In 1748, twenty-year-old Swiss-born Jacob Sperry arrived in the city of New York from Zurich. Trained as a physician, he abandoned medicine as his real passion was horticulture. In 1771 he bought a plot of pastureland and turned it into the city’s first botanical garden, growing flowers, hothouse plants, and fruit. Despite its distant location on the city’s northern outskirts, his gardens became a (romantic) destination for weekend walkers and a hub for buying floral arrangements.
Sperry cultivated the land until 1803, when he sold the gardens to John Jacob Astor (1763-1848), a German-speaking immigrant from Walldorf, near Heidelberg, who had turned his attention from the profitable fur trade to real estate. The latter leased the property to Joseph Delacroix, a French-born confectioner and entrepreneur who was expanding his pleasure garden business. He transformed the estate into Vauxhall Gardens, an entertainment resort modeled after the eponymous park in London. Once Delacroix’s lease expired in 1826, Astor commissioned the construction of a passage in honor of Marquis de Lafayette, a former French volunteer in the Continental Army who had served as a member of General George Washington’s inner circle. In 1825, the Revolutionary War hero toured New York State on a triumphant return, visiting cities like Buffalo, Lockport, and Rochester. He inspired the naming of streets and parks across the former colonies, including the town of LaFayette, NY. Lafayette Place (now Lafayette Street) sliced through Vauxhall Gardens and would inaugurate another monument of gratitude to the Marquis: the completion of La Grange Terrace, a row of nine Greek Revival townhouses named after Château de la Grange-Bléneau, Lafayette’s country estate at Courpalay, thirty miles southeast of Paris (which he considered his own version of Mount Vernon). Colonnade Row Construction of La Grange Terrace in the city of New York began in 1831. Finished two years later, the properties offered luxury amenities such as running hot and cold water, central heating, and bathrooms. Later referred to as “Colonnade Row,” Connecticut-born Seth Geer was the project’s builder and developer. But who inspired its design?
The use of marble in French and British monument building served to project civic pride and imperial power. The controversial removal of the Parthenon sculptures (Elgin Marbles) in 1816 intensified the focus on Greek antiquity. Robert Smirke’s design of the British Museum in Bloomsbury featured forty-four Ionic columns. In the 1820s, John Nash revolutionized London’s cityscape by designing neoclassical terraces encircling Regent’s Park. A defining element of these residential structures was the extensive use of marble colonnades, blending multiple townhouses behind a single facade. In 1829, Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis formed an architectural partnership in Manhattan. Lasting until 1835, the firm became synonymous with the Greek Revival movement in the city. In 1829/30 Town made a study trip to Europe. Visiting London, Nash’s classical style inspired him. He took the colonnade concept home with the ambition of bringing similar grandeur to New York’s streetscape. It became central to his designs in public and private commissions. La Grange Terrace was a prime example of his work. Its residences were fronted with a two-story-high marble colonnade, consisting of twenty-seven columns inspired by the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens (considered the first Corinthian columns in antiquity).
Marble porches extended directly to the sidewalk. Tall French mahogany doors on silver hinges opened onto balconies connected by wrought iron railings. Lafayette Place was an exclusive cobblestoned cul-de-sac, an elite enclave. In 1833, the New York Evening Post lauded the apartments as “unequalled by any private dwellings in the country.” The twenty-six room residences were among the city’s most desirable addresses, occupied by John Jacob Astor II, Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Gardiner family (when in 1844 President John Tyler married Julia Gardiner, the couple hosted their post-wedding breakfast at the property), and Warren Delano, Franklin Roosevelt’s grandfather. Sing Sing Marble Where did all the stone come from? Westchester marble or “Snowflake” for its crystalline look, was a dolostone found in the geologic formations of southern New York. After the discovery of large reserves in Tuckahoe, Scottish-born stonecutter Alexander Masteron of Broome Street, Manhattan, set up a mining company and by 1812 quarrying had begun. In 1824, his firm provided the white marble to build New York’s branch of the Bank of the United States on Wall Street (the façade of this Greek Revival structure was reconstructed a century later at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, fronting its American Wing). In 1825, New York State authorities decided to build a fifth prison in the region. Mount Pleasant State Prison opened in 1828 at its location in Sing Sing (now Ossining, in Westchester County). The name of the village was linked to its original inhabitants, the Indigenous Sintsink tribe. The phrase “sin sinck” translates from its Algonquian language to “stone upon stone.” The site was chosen for the rich deposits of local white stone, soon labeled “Sing Sing marble.” By May 1825, hundred chained men had been relocated from Auburn Prison to temporary on-site barracks there. Under the ruthless command of Captain Elam Lynds, they were sent out to quarry and cut stones. Sing Sing’s prisoners built a cell block that would hold eight hundred inmates. By November 1828, the project was completed. Two years after finishing the “Castle on the Hudson,” convicts mined enough marble to construct a prison hospital and chapel. Abundant building materials reduced cost and drove rules of hard labor. The “old hellhole” was notorious for its ferocious regime installed by Lynds.
When mining, men worked in groups but were not allowed to communicate with each other; they spent the night confined to solitary cells. The implementation of a rigid “lockstep” system further controlled the behavior of inmates. Violent punishments were common. Prisoner-quarried Sing Sing marble was utilized for the building of historic residences throughout the Ossining region and shipped down the Hudson to construct some of the city’s landmarks, including St Patrick’s Cathedral, the Washington Square Park Arch, and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower. Manhattan was covered in Sing Sing marble. The builders of Colonnade Row also used the material. For John Jacob Astor, America’s first multi-millionaire, it was a lucrative deal that financed its construction.
