. He achieved that goal in 1939 when the new airport, named in his honor, opened for the first time.

Later, he unveiled plans for an even larger airport, Idlewild (now John F. Kennedy International Airport) which opened in 1948.

Golway also includes another (slightly better known) episode, in July 1945, as La Guardia’s time as mayor was drawing to a close. Delivery workers for the city’s newspapers went on strike.

La Guardia, who regularly read the “funnies” (as the comics were called in those days) as well as the news, found a copy of the Sunday, July 1 issue of the New York Daily News.

Announcing that the city’s children needed their Sunday funnies, he went on the city’s radio station, WNYC, and read the installments of Dick Tracy and Little Orphan Annie and other comics and also vividly described the action in the strips.

He repeated the performance for two additional Sundays. He also urged that the workers should go back to work and the union should return to the bargaining table. Golway describes the mayor’s gestures and enthusiasm as he read the comics (this book is extensively researched, and here the author uses the New York Public Radio Archives, among other sources).

The strike soon ended. It was another memorable La Guardia performance.

As Golway notes at the end of the book, “this remarkable, irascible, and tireless man made it his life’s mission to replace despair with patience, hopelessness with fortitude.”

Editor’s Note: Bob Cudmore’s The Historians Podcast recently featured an interview about La Guardia. You can listen to that here.

Photo: Mayor La Guardia reads the comics to New York’s children over WNYC during the newspaper delivermen’s strike of July 1945 (New York Public Radio Archives).

Book Purchases made through this Amazon link 

WEEKEND PHOTO OF THE DAY

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FRIDAY  PHOTO OF THE DAY

JOINING THE QUEENSBORO BRIDGE 1908

ANDY SPARBERG, NINA LUBLIN , GUY LUDWIG AND GLORIA HERMAN  GOT IT RIGHT

Text by Judith Berdy

NEW YORK ALMANACK

BRUCE DEARSLYNE

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

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THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2024 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
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Mar

8

Friday, March 8, 2024 – IT WAS MADNESS, EVERYONE WHO HAD TO LEAVE THEIR HOMES HAD TO DO IT ON MAY 1

By admin

FRIDAY


MARCH 8, 2024


ISSUE # 1199

MOVING DAY:

WHEN EVERY NYC

LEASE

EXPIRED ON MAY 1ST

 

UNTAPPED NEW YORK

 SAMANTHA CHEVEZ

Moving is stressful: the expenses, the packing, the unpacking. If you had to do this with thousands of other people on the same day, would you? If you want to keep your sanity, probably not. But this wasn’t an option 200 years ago. In the mid-18th century, mayhem filled the streets of New York City every May 1st when every lease—residential and commercial—expired simultaneously. This was an annual event called Moving Day.

This tradition caused the city’s renters to scatter like frantic ants on an ant hill. It was linked with Rent Day, which occurred on February 1st. On that day, landlords informed tenants of the rental price for the following year. The prices went into effect in May. Moving was not mandatory, but with few rent regulations in place, landlords could increase rent steeply. In the end, most tenants had no choice but to move.

Just imagine this: no bubble wrap or moving boxes, just valuable possessions stuffed into horse-drawn carriages. Between the jerky movements of the carts from the bumpy roads and the occasional spring rain, Moving Day was a stressful day for everyone involved.

Day of trouble—day of chaos/Day of toil for man and “dray-hoss;”/What confusion! Wha a rumpus!/On the sidewalk bedpost bump us/All are moving, helter skelter/Women scold and fume and swelter

Diarist George Templeton Strong wrote about what he saw on Moving Day in 1844, “Every other house seems to be disgorging itself into the street; all the sidewalks are lumbered with bureaus and bedspreads to the utter destruction of their character as thoroughfares, and all the space between the sidewalks is occupied by long processions of carts and wagons and vehicles omnigenous laden with perilous piles of moveables.”

You’d be right to think that people might turn to alcohol to escape the stress. Everyone was on edge about possible accidents, street fights, and damage to their personal possessions during the moving process. So, liquor stores were open by early morning, inviting everyone to drink their worries away.

