Howard Hack, Window Number 22, Parenti’s Market, 1967, oil on canvas, Smithsonian
This painting is part of Howard Hack’s Window series of the 1960s, which show “landscapes” of objects seen through glass storefronts. The reversed numbers and small orange pump identify this as a view of a Union 76 gas station, seen perhaps from the inside of an abandoned market where only a weighing scale and empty ceiling hooks remain.
Shadowed corners underscore the emptiness and silence, and the texture of the painted window evokes layers of undisturbed dust. Hack painted some objects to appear both inside and outside the glass, creating a confusing sense of depth and making it difficult to distinguish between the real objects and their reflections.
Howard Edwin Hack (July 6, 1932 – June 11, 2015) was a San Francisco Bay Area representational painter and graphic artist with works in numerous museum collections. Known for an innovative approach to a variety of media, as well as use of traditional oil paints, Hack began working in the late 1940s.
GHANDI
Howard Hack, (From Blue Print series) #6, Gandhi, 1972, blue print on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Larry Epping Building Co., 1981.29.7
Howard Hack, (From Blue Print series) #10, Curtain, 1973, blue print on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Larry Epping Building Co., 1981.29.11
SEWING MACHINE
Howard Hack, (From Blue Print series) #18, The Sewing Machine, 1975, blue print on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Larry Epping Building Co., 1981.29.17
BI-CENTENNIAL EAGLE
Howard Hack, (From Blue Print series) #24, Bi-Centennial Eagle, 1976, blue print on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Larry Epping Building Co., 1981.29.2
THE WHISK BROOM
Howard Hack, Silverpoint #35, The Whisk Broom, 1967, blue print on paper,
BI-CENTENNIAL LIGHT BULB
Howard Hack, (From Blue Print series) #25, Bi-Centennial Light Bulb, 1976, blue print on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Larry Epping Building Co., 1981.29.24
CAREER
Upon returning to the U.S., Hack resumed painting, using images from his stay in Korea, and scenes from Oakland. Hack occupied studio space and lived in the Spreckels Mansion, also known as the Ghost House (1150 Franklin Street, San Francisco), along with other artists, including Wally Hedrick, Jay DeFeo, and Hayward King.
From the Ghost House Hack attended the gathering at the nearby Six Gallery (the Six Gallery Reading at 3119 Fillmore Street, San Francisco), where poet Alan Ginsberg debuted his poem Howl on October 7, 1955.
Between 1957 and 1959, Hack lived primarily in San Miguel de Allende, in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, a haven adopted by American artists and bohemians after WWII. In 1959,
Hack returned to the United States, enrolling as a philosophy undergraduate at the University of San Francisco. At USF Hack studied the theories of the neo-Kantian idealist philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), in particular his concepts of symbolism.
Howard Hack, (From Blue Print series) #14, Cushion and Stool, 1973, blue print on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Larry Epping Building Co., 1981.29.14
EXHIBITIONS
In 1967, the M.H. De Young Museum, San Francisco, exhibited Hack’s “Window Series,” oil paintings depicting scenes from San Francisco’s South of Market area designated for demolition. In his review of the show San Francisco Chronicle art critic Alfred Frankenstein referred to the works as “magic realism,” a phrase coined in 1943 by Alfred H. Barr Jr., founding director of the New York Museum of Modern Art. (In her “Foreword and Acknowledgment” to the MoMA catalog for the exhibition Realists and Magic Realism, Dorothy Canning Miller referred to Barr’s definition of magic realism as “a term sometimes applied to painters who by means of an exact realistic technique try to make plausible and convincing their improbable dreamlike or fantastic visions.”)
Frankenstein noted: “Hack has lived for a long time with the moods of windows…. (T)hey display for him the humble machinery of everyday living – shoemaker’s equipment, the chairs and cabinets of a barber shop, a tailor’s padded pressing iron – always silent, always at rest, intensified to the highest degree by isolation and close scrutiny.
But his collection of Sunday morning glimpses into little offbeat shops is neither a social document, in the manner of Edward Hopper, nor a celebration of the mechanized, in the style of Charles Sheeler. It is a document of Howard Hack’s perceptions, reactions, and experiments.”In 1981, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor presented a collection of works in silverpoint by Howard Hack. The show’s catalog curator Robert Flynn Johnson wrote: “What will people think of Howard Hack’s art one hundred years from now? What will they think of the time, patience and concentration necessary to create these works? What will they think of his seductive style and idiosyncratic subject matter? I believe that Howard Hack’s art will age far more gracefully than the strained and artistic fashions that currently strut upon the stage of history.
Time will tell.” In San Francisco, Howard Hack was represented by several galleries, including Richard Gump’s and John Bolles. In New York, Hack’s works were sold through Lee Nordness Gallery.
His studio was left abandoned for more than 15 years, but sold in 2016 for 1.5 million dollars despite decrepit conditions.
WARDEN’S HOUSE NORTH OF THE PENITENTIARY WITH IN-GROUND SWIMMING POOL
EDITORIAL
Hack, an artist of San Francisco and its unique position in 1960’s and 1970’s art!!
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 All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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City Home: Group on ferry “Col. Clayton.” Patients, staff on outing, 1947
The Almshouse, later called the City Home existed on the island from the late 1820’s until 1953 when it closed permanently. The residents were called inmates, at times. The treatment varied according to differentl stories. The home was located mid-island around the Chapel of the Good Shepherd which opened in 1889.
All the images here are on the website of the Municipal Archives of the City of New York, To see larger more clear versions, go to nyc.gov/records, then to Historical Records, then to Collections. Check Digital Collections and input WELFARE ISLAND CITY HOME.
OUTSIDE THE CHAPEL
City Home: Catholic Church under construction. Our Lady Consoler of the Afflicted
IN THE DINING ROOM
City Home, Male Dining Room. Elderly men seated at large round tables.
IN THE KITCHEN
City Home District: Worker stands next to coffee roasting machine. (DPC first roasted its own coffee in 1914.) Our first Starbucks?
City Home: General Kitchen; workers in aprons stand in brick-walled room.
Butchers at work in main kitchen, 1950
City Home: Kitchen workers at stoves, stirring huge vats, etc., 1950
RECREATION
City Home, Indoor Recreation Center (“Klondike”). Long single-story structure; male patients seated outside.
City Home: Male Day Pavilion. One-story multi-windowed structure. Outdoor benches alongside.
City Home: Men seated on benches in Recreation Hall. The hall was nick-named the Klondike. It had glass walls and families of the staff would join the residents for entertainment
City Home Orchestra entertains elderly residents in courtyard of large building, Welfare Island.
City Home, Summer Recreation Program. Outdoor orchestra (Welfare Island?)
City Home, Recreation Park, showing bandstand. Patients seated on benches under trees in background.
Ladies seated in wooded area.
City Home: Large group of old men crowded in grounds, as if waiting to enter through gate in foreground.
City Home: Large group of old women seated on benches in clearing in front of stone building. All wear bonnets.
CELEBRATIONS
Ladies dressed up for special occasion.
Many years of birthdays been celebrated.
