New Deal Circus, Carnival, Festival,Fair, Vaudeville and Varieties Art
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National New Deal Preservation Association The Living New Deal
Above: “Children at Play and Sport II,” an oil painting by Moses Soyer (1899-1974), created while he was in the WPA’s Federal Art Project, ca. 1938. Soyer went on to become a very prominent artist, and his works are held in galleries across the United States. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: “Amusement Park,” a lithograph by Ann Nooney (1900-1964), created while she was in WPA’s art program, ca. 1935-1941. According to the International Fine Print Dealers Association, “Twenty-two of [Ann Nooney’s] prints are in the Works Progress Administration collection of the New York Public Library print room. Three of her prints appear as illustrations in the ‘WPA Guide to New York City, 1939.'” Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: “Circus People Resting,” an oil painting by Bernice Cross (1912-1996), created while she was in the New Deal’s Public Works of Art Project, ca. 1933-1934. Cross was born in Iowa, but spent most of her professional career in Washington, DC. Her works are held in several galleries today. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: “The Very Strong Man,” a sculpture by Eugenie Gershoy (1901-1986), created while she was in the WPA’s art program, ca. 1936-1940. According to an exhibit label, “During the late 1930s, Eugenie Gershoy began working for the Works Progress Administration in New York. A friend of hers, the artist Max Spivak, was designing a series of murals for a children’s library in Astoria, Long Island. Gershoy decided to create colorful figurines to go along with Spivak’s paintings… The library was so pleased with the work of Gershoy and Spivak, they rebuilt the space into an oval to emphasize the circus setting.” Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Image of the mural at Astoria Library with closeup of figure.
Eugenie Gershoy, Ill-Fated Toreador, ca. 1935-1939, polychromed dextrine on wood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from General Services Administration, 1971.447.31
A WPA poster, created in New York City, 1937. The Federal Theatre was scorned by conservatives as a “waste of taxpayer money,” but millions of middle and low-income Americans enjoyed the shows for a modest fee, or even free. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Above: A WPA poster, created in Massachusetts, 1938. Vaudeville was a popular form of entertainment in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But Vaudeville-like shows still exist today. For example, jugglers, magicians, comedians, sword-swallowers, and theatre performers entertain crowds at Renaissance Festivals all across the country. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Above: “Trapeze Girl,” a color lithograph by Russell T. Limbach (1904-1971), created while he was in the WPA’s Federal Art Project, 1935. According to the Brier Hill Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts, Limbach, “was the recipient of numerous awards” and “His works are held in the collections of numerous libraries and museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Los Angeles Museum of Art.” Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: A WPA poster by artist Charles Verschuuren, promoting a water carnival in New York, 1936. According to his Wikipedia page, Verschuuren was a Dutch painter who moved to the United States in 1922, and served in the U.S. Army during World War II as an illustrator. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Above: “Italians in Jefferson Park,” an oil painting by Jerome Myers (1867-1940), created while he was in the New Deal’s Public Works of Art Project, 1934. Thomas Jefferson Park is in New York City. According to his Wikipedia page, a 1923 magazine quoted Myers about his interest in depicting city life: “All my life I had lived, worked and played in the poorest streets of American cities. I knew them and their population and was one of them. Others saw ugliness and degradation there, I saw poetry and beauty…” Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: “Festival at Hamburg,” a mural study for the Hamburg, Iowa Post Office, by William Edward Lewis Bunn (1910-2009), created while he was in the New Deal’s Section of Fine Arts, 1941. According to SNAC, a collaborative enterprise that includes the National Archives and the University of California, “Wiliam Edward Lewis Bunn was a designer, muralist, and painter in Muscatine, Iowa and Ojai, Calif… During the 1930s he won commissions from the Federal Department of Fine Arts [the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Works Agency] to paint murals in public buildings throughout the Midwest. He also worked as an industrial designer for Shaeffer Pen and Cuckler Steel.” Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
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EDITORIAL
“GONE WITH THE GREEN” JUST LOOK AT RECENT GOINGS ON AND WHAT WE ARE LOOSING
New traffic turnaround at Octagon with loss of one mature tree and most of planting area Paving over area around “Sanctuary” with boards and less grassy area Mowing down trees and foliage at Southpoint Park
We loose nature and wildlife with every foot of green we cover-up, cement over, remove in any way.
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)
PHOTOS FROM JUDITH BERDY COPYRIGHT RIHS/2020 (C)
MATERIAL COPYRIGHT WIKIPEDIA, GOOGLE IMAGES, RIHS ARCHIVES AND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION (C) FOR THIS ISSUE: WIKIPEDIA
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The first monument honoring real women in Central Park was unveiled Wednesday –commemorating the centennial anniversary of the 19th Amendment’s ratification and its certification. “We have broken the bronze ceiling,” Meredith Bergmann is the renowned sculptor who created the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument, which honors suffragists Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. “It seems especially appropriate that today, on Women’s Equality Day, we are unveiling a new statue in Central Park for the first time in over six decades: the first statue of real, nonfictional women, the first statue of an African American and significantly a statue that depicts three great Americans working together,” former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in remarks at the event. (USA Today)
Already on view in NYC Parks are Eleanor Roosevelt and Harriet Tubman
LATTICE DETOUR
On the roof of the Metropolitan Museum this new sculpture is being revealed this first week of the reopening: Héctor Zamora’s sculpture “Lattice Detour,” a curved wall of terra cotta bricks, is over 100 feet long and 11 feet high.Credit…Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
KING NYANI
KING NYANI
There’s a giant gorilla sculpture in Hudson Yards
BY DANA SCHULZ Photos by Tina Sokolovskaya
To raise awareness and funds for the critically endangered gorilla species, public artists Gillie and Marc Schattner have created a massive sculpture of the animal that arrived this week in Hudson Yards’ Bella Abzug Park.
Titled King Nyani, Swahili for gorilla, it’s the world’s largest bronze gorilla sculpture and can fit two to three humans just in its hands. Photos of King Nyani’s installation by Tina Sokolovskaya Gillie and Marc have dedicated a large part of their career as artists to bringing attention to the world’s endangered species through their Love The Last project.
Two years ago, they brought a 17-foot-tall sculpture of three rhinos to Astor Place and Downtown Brooklyn. As a protest of the sale of rhino horns, it depicted the last three Northern White Rhinos Najin, Fatu, and Sudan. Photo by Tina Sokolovskaya And the artists get passionately involved in their projects. King Nyani is based on the head of a family of silverback mountain gorillas that Gille and Marc encountered on a trip to Uganda.
They say they were moved to tears watching the gorilla exhibit empathy and kindness as opposed to the “scary” image so often portrayed. “It was beautiful watching the silverback interacting with his family. He was so gentle and loving and clearly cared deeply for his family,” said Marc. Gillie added, “We knew we had to let the world know about this loving and gentle side of gorillas. They are often so misunderstood and thought of as scary and dangerous animals. But if they were able to see the silverback, maybe they wouldn’t be so scared.”
But due to illegal poaching, war and deforestation, there are only about 1,000 mountain gorillas and fewer than 3,800 eastern lowland gorillas left in the wild. “We couldn’t sit back and do nothing when these amazing creatures that are genetically so similar to us are in danger,” said Marc.
Inspired by the movie scene where King Kong grabs the woman in his hand, King Nyani’s hand is open for visitors to sit and interact with him. “We wanted to create a sculpture where the public could really get close to the silverback, both physically and emotionally. Being able to sit in his hand and look up to into his gentle face we hope they will fall in love and join the movement to save the gorillas,” explains Gillie.
Through a partnership with the Hudson Yards-Hell’s Kitchen Alliance and NYC Parks, the sculpture will be on display in Bella Abzug Park as of August 24, 2020 and will remain on view for nine months.
BECAUSE ONCE YOU ENTER MY HOUSE IT BECOMES OUR HOUSE
Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House’, 2020 Plywood, posters, steel, LEDs, and performances 44 × 44 × 21 ft at Socrates Sculpture on Vernon Blvd.
