THE LAST TROLLEY OVER THE QUEENSBORO BRIDGE AND ITS FATE
WHERE DID THE TROLLEYS COME FROM AND WHERE DID THEY END UP?
THE FIRST TROLLEYS
THE ORIGINAL CARS IN SERVICE WERE FROM 1913 AND ORIGINALLY RAN ON THE MANHATTAN BRIDGE
AS IS TYPICAL WITH QUEENS TRANSIT COMPANIES, THE OWNERSHIP AND OPERATIONS CHANGED MANY TIMES OVER THE YEARS.
THE SECOND AND LAST TROLLEYS
THE TROLLEYS WERE USED IN NEW BEDFORD UNTIL 1948 WHEN THEY WERE REPLACED BY BUSES. THE WERE CLASSY LOOKING IN THEIR DARK GREEN COLOR.
THE TROLLEYS CAME FROM NEW BEDFORD MASS. AFTER THEY USED THEM FROM 1929 TO 1948.
THE NEW BEDFORD CARS WERE NOT REPAINTED FROM THE DARK GREEN COLOR WHEN THEY STARTED TO BE USED HERE
ONE OF THE 5 KIOSKS LEADING TO THE TROLLEY STATION UNDER 59th STREET STATION
1940’S IMAGE OF HOUSES
FARE $.05 ROUNDTRIP
THE TROLLEYS ON THE QUEENSBORO BRIDGE
THE QUEENSBORO BRIDGE RAILWAY CO. SEEMED TO HAVE SOME CARS PAINTED, BUT MOST WERE DILAPIDATED AND RUN-DOWN. SURELY, NOT THE PRIDE OF THE FLEET.
THE LAST TROLLEY ROLLED OVER THE BRIDGE IN 1967. YOU TUBE HAS A VIDEO OF THE LAST RIDE OF THE TROLLEY. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkPw2IB6ViQ
THE SAD END
THE CARS ENDED UP AT THE KINGSTON TROLLEY MUSEUM. ONE CAR, #601 WAS SITTING IN THE OPEN, ABANDONED, LOOTED AND DETERIORATING UNTIL ABOUT 10 YEARS AGO. THE MUSEUM HAD NO INTEREST OR FUNDS TO RESTORE IT. EVENTUALLY IT WAS USED FOR SALVAGE AND ONLY THE MEMORIES REMAIN.
EDITORIAL Watching and listening to the John Lewis funeral today, I think of politicians. All those present had their challenges in office and we complained about their actions, steps and missteps. We were accepting of them because they were the President and we are proud they served with dignity. They are here today, older a wise. Judith Berdy
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
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All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
The Newtown Creek is he border between Brooklyn and Queens
Newtown Creek
Is a 3.5-mile (6-kilometer) long tributary of the East River, is an estuary that forms part of the border between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, in New York City.
In the early days its shores presented a beautiful sight. The Creek’s natural sources were fresh water streams which flowed between wooded elevations and further along lowlands until they mingled with the salt water of the East River. When the tides met, the backing up of these tides caused the stream to overflow into marshes. The creek abounded with fish and shellfish and was also a favorite swimming spot. While the Creek once flowed through wetlands and marshes nearly the entire stretch of the creek now has bulkheads (retaining walls.).
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries – European Settlement
The Creek has been used by man for hundreds of years starting with Native Americans whose village and fields were at the head of the Creek. Dutch explorers first surveyed the Creek in the seventeenth century. The Dutch, and then the English, used the Creek for agriculture and fledgling industrial commerce, making it the oldest continuous industrial area in the United States Farms and plantations lined both shores of the Creek from the mid-1600’s to the mid-nineteenth century.
The creek begins near the intersection of 47th Street and Grand Avenue on the Brooklyn-Queens border at the intersection of the East Branch and English Kills.
It empties into the East River at 2nd Street and 54th Avenue in Long Island City, opposite Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan at 26th Street. Its waterfront, and that of its tributaries Dutch Kills, Whale Creek, Maspeth Creek, and English Kills are heavily industrialized.
One of the new parks along the Creek
A Polluted Waterway
Up until the latter part of the 20th Century, industries along the creek had free rein over the disposal of unwanted byproducts. With little-to-no government regulation or knowledge of the impact on human health and the environment, it made business sense to pollute the creek. The legacy of this history today is a 17-30 million gallon underground oil spill caused by Standard Oil’s progeny companies, copper contamination from the Phelps Dodge Superfund site, bubbling from the creek bed in the English Kill reach due to increases of hydrogen sulfide and a lack of dissolved oxygen, and creek beds coated with old tires, car frames, seats and loose paper. Nearly the entire Creek had the sheen and smell of petroleum, with the bed and banks slicked black.
The shores of the Newtown Creek in Greenpoint contain some of the most polluted industrial spaces in the United States, befouled by more than a century of oil spills and toxic waste. Soon, they will also be home to a collection of new parks and green spaces, which will open up sections of the waterfront to the surrounding community for the first time in generations.
Each of these projects is a direct result of one of the most complicated and successful environmental justice movements in the city, which has resulted in tens of millions of dollars being granted to a host of ecological restoration projects and new public spaces. After many decades of struggle, the residents of Greenpoint may now begin to see some of the largest environmental projects in their neighborhood finally come to fruition.
NYC DEP WATER TREATMENT PLANT
The Visitor Center is open for education programs by appointment only. If you would like to learn about public tours, please visit the Digester Egg Tour webpage. Located at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the Visitor Center at Newtown Creek is the only facility within the five boroughs where you can experience New York City’s water infrastructure. Through guided education programs, students can discover the journey our drinking water takes to get to our taps, the process of cleaning our wastewater before it is released into surrounding waterways, and stewardship opportunities.
THE TROLLEY ON THE QUEENSBORO BRIDGE AT THE NORTH TERMINAL AT 60TH STREET AND SECOND AVENUE SHELLY BROOKS, ANDREW SPARBERG, JAY JACOBSON ARE THE WINNERS
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EDITORIAL
When I decided to write about the Newtown Creek, I started reading about the pollution and environmental disaster this waterway has been. For over a century it was a dump site with everything imaginable.
Years ago I took a boat ride on the then be-fouled canal, surely not a pleasant voyage.
In the last decade change is slowly coming to the creek. It may be far from perfect but the efforts of many groups should be recognized:
Check out the NEWTOWN CREEK ALLIANCE UNTAPPED CITIES CURBED NEW YORK NYC DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
Judith Berdy
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 WIKIPEDIA (C) UNTAPPED CITIES CURBED NEW YORK NEWTOWN CREEK ALLIANCE NYC DEPT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
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WEDNESDAY, JULY 29nd, 2020 OUR 117th ISSUE OF FROM THE ARCHIVES
TAKE A FLIGHT OF ART FROM NEWARK FROM LA GUARDIA
NEWARK AIRPORT ADMINISTRATION BUILDING
“THE MECHANICS OF FLYING”
ARSHILE GORKY
MURALS AT NEWARK MUSEUM – NEWARK NJ ADMINISTRATION BUILDING NEWARK AIRPORT
Although the modern style of these brightly colored murals made them were not rediscovered until 1973, when they were found beneath fourteen layers of wall paint at the Newark Airport Administration Building.” (www.philamuseum.org) The originals of the two surviving murals are no longer at the airport, but instead are housed at the Newark Museum.
“Aerial Map” “Aerial Map” Project type: Art, Murals New Deal Agencies: Federal Art Project (FAP), Works Progress Administration (WPA) Started: 1935 Completed: 1937 Artists: Arshile Gorky
Arshile] Gorky painted ten large-scale murals on the theme of aviation for the Newark Airport Administration Building. This mural cycle, known as Aviation: Evolution of Forms under Aerodynamic Limitations, was among the first modernist murals created and installed under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) Federal Art Project.
Although still engaged with the Cubist vocabulary of Picasso and Braque, the mechanized forms of these murals also reveal a debt to the work of Fernand Léger, especially his monumental 1919 painting The City, now in the Museum’s collection. Léger’s urban, machine-inspired imagery and vivid colors were particularly suited to express the spirit of aviation, and Gorky clearly studied The City intensely since his color reproduction of the painting is covered with his paint-smeared fingerprints.