In 1834, the building began of the first section of New York University (NYU, founded in 1831), a Gothic Revival structure on the east side of Washington Square designed by Alexander Jackson Davis and Ithiel Town. In the process, contractors bypassed local stonemasons to buy cheap Sing Sing marble. Workers and trade guilds resisted such unfair competition and organized rallies that turned violent. To restore public order, Mayor Cornelius Van Wyck Lawrence called out the National Guard. The Stone Cutters’ Riot was one of the city of New York’s first mass labor revolt. Paris & London In January 1847 Charles Dickens visited Victor Hugo in Paris. Despite mutual admiration between Europe’s two greatest novelists, it was a frustrating meeting because of language barriers. If anything, it was a symbolic encounter. For both writers, architecture played a crucial role in their novels. The authors shared a contempt for neoclassical colonnades. Victor Hugo depicted Paris as a site of social unrest and human suffering. In novels like Les Misérables, the city streets tell the story of a restless society on the brink of revolutionary change. In 1825, the author penned several notes in which he lamented the destruction of medieval architecture in Paris. Frustrated by dominating neoclassical Revival trends, he cried out: “Oh! Qui me délivrera des colonnades?” (Who will deliver me from colonnades?). These reflections would feed into a broader campaign in which he declared Guerre aux démolisseurs! (War on the Demolishers, 1832) and the creation of his novel Notre-Dame de Paris (1831). Charles Dickens viewed London’s back streets, brick alleys, and industrial sites as physical manifestations of human misery. In novels like Bleak House, he mapped the capital’s socio-economic and moral decay. The author often referred to colonnades in his novels and travelogues when criticizing contemporary architecture or illustrating social environments. Dickens did not view them as symbols of “timeless” beauty but looked at them from a socio-critical and atmospheric perspective. He contrasted pristine ancient Greek design with London’s sooty black bricks. Classical architecture was not suited to the bleak reality of a northern industrial society. Colonnades were out of place in the damp darkness of a wind-swept environment. Modern architects had lost the plot. When Dickens toured America in 1842, New York treated him like a royal. To accommodate his status, his guests hosted him at Colonnade Row. He shared the prestige of staying at this address with other legendary authors of the era, including Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, and William Makepeace Thackeray. It must have been an unsettling experience for him to be feted in a marble-fronted Greek Revival townhouse, a style of building he had attacked repeatedly in his work. Passion for Colonnades Increasingly, European critics attacked the Revival style as a pastiche without connection to contemporary society. The copying of historical forms showed lack of initiative. It was a sign of cultural exhaustion. Instead of creating their own style, architects lived in the past, ignoring new building materials, and neglecting the advances in engineering. Innovation was restricted to utility structures, railway stations, prisons, and exhibition halls. The call for “modernism” came from European critics. The United States remained obsessed with colonnades.
Thomas Jefferson embodied the principles of neoclassicism. Appointed as a Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Versailles in May 1784, he had sailed from Boston aboard the merchant brig Ceres to join Benjamin Franklin and John Adams in Paris and would eventually become the senior Minister in France. The once provincial Virginian returned in November 1789 as a cosmopolitan individual with dreams of turning America into a thriving democracy that would rival Europe in art and science. For Jefferson, architecture was the incarnation of political philosophy. The nation’s official buildings should safeguard the virtues of liberty and self-governance. Rejecting British colonial building as a reminder of Royal tyranny and religious dogmatism, he championed neoclassicism as the style to embody the Republic’s democratic ambitions. His ideas shaped the lay-out of Virginia State Capitol and the design of his Monticello home. For Virginia University, he designed an “academical village” around a central lawn framed by pavilions and colonnades (Pavilion VII, the oldest building in the village, is home of the University’s “Colonnade Club”). The concept of a national neoclassical architecture also drove the builders and developers of the capital. They filled Washington with rows of white columns that symbolized the balance and vigor associated with ancient governance. Courts, libraries, museums, and banks also adopted columned façades to impress monumental significance. No colonnade, no relevance. Form Follows Function In 1851, Israel Underhill bought a couple of residencies at Colonnade Row and turned them into The Oriental, a “family hotel” for wealthy New Yorkers who chose an elite lifestyle without having to employ servants. By the 1860s, Lafayette Place began to lose its appeal as commercial ventures on Broadway encroached upon this once select residential cul-de-sac. Regional demographics shifted as its occupants moved uptown. Murray Hill and its attractive Italianate brownstone row houses became the new prestige neighborhood. In 1875, the five southernmost houses were turned into The Colonnade Hotel with an entrance on Broadway. In 1902/3, the hotel was demolished to make way for a warehouse owned by Wanamaker’s department store, leaving only the four houses that are still there today (protected since 1965 with a designation by the Landmarks Preservation Commission). The Oriental lasted as a boarding house until 1915, but the Row’s demise had been set in motion. During the 1890s, Louis Sullivan and other pioneers of modern architecture began condemning the replication of ancient Greek and Roman models in contemporary building. They launched the slogan “form ever follows function,” a design principle whereby the shape and structure of a building must be determined by its intended use. Arguing that outdated historical costumes of European Revivalism stifled the ambition of creating an American stylistic identity, modernists abandoned smooth marble for concrete and steel. They crushed the colonnades.
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PHOTO OF THE DAY
Can you identify this staircase from a famous movie?
CREDIT
WIKIPEDIA JUDITH BERDY
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.
Sunday was the second Sunday that Gloria Herman and I explored Brooklyn. The best way to get to Trader Joe’s in Williamsburg is to drive. This store has indoor parking, a wonderful service and a gigantic store. After securing our groceries in the car, we drove to Greenpoint in search of a snack.
We parked in front of Brooklyn Charm at 616 Manhattan Avenue. This shop specializes in the latest necklace fad, small charms on necklaces and bracelets.
A lovely and unique window display drew out attention to visit inside.
Dozens of chain styles and trays of all kinds of trimmings for your custom jewelry. the selection is vast and the store is enhanced WIlliam Morris design wallpaper.