Jeffrey Gibson’s ‘Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House’ serves as an homage to ingenuity of Indigenous North American peoples and cultures, to pre-Columbian Mississippian architecture, and to queer camp aesthetics. Gibson designed the multi-tiered structure to reference the earthen architecture of the ancient metropolis of Cahokia, which was the largest city of the North American Indigenous Mississippian people at its height in the thirteenth century. The earth mound of the pre-Columbian ziggurat is represented in Gibson’s multi-tiered monument with a plywood structure adorned with a vibrant surface of wheat-pasted posters. The posters integrate geometric designs inspired by the Serpent Mound located in Ohio, another monument of the Mississippi Valley, alongside texts that operate as activist slogans. Gibson also curated Indigenous led performances to activate the structure over the course of the installation. Image by Scott Lynch
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EDITORIAL
The Metropolitan Museum is re-opening this weekend. I will be thrilled to see my old friends there. We all have our favorite galleries. Mine are the European Galleries, American Wing and Costume Institute. I just remembered I joined the Met as a member for the museum’s 100th anniversary……..and this is there 150th anniversary. I re-joined again, not at the $10- level of 5 decades ago. It was a big deal with Thomas Hoving running the museum and paying over $2.300,000 for Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer. Hoving was the wonder man who took the museum and made it a hip place to visit and made people really want to visit a museum.
I will admire the grand floral displays in the lobby and enjoy having part of the city being “normal”.
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 Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
In 1878, as the Paris Exposition was being organized, New Yorker David Maitland Armstrong was made director of the American art section. On the continent—and indeed in many drawing rooms of America’s wealthy– the concept of “American art” was laughable. When the Exposition was over, no one was laughing.
The New-York Tribune reported “the result was one of the great triumphs of his career and resulted in his election as a chevalier of the Legion of Honor. It was the real initiation of the French people into a realization that such a thing as American art existed.” Nevertheless, American art and architecture students who studied at the Ecole Nationale et Speciale des Beaux-Arts in Paris came home with a special prestige. Those lucky—and wealthy—enough to attend to Ecole received what was at the time the world’s most esteemed training in classical, academic architecture.
In 1893 a group of architects who had studied at the Ecole formed the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects. The organization was intended to bring the principals of French design and composition to America; as well as to carry on the discipline and concepts of the French academy. The Society broadened 23 years later when in 1916 it founded the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design.
Aspiring architects could now receive instruction in the French tradition in New York under a provisional charter of the University of New York. The private stable of millionaire Jacob Schiff was purchased in 1914 and by 1915 the Institute was fully established in its new home. The institute soon expanded—offering courses in the decorative arts (sculpture and painting), followed by interior decoration in 1921. To enable students to study here for free (only a registration fee was required), funds were raised through the annual and fashionable Beaux-Arts Ball (a lavish costume ball), the sale of advertising in the Society’s yearbook, and general contributions.
By the early 1920s it became obvious that the old stable building was no longer adequate. Growth and added areas of study were taxing the old space and certain departments—mural painting and sculpture, for instance—required large areas. In October 1927 two old rowhouses at Nos. 304 and 306 East 44th Street were purchased for $85,000. The old school in what was now Manhattan’s most exclusive residential district was sold for about twice that amount. A competition for the design of the new Beaux-Arts Institute of Design was initiated and a jury of six was selected to choose the winning entry. Professional architect members of both the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design and the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects were informed on October 13, 1927 that the competition would be held a month later, on November 17, 1927 at 12:00. The winner would be chosen at 4:00 that same afternoon.
Participation in the competition was essentially mandatory. Architects submitting designs were charged a $25 entry fee; those who sat out the competition were charged $35. The money would be used as part of the building fund. Seventy-two of the nation’s most respected architects submitted designs, among them Raymond Hood, William Lamb, Ralph Walker and Chester Aldrich. The applicants had been given a precise list of design requirements. At 4:00 on the afternoon of November 17 the winning design of British-born Frederic C. Hirons, of Dennison and Hirons, had been chosen. Plans for the four-story structure were not filed with the Bureau of Buildings until February 4, 1928.
In reporting on the filing, The New York Times noted that “Dennison & Hirons, the architects, estimate the cost at $100,000.” That amount—about $1.3 million today– hinted at a formidable new building. Six months later the newspaper updated its readers on the progress. “Work is progressing rapidly on the new home of the Beaux Arts Institute of Design at 304 East 44th Street,” it said. “An outstanding feature of the building will be three polychrome terra cotta panels in the façade, ranking with the finest work of that kind in the United States. The colors will be shaded and blended as if done in oil or water colors. They will picture the Parthenon in Athens, St. Peter’s Church in Rome and the court yard of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, those three cities being symbols of sculpture, painting and architecture.” The Times noted that at the time the institute “has several hundred members.
” In 1928 the fluffy, overly-ornamented Victorian and Edwardian building styles had given way to Art Deco—the visual arts style born in France following the war. The sometimes brassy new style looked to celebrated the modern age in bold colors, sharp geometric shapes, and stylized forms. The style would result in ziggurat skyscrapers, chrome-covered diners, and lavish lobbies that would represent, for decades, the visage of Manhattan world-wide.
photograph by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / Hirons’ completed buff brick building was a severe study in no-nonsense Art Deco. With no zig-zagging lighting bolts, no stylized waterfalls and none of the Rockefeller Center glitz; it made only temperate use of visual design. Two Greek-styled sculptural panels depicting architecture flanked the parapet at the fourth floor and carved Art Deco capitals capped the muscular brick three-story piers. Above the double-height entrance, gutsy Deco lettering announced the Institute’s name. Three limestone blocks at the second floor openings were intended to hold sculptural allegories of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture; but the plan was never executed when the necessary funds were not raised.
The piece de resistance, of course, was the three terra cotta panels described earlier by The New York Times. Designed by Hirons’ favorite architectural sculptor, Rene Chambellan, they were produced by the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company. (Hirons and Chambellan were already working together on a new project–the Art Deco State Bank & TrustCo. Building on 43rd Street and Eighth Avenue).** see photo
With the Institute in its new home, the Society continued its regimen, including the annual Beaux Arts Ball. On January 24, 1930, despite the ongoing Great Depression, the event did not hold back on the expected grandeur. Noting that “The proceeds of the ball are devoted to the education work of the Beaux Arts Institute of Design, which gives instruction in architecture, painting and sculpture to deserving students,” The New York Times described the upcoming Ball on January 5 at the Astor Hotel.
“This year the grand ballroom, to be known as ‘il Palazzo,’ will be decorated to represent the great central court of the Palace of Lorenzo the Magnificent in Florence. From the main cornice surrounding the court, enormous drapes of red and gold will be suspended and these will be drawn apart with golden cords and tassels to reveal the balconies in which the nobility will assemble to view the historic pageant.
” The “pageant” was to represent scenes in the French court during the Renaissance and the court of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. The cast of the production included more than 300 “people of high station in society and the arts.” The north ballroom, said the newspaper, “will be styled ‘il Cortile’ and will be treated as a walled garden through which the entrance to the grand ballroom will be made. The south ballroom will be called ‘il Mercato’ and all the wares appropriate to the market place will be displayed lavishly therein.” The Times described fountains, statuary, vases and flowers and added “The splendor of this setting will be further enhanced by the throng of several thousand guests, all garbed in the luxurious costumes of the Renaissance.”
Within the next decade the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design building was purchased by the Reeves Sound Studios and converted to offices, recording studios, editing labs and viewing theaters. Today it is home to Egypt’s Permanent Mission to the United States. Despite its several uses since the 1940s, Frederick C. Hirons’ brawny Art Deco design manifested in brick is virtually unchanged. It is a much overlooked treasure on an otherwise unexciting block.
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EDITORIAL
People ask my how I find topics to write about. The other day I was researching the work of Fred Becker. One item in his biography stood out. He studied at the Beaux Art Institute in New York. I have walked by that building on East 44th Street with it’s moderne facade and wondered what the story was about the building. The story is today’s article. The building is a NYC landmark and cannot be changed on the exterior. It is now the Egyptian Mission to the United Nations. Maybe it is appropriate for such an ancient civilization preserve a building of such architectural significance.
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 TEXT COURTESY OF A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN (C) photograph by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society WIKIPEDIA (C)
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Fred Becker, New York Landscape, 1936, wood engraving on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Evander Childs High School, Bronx, New York through the General Services Administration, 1975.83.30
Frederick G. Becker was born in Oakland, California on August 5, 1913. The son of silent film actor Fred Becker, Sr., he was raised in Los Angeles, surrounded by movie and theater creatives. Drawing was a passion for the younger Becker, and in high school he was the primary illustrator and cartoonist for his school’s paper, developing his skills as an illustrator and cartoonist.
