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Andy Sparburg Clara Bella, Alexis Villefane were the first to identify the old stadium after renovation
This came from Jay Jacobson For reasons unknown in family lore, my Brooklyn-born and bred uncle Leo Jacobson demonstrated his “I follow my own rules !” philosophy by becoming a Yanqui fan. He had achieved enough business success that he was able to buy an on the field, right on the edge of the grass six seat box just behind third base at the Yankee Stadium, and one day, he brought my brother on me with him to the game. My brother and I had the two front row seats in the box. As game time approached, the organist began to play the Star Spangled Banner. Everyone rose and stood with a hand over heart. As we stood, a ball that had been used for infield practice rolled to a stop in front of Uncle Leo’s box. The organist was playing, and I leaned over the railing of the box to grab a great souvenir. Before I could reach down, I felt a mighty whack on the back of my nine year old head. It came from my Uncle Leo: “Nobody moves during the National Anthem!!” So I recognize your photo as that of the place where I learned a lesson from my late Uncle Leo. And that’s part of the reason our son is Daniel Leo Jacobson. Sent recently from an iPhone transmitting near my home planet.
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EDITORIAL
Please support the RIHS by purchasing a book or more at the kiosk this Saturday or at our table at the Farmer’s Market next Saturday.
To our Jewish subscribers, Shana Tovah.
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
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On the Manhattan side of the river, the bridge is located at East 103rd Street, between Exits 14 and 15 of the FDR Drive. The bridge is accessible from the East River Greenway and a pedestrian overpass across the FDR Drive to the East River Houses apartment complex in East Harlem. The bridge connects to the southwestern corner of Wards Island and provides access to the many playing fields and scenic waterfront of Randall’s Island and Wards Island Parks.
History The first known bridge to Wards Island was a wooden drawbridge between East 114th Street in Manhattan to the northwest corner of the island. The bridge was built in 1807 to serve a cotton business run by Philip Milledolar and Bartholomew Ward and lasted until 1821, when it was destroyed by a storm.[3]
Pedestrian access to Randall’s and Ward’s Islands was established with the opening of the Triborough Bridge by the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority in 1936. Although plans to construct a separate pedestrian bridge to provide Manhattan residents better access to the new Wards Island Park were developed by Robert Moses in 1937, construction of the bridge did not begin until 1949. Designed by Othmar Hermann Ammann and built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the footbridge was originally known as the Harlem River Pedestrian Bridge.
The Ward’s Island Bridge opened to pedestrians on May 18, 1951 and was completed at a cost of $2.1 million.[The bridge was later opened to bicycles in 1967.Although the bridge was originally painted in a red, yellow, and blue color scheme, it was repainted in sapphire blue and emerald green in 1986.
Restricting access to the bridge during the overnight hours and winter months traces back to concerns from residents of the East River Houses in the 1980s and 1990s over patients from the Manhattan State Psychiatric Center who frequently crossed the bridge into Manhattan. Tenants believed that the patients were responsible for increased levels of crime in their neighborhood.
In 1999, the New York City Department of Transportation proposed that the bridge be converted to a fixed bridge status. However, this proposal was delayed due to the clearance necessary to float construction equipment up the Harlem River for reconstruction projects associated with the Third Avenue, Willis Avenue, and 145th Street Bridges.[12]
The Wards Island Bridge underwent reconstruction between April 2010 and April 2012, which included replacement of the walkway deck, steel superstructure, and electrical and mechanical control systems. It reopened in June 2012, with the overhaul project costing $16.8 million.
OTHMAR HERMANN AMMANN
Designed by master bridge engineer Othmar Hermann Ammann (March 26, 1879 – September 22, 1965) who is remarkably responsible for more than half of the bridges that connect the City to the mainland.
In 1933, Mr. Ammann became chief engineer for the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. He guided the construction of many of New York’s signature bridges, including the George Washington Bridge, Triborough, the Henry Hudson, the Bronx-Whitestone, and the Marine Parkway bridges. He was also responsible for managing the building of the Lincoln Tunnel. In addition, he sat on the Board of Engineers in charge of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. He collaborated on some of the best-known American bridges, including the Verrazano-Narrows, the Delaware Memorial, and the Walt Whitman bridges.
“In bridge designing, the aesthetics are quite as important as engineering details. It is a crime to build an ugly bridge, ” said Swiss-born and educated civil engineer and designer Othmar Hermann Ammann who immigrated to New York City in 1904.
In 1964, Amman was awarded the National Medal of Science from President Lyndon Johnson, the first time the medal was given to a civil engineer.
A number of years ago Ammann’s daughter, Margot Durrer, told this author that the 103rd Street Bridge was his favorite.
In 2003 the Parks Department dedicated the Othmar Ammann Playground in his honor. The playground is located in the shadow of the Tri-borough Bridge on E. 124th Street between 1st/2nd Avenues in Manhattan.
FACTS AND FIGURES
Wards Island Bridge Facts Bridge ID Number: 2-24062-0 Borough: Manhattan Type: Vertical Lift Telephone: 212-369-5810 Location: FDR Drive at 103rd Street Waterway: Harlem River Miles from Mouth: 0 Channels: 1 Used by: Ped Length: 1247′ Max. Span: 312 Roadways: 0 Sidewalks: 1 – 12′ Construction Cost: $2,160,031.01 Land Cost: free Total Cost: $2,160,031.01 Date Opened: Oct. 11, 1941
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This is awful info about Pennell, although well-written. In 1998 I bought a Joseph Pennell lithograph of Atlantic City, 1885, at the Park Ave. armory show. It’s going bye bye. RL Look what just traversed the E River heading north: North River! Newly refurbished. New paint job. Single stack (versus Red Hook with stacks), but looking soooooo good!! Jay Jacobson Another informative, enlightening and uplifting view. If only the government could do something like that in these times. Your work is an asset to my brain. AC
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 NYC DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION WIKIPEDIA
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Mural at Studio by Stuart Davis (c) WNYC Municipal Archives
The Works Progress Administration or WPA was launched in 1935 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide employment during the depression. Under the WPA there were new roads, dams and other public works project. It also put artists, actors, writers and musicians to work contributing their share to the cultural development of the nation.*
Artists were paid by the hour, on average, $26 a week and many were given their professional start by the WPA. On WNYC’s Forum of the Airin 1938 the actor Burgess Meredith credited the WPA with promoting new art. “Although the WPA art project was primarily designed to give employment to unemployed artists, the result has been the establishment of the beginning of a vital art movement which is unparalleled in history.”
At the time there was a lot of controversy about funding abstract works. Yet, one of the few places open to such new ideas was WNYC.
JOHN VON WICHT
In Studio C, there was a very different kind of wall panel by John Von Wicht. He was one of the many immigrant painters who worked for the WPA, and his work was a lot more geometric. The shapes seem to be simultaneously floating in space and anchored. At the time, von Wicht said he was trying to emulate the style of Bach in his work. Today the mural is at the Brooklyn Public Library, Grand Army Plaza branch. It may be difficult to think that it was created for a radio station, but if you look at it closely you can see some microphones and, of course, a record.
LOUIS SCHANKER
There’s a lot of movement in Louis Schanker’s mural. He was a very animated personality and he liked to paint big. In fact, at WNYC, a group of his fans who called themselves the Kibitzers Club used to come and watch him paint. He was an eccentric kind of guy. He ran away from home and to join the circus, where he looked after the elephants. If you look closely at this picture, there is a lute and a zither, a cello, and a harp, and the suggestion of ghostly musicians keeping them in play. Today the mural can be seen in its original location near the north elevator banks on the 25th floor of the Municipal Building at 1 Centre Street in Manhattan.
BYRON BROWNE
Of all the artists, Byron Browne was the only one who tailored his work to fit the studio. He painted directly onto the acoustic tiles that were the soundproofing of the room. The mural (as well as the von Wicht) and some of WNYC’s Warren McArthur furniture had been used as part of 1986/87 Brooklyn Museum show The Machine Age in America, 1918-1941. Unfortunately, the mural did not return to WNYC but was moved to the city office of Management and Budget on the north side of the Municipal Building. Eventually, there were changes to those offices and the work was stored with the Art Commission of the City of New York. The mural was recently conserved and installed in the new Staten Island Courthouse.