The sales staff were friendly and we chatted about jewelry styles. We asked for a suggestion for a snack and the women suggested the pirogi restaurant down the street.
We found Pierozek a few doors down at 592 Manhattan Avenue. This bright restaurant with balloons outside was an immediate welcome.
The menu is short and iots of combinations of pierogi are available.
I chose a combination of meat and cheese pierogi. The come with onions and sour cream. Piping hot, soft and delicious they were a great treat.
Liquor is served or delicious cappucino, for this cold and wet day. The wait staff were friendly and most of the other diners were Polish and enjoying this restaurant.
There are Pierogi shaped pillows for the true afficionado. Also, a cute poster from LOT Polish Airlines with a passger wrapped in a pierogi.
Next door is Charlotte Pattisserie, which was so tempting. After pierogi meal, we looked inside at the cake display and decided to return aother day.
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PHOTO OF THE DAY
CHARMING POLISH POTTERY FOR SALE (?) AT PIEROZEK
CREDIT
WIKIPEDIA
JUDITH BERDY
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.
This particular mosaic detail resembles Tomaselli’s collage of Flaco the eagle owl. (image courtesy Fred Tomaselli)
In one of New York City’s transport hubs, riders are now watched by hundreds if not thousands of glass and ceramic eyes.
Earlier this year, artist Fred Tomaselli created “February 25, 2024,”acollage imagining a Sunday New York Times front page announcing the death of Flaco the eagle-owl. Tomaselli envisioned the beloved bird with hundreds of colorful spiraling eyes and a befitting headline: “New Yorkers Mourn Neighbor They Could All Look Up To.” In Tomaselli’s latest work, he again draws New Yorkers closer to the world of aves, this time reaching a wider audience with a massive mosaicinstallation that will last beyond his lifetime.
Fred Tomaselli’s mosaics along a subway transfer pathway at the 14th street subway station complex (photo by Isa Farfan/Hyperallergic)
New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Arts and Design commissioned Tomaselli in 2022 to create a permanent 680-square-foot mosaic series in Manhattan’s 14th Street subway station, which is notorious for its avenue block-long pathways facilitating commuter transfers from one line to another.
The MTA inaugurated Wild Things (2024) on Monday, November 4, just before Election Day, after a three-week installation. During election season, Tomaselli sold his bird-inspired work, including “February 25, 2024” (2024), to benefit the Kamala Harris campaign.
Tomaselli took a clear position in this year’s presidential race and has used his New York Times collage series to annotate front-page world news in addition to selling his work to fundraise for sustainability initiatives. The artist said he often uses his practice to address “the chaos and the pathologies of the world,” but this work is different.
“There’s no overt politics,” Tomaselli told Hyperallergic, “other than this idea that art is worth making, nature is worth preserving, and the natural world is strange and amazing.”
Tomaselli said he wanted to bring the complexity of life above ground into the underground station. (image courtesy Fred Tomaselli)
Tomaselli said he had “hit a burnout phase” with his more political art at the time he began designing his everlasting public work and felt depressed by it. He said he wanted to make “something to escape into the out of this ugly moment that we’re living through.”
“I just wanted to dive head first into this idea of the strangeness of the eternal natural world, an increasingly imperiled world,” Tomaselli said. “I wanted to bring this strangeness of the complexity and oddness that lives above ground and put it underground.
For his first-ever mosaic and permanent public installation in Manhattan, Tomaselli translated his mixed-media painting technique into tile and glass fragments with the help of the German stained glass manufacturer Mayer of Munich.
“We kind of assembled it out of Frankenstein bits of my older work,” Tomaselli said. “We made a lot of eyes by taking circular sheets of glass, laying them on top of each other, and then putting them in a blast furnace to melt them together.” He did the same with ceramic.
One mosaic presents riders with a psychedelic representation of a set of eyes diffusing into thousands of tinier eyes, resembling Tomaselli’s Flaco collage. In another, mosaic birds fly next to a spate of aggressive advertisements.
One mosaic contains what appear to be hundreds or thousands of small eyes. (image courtesy Fred Tomaselli)
Tomaselli has lived off the L train, which passes through the station, for nearly 40 years. His studio is also located along the line and so was his son’s former school.
A personal project, Tomaselli said he felt “good” about the final product, but not without a twinge of melancholy.
“I know my son will probably be riding the L train long after I’m gone,” Tomaselli said. “When I finally saw it up there, I was like, ‘God, I’ve entered into the transit history of New York.’ Hundreds of thousands of people are going to pass by this every day, day in and day out, year after year, for 100 years, maybe more. ”
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PHOTO OF THE DAY
HALLOWEEN FUN RETURNS TO THE OCTAGON LOBBY
CREDIT
WIKIPEDIA JUDITH BERDY
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.
Last Sunday Gloria Herman and I ventured to see the newly reopened Carroll Street Bridge in Brooklyn. In the pouring rain the freshly restored bridge stood out in vibrant blue.
Whose idea was it to venture in this weather?
The Gownus Canal is now surrounded by high rise apartments, sort of what happened to the High Line. Views are being destroyed by construction projects, and over development.
The original span
When was the last time the $5- fine was collected?
The plaque commemorating this NYC Landmark
The Bridgekkeepers House in in the background.
Fom Wikipedia
The Carroll Street Bridge is a retractable bridge in New York City, crossing the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. It carries a single wooden-decked lane and two sidewalks. Completed in 1889, it is operated by the New York City Department of Transportation. It was a vehicular and pedestrian bridge until closed for rehabilitation in 2021; after reopening in 2026, it has carried only pedestrians, bicycles, and emergency vehicles. It is the oldest of the four remaining retractable bridges in the United States and is an official city landmark.