Like most WPA murals, the panels were not made in situ, but rather painted in the studio on monumental canvases that were later installed on the walls at Newark Airport–a practice that was in keeping with Gorky’s belief that ‘mural painting should not become part of the wall, as the moment this occurs the wall is lost and the painting loses its identity.’ highly controversial at the time, these large-scale compositions signaled Gorky’s emergence as an abstract painter of great promise. Sadly, eight of the Newark Airport murals were later lost or destroyed, while the two remaining works, Aerial Map and Mechanics of Flying,
Gorky at work for one of the Newark Airport murals.
Study for mural for Administration Building, Newark Airport, New Jersey Arshile Gorky 1904-1948.
RESTORATION OF THE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING FROM UNTAPPED CITIES (C)
Control Tower
Is it possible to have an architecturally significant airport terminal, literally hidden in plain sight? It is, if it’s been picked up and moved a half mile, its original entrance tucked into an internal courtyard, and is forgotten by the public. Such is the understatedly epic story of Building 1, an Art Deco beauty built in 1935 as the original terminal building of what was then Newark Metropolitan Airport. Among its numerous claims to fame: Amelia Earhart, Wiley Post, and Charles Lindbergh all flew in and out of here, including on some record breaking flights. In fact, Newark Airport had the most active landing strip in the United States in the 1920s and ’30s, serving as the East Coast terminus of the Air Mail. Atop Building 1 is one of the first air traffic control centers in the country, and the whole building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Richard Southwick, Partner and Director of Historic Preservation at Beyer Blinder Belle, who led the adaptive reuse of Building 1 called it his “favorite project overall,” in a recent interview with us, while discussing his many high-profile restorations over the years including the TWA Hotel, Grand Central Terminal, The Frick Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Botanical Garden, and many more. He calls Building 1, “the first modern terminal anywhere in the nation.” Upon Southwick’s recommendation, we took a visit last week with the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.
Occupied by the U.S. Army During World War II, by the end the war, the concrete terminal was considered too small for operations. After years of being used by the United State Postal Service for airmail operation, the terminal fell into disuse. More than half a century later, threatened by the extension of a runway, the entire building was cut into thirds and moved half a mile down the airport taxiway in 1999. It was one of the largest ever building moves undertaken historically in the United States and the adaptive reuse effort saved the building from demolition. The building was seamed back together — you can still see where this was done on the exterior and interior — and expanded with a 70,000 square foot new addition that tripled the size of the building..
Today, it is home to the Port Authority Police Department, airport administration offices, an operations center, and rescue and firefighting departments. The sense of history is palpable throughout the building, going beyond the architecture itself, from historic exhibitions on the ground floor to a restored captain’s quarters on the second floor.
Two of ten original WPA murals by Arshile Gorky from the series “Aviation: Evolution of Forms under Aerodynamic Limitations,” were uncovered in the restoration process, and reproductions are on display on the second floor (the originals are in the Newark Museum). Originally planned for Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field, another historic flight facility in the New York City area, Gorky was reassigned by the Works Progress Administration to Newark Airport where he completed the paintings in 1937.
The former main entrance of the terminal looks plucked straight out of Miami Beach, featuring a semi-circular entrance canopy with Art Deco lettering. Aluminum grillwork showing seagulls in flight sits above the three-section entranceway. The revolving door is enclosed on the sides to further emphasize the verticality of the Art Deco design of the building. The entrance overhang extends beyond other smaller semi-circular elements — the revolving door, the air traffic control tower, the bowed windows on the second floor — throughout the central part of the facade. The first floor begins six steps above ground level, with semi-circular steps leading up to the entrance. Two wings come off of this central block, “bent back from the air-field elevation as if in flight,” according to the description in the nomination form for the building in the National Register for Historic Places.
The 80-foot long main concourse, now the entrance lobby to the building, originally provided access to interior corridors which led to waiting rooms. The walls and columns are faced with polished marble, and bird wings made of plaster come off the top of the columns. According to the National Register for Historic Places, “The design incorporated large areas of glass and contained an interior of fanciful, yet restrained decoration which relied heavily on geometric motifs which were interspersed with references to the theme of flight.” When the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places, much of the original lobby walls was covered in sheetrock and the original lighting fixtures and grillwork were missing, but the terrazzo floor and ceilings were still in place.
The lobby of Building 1 is open to the public, though this is a generally little known fact. Southwick concludes about this very unique adaptive reuse project: “There was a little bit of everything: new construction, old construction, interpretation, historic exhibits, moving the building which is one of the tools in our preservation toolbox. [It was] the biggest move of its type in the history of the country. And it’s open to the public!” Here is a look at the historic exhibitions you can see:
Reproduction of Gorky mural “Flight” on display now.
MARINE AIR TERMINAL
LA GUARDIA AIRPORT
SEAPLANE DOCKED BY THE PIER AT THE TERMINAL FAMOUS PAN AM CLIPPERS DEPARTED FROM THIS TERMINAL
“FLIGHT” MURAL BY JAMES BROOKS 1941-1942
Fiorello LaGuardia bust in restored entry of Terminal EXCERPT FROM THE GUGGENHEIM ON-LINE RESOURCES:
JAMES BROOKS
D. 1992, NEW YORK CITY B. 1906, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI;
James Brooks was born on October 18, 1906, in Saint Louis, Missouri, and moved with his family to Dallas in 1916. He studied art at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, and, after moving to New York in 1926, took night classes at the Art Students League. Like many other Abstract Expressionists, Brooks painted murals for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project in the late 1930s and early 1940s. His best-known project was a mural titled Flight (1940–42) at the International Marine Terminal building at LaGuardia Airport. This vibrant, monumental work—the largest of the WPA murals—measures 12 feet high and 237 feet long and depicts the history of flying, from early mythology to the latest innovations, in a clean,social Realist style. From 1942 to 1945.
Brooks served as a combat artist with the U.S. Army in the Middle East and returned to New York in 1946, at the height of what would later be termed the Abstract Expressionist movement. An inveterate risk taker, he soon abandoned figuration for abstraction. He reconnected with Jackson Pollock, a friend from the WPA days. Brooks not only took over their Eighth Street studio when Pollock and his wife, artist Lee Krasner, moved to Long Island, but also credited Pollock with encouraging him to try a more gestural style. During the late 1940s, Brooks’s aesthetic evolved from a loose derivation of Cubism to a moodier, more atmospheric style. In the summer of 1947, Brooks had a breakthrough. He was painting on paper, and glued the paper onto heavy cloth for archival purposes. He noticed that the paste he used to attach the paper to the cloth bled through to the side he was painting on. From then on he would start by working on the cloth and then switch to the front of the painting, combining accidents with deliberate choices in an approach that he used for several years. In the 1960s, Brooks shifted styles again, building compositions out of larger, bolder, and simpler forms. Brooks had his first solo show at the Peridot Gallery, New York (1949), and continued to show regularly in New York galleries over the next 30 years.
In 1963, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, mounted a retrospective that traveled to the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; Baltimore Museum of Art; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Washington Gallery of Modern Art, Washington, D.C.; and University of California Art Galleries, Los Angeles. In 1975, Martha Jackson Gallery and Finch College Museum of Art, New York, jointly organized a retrospective that traveled to Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, New York; Flint Institute of Arts, Grand Rapids Art Museum, and Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, all Michigan; and University of Connecticut, Storrs. Another retrospective was shown at the Portland Museum of Art, Maine (1983). Among major group exhibitions, his work was featured in the Whitney Annual (later the Whitney Biennial), New York (1950, 1951, 1953–55, 1957–59, 1963, 1967); 12 Americans at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1956); and Documenta, Kassel, West Germany (1959). He received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1969). Brooks died on March 9, 1992, in East Hampton.
TRAM Station attendant booth at Manhattan JAY JACOBSON AND NINA LUBLIN GUESSED RIGHT
EDITORIAL Two airports, both from the 1930’s and cherishing a small piece of history at each one. Hopefully, the Newark facility will again be open to the public at some time. Thanks to our friends at UNTAPPED CITIES for the wonderful piece on Newark Airport Administration Building.
At this time I may just book a trip to Buffalo to see the Marine Air Terminal (It is in NY and I won’t have to quarantine and Jet Blue flies there!)