“FASHION COMES TO THE POORHOUSE” October 10, 1938
New York…An inmate of the Home for the Aged on Welfare Island is shown here exhibiting her new gown to other inmates after the Department of Hospitals had approved the first change in garb for the city guests in nearly 100 yeas, The shapeless Cotton “Mother Hubbard”worn by the women are now being replaced with flowery percales in the latest fashion. The new styles will be distributed among 1,724 guests at the Home for the Aged and 1,103 guests at the City’s farm colony in West Brighton, Staten Island…
THE ACCOMMODATIONS
City Home main street: one- and two-story brick buildings; men seated and walking down the street. The original Main Street, 1948
City Home: Female barracks; 2-story stone building with 1st and 2nd floor balconies
City Home, Women’s Blind Ward. Elderly woman sits by bed, holding pocketbook. Empty beds. (Most patients are outdoors.)
City Home, Male Ward, showing crowded conditions.
OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY
Two images of blind men weaving rugs.
THE STAFF LIVED HERE TOO
City Home District: Officers’ residences. Two-story wooden bungalows. These were located near Blackwell House.
City Home: Exterior of old 3-story brick building containing main kitchen and help’s dormitory.
City Home District Fire Department Engine #49 (Tall 3-story building and 1-story extension.)
City Home, Two old women with wooden pails scrub entry to South Pavilion.
City Home: Ten old women holding buckets, standing in front of 1-story wooden house wedged between 2-story houses.
BLACKWELL HOUSE FACING QUEENS, WHICH WAS THE ORIGINAL FRONT ENTRY No one guessed!!!
OOPS… WE MISSED THIS ONE. THIS IS THE LAMP FROM INSIDE THE R.I. LIGHTHOUSE WHICH WAS ON THE WEEKEND’S EDITION.
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Today are images, all from the Municipal Archives of the City Home. The home is long gone and in 1953 the remaining residents were discharged to Coler Home of the Staten Island Farm Colony.
Many of the buildings would have been worthy of exterior restoration, but in the 1970’s demolition was the order of the day.
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
Wikipedia for both
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Biography Wikipedia Hildreth Meière was born in New York City in 1892. After studying at New York’s Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, Meiere studied in Florence. Upon studying the works of the Renaissance Masters, she is quoted as saying, “After that I could not be satisfied with anything less than a big wall to paint on. I just had to be a mural painter.” She furthered her studies at the Art Students League of New York, California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco (now San Francisco Art Institute), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, New York School of Applied Design for Women and the Beaux Arts Institute of Design.
After training as a mapmaker, Meière served her country as a draftsman in the U.S. Navy during World War I. Finding work in a male-dominated field was difficult for her, so she began her career as a costume designer for theater actresses, a field more common for women at the time.
In 1923 she was commissioned to decorate the dome of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. by architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. Meiere and sculptor Lee Lawrie became members of the loose “repertory company” of artists assembled by Goodhue, and she came to work on many different projects with him.
One of these, the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln, which she began before the NAS dome was even completed, became her pièce de résistance featuring eight separate examples of her work
During Meiere’s successful career, spanning 30 years and working on over 100 commissions, she became well known for contributing well-integrated public art mosaics to many landmark buildings and is most closely associated with the Art Deco movement.
Some of Meiere’s best work is visible throughout her hometown of Manhattan, although reportedly she was proudest of her work on the Nebraska State Capitol.
*When World War II broke out, Meiere served on the Citizen’s Committee for the Army and Navy, providing portable altar pieces for military chaplains. This campaign created over 500 mobile 4 ft × 6 ft (1.2 m × 1.8 m) triptychs, 70 of her own design which could be used on base-camps, battleships, and hospitals worldwide.
She taught first aid for the Red Cross after the US entered World War II.[6] Asked how to say her name, she told The Literary Digest (which spelled the name Meière) “It is of French origin and I pronounce it mee-AIR. My father’s family anglicized the pronunciation to meer, but I have always used the more proper form.”
*Two examples of portable altarpieces created for military chaplains.
NEBRASKA STATE CAPITOL
Architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (1869-1924) commissioned the young Hildreth Meière to decorate his yet unfinished Nebraska State Capitol and had approved her preliminary designs for the vestibule dome at the north entrance before his death in 1924.1 Meière continued to work with his successor firm, Bertram Goodhue Associates, later Mayers, Murray, & Phillip, on eight separate decorative commissions at the capitol in a variety of mediums.
The capitol was built and decorated in four stages around an earlier capitol building between 1922 and 1932 to save the cost of relocating workers to temporary offices during construction. The vestibule inside the north entrance of the cruciform building was built during the first phase of construction (1922-24). The foyer, rotunda and dome, and Senate Chamber were built during the second phase (1925-28). The tower was added to the rotunda during the third phase (1928-30). The west-center section of the capitol, including the House of Representatives, was completed during the fourth phase (1930-32).
By the time the capitol was complete, Meière had decorated the domes of the vestibule, foyer, and rotunda, and the ceiling of Senate Chamber in glazed ceramic tile; the floors of the vestibule, foyer, and rotunda in marble mosaic and inlaid marble; the walnut beams below the ceiling of the House of Representatives in a gold-leaf frieze; and the beams of the House Lounge in oil-based paint. She also designed tapestries in wool for the Senate Chamber, and entrance doors to the House of Representatives in painted and gilded leather.
When Nebraska became unicameral in 1937, the Senate Chamber became a conference room known today as the Warner Chamber. The larger House of Representatives, or West Legislative Chamber, became the main legislative chamber. Meière’s designs at the capitol depict an iconographic program developed by the philosopher and anthropologist Hartley Burr Alexander. Alexander’s symbolism relates the History of Nebraska to the Ideals of Western Civilization. Following Goodhue’s death, Alexander became Meière’s mentor. He not only provided her with iconography, but guided Meière in the creation of her designs.
Temple Emanu-El New York
Temple Emanu-El is the largest synagogue in the world, seating 2,500 people. Designed by Kohn, Butler, and Stein, the Moorish-Romanesque facade symbolizes a mingling of Eastern and Western cultures. Associate architects Mayers, Murray & Phillip were responsible for the interior decoration. They called upon Hildreth Meière to provide Byzantine-style glass mosaic decoration for the eight-story-high arch of the main sanctuary that encases the altar (bema), and the Ark housing the Torah scrolls on the eastern wall behind it.1
Meière was asked to decorate the arch with Judaic symbols, which she incorporated into a complex, geometric, Art Deco pattern on eight-story-high vertical bands. The eleven symbols she represented include (clockwise from the bottom of the arch) the Tree of Life, Prayer Shawl, Seven-branched Menorah, Eternal Light, Star of David with Kiddush Cup (wine goblet), Day Two of Creation, Shofars (rams’ horns), Open Torah Ark, Table of Shewbread, Wedding Canopy, and Two Sabbath Candles:
National Academy of Sciences
Washington, DC
Architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue gave Hildreth Meière her first major architectural commission, the decoration of the Great Hall of the National Academy of Sciences.1 She intuitively grasped the collaborative role that Goodhue required. Her job was to enhance his vision of a building by depicting an iconography in visually striking symbols that would convey the building’s purpose and be integral to the architecture.