Description
The Carroll Street Bridge is composed of a 107-foot-long (33 m) span supported by a pair of riveted steel plate girders.[2]: 5 The span is 17.5 feet (5.3 meters) wide and contains one lane, formerly used for eastbound vehicular traffic, and one walkway to either side. It carries the street of the same name within the neighborhood of Gowanus, Brooklyn. The posted restrictions are a height limit of 12 feet 6 inches (3.81 m) and a weight limit of 10 short tons (8.9 long tons; 9.1 t).[1][4] The roadway on either side is made of Belgian blocks.[5] In 2010, an average of one thousand vehicles crossed the bridge each weekday.[6]
The movable portion of the span is painted bright blue[5] and shaped like a trapezoid.[2]: 5 [7] Carriage truck frames, supported by wheels, are located underneath the girders. When the bridge is retracting, these frames run along three timber-supported steel rails that run diagonally on the western bank of the canal to the south of the span, which opens up a 36-foot-wide (11 m) channel for ships to pass.[7] The frames are moved by a series of pulleys. Originally, the span was retracted using a steam engine, but today it is powered by an electric motor.[2]: 5 Swinging gates on either side close off the span whenever the Carroll Street Bridge is in the open position.[7] There is a vintage sign on the bridge, warning drivers that they risked a $5 fine if they drove “faster than a walk”.[8]
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PHOTO OF THE DAY
HALLOWEEN FUN RETURNS TO THE OCTAGON LOBBY
CREDIT
WIKIPEDIA JUDITH BERDY
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 rail line between Boston and Albany dates back to the birth of American railroading in the 1830s. Its construction was fueled by the economic rivalry between New England and New York exacerbated by the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. Today, a new effort is underway to better link Albany and Boston by passenger rail.
Despite Massachusetts being home to some of America’s first canals, building a water route across the Berkshires was impossible so the Bay State turned to the emerging railroad technology to bypass the city of New York and Hudson River route and secure for themselves a direct trade route to the west.
The Boston & Worcester Railroad, chartered in 1831, was one of New England‘s earliest railroads. When it fully opened in 1835, it covered about 45 miles between the two cities.
The Western Railroad was chartered in 1833, with the ambitious plan to conquer the Berkshires.
Building a continuous rail line over the mountains in the late 1830s was considered an impossible task due to the steep grades, but the Western closed the gap to the New York state line by 1841.
To combat the 1.8% mountain grade toward Pittsfield, the railroad had to station heavy, specialized “helper” locomotives in Chester, Massachusetts to pushed heavy trains from behind to give them enough power to scale the summit.
Upon reaching the New York line, the Western Railroad leased the Albany & West Stockbridge Railroad, finally opening a single route to the Hudson River in December 1941.
The combined chain of railroads between Boston and the Greenbush (now the city of Rensselaer) on the Hudson River formed what is believed to have been the longest and most expensive rail line in the world.
Or they traveled north to Troy via six miles of track of the Troy & Greenbush Railroad, finally constructed in 1845–1846.
This technically allowed rail travel between Boston to Buffalo, by way the covered Troy-Green Island Railroad Bridge in Troy which required cars cross be horse-drawn.
In 1851 the Greenbush-Troy line was leased to the Hudson River Railroad, which later came under the control of Cornelius Vanderbilt and merged into the New York Central Railroad, the company which consolidated the individual railroads between the Hudson River and Buffalo in 1853.
To more efficiently run the three disconnected lines between Boston and Greenbush, the companies merged on September 4, 1867 to form the Boston & Albany Railroad (B&A).
In the late 19th century, the railroad hired Henry Hobson Richardson to design stone passenger stations along the route, helping to standardize the railroad’s corporate identity.
The New York Central and Post-War Decline
In 1900, the much larger New York Central & Hudson River Railroad leased the B&A for 99 years. While the B&A operated as a subsidiary and kept its historic branding in New England, its independence was effectively over.
Like most American passenger rail lines, the B&A fell on hard time with the rise of the automobile, and especially after the Second World War with the building of the interstate highways and expansion of commercial aviation.
In 1968, the New York Central merged into the ill-fated Penn Central Transportation Company, which collapsed into bankruptcy just two years later.
On May 1, 1971, the newly formed Amtrak assumed control of long-distance passenger travel along the corridor. However, intercity service west of Framingham was temporarily discontinued in 1975 due to a lack of willingness of the state to subsidy the line.
In the meantime, freight infrastructure passed from Penn Central to Conrail in 1976, and was acquired by CSX Transportation in 1999.
The Boston-Albany Corridor Project
Today, the rail line between Albany and Boston remains heavily utilized by CSX freight trains, the MBTA commuter system, and Amtrak’s daily Lake Shore Limited.
Massachusetts’ ongoing Boston-Albany Corridor Project is working to restore the high-frequency intercity service that the original Boston & Albany Railroad spent the 19th century building.
Among the challenges is how to insert fast passenger rail onto tracks owned and heavily utilized by CSX freight trains. To solve this, MassDOT, Amtrak, and CSX are planning targeted infrastructure modifications:
The Pittsfield Track Capacity Project is expected to eliminate delays on Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited and Berkshire Flyer by installing a new three-mile siding track in Richmond (near Pittsfield) and a new track switch. This will allow passenger trains to bypass parked or slow freight trains.
The Project is also exploring double-tracking and curve modifications along the “Inland Route” (the Springfield-to-Worcester section) to increase speeds. There are also plans to add modern Positive Train Control (PTC) and enhanced signaling to coordinate high-density freight and passenger traffic on shared tracks.
A second platform is being considered for the Pittsfield station to reduce congestion there and new station is being considered for Palmer, Massachusetts.
At present, it is assumed station stops will include South Station and Back Bay in Boston, Framingham, Worcester, Palmer (the proposed station), Springfield, Pittsfield, and Albany-Rensselaer.
In December 2023, the Boston & Albany Corridor was accepted into the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) Corridor ID Program and MassDOT was awarded $500,000 to scope a Service Development Plan, which the FRA has since approved the scope, schedule, and budget for.