JUDITH BERDY
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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 Deborah Dorff
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William Henry Johnson Born Florence, South Carolina Died Central Islip, New York 1901-died Central Islip, NY 1970 excerpt from: https://americanart.si.edu/artist/william-h-johnson-2486
By almost any standard, William H. Johnson (1901–1970) can be considered a major American artist. He produced hundreds of works in a virtuosic, eclectic career that spanned several decades as well as several continents. It was not until very recently, however, that his work began to receive the attention it deserves.
Born in South Carolina to a poor African-American family, Johnson moved to New York at age seventeen. Working a variety of jobs, he saved enough money to pay for an art education at the prestigious National Academy of Design. His mastery of the academy’s rigorous standards gained him both numerous awards and the respect of his teachers and fellow students.
Johnson spent the late 1920s in France, absorbing the lessons of modernism. As a result, his work became more expressive and emotional. During this same period, he met and fell in love with Danish artist Holcha Krake, whom he married in 1930. The couple spent most of the ’30s in Scandinavia, where Johnson’s interest in primitivism and folk art began to have a noticeable impact on his work.
Returning with Holcha to the U.S. in 1938, Johnson immersed himself in the traditions of Afro-America, producing work characterized by its stunning, eloquent, folk art simplicity. A Greenwich Village resident, he became a familiar, if somewhat aloof, figure on the New York art scene. He was also a well-established part of the African-American artistic community at a time when most black artists were still riding the crest of the Harlem Renaissance.
Although Johnson enjoyed a certain degree of success as an artist in this country and abroad, financial security remained elusive. Following his wife’s death in 1944, Johnson’s physical and mental health declined dramatically. In a tragic and drawn-out conclusion to a life of immense creativity, Johnson spent his last twenty-three years in a state hospital on Long Island. By the time of his death in 1970, he had slipped into obscurity. After his death, his entire life’s work was almost disposed of to save storage fees, but it was rescued.
GOING TO CHURCH 1939-1940
DR. GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER 1945 OIL ON CARDBOARD
VIELLE A MAISON AT PORTE 1927 OIL ON BURLAP
One of the most brilliant yet tragic careers of an early twentieth-century African-American artist was that of William H. Johnson. Originally from the Deep South, Johnson became a world traveler who absorbed the customs and cultures of New York, Europe, and North Africa. He completed hundreds of oils, watercolors, gouaches, pen-and-ink sketches, block prints, silk screens, and ceramics. Johnson’s career also spanned a gamut of styles from the academic, through Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, and German Expressionism, to, finally, a “conscious naiveté”.
Johnson was born on March 18, 1901,in Florence, South Carolina. The eldest of five children, he dropped out of school at an early age to help support his family. As a child he frequently copied cartoons from local newspapers, an activity that developed his ability to tell a story in witty pictures. Johnson left Florence around 1918 and moved to New York where he enrolled in the National Academy of Design and worked notably with the painter Charles Hawthorne. In 1926 Hawthorne raised funds to send Johnson abroad to study.
During the winter of 1926 Johnson traveled to France where he studied and painted in Paris, Moret-sur-Loing, and Cagnes-sur-Mer. From 1927 to 1929 he also visited Corsica, Nice, Belgium, and Denmark. Johnson’s earliest works in Paris and Corsica were impressionistic landscapes and cityscapes. He quickly developed a short-hand technique that included only the essentials of design. In late 1929 Johnson returned to New York with a number of his French-Corsican paintings. He exhibited some of these works in the Harmon Foundation show of 1930 and received the coveted gold medal.
Following this success, Johnson returned to Europe and married a Danish textile artist, Holcha Krake, whom he had met in southern France. The newlywed Johnsons traveled across France and Belgium to Denmark where they settled in the small fishing village of Kerteminde, near his wife’s home. The people of Kerteminde welcomed Johnson warmly and were fascinated by his paintings of gardens, old houses, and scenes of marine life.
HONEYMOONERS 1941-1944
BOYS SUNDAY TRIP 1939-1942 TEMPERA ON PAPER
LUNCHTIME REST 1940-1941
In 1933 the Johnsons spent several months in North Africa where they delighted in the colorful Arabian bazaars and mosques, painted numerous portraits of the residents, worked in ceramics, and were taught age-old secrets of glazing and firing. The couple then traveled across Norway by bicycle. Johnson’s paintings of that period capture the fresh atmosphere of spring with blossoming trees, the clear water of the deep fjords, and the blues of distant snow-capped mountains. Sailing next from Aalesund, Sweden, north to Tromsö, the two artists continued to paint and immerse themselves in the beauties of nature. They lived in Svolvær in the Lofoten Islands where Johnson painted and Holcha painted and wove her copy of the Baldishol Tapestry.
The threat of World War II prompted Johnson to return to the United States in 1938. In a pronounced and unexpected transition in his style, Johnson became interested in religious paintings and his subjects were almost exclusively African American. Using a palette of only four or five colors and painting frequently on burlap or plywood, Johnson developed a flat, consciously naïve style. During the early 1940s, war activities, the Red Cross, and other related events interested Johnson and provided grist for his widely exhibited narrative paintings.
In January 1944 Johnson’s wife Holcha died of cancer, an event that nearly shattered both his life and career. In June 1944 Johnson traveled to Florence, South Carolina, to visit his mother for the first time in fourteen years. There he painted a number of portraits of family and friends, as well as a series of paintings portraying seated women staring directly at the observer.
In 1945 Johnson began his final paintings; social, historical, and political panels including a series of narrative themes built around single subjects such as Booker T. Washington and John Brown. These paintings were exhibited only once in the United States. Late in 1946, still despondent over his wife’s death, Johnson packed all of his art and returned to Denmark where he hoped to find peace among his wife’s family in the country that he had grown to love. He exhibited his historical and political paintings in Copenhagen in March 1947, which was the last exhibition of his works held during his lifetime. There is quite a bit of Matisse’s worship of unrestricted colors in his pictures,” wrote a Danish critic of Johnson’s last show, “But where Matisse is an aesthetician, Johnson goes further and shows us the working people of the southern states, the Negroes and their leaders, and their entirely strangely colorful world.…”
Johnson, whose peculiar behavior had been noticed by close friends, became mentally ill shortly after his last show in Denmark. He was cared for temporarily in Denmark and later sent back to New York where he was hospitalized. On April 13, 1970, Johnson died at Central Islip State Hospital on Long Island, where he had spent the last twenty-three years of his life in obscurity, unable to produce any art. Today Johnson is considered one of the most important African-American artists of his generation.
Regenia A. Perry Free within Ourselves: African-American Artists in the Collection of the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art)
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY BLOOMBERG CENTER CORNELL TECH WINNER IS JOAN BROOKS
WINNER IS JOAN BROOKS
EDITORIAL
Watching the services for Congressman John Lewis reminded my of our trip to Selma.
in 2011 Robin Lynn and I visited Selma, Alabama. In the 1950’s my uncle was the rabbi of the reform Jewish congregation in Selma. I knew his widow who would visit us. When she passed away her son sent us her & her husband’s marriage license and his rabbinical ordination. That lead to curiosity’s and I spotted an article about southern Judaism and the Harmony Club, the Jewish social club being restored in Selma. With a sense of exploration, Robin and I set off for an interesting visit thru Judaism, the south, Selma, civil rights and America. One day I will continue the story.
BROWN CHAPEL KAYSER DEPT. STORE CONGREGATION MISHKAN ISRAEL EDMUND PETTIS BRIDGE ROBIN AT BRIDGE JUDY AT LIVE OAK CEMETERY
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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 Robert Johnson art courtesy Smithsonian Museum of American Art
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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LET’S TAKE THE FERRY FROM LONG ISLAND CITY TO MANHATTAN IN 1910
(AND STOP FOR SOME SHOPPING AND BAR BRAWLS WHILE WAITING FOR THE FERRY)
Wandering Thru Long Island City……………….
After walking past all the dining spots I was at the end of Vernon Blvd. I saw the LONG ISLAND CITY Long Island Railroad Station. Is it still used? It seemed to be a mid-day parking lot for trains.
It was time to contact LIRR historian Andrew Sparberg:
Long Island City Station is still in use. Current timetables are shown below. 4 AM peak trains arrive, and 4 PM peak trains depart. No trains in or out during midday, evenings, or weekends. Tracks are used for train storage between the rush hours. Trains shown on the timetables that end or begin at Hunterspoint Ave. without a LI City time shown are stored in the yard between rush hours, so this location is still active and important.