Radio City Music Hall
New York, NY
Relief sculpture on 50th Street facade
Hildreth Meière’s roundels of Dance, Drama, and Song on the 50th Street facade of Radio City Music Hall are her most visible work. Often cited as iconic examples of Art Deco design, the roundels were fabricated in mixed metal and enamel. A recently developed process that kept dissimilar metals from affecting each other when used together out of doors made it possible for Meière to select metals for their color potential and combine them on a scale never before attempted. Each roundel is eighteen feet in diameter.
While at the Pühl & Wagner factory in 1927, Meière posed holding a mosaicist’s double-edged hammer, but she herself was never a mosaicist. She was a muralist who designed for a variety of mediums, including mosaic.
Ed Litcher and Jay Jacobson Got or right This is the original section of the Steam Plant in 1939 before and addition was constructed in the 1950’s.
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EDITORIAL
For a few years, I worked at the Skirball Center at Temple Emanu-El. One of the best, probably the best part of the job was working is such a wonderful building. The first year I was there, the rear portion of the massive sanctuary was under restoration. The entire auditorium was a sea of scaffolding. Just in time for the High Holidays, the rear section was complete and after the holidays the front of the sanctuary was scaffolded and restored.
In about 9 months, the restoration revealed the masterpieces that HIldreth Meier designed and they were gorgeous. When the pandemic ends, please step into the temple and enjoy her masterpiece.
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)
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SEPTEMBER 26-27, 2020
167th Edition
FREDERICK CHILDE HASSAM
BY STEPHEN BLANK
FLAGS, LOTS OF FLAGS
When I think of Childe Hassam, I think of flags. Lots of flags, flying out from buildings on 5th Avenue. But he also painted pictures of islands, in particular Appledore, the largest of the Isles of Shoals, off the Maine coast at the border with New Hampshire. It happens that Appledore Island was once named Hog Island, which was also the early name of our own Roosevelt Island (back in Dutch days). This is the only connection Hassam has to us since he didn’t paint Blackwell’s Island (that was Edward Hopper), nor, so far as I know, any pictures of hogs. But he did paint people and, most of all, landscapes, rocky coasts, and the white churches of Gloucester and East Hampton.
Childe Hassam, The South Ledges, Appledore, 1913, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.62
Childe Hassam, In the Garden (Celia Thaxter in Her Garden), 1892, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.52
A PROLIFIC ARTIST
Indeed, Childe Hassam painted a lot. Art historians say that he treated his art much like a business, aggressively marketing himself and churning out canvases and works on paper “by the carload”, and building networks of artists around him to increase his fame. He certainly seems to have been successful, building a major reputation and fortune over a career spanning more than fifty years.
Childe Hassam, The Island Garden, 1892, watercolor on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.64
Childe Hassam was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1859. When his father’s business was destroyed by a fire in 1872, Hassam was forced to leave school and take a job to help support the family. The story (charming but unverified) goes that when he was fired after only three weeks in the accounting department of a publishing company, his supervisor suggested that since he spent all of his time drawing, he might consider a career in art. Taking this advice, Hassam obtained a job in a wood engraving shop, where he quickly rose to the position of draftsman. (Apparently, one of his works that he drew there, an intricate panorama of Marblehead Harbor, graced the editorial page of Marblehead’s newspaper at least until 1975, which was the most recent image I could find.) In 1882, Hassam became a free-lance illustrator, (known as a “black-and-white man” in the trade), and established his first studio. He specialized in illustrating children’s stories for magazines such as Harper’s Weekly, Scribner’s Monthly Magazine, and The Century. In that year, he had his first solo exhibition of around fifty watercolors at a Boston gallery, which included works depicting what would become one of his popular themes, landscape paintings of places he visited, such as Nantucket.
Childe Hassam, Ponte Santa Trinità, 1897, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.61
It’s not easy to classify Hassam’s work. Hassam is widely considered one of the giants of American Impressionism. He visited Paris in 1883 and sixty-seven of the watercolors (absolutely gorgeous, my opinion) he did on his trip formed the basis of his second exhibition in 1884. He married Kathleen Doan, a childhood friend, after his return to the US and they then spent several years in Paris. There’s a wonderful story (again unverified) from this time: In the summer of 1889, he rented a studio in Paris’ Montmartre district. Littering the space were unsold canvases abandoned by the previous tenant—“un peintre fou,” the concierge called him. The “mad painter” was Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The young American had never heard of the artist, a leader of the French Impressionists, but he was intrigued by his work. “I looked at these experiments in pure color and saw it was what I was trying to do myself,” he recalled 38 years later. We do know that Hassam earned a good living in Paris doing magazine illustrations and painting pictures which he sent home to dealers. They were able to find a well-located apartment/studio with a maid near the Place Pigalle, the center of the Parisian art community and lived among the French and socializing little with other American artists studying abroad.
His work shares a lot with the French impressionists, in particular his concern with the interaction of light, weather, and surface. But he seems to have been rather sensitive about his debt to French impressionists, insisting that the modern movement in painting was founded on John Constable, William Turner, and Richard Bonington. Hassam helped create a strand of Impressionism that was distinctly American. American artists, he said, were clearly able to claim a school of their own. “Inness, Whistler, Sargent and plenty of Americans just as well able to cope in their own chosen line with anything done over here…An artist should paint his own time and treat nature as he feels it, not repeat the same stupidities of his predecessors…The men who have made success today are the men who have got out of the rut.” Still, Hassam remained connected with the European Art of the 1870s and ’80s.
Hassam was unusual in the 1880s for attempting to make art out of urban streetscapes. American painting was focused then on faraway places and times. In his view, the urban scene provided its own unique atmosphere and light, one which Hassam found “capable of the most astounding effects” and as picturesque as any seaside scene. The grittiness of his urban work may also distinguish it from the work of French impressionists. His city paintings, often of pavements in the rain, were unorthodox at the time and remain much admired. During the summers, however, he would work in a more typical Impressionist location, such as Appledore Island, then famous for its artist’s colony.
Childe Hassam, The Billboards, New York, 1916, etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the National Museum of American History, Division of Graphic Arts, Smithsonian Institution, 1971.222
Childe Hassam, Lillie (Lillie Langtry), ca. 1898, watercolor and gouache on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.57
He and his wife returned to the US in October 1889 and settled in New York City where he helped to found the New York Water Color Club. He developed a deep friendship with fellow artists John Twachtman and J. Alden Weir over a shared affection for and desire to create Impressionist works. This focus was deepened by a friendship with Theodore Robinson, who had worked in Giverny with Claude Monet. But Hassam was drawn largely to the streets of New York. He kept a succession of studios on or near Fifth Avenue and seldom traveled more than a few blocks to paint. Sometimes he worked from a window or balcony, but often he sketched the passing crowds at street level from a parked carriage, using the opposite seat as his easel.