LOUIS FERSTADT
Louis Ferstadt’s “Radio Service to the Public” in April, 1938. (Photo courtesy of the Art Commission of the City of New York/FAP-WPA Photo) The second and unfinished panel accompanying Radio Service to the Public. (Photo courtesy of the Art Commission of the City of New York/FAP-WPA Photo) The real mystery works are the two panels by Louis Ferstadt. They were never hung although originally commissioned and intended for the Director’s Office. The smaller, incomplete panel features an ear in the center, a radio announcer or operator and a girl on a swing with her legs like a phonograph needle on spinning record. The second panel shows musicians, an ear and around the outside are figures of people. It was titled “Radio Service to the Public.” Of all the murals, it is the least abstract. One might liken it to the more social realist works of the period with a political message. In this case, that radio is here to bring people together and enlighten them. Louis Ferstadt is probably better known as a comic book artist than as a muralist. Many in the world of comics and graphic novels revere him for his pioneering work in the field. We can’t help but think that the work he did for the American Communist Party paper, The Daily Worker in the 1930s, may have something to do with why the WNYC mural never got mounted, and to this day, cannot be located. Perhaps, dear reader, you know where it is?
She was a gregarious young abstract artist who was influenced by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian with whom she used to go dancing in Harlem. Later she married Jackson Pollock. Krasner worked hard and did many sketches for her WNYC assignment. They began as a series of still-lifes and gradually became more abstract. Unfortunately, she never got to complete her painting because the WPA mural project came to an end with World War II. However today, at her bequest, her estate sells sketches for the murals and donates the money to support needy young artists. Two of these reproductions can be viewed on the eighth floor stairwell landing at the WNYC and WQXR studios in Manhattan.
MAX BAUM
Max BAUM Finally, one last contribution of the WPA Federal Art Project to WNYC remains on site. It is a cast aluminum sculpture “Harpist” by Max Baum and can be viewed in New York Public Radio’s eighth floor reception area. Very little is known about Baum. A single page in the archive files at the Museum of Modern Art in New York indicates he was born August 10, 1910 and studied for four years at The École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and eight years with the sculptor Aaron J. Goodelman. He also indicated that he spent months at the Musée Bourdelle in Paris. Baum designed the marquee and bas-reliefs for the Victory Building in Toronto in 1930 but otherwise did freelance sculpture and casting between 1928 and 1935. He wrote: “I consider myself best for work at architectural sculpture, since I have always studied that and have had varied experience at actual work and commissions.”
*The WPA played a major role in WNYC’s history and ensured that the station not only stayed on the air, but grew significantly and prospered. WPA funding also underwrote drama and music programming, the rebuilding of our studios and the construction of a state-of-the-art transmitter facility in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
This article is based on a slideshow script originally written by former WNYC Senior Archivist Cara McCormick.
Audio courtesy of the New York City Municipal Archives WNYC Collection. Thanks to MOMA Archivist Michelle Harvey for her research assistance.
HUNTER’S POINT BRANCH QUEENSBOROUGH PUBLIC LIBRARY ARLENE BESSENOFF AND NINA LUBLIN WERE THE FIRST TO GUESS
EDITORIAL
I seem to have become captivated by WPA artists and their works. I feel that Byron Browne and Stuart Davis are old friends by now. The background stories for the artists vary from Midwestern farm boys to immigrants from Eastern Europe. They all got a chance in the U.S. to make a career and support themselves on the $24- a week the WPA paid them.
CLARIFICATION 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
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Joseph Pennell at work in his studio at Aldephi Terrace, London, between 1910-1926, Peter A. Juley & Son Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum J0002045
Joseph Pennell
Joseph Pennell (1857-1926) was an American artist whose métier was etching and lithography, and who became one of the foremost book illustrators of his time. Judy asked me to write about him, first, because of his love for New York City. In the Preface to a collection of his etchings of New York City (New York Etchings, Dover Publications, 1980), the editor, Edward Bryant, writes, “Joseph Pennell loved New York City. For him, it was man’s greatest achievement… Here to be etched and drawn and painted was the embodiment of the modern spirit capable of creating a great age.” Pennell, Bryant continues, “compiled a remarkable record of New York City during the first quarter of the twentieth century… describing with amazing fidelity buildings and places.” But, second, Pennell was also the author of The Jew at Home, an account of his travels in Poland and Russia, a vicious attack on Jews he encountered there, illustrated with grotesque etchings of these people.
Pennell seems to have lived a nearly idyllic life. Born in Philadelphia, he graduated from Germantown Friends. (He seems to have been a Quaker.) After studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts he worked etching historic landmarks and illustrating travel articles and books for American publishers. In 1884 he moved to London and there produced numerous books, both as an author and as an illustrator. Many of these were prepared in collaboration with his wife, author Elizabeth Robins Pennell. His London friends included many of the most notable creative figures of the day, including George Bernard Shaw, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Singer Sargent and his close friend James McNeill Whistler. (Pennell and his and wife wrote a famous biography of Whistler.) Pennell moved back to the United States during World War I and taught at the Art Students League of New York.
He traveled widely, producing etchings, pen-and-ink drawings and lithographs of cathedrals, plazas, street scenes, and palaces for publications such as Century, McClure’s and Harper’s. He also made panoramic views of massive construction and engineering projects, such as the Panama Canal and the locks at Niagara Falls. During World War I, he created a number of important poster designs as a part of Charles Dana Gibson’s Division of Pictorial Publicity of the Committee on Public Information, which was organized when the United States entered the war in 1917. Pennell won gold medals at the Exposition Universelle (1900), and 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. He distinguished himself not only as one of America’s most talented etchers but also as a promotional genius who helped to spur the revival of printmaking and print collecting during the first two decades of the 20th century.
In the midst of all of this, he wrote and illustrated The Jew at Home: Impressions of a Summer and Autumn Spent with Him (D. Appleton: New York, 1892), a brutal attack on Polish and Russian Jews, based on his travels in Eastern Europe in 1890.
Anti-semitism in this era came in several distinct streams. One was the fear of Jewish wealth and influence, of rich and powerful Jews controlling every deed and event. Another was the dread of Jewish masses, swarming out of Russia and Poland into Western Europe and New York (a fear, note, which some in established Jewish communities in Berlin, London and New York also shared). Another stream might be termed the “casual anti-semitism” of London’s and New York’s society clubs and boardrooms.
Pennell’s book wades deep in the second stream, repulsed by Eastern nor a Jew lover,” but he labels “the Austro-Hungarian or Russian Jew as the most contemptible specimen of humanity in Europe…dreaded by the peasant…loathed by people of every religion.” The typical Polish Jewish town, he says, is “a hideous nightmare of dirt, disease, and poverty; and…all this disease and ugliness is in a large measure the outcome of their own habits and way of life.” Later of Russian Jews, he writes, “They like dirt; they like to herd together in human pigsties;…they like to make money out of the immorality of the Christian. They are simply a race of middlemen and money-changers.”
Some nuance does exist in Pennell’s views: “There is no doubt whatever that these Jews who have stood persecution for centuries have in them many elements of good which ought to be developed, which can be developed, and which are developed almost every time an individual Jew is given a chance.” If he feels that the individual Jew can rise on his own, he detests the mass wave of immigrants, clannish and self-seeking. They must not be helped. If they are, “they will ask for more, until they are strong enough to drive everybody else out of that part of the country in which they have settled…. they intensified all those characteristics which in the end have made them so odious…”
Questions. First, his wife. Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1855–1936) was an American writer who grew up in Philadelphia, attending convent schools. Bored with being a proper Catholic young lady, she took up writing as a career, starting with articles in periodicals such as Atlantic Monthly. Through this she met a young artist named Joseph Pennell, who had also had to face down parental disapproval to pursue his creative calling. Elizabeth Pennell sounds remarkable, in the words of one researcher, “an adventurous, accomplished, self-assured, well-known columnist, biographer, cookbook collector, and art critic”. She wrote travelogues, mainly of European cycling voyages, and memoirs, centered on her London salon. She and her husband knew everyone worth knowing. Among her writings, her biographies included the first in almost a century of the proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, one of her uncle the folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland, and one of her friend the painter Whistler.
Elizabeth Pennell was an early cycling enthusiast, particularly because it enabled city dwellers to escape to the countryside. She claimed that “there is no more healthful or more stimulating form of exercise; there is no physical pleasure greater than that of being borne along, at a good pace, over a hard, smooth road by your own exertions”. She disparaged racing (for men but especially for women), preferring long unpressured travel, and wondering if she had inadvertently “broken the record as a touring wheel-woman”.
Did she share her husband’s opinions of Jews? Did her husband’s trip reveal something new and horrible or did it merely confirm existing sentiments? Could they have lived together for so long, undertaken so much together without sharing these views? How did this fit into their lives?