The tradition of Moving Day started during the colonial period and ended after the Second World War. But why May 1st? The roots of Moving Day can be traced back to the Dutch colony of New Netherlands. The first day of May held special significance for Dutch settlers. It marked the day when the Dutch departed from the Netherlands to settle in the wilderness of North America. In Dutch New Amsterdam, May 1st became a pivotal day for social and business activities. It was the start of the trading season known as Handelstijd.

Moving Day 1831.jpg

“May Day” – Cartoon depicting Moving Day (May 1) in New York City in 1831

Moving Day began to fade away in the 1920s as tenants gained new protections under the law and residents began to spread to the outer boroughs. By World War II, there was a second moving day, October 1st, as many families spent their summers outside the city. Since most men were off fighting overseas during the war, moving companies experienced worker shortages. In 1945, the post-war housing shortage and rent control laws finally ended Moving Day.

Thankfully today, there are no laws that hold us down with a strict deadline, (though as a remnant of the practice, there are still commercial leases that expire on May 1). So next time you move, be grateful you’re not part of a frantic city-wide exodus.

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FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

SEND YOUR RESPONSE TO:
ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM

Text by Judith Berdy

UNTAPPED NEW YORK

 SAMANTHA CHEVEZ

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

www.tiktok.com/@rooseveltislandhsociety
Instagram roosevelt_island_history


THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2024 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
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Mar

7

Thursday, March 7, 2024 – IT IS AMAZING WHAT IS GROWING ON ROOFTOPS

By admin

NYC ROOFTOPS

THAT ARE TURNING

THE SKYLINE GREEN

 

New York City buildings boast over 1.6 billion square feet of rooftop space, an amount of space that is roughly the size of Boston. Buildings account for over two-thirds of the city’s total emissions. More and more, developers and owners are looking to the sky for solutions to counter emissions and are converting rooftop spaces into green havens. 

Green roofs have multiple benefits. Not only do they leverage lower energy bills, but they also help to cut carbon emissions, create habitats for local wildlife species, and manage stormwater. The proliferation of green roofs and increased green spaces in urban settings help curb the urban heat island effect. The urban heat island effect occurs when an urban area has a higher temperature than the surrounding areas. This is due to the heat re-emitted into the atmosphere by all of the buildings, roads, and infrastructure. Green rooftops make the city’s infrastructure more sustainable, strengthen urban agriculture, and empowering the process of carbon capture from the concrete jungle below. Here are five rooftops that are recoloring the city’s skyline green.

Produce grown atop Rosemary’s rooftop garden in the West Village. Photo courtesy of Rosemary’s.

Homemade pasta dishes feature ingredients grown just steps from patron’s plates at Rosemary’s, an Italian restaurant tucked away in the West Village. A lush 1,000-square-foot rooftop garden flourishes here, despite constraints on space in the densest metropolis. At this establishment founded in 2012 by Carlos Suarez, the seasonal menu reflects a rotating selection of produce that can survive life in the city. This ever-changing supply of ingredients encourages Executive Chef Wade Moises and Rosemary’s staff to experiment constantly in the garden. Restaurant guests are welcome to roam the sprouting beds of fresh herbs and vegetables and enjoy the greenery that animates their gastronomic experience.

One of the most extensive green rooftops in the United States rests next to Hudson Yards and within earshot of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. With 8-acres of rooftop, the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center successfully repurposed an otherwise inhospitable environment to create a 6.75-acre wildlife sanctuary, a 1-acre farm managed by the Brooklyn Grange, and a home for nine honeybee hives. The center engages with NYC Audubon, a grassroots community that works to conserve and protect birds and their habitats in New York City. The group studies the diverse populations of birds, bats, and insects that benefit from the green roof’s food supply. The farm grows up to 50 crops each season which are used at the center’s farm-to-table events. This space is a true example of the positive environmental trade-offs that green rooftops offer. The green roof mitigates around 7 million gallons of stormwater runoff annually and cools the area by about 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit, reducing the urban heat island effect.