Feeling that the Society of American Artists was hostile to the Impressionist style they had adopted, Hassam, Twachtman and Weir left the Society in December 1897 and soon recruited seven other painters to form the Ten American Painters. The aim of The Ten was to create an exhibition society that valued their view of originality, imagination, and exhibition quality. The Ten achieved popular and critical success, and lasted two decades before dissolving.
From the late 1890s onward, Hassam’s style became even more impressionistic with quick brushstrokes that were so thin, one could almost see the canvas beneath. The increasing modernity of the city with the newly built skyscrapers, along with new summer locations he visited such as East Hampton, Long Island where Hassam would eventually buy a home, provided exciting subjects for the artist.
The outbreak of World War I was a source of inspiration late in Hassam’s career became the theme of one of Hassam’s greatest series, paintings of American and other flags that lined the many streets of New York City. Capturing the intense patriotism of the period, the works helped raise funds for the war effort while simultaneously raising the American spirit.
Childe Hassam, Noon above Newburgh, 1916, watercolor on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.59
Flags on Fifth Avenue
Childe Hassam, New York Bouquet, 1917, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the National Museum of American History, Division of Graphic Arts, Smithsonian Institution, 1971.231
Flags on 57th Street
Despite his emergence as one of the leaders of a new American art movement, Hassam became increasingly vocal near the end of his life against developing styles of modernism as well as European artists. He ridiculed non-representational abstraction in painting (which he called “Ellis Island paintings”) even after its acceptance as cutting-modernism by American critics in the interwar period.
An interesting character, Hassam was known for his dapper style, often wearing tweed suits and sometimes even a monocle. One art historian notes that “Hassam was a large, red-faced gentleman, proud of his New England ancestry. His life was without trials. He was lively and cheerful, rather aggressive and outgoing”, although another says he suffered from failing health and increased bouts of drinking before his death in 1935.
Hassam is viewed as a precursor in the development of a home-grown, distinctively American subject matter, who helped pave the way for other artists such as Edward Hopper, Charles Burchfield, and Andrew Wyeth, who, while they differed from him stylistically, shared the same commitment. On a personal note, I, like probably many of you, have seen many Childe Hassam paintings. But other than the flag series, I’m not sure I took much else seriously. Preparing this brief note for Judy opened a much wider vision of his work, particularly his wonderful work in watercolor. This has been a splendid, colorful experience and I strongly recommend his work.
Childe Hassam, Easthampton Elms in May, 1925, etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the National Museum of American History, Division of Graphic Arts, Smithsonian Institution, 1971.218
Childe Hassam, Tanagra (The Builders, New York), 1918, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.63
Steam Plant one east side of island, now in back of tram station. Jay Jacobson was the first to get it!!
Funding Provided by: Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation Public Purpose Funds Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD Text by Judith Berdy
Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
Thanks Stephen
Thanks to Stephen Blank for today’s feature on Childe Hassam. Enjoy the lightness and joy in his paintings. These are just a few of many that he painted. We can picture someone loved his work, knew his audience and kept everyone happy.
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THE GLORY OF GLAZED BRICK
The McGraw Hill Building at 330 West 42nd Street is a 35-story, 485-foot-tall (148 m) building[6] located in the Hell’s Kitchen section of Manhattan, New York City. The exterior walls of the building are panels of blue-green terra cotta ceramic tiles, alternating with green-metal-framed windows, with a strongly horizontal orientation. The building was the only skyscraper in the city displayed in the influential International Style exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1932, and as such, it has also been cited as a landmark of Art Deco design. Located on West 42nd Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, above the Port Authority Bus Terminal, the McGraw-Hill Building was the tallest building in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood for decades. WIKIPEDIA
THE BANDS OF METAL AND TERRA COTTA GLOW AT THE ENTRY
A LITTLE HISTORY
From The NY Times by Christopher Gray (c)
OVER the last year little splotches of vermilion, green and blue have been popping up on the top of the old McGraw-Hill building, at 330 West 42d Street. They seem aimless, but it turns out they are the opening strokes in a restoration campaign for one of New York’s most colorful skyscrapers.
James McGraw, who began publishing in 1885, joined in 1917 with a competitor — James A. Hill, who began in 1901 — to form the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company. The new company’s offices and presses occupied the spare, white terra-cotta Hill Publishing Building, built in 1916 at 475 10th Avenue, at 36th Street. The company grew until, by 1929, it published more than 30 trade journals, among them Coal Age, Radio Retailing, Engineering News-Record and Electric Railway Journal.
As space grew tight, McGraw wanted to be near the concentration of engineers and architects in midtown, but the 1916 Zoning Resolution restricted new factories — including printing plants — to an outer ring beginning at Eighth Avenue.
After considering a site on the northeast corner of 41st Street and Eighth Avenue, in 1929 McGraw settled on a midblock plot just west of Eighth, from 41st to 42d Streets. The stock market crash in October slowed but did not stop his plans, and McGraw-Hill bought the land in early 1930. The first rivet was driven in December 1930, and McGraw-Hill occupied the building in October 1931.
For years the sculpture BOOMERANG by Owen Morrll was perched on the south side of the building. It was removed in the 1990’s.CHICAGO TRIBUNE TOWER
McGraw chose one of the most flamboyant and provocative architects possible: Raymond Hood. Hood had struggled in obscurity until 1922, when he won a competition for the Chicago Tribune Tower with a streamlined Gothic shaft.
Hood was prone to embrace provocative ideas; he was one of the few to defend, even advocate, urban congestion as a strength, not a weakness. He also had anti-traditional ideas about design: ”If you owned a mountain, would you embroider it?” he told The New York Sun in early 1931, criticizing the designs of traditional New York skyscrapers with historical decoration. At the same time he had a hard-headed, engineer’s approach to building projects, which had brought him commissions like Rockefeller Center and the Daily News Building, at 42d Street and Second Avenue.
Hood designed the inside of the 35-story McGraw-Hill Building with loftlike finishes — plain concrete ceilings and walls — in many areas, even in the office portions. McGraw-Hill rented out the ninth through 15th floors. The lower floors held the printing operations: composing room on the seventh floor, press room on the sixth, the bindery on the fifth. The exterior was a startling statement, even to those familiar with Hood’s advanced ideas: horizontal bands of factory-style windows framed by fields of green-blue terra cotta, becoming bluer with height to almost merge with the sky.
DAILY NEWS BUILDING
The 37-storey facade is characterized by vertical stripes of windows, with brown brick in the spandrels between the vertically aligned windows, and white brickwork forming the separating vertical piers. Limestone, preferred by Hood, was discarded as a too expensive material. Curiously, the size of the windows — and thus the width of the window stripes — was determined by the size of a window that could be effortlessly opened by a single office worker.
The tops of the window stripes are decorated with ornamentated spandrels extending all the way to the top, sloping there inward, splitted by a narrow pier. The “razed” flat top at 145 m influenced a host of future skyscrapers and Hood himself used the form of the building tower as an influence for the forthcoming RCA Building in Rockefeller Center.
AMERICAN RADIATOR BUILDING
The answer to where we are.