What about the circles they moved in? Certainly, anti-Jewish sentiment existed widely in Britain. Opponents of the Boer War blamed “Jewish capitalists” for fomenting the war and for pushing imperialism in general. When the wave of Jews fleeing Russia broke over Britain early in the twentieth century, demands were widespread that Britain not become “the dumping ground for the scum of Europe”. The Aliens Act of 1905 sought particularly to control this immigration. A leader in The Times blamed Jews for World War I and the Bolshevik regime, calling them the greatest threat to the British Empire. The widely read Illustrated London News “featured any number of respectful pieces on Jewish life” (writes the author of Victorian Jews through British Eyes) but also ran Pennell’s anti-Semitic series during December, 1891.
All things considered, Pennell does not seem too far out of step with his time. Still, the book and its illustrations are particularly vile. These wretched, selfish people deeply, profoundly offended him. So one last question. In an era where some of my friends will no longer watch a Woody Allen movie, can we separate an artist’s work and his life? Can we enjoy Pennell’s work while aware of his anti-Semitism?
All indications are that he was a much better husband than Dickens or Hemingway, that he was not as bad as Wagner who once wrote that Jews were by definition incapable of art and probably no worse than Degas, also an anti-Semite and a staunch defender of the French court that falsely convicted Alfred Dreyfus. Caravaggio and Ben Jonson both killed men in duels or brawls. Genet was a thief, Rimbaud was a smuggler, Byron committed incest, Flaubert paid for sex with boys. So what? Some of my friends still won’t watch Manhattan.
Judy asked me to tell you about Joseph Pennell who made wonderful art of New York City (though never of Blackwell’s Island) not to brood over such intense matters.
Stephen Blank Roosevelt Island September 12, 2020
WORLD WAR I POSTER
Joseph Pennell, That Liberty Shall Not Perish from the Earth, Buy Liberty Bonds, ca. 1917, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Barry and Melissa Vilkin, 1995.84.57
New York Bay from the Margaret by Joseph Pennell, 1857-1926, artist. dated between ca. 1922 and 1926. New York City. As Wuerth described, “In foreground housetops on Columbia Heights, middle distance Brooklyn docks, East River, Governor’s Island, lower end of Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty and Jersey shore on the horizon. Colours, cream, blue, Gray, rose, brown, black, orange, white and violet, on dark Gray paper.” (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Joseph Pennell, Battery Park (from Portfolio, Lithographs of New York in 1904), 1905, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Olin Dows, 1983.90.144
Henry Wolf, Joseph Pennell, The Cathedral from High Street, 1887, photomechanical wood engraving on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1973.130.22
Joseph Pennell, Lower Broadway, 1904, drypoint, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of DeWitt Hornor, 1978.77.6
Joseph Pennell, Nassau Street (from portfolio, Lithographs of New York in 1904), 1905, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Olin Dows, 1983.90.140
Joseph Pennell (American 1857-1926)- ”Sunset, From Williamsburg Bridge” (Wuerth 674)- etching and drypoint, 1915, edition of 100, collector stamp ‘T. F. T’
INVALUABLE.COM
Unidentified Rail Car Loaders
Joseph Pennell, Provide the Sinews of War, Buy Liberty Bonds, 1918, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Olin Dows, 1983.90.148
Summary Washington, DC. Closeup view of figures on steps leading to Lincoln Memorial, statue of Lincoln visible between Corinthian columns beyond.Contributor Names Pennell, Joseph, 1857-1926, artistCreated / Published [ca. 1922]
The hall of iron, Pennsylvania Station, New York Summary Prints shows passengers in the steel-and-glass concourse of Pennsylvania Station. Contributor Names Pennell, Joseph, 1857-1926, artist Created / Published [New York] 1919. Subject Headings – Pennsylvania Station (New York, N.Y.)–1910-1920 Library of Congress
Title Concourse, Grand CentralSummaryPrint shows passengers on the main concourse at Grand Central Terminal, New York, New York.Contributor NamesPennell, Joseph, 1857-1926, artistCreated / Published New York], [1919]Subject Headings- Grand Central Terminal (New York, N.Y.)–1910-1920 Library of Congress
ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL
Sketch of Elizabeth by her husband
Elizabeth was a noted writer, cook book collector and food critic among her talents.
The final string to her bow was as a cyclist. She praised cycling in general, and the ease with which it enabled city dwellers to escape to the countryside, for its fresh air and views. She claimed that “there is no more healthful or more stimulating form of exercise; there is no physical pleasure greater than that of being borne along, at a good pace, over a hard, smooth road by your own exertions”. She disparaged racing (for men but especially for women), preferring long unpressured travel, and wondering if she had inadvertently “broken the record as a touring wheel-woman”.She started off cycling in the 1870s, while she still lived in Philadelphia. On moving to London, she and her husband exchanged their Coventry Rotary tandem tricycle for a Humber model, going on to experiment with a single tricycle, a tandem bicycle, and finally a single bicycle with a step-through (“dropped”) frame. The first journey that she turned into a book was A Canterbury Pilgrimage, a homage to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, as a gentle introduction to cycling in England. Over the next few years, the pair took several trips together, including another literary pilgrimage, this time on the trail of Laurence Sterne’s 1765 travel novel A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. On a later leg of this 1885 journey they “wheeled” a tandem tricycle from Florence to Rome, attracting more attention than she was comfortable with, as possibly the first female rider that the Italians had ever seen.In 1886, now each on safety bicycles, they journeyed to Eastern Europe. This was at a key time in the history of the bicycle, and, of course, in the history of women’s rights as well, and they were both intertwined, in the figure of the New Woman. Suffragists and social activists such as Susan B. Anthony and Frances Willard recognised the transformative power of the bicycle. By the time the Pennells had gone Over the Alps on a Bicycle (1898), Annie Londonderry had already become the first woman to bicycle around the world. There was a ready audience for Robins Pennell’s books, and the last-mentioned was chosen as a book of the month.
New York Yacht Club on 44th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues Jay Jacobson, our resident mariner guessed this one just after dawn.
CLARIFICATION 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
Sometimes get get lead down the garden path, sometimes it is full of weeds. When I spotted the dark history of Joseph Pennell and his hateful anti-Semitic writings. I asked Stephen Blank to write the article and more learned history of this trait.
Both Pennells left their works to the Library of Congress. Tens of thousands from their art, writings and letters are available to the public at LOC.GOV.
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
Thanks to Stephen Blank for his contribution to this issue C McGrath, “Good Art, Bad People” (NYTimes) M Mendelsohn, “Beautiful Souls Mixed Up With Hooked Noses” (Victorian Literature and Culture) Preface to volume of P’s etchings A Cowan and R Cowan, Victorian Jews Through British Eyes (1998) FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
George Warren Fuller (December 21, 1868 – June 15, 1934) was a sanitary engineer who was also trained in bacteriology and chemistry. His career extended from 1890 to 1934 and he was responsible for important innovations in water and wastewater treatment. He designed and built the first modern water filtration plant, and he designed and built the first chlorination system that disinfected a U.S. drinking water supply. In addition, he performed groundbreaking engineering work on sewage treatment facilities in the U.S. He was President of both the American Water Works Association and the American Public Health Association, and he was recognized internationally as an expert civil and sanitary engineer.
CONTINUED BELOW
JUST UP THE RIVER
Ward’s Island WPCP plays a vital role in pollution control as part of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP). The plant is the first to use conventional activated sludge for sewage treatment. The plant has undergone several upgrades such as masonry resurfacing and the installation of boiler and residual handling facilities and power supply systems since it started operating in 1937. watertechnology.net
RENDERING FROM 1929 PLAN BY FULLER AND MC CLINTOCK
CURRENT VIEW AFTER MANY UPGRADES
GEORGE W. FULLER
Early life and education
George W. Fuller was born in Franklin, Massachusetts in 1868. After his primary and secondary education, he was accepted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the age of 16. He deferred his attendance at MIT for one year (beginning 1886) due to the death of his father. At MIT, he studied under William T. Sedgwick and completed his bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1890. Sedgwick was able to send Fuller to Berlin, Germany to study under the chief engineer for the Berlin waterworks, Carl Piefke. During his stay in Berlin, Fuller studied bacteriology at the Hygiene Institute of the University of Berlin.
WIKIPEDIA
GEORGE W FULLER
Continued… Career After returning from Berlin, Fuller started working at the Lawrence Experiment Station in Lawrence, Massachusetts while still under the tutelage of William T. Sedgwick. While at LES, he investigated the treatment of sewage using filtration systems. His most important work was the study of filtration for potable water treatment. His early investigations were designed to increase the filtration rate for slow sand filters so that water treatment facilities could be built on smaller land footprints and, thus, be constructed more economically.