A LITTLE MORE HISTORY
This station was built on June 26, 1854, and rebuilt seven times during the 19th Century. On December 18, 1902, both the two-story station building and office building owned by the LIRR burned down.
The rebuilt, and fire-proof, station opened on April 26, 1903. Electric service to the station began on June 16, 1910. Before the East River Tunnels were built, this station served as the terminus for Manhattan-bound passengers from Long Island, who took ferries to the East Side of Manhattan, specifically to the East 34th Street Ferry Landing in Murray Hill, and the James Slip Ferry Port in what is today part of the Two Bridges section of Lower Manhattan.
The passenger ferry service was abandoned on March 3, 1925. A track spur split from the Montauk Branch east of the Long Island City station, running along the south border of the station before curving north to the North Shore Freight Branch running between 48th and 49th Avenues, where there were connections to car floats at what is today the Gantry Plaza State Park.
These car floats carried freight trains to and from Manhattan and New Jersey until the mid-20th century. Today, ferry service is operated by NYC Ferry. The station house was torn down again in 1939 for construction of the Queens–Midtown Tunnel, but continued to operate as an active station throughout the tunnel’s construction and opening. (Wikipedia)
Page from “300 Years of Long Island City History 1630-1930” Vincent Seyfried
This 1904 map was put out by Wanamaker’s Department Store. I will feature enlargements of the island and ferry routes in a future issue.
” I found this essay in typescript in my parents’ basement several years ago. Thinking it an interesting personal account of the western Queens section known as Long Island City I scanned and posted it on the Internet, soliciting information about its author R. Leslie Smith. I don’t know if the December 1959 date on the typescript is the date Smith wrote the essay or simply the date someone retyped it. That he refers to Woolsey, Remsen and other street names that were changed during the late 1920s, could date it to that era. In 2001, I received a e-mail from a Queens researcher who informed me that Smith was a prominent lawyer in Woodside in the early part of the century. There is a little information about him in Catherine Gregory’s book “Woodside A Historical Perspective,” “Woodside on the move.” Smith’s widow (Jennie Olivia JONES) sold their family home after his death in 1960, and it was my e-mail correspondent who purchased the house from her. A few biographical highlights, based on Smith’s 1918 draft registration and items in the New York Times, most importantly his obituary (Aug. 29, 1960. p. 25): His full name was Robert Leslie Smith, born Oct 7, 1880. This would date the earliest memories in this piece to the 1890s. He graduated from Columbia Law School in 1901 and while in private law practice, served as a civic and business leader in Woodside throughout his life. He was the founder and president of Woodside National Bank and chairman of the Woodside Community Baptist Church. Smith has included some street name changes in parenthesis. I’ve made similar annotations, but in square brackets to differentiate my own from the original. I’ve also added scans of a few related postcards. Otherwise, the essay is as I found it. -‘
LOOKING AT OLD LONG ISLAND CITY ACROSS THE LINE By R. Leslie Smith
Traveling down Jackson Avenue and continuing on Borden Avenue to the 34th Street [Manhattan] ferry , there were several buildings of some historical interest. Right opposite the ferry was the Queens County Bank, the only bank at that time between Flushing and the East River. This bank used to open at eight o’clock in the morning in order to enable depositors coming in on trains to the Long Island Depot to make bank deposits and then catch the ferryboat for New York.
There were two lines of ferryboats running from the ferry slip at the foot of Borden Avenue, one to 34th Street, New York, and the other called the Long Ferry to James Slip, which was located to the north of Fulton Street, New York. Many people taking this ferry would walk over to the Wall Street district, which was pleasant until you had to pass the Fulton Fish Market and inhale the various fish odors emanating therefrom.
There was another steamboat line which ran a double-deck passenger boat from the Borden Avenue slip to the foot of Wall Street. This was called the “Bankers Line” and the fare was considerably more than on the ferries.
At the 34th Street ferry slip the Long Island Railroad built a shed and which Patrick J. Gleason, several times Mayor of Long Island City and the last Mayor before consolidation, claimed that several posts supporting the shed encroached on street property. He personally went on the promises with an axe and chopped down the posts. From then on he was called “Battle Axe Gleason”, a name he became so proud of that he used to wear a diamond stickpin in the shape of a battle axe.
Prior to the building of the elevated railroad structures on Second and Third Avenues [formerly Debevoise and Lathrop Aves., now 31st and 32nd Streets], there were two steamboats on the East River running from lower New York to Harlem, one known as the “Sylvan Dell” and the other the “Sylvan Stream”. The large bell on one of these boats was later acquired by the Woodside Hook & Ladder Company and, on its dissolution, became the property of St. Sebastian’s Catholic Church.
The steamboats used to stop at the foot of Broadway, Long Island City and residents living up as far as Steinway Avenue would walk to the East River and board the boats for downtown New York, Coming back to the foot of Borden Avenue, at the intersection of Front Street [now 2nd Street], was located Miller’s Hotel, which was a rendezvous for Queens politicians. The Queens County Republican Committee used to meet there and after the burning of the Queens County Court House the Queens County Bar Association held meetings there for a time.
History has it that one of the Presidents of the United States used to stop there on his way for a weekend visit to one of his cabinet secretaries who lived out on the island. Many businessmen bound for Long Island trains would stop at the hotel for liquid refreshment. Borden Avenue, from the ferry up to Jackson Avenue, was the early business section of Hunterspoint. Some of the early lawyers had offices there, including Alvin T. Payne, father of Alvin T. Payne, Jr., and Benjamin Payne.
The shopping center of Hunterspoint- in the early days was on Vernon Avenue, between Borden Avenue and 3d Street [now 51st Ave.], where starting northward from the corner was Schwalenberg’s Hotel, Brodie’s Hardware & Plumbing Supply Store, with Fox’s Photographic Gallery upstairs, then Schweikart’s Mens Furnishing Store and New’s Grocery Store on the next corner, Coming up Jackson Avenue, George W. Clay, real estate broker, built the first office building with an elevator; and north of the corner of Borden Avenue on the-other side of Jackson Avenue was Dillon’s Department Store, which later became the Borough Hall and Tax Office.
VERNON AVENUE
LONG ISLAND RAILROAD TERMINAL DISEMBARK FOR FERRY TO MANHATTAN
GANTRY FOR FREIGHT CARS LOADING
BANANA CARRIER 1940 COLOR WOODCUT ON PAPER
PATRICK J. GLEASON
ANOTHER COLORFUL CHARACTER IN HISTORY
Political life Gleason held “truly remarkable sway over Long Island City’s affairs” for years when his power was in its prime “by his keen personal hold on the majority of the people he ruled. By nature and by political preference he was a Democrat, but he was voted for simply as ‘Paddy,’ he was obeyed as ‘Paddy,’ and the people whom he had once autocratically governed, and a respectable portion of whom had been hostile to him, remembered him as ‘Paddy’ to the day of his death.”[
The growth of industry in Long Island City in the 1890s was accompanied by a growth of graft, and Gleason acted in Long Island City as Boss Tweed had decades earlier in Manhattan. As mayor, he owned trolley lines under city contract, leased personal property to the school district, and he formed the “Citizens Water Supply Co.” and attempted to sell water to Long Island City from his wells.
When the railroad installed a fence to block traffic on the ferry, he personally chopped it down, earning the nickname “Battle-Axe.” Gleason’s personality was legendary. Gleason’s volatile temper got him arrested, and his relationship with the board of aldermen was tempestuous.
The newspapers, which loathed him, refused to publish his photograph. When The New York Times printed an article detailing how Gleason had used to office of mayor to enrich himself, Gleason bought almost every newspaper printed to reduce the impact. In 1890, Gleason drunkenly approached Associated Press reporter George B. Crowley in a hotel lobby and repeatedly insulted him, calling him a loafer and a thief Crowley ignored Gleason at first and then replied that Crowley was not as much a loaf as Gleason. With that, Gleason punched Crowley in the face and kicked him repeatedly in the face.
Bystanders took the bloodied Crowley into the hotel’s restaurant. Crowley returned to the lobby to look for his eyeglasses, which had fallen off during the assault. Gleason grabbed him and threw him against a cigar stand, breaking the glass. Because Gleason was the mayor, police declined to arrest Gleason without a warrant from a judge. Gleason was eventually arrested and indicted for assault in the third degree.