This West Village hidden gem operates similliarly to neighboring farm-to-table concepts but trades soil for air. Bell Book & Candles’ sophisticated menu complements the revolutionary vertical rooftop garden that grows up into the air using aeroponics-plant cultivation. This model is very efficient in terms of energy consumption and nutrient usage. This vertical vegetable growth concept supports the resturant’s commitment to sustainability and responsible procurement.

Gotham Greens rooftop greenhouses in Jamaica, Queens. Photo courtesy of Gotham Greens.

Gotham Green is a pioneer in reimagining where and how food can be grown. Their largest New York City facility in Jaimaica, Queens is located atop the historic Ideal Toy Company factory. This site was renowned for producing the iconic Teddy Bear and Rubik’s Cube. The rooftop of Gotham Green spans 60,000 square feet. Greenhouses that cover the space yield leafy, fresh greens, numbered in the millions. Gotham Greens delivers nutritious, sustainably grown greens year-round to the New York Tri-State area. They are revolutionizing the market and practices for urban-grown food that minimizes our overall environmental footprint. Gotham Greens has locations in Queens, Greenpoint and Gowanus, Brooklyn, and more cities across the United States.

The city’s oldest agribusiness sits three stories above the concrete jungle in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Eagle Street Farm is a 6,000-square-foot organic farm winking at the Manhattan skyline. A variety of seasonal produce grows here depending on the weather and time of year. The farm is open to the public and many local chefs bring the rooftops’ greenery to your plate. Ealge Street Farm’s mission calls for sustainable and resilient growing processes, like the farm’s stormwater runoff storge practices. This alternative process cools the warehouse below. Furthermore, Eagle Street Farm uses environmentally conscious design practices that repurpose materials, like old rafters used as edging.

New York City rooftops transform the city’s palette, cultivate urban ecosystems that feed New Yorkers and support local wildlife species. More and more buildings are looking up, integrating sustainable building designs with alternate rooftop functions. Where there could be gray, green rooftops are repainting the New York City metropolis skyline

https://platform.remix.com/project/d6368ff6/line/f7efc4d4?dir=0&latlng=40.75452,-73.93954,13.157

WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

BENCH ALONG WEST PROMENADE
GLORIA HERMAN AND ALEXIS VILLAFANE 
GOT IT RIGHT

Text by Judith Berdy

UNTAPPED NEW YORK
 EMMALYN MEYER

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

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Mar

6

Wednesday, March 6, 2024 -Think of springtime in Paris on a grand boulevard

By admin

What is the story behind the public benches of Paris?

Spring will soon be here and my curiosity  led me to check out the origin of  the Parisian street furniture.  So classic and wonderful and the style continuity that we lack here.  Saluting Paris!!!!!

When you visit Paris you’ll hardly notice them. But they are found in the hundreds throughout the French capital. The iconic public benches of Paris are part of the street furniture designed by French architect Gabriel Davioud. They played their part in Haussmann’s vast public works program in the mid-19th century.

To illustrate this article I had to search really hard through my photo library. As I mentioned earlier, we take the benches of Paris so much for granted that they might not seem the most interesting thing to photograph. However, after reading this blog post, I’m pretty sure you will never look at them in the same way!

The first public benches of Paris

The first benches made from stone or wood, as well as seats for rent, are recorded from the 18th century.
But it’s only from the Second Empire (mid-19th C.) that Paris’ pavements were furnished with thousands of public benches.When Baron Haussmann undertook the great urban work across the city of Paris, a series of structures were set up along the newly opened boulevards. All street furniture was harmonised in the same style and dark green colours. This was true for Morris columnspissoirsnewspaper kioskslampposts, and by the 1870s the Wallace fountains.

Morris Column, Square de la Tour Saint-Jacques , 4th arrt of Paris © French Moments

The last vespasienne in Paris, boulevard Arago © French Moments (pissoir)

A newspaper kiosk in Boulevard des Italiens (9th arrt) © French Moments

Wallace Fountain in Rue Piat (20th arrt) © French Moments

The benches of Paris were no exception to that rule. They were also codified and painted in dark green.