Louisville and Cincinnati filtration studies During the period 1895 to 1897, Fuller was hired by the City of Louisville, Kentucky to study water filtration processes for the purpose of purifying Ohio River water for human consumption. The focus of his investigations were on “mechanical filtration” treatment systems (also called rapid sand filtration), which used filtration rates that were 60 times higher than those of slow sand filters. Aluminum sulfate was added prior to filtration to form larger particles that would be amenable to filtration. The work in Louisville made it clear that except for the clearest upland water supplies, a sedimentation treatment step would have to be added prior to filtration to remove the bulk of the suspended particulate matter
Fuller learned from his Louisville work when he designed the investigations at Cincinnati, Ohio for the purification of Ohio River water. From 1897 to 1899, Fuller investigated mechanical filtration using the addition of aluminum sulfate followed by a sedimentation step before the final filtration process.[4] Water purification
After completing the Cincinnati filtration report, Fuller opened a single person consulting practice in New York City. One of his first assignments was from the East Jersey Water Company to design a 30 million gallon per day mechanical filtration plant at Little Falls, New Jersey. The plant was a milestone in public health protection because it incorporated all of Fuller’s findings from his research over the previous 10 years and it became the model for the design of subsequent drinking water filtration facilities.
Graph showing dramatic decrease in typhoid fever death rate after chlorination of water supplies in the U.S. Death rates for typhoid fever in the U.S. 1906–1960 On June 19, 1908, Fuller was hired by John L. Leal to design and build a chlorination system for the Jersey City, New Jersey water supply at Boonton Reservoir on the Rockaway River. Given an impossible deadline as a result of a New Jersey Chancery Court order, Fuller successfully completed the chlorination system in 99 days. John L. Leal developed the basic concept of applying chlorine in the form of a dilute solution of chloride of lime (calcium hypochlorite) at fractions of a ppm. Fuller modeled his chloride of lime feed system on the aluminum sulfate feed system that he designed for the Little Falls Water Treatment Plant. The chlorination facility fed 0.2 to 0.35 ppm of chlorine to an average water flow of 40 million gallons per day from Boonton Reservoir. Fuller testified as an expert witness for the defendants, the Jersey City Water Supply Company, in both trials that resulted from a lawsuit filed by Jersey City against the water company.
The chlorination system that he designed and built was declared a success by the Special Master, William J. Magie, and was judged capable of supplying Jersey City with water that was “pure and wholesome.”[10] The success of the Boonton chlorination system was due, in no small part, to the engineering excellence of Fuller. Chlorine use exploded after the positive ruling by Justice Magie and typhoid fever and other waterborne diseases were conquered as a direct result of Fuller’s reliable engineering of the first chlorination system.[7] Sewage treatment The foundation of Fuller’s expertise in sewage treatment was laid at the Lawrence Experiment Station in Massachusetts.
He later went on to design and supervise the construction of some of the most important sewage treatment plants in the U.S. Fuller and his partner Rudolph Hering were responsible for the design of the earliest Imhoff tank sewage treatment facilities in the U.S., which were located in Chatham, New Jersey and Atlanta, Georgia.[ He wrote two books that defined the state-of-the-art of sewage treatment. \
At the time of his death, an activated sludge system that he designed was being constructed on Wards Island to handle sewage flows from New York City.
TYPHOID FEVER DEATHS
DECANTATION AND STORAGE TANKS
SLUDGE VESSEL OUTWARD PROFILE
SLUDGE VESSEL SECTIONS
SLUDGE VESSEL INBOARD PROFILE AND PLANS
CONTEMPORARY VESSEL
LANDSCAPE PLAN
1929 RENDERING AND LAST WEEK FROM NYC FERRY
YOU ARE INVITED TO THE DEDICATION OF THE WARD’S ISLAND SEWAGE TREATMENT WORKS
SEATING AREA BEHIND THE NEW 460 MAIN STREET NINA LUBLIN GUESSED THE WATER CONTAINERS USED FOR WEIGHT TESTING OF THE TRAM CABINS
WEEKEND PHOTO
WEST 4TH STREET SUBWAY STATION NINA LUBLIN WAS THE FIRST TO GET IT. WE HAVE HAD COMPUTER GLITCHES, SO FORGIVE ME FOR NOT MENTIONING ALL THE READERS WHO RECOGNIZED THE STATION.
CLARIFICATION
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
Years ago I bid on a set of plans of the Ward’s Island Sewage Treatment Plans on E-Bay. I won the plans and they have been tucked away for ages.
As with all the architectural plans, I have featured, the artwork is amazing and the care and detail put into these utilitarian buildings is wonderful.
The story of people like George W. Fuller is interesting and his work has brought water treatment so far forward.
You are belatedly invited to the plant dedication. (You should bring your facemask). 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)
FUNDING BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDING
DISCRETIONARY FUNDING BY COUNCIL MEMBER BEN KALLOS THRU NYC DYCD
THESE ARE PHOTOS THAT I TOOK OVER THE YEARS OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER. SOME WERE TAKEN FROM BOATS SAILING PAST THE TOWERS ONE WAS TAKEN FROM ELLIS ISLAND
FROM ELLIS ISLAND
VIEW FROM SOUTHPOINT PARK
FROM A SHIP SAILING OUT OF NEW YORK HARBOR
EDITORIAL
After 19 years we all remember exactly where we were at 9 a.m. on September 11th, 2001. Where were you?
On the following Saturday after the tragedy, a few of us put up a table by the Chapel and neighbors came over to write remembrances. I remembered returning to the candy store to get more oaktag a number of times. We put the posters in the island stores. I do not remember what happened to the posters. I do remember those we lost from the island from the city and the posters with photos all over our city.
Today we mourn over 23,742 souls in our city a number so mind boggling that I cannot comprehend a memorial for ten times the number of people who perished on 9/11.
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 CREDITS JUDITH BERDY Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
from WIKIPEDIA The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study full-time, there have never been any degree programs or grades, and this informal attitude pervades the culture of the school.
From the 19th century to the present, the League has counted among its attendees and instructors many historically important artists, and contributed to numerous influential schools and movements in the art world. The League also maintains a significant permanent collection of student and faculty work, and publishes an online journal of writing on art-related topics, called LINEA.
The journal’s name refers to the school’s motto Nulla Dies Sine Linea or “No Day Without a Line”, traditionally attributed to the Greek painter Apelles by the historian Pliny the Elder, who recorded that Apelles would not let a day pass without at least drawing a line to practice his art.[
History
Founded in 1875, the League’s creation came about in response to both an anticipated gap in the program of the National Academy of Design’s program of classes for that year, and to longer-term desires for more variety and flexibility in education for artists. The breakaway group of students included many women, and was originally housed in rented rooms at 16th Street and Fifth Avenue. When the Academy resumed a more typical—but liberalized—program in 1877, there was some feeling that the League had served its purpose, but its students voted to continue its program, and it was incorporated the following year. Influential board members from this formative period included painter Thomas Eakins and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens.
Membership continued to increase, forcing the League to relocate to increasingly larger spaces. The League participated in the founding of the American Fine Arts Society (AFAS) in 1889, together with the Society of American Artists and the Architectural League, among others. The American Fine Arts Building at 215 West 57th Street, constructed as their joint headquarters, has continued to house the League since 1892[
Designed in the French Renaissance style by one of the founders of the AFAS, architect Henry Hardenbergh (in collaboration with W.C. Hunting & J.C. Jacobsen), the building is a designated New York City Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In the late 1890s and early 1900s an increasing number of women artists came to study and work at the League many of them taking on key roles. Among them were Wilhelmina Weber Furlong and her husband Thomas Furlong. The avant-garde couple served the league in executive and administrative roles and as student members throughout the American modernism movement Alice Van Vechten Brown, who would later develop some of the first art programs in American higher education, also studied with the league until prolonged family illness sent her home.
The painter Edith Dimock, a student from 1895 to 1899, described her classes at the Art Students League: In a room innocent of ventilation, the job was to draw Venus (just the head) and her colleagues. We were not allowed to hitch bodies to the heads——yet. The dead white plaster of Paris was a perfect inducer of eye-strain, and was called “The Antique.” One was supposed to work from “The Antique” for two years. The advantage of “The Antique” was that all these gods and athletes were such excellent models: there never was the twitch of an iron-bound muscle. Venus never batted her hard-boiled egg eye, and the Discus-thrower never wearied. They were also cheap models and did not have to be paid union rates.
In his official biography, My Adventures as an Illustrator, Norman Rockwell recounts his time studying at the school as a young man, providing insight into its operation in the early 1900s. The League’s popularity persisted into the 1920s and 1930s under the hand of instructors like painter Thomas Hart Benton, who counted among his students there the young Jackson Pollock and other avant-garde artists who would rise to prominence in the 1940s.
In the years after World War II, the G.I. Bill played an important role in the continuing history of the League by enabling returning veterans to attend classes. The League continued to be a formative influence on innovative artists, being an early stop in the careers of Abstract expressionists, Pop Artists and scores of others including Lee Bontecou, Helen Frankenthaler, Al Held, Eva Hesse, Roy Lichtenstein, Donald Judd, Knox Martin, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Cy Twombly and many others vitally active in the art world.