Gleason was convicted and sentenced to five days imprisonment in the county jail, with a fine of $250. The following year, Gleason dislocated the shoulder of a man at a meeting of the Board of Health. Gleason was arrested and charged with assault in the second degree.
PS1, which was built during Gleason’s tenure. The school later called P.S. 1, the largest high school on Long Island when built, was Gleason’s legacy to the community’s children. When Gleason died bankrupt and discredited a few years out of office, hundreds lined the route to his interment in Calvary Cemetery. Gleasonville, a former neighborhood in Woodside, Queens, north of Northern Boulevard, was named after him.
FOOD-ETORIAL
This afternoon it was time to leave the island, I was off by ferry to Long Island City. Vernon Blvd. which used to have 3 or 4 dining spots is now full of tempting choices for out-of-door dining. In contrast to our scene ( or lack there of) many of the establishments have gone thru great expense and effort to have attractive dining spots. BLEND had contractors still completing a wood paneled area. On that block and the next few I noticed Bareburger with about 20 tables, Cafe Henri, Woodbines, LIC Slice, Centro Pizza, and the long standing Tournesol, all ready to welcome customers. I am not a restaurant critic but will be heading east to dine since we can only eat on Roosevelt Island.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All materials in this publication are copyrighted (c)
IMAGES FROM “OLD QUEENS, N.Y. IN EARLY PHOTOGRAPHS
300 YEARS OF LONG ISLAND CITY HISTORY 1630-1930 VINCENT SEYFRIED AND WILLIAM ASADORIAN (C)
THIS IS THE 114th ISSUE OF FROM THE ARCHIVES JULY 25-26, 2020 WEEKEND EDITION
THE GOLDWATER
MURALISTS’
OTHER WORKS
ILYA BOLOTOWSKY
Th Bolotowsky mural while it was at Goldwater before removal and restoration.
In the Barber Shop, 1934 Ilya Bolotowsky
Oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.79 Brilliant reds, blues, and greens illuminate this ordinary New York barbershop.
Ilya Bolotowsky, who made this painting for the Public Works of Art Project, a pilot program of government support for artists, expressed the challenge “to show a typical average drab barbershop and at the same time get a decorative effect through color.” Ordinary details come to life with vivid hues: the barber using a straight razor to shave the man in the chair, the red cash register ready to ring up the bill, the spittoon sitting on the floor, and rows of bottles reflected repeatedly in “the endless corridor of two oppositely situated mirrors.”
A Russian immigrant himself, Bolotowsky enticed fellow immigrants to pose for him, including all four people pictured here, carefully selected by the artist. For him, people from around the world gathered in a New York barbershop embodied the American scene.
Ilya Bolotowsky, Cane Press, Untitled, from the portfolio American Abstract Artists, 1937, offset lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost, 1986.92.114.4Ilya Bolotowsky, Cane Press.
Ilya Bolotowsky, Architectural Variation, 1949, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost, 1986.92.4
Williamsburg Murals
The exceptional murals installed in this area, executed by the pioneer American abstractionists Ilya Bolotowsky, Balcomb Greene, Paul Kelpe, and Albert Swinden, were commissioned by the Works Progress Administration/Federal Art Project in 1936 for Brooklyn’s Williamsburg Houses, one of the earliest and best public housing projects in New York City. Designed by pioneering modernist architect William Lescaze, the four-story houses included basement community rooms decorated with murals in “abstract and stimulating patterns” designed to aid relaxation.
Burgoyne Diller, the New York head of the Mural Division, recruited younger, innovative artists for the project, reiterating Lescaze’s viewpoint that standard realist subject matter, which celebrated productivity, would not be a source of relaxation for waterfront and factory workers. While the prevailing subject matter in American art—and especially WPA-funded works—centered on narrative scenes of American life, these murals were virtually unique, in that they were the first non-objective public murals in the United States, containing no recognizable figures, symbols, or objects.
Fortunately, though the murals suffered from neglect over the years, they were rediscovered in the late 1980s under layers of paint. After a painstaking restoration, they were returned to public view at the Brooklyn Museum, on long-term loan from the New York City Housing Authority.
Ilya Bolotowsky, Main Entrance Lobby Mural, 1975, synthetic polymer: acrylic on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, Art-in-Architecture Program, 1977.47.40.
The Swinden mural at its new home in Tata Innovation Center at Cornell Tech.
ALBERT SWINDEN
Albert Swinden, Untitled, from the portfolio American Abstract Artists, 1937, offset lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost, 1986.92.114.28
Albert Swinden, Untitled (Abstraction), 1945, gouache on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Alice Swinden Carter, 1988.90.1
Albert Swinden, Untitled, from the portfolio American Abstract Artists, 1937, offset lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost, 1986.92.114.28
JOSEPH RUGOLO
FISHERMAN’S BAY The Rugolo mural after restoration. It will be installed at Cornell Tech at a future date.
Joseph Rugolo, Mural of Sports ca. 1937-1938, oil on linen, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Newark Museum, 1966.31.16
Rugolo with above mural.
DANE CHANASE
Dane Chanase at work at Goldwater. The mural featuring musical instruments was never located and was lost.
He was born in Palermo, Italy. He exhibited at the Salon d’Automne. He served in World War I. He married artist Sheva Ausubel (1896–1957). He was a member of the Federal Art Project. He created a mural for the School of Industrial Art, Brooklyn. His work is held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. His papers are held at the Archives of American Art.
SUPPORT THE R.I.H.S. WE ARE OPEN EVERY SATURDAY AND SUNDAY DO YOUR GIFT SHOPPING WITH US!!
FRIDAY IMAGE OF THE DAY PLINTH WHERE LAMP-POST WAS SITUATED AT CORNER OF SECOND AVENUE AND 60 ST. JAY JACOBSON AND ALEXIS VILLEFANE WINNERS
EDITORIAL
I have not written about our friends at Coler for a few weeks. The good news is that the nursing home is free of Covid-19 cases. All residents and staff are tested every week. The special hospital unit that treated Covid-19 patients is officially closing at the end of the month. It will be ready to re-open if there is a need.
Many organizations have supported the staff and residents. The other day when I was at Coler six giant gift baskets were sent for the staff and residents from a consulate of a foreign nation. The staff and residents have benefited from many corporations and organizations that have realized that our long term care facilities need ongoing support.
As head of the Coler Auxiliary, we are re-evaluating our work this year since much funding cannot be used for original purposes and will be spent of activities and needs that are in-line with the continued limitations.
I wish I could say that there are visitors at Coler. Visitors are not permitted at any nursing home. Coler is in the same situation as every nursing home in New York City. If there are no Covid positive tests in 28 consecutive days visiting can resume on very tight regulations. Coler is no different from the fanciest private home. The three pages of rules apply to all. To see the rules see: https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2020/07/health-advisory_nursing-home-visitation_final-7.pdf
Some of our neighbors continue to antagonize the administration of Coler. It is time to support Coler and stop rubbing salt in old wounds. We must go beyond what happened to every nursing home in New York and make Coler a better home for all New Yorkers who need the care and dedication of the staff.
Judith Berdy
Funding Provided by: Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation Public Purpose Funds Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD 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 PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS PHOTOS CREDITS: SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART (C) BROOKLYN MUSEUM (C) NYC HEALTH AND HOSPITALS (C)
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
THE SUNFLOWER STAIRS AT THE FDR FOUR FREEDOMS PARK
LESCAZE AT THE WILLIAMSBURG HOUSES
The Williamsburg Houses
were built in 1936–1938 under the auspices of the Housing Division of the Public Works Administration (PWA). The project was originally segregated, only allowing white residents. It was one of the first and most costly (in 1937 dollars) of New York City housing projects. New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia poured the first shovel of concrete for the project and was a strong supporter of the project despite its cost ($12.5 million in 1936).
The site is the former home of Williamsburg Continuation School and the Finco Dye and Print Works Inc. Leonard and Scholes Streets in 2012.
The chief architect of the project was Richmond Shreve, and the design team of nine other architects was led by the Swiss-American modernist William Lescaze, whose Philadelphia Saving Fund Society building of 1928-32 was one of the first major International Style buildings in the United States. The construction contract was awarded to Starrett Brothers & Eken, which had worked closely with Shreve on the Empire State Building and later built the housing developments Parkchester, Stuyvesant Town, and Peter Cooper Village.