ROCKEFELLER CENTER
Hood took the colors seriously: he had also considered red, yellow, orange and gray for the terra cotta, and he fine-uned the design with a gray-green for the window bands, with a stripe of vermilion at the top of each. Hood also called for buff-colored window shades, with a green stripe running down the center; the building staff wore green uniforms trimmed with silver.
Traditionalists had fits: a modernistic building was bad enough, but a modernistic blue building was like serving a bacon burger to a vegetarian. The critic Arthur North, writing in American Architect in early 1932, called it ”a storm center” that showed ”disregard for every accepted principle of architectural designing in the most flagrant manner.” But he thought the building was worth studying. Lewis Mumford defended most modern architecture but wrote in his New Yorker column that the building was just ”a stunt,” in part because it did not have cantilever construction to allow corner windows. He thought the colors were ”heavy and unbeautiful.”
McGraw-Hill kept boosting its far-west location, but the striking green tower remained isolated. The company even sold off an adjacent plot to the west, which it had held for possible future expansion. As West 42d Street declined from honky-tonk to unmentionable, its building became a liability;
in 1972 the company moved to its present skyscraper at Sixth Avenue and 48th Street, and its old headquarters has passed through several owners. SINCE 1994 it has been owned by Deco Towers Associates, a foreign investment group. Val Kaminov, the building manager, said that the owner has put $4 million into mechanical upgrades over the last four years and is now in the middle of a $3 million facade restoration, including complete reconstruction of all the parapets and repainting the windows and metalwork to the original paint colors.
Over the last year test patches and primer coats have been sprouting around the top of the building in a project that is now in full swing and is to be finished by September. Mr. Kaminov said that the 550,000-square-foot building is 99.9 percent leased. ”When I came here we were happy to get $15 per square foot” in annual rent, he said. ”Now we have leases on some upper floors at $35 per square foot.” The building was designated a landmark in 1979. Last year the owners removed ”Boomerang,” an angular metal sculpture by the artist Owen Morrel installed in 1981, which hung suspended from the side of the building. Philip Trost, counsel for Deco Towers, said the sculpture was dismantled and either junked or recycled. Analysis of the original terra cotta and paint color was carried out by Integrated Conservation Resources. Richard Lefever, restoration engineer for the supervising design firm, Facade Maintenance Design, said that about 10 percent of the terra cotta is being replaced. Mr. Lefever said that Hood clearly designed his building to be ”the shocking pink of its era.” It will be interesting to watch the restoration of the intricate color scheme, which New Yorkers originally considered so astounding.
UPDATE OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS THE ENTIRE EXTERIOR OF THE MC GRAW HILL BUILDING HAS BEEN RESTORED AND SHINES GLORIOUSLY ON WEST 42nd STREET
Exterior yard of new NYPL branch awaiting RIOC to restore area LISA FERNANDEZ, JAY JACOBSON, ALEXIS VILLEFANE AND VICKI FEINMEL WERE THE FIRST TO GUESS.
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EDITORIAL
Last evening I was watching a presentation of conservation awards by the New York Landmarks Conservancy. One of the recipients was the restoration of the former McGraw Hill building at 330 West 42 Street.
I remember working nearby and admiring the building from my window. At that time in the 1980’s I could see the sculpture hanging of the building and watched Times Square. The Marriott hotel was under construction and I was a window superintendent for the project.
Working near Times Square, which we avoided we watched the ball being lifted every year for New Year’ Eve.
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 Roosevelt Island Historical Society CREDTIS NY TIMES CHRISTOPHER GRAY WIKIPEDIA NY DAILY NEWS ATLAS OBSCURA ALL IMAGES AND TEXT (C)
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JANE’S CAROUSEL BOOKLYN BRIDGE PARK ALEXIS VILLEFANE LISA FERNANDES HARA REISER WERE THE FIRST TO GUESS CORRECTLY
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COMMENT
A few weeks ago a tree was cut down on the turnaround by the Octagon. The triangle was demolished and the seats were replaced by this large sign for the OCTAGON. Though the intention is good, adding the “888” on top of the sign is a bit much. Just hope the 8’s do not spin around.
The tree and seating area are gone now..
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
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Edward Hopper, People in the Sun, 1960, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., 1969.47.61
In Edward Hopper’s People in the Sun, five men and women sit on a terrace beneath a vast blue sky. Stark contrasts and cool light emphasize the eerie expressions, frozen poses, and formal attire of the visitors. Hopper distilled his memories of tourist destinations in the American West to create a scene that is strangely familiar but nowhere in particular. The precisely staggered deck chairs and bands of color indicating mountains, sky, and grass create an abstracted environment that veers between a real view and a stage set, as if Hopper were replaying a silent film of a family vacation. People in the Sun suggests a crowd of tourists who feel obliged to take in a famous scenic view, but do so with little pleasure. The canvas may reflect Hopper’s discomfort in the West, where he found himself unable to paint with his usual enthusiasm when confronted by the harsh light and monumental landscapes.
CAPE COD MORNING
Edward Hopper, Cape Cod Morning, 1950, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation, 1986.6.92
In Cape Cod Morning, a woman looks out a bay window, riveted by something beyond the pictorial space. She is framed by tall, dark shutters and the shaded façade of the oriel window. The brilliant sunlight on the side of the house contrasts with the blue sky, trees, and golden grass that fill the right half of the canvas. The painting tells no story; instead, the woman’s tense pose creates a sense of anxious anticipation, and the bifurcated image implies a dichotomy between her interior space and the world beyond. Modern American Realism: The Sara Roby Foundation Collection, 2014
Edward Hopper is one of America’s best known and most time-honored artists. A realist who was internationally acclaimed during his lifetime, Hopper painted characteristic American subjects, from movie theaters and restaurants to New England lighthouses. The still pose of the figure and dramatic light and shadow in Cape Cod Morning evoke tense anticipation in an isolated place.
Smithsonian American Art Museum: Commemorative Guide. Nashville, TN: Beckon Books, 2015.
RYDER’S HOUSE
Edward Hopper, Ryder’s House, 1933, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Henry Ward Ranger through the National Academy of Design, 1981.76
HOUSE IN ITALIAN QUARTER
Edward Hopper, House in Italian Quarter, 1923, watercolor on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Sam Rose and Julie Walters, 2004.30.7
WHITE RIVER AT SHARON
Edward Hopper, White River at Sharon, 1937, watercolor and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation, 1986.6.41
Hopper painted White River at Sharon in September 1937, when he and his wife were visiting the farm of friends in Vermont. The distinctive light of early autumn suffuses a landscape that at first glance seems untouched by man. But Hopper believed that evidence of the human presence in the natural world reflected the reality of contemporary life. Careful examination reveals a road in the center of the composition and a railroad embankment at the upper right.