The Service Development Plan will study how passenger rail service on the Boston and Albany Corridor would operate and identify the steps needed to get there.
Last August, the US Department of Transportation announced Step 2 funding for the Boston & Albany Corridor through the FRA’s Corridor ID Program.
The announcement identified over $3.5 million in the award to be matched with $395,000 from MassDOT. This funding will be used to support the Boston-Albany Corridor Service Development Plan.
Upcoming Public Meeting
MassDOT is hosting a virtual public information meeting on the Boston and Albany Corridor Service Development Plan on Tuesday, October 6, from 6 until 7:30 pm. The meeting will be held virtually via Zoom.
Written questions and comments submitted through the Zoom Q&A feature will be read aloud and responded to at the end of the presentation, as time allows. A Q&A summary will be posted to the project website after the meeting.
For individuals who are unable to attend, a meeting recording will be posted to the project website. Comments and questions may be submitted anytime to bostonalbanycorridor@dot.state.ma.us.
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PHOTO OF THE DAY
Finally, a sign leading to the lighthouse COULD IT HAVE BEEN SMALLER? REALLY. RIOC
CREDIT
NEW YORK ALMANACK JUDITH BERDY
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.
AS I WALKED ALONG 37TH AVENUE IN JACKSON HEIGHTS THIS BUILDING STOOD OUT AND REMINDED ME OF THE HISTORY OF THIS UNIQUE COMMUNITY.
The Queensboro Corporation was a real estate company that was almost solely responsible for the growth and development of this area of northern Queens. The Corporation, formed by local North Queens businessmen in 1909, spent more than $4 million buying more than 350 plots of land between 1909 and 1914. They built residential tracks, apartment buildings, cooperative garden apartments, and were actively involved in advocating for the expansion of the subway through the neighborhood.
The headquarters for the Queensboro Corporation was built on the corner of 82nd Street and 37th Avenue (which was then becoming one of the main commercial thoroughfares). This Neo-Tudor building was constructed prior to 1928 and was designed in a similar style to many of the residential and commercial buildings that the Corporation was developing nearby.
The white brick and black shutters extolled the appeal of the development
The feel of an old English Town along the main shopping street
Advertising for white middle class Christian residents, the advertisements openly used the word “restricted”.
The buildings featured interior courtyards. Many of the original buildings were cooperative. Later buidings were rentals.
From Wikipedia
The Queensboro Corporation was a real estate company founded by Edward A. MacDougall that played a major role in developing the Jackson Heights area of Queens, New York City.
The Queensboro Corporation was formed by a group of investors from New York headed by Edward A. MacDougall.[1] The corporation was founded on August 12, 1909, with the purpose of developing the area that was then called Trains Meadow. The first land purchase of 128 acres (52 ha) was completed in 1910, and the corporation had bought about 350 acres (140 ha) by 1914. MacDougall renamed the area Jackson Heights, after Jackson Avenue (now Northern Boulevard), the main east–west road at the time. There were no prominent “heights” in the area, but the word was presumably chosen to denote social exclusivity. At first the area could most easily be reached via a ferry from Manhattan.[2] The Queensboro Bridge opened in 1909, making the area more accessible.[3]
The corporation started to energetically exploit the potential of the property.[4] MacDougall’s corporation went well beyond simply erecting buildings. It planned the community, divided the land into blocks and building lots, and installed streets, sidewalks, power, water and sewage.[5] By 1912, 8 miles (13 km) of paved roads had been built with sidewalks, curbs and gutters, and there were 5 miles (8.0 km) of sewers.[3] The elevated IRT Flushing Line reached Jackson Heights in 1917, reducing the travel time to Manhattan to twenty minutes.[6] There were four stations in Jackson Heights at 74th Street, 82nd Street, Elmhurst Avenue, and Junction Boulevard. In 1922, prompted by the Queensboro Corporation, the Fifth Avenue Coach Company launched a direct service of double-decker coaches to Jackson Heights.[3]
The target customers for the Queensboro Corporation were middle class residents of New York who could afford to live in the suburbs.[4] In 1914 the Queensboro Corporation directors inspected new housing developments in several European cities. These probably included the garden apartment projects at Charlottenburg, Berlin, built between 1904 and 1909, that Erich Kohn and Paul Mebes had designed for the Berlin Civil Servants Dwelling Association. The housing developments at Jackson Heights closely resemble the Charlottenberg developments.[7] In contrast to traditional suburbs of single-family houses, the Queensboro corporation decided to build upscale apartment buildings distinguished by shared garden spaces.[8] The apartments were of high quality with ornate exteriors and features such as fireplaces, parquet floors, sun rooms and built-in bathtubs with showers.[9] The apartments, or “homes”, were sold rather than rented under what was first called a “collective ownership plan”. This was later changed to “cooperative ownership”, probably because the first name had connotations of socialism.[8]
During the years that followed, the interests of the Jackson Heights community and the Queensboro Corporation were closely intertwined. The local newspaper sometimes sounded like the voice of the corporation. The corporation encouraged development of the commercial area that surrounded the 82nd Street subway station, and assisted in setting up a community board to ensure the growth of civic institutions.[8] MacDougall also donated land for churches.[6] Part of the model in the early years, which broke down with the Great Depression of the 1930s, was “a policy of reasonable restriction in accepting tenants thus bringing together tenants having ideals and living standards in common.” In plain English, this meant that Jews, Blacks, and perhaps Greeks and Italians were excluded from the community.[10] Only white Anglo-Saxon Protestants were welcome.[6]
Garden apartments
Typical residential street in Jackson Heights
The Laurel apartment building on 82nd Street at Northern Boulevard was the first of the Queensboro Corporation buildings in Jackson Heights, completed in 1914. The building included a small courtyard. The Greystones on 80th Street between 35th and 37th Avenues were completed in 1918. The architect George H. Wells designed the Greystones, for which the Queensboro Corporation coined the name “garden apartment” to convey the concept of apartments surrounded by a green environment. With abundant land available, all unused space was used for parks and gardens, or for recreational areas that included a golf course. This was used in initial marketing efforts, although later much of the land was built upon.[11] In 1919 the Corporation introduced the concept of cooperative ownership to strengthen the sense of community.[12]