The housing project was conveyed by the federal government to the NYCHA in 1957. A $70-million-dollar renovation was done in 1999 by the NYCHA’s architect David J. Burney. Design Standing between Maujer and Scholes Streets, and Leonard Street and Bushwick Avenue, its 20 four-story residential buildings occupy twelve city blocks.
The buildings of the Williamsburg Houses are positioned to allow a sequence of courtyards, playgrounds, and ball courts between them; a school and community building are part of the site plan, and two curving pedestrian pathways cut through the grounds. all in three shapes; a capital “H”, lowercase “h,” and a “T” shape. The “T” shaped buildings are in the middle of the complex with both “H” shaped buildings surrounding them. The houses are oriented towards the sun at a 15-degree angle.
1940’S IMAGE OF HOUSES
William Lescaze was born in Onex, Switzerland. He studied at the Collège Calvin and at the École des Beaux-Arts, before completing his formal education at the École polytechnique fédérale de Zurich in Zurich where Karl Moser was a teacher, receiving his degree in 1919. He contributed to the post-war reconstruction effort of Arras, and then immigrated to the US in 1920.
He worked for some time at the architectural firm of Hubbell & Benes in Cleveland, Ohio, and taught French during night classes at the YMCA . In 1923, he was offered a modeling job and moved to New York City where he set up his business. His first major work was the design of the Oak Lane Country Day School outside Philadelphia. In 1929, Philadelphia architect George Howe invited William Lescaze to form a partnership, Howe & Lescaze. Within just a few weeks after joining forces, the duo began work on a large project for downtown Philadelphia.
The resulting structure, completed in 1932, was the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society (PSFS) Building, which is today generally considered the first International Modernist skyscraper, and the first International Style building of wide significance in the United States. It was also the first building with full air conditioning. Lescaze is generally given credit for the design: letters from Howe to Lescaze quote the former insisting to the latter that “the design is definitely yours.” The structure replaced the bank’s former headquarters in Philadelphia, a classicist structure near Washington Square built in 1897. In 1930, Howe & Lescaze submitted a design for the new building of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.[3] The wood and metal model was donated to the MOMA in 1994.
In 1935, William Lescaze established his own architecture firm, Lescaze & associates. His 1937 Alfred Loomis house in Tuxedo Park, NY is regarded as an early experiment in double-skin facade construction.[4] In 1939 he designed a futuristic “House for 2089” which included a helipad on the roof. Lescaze was also the design lead for the 1937 Williamsburg Houses in Brooklyn, a pioneering 20-building modernist housing project modeled on European examples. He later taught industrial design at the Pratt Institute (1943–1945).
Among his built works were the CBS West Coast studios Columbia Square on Sunset Boulevard (1938). William Lescaze also designed the office building at 711 Third Street, the city and municipal courts building in the Civic Center in Manhattan, and the High School of Art and Design. From 1949 to 1959, he served at the State Building Code Commission William Lescaze died on 9 February 1969 of a heart attack at his New York home. He was a proponent of modern architecture, stating it was the only architecture that could solve the housing problem.
WPA MURALS AT WILLIAMSBURG HOUSES
A SERIES OF ABSTRACT MURALS WERE INSTALLED IN THE BUILDINGS. SOME WERE DISCOVERED IN THE 1980’S AN ARE NOW ON EXHIBIT AT THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM. ONE WAS DONE BY ARTIST ILYA BOLOTOWSKY.
IN A COINCIDENCE LESCAZE WAS THE ARCHITECT OF THE GOLDWATER ACTIVITIES BUILDING WHICH WAS A FEW FEET AWAY FROM THE LOCATION OF THE BOLOTOWSKY MURAL
LESCAZE, ARCHITECT OF ACTIVITIES BUILDING AT GOLDWATER
THE ACTIVITIES BUILDING HELD 3 CHAPELS, AUDITORIUM AND CRAFTS ROOMS FOR THE GOLDWATER RESIDENTS.
A WONDERFUL OUT-OF-DOOR TERRACE UNITED THE OLD AND NEW BUILDINGS AT GOLDWATER
THE PROTESTANT CHAPEL SOUTH FACING STAINED GLASS WINDOWS BROUGHT A SPECIAL GLOW TO THE CHAPEL.
THE MOSAIC ARTIST WAS NEVER FOUND. THE MOSAIC IS NOW AT COLER.
DATE OF SUPPORT COLUMN OF THE QUEENSBORO BRIDGE CORRECT ANSWER ALEXIS VILLAFANE
A LETTER FROM JAY JACOBSON
Thanks, JB, for finding a photo of my fantasy sailboat.
We were never (!) so elegant. In the late 1990s, I was sailing in Maine with a group of friends. We knew that the New York Yacht Club, a venerable and distinguished institution was holding its annual cruise in the same area in which we were sailing.
The NYYC often had crew to help sail their elegant yachts and, being the NYYC, the crew were often outfitted in “uniforms” which had the name of the yacht on which they were employed embroidered on their J. Crew (really!) shirts.
Among other jobs, the crew on the elegant yachts were tasked with shopping for their vessels when the NYYC was at one of their overnight anchorages. While our boat didn’t have anyone as crew other than ourselves, I did think that we should have crew shirts to wear when we rowed our little dinghy ashore to do our marketing.
So, late on the second afternoon of our voyage, when we realized that we were going to be in the same harbor as the NYYC fleet and would doubtless meet some of them shopping ashore, I handed out our bright orange tee shirts with contrast green lettering. Most other crew shirts bore the name of the yacht on which the crew worked. Ours said: Department of Sanitation, City of New York.
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
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Stuart Davis Stuart Davis seated in front of Summer Landscape, Peter A. Juley & Son Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum J0001440
Art + Artists Impression of the New York World’s Fair (mural study, Communications Building, World’s Fair, Flushing, New York)
Stuart Davis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Davis, 1940 Born December 7, 1892 Philadelphia Died June 24, 1964 (aged 71) Nationality American Known for Painting, Modernism Movement American modernism Stuart Davis was an early American modernist painter. He was well known for his jazz-influenced, proto-pop art paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, bold, brash, and colorful, as well as his Ashcan School pictures in the early years of the 20th century. With the belief that his work could influence the sociopolitical environment of America,
Davis’ political message was apparent in all of his pieces from the most abstract to the clearest. Contrary to most modernist artists, Davis was aware of his political objectives and allegiances and did not waver in loyalty via artwork during the course of his career. By the 1930s, Davis was already a famous American painter, but that did not save him from feeling the negative effects of the Great Depression, which led to his being one of the first artists to apply for the Federal Art Project. Under the project, Davis created some seemingly Marxist works; however, he was too independent to fully support Marxist ideals and philosophies. Despite several works that appear to reflect the class struggle, Davis’ roots in American optimism is apparent throughout his lifetime.
Life and career
Stuart Davis was born on December 7, 1892, in Philadelphia to Edward Wyatt Davis, art editor of The Philadelphia Press, and Helen Stuart Davis, sculptor.
Starting in 1909, Davis began his formal art training under Robert Henri, the leader of the Ashcan School, at the Robert Henri School of Art in New York under 1912.During this time, Davis befriended painters John Sloan, Glenn Coleman and Henry Glintenkamp. In 1913, Davis was one of the youngest painters to exhibit in the Armory Show, where he displayed five watercolor paintings in the Ashcan school style.[ In the show, Davis was exposed to the works of a number of artists including Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso.
Davis became a committed “modern” artist and a major exponent of cubism and modernism in America. He spent summers painting in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and made painting trips to Havana in 1918 and New Mexico in 1923. After spending several years emulating artists in the Armory Show, Davis started moving toward a signature style with his 1919 Self-Portrait, in the collection of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art
.In the 1920s he began his development into his mature style; painting abstract still lifes and landscapes. His use of contemporary subject matter such as cigarette packages and spark plug advertisements suggests a proto-pop art element to his work. Among Davis’ practices was his use of previous paintings. Elements of harbor scenes he painted in Gloucester, Massachusetts can be found in a number of subsequent works. Another practice was painting series, works with similar structures, but with altered colors or added geometric embellishments, essentially creating variations on a theme.
Some commentators suggest that this aspect of his work parallels his love of jazz in which a basic chord structure is improvised upon by the musicians. In 1928, he visited Paris, France for a year, where he painted street scenes. In 1929, while in Paris, he married his American girlfriend, Bessie Chosak. In the 1930s, he became increasingly politically engaged; according to Cécile Whiting, Davis’ goal was to “reconcile abstract art with Marxism and modern industrial society”.