HOPPER’S NYC STUDIO
FROM ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST:
Inside Edward Hopper’s Private Greenwich Village Studio (C)
Tour the rarely seen, perfectly preserved aerie where the artist created many of his famous works
When Edward Hopper was 31 years old, he moved into the small Greenwich Village space where he would both work and live until his death, at age 84. With a skylight providing the rich natural light he adored and both a roof and window looking out onto Washington Square Park, the setting was ideal for both his work and that of his wife, the painter Jo Hopper, who worked alongside him. While the building, part of a row of 13 Greek Revival homes lining Washington Square Park North, has since been acquired by New York University, the top-floor studio remains much as it was.
Overseen by the NYU School of Social Work, whose offices occupy the rest of the building, it is available for view by appointment.
It’s easy to feel you are seeing the space much as Hopper did. Though the bedroom and bathrooms have been converted, the studio space still houses Hopper’s handmade easel and a printing press, the spokes of which he used as a hat rack, as seen in Berenice Abbott’s 1948 photo of him in the studio. Also still visible are the large skylights that pour light into the space and the double windows looking out onto the park, as well as a portrait of Edward by Jo. If the area feels spartan, that’s much in keeping with the way Hopper lived and worked. “It’s not like he was a beatnik and having all of his buddies over and they were talking about art. He was a very introverted, very private painter,” says Jennifer Patton, executive director at the Edward Hopper House in Nyack, New York. “Obviously he painted looking out the window. There are several drawings and paintings that are of Washington Square Park, and obviously those would have been very significant in his development as an artist, just in terms of having an interesting still life right outside his front window.” Among these works are Skylights (1925) and Roofs of Washington Square (1926).
Skylights by Edward Hopper (Photo by Francis G. Mayer/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
What remains clear is Hopper’s devotion to both Greenwich Village and his 3 Washington Square North home. In Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, art history professor Gail Levin says that in 1946 he was nearly evicted by NYU and was able to stay only as a result of a heated and ongoing dispute that Jo Hopper called “The Battle of Washington Square, the long struggle against New York University.” But he never left, dying in the studio in 1967. “New York provided an urban bustling growing city. He did not embrace the whole ash can movement,” says Patton. “He didn’t paint the dirty industrialized New York. He painted New York as he saw it and certainly that was during his time living in the studio.”
Students and admirers of Hopper’s work are also able to visit the Nyack, New York, home in which he was raised. Igniting his love of the water and boats, the Hudson River village was immensely influential and frequently depicted in his work.
JO AND EDWARD HOPPER
JOSEPHINE NIVISON HOPPER, AS PAINTED BY EDWARD HOPPER (LEFT) AND WITH EDWARD HOPPER (RIGHT)
BROOKLYN BRIDGE EAST TOWER AND THE FOLLOWING GOT IT RIGHT: HARA REISEN ANDY SPARBERG ALEXIS VILLEFANE CLARA BELLA LARRY PARNES
EDITORIAL
Edward Hopper’s tranquil scenes and pastoral views are a wonderful contrast to chaos in our daily lives. I suggest 40+ days of A HOPPER A DAY.”
JUDITH BERDY
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WE ARE HAPPY TO GIVE WINNERS OF OUR DAILY PHOTO IDENTIFICATION A TRINKET FROM THE VISITOR CENTER. ONLY THE PERSON IDENTIFYING THE PHOTO FIRST WILL GET A PRIZE. WE HAVE A SPECIAL GROUP OF ITEMS TO CHOOSE FROM. WE CANNOT GIVE AWAY ALL OUR ITEMS,. PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMES, WE MUST LIMIT GIVE-AWAYS. THANK YOU
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 image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST MAGAZINE CARNEGIE MUSEUM GETTY IMAGES ALL IMAGES ARE SUBJECT TO COPYRIGHT (C)
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Folk and Self-Taught Art The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection of folk and self-taught art represents the powerful vision of America’s untrained and vernacular artists.
SAAM is one of the only major museums to clearly advocate for a diverse populist and uniquely American voice within the context of what is traditionally considered great art. Artists who are deeply engaged with personal exploration often create works of profound complexity. Recurring themes include struggle and persistence, salvation and protection, and the reshaping of personal worlds through creative expression.
THE COLLECTION
SAAM was among the first major museums to champion and collect works by self-taught artists. This aspect of SAAM’s collection spans works that emanate from folk traditions, such as quilting and woodcarving, to highly innovative works of great personal vision. It began in 1970, after the astonishing Throne of The Third Heaven of The Nations’ Millennium General Assembly, made by James Hampton, came to light in a makeshift studio not far from the museum following the artist’s death. Several donors made it possible for this iconic work, understood as a seminal representation of African American cultural and artistic heritage, to become the cornerstone of a collection that aimed to tell an ever-expanding story of America through the art of its people. Since it acquired Hampton’s “Throne,” the museum has been recognized internationally as a leader in championing the importance of works by artists who have no formal art training.
Today, SAAM’s collection of folk and self-taught art features more than 400 artists and 1,300 works of art. The collection is one of the most visited and widely admired of its kind.
The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly
George Widener George Widener is an ace with numbers. 28–28 plays with a connection he had at the time between the numbers of his own birthdate (2−8) and this then-girlfriend’s: 4–28, or (2 x 2)-28. Widener explains that he sees the numbers in his mind and enjoys envisioning all of their possible relationships. He called this piece a “portrait/snapshot” of the two of them at the time it was mad
DAVID BUTLER
David Butler, Nativity, ca. 1968, paint on tin, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2014.61.1
David Butler fashioned a garden of pounded, cut, and painted metal forms around his Louisiana house. His sculptures fuse biblical imagery with characters from his dreams. The tiered layers, attached parts, and cut-out shapes created an animated array as wind and sunlight played across his installation. Butler, with other African Americans across the South, blended Christian beliefs with folk practices to create spaces that felt self-determined and protective in a world that was often harsh and unpredictable.
The Iceman Crucified series encapsulates some of Fasanella’s most powerful and poignant artistic themes. His father—Joe the Iceman—is cast as the crucified Christ to explore ideas of suffering and sacrifice, memory and personal growth. The series was a turning point for Fasanella; his artistic vision broke free from the confines of realism and his imagery became deeply personal.
As a child, Ralph worked alongside his father on his ice delivery route, putting in long hard days on tough streets. Iceman Crucified #4 was the final work in and pinnacle of the series. In it Fasanella encompasses old and new worlds and is simultaneously nostalgic and celebratory. The Christ figure is transformed into a heroic presence, serene and full of grace. The traditional INRI is replaced with the phrase that came to be equated with the artist himself: “Lest We Forget”—a clear message to viewers to remember who we are and where we come from. Ralph Fasanella cast his father, “Joe the Iceman,” as the crucified Christ to explore ideas of suffering and sacrifice and to portray the working man as a persevering hero. Fasanella’s parents were Italian immigrants who instilled in their son the values of work and solidarity. He became an artist who ardently championed labor and the common folk. “Lest We Forget” was Fasanella’s impassioned plea to always honor the sacrifices of our forebears.