On August 28, 1922, the Queensboro Corporation paid $50 to the WEAF radio station to broadcast a ten-minute sales pitch for apartments in Jackson Heights.[13] This may have been the first “infomercial“, opening with a few words about Nathaniel Hawthorne before promoting the corporation’s Nathaniel Hawthorne apartments.[14] Mr. Blackwell of the Queensboro Corporation then urged his audience to:
seek the recreation and the daily comfort of the home removed from the congested part of the city, right at the boundaries of God’s great outdoors, and within a few minutes by subway from the business section of Manhattan … The cry of the heart is for more living room, more chance to unfold, more opportunity to get near Mother Earth, to play, to romp, to plant and to dig … Let me enjoin upon you as you value your health and your hopes and your home happiness, get away from the solid masses of brick … where your children grow up starved for a run over a patch of grass and the sight of a tree…[15]
The Queensboro Corporation employed the well known architect Andrew J. Thomas, already an advocate of garden apartments. Some of Thomas’ most important work was undertaken for the corporation. The first example was the Linden Court complex, in the block formed by 84th and 85th Streets and 37th and Roosevelt Avenues.[16] The buildings in this complex are in attached pairs around the perimeter of a shared open space holding a landscaped garden, with gaps at regular intervals in the perimeter wall. The layout provides light and ventilation to the apartments, and fosters a sense of belonging to a community.[17] Linden Court was the first development to include parking spaces, with single-story garages accessed via narrow driveways.[18]
Thomas built variants on the Linden Court design aimed at upper-middle income customers with the Château and Towers projects. Sold as cooperatives, both of these 34th Avenue developments had large, airy apartments and were served by elevators.[16] The elegant Château cooperative apartment complex was built in French Renaissance style. The twelve buildings surround a large common garden. They have slate mansard roofs pierced by dormer windows, and diaperwork brick walls.[19] The early gardens were designed only to be looked at. As the concept of the garden apartment evolved, and the garden areas became relatively larger compared to the built areas, the design of the shared gardens began to include paved spaces where people could meet or sit.[20] In 1924 the Queensboro Corporation started the Ivy Court, Cedar Court, and Spanish Gardens projects, all designed by Thomas.[21]
Later developments
In the mid-1920s the Queensboro Corporation also built attached and semi-detached homes for single families, with brick facades in American Colonial or English Tudor styles.[22]
In response to the ten-year Depression that followed the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the corporation tried to rationalize private enterprise through the Jackson Heights Merchant Association, and to spin off responsibility for maintaining infrastructure to the private sector. Formerly exclusive apartment buildings were opened to lower income groups, with apartments divided into smaller units and rooms rented. Jackson Heights lost its exclusive character, and would not regain it.[10]
After a severe drop in property values in the early 1930s, the Queensboro Corporation struggled financially throughout the decade. To raise money, the corporation began to build on land that until then had been kept open for community use, including the golf course, tennis courts and community garden.[23] The corporation also began erecting traditional six-story apartment buildings. Dunolly Gardens, the last garden apartment complex that Thomas built, was an exception, a modernistic building completed in 1939.[22] The corner windows, considered very innovative in the 1930s, gave the apartments a more spacious feeling.[24]
Edward A. MacDougall died in 1944 and was succeeded as president of the Queensboro Corporation by his son, A.E. MacDougall, who wrote in the September 1944 Jackson Heights News that “As soon as [wartime] restrictions are lifted by the Government, Jackson Heights will be ready to provide the most attractive types of garden apartments in close proximity to the center of Manhattan.”[25] In 1947 the New York City Housing Authority tried to develop public housing in Jackson Heights. The local residents rejected proposal.[26] In the 1940s the Queensboro Corporation sold much of its land to private developers.[27] The Queensboro Corporation completed the Carlton House in 1947 and advertised the apartments for sale on a cooperative basis. Response was poor, and the corporation instead started to rent the apartments. In 1949 the corporation launched the Greenbrier, the last cooperative the Queensboro Corporation was to sell in Jackson Heights.[25]
PHOTO OF THE DAY
The Upper level 58th Street Entrance to the 59th Street Bridge.
CREDIT
WIKIPEDIA JUDITH BERDY
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.
Dating back to 1824 when it was a free library founded specifically for tradesmen, the Brooklyn Museum is a magnificent repository of 140,000 pieces of art spanning ancient Egypt to contemporary America.
But beneath the museum at the grimy subway stop that takes you directly in front of the Beaux Arts building (which took 29 years to finally complete in 1926) are intentionally placed relics of another kind.
Inside the station is an underground mini-museum of salvaged relics—from corbels to rosettes to human faces with eyes that follow you as you move toward the platform—taken out of the rubble of demolished New York City buildings.
These 78 artifacts of terra cotta and stone are mounted on station walls with the care and precision of the mounted paintings inside the Museum’s halls and rooms.
What are they doing here, besides giving passengers a reason to hang out and experience art underground?
The relics come from the Brooklyn Museum’s longtime collection of ornamental architecture, and they were donated as part of the MTA’s Arts and Design program, which brings art installations to city subway stations.
“New mosaic designs were added to frame the objects and make connections with the architecture of the station,” states the MTA on a web page explaining the backstory of this underground exhibition.
The Brooklyn Museum provides a bit more context, stating that this “long-term installation” got its start in 2004 and was apparently planned to run through 2020, but the relics remain in what seems to be a permanent exhibit.