In 1934 he joined the Artists’ Union; he was later elected its President.In 1936 the American Artists’ Congress elected him National Secretary. He painted murals for Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration that are influenced by his love of jazz. US postage stamp of 1964 featuring ‘Detail Study for Cliche’ by Stuart Davis In 1932 Davis was devastated by the loss of his wife, Bessie Chosak Davis who died after complications from a botched abortion.[
Also in 1932 Davis executed a mural commission for Radio City Music Hall which the Rockefeller Center Art Committee named “Men Without Women” (after Ernest Hemingway’s second collection of short stories completed the same year). According to Hilton Kramer in a 1975 piece on the work in the New York Times the artist was happy neither with the location in which the mural was placed or the title it was given[In 1938 Davis married Roselle Springer and spent his late life teaching at the New York School for Social Research and at Yale University In 1947–52, two works by Stuart Davis, For internal use only (1945) and Composition (1863) (c. 1930) were featured in the Painting toward architecture crossover art and design exhibition, in 28 venues He was represented by Edith Gregor Halpert at the Downtown Gallery in New York City. One of his last paintings, Blips and Ifs, created between 1963 and 1964, is in the collection of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. The US Post Office in 1964 issued a stamp featuring ‘Detail Study for Cliche’ by Davis. Davis died of a stroke in New York on June 24, 1964, aged 71.
Stuart Davis, Newark, 1910, oil on wood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Nathaly Baum, 1974.73
Stuart Davis, Babe La Tour, 1912-1913, watercolor and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Henry H. Ploch, 1983.84
Stuart Davis, Rue de l’Echaude, 1929, lithograph and chine-colle on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1969.87
Stuart Davis, Shapes of Landscape Space (Landscape Space No. 4), 1939, lithograph on wove paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the D.C. Public Library, 2018.5.1
Style
Davis’ interactions with European modernist works in 1913 had a significant impact on his growth as an artist. The realist Robert Henri had trained Davis to paint in a realist fashion since Davis’ youth, however Davis’ excursion with European modernists caused him to raise the modernist flag instead. Stuart Davis did not switch to modernism out of spite for Henri, but rather out of appreciation for the many forms of art that exist.
The love and adoption of European modernism morphed into political and social isolationism that was a staple of American in the 1920s and 1930s. Davis never joined an art group during the 1920s and became the sole author of Cubism which used abstract colors and shapes to show various dynamics of the American cultural and political environment.
From 1915 to 1919, Davis spent summers in Massachusetts where his art work had intense color palettes paired with simple designs, trademarks of several artists that Davis admired at the Armory Show.[2] The early 1920s saw many American artists abandon modern art, but Davis continued to try to discover ways to implement his knowledge of shapes and colors into his art work.
By the end of the 1920s, Davis had done more work and research into Cubism and its various levels of sophistication than any other American artist at the time.[2] During the 1930s and 1940s, Davis attempted to make is work with Cubism altered and more original. While working on several murals for the Federal Art Project, Davis tried to find alternatives to traditional Cubist structure. The emergence of Abstract Expressionism in the 1940s made some question whether Davis was still the greatest modernist in the country; however, this test did not shake his resolve as he continued to develop his own painting style.
Stuart Davis, Harbor Landscape (Funnel and Smoke), 1939, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Stuart Davis, 1969.175
Stuart Davis, Int’l Surface No. 1, 1960, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., 1969.47.55
Inspirations
Davis was born during the Progressive Era, a time when America had a growing sense of optimism about itself as a nation through its technologies and management in the material and social realm. Through this, Davis had a great sense of pride in being American and led to him creating several works centered on a “Great America”.
After his training from Henri, Davis would walk around the streets of New York City for inspiration for his works. His time amongst the public caused him to develop a strong social conscience which was strengthened through his friendship with John Sloan, another anti-institutional artist. Additionally, Davis frequented the 1913 Armory Show (in which he exhibited his work), to further educate himself on modernism and its evolving trends. Davis acquired an appreciation and knowledge on how to implement the formal and color advancements of European modernism, something Henri did not focus on, to his art.
In 1925, the Société Anonyme put on an exhibit in New York with several pieces by the French artist Fernand Léger. Davis had a large amount of respect for Léger because like Davis, Léger sought the utmost formal clarity in his work. Davis also appreciated Léger’s work for the subject matter: storefronts, billboard and other man-made objects. In the early 1930s after returning from a trip to Europe to visit several art studios, Davis was re-energized in his identity in his specific work. Previously, he saw Europe as a place bursting at the seams with talented artists, but now he felt as if he was of the same caliber if not greater than his European counterparts. According to Davis, his trip “allowed me to observe the enormous vitality of the American atmosphere as compared to Europe and made me regard the necessity of working in New York as a positive advantage.”
Stuart Davis, Pennsylvania, from the United States Series, 1946, gouache and pencil on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Container Corporation of America, 1984.124.81
WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY Who can remember April 14, 2019 when over 20,000 visitors came to see the cherry trees? Alexis Villafane and Joan Brooks are the winners
JUST A REMINDER OF THE CHERRY BLOSSOM CROWDS LAST YEAR……………….
EDITORIAL
Instead of getting on an Amtrak train and off to the Smithsonian, I am looking at the vast collection of the American Art Museum. This is a great way to see all the art by one artist that is surely not on exhibit at one time.
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 WIKIPEDIA (C) SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Of Course We’re Surrounded by Water! We’re an Island!
On land, we use a map. On the water, we use charts. Nautical charts. Published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Everyone calls it NOAA. A nautical chart is like a map, if your’re traveling on the water. It will tell you how deep the water is — around Roosevelt Island, the deepest point is just north of the Queensborough Bridge, where the chart tells us that the water is 99 feet deep when the tide is at what’s called “mean low water”.
The nautical chart tells us also that the clearance between the East River at “mean low water” and the Queensborough Bridge is 133 feet. If you’re the captain of a vessel planning to travel in the East River and the highest point on your vessel is more than 133 feet above the water, you had better find a different route because you’ll hit the bottom of the big Bridge. The Roosevelt Island Bridge, when it is in its “closed” condition, is 40 feet above the east channel of the East River. Occasionally, a careless, casual, recreational captain has been caught under the RI Bridge because, among other things, a vessel’s mast is more than forty feet above the water and the navigator has failed to consult the charts.
Both the east and west channels of the East River have plenty of depth for the usual traffic near Roosevelt Island. Nautical charts show the navigator where the buoys, beacons and lights — reliable old friends to people who ply the inland waters — are located. These aids to navigation in the United States are established and maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Around Roosevelt Island, we have a green daybeacon sitting on Belmont Rock (a/k/a U Thant Rock) just south of the FDR Memorial; lights on the underside of the Queensborough Bridge, and then, north of Roosevelt Island, lights on Mill Rock. Many aids to navigation have light or sound-producing patterns that are noted on the nautical chart. The aids enable the navigator to be sure of the boat’s position. On foggy days, we hear vessels traveling the west channel sounding a fog horn. The mournful sound warns users of the channel that a boat (or, more often, a hard-to-maneuver boat with a barge) has limited visibility and limited ability to change course in the channel and needs to have other vessels take careful action. Most often, in dense fog conditions, captains will communicate using radio frequencies reserved for nautical messag to be sure that there is no confusion about which vessel is going to do what.
Even NOAA is wrong. Their nautical chart covering the area between Port Morris in the Bronx and the Queensboro Bridge is entitled “East River”. But, of course, despite the name, the East River is not a “river”. It is a salt water tidal estuary. It connects Long Island Sound with New York Harbor and, ultimately, the Atlantic Ocean. But, it is not a river. It has no source from which fresh water flows to to the sea.
About those tides. The body of water that circumscribes our island has an important feature: tides cause the body of water to rise and to fall. Twice a day, every day, a tidal flow from the Atlantic Ocean passes the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan, and travels up the “East River”, past the tower at our northern tip, through “Hell Gate”, out under the Whitestone and Throgs Neck Bridges, and out into Long Island Sound. And twice a day, the flow reverses. Water from Long Island Sound comes under the bridges, though the “Hell Gate”, divides into the east and west channels, flows along our flanks through the BMW bridge system into New York Harbor and there mingles with water from the Hudson (a real river!) and out into the Atlantic Ocean.