Howard Finster, THE LORD WILL DELIVER HIS PEOPLE ACROSS JORDAN, 1976, enamel on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr., 1988.74.6
Howard Finster, THE MODEL OF SUPER POWER PLAINT (FOLK ART MADE FROM OLD T.V. PARTS), 1979, assembled and painted electronic television parts, painted metal, painted stic, glitter, mirror glass, wood, cardboard, and ceramic, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson, 1986.65.245
EDDY MUMMA
Eddy Mumma was named in honor of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christian Science, whom his parents admired. He began painting in 1969 following his wife’s premature death and at a time when his own physical health was deteriorating. His increasing interest in art may have marked a flagging faith. Around 1980, his style and output exploded. Regal, flamboyant, and colorful characters crowd within their rectangular frames, most often featuring large eyes and upraised hands. Mumma’s paintings seem to redirect a character that was once larger-than-life; as Mumma’s physical presence faded, his work came increasingly alive.
TWO SIGN KIOSKS Jay Jacobson, Vicki Feinmel came closest
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I had accomplished some of my goals from the pandemic. This weekend a friend and I voyaged to Brooklyn to have lunch “al fresco” and take multiple ferry rides to enjoy fresh air and a different view. This summer the highlights were not Paris and London but Broad Channel, Rockaway, Soundview, City Island, Greenpoint and Long Island City!
Walk around other neighborhoods and enjoy our city again. It is a mass of villages, quite different from Roosevelt Island,
Judith Berdy jbird134@aol.com
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
Wikipedia for both
THIS ISSUE COMPILED FROM THE WONDERFUL ARCHIVES OF THE SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM (C)
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In 1999 the family of Reverend Oliver Chapin was donating memorabilia to the RIHS. One day his daughter pulled the Inventory report out from under a bed. This massive volume measured 17 X 22″ and was two inches thick, weighing at least 5 pounds. I loaded it in my shopping cart and hauled the treasure home. How did Rev. Chapin have this? He lived in the Central Nurses Residence when the apartments were under construction and found all kinds of treasures discarded in the trash. This was the mother load of island information.
WHAT WAS DISCOVERED
There are copies of original plans of most of the buildings existing on the island in 1970. We have plans for some of the buildings that are now gone and can examine the details of the architecture and structure. Many of the plans are for additions or remodeling of existing structures. These are examples of the contents of the inventory report.
The quality of the plans depends on the condition and our ability to get a perfect photo of this fragile paper.
You are welcome to see this book in person and discover unknown facts about our history, most of which is demolished or substantially changed.
WELFARE ISLAND BRIDGE, KNAPPEN, TIBBETTS, ABBETT ENGINEERS 1955 (?)
NORTHERN WING, NURSES HOME (FORMERLY SMALLPOX HOSPITAL) ADDITION OF THE WING, RENWICK, ASPINWALL AND OWEN, 1903. NOTE: NORTH WALL COLLAPSED IN 2006
(SOUTH WING OF) NEW YORK CITY TRAINING SCHOOL FOR NURSES, (FORMER SMALLPOX HOSPITAL) YORK AND SAWYER , TWO DIFFERENT ARCHITECTS FOR WINGS. NOT DATED
STRECKER LABORATORY, NO DATE, F.C.WITHERS ARCHITECT
ALTERATIONS TO CENTRAL DOME FOR NEW OPERATING SUITE, CITY HOSPITAL, CHARLES B. MEYERS, ARCHITECT, NO DATE
TRANSVERSE SECTION OF THE NAVE LOOKING EAST, CHAPEL OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD, WITHERS AND DICKSON, ARCHITECTS, NO DATE
PLAN OF BASEMENT, CHAPEL OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD, WITHERS AND DICKSON, NO DATE
OCTAGON BUILDING (OLD LUNATIC ASYLUM) OPERATING ROOM AND ACCESSORIES IN THE CUPOLA OF THE METROPOLITAN HOSPITAL., WILLIAM FLANAGAN, ARCHITECT, NO DATE
GOLDWATER MEMORIAL HOSPITAL*, WARD B, .S.S GOLDWATER, COMMISSIONER 1939 SOON TO BE CHRONIC DISEASE HOSPITAL
ELEVATOR STOREHOUSE BUILDING, GENERAL PLAN OF BRIDGE STAIRS AND PLATFORM, BENJAMIN LEVITAN, ARCHITECT, 1910
GERMAN LUTHERAN CHURCH, GEROGE A..GREIBEL, ARCHITECT, NO DATE
GERMAN LUTHERAN CHURCH, GEROGE A. GREIBEL, ARCHITECT, NO DATE, NOTE DIFFERENT ENTRY
ONE STORY ADDITION, SYNAGOGUE ON WELFARE ISLAND, 1929
ALTERATION AND ADDITION TO GARAGE, CITY HOME DISTRICT, WELFARE ISLAND, FOR FIRE COLLEGE AND TRAINING SCHOOL
DORMITORY FOR MALE EMPLOYEES, METROPOLITAN HOSPITAL, MITCHELL BERNSTIEN ARCHITECT. IMAGE BELOW IS OF DRAPER HALL, FEMALE STAFF HOUSING.
GAS MAIN (?) CONNECTION OUTSIDE SPORTSPARK, 250 MAIN STREET.
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EDITORIAL
It is wonderful to go thru the plans of the structures of the island. I could spend hours examining the details of the buildings. I am fascinated by the hand drawn beauty of the designs and the talents of those when imagined the architecture and those who built the structures. 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 RIHS ARCHIVES AND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION (C)
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SEPTEMBER 19-20, 2020
The
160th Edition
SHIVELY SANITARY TENEMENTS
EAST RIVER HOMES
now
CHEROKEE APARTMENTS
A BUILDING WITH GREAT INTENTIONS
AS THE 19TH CENTURY became the 20th century, the plight of tuberculosis patients started influencing housing in all sorts of ways. In New York City, it took the shape of a sanitary tenement.
The idea, from Dr. Henry Shively of Presbyterian Hospital, was to create comfortable, healthy housing for poorer families with members who suffered from tuberculosis. Anne Harriman Vanderbilt (wife of William K. Vanderbilt Sr.) provided the funds, and Henry Atterbury Smith designed the four interconnected six-story buildings. Construction began in 1909 and the East River Homes opened in 1912.
Now called Cherokee Apartments, the complex occupies the space from 77th Street to 78th Street between John Jay Park and PS 158. Most of the windows are floor to ceiling and have three sashes, allowing for a lot of light and air to come in, both having been deemed crucial for TB sufferers. This also allows them to open wide out onto iron balconies, on which sleeping was encouraged. The pent eave roof was designed to hang over the balconies, protecting patients from the elements.
The floors are concrete and curve up onto the wall, eliminating corners that could trap germs and dust, and ensuring that any carpeting would be removable. The stairways in the corners of the buildings are open to the air, have two banisters (one for adults, one for kids), and were built with chairs on each landing, so that tuberculosis patients climbing to the sixth floor had convenient and comfortable places to rest if they started to have trouble breathing. Every apartment opened directly out to the stairs, giving a sense of the independence of a private house.
The rooftops and courtyards were designed to be pleasing, safe, and healthy places to aid in recovery. The stairwells were topped by story-high glazed skylights that allowed air to circulate up and down the stairs.