The MTA also explains that the Brooklyn Museum “has long served as a repository for ornamental architectural forms salvaged from significant buildings that were being demolished.”
I wish we knew which “significant buildings” these remnants came from, and if anyone recognizes them, let us know in the comments.
But for now, they’re the ghostly remains of anonymous city architecture of the 19th and early 20th centuries felled by the wrecking ball.
THE ANNUAL TRIBA EVENT IS COMING UP….STAY TUNED FOR REGISTRATION INFO.
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.
AFTER YEARS OF BEGGING RIOC TO ASK BIKE NEW YORK TO CLEAN OR REMOVE THIS UNSIGHTLY CONTAINER FROM UNDER THE HELIX. RIOC PAINTED IT AND CLEANED THE SURROUNDING AREA TODAY!!!!
FLOWERING BLOOMS IN PLANTERS IN BLACKWELL PARK AND MANY THER SITES. A DEFINITE PLUS FOR OUR PUBLIC AREAS.
THE WIDENED SIDEWALK AND NEW OPEN VISTA TO THE RIVER ALONG THE WEST ROADWAY
STILL SOME PROJECTS THAT NEED WORK
RIOC HAS REPAINTED THE EXTERIOR OF BUS #8 AND #9. THEY ARE BUS #160 AND #161. WHY, THAT IS A GOOD QUESTION.
THE INTERIOR FLOORS ARE STILL DIRTY AND THE SITE OF THIS SEAT WHEN TURNED UP IS DISGUSTING.
TIME TO CONCENTRATE ON THE OLD FLOORS GUYS!!
THIS BUS TURN AROUND HAS NOT BEEN USED FOR YEARS., IS IT DEFECTIVE OR NOT? IT COULD BE USED FOR CARS WISHING TO MAKE A U TURN WITHOUT GOING THRU RIVER ROAD.
THE FILTHY DIRTY CONDITION OF MOTORGATE WINDOWS IS UNBELIEVABLE!!!!
ANY NEWS ON PUTTING THE “F” TRAIN SYMBOL AT OUR SUBWAY STATION, OR THE MTA JUST LOVES TO CONFUSE RIDERS?
PHOTO OF THE DAY
WHERE IS THIS PLAQUE?
CREDIT
NYC MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES
JUDITH BERDY
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.
Today is National Coffee Day so we are reposting this blog from 2019. Enjoy.
Wednesday, Sep. 30, 2026
New York City Municipal Archives Pauline Toole
Issue # 1756
Brochure for Colombian coffee, ca. 1940. WPA Federal Writers’ Project collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
New York City runs on coffee, a fact that all of the java-toting subway riders prove every day. That’s not a new custom.
The opening of a 1940s article on coffee written by Parker Tyler for the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) Feeding the City touted the City’s reliance on coffee. “Every citizen of New York knows that the smell of morning coffee sets him up for a day of honest effort and things accomplished.”
Coffee was imported, chiefly from Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela, and El Salvador. Facts assembled by FWP staff writers show that imports of coffee grew from 66,666 bags weighing 132 pounds apiece in 1800 to 15,259,693 such bags in 1939—over 2 billion pounds of coffee! It was estimated that New Yorkers consumed 1,000 cups of coffee annually, half of it at breakfast, or nearly three cups daily. In 1939, the average price per pound of Colombian coffee was around 23 cents a pound in New York City.
Brochure for El Salvador coffee, ca. 1940. WPA Federal Writers’ Project collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
According to the FWP, coffee consumption began early in New York: “The Dutch in New York stopped drinking beer for breakfast and changed to coffee about 1668. They added honey and cinnamon to the beverage. A pound of coffee cost eighteen shillings, nine pence. As in London, coffee houses sprang up, the Kings Arms and the Merchants’ being two of the best known.”
Unloading cargo of Brazilian coffee at Gowanus Bay pier, Brooklyn, ca. 1940. WPA Federal Writers’ Project collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
The largest coffee processing plant in the world opened across the Hudson in Hoboken NJ in October, 1939. More than 400 workers handled the production of Maxwell House Coffee and Sanka, bringing 50 years of experience to provide the “good to the last drop” brand of coffee to households around the country. The particular blend was created in the 1880s for the Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, TN. Its sister brand—Sanka—was described as, “The Immigrant that Brightened Millions of Lives.” Created in 1928 for the New York market, it initially was a luxury item retailing at $1 per pound. By 1939 the price had dropped, providing relief for people who wanted to both sleep and drink their coffee.
Maxwell House Coffee canning factory, ca. 1940. WPA Federal Writers’ Project collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
A news article from 1940 reported that the Quartermaster Depot based at the Brooklyn Army Terminal was planning to purchase 40 million pounds of coffee annually, up from 10 million pounds. And, that would only fulfill half of the Army’s needs. This is the first indication of possible difficulty ahead for coffee consumers.
The FWP wrote about substitute foods in July 1941 stating that the rationing procedures adopted in England provided a clue to the foods likely to be scarce in the United States. These foods included tea, but not coffee. “Moreover, what England may be deprived of in the present emergency is not necessarily a guide to what we may be in America, as for example, coffee, which is not rationed there, chiefly the British, as a people are not great coffee drinkers.”
Early in November, 1942 Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia tackled the topic of coffee rationing on his radio program, with the goal of explaining why coffee was facing restrictions. He acknowledged that coffee was ample but mostly in South America and the Caribbean. “The supply is plentiful, but the rub is shipping it. We are losing ships and besides that we require all the ships that we have for carrying supplies, ammunition, and troops to various parts of the world where we are fighting for our very existence.”
A&P warehouse loading cases of coffee, ca. 1940. WPA Federal Writers’ Project collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
He went on to chide New Yorkers. “Please don’t be silly about this and start chiseling and buying more coffee than you need. A great many people have done that and that just isn’t nice, it isn’t patriotic and it shouldn’t be done… Let’s take the rationing in stride, be sensible in the making of coffee, let’s not be wasteful, and I’m sure there will be no hardship.”