Among its most important publications, NOAA publishes Tidal Current Charts. Tides are caused (a) by the gravitational attraction between the moon, the sun and the earth, and (b) by centrifugal force generated by the rotation of the earth and moon around their center of gravity. As the earth rotates once every 24 hours, there is a high tide at any point each time that point passes under the moon. But the opposite side of the earth also experiences a high tide as centrifugal force flings outward the water on the side of the planet away from the moon. So, there are two high tides, and two low tides at each point on the planet each day. (It’s OK to reread this paragraph; I have done it several times, and I think I’ve got it right.)
Each month, when the moon is new and when it is full, we have what are called “spring” tides. These “spring” tides are higher and lower than at other times during the month. At these times, the sun and the moon line up, so the sun’s weaker gravitational effect is added to that of the moon. The Tidal Current Charts for New York Harbor (including the area around Roosevelt Island) are very interesting. The daily rise and fall of the tides are seen as water flows in both the east and west channels. The speed at which the water flows is known as the “tidal current”. The tidal current for spring tides flows around Roosevelt Island at a rate of 4.6 knots going north, and 5.2 knots going south. While nowhere near the speed of the tidal current in the Bay of Fundy in Canada, or in some of the nearby Maine bays, the Roosevelt Island tidal currents are very swift. When you see a small boat appearing to make no progress as it tries to move up or down the East River, the reason it is having so much difficulty is the tidal current pushing it in a direction at a rate that the boat is unable to overcome.
SWAN SONG FOR A FLOATIE IN EAST CHANNEL
Sometimes you see the FDNY rescue people from the river. Today, July 19th 4 people fell in the river when their SWAN was overcome by the currents.
Closeup of navigation chart.
To safely travel the East River current charts are available on-line.
The structure of the new elevator at the Manhattan Tram Station NINA LUBLIN AND VICKI FEINMEL ARE THE WINNERS
EDITORIAL
Knowing very little about rivers, estuaries, tidal flow, currents I asked Jay Jaboson who is very knowledgeable to write today’s article on river currents.
Thanks for your enlightening words about the waterway around us.
JUDITH BERDY
WE ARE WATCHING A TRAGEDY IN THE MAKING. THE CONSTANT ROAR OF OUT-OF-CONTROL JET SKIES IN THE RIVER. LAST WEEKEND THERE WERE TWO KAYAKS PADDLING ALONG AND JET SKIES SPEEDING PAST. WHAT NEXT?
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 PHOTOS COPYRIGHT GHILA KRATJZMAN (c) FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
THESE ARE A SMALL SAMPLING OF LOZOWICK’S WORK ON VIEW AT THE SMITHSONIAN WEBSITE.
Louis Lozowick
(1892 – 1973) was a Russian-American painter and printmaker. He is recognized as an Art Deco and Precisionist artist, and mainly produced streamline, urban-inspired monochromatic lithographs in a career that spanned 50 years.
Self Portrait 1930 Lithograph on Paper
LIGHTHOUSE 1938 COLOR LITHOGRAPH ON PAPER
THROUGH BROOKLYN BRIDGE CABLES 1938 LITHOGRAPH ON PAPER
CITY ON A ROCK-COHOES 1931 LITHOGRAPH ON PAPER
FOOD AUGUST 1943 LITHOGRAPH ON PAPER
WARSAW MARKETS 1937 LITHOGRAPH ON PAPER
COLLLECTIVE FARMER 1933 LITHOGRAPH ON PAPER
THANKSGIVING DINNER 1932 LITHOGRAPH ON PAPER
MINNEAPOLIS 1925 COLOR WOODCUT ON PAPER
FIRST AVENUE MARKET 1934 LITHOGRAPH ON PAPER
COLOSSEUM 1972 LITHOGRAPH ON PAPER
RELIC 1939 LITHOGRAPH ON PAPER
CONVERSATION IN HAITI 1955 LITHOGRAPH ON PAPER
HEBRAICA 1959 LITHOGRAPH ON PAPER
MOUNTAIN AND STREAM 1940 COLOR WOODCUT ON PAPER
NEW YORK 1923 LITHOGRAPH ON PAPER
Learn more about Lozowick and his work Meet Louis Lozowick Through His Geometric Work “Red Circle”
By Beth Hamilton
Louis Lozowick was born in 1892 in Ludvinovka, Ukraine, then part of the Russian empire. Lozowick’s interest in art began in 1903 when he enrolled in the Kiev Art School. This early education was a formative experience for Lozowick; he would spend the rest of his career pursuing art studies.
Seeking greater civil and economic liberties, Lozowick followed his brother to New York in 1906. Lozowick arrived at Ellis Island alone, and was stunned by the modern developments of the growing metropolis. New York was unlike anything he had seen during his rural upbringing in Russia, with the vertical architecture and industrialized economy. From 1912 to 1915, Lozowick attended the prestigious National Academy of Design in New York. He studied under Ivan Olinsky, Emil Carlsen, Douglas Volk, George W. Maynard, and Leon Kroll. The curriculum was largely academic in tradition, a style that he felt did not accurately portray the modern city. In 1915, Lozowick began his college studies at Ohio State University, where he graduated in three short years.
He served briefly in the army in 1919 with the U.S. participation in World War I. Immediately after his discharge, Lozowick embarked on a cross-country trip, visiting major industrial cities of the United States. The visual landscape of these cities, filled with smokestacks, factories, skyscrapers, and the expanding network of highways, informed his style in the years to follow.
In 1922, Lozowick traveled to Europe like many like-minded artists seeking avant-garde movements. He first went to Paris, where he studied French at the Sorbonne Institute and surveyed the Cubist masterpieces of Juan Gris and Fernand Léger. He then went to Berlin, a city vibrant with artists and intellectuals. Lozowick was drawn in particular to the Russian Constructivists, who championed the machine aesthetic through abstraction and minimalism. His art career took off in this experimental environment, as he was inspired by the works of El Lissitsky and Kazimir Malevich. Louis Lozowick, American, 1892-1973. Red Circle, 1924. Oil on canvasboard. 18 x 15 inches. Signed on the reverse
Drawing from the vivid memories of his cross-country trip, Lozowick created his American Cities series while still in Berlin. The fourteen paintings in this series depict Pittsburgh, Detroit, New York, Seattle, Minneapolis, Butte, Cleveland, and Chicago. Red Circle is part of the series, although its title does not suggest a specific location.
The works are Precisionist in style and composition; simple shapes are rendered with precise and sharp clarity, depicting common subjects from the American landscape. Monumental and soaring structures were at the forefront of this series and many of his works during the 1920s.
Red Circle is a series of overlapping architectural forms and geometric shapes. The repeated window patterns on the starkly linear buildings suggest a landscape of factories; the cylindrical forms at center represent the smoke stacks adjacent to an industrial facility. The grey palette of the composition is further heightened by the dark shadows cast by the buildings from an unidentified light source. Four fractured, red circles overlap with the buildings.
Lozowick’s predilection for Constructivist design principles is evident in Red Circle, although his influence is purely aesthetic. The primary color palette of red, black, grey, and white is symbolic of the Russian revolution and was often used by the Russian avant-gardes. Lozowick incorporated these artistic principles in poster designs, stage sets, and win- dow displays in addition to his painting.
Lozowick continued to paint skyscrapers, factories, and machine parts during the 1920s with an optimistic vigor shared by many artists. After his return to New York, Lozowick exhibited his Cities and Machine Ornament works at J.B. Neumann’s New Art Circle in 1926. That same year, he had a two-man show at New Art Circle with the Precisionist artist Charles Sheeler. With the economic crash in 1929, images of urban growth and industrial progress were no longer relevant. Lozowick then began to experiment in realism, with the human figure central to the composition.
I have seen some of Louis Lozowick’s art throughout many years. When I discovered that the Smithsonian had 241 of his works on-line, I was thrilled. This is a small selection of the works. The rest are available at: https://americanart.si.edu/artist/louis-lozowick-3005 THANK YOU SMITHSONIAN FOR SHARING OUR NATIONAL TREASURES WITH US!!!
I will continue to seek out artists of the early to mid-twentieth century art. If you have a suggestion, contact me.
Judith Berdy
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All materials in this publication are copyrighted (c)