In 1968, Lisa M. Specht was elected first female president of “The League”. The League’s unique importance in the larger art world dwindled somewhat during the 1960s, partially because of higher academia’s emergence as an important presence in contemporary art education, and partially due to a shift in the art world towards minimalism, photography, conceptual art, and a more impersonal and indirect approach to art making.
As of 2010, the League remains an important part of New York City art life. The League continues to attract a wide variety of young artists; and the focus on art made by hand, both figurative and abstract, remains strong; its continued significance has largely been in the continuation of its original mission – to give access to art classes and studio access to all comers, regardless of their means or technical background
Other facilities From 1906 until 1922, and again after the end of World War II from 1947 until 1979, the League operated a summer school of painting at Woodstock, New York. In 1995, the League’s facilities expanded to include the Vytlacil campus in Sparkill, New York, named after and based upon a gift of the property and studio of former instructor Vaclav Vytlacil.
The utilitarian studios at the League 6sgft (C)
INSTUCTORS
Notable instructors and lecturers
Since its inception, the Art Students League has employed notable professional artists as instructors and lecturers. Most engagements have been for a year or two, and some, like those of sculptor George Grey Barnard, were quite brief. Others have taught for decades, notably: Frank DuMond and George Bridgman, who taught anatomy for artists and life drawing classes for some 45 years, reportedly to 70,000 students. Bridgman’s successor was Robert Beverly Hale. Other longtime instructors included the painters Frank Mason (DuMond’s successor, over 50 years), Kenneth Hayes Miller (40 years) from 1911 until 1951, sculptor Nathaniel Kaz (50 years), Peter Golfinopoulos (over 40 years), Knox Martin (over 45 years), Martha Bloom (30 years) and the sculptors William Zorach (30 years), and Jose De Creeft, Will Barnet (50 years) from the 1930s to the 1990s, and Bruce Dorfman (over 50 years). Other well-known artists who have served as instructors include: Lawrence Alloway, Charles Alston, Will Barnet, Robert Beauchamp, George Bellows, Thomas Hart Benton, Isabel Bishop, Arnold Blanch, Louis Bouche, Robert Brackman, George Bridgman, Alexander Stirling Calder, Naomi Andrée Campbell, Robert Cenedella, [14]Jean Charlot, William Merritt Chase, Dionisio Cimarelli, Timothy J. Clark, Kenyon Cox, Jose De Creeft, John Steuart Curry, Stuart Davis, Edwin Dickinson, Sidney Dickinson, Frederick Dielman, Harvey Dinnerstein, Arthur Wesley Dow, Frank DuMond, Frank Duveneck, Thomas Eakins, Daniel Chester French, Dagmar Freuchen, Wilhelmina Weber Furlong, Michael Goldberg, Stephen Greene, George Grosz, Molly Guion,[15] Lena Gurr, Philip Guston, Robert Beverly Hale, Lovell Birge Harrison, Ernest Haskell, Childe Hassam, Robert Henri, Eva Hesse, Charles Hinman, Hans Hofmann, Harry Holtzman, Jamal Igle, Burt Johnson, Wolf Kahn, Morris Kantor, Rockwell Kent, Walt Kuhn, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Gabriel Laderman, Ronnie Landfield, Jacob Lawrence, Hayley Lever, Martin Lewis, George Luks, Paul Manship, Reginald Marsh, Fletcher Martin, Knox Martin, Jan Matulka, Mary Beth Mckenzie, William Charles McNulty, Willard Metcalf, Kenneth Hayes Miller, F. Luis Mora, Robert Neffson, Kimon Nicolaïdes, Maxfield Parrish, Jules Pascin, Joseph Pennell, Richard C. Pionk, Larry Poons, Richard Pousette-Dart, Abraham Rattner, Peter Reginato, Frank J. Reilly, Henry Reuterdahl, Boardman Robinson, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Kikuo Saito, Nelson Shanks, William Scharf, Susan Louise Shatter, Walter Shirlaw, John Sloan, Hughie Lee-Smith, Isaac Soyer, Raphael Soyer, Theodoros Stamos, Anita Steckel, Harry Sternberg, Augustus Vincent Tack, George Tooker, John Henry Twachtman, Vaclav Vytlacil, Max Weber, J. Alden Weir, Jerry Weiss, and William Zorach.
NOTABLE ALUMNI
Notable alumni
Art Students League of New York alumni The school’s list of notable alumni includes: Pacita Abad, Edwin Tappan Adney, Karin von Aroldingen, Ai Weiwei, Gladys Aller, William Anthony, Nela Arias-Misson, David Attie, Milton Avery, Elizabeth Gowdy Baker, Thomas R. Ball (a United States Congressman), Hugo Ballin, Will Barnet, Nancy Hemenway Barton, Saul Bass, C. C. Beall, Romare Bearden, Tony Bennett, Brother Thomas Bezanson, Thomas Hart Benton, Isabel Bishop, Dorothy Block, Leonard Bocour, Harriet Bogart, Abraham Bogdanove, Lee Bontecou, Henry Botkin, Louise Bourgeois, Harry Bowden, Stanley Boxer, Louise Brann, D. Putnam Brinley, James Brooks, Carmen L. Browne, Jennie Augusta Brownscombe, Edith Bry, Dennis Miller Bunker, Jacob Burck, Feliza Bursztyn, Theodore Earl Butler, Paul Cadmus, Alexander Calder, Chris Campbell, John F. Carlson, Kathrin Cawein, Paul Chalfin, Ching Ho Cheng, Minna Citron, Margaret Covey Chisholm, Kate Freeman Clark, Henry Ives Cobb, Jr., Claudette Colbert, Willie Cole, John Connell, Allyn Cox, Ellis Credle, Richard V. Culter, Mel Cummin, Frederick Stuart Church, Joan Danziger, Andrew Dasburg, Charles C. Dawson, Adolf Dehn, Dorothy Dehner, Sidney Dickinson, Burgoyne Diller, Ellen Eagle, Marjorie Eaton, Sir Jacob Epstein, Marisol Escobar, Joe Eula, Philip Evergood, Peter Falk, Ernest Fiene, Irving Fierstein, Louis Finkelstein, Ethel Fisher, Wilhelmina Weber Furlong, Helen Frankenthaler, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Wanda Gág, Dan Gheno, Charles Dana Gibson, William Glackens, Elias Goldberg, Michael Goldberg, Shirley Goldfarb, Peter Golfinopoulos, Adolph Gottlieb, Blanche Grambs, John D. Graham, Enrique Grau, Nancy Graves, Clement Greenberg, Stephen Greene, Red Grooms, Chaim Gross, Lena Gurr, Bessie Pease Gutmann, Minna Harkavy, Marsden Hartley, Julius Hatofsky, Ethel Hays, Gus Heinze, Al Held, Carmen Herrera, Eva Hesse, Al Hirschfeld, Itshak Holtz, Lorenzo Homar, Winslow Homer, Thomas Hoving, Paul Jenkins, Alice Sargent Johnson, Burt Johnson, Donald Judd, Matsumi Kanemitsu, Torleif S. Knaphus, Belle Kogan, Lee Krasner, Ronnie Landfield, Adelaide Lawson, Arthur Lee, Lucy L’Engle, Alfred Leslie, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Loepp, Michael Loew, John Marin, Reginald Marsh, Knox Martin, Donald Martiny, Mercedes Matter, Louisa Matthiasdottir, Peter Max, John Alan Maxwell, Eleanore Mikus, Emil Milan, Lee Miller, F. Luis Mora, Walter Tandy Murch, Reuben Nakian, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, Isamu Noguchi, Sassona Norton, Georgia O’Keeffe, Roselle Osk, Lyn Ott, Tom Otterness, Betty Waldo Parish, Clara Weaver Parrish, Betty Parsons, Phillip Pavia,[18] Roger Tory Peterson, Bert Geer Phillips, I. Rice Pereira, [19]Alain J. Picard, Jackson Pollock, Fairfield Porter, Edith Mitchill Prellwitz, Henry Prellwitz, Robert Rauschenberg, Man Ray, Charles M. Relyea, Frederic Remington, Priscilla Roberts, Norman Rockwell, Louise Emerson Ronnebeck, Jacques Rosas, Herman Rose, Leonard Rosenfeld, James Rosenquist, Sanford Ross, Mark Rothko, Glen Rounds, Luis Alvarez Roure, Morgan Russell, Abbey Ryan,[20] Sam Savitt, Louis Schanker, Mary Schepisi, Katherine Schmidt, Emily Maria Scott, Ethel Schwabacher, Joan Semmel, Maurice Sendak, Ben Shahn, Nelson Shanks, Nat Mayer Shapiro, Henrietta Shore, Jessamine Shumate, David Smith, Tony Smith, Vincent D. Smith Robert Smithson, Louise Hammond Willis Snead, Armstrong Sperry, Otto Stark, William Starkweather, Frank Stella, Joseph Stella, Inga Stephens Pratt Clark, Harry Sternberg, Clyfford Still, Soichi Sunami, Katharine Lamb Tait, Patty Prather Thum, George Tooker, Kim Tschang-yeul, Wen-Ying Tsai, Luce Turnier, Cy Twombly, Jack Tworkov, Edward Charles Volkert, Alonzo C. Webb, Davyd Whaley, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Adolph Alexander Weinman, J. Alden Weir, Jerry Weiss, Stow Wengenroth, Pennerton West, Anita Willets-Burnham, Ellen Axson Wilson, Gahan Wilson, Alice Morgan Wright, Russel Wright, Art Young, Philip Zuchman, and Iván Zulueta.[21][22][23]
NOTABLE ALUMNUS
MILTON AVERY
Milton Avery, Self-Portrait, 1937, drypoint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1971.7
Milton Avery, Nude with Guitar, 1947, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Louis and Annette Kaufman, 1977.43.1
Milton Avery was often dismissed as a naïve painter because he did not seem as sophisticated as the elite abstract expressionists who took the stage after World War II. Avery borrowed this figure’s pose from Picasso, and, in fact, Nude with Guitar reflects Avery’s knowledge of modern literature as well as painting. He was fond of Wallace Stevens’s 1937 poem “The Man with the Blue Guitar,” based on Picasso’s famous Blue Period image. The poem praised the power of art to transform everyday moments into transcendent experiences, and the guitar became Avery’s personal symbol of this power, appearing in many of his canvases (Hobbs, Milton Avery, 1990).