His formal art studies commenced at the Otis Art Institute in 1931, where he was first introduced to printmaking. In the fall of 1933, Becker relocated to New York and registered at New York University in architectural studies. Eugene Steinhof, an instructor at NYU, played an important role in Becker’s early development as an artist. Becker enrolled in Steinhof’s class on form and color and became transfixed by his talents and worldliness. Discovering that architecture was not his calling, Becker transferred to Steinhof’s classes at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design on 44th Street.
This artistic freedom is visible in the caricatures of jazz musicians produced by Becker during nightly visits to jazz clubs, particularly Adrian’s Tap Room in the basement of the President Hotel. In his article, “The WPA Federal Art Project, New York City: A Reminiscence,” Becker states: “During my first visits to the place, I drew caricatures of some of the musicians and Adrian asked me to come in regularly and draw caricatures of the customers. He didn’t have to ask twice.”
Louis Lozowick, impressed by this imagery and the young artist’s tenacity, signed Becker up for the Graphic Arts Division of the WPA. Becker worked in the WPA between 1935 and the day he was “laid off” of the project in the summer of 1939. An exhibition in 1937 at the Federal Art Project Gallery in New York included two of his prints and the following year his work was exhibited at the Willard Gallery in New York. When Stanley William Hayter relocated his famous Atelier 17 to New York in 1940 as the war expanded, Becker was among the first to sign up for classes. He found there another free, informal and imaginative place to learn and work; however, with the entry of the US into the war in 1941, Becker left the city, relocated to Long Island and found employment in the war industry until he was drafted into the military in 1945.
Returning from the war in 1946, Becker accepted a teaching position at Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia. After two years, he moved to Saint Louis where he joined the faculty of Washington University and established their printmaking department. Becker’s first fellowship was a Tiffany in 1948, followed by a Yaddo in 1954. A Guggenheim fellowship in 1957 allowed him to travel to Paris and work again with Hayter at Atelier 17. Numerous retrospective exhibitions, his inclusion in the seminal exhibition “A Spectrum of Innovation: Color in American Printmaking”, and James Wechsler’s prize winning article, “Fred Becker and Experimental Printmaking,” have paid tribute to Becker’s innovative images and printmaking techniques.
Fred Becker’s work is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Asheville Art Museum, the Kemper Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Johnson Museum of Art, and the Davis Museum at Wellesley College. Fred Becker died in Amhurst, Massachusetts on June 30, 2004.
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EDITORIAL
SOON THE RIHS WILL BE HAVING OUR PROGRAMS AVAILABLE AS ZOOM OR SIMILAR PLATFORMS. WE HOPE TO HAVE OUR FIRST PROGRAM IN SEPTEMBER. WATCH FOR DETAILS.
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 TEXT AND IMAGE COURTESY OF THE ANNEX GALLERIES. All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM.
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East of Cross Bay Boulevard between East 10th and 14th Roads there are houses built on stilts over an inlet of Jamaica Bay (also known as Broad Channel). Above: East 12th Road Broad Channel is the province of seagulls, roaring jets taking off from Kennedy Airport, The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, and a proud, insular neighborhood.
Unlike many NYC mainland neighborhoods (such as Glendale, Laurelton, Marine Park or Throgs Neck, it features a subway stop. Cross Bay Boulevard is the main artery and carries traffic between Broad Channel and the mainland, as well as the Rockaway peninsula. Many Broad Channel families have been there for two or three generations, since the island began to become populated in the 1880s. The island remains the only populated island in Jamaica Bay.
Broad Channel is a neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Queens. It occupies the southern portion of Rulers Bar Hassock (known colloquially as “Broad Channel Island”), the only inhabited island in Jamaica Bay. The neighborhood stands on Big Egg Marsh, an area of fill approximately 20 blocks long and 4 blocks wide at the south end of Rulers Bar Hassock.
The community is an inholding within the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, managed by the U.S. National Park Service as part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. The area comprises several artificial canals separating dead-end residential blocks. It is connected to the rest of Queens by road and subway bridges.
EARLY SETTLEMENT
Prior to European settlement, the Jameco and Canarsie bands of Lenape Native Americans frequented this area. During the 17th century, Dutch settlers established a community on the island and began harvesting oysters, clams, shrimp, and fish.The name “Broad Channel” itself originally referred to a channel in Jamaica Bay, within which the island is located.
Until the American Civil War, most of Jamaica Bay’s islands east of Bergen Island and Barren Island were not inhabited, including Broad Channel. The boundary line between the towns of Flatlands, Brooklyn, and Jamaica, Queens, ran through Jamaica Bay, cutting through Broad Channel, though the island was mostly part of Jamaica.
After 1865, fisheries were developed in the bay, and by the late 1870s, the town of Jamaica indicated that structures had been built in the bay without the town’s permission. The Long Island Rail Road built its Rockaway Beach Branch across the bay in 1880, cutting through Broad Channel The presence of the railroad led to the development of fishing villages with shacks, summer homes, boathouses, and stores. As part of the project, some other islands in Jamaica Bay were removed or connected to others.
Broad Channel remained a parcel within the town of Jamaica until the City of Greater New York was created in 1898. The northern (and larger) portion of the island is part of Gateway National Recreation Area and is managed as part of the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, the only wildlife refuge in the National Park System. The waters and marsh islands of the refuge entirely surround the community.
20th CENTURY
Seen in 1915 In 1915, the city leased Broad Channel Island, Goose Creek Island, and Raunt Island to Pierre Noel, who subleased it to the Broad Channel Corporation.[The 30-year lease specified payments of $16.57 per acre for the first three years and a maximum of $33.73 per acre for the last five years of the thirty-year term. The Broad Channel Corporation in turn made 10-year subleases to private individuals for the development of summer bungalows and houses.
There was public criticism of the lease after the public learned about the deal, which Pierre Noel, president of the Broad Channel Corporation, countered by pointing to $180,000 of improvements it had made, including digging a well to supply drinking water, building a power plant, adding landfill to reduce the need for houses on piles, and laying out streets on the island Residents disputed the quality of these improvements, however, saying that the tap water was brown and not potable, that their houses had no electricity, and that there were no sewers on the island.
The Broad Channel Corporation responded by saying the water was of the same quality as was available in the Rockaways and that it planned to install a filtration device to remove the iron from the tap water. It said that the streets had electric lights, and it said installing sewers was not possible on the island. For years, the only way to reach the island was by ferry or railroad but in 1925, the North Channel Bridge opened, connecting the island to Howard Beach. The Cross Bay Parkway Bridge opened in 1939, connecting to the Rockaways
The railroad trestle across Jamaica Bay experienced around 30 fires between 1942 and 1950. One such fire, between The Raunt and Broad Channel stations on May 7, 1950, cut service on the middle section of the railroad line.[19] The LIRR, then bankrupt, could not afford to repair the trestle, and the city of New York purchased the line in 1952,[19][20] and it reopened as the New York City Subway’s IND Rockaway Line in 1956.
Parks Commissioner Robert Moses announced his intention to build a park on the island in 1938; he planned recreation on the shore with a wildlife sanctuary on the north end of the island.[25] The next year, the Broad Channel Corporation declared bankruptcy, and the city acquired the island’s property titles. In May 1944, Broad Channel’s 4,000 residents, collectively living in 1,260 homes, secured an injunction that would prevent the city from evicting them by April 30, 1948. Later in 1944, the New York City Board of Estimate indicated that it would give residents the right to purchase the land under their houses.
However, this right was denied for many years; the city made many attempts to alter the island’s purpose, but the local community resisted them all. Proposed changes included the construction of a commercial port and the extension of John F. Kennedy International Airport
Rumors of high hepatitis rates spread in 1967 because of the island’s bad sewage system. At the time, several homes still dumped sewage into the bay, causing activities like clamming, wading, and swimming to be banned. The health hazards prompted the city to again attempt eviction proceedings against Broad Channel’s residents, which prompted them to protest, and the Board of Estimate ordered the residents’ leases to be renewed the following year, despite the real estate commissioner’s protests\ The government of New York City finally granted Broad Channel residents the right to purchase their property in 1982.The Joseph P. Addabbo Memorial Bridge replaced the dilapidated North Channel Bridge during the late 1980s.[33]
THE VOLSTEAD ACT
PROHIBITION
RUM RUNNERS
From The Rockaway Museum Dedicated To The Memory Of Leon S. Locke Historical Views of the Rockaways
Prohibition and Rum-Running in Rockaway
In 1919, while a great number of American men and boys were still in uniform, and still in Europe, the so-called “drys” won out and caused the Volstead Act to be passed and become the law of the land. The passage of this act ushered in the era of prohibition (1919-1933) when the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages was forbidden in the United States. This irked all the veterans of the Great War, who felt that they were wronged while they were overseas.