On November 29, 1942, the Office of Price Administration (OPA), which was responsible for setting prices and rationing food and other items to ensure there were sufficient supplies for the armed forces, announced the coffee rations. Basically permissible purchases were cut in half from 20 pounds to ten pounds annually.
During the rationing period, people who wished to stretch their coffee allotments pursued a few strategies including re-using coffee grounds and supplementing with another substance. One of the chief supplements was chicory roots that were roasted, ground and blended with the coffee. Some people used acorns. Others just consumed less
Mayor LaGuardia suggested: “I wouldn’t throw the grounds away if anyone in the family is accustomed to having coffee for their midday or evening meal, just adding a sprinkle on the top of the old grounds will make a very good cup of coffee for the evening.” He also suggested changes to the method of making coffee. “Perhaps we will have to put our percolator away for the duration and use coffee just as people of my generation used to. I strongly recommend the brewing of coffee. Just take a spoonful to a cup, that’s pretty strong, and then brew it. Let it come to a boil for a very short time, then set it aside and let it settle and also strain the coffee in serving it.”
Apparently he received some pushback because in his November 29, 1942 radio address he told the audience to “take the recipe I gave you and stick it away someplace because we’ll need it before long. We’ll have to go back to the old style method of cooking coffee as our mothers did and not be silly about this whole thing. There’s enough coffee to go round if we use it wisely.”
Recently New York was rated the Number One coffee city in the country with more coffee shops here per capita than elsewhere in the country. And apparently NYC residents consume seven times as much coffee as other people. What would we do in a coffee shortage? Let’s hope we don’t find out.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
GLORIA HERMAN IDENTIFIED THIS VINTAGE UTILITY COVER ON THE SIDEWALK JUST SOUTH OF BLACKWELL HOUSE. BELL SYSTEM CEASED OPERATING IN 1983
CREDIT
NYC MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES
JUDITH BERDY
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.
Bo Weinberg sleeps with the fishes. A former lieutenant of the notorious bootlegging gangster Dutch Schultz, Weinberg was made to disappear after the Schultz and Charles “Lucky” Luciano factions went to war. Turns out, Weinberg’s fate wasn’t all that rare.
After a giant octopus attack on the Staten Island Ferry in 1963, search-and-recovery divers found more than 30 victims of New York’s organized crime syndicates beneath the waves of New York Harbor. Preserved by the cold, polluted waters, every victim had one thing in common: their “cement shoes.”
To honor these victims and mark the site as a point of historical significance, a memorial using Weinberg’s likeness was erected at The Battery in 1983. Lost during renovations in the mid 1990s, the monument was recently rediscovered and can now be seen on display. But, we think the sculpture also looks a little like someone we know….
Staten Island-based sculptor Joseph Reginella has been crafting monuments to NYC Urban Legends since 2016 and this piece, Watery Graves, is his latest creation. When sculpting this memorial, he used his own face as a reference.
Each sculpture in the series is given an elaborate and fantastical backstory that is based in just enough true New York City history and pop-culture references to make you scratch your head.
“A lot of people buy it,” Reginella told Untapped New York when we met him at The Battery to see the sculpture in person and watch people react to it. “I heard a guy mumble out loud ‘That can’t be.'”
The sculptor has been playing with the concept for this piece since the early 2000s when he launched a toy line called Toxic Teddies. One of the bears featured in this not-for-kids set was “Blabba Bear,” a teddy bear figurine that clearly said too much.
“The harbor is always mysterious,” Reginella said, “What could be down there? A giant octopus, some old mobsters, lots of garbage?”
As a special anniversary sculpture, Watery Graves is also the largest in the NYC Urban Legends series, measuring around five and a half tall, plus the pedestal. Despite its size, the whole thing can still be disassembled and put onto a handcart. Like all of the statues before it, this one travels from Reginella’s studio in Staten Island to Manhattan via ferry, so it needs to be portable and light enough for the artist to move himself.
Reginella began working on Watery Graves in January. He walked us through the time consuming process: “The whole thing is sculpted out of Styrofoam, then I add clay for details, then a silicone mold, then a method called cold-cast bronze which is a resin with bronze powder in it to give it a shine.” Since this piece was so large and the mold so heavy, he had to build a special contraption to hold it up while it was cast.
In-process shots from Reginella’s studio
“Children are drawn to this one and I knew they would be, so all of the appendages are reinforced with steel and there’s two inches of plywood inside,” Reginella said, “I made it super bottom-heavy because I anticipated children climbing on it and they do.”
“I wanted to have the sediment littered with garbage so I went with some classic New York City icons,” Reginella said. Look closely and you’ll find a Statue of Liberty figurine, a smashed Greek coffee cup, and a crushed beer can.
All of the small details, from fishes swimming around the body to the wavy folds of his jacket and his floating arms and tie give the illusion that the figure is suspended in the water, anchored to the floor by that bucket of cement at his feet.
When we met Reginella at his Disco Civil War sculpture last year, he alluded to this year’s piece being the last in the NYC Urban Legends series. “This is really labor intensive. It’s a lot of planning and I always have other jobs and this turns into kind of a second job,” he explained. But, he might not be done just yet.
“I think I’d take at least a year off, but I can go home today and see something and think, ‘Wait, I have to do that!’ It’s a creative outlet.”
Your best chance to spot the sculpture is on Saturday and Sunday mornings along State Street, just outside the entrance to The Battery near the SeaGlass Carousel. Reginella brings the sculpture out sporadically until the weather gets too cold. Let us know if you spot Watery Graves by tagging us @untappedny
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Can you identify and locate this manhole cover?
No one has been seen exiting it here.
The first person to send us the location will get a gift from the RIHS Visitor Center.
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.