The public benches were designed by French architect Gabriel Davioud in the 1850s. He was the main collaborator of Baron Haussmann and his works included the magnificent entrance gate of Parc Monceau, the Saint-Michel fountain and the Châtelet theatre.

Romantic places in Paris: the first touches of Spring in Parc Monceau © French Moments

For the comfort of walking Parisians

Baron Haussmann introduced the public benches for the comfort of the walking Parisians.

At that time there were no cars and public transport was not as efficient as it is today.

Therefore people walked much more than today… and as you can guess, the benches were greatly appreciated for providing a comfortable place where people could catch their breath!

The straight bench in Place Louis Aragon (Ile Saint-Louis) © French Moments

The first public benches appeared on the Grands Boulevards and in the public gardens (les squares parisiens) opened by Haussmann.

It is now obvious that many bench locations have since become obsolete. On many occasions, I spotted a bench and wanted to take a little rest. But it was often located too close to a car and the gutter, or next to a dirty and ugly litter bin… a puddle around it (hoping it’s not something else!), litter on the wooden boards. Why would I want to sit there? How times do change!

Over time, the models of public benches have been modernised and diversified. Some models have been created with the intention to stop homeless people from sleeping on them.

But let’s face it, this strategy hasn’t been well-received by many Parisians. Some find it cruel. As a matter of fact, the homeless are not the only people who might like to lay down on the Paris benches…

The benches of Paris are used for various activities! © French Moments

Madame, has anyone ever taught you the rules of propriety? Tsk-tsk…

The two models of Paris’ benches

It is estimated on Wikipedia that there are around 100,000 public benches designed by Davioud throughout Paris. (although I have to say I’m a bit doubtful about this high figure – other sources show 10,000).

Davioud had two models designed: the straight bench and the ‘gondole’ bench.

The straight bench (le banc droit)

The straight bench or Haussmann bench © French Moments

The first model of the bench is made up of straight and perpendicular boards hold by a cast-iron structure that display the coat of arms of the City of Paris

The bench consists of one or two sides.

It is found on the pavement of avenues and boulevards, aligned with the street trees.

The gondole bench (le banc gondole)

The Gondole bench in the Champs-Elysées gardens © French Moments

It consists of strips of wood painted in dark green and supported by cast-iron legs.

The deep-seated bench is mainly found in the public gardens of Paris.

WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

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Text by Judith Berdy

French Moments
(c) ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT FRENCH MOMENTS

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All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

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Copyright © 2024 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
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Mar

5

Tuesday, March 5, 2024 – The East RIver Drive Promenade Sketches and Reality

By admin

WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 2020

The 63rd Edition of From Our Archives

REVISITING THIS EDITION

TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2024

#1196

THE EAST RIVER DRIVE


80 YEARS ON THE F.D.R.

Hugh Macomber Ferriss (July 12, 1889 – January 28, 1962) was an American architect, illustrator, and poet.[1][2] He was associated with exploring the psychological condition of modern urban life, a common cultural enquiry of the first decades of the twentieth century.  After his death a colleague said he ‘influenced my generation of architects’ more than any other man.” Ferriss also influenced popular culture, for example Gotham City (the setting for Batman) and Kerry Conran’s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.[

Early in his career, Ferriss began to specialize in creating architectural renderings for other architects’ work rather than designing buildings himself. As a delineator, his task was to create a perspective drawing of a building or project. This was done either as part of the sales process for a project, or, more commonly, to advertise or promote the project to a wider audience. Thus, his drawings were frequently destined for annual shows or advertisements. As a result of this, his works were often published (rather than just given to the architect’s client), and Ferriss acquired a reputation.

After he had set up as a free-lance artist, he found himself much sought after. In 1912, Ferriss arrived in New York City and was soon employed as a delineator for Cass Gilbert. Some of his earliest drawings are of Gilbert’s Woolworth Building; they reveal that Ferriss’s illustrations had not yet developed his signature dark, moody appearance. In 1915, with Gilbert’s blessing, he left the firm and set up shop as an independent architectural delineator.