They came home to soft drinks, tap water and fruit juice! The liquid libations that they had developed a taste for were denied to them by law and this caused the rise of the law-breaking bootlegger or smuggler who illegally brought booze and beer into dry America. Some built secret liquor stills and beer brewery – but most employed trucks, boats and airplanes to slake the thirst of dry Americans – to cure their dehydration. It has been said that Broad Channel (and the two other bay colonies of the Raunt and Goose Creek) was the Mecca of local bootleggers who met and closed their deals at certain hotels at these places, which were only accessible by boat or train.
All of these meeting places were built on wooden piling, driven into the marshes and waterways and were reached by catwalks from the Bay Railroad trestle stations and each other. In case of a raid by the police, a quick get-away was easily facilitated by prepared law-breakers. One such hotel is shown today in Historical Views, and was described as the “bootlegging capitol or our Jamaica Bay.” It was aptly called the Hotel Enterprise, which was located off the northeast end of the Broad Channel Station.
The complex shown began as Parson’s Hotel and Fishing Station in 1881. In 1892 it was known as Dorman’s Atlantic Hotel and Fishing Station. Another name later ascribed for the place was Lindstrom’s. The first names found associated with proprietorship of the enterprise were Mess’rs, August Vogel, and Edward Bollerman, in 1893.
During prohibition, Broad Channel was known as Little Cuba. In today’s photo, the LIRR trestle is shown heading to the Raunt, where some buildings are readily seen. Goose Creek is above the Raunt and cannot be seen. The Broad Channel station is to the left and not shown in this photo. The wooden walks to the enterprise complex all come from the station platform. The marsh shown circles Goose Pond on the north end of Broad Channel. Unfortunately, the booze smugglers kept no records of their dealing for their lucrative business…and newspapers told of booze raids locally – as well as U.S. Coast Guard interceptions of some booze boats.
The Enterprise was raided once, and some illegal beer was confiscated by the authorities along with 1500 bottles of liquor. I’ve been told that most raids were set-ups to show that something was being done by local police, and that local police protected or guarded local landings by rum boats, with a few cases going to the local precincts.
That’s how unpopular prohibition was to all imbibers of alcohol. I once got a grand tour of a sleek boat that was used as a rum-runner during the prohibition years. It looked as if it could go 100 knots an hour to outrun a Coast Guard cutter. And, as expected, no ship’s log was available to tell of the rum-running adventure. Are there any old-timers in Wave-land to enlighten us? The Wave reported that a railroad freight car full of beer was found on a siding by the Broad Channel railroad station, and that pilots stationed at Fort Tilden and the Rockaway Naval Air Station were accused of smuggling booze in their planes. Rockaway Point and Arverne were the favored landing places for large rum-running operations which were done at night.
Other reports of smuggling entailed darkened vessels of all types coming up to the long docks along the bayside or the Rockaways. These docks were full of fishing and yacht clubs that had trap-doors in their floors for special deliveries. One such boat was seized at Beach 97 Street, on the bay, with 400 cases of Scotch Whiskey. I wonder how much was turned in as evidence? At the same time a carload of beer was seized on Beach 102 Street. The Coast Guard intercepted a few slow rum-runners in “rum row”, a name given to the waters around Long Island…and fired on the faster booze boats. Only one was reported to have been hit by gunfire.
One boat company out on Long Island built fast boats for the Coast Guard and even faster ones for bootleggers. The Coast Guard boats could do 26 knots at top speed, while the rum-runners made 30 knots loaded. In 1932, bootlegger radios were seized by local police. It seems as though the smugglers of hootch were really doing a modern communications thing, to stay a step or two ahead of the authorities.
Despite all the law enforcement by federal, state, city and local lawmen, the Volstead Act, which ushered in prohibition, lasting from 1920 to 1933, did little to stop bootlegging and small distillery operations here. Bathtub gin was brewed in private homes, and winemaking in homes was well above the limits on how much could be made. Speakeasy’s were all over the Rockaways during prohibition years. This was the name for private drinking clubs which sprang up, and were often raided by police to keep the “drys” happy. Prohibition was repealed in early 1933 due to a bill sponsored by local congressman William F. Brunner Sr. of Rockaway Beach.
In a short time the Rockaway’s places got “wetter” than they were during the Volstead Act years. World War One veterans were happy now. Most felt that the “drys” got the no alcohol law passed because they were not there to vote on it. The Boats used for rum-running now became sleek pleasure boats. There were often well-built power boats about 50 feet in length and valued at about $1800 in the 1930’s. I wonder if any are still around? All the structures shown in today’s Historical Views are long gone…the victims of fire, storm and bay railroad improvements. Only the memories of the past recall the Hotel Enterprise and the prohibition era. Can anyone out there in Wave-land supply us with a run down of a booze run in the old days, or perhaps a photo or two of a bootleggers rum-running boat?
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TUESDAY’S PHOTO OF THE DAY
GOLDWATER HOSPITAL UNDER CONSTRUCTION CORRECT ANSWER #1 ALEXIS VILLEFANE
EDITORIAL
If you think our island has a convoluted history, check out Broad Channel. It remains an insular community in the Jamaica Bay with a small population. Its history of fighting for survival shows the fortitude of the residents.
The part that the community played in Prohibition is noteworthy. I have not found evidence of massive rum-running on Blackwell’s or Welfare Island. Who knows what was on the boats coming to the island, perhaps transporting libation for the populace. I decided to take a trip and check out Broad Channel for myself. It is a lovely summer day. At West 4th Street, I changed for the A train. The A train takes you directly to Broad Channel. The subway station is a few blocks from the Cross Bay Blvd., the main street.
The streets are narrow and almost every home has an American flag fluttering in the breeze. I wandered around the neighborhood. Many of the homes were destroyed in Hurricane Sandy and have been re-built with a garage on ground level and the rest of the house is raised for flood prevention.
Some old homes partially built on stilts remains adding a quaint feel to the community.
Here are some photos and my suggestion is to take a ride to Broad Channel. The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge is just north of the island, so you can drive to both easily.
JUDITH BERDY
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Wayne Thiebaud, Jackpot Machine, 1962, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible by the American Art Forum and gift of an anonymous donor, 1995.37
Thiebaud painted Jackpot Machine just as he broke into the national scene after years of surviving on commercial art and cartooning. A coin slot peers over the top edge of the machine like one wary eye. The one-armed bandit blocks the viewer’s path and the pay slot gapes as if to say “your money or your life.” But the image is as seductive as it is aggressive. Thiebaud believes that “painting is more important than art,” and he uses luscious paint to capture the jacked-up colors of California’s unabashedly commercial culture. Creamy strokes of red, white, and blue invite the viewer to follow the American dream, grab the handle and get rich quick, like all those who come to the West Coast looking for the prize. Only two out of three tokens line up, however, as if Thiebaud wanted to point out how random success can be. Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006
Wayne Thiebaud, Gum Machine, from the book Delights, 1964/published 1965, etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Frank Lobdell, San Francisco, 1992.43.9, (c) 1965, Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud, Candied Apples, from the book Delights, 1964/published 1965, etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Frank Lobdell, San Francisco, 1992.43.12, (c) 1965, Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud, Cake Window, from the book Delights, 1964/published 1965, etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Frank Lobdell, San Francisco, 1992.43.13, (c) 1965, Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud, Glassed Candy, from the Presidential Portfolio, 1980, color lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Democratic National Committee, 1981.174.6
Wayne Thiebaud, Renwick Gallery Tenth Birthday, color offset eproduction, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Smithsonian Resident Associate Program, 1982.7
Wayne Thiebaud
is an American painter known for his colorful works depicting commonplace objects—pies, lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, pastries, and hot dogs—as well as for his landscapes and figure paintings.