“I am not seeking pure abstraction; rather the purity and essence of the idea expressed in its simplest form.” The artist, quoted in Hobbs, Milton Avery, 1990
Milton Avery, Man Fishing, ca. 1938, oil on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost, 1986.92.2
Milton Avery, Sally Avery with Still Life, 1926, oil on cotton, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Louis and Annette Kaufman, 1977.43.2
BIOGRAPHY
The son of a tanner, Avery began working at a local factory at the age of 16 and supported himself for decades with a succession of blue-collar jobs. The death of his brother-in-law in 1915 left Avery, as the sole remaining adult male in his household, responsible for the support of nine female relatives. His interest in art led him to attend classes at the Connecticut League of Art Students in Hartford, and over a period of years, he painted in obscurity while receiving a conservative art education.] In 1917, he began working night jobs in order to paint in the daytime.
In 1924, he met Sally Michel, a young art student, and in 1926, they married. Her income as an illustrator enabled him to devote himself more fully to painting. The two had a daughter, March Avery, in 1932. For several years in the late 1920s through the late 1930s, Avery practiced painting and drawing at the Art Students League of New York. Roy Neuberger saw his work and thought he deserved recognition. Determined to get the world to know and respect Avery’s work, Neuberger bought over 100 of his paintings, starting with Gaspé Landscape, and lent or donated them to museums all over the world. With Avery’s work of rotating through high-profile museums, he came to be a highly respected and successful painter.[citation needed]
In the 1930s, he was befriended by Adolph Gottlieb and Mark Rothko among many other artists living in New York City in the 1930s–40s.[3] Avery’s use of glowing color and simplified forms was an influence on the younger artists.[1]
The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., was the first museum to purchase one of Avery’s paintings in 1929; that museum also gave him his first solo museum exhibition in 1944. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1963.
Avery had a serious heart attack in 1949. During his convalescence he concentrated on printmaking. When he resumed painting, his work showed a new subtlety in the handling of paint, and a tendency toward slightly more muted tones.
Milton Avery died at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, New York, om January 3, 1965 following a long illness,[6] and is buried in the Artist’s Cemetery in Woodstock, Ulster County, New York. After his passing his widow, Sally Avery, donated his personal papers to the Archives of American Art, a research center of the Smithsonian Institution.[citati
BLACKWELL’S ISLAND PENITENTIARY NOT GUESSED BY ANYONE
CLARIFICATION 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
It was easy to choose an artist that has studied at the Art Student’s League. Try to find an artist who has not, which is more difficult.
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
WIKIPEDIA (C)
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM 6 SQUARE FEET WIKIPEDIA ART STUDENTS LEAGUE
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
William Charles Palmer was born in 1906, in Des Moines, Iowa. He studied at the Art Students League under Boardman Robinson, Thomas Hart Benton, and Kenneth Hayes Miller, and studied fresco painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Fontainebleau, France. During the depression he was taken on at 24 dollars a week to paint murals funded by the Public Works of Art Project.
He was a member of the American Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers, and the Audubon Society. He was also a vice-president of the National Society of Mural Painters. He was director emeritus of the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute School of Art in Utica, New York.[3]
Artist William Palmer working on large drawing for History of Medicine murals for Queens General Hospital in his studio. (Photo by Rex Hardy Jr./The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images)
Archives of American Art – William C. Palmer
The final version of the mural.
DESCRIPTION
As of 2009, this 1938 WPA mural by William Palmer entitled “The Development of Medicine” is located in the Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens. It may have originally been installed in the Queens General Hospital (now the Queens Hospital Center).
“It was stated in a recent book on the WPA – that the panel Controlled Medicine was in effect a plea for and propaganda for socialized medicine. This statement is without any basis of fact, and the author never contacted me for my analysis panel. To put the record straight – the mural Development of Medicine was painted to show the ignorance, superstition and fear of “uncontrolled medicine” – the great historical contributions and discoveries which lead up to the scientific and enlightened medicine and hospital care of the 30s, as shown in Controlled Medicine. The theme of this panel shows the equipment, etc., used by the hospital in prevention of disease and the treatment of the patient. Socialized medicine was not in my vocabulary in 1936, and certainly in doing my research for the work it was never considered or mentioned by any hospital authority. The real purpose of the murals at Queens was to serve two main purposes – one, to give the waiting patients in the “in-coming and out-going patients rooms” something to look at and to inform them of the history and background of treatment – and two, Dr. Kogel, the Superintendent of Queens used the panels in this lectures to student nurses on the history of medicine.”
HAMILTON COLLEGE EXHIBITION 2009-2010
William Palmer (1906-87) was the first member of the Hamilton College studio art faculty, and founding director of the Munson-Williams-Proctor School of Art. He studied at the Art Students League with Boardman Robinson, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and Thomas Hart Benton, and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Fontainebleau where he learned the art of fresco painting. Before coming to Clinton in 1941, Palmer achieved national recognition as a WPA/FAP muralist. William Palmer: Drawing from Life features Depression- and WPA-era figure studies, landscapes, and mural studies from the William C. Palmer collection housed at the Emerson Gallery.
Artist William Charles Palmer was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1906. At eighteen he enrolled at the Art Students League in New York where he studied with Kenneth Hayes Miller, Boardman Robinson, and Thomas Hart Benton. Palmer described Miller as his “great teacher” but it was Benton who instilled in him a sense of individualism and whose interest in mural painting led him to enroll at École des Beaux-Arts, Fontainebleau to study fresco painting. Painted rooms were fashionable when Palmer returned from France in 1927, and the aspiring designer received several private commissions only to have them unravel when the market crashed two years later. Unable to find work, he went to live with his sister in Canada and brought with him sketches from his annual visits to Iowa. To keep busy he turned to them for inspiration and as a basis for exploring new mediums, which sparked his interest in landscape painting, a subject matter that until then he had not taken seriously but thereafter defined his career.
In 1932 Palmer was invited to participate in the New York division of the Public Works Art Project. He produced easel paintings and murals for the program with some success;* President Franklin Roosevelt chose an oil, Manhattan from the Jersey Meadows, for the White House Collection, and a mural, Function of a Hospital, was selected for the elevator waiting room of the new Queens General Hospital. From 1935-40, Palmer received three more WPA mural commissions for post offices in Washington, D.C., Arlington, Massachusetts, and Monticello, Iowa. Palmer’s last years in New York were spent teaching at the Art Students League and as supervisor of the Mural Department of the City of New York, a WPA/FAP program that employed hundreds of artists, including Arshile Gorky, Edward Laning, Balcomb Greene, Philip Guston, and Ilya Bolotowsky.
In 1941 he was invited to Utica to found the School of Art at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. During the Institute’s fledgling years, he held a joint appointment as Hamilton College’s first member of the art faculty and Artist-in-Residence. He left Hamilton in 1948 to devote himself full time to the Institute where he remained until his retirement in 1971.