The originally family sized apartments have been rearranged in recent years to have fewer, larger rooms, and the facilities that made the roofs such nice places to spend time and recover have been removed, as have the skylights. The buildings never accomplished what Shively had hoped, because while 48 of the rooms were, at first, leased as a Home Hospital, most of the tenants turned out to be on the wealthier side. Poor families, for the most part, could not afford to live in the apartments.
Today, Cherokee Apartments is a housing cooperative and the building is a historic landmark. As such, the outside must be preserved, and many of the unique features from its origins as a tuberculosis sanitarium can still be seen.
MRS. WILLIAM K. VANDERBILT
Anne was also known for her philanthropy and for devoting “herself to those less fortunate”.[5] She financed the construction of the “open-stair” apartment houses, four large buildings that contained almost 400 apartments on Avenue A (now known as York Avenue) in Manhattan. The buildings were created to house tuberculosis patients. Vanderbilt donated $1,000,000 and the buildings were completed in 1910.
DR. HENRY SHIVELY
Dr. Shively’ s theories, Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, and the project site A prominent advocate of the value of home care for tuberculosis sufferers was Dr. Henry Shively, head of the Vanderbilt Clinic of Presbyterian Hospital. The Vanderbilt Clinic, home of the Philanthropic causes of William Kissam Vanderbilt, had been established to provide medical care for New York’s poor. Many of the clinic’s patients suffered from tuberculosis and the efficient treatment of the disease became one of Shively’s chief concerns.
In a 1911 article, Shively described tuberculosis as a medical problem with social ramifications, and one that had to be attacked on numerous fronts: social, architectural, and moral, as well as medical. To this end Shively proposed an architectural solution a building which could bring all the positive features of sanatorium treatment to patients in their own homes.
The Shively Sanitary Tenements (also commonly referred to as the East River Homes or the Vanderbilt Model Tenements) were designed to house tuberculosis patients and their families in a clean, sanitary environment, to provide plenty of fresh air for sick residents and to show that consumptives could remain with their families without infecting others. According to Shively, his purpose was to demonstrate and the possibilities of treatment of suitable cases of tuberculosis, in making more permanent the good results of sanatorium treatment, and in providing the protection of a hygienic home for those who are delicate and. anemic, or convalescent from other exhaustive diseases and thus especially susceptible to tuberculosis.
As a precedent for his idea, Shively cited an experiment conducted by the Swedish National Anti-Tuberculosis Association in Stockholm. Twelve families, each having one or more adult housed together under close medical and hygienic supervision. After three years, none of the children of these families had contracted tuberculosis, in sharp contrast to the normal course of the disease where children were most likely to be infected if their parents were. Through his connection with the Vanderbilt Clinic, Shively was able to convince Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt to help fund his experiment.
Anna Harriman Vanderbilt, second wife of William Kissam Vanderbilt, dedicated herself to many philanthropic causes. She was concerned with the plight of New York’s poor and was active in helping unfortunate children through ·the Protestant Big Sisters. On an individual basis, she helped relocate families of consumptives to better, healthier living quarters. She was involved with the American Women’ s Association in New York and played an important role in the founding of the American Red Cross Hospital near Paris during the First World War.
For the Shively Sanitary Tenements Mrs. Vanderbilt and her husband purchased eighteen city lots on the block between East 77th and 78th Streets from York Avenue to Cherokee Place for $81,000, and gave an additional $1,000,000 towards the construction of the buildings and hoped to show that these apartments would eventually !pay for themselves and bring a fair return on the initial investment. With this in mind, the Vanderbilts established a trust to oversee their investment, with William K. Vanderbilt, Anna Harriman Vanderbilt, William K. Vanderbilt, Jr., Henry r. Shively and Walter B. James (another physician associated with Presbyterian Hospital) serving as trustees. The terms of the trust provided that after expenses, one half of the income from these buildings would be used to help .poor tuberculosis victims pay for their treatment, am help support the families of those who could not work .One quarter of the income was to go to the Presbyterian Hospital to help pay the expenses of indigent patients, and. the final quarter to the College of Physicians and Surgeons for the same purpose.
The site was chosen for its proximity to the East River and its consequent abundance of fresh air. Moreover, it was open to the street on three sides with a school playground on the fourth (west) side. Numerous other service institutions were located nearby, including the Junior League Club House for working girls, a Carnegie library and the East Side Settlement House. Across Cherokee Place was John Jay Park.
HENRY ATTERBURY SMITH, ARCHITECT
Henry Atterbury Smith The architect chosen to design these model tenements was Henry Atterbury Smith (1872-1954). Having received his architectural education at Columbia University, Smith worked throughout the New York area. His early work consisted primarily of smaller, individual houses but during the early 1900s he developed his concept of the “open stair” plan for apartment buildings as a healthful and economic solution to low- and moderate-cost, multi-family dwellings. He wrote numerous articles for architectural journals promoting his ideas on multi-family housing in general, and especially on the benefits of this particular type of plan. Smith was concerned about the poor quality of most tenement buildings. He wanted to show that apartment houses constructed according to his ideas, with open courtyards and open stairs, could be built soundly, without overcrowding, for moderate expense, and could be healthful environments and thus beneficial to their residents. Smith saw this type of building as an answer for both city and suburban environments, and for many types of people and problems including the housing shortage of World War l and for employers who wanted to provide company housing.
In 1911 Smith formed the Open Stair Tenement Company to construct buildings of his design. In addition to the East River Homes, his company built the John Jay Homes across East 77th Street (demolished). In 1917- 18, under the name Open Stair Dwellings Company, Smith built more apartments on West 146th and 147th Streets in Manhattan (eXtant). He Was also responsible for several apartment buildings in other parts of the city, including Queens (No. 3418 9lst Street).
THE STORY CONTINUES……..
The continuation of the story is fascinating and good reading. To read the entire designation report from the NEW YORK CITY LANDMARKS PRESERVATION COMMISSION: http://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/1516.pdf
The system of building model homes for the disadvantaged continued with the City and Suburban Houses.
2014 program with Charles GIraudet at the NYPL branch. In the audience: Ursula Beau-seigneur, Stephen and Lenore Blank, Ron Davidson, Rick O’Connor, Arline Jacoby, Vivienne and the feet of Bobbie Slonevsky.
Funding Provided by: Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation Public Purpose Funds Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD Text by Judith Berdy CREDITS JUDITH BERDY ATLAS OBSCURA PHOTOS FROM POPULAR SCIENCE #80 NEW YORK TIMES WIKIPEDIA Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
SHANA TOVAH
Tonight, in a few hours is the eve or our new year, Rosh Hashanah. Alone is no way to be on a day that should be celebratory with friends and family. Though I am not great for entertaining groups, this year I bought the brisket, made matzo balls, took the paperwork off the dining room table, put on a tablecloth, took out he candlesticks, have the honey ready and the food will be prepared on time. The mandatory bottle of Manichevitz is also on hand. The kitchen aromas of cooking fill the apartment.
Soon my neighbor and I will break bread (Challah) and hope for a better 5781.
May you and your family be blessed with a healthy and prosperous new year.