Thiebaud is associated with the pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture, although his early works, executed during the fifties and sixties, slightly predate the works of the classic pop artists. Thiebaud uses heavy pigment and exaggerated colors to depict his subjects, and the well-defined shadows characteristic of advertisements are almost always included in his work. Contents 1
Thiebaud was born to Morton and Alice Thiebaud in Mesa, Arizona They moved a year later to Southern California where the family lived for most of Thiebaud’s childhood until he graduated from high school in Long Beach, California.[3] Thiebaud and his family were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his father was bishop when he was a teenager. Morton Thiebaud was a Ford mechanic, foreman at Gold Medal Creamery, traffic safety supervisor, and real estate agent.[2] One summer during his high school years he apprenticed at Walt Disney Studios drawing “in-betweens” of Goofy, Pinocchio, and Jiminy Cricket at a rate of $14 a week.[citation needed] The next summer he studied at the Frank Wiggins Trade School in Los Angeles. From 1938 to 1949, he worked as a cartoonist and designer in California and New York. He served as an artist in the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Forces from 1942 to 1945.[4] In 1949, he enrolled at San Jose State College (now San Jose State University) before transferring to Sacramento State College (now California State University, Sacramento), where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1951 and a master’s degree in 1952.
http://Wayne Thiebaud, Three Sandwiches, 1961, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Woodward Foundation, 1976.108.144
From 1938 to 1949, he worked as a cartoonist and designer in California and New York. He served as an artist in the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Forces from 1942 to 1945.[4] In 1949, he enrolled at San Jose State College (now San Jose State University) before transferring to Sacramento State College (now California State University, Sacramento), where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1951 and a master’s degree in 1952. Early career Thiebaud subsequently began teaching at Sacramento City College. In 1960, he became assistant professor at the University of California, Davis, where he remained through 1991 and influenced numerous art students.
He continues to hold a Professor Emeritus title there. Thiebaud did not have much of a following among Conceptual artists because of his adherence to basically traditional disciplines, emphasis on hard work as a supplement to creativity, and love of realism. Occasionally, he gave pro bono lectures at U.C. Davis. On a leave of absence during 1956–57, he spent time in New York City, where he became friends with Elaine and Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, and was much influenced by these abstractionists as well as by proto-pop artists Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. During this time, he began a series of very small paintings based on images of food displayed in windows, and he focused on their basic shapes.
Returning to California, he pursued this subject matter and style, isolating triangles, circles, squares, etc. He also co-founded the Artists Cooperative gallery, now Artists Contemporary Gallery, and other cooperatives including Pond Farm, having been exposed to the concept of cooperatives in New York. In 1960, he had his first solo show in San Francisco at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and shows in New York City at the Staempfli and Tanager galleries. These shows received little notice, but two years later, a 1962 Sidney Janis Gallery exhibition in New York officially launched Pop Art, bringing Thiebaud national recognition, although he disclaimed being anything other than a painter of illusionistic form. In 1961,
Thiebaud met and became friends with art dealer Allan Stone (1932–2006), the man who gave him his first “break.”[4] Stone was Thiebaud’s dealer until Stone’s death in 2006.[5] Stone said of Thiebaud “I have had the pleasure of friendship with a complex and talented man, a terrific teacher and cook, the best raconteur in the west with a spin serve, and a great painter whose magical touch is exceeded only by his genuine modesty and humility. Thiebaud’s dedication to painting and his pursuit of excellence inspire all who are lucky enough to come in contact with him. He is a very special man.”
After Stone’s death, Thiebaud’s son Paul Thiebaud (1960–2010) took over as his dealer. Paul Thiebaud was a successful art dealer in his own right and had eponymous galleries in Manhattan and San Francisco; he died June 19, 2010. In 1962, Thiebaud’s work was included, along with Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jim Dine, Phillip Hefferton, Joe Goode, Edward Ruscha, and Robert Dowd, in the historically important and ground-breaking “New Painting of Common Objects,” curated by Walter Hopps at the Pasadena Art Museum (now the Norton Simon Museum at Pasadena).[6] This exhibition is historically considered one of the first Pop Art exhibitions in America. These painters were part of a new movement, in a time of social unrest, which shocked America and the art world. In 1963, he turned increasingly to figure painting: wooden and rigid, with each detail sharply emphasized. In 1964, he made his first prints at Crown Point Press, and has continued to make prints throughout his career. In 1967, his work was shown at the Biennale Internationale.
Wayne Thiebaud, Levee Farms, 1998, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Sam Rose and Julie Walters, 2004.30.4 The vantage point of Levee Farms is that of a low-flying bird as it surveys planting fields and a river suffused with the warm light of the California sun. A tour de force of curving lines, gentle color, and subtle shadows describe fields that follow the contours of the river as it flows toward the delta. Here, Thiebaud toyed with perspective–there is no horizon line, for example–and manipulates space to celebrate the confluence of man in harmony with the natural world. Title Levee Farms Artist Wayne Thiebaud Date 1998 Location Smithsonian American Art Museum 2nd Floor North Wing Dimensions.
Wayne Thiebaud, Lunch Counter, from the book Delights, 1964/published 1965, etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Frank Lobdell, San Francisco, 1992.43.7, (c) 1965, Wayne Thiebaud Wayne Thiebaud, Pies, from the book Delights, 1964/published 1965, etching and aquatint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Frank Lobdell, San Francisco, 1992.43.15, (c) 1965, Wayne Thiebaud
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY Iced coffee, light at Cornell Tech Cafe
WINNER #1 LISA FERNANDEZ WINNER #2 JAY JACOBSON WINNER #3 ALEXIS VILLEFANE
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EDITORIAL
I am craving different foods so the art of Wayne Theibaud is perfect for me, It is delicious looking and is calorie free.
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The Jewish Palestine Pavilion at the 1939-1940 World’s Fair
I was looking thru the Wikipedia site for the 1939-1940 World’s Fair pages and discovered there was a Jewish Palestine (now Israel) pavilion at the fair. The architecture and art looked interesting and I was sure there was a back story and there was:
Jewish Palestine Pavilion
The Jewish Palestine Pavilion introduced the world to the concept of a modern Jewish state, which a decade later became Israel. The pavilion featured a monumental hammered copper relief sculpture on its facade titled The Scholar, The Laborer, and the Toiler of the Soil by the noted Art Deco sculptor Maurice Ascalon.
FROM THE JEWISH PRESS
The Palestine Pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair was one of the seminal events in both American Jewish history and the rebirth of Israel. In fact, the entire fair proved very popular among Jews, who playfully referred to the Trylon and Perisphere – the defining icon of the fair –as the “lulav and esrog.”
The modern World’s Fair, or Universal Exposition, originated in the French tradition, as manifested by the French Industrial Exposition held in Paris (1844). This fair led to other national exhibitions throughout Europe, the most famous being the First World Expo – titled the “Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations” – which was held in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, in 1851. Advertisement Since the establishment of the 1928 Convention Relating to International Exhibitions, the International Exhibitions Bureau served as an international sanctioning body for world’s fairs, the general purpose of which was to create a virtual zone of internationalism where each state could put forward its best face to the world of nations.
Naturally, particularly in the shadow of Hitler and the rise of Nazism in Europe, Zionists sought to participate in the fair as an expression of political Jewish sovereignty, and they dreamed of displaying their flags, singing their anthems, presenting their honor guard of chalutzim, and establishing their pavilion like any other state. Zionist leaders understood their inclusion in the world of nations at the Fair would constitute a powerful argument for international legitimacy.
The Jewish role in previous fairs had been essentially limited to classification as a religious group, but all that changed with the 1939 World’s Fair, held at Flushing Meadows in New York City, due primarily to the efforts of impresario Meyer Weisgal (1894-1977), who directed the creation of the Palestine Pavilion at the fair. Weisgal specified three goals for the Pavilion: first, to gather support for the Zionist cause; second, to protest against Nazi Germany and raise funds for Jewish refugees from Hitler; and third, to put on a strong show of Jewish solidarity on the grand world stage.
Organizers of the Pavilion, led by Weisgal, petitioned the fair’s planning board for space in the fair’s “International Zone,” but the request was summarily rejected because strict guidelines permitted only established countries – which “Palestine” certainly was not. (How richly ironic that in short order many of the European “established countries” – including France, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, Finland, and Austria – essentially ceased to exist, in terms of independence and sovereignty, due to the Nazi conquests in World War II.)
ALBERT EINSTEIN AND MAYOR FIORELLO LA GUARDIA AT PAVILION DEDICATION. MAURICE ASCALON WORKING ON BRONZE.