Since his earliest days as an artist, Palmer made a daily sketch from memory. Time and again, he turned to these for new ideas. On view in this exhibition are a selection of his sketches and studies, ranging from quick compositional sketches to final studies for prints, paintings and murals from the late ’20s to the early ’40s. It was during this period that, through the circumstances of the times and a personal penchant for change, Palmer began to define himself as an artist. In these early works, echoes of his teachers, especially Miller and Benton, can be found in the faces of the men and women crowding streets and barn dances, and within his lyrical landscapes. One also sees experiments with different mediums, subject matter, and the picture plane that illustrate the beginnings of his unique voice as an artist.
William Palmer died in 1987. Nine years later, Hamilton College received the William C. Palmer Papers from the bequest of his widow, Catherine. The collection, which contains of a lifetime of sketches and sketchbooks, studies, photographs, letters, catalogs, and lecture notes, is jointly housed at the Emerson Gallery and the Burke Library where it is made available for study.
William C. Palmer, Innumerable Shoppers, 1931, Pen and ink on paper. Collection of Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College. Bequest of Catherine W. Palmer
WORKS BY WILLIAM C. PALMER
William C. Palmer, Manhattan Island from the Jersey Meadows, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service , 1965.18.34 *This painting was chosen by FDR for exhibition in the White House.
William C. Palmer, Iowa Landscape (mural study, right panel of triptych for Monticello, Iowa Post Office), 1940, watercolor and ink on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, 1974.28.322
William C. Palmer, The Last Snow, 1956, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation, 1985.30.57
New Sign Outside Octagon Stone and Design to Replicate Octagon Staircase
JOAN BROOKS WAS THE EARLY BIRD AN SHE GETS THE TRINKET Nina Lublin, Alexis Villefane and Jay Jacobson also got it.
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EDITORIAL
This edition features another artist who worked on WPA murals in New York Hospitals. Previous edition featured art works in post offices. The amazing amount of wonderful work produced in the 1930’s show that government can work to produce a great product and works that have lasted for almost a century.
When reading the biographies I have seen that many of the artists studied at the Art Students League. We will discover the Art Students League in the near future.
Today I was at the Board of Elections at 200 Varick Street at train-the-trainer. Yes, trainers get trained. They I go to train the Coordinator. This morning we learned of all the cleaning and sanitizing that will be in place and we have to do to keep the voters and poll workers safe.
Stay tuned for an announcement of a more convenient Upper East Side Early Voting Site. Early voting is from October 24 to November 1st.
Judith Berdy
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM. NEW YORK HEALTH + HOSPITALS WIKIPEDIA HAMILTON COLLEGE
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The Wastewater Treatment Plant is Located on what was Luyster’s Island
Bowery Bay Sewage Treatment Works, copy of drawing “Pump and Blower House”
Bowery Bay Sewage Treatment Works, south face of grit storage building Left: under construction, Right: rendering of completed structure
The Wastewater Treatment Plant is located on what was Luyster’s Island
Untapped Cities reader @moment_NY submitted a photo via Twitter, asking us “Do you know the history of this wall art at 45th St & Berrian Blvd, Queens?” A little digging revealed that this is part of the Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant, across from Rikers Island. The WPA-style sculptural relief dates back to the original Art Deco building that was part of the Department of Public Works, and you can see the 1940 cornerstone on the right hand side. Elsewhere on the building, you’ll see the glass blocks and curved walls that are characteristic of the public architecture of the time period.
Although the building’s decoration was clearly intended for public as a message of the government’s good works, today the building is fenced off and this grand entrance unused. As such, the building directly encapsulates the evolution of the public’s relationship with government architecture from the Great Depression until now. Another fun note, from Forgotten NY, is that the whole treatment plant sits atop the former Luyster’s Island, another sign of the advance of New York City’s shoreline.
The 1930’s building still exists
The work ethic was impressed on the building
WHAT HAPPENS AT BOWERY BAY
Completion of $3 Million Upgrade to the Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant Significantly Reduces Nuisance Odors in Astoria
2016
Newly Installed Aluminum Tank Covers and Carbon Filtration System Capture 99% of Odors
New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Acting Commissioner Steven Lawitts today joined with City Council Member Costa Constantinides to announce that work has been completed on the installation of aluminum covers and odor control units on each of the four sludge tanks located at the Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant in Astoria, Queens. The $3 million project ensures that nuisance odors emanating from the wastewater treatment plant are captured by the new aluminum covers and removed through an activated carbon filtration process. Work on the project began in 2015 and was completed by Memorial Day.
“Wastewater treatment is a vital process that safeguards the environment and protects public health, and we also work hard to ensure that we are good neighbors to those who live and work in the neighborhoods that surround our plants,” said DEP Acting Commissioner Steven Lawitts. “The completed odor control upgrades at the Bowery Bay facility will directly benefit the residents of northern Queens and I want to thank Council Member Costa Constantinides for the time, energy and efforts he and his staff devoted to partnering with DEP on addressing this important environmental concern.”
Council Member Costa Constantinides, Chair of the Council’s Environmental Protection Committee, said, “As lifetime residents of the neighborhood, my family and I have too much experience with the odor from the Bowery Bay Plant. The new aluminum tank covers and odor control units will help improve the quality of life for all families in the area. Eliminating most of the odor that comes from the plant is a major benefit for our community. I thank DEP for partnering together with us on this $3 million upgrade project and working to complete it on time.”
New Yorkers produce, and DEP collects and treats, approximately 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater a day. Many of the City’s 14 wastewater treatment plants are located in residential or business communities across the five boroughs and DEP works to limit their impact on the surrounding neighborhoods. At the Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant, there are four holding tanks that have the capacity to store a combined 550,000 cubic feet of sludge. The aluminum covers, which are up to 85 feet wide, capture any nuisance odor and each dual-bed carbon canister filter cleanses up to 21,742 cubic feet of air per minute. The carbon filters capture and absorb the odorous hydrogen sulfide gas molecules produced during the wastewater treatment and sludge digestion process. The City College of New York will work with DEP to document the performance of the carbon filters.
The Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant went into operation in 1939 and is designed to treat 150 million gallons of wastewater a day. The plant serves approximately 850,000 residents in a drainage area of more than 15,000 acres in northwest Queens.
DEP manages New York City’s water supply, providing approximately one billion gallons of water each day to more than 9 million residents, including 8.5 million in New York City. The water is delivered from a watershed that extends more than 125 miles from the city, comprising 19 reservoirs and three controlled lakes. Approximately 7,000 miles of water mains, tunnels and aqueducts bring water to homes and businesses throughout the five boroughs, and 7,500 miles of sewer lines and 96 pump stations take wastewater to 14 in-city treatment plants. DEP has nearly 6,000 employees, including almost 1,000 in the upstate watershed. In addition, DEP has a robust capital program, with a planned $14 billion in investments over the next 10 years that will create up to 3,000 construction-related jobs per year. For more information, visit nyc.gov/dep, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.
THIS IS THE PERMIT FROM NYS DEPT. OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION”
The NYCDEP Bowery Bay WPCP is a municipal wastewater treatment facility capable of providing secondary treatment to 225 mgd of primarily residential wastewater in Northwestern Queens. The major unit operations of the facility consist of screening, primary treatment, activated-sludge treatment, secondary clarification, sludge treatment, and disinfection of the plant effluent before discharge to the Rikers Island Channel. Solids handling at the plant include cyclone degritting of the primary sludge, gravity thickening of the primary and secondary high-rate anaerobic digestion, and sludge storage and dewatering. The Bowery Bay WPCP operates combustion installations, three methane-abatement systems, three wet scrubbers for the Dewatering building odor-control system, and two dual-system units with two wet scrubbers and carbon adsorption for the centrate odor-control system. In addition, in order to eliminate potential odor from the wastewater treatment process, DEP has upgraded sludge storage tanks #1, #4, #9 and #10 with Facility DEC ID: 2630100008 DEC Permit Conditions Renewal 1/Mod 1/FINAL Page 2 aluminum covers and installed four carbon vessels to treat air emissions from these four tanks. By acceptance of this permit, the permittee agrees that the permit is contingent upon strict compliance with the ECL, all applicable regulations, the General Conditions specified.
We don’t think of wastewater or other unmentionables. This is the Pump and Blower House and the Grit Storage Building. Even these mundane projects were beautifully designed and have been preserved for over 75 years.