In 1914, Ferriss married Dorothy Lapham, an editor and artist for Vanity Fair. Daily News Building, NYC By 1920, Ferriss had begun to develop his own style, frequently presenting the building at night, lit up by spotlights, or in a fog, as if photographed with a soft focus. The shadows cast by and on the building became almost as important as the revealed surfaces. His style elicited emotional responses from the viewer. His drawings were being regularly featured by such diverse publications as the Century Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, Harper’s Magazine, and Vanity Fair. His writings also began to appear in various publications.

In 1916, New York City had passed landmark zoning laws that regulated and limited the massing of buildings according to a formula. The reason was to counteract the tendency for buildings to occupy the whole of their lot and go straight up as far as was possible. Since many architects were not sure exactly what these laws meant for their designs, in 1922 the skyscraper architect Harvey Wiley Corbett commissioned Ferriss to draw a series of four step-by-step perspectives demonstrating the architectural consequences of the zoning law. These four drawings would later be used in his 1929 book The Metropolis of Tomorrow.

This book illustrated many conte crayon sketches of tall buildings. Some of the sketches were theoretical studies of possible setback variations within the 1916 zoning laws. Some were renderings for other architect’s skyscrapers. And at the end of the book was a sequence of views in Manhattan emerged in an almost Babylonian guise. His writing in the book betrayed an ambivalence to the rapid urbanization of America: There are occasional mornings when, with an early fog not yet dispersed, one finds oneself, on stepping onto the parapet, the spectator of an even more nebulous panorama. Literally, there is nothing to be seen but mist; not a tower has yet been revealed below, and except for the immediate parapet rail . . . there is no suggestion of either locality or solidity for the coming scene.

To an imaginative spectator, it might seem that he is perched in some elevated stage box to witness some gigantic spectacle, some cyclopean drama of forms; and that the curtain has not yet risen . . . there could not fail to be at least a moment of wonder. What apocalypse is about to be revealed? What is its setting? And what will be the purport of this modern metropolitan drama? In 1955, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1960.

Drawing of Southbound Roadway in the Triple-Dec Section in the 80’s

North portal of only true tunnel in East River Drive. It fronts Gracie Mansion, preserving it ancient view of the river.

Architects’ rendering of new municipal asphalt plant to replace existing structure on 91st Street.

The successful Asphalt Green today

Drawing of north-bound roadway of triple deck section in the 80’s
2020 
From the Archives
Artist view  of Grand to Montgomery Street link looking southward toward lower Manhattan.
Hugh Ferris drawings of the 81st Street portal during construction.  The sketch show the tower and northbound roadway.
81st Street Portal Today
74th Street Power Station as it looks today above, and  under construction below

Drawing looking south from 60th Street showing north and southbound roadways as they pass under Queensboro Bridge. Structure at left is new Department of Sanitation dump. The ramp to the dump is for Sanitation trucks.
Now, just north of the dump is the East River Roundabout artpiece by Alyce Aycock

A drawing of the completed portal of the triple deck structure at 81st Street.  The tower marks the juncture of the portion of the drive built on land with that built over water. The stairway joins the shore front drive at water level with the esplanade that is the third deck of the drive. Overpass leads to 81st Street.

Future concept of 91st Street redesign with Sanitation dump.

Chester Price drawing of new municipal ferry house at 78th Street. The roof of the ferryhouse will serve as a section tho the Drive’s pedestrian esplanade.  Access to the ferryhouse from the west side of the Drive is by an overpass.

Park Area in the Grand to 14th Street section of the Drive built in cooperation with the Department of Parks and dedicated in 1939.
Williamsburg Bridge today.

TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

COURTESY OF JUDITH LIEBERMAN
SEND US YOUR TITLE FOR THIS PHOTO

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter  and Deborah Dorff


All image are copyrighted (c)
Roosevelt Island Historical Society
unless otherwise indicated

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CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

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Instagram roosevelt_island_history


THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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