In an unexpected concession, the fair’s organizers suggested that Palestine, then under the British Mandate, could participate under the banner of Great Britain. Not surprisingly, the British, given the tense state of affairs in the Mandate, quickly rejected the idea. Fair organizers ultimately granted exhibition space to Palestine in the “Community Interest” zone – but the Arabs, the British, and even the State Department were enraged when the Jewish organizers planned to call their exhibition “the Jewish National Home in Palestine” or “the Land of Israel.”
The ultimate choice – the “Jewish Palestine Pavilion” – did little to assuage them. Though Weisgal failed in his attempt to locate the Pavilion among the other nations, the anti-Jewish Palestine forces were incensed that he succeeded in convincing fair officials to permit the Palestine Pavilion to fly the Zionist flag, to be included in the fair’s Book of Nations, and to be represented in the Parade of Nations, all of which constituted indicia of governmental sovereignty.
Bringing to America the Story of Jewish Achievement. The text inside explains that that the Palestine Pavilion will constitute the first complete panorama to be shown at the American World’s Fair of the transformation that a few decades of Jewish colonialization have wrought in the Holy Land….
The Pavilion will include ten exhibition halls dedicated to various aspects of Jewish life in Palestine today…. The exhibits to be shown at the Pavilion are now being completed in Palestine, where they are being built by Jewish craftsmen out of Palestinian materials… Weisgal cleverly and pointedly planned the exhibit in order to present Zionist ideology as consistent with the fair’s general theme, “Building the World of Tomorrow,” and he conceived the idea of making the Pavilion a “miniature Palestine in Flushing Meadows” and for the building itself to be “authentically Palestinian.”
A flagged courtyard centered the Pavilion, and fifty varieties of trees and plants native to Eretz Yisrael were planted around the courtyard, including orange, lemon, lime, fig and date trees, and lotus and papyrus plants that grew out of the pool. The Pavilion also featured basalt from the Sea of Galilee; special bluish-gray marble from Givaat Hahamishah; striking mosaics brought from the ancient synagogue of Beth Alpha; and a cornerstone brought from Hanita.
After a successful fundraising drive, Dr. Thomas Mann, the German novelist, social critic, philanthropist, and staunch anti-Nazi who in 1929 had been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, dedicated the cornerstone of the Palestine Pavilion on May 13, 1939. New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia welcomed the exhibit because of its “special significance at this time, when the problem of a refuge for Jews persecuted by the totalitarian governments is growing more acute from day to day.” Though the actual formal dedication, which took place two weeks later on May 28, had to be postponed because the Pavilion had not been completed, it was unofficially opened a few weeks early to satisfy high public demand –
For more than forty years the people of the world have been listening to the struggle of a homeless people to recreate and reinhabit the ancient land of their forefathers. To most people this story has remained the tale of far-off accomplishments. Now, for the first time, through the Palestine Pavilion at the forthcoming World’s Fair, millions of people will be brought into physical contact with Jewish Palestine.
With their bare hands the Jews have wrested a fertile, thriving community from the heart of a barren wilderness. It is the triumph of life defeating death, the victory of Jewish idealism, courage and tenacity.This is the story which the Palestine Pavilion will attempt to tell to the millions that will come to visit the World’s Fair. Also exhibited here, as Exhibit 4, is The Jewish Palestine Pavilion – A Monument to Zionist Achievement in Eretz Israel, a pamphlet issued by the Zionist Organization of America.
It shows the Pavilion, which was designed by Arieh (Sapoznikov) El-Hanani, and “The Scholar, the Laborer, and the Toiler of the Soil,” the immense hammered copper relief sculpture at the facade of the Pavilion building by sculptor Maurice Ascalon, the “father of modern Israeli decorative arts.”
THE PAVILION WAS NOT WITH OTHER COUNTRIES BUT WITH A INTERESTING GROUP OF “MISCELLANEOUS” ORGANIZATIONS.
PAVILION ARCHITECT
ELHANANI, ARYEH
(1898–1985), Israeli architect, painter, and designer. Elḥanani was born in Russia, where he studied art and architecture in Kiev between 1913 and 1917. He immigrated to Ereẓ Israel in 1922 and began his career by designing trade fairs, and later pavilions for trade fairs abroad, designing inter alia the symbol of the Levant Fairs, a flying camel, and the Palmaḥ and idf logos. In 1934 he sculpted The Hebrew Worker, located in Palmer Square, Tel Aviv. In the 1940s he undertook the planning of the buildings of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Reḥovot, and from then continued designing institutes of higher learning and other public institutes such as Bar-Ilan University. Two of his most notable designs are the Yizkor Tent at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the Memorial Square at Yad Weizmann in Reḥovot. His designs reflect the spirit of a nation reborn. He was awarded the Israel Prize in 1973. The Elḥanani Prize for combining art and architecture is named after him.
Maurice Ascalon SCULPTOR
(Hebrew: מוריס אשקלון; 1913–2003) was an Israeli designer and sculptor. He was, by some accounts, considered the father of the modern Israeli decorative arts movement.
Maurice Ascalon was born as Moshe Klein in eastern Hungary. From an early age, he was determined to pursue his artistic yearnings, however in order to do so, he was forced to abandon his ultra-religious Chasidic Jewish roots – for artistic expression was frowned upon in the eastern Hungarian “shtetl” in which he was raised. When he was 15 years old Klein left his family and boyhood home to study art at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.
He took with him an in-depth understanding of the rituals and traditions of the Jewish ceremonies, which knowledge he would later apply to his artistic endeavors. In 1934, after undertaking his formal artistic training in Brussels and later Milan, Maurice Ascalon immigrated to the land of Israel (then the British Mandate of Palestine). There he met his wife-to-be, Zipora Kartujinsky, a Polish-born Jew, granddaughter to the distinguished cartographer and scientist of the same surname. (Zipora, who died in 1982, became a sculptor in her own right late in her life, creating magnificent bas reliefs depicting the Shtetl life of her childhood)
In 1939, Maurice Ascalon designed and created the enormous 14-foot-tall (4.3 m) hammered repoussé copper relief sculpture of three figures, “The Toiler of the Soil, the Laborer and the Scholar”, which adorned the façade of the Jewish Palestine Pavilion of the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Ascalon was commissioned to create this work for the historically significant Pavilion which introduced the world to the concept of a modern Jewish state.
(The work is now part of the collection of the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago.) In the late 1930s, Ascalon founded an Israeli decorative arts manufacturing company, Pal-Bell, which produced trademark bronze and brass menorahs and other Judaic and secular decorative art and functional items that were exported in large numbers worldwide.
Maurice Ascalon’s well-recognized designs, some art deco, others more traditional, introduced the use of a deliberate, chemically induced green patina (verdigris) to Israeli metalwork, which is now a hallmark of Israel’s crafts industry. During Israel’s War for Independence in 1948, Maurice designed munitions for the Israeli Army and, at the request of the Israeli government, retrofitted his factory to produce munitions for the war effort. In 1956 Maurice immigrated to the United States. During the latter part of the 1950s through the 1960s, Maurice resided in New York and Los Angeles.
He gained a reputation as a master silversmith, creating for synagogues magnificent Torah crowns and other l objects of Jewish ceremonial art that he first learned of in his youth. For a time, he taught sculpture on the fine arts faculty of the University of Judaism (now the American Jewish University) in Los Angeles. In the late 1970s, Maurice’s workshop, now formally dubbed Ascalon Studios, relocated to the Philadelphia area. It became (and still is today, under the direction of Maurice’s son, David Ascalon) a multifaceted art studio dedicated to the design of and creation of site-specific art for worship and public spaces. In February 2003, Maurice Ascalon celebrated his 90th birthday as a resident of Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he lived with his eldest son, Adir Ascalon (Adir was a surrealist painter and sculptor who collaborated with the noted Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros). In August 2003, Maurice Ascalon succumbed to complications related to Parkinson’s disease, an illness he endured during most of the final decade of his life. Maurice Ascalon’s commissions include permanent installations at worship and public spaces throughout the United States, Mexico, and Israel. His works have been exhibited at and are among the collections of institutions including the Jewish Museum (New York), the Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago, the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv, and the University of Judaism in Los Angeles.