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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EXCERPTED FROM BOOK BY DIANA STUART (C) 2003 UNTAPPED CITIES (C) NEW YORK TIMES(C) WIKIPEDIA
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES (C)
About New York; Art Underfoot, And the Angel Who Guards It By Dan Barry Sept. 6, 2003
The round-faced sleuth with the orange visor knelt to take a closer look at a circular patch of concrete. Where others might see only Manhattan sidewalk, she saw evidence of a form of art theft: the disappearance of yet another of New York City’s glorious manhole covers. She knew what was missing because she had once photographed it, a cast-iron cover adorned with a five-pointed star and a raucous sea of raised dots. It was the handiwork of the old Liberty Iron Works foundry on 10th Avenue. It had been blithely trod upon for generations, and now it was gone. ”This is one of my real tragedies,” muttered the woman, Diana Stuart. No one could challenge her use of the possessive.
Ms. Stuart has devoted the last decade to the adoration of manhole covers. She has whisked them clean like an umpire tending to home plate, photographed them by the thousands, cataloged their whereabouts, researched the long-gone foundries that struck them, led walking tours in their name, and lobbied without success to have them granted landmark status. So associated is Ms. Stuart with their preservation that she holds unchallenged claim to a nickname that may not be as intriguing as the Woman in Red, but is not quite as unsettling as the Pigeon Lady. She is the Manhole Cover Lady.
OUR LOST MANHOLE COVER
At the south end of West Road by the entrance to Southpoint Park, this cover was removed when the street was re-paved for the Cornell Tech campus.
2- But she makes no secret of her crusade to save the ancient manhole covers, coal-chute covers and vault covers that dapple the city surface by the hundreds of thousands, some of them still-active portals to the netherworld. She estimates that a good 10 percent of the 400 covers featured in her book — ”Designs Underfoot: The Art of Manhole Covers in New York City” — have already been paved over or tossed away since its publication in April. To prove that manhole covers equal art, Ms. Stuart conducted a private, head-down tour of Murray Hill, infusing her patter with the urgent tone of someone who seems at constant risk of missing her train.
She strode with the confidence borne of having walked thousands of streets, dodging cars and eluding undesirables, armed only with a camera, a notebook and a whisk broom. As she guided on this rainy morning, she pointed to covers whose raised features may have once had a practical purpose — providing traction for the hooves of horses — but are now the cast-iron expressions of whimsy from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Ship’s wheels and snowflakes, hexagons and honeycombs, chain links and flowers, all meant for more than just horses. Above This was photographed in 2009, probably being removed from a construction site.
STEP ON THE ARTWORK
3- In front of 114 East 37th Street, for example, she spotted a coal-chute cover of an anonymous foundry that sported a raised star, bubble-like dots and a ring of diamond shapes. And on the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and 37th Street, embedded like a jewel in the slate pavement, there glittered — well, not quite — a Jacob Mark Sons cover dating from 1878. Rows of mauve- and gold-colored glass insets, surrounded by an elaborate petal design, lent it a certain grimy class. ”Is it at risk? Yes, definitely,” Ms. Stuart said, her face damp, her voice raised. ”Someone could just come and pierce their equipment right through this.”
Her pleas to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission have yielded no support. Robert B. Tierney, its chairman, said that while he admired Ms. Stuart’s commitment, manhole covers are impermanent fixtures by design. Giving them landmark status raises the specter of commission involvement every time Con Ed has to change a manhole cover. ”It may not be something that is a landmark priority,” he said. ”But that does not mean that it’s not important. It’s incredibly interesting.” Ms. Stuart, who feels as though she is racing against time, remains committed to her cause. She promotes her slim volume, which has brought her some fame but no money. She conducts her tours. She leads the Society for the Preservation of New York City Manhole Covers. She is, after all, the Manhole Cover Lady. ”O.K.,” she said, again pointing to the sidewalk. ”This is a very important cover.”
WHAT DO ALL THOSE LETTERS STAND FOR?
Markings Bell System BECo = Brooklyn Edison Company BHRR = Brooklyn Heights Railroad BMT = Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation BPB = Borough President Brooklyn BPM = Borough President Manhattan BQT = Brooklyn and Queens Transit Corporation BRT = Brooklyn Rapid Transit BS = Bureau of Sewers BSBQ = Bureau of Sewers, Borough of Queens BSBQ = Borough Superintendent of the Borough of Queens CIBRR = Coney Island and Brooklyn Railroad Citizens Water Supply Co. of Newtown ConEdison = Consolidated Edison Con Edison Co. = Consolidated Edison Conrail = Consolidated Rail Corporation CT&ES Co. = Consolidated Telegraph & Electrical Subway Company CWSCo. = Citizens Water Supply Company of Newtown DCW = Brooklyn Department of City Works DEP = Department of Environmental Protection DPW = Department of Public Works DWS = Department of Water Supply ECS Co. LIM = Empire City Subway Company Limited (also abbreviated as ECS Co LTD) EDISON = Edison EEICo. = Edison Electric Illuminating Company FDNY = FDNY GAS = Brooklyn Union Gas HPFS = High Pressure Fire Service IRT = Interborough Rapid Transit JWS = Jamaica Water Supply Company of New York KCEL&PC = Kings County Electric Light and Power Company LIC = Long Island City LIRR = Long Island Rail Road LIWSCo. = Long Island Water Supply Company NY&NJTCo. = New York & New Jersey Telephone Company NY&QEL&PCo = New York & Queens Electric Light & Power Company NYCTA = New York City Transit Authority NYCTS = New York City Transit System NYC & HRRR = New York Central & Hudson River Railroad NYM = New York Municipal Railway Corporation NYRT = New York Rapid Transit Corporation NYTCo. = New York Telephone Company PSC MRC = Public Service Commission-Metropolitan Railway Company QMT = Queens Midtown Tunnel RT NYC = Rapid Transit New York City RT NYRT = New York Rapid Transit Corporation RTS = Rapid Transit System RTS NYC = Rapid Transit System New York City STEALTH COMM = Stealth Communications WSNY = Water Supply of New York Water Supply
WHY ARE MANHOLE COVERS ROUND?
The question of why manhole covers are typically round (in some countries) was made famous by Microsoft when they began asking it as a job-interview question. Originally meant as a psychological assessment of how one approaches a question with more than one correct answer, the problem has produced a number of alternative explanations, from the tautological (“Manhole covers are round because manholes are round.”)to the philosophical. Reasons for the shape might include:
A round manhole cover cannot fall through its circular opening, whereas a square manhole cover might fall in if it were inserted diagonally in the hole.
The existence of a “lip” holding up the lid means that the underlying hole is smaller than the cover, so that other shapes might suffice. (A Reuleaux triangle or other curve of constant width would also serve this purpose, but round covers are much easier to manufacture.)
Round tubes are the strongest and most material-efficient shape against the compression of the earth around them.
A round manhole cover of a given diameter has a smaller surface area than a square cover of the same width, thus less material is needed to cast the manhole cover, meaning lower cost.
The bearing surfaces of manhole frames and covers are machined to assure flatness and prevent them from becoming dislodged by traffic.
Round castings are much easier to machine using a lathe.
Circular covers do not need to be rotated to align with the manhole. A round manhole cover can be more easily moved by being rolled.
A round manhole cover can be easily locked in place with a quarter turn (as is done in countries like France), which makes them hard to open without a special tool.
Lockable covers do not have to be made as heavy to resist being dislodged.
COAL CHUTE COVERS
Like in London, the original street covers were for coal–and were often originally rectangular in shape. New York City still has many covers that lead to former coal chutes, like the one above in a hexagonal shape. This particular one, found in Brooklyn Heights, is a patented “illuminated cover” invented by J.B. Cornell, an ironworks company founded by brothers on Centre Street.
The patent document from 1856 describes glass panes placed between melted brimstone. John B. Cornell writes that the design will be kept clean from the “friction of passing feet,” and that a light rain shower would remove “any considerable quantity of dirt” from the glass panes. For this and various reasons, Cornell believed “in point of illuminating power, and safety against the entrance of moisture, I believe that my improved illuminating cover for openings in pavements &c. has no equal.”
WILLIAM MARCY TWEED BOSS TWEED Clara Bella was the first answer.
I’m so excited!! I’m a big fan from the Bronx, and since March I haven’t been on the island but I cherish your emails. The variety, the detail, and the many photos make them simply wonderful.
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EDITORIAL
Art underfoot. Just be careful between mopeds, Citi-Bike, humans and scooters, it may be safer to look at the photos.
Today we took he ferry to 90th Street and transferred to the Soundview Ferry to the Bronx. We caught an Lyft and off we were to City Island. Lunch was great under a giant tent (on a former parking lot) with delicious lobster and the sides. It was great to be in this cute seaside town, only an hour from home.
For an easy return home the bus to Westchester Square and a 6 train ride to 59th Street.
Time to safely get off the island and enjoy this wonderful weather.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