The Yizkor Plaque in the Maltz Performing Arts Center
CLEVELAND JEWISH HISTORY
The New York World’s Fair, which opened in 1939 and closed in October 1940, had a Jewish Palestine Pavilion. The exhibit, whose presence had been opposed by many, told the Zionist story to four million visitors. It was nearly a decade before the State of Israel was recognized by the world. In 1941 a precious remnant of that exhibit was installed in the Silver Sanctuary of The Temple – Tifereth Israel in University Circle. It remains there today, now part of the auditorium of the Milton and Tamar Maltz Performing Arts Center of Case Western Reserve University. It is very appropriate for it to be there in the place where Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver preached, for it was Silver who led the mobilization of American and world support for the founding of the State of Israel.
“The Scholar, the Laborer, and the Toiler of the Soil,”THE YISKOR PLAQUE IN THE PAVILION
THIS YIZKOR PLAQUE FROM THE PAVILION IS NOW IN CLEVELAND.
AFTER THE FAIR CLOSED ARTIFACTS WERE SOLD OFF SINCE DUE TO THE WAR THE MEDITERRANEAN WAS CLOSED FOR SHIPPING. THE YISKOR PLAQUE CAME TO CLEVELAND.
THE SCULPTURE CAME TO THE SPERTUS MUSEUM IN CHICAGO. THEY WERE OVER THE ENTRY TO THE MUSEUM. AT THE MOMENT THEY ARE STORED FOR CONSERVATION.
Ascalon Studios, Inc. March 29, 2011 · Flushing, New York ·
In the late 1930s, Ascalon Studios co-founder, Maurice Ascalon, resided in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine, to which he immigrated after spending years studying sculpture in Brussels and Milan. The young Ascalon was then commissioned by the architect Ari El-Hannini to design and implement a prominent artwork for the facade of a building being designed for construction across the world. The building was the Jewish-Palestine Pavilion for the upcoming 1939 New York World’s Fair. This pavilion would introduce the people of the world to the concept of a modern Jewish nation. Welcoming the people of the world to the pavilion would be Ascalon’s artwork, a magnificent Art Deco copper relief he created utilizing the hand hammering repoussé and chasing techniques he mastered in Europe over the preceding decade. Ascalon’s sculpture consisted of three fourteen foot high figures. “The Scholar, The Laborer, and The Toiler of the Soil” represented three facets necessary for the creation of a successful society – a society which, a decade later (separated by the Second World War and the atrocities of the Holocaust) would become the modern State of Israel. The 1939 New York World’s Fair, which covered the 1,216 acres of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park (also the location of the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair), was the largest world’s fair in history. Many countries around the world participated with their own pavilions, and over 44 million people attended its exhibits during two seasons. At the conclusion of the Fair in 1940, its pavilions were decommissioned, and Ascalon’s “The Scholar, The Laborer, and The Toiler of the Soil” made its way to Chicago, where the sculpture became part of the permanent collection of the Spertus Museum. For years the piece was prominently displayed on the facade of the The Spertus on Michigan Avenue across from Millennium Park. The piece was eventually removed and taken inside to the museum’s repository. Today, 70 years after its creation, the historical artifact awaits restoration.
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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)
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BUILT ON LANDFILL IN FLUSHING, QUEENS THE FAIR WAS A SHOWCASE FOR NEW INNOVATIONS FROM CARS TO TELEVISIONS. IT NEVER FULFILLED THE GOALS SET FOR IT AND WITH THE COMING ON WORLD WAR II, THE SECOND YEAR WAS NOT SUCCESSFUL.
THE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING WHILE THE FAIR WAS UNDER CONSTRUCTION
THE TRYLON AND PERISPHERE STAND OUT IN LOW-RISE QUEENS IN 1938. THE ALMOST COMPLETE GOLDWATER HOSPITAL IS CLEARLY VISIBLE. ON THE ISLAND.
APRIL 30, 1939 WAS OPENING DAY FOR THE FAIR WITH FDR IN ATTENDANCE.
A MERE 35,000 INVITED GUESTS TO OPENING DAY.
VISITORS ENJOYED RIDING A NEW INVENTION, AN ESCALATOR AT THE WESTINGHOUSE PAVILION.
ENTRY GATE WITH A CLOCK FROM A NEARBY QUEENS COMPANY-BULOVA WATCHES.
THE FRONT OF THE FORD PAVILLION
FORD MOTOR COMPANY “ROAD TO TOMORROW”
Billy Rose’s Aquacade was a spectacular musical and water extravaganza foreshadowing the form of many popular Hollywood musicals in the ensuing years. The show was presented in a special amphitheater seating 10,000 people and included an orchestra to accompany the spectacular synchronized swimming performance. It featured Johnny Weissmuller and Eleanor Holm, two of the most celebrated swimmers of the era, and dazzled fairgoers with its lighting and cascades and curtains of water, pumped in waterfalls at 8,000 gallons a minute. The cost of admission was 80 cents. The Aquacade facility itself served as an entertainment venue in the park for many years afterward, including the 1964–65 World’s Fair, but fell into disrepair in the 1980s and was finally demolished in 1996.
WATER FROLICS AT THE AQUACADE
MOM, WHAT IS A CASH REGISTER? LOOK CLOSE, IT WAS UP TO A MAX OF $99.99.
PAUL MANSHIP CREATED MANY SCULPTURES FOR THE FAIR. ABOVE IS CELESTIAL SPHERE AND BELOW IS SUNDIAL. HE IS BEST KNOWN FOR PROMETHEUS AT ROCKEFELLER PLAZA
Italian Pavilion
The Italian pavilion attempted to fuse ancient Roman splendor with modern styles, and a 200-foot (61 m) high waterfall dedicated to Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of the radio defined the pavilion’s facade. The pavilion occupied 100,000 square feet of space on plot GJ-1 at Presidential Row North and Continental Avenue and cost more than $3 million. Italy paid for the right to use another ten thousand feet of space in the fair’s Hall of Nations. There, the mosaic floor was to be graced by a high pillar upon which rested the ubiquitous She-Wolf, mother of Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome.
Above Nino Giordano’s Capitoline She-Wolf extended the lines of a Roman triumphal arch. The long side walls, adorned with emblems of ancient and modern Rome and maps of its new colonial ’empire’ were divided into three sections by columns with rostra rising on a plinth of black marble and accentuated by Roman stucco of a velvety-white color. These walls sheltered Romano Romanelli’s bronze statue of Mussolini which stood tall upon a black marble pedestal in the very center of the room.The pavilion’s popular restaurant was designed in the shape of the nation’s luxury cruise line ships.
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CAT-A-TORIAL
My name is Lucky and I am the boss of the Octagon Wildlife Freedom Foundation Shelter. I guard the area from other creatures. Rosanna rescued me from the basement of a bodega. Sitting outside on the stoop of my home is sure a better deal. Come by the road near the south end of Octagon by the Sanctuary. Can’t wait for partying to begin!!!
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 Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
As of this Saturday, August 22nd you can get there from here. The NYC Ferry will extend the Astoria route to go 90th Street, Manhattan. This is great news on those wanting to get to the Upper East Side.
The ferry docks just north of the park at 90th Street and the FDR Drive.
Carl Schurz Park is a 14.9-acre (6.0 ha) public park in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, named for German-born Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz in 1910, at the edge of what was then the solidly German-American community of Yorkville.
The park contains Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the Mayor of New Carl Schurz Park overlooks the waters of Hell Gate and Wards Island in the East River, and is the site of Gracie Mansion (built for Archibald Gracie, 1799, enlarged c. 1811), the official residence of the Mayor of New York since 1942. There are tours of the restored building every Wednesday. The park’s waterfront promenade is a deck built over the Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive, enclosing the roadway except on the side facing the East River.
The park is bordered on the west by East End Avenue and on the south by Gracie Square, the extension of East 84th Street to the river. The East River Greenway, part of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway, passes along the promenade platform. The park contains winding, shady paths, green lawns, waterfront views, basketball courts, a large playground for children, and two dog runs: one designated for larger dogs and one for smaller dogs. The park is maintained by Carl Schurz Park Conservancy, the oldest park conservancy in New York City, in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
PETER PAN STATUE IN THE PARK
Carl Schurz Park Carl Schurz Park This text is part of Parks’ Historical Signs Project and can be found posted within the park.
What was here before? The Algonquins were the earliest inhabitants of this land, which was valued for its strategic location overlooking turbulent waters of the Hell Gate at this bend in the East River. The first known European owner of the land was Dutchman Sybout Claessen, who was granted the property in 1646 by the Dutch West India Company. Jacob Walton, a subsequent owner, built the first house on the site in 1770. During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army built a fort surrounding the Walton residence to guard the strategic shipping passage of Hell Gate.
After a British attack on September 8, 1776, the house was destroyed and the Americans were forced to retreat from the fort, which the British retained until the end of the war in 1783. In 1799, a prosperous New York hant named Archibald Gracie built a country house on the land. .Bankruptcy forced Gracie to sell his house to Joseph Foulke in 1823. Foulke later subdivided the land, selling the mansion and some of the land to Noah Wheaton in 1857.
How did this site become a park? In 1896, the City of New York seized the estate from Wheaton due to non-payment of taxes, incorporating its 11 acres of grounds into East River Park. It was renamed in 1910 for the German-American statesman Carl Schurz.
The first home of the Museum of the City of New York (1924-32), the mansion has served as the official residence of New York’s mayors since Fiorello La Guardia moved there in 1942.
Illustrious landscape architects Calvert Vaux (1824-1895) and Samuel Parsons (1844-1923) completed a new landscape design for the park in 1902. Maud Sargent (1899-1992) re-designed the park in 1939 when the East River Drive underpass, now Franklin Delano Roosevelt Drive, was under construction. Sargent’s functional design used strategically placed boulders, plantings, and hardscaped plazas and walkways to obscure the new roadway below.
The park’s waterfront promenade, built over the FDR’s roof deck, was named after City College president and New York State Commissioner of Education John H. Finley. In 1975 Charles Andrew Hafner’s (1889-1960) sculpture of Peter Pan, originally created in 1928 for the old Paramount Theater’s lobby, was installed in one of the park’s cloistered gardens. Recent improvements include rebuilding of the stairs, the complete restoration of the playground and the opening of Carl’s Dog Run.
These and other projects, including the planting of flowers, have been accomplished through a partnership between NYC Parks and the Carl Schurz Park Conservancy, which has demonstrated the community’s commitment to restoring, maintaining, and preserving this park since it formed in 1974. Who is this park named for?
The Board of Aldermen named the park for the soldier, statesman, and journalist Carl Schurz (1829-1906) in 1910. Schurz was a native of Cologne, Germany, and the renaming was strongly supported by the large German adjacent community, Yorkville. After immigrating to the United States in 1852, Schurz quickly made his reputation as a skilled orator and proved to be instrumental to Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 election campaign. His most significant political offices were that of United States Senator from Missouri (1869-1875), and Secretary of the Interior (1877-81) during the Hayes administration. In his later years, Schurz was editor of the New York Tribune and an editorial writer for Harper’s Weekly. Schurz is also honored by Karl Bitter’s statue of 1913, located at Morningside Drive and 116th.
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY Octagon Cat Shelter Wildlife Freedom Foundation
Jay Jacobson came closest.
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EDITORIAL This e-mail popped up last evening…………..and what good news. From out of the blue news that we can now get to East 90th Street by Ferry.
We can connect at 90th Street to take the Soundview Ferry to the Bronx.
The Soundview Ferry is a great ride through historic islands and now we can do it easier from here.
Yipppee!! 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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New York City has more than its share of art. Works of art can be found throughout the city, in museums, galleries, and even scattered across its parks. However, an often overlooked venue for art in New York City are post offices. During the Great Depression, federal agencies including the Treasury Department’s Section of Painting and Sculpture, often confused and conflated with the WPA, hired painters and sculptors to “secure suitable art of the best quality available for the embellishment of public buildings.” The Bronx GPO has been for sale for a few years. One developer pulled out. Stay tuned.
JAMES A FARLEY G.P.O.
The General Post Office, was designed by McKim, Mead, and White to complement their nascent Pennsylvania Station. The 8th Avenue facade possesses an extended staircase rising to fifty-three corinthian columns topped by a frieze with a quote, often mistaken for the post office’s official motto. The quote, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom…,” was adopted, and amended, from Herodotus describing the couriers of King Xerxes, along with inscriptions of names related to postal history, like Cardinal Richelieu and King Louis XVI.
In the 1930s, Louis Lozowick, a Russian painter and art critic, painted two large oil painting in the lobby of the post office. Triborough Bridge and Lower Manhattan can still be viewed today, although the lower portion of Lower Manhattan has been covered by a memorial plaque (the lower portion can be seen on the original drawing). There are also remnants of a mural at the Annex to the Farley Post Office Building, which is unfortunately inaccessible to the public. This may change however, as the plans to convert the Farley Post Office into a train station and Amtrak waiting room got another jump start from Governor Cuomo. Stay tuned to see how the murals are handled in the refurbished terminal
FOREST HILLS POST OFFICE
The Forest Hills Post Office is located on Queens Boulevard, near the 71st (Continental) Avenue stop on the E/F. The building was constructed pursuant to the Emergency Construction Program Act in the Art Deco style. It is adorned with a 1938 sculpture by Sten Jacobson entitled “The Spirit of Communication.” Interestingly, the building has not been designated a landmark by the City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. Sadly the Forest Hills Jewish Center next door is slated for demolition. The two buildings complement each other facing a lovely park.
WOODHAVEN POST OFFICE
The Woodhaven Post Office is located on Forrest Park Avenue. It is located in a 1930s Art Deco style building. It is fronted by two pedestals topped with flowerpots that are reminiscent of similar decorative features installed in front of some City parks. The Post Office is located near the house in which Betty Smith wrote A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, both structures are demarcated with historical posts. The post office is decorated with Ben Shan’s mural entitled First Amendment. The mural was designed in response to Roosevelt’s commitment to the Four Freedoms (press, speech, religion, and assembly), of which the Roosevelt Island Four Freedoms Park commemorates. The mural depicts the Statue of Liberty, a New York State voters’ ballot, workers marching in protest, and the Supreme Court building.
CANAL STREET
The Canal Street Post Office is located on the southeast corner of Canal Street and Church Street. The building was constructed in 1937 in the Art Moderne style, in the same vein as the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. The building contains an outstanding Art Deco bas relief designed by Wheeler Williams and installed in 1938.
MADISON SQUARE STATION
The interior of New York’s Madison Square Station post office features eight tempera-on-plaster murals entitled “Scenes of New York” (1937-1939), commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts funding. Four panels are found on each the right and left wall of the post office lobby, surrounding the central postal clerk counters.
Professor Dolkart of Columbia University School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation notes that seven of the eight McLeary murals represent different New York City neighborhoods. In each neighborhood shown, someone is depicted doing a mail-related activity: “Lower East Side (reading a letter to a group); Broadway (carrying a letter); Central Park (reading a letter while sitting on the lawn); Harlem (mailing a letter); Greenwich Village (carrying a letter?); Wall Street (carrying a stack of letters); Park Avenue (mailing a letter in the box inside an apartment building lobby).” It may be the case that the eight mural entitled Immigration shows a mail sack but this has not been confirmed. (Dolkart) For the purposes of identifying the positions of the eight panels with photos on this page, the numbering shall proceed from panel “1”: the rear of the east side of the lobby (the right side when entering from 23rd St.), clockwise to panel “8”, the rear of the west (left, from 23rd St.) side of the lobby. Put another way, panels “1” to “4” refer to those panels on the east side of the lobby, rear to front, and “5” to “8” identify the panels on the west side of the lobby, front to back.
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HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW
THIS BEAUTIFUL FLOWERING CHERRY (?) TREE LOCATED IN THE OCTAGON TRIANGLE TURNAROUND WAS CUT DOWN YESTERDAY OR TODAY SO THE AREA CAN BE REBUILT. THERE WILL BE A LARGE SIGN ON THE SITE NOW AND ONLY ONE TREE REMAINING. LUCKILY, THE SUNDIAL THAT THE RIHS PLACE IN THE AREA HAS BEEN SAVED. TELL ME WHERE YOU WOULD LIKE THE SUNDIAL TO BE RELOCATED TO.
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EDITORIAL
Looking at the artists who painted the Post Office murals, two names stand out; Ben Shahn and Louis Lozowick.
Shahn photographed the Penitentiary for a WPA project on the island and Lozowick painted and drew many images of New York City scenes and bridges. As we look farther we will discover more names we recognize.
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 PHOTOS AND SOME TEXT COURTESY OF UNTAPPED CITIES (C)
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