Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was an American author of poetry, prose, and translations, as well as an activist for Jewish causes.
She wrote the sonnet “The New Colossus” in 1883. Its lines appear inscribed on a bronze plaque, installed in 1903, on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. The last lines of the sonnet were set to music by Irving Berlin as the song “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor” for the 1949 musical Miss Liberty, which was based on the sculpting of the Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World). The latter part of the sonnet was also set by Lee Hoiby in his song “The Lady of the Harbor” written in 1985 as part of his song cycle “Three Women”.
Lazarus was also the author of Poems and Translations (New York, 1867); Admetus, and other Poems (1871); Alide: An Episode of Goethe’s Life (Philadelphia, 1874); Poems and Ballads of Heine (New York, 1881); Poems, 2 Vols.; Narrative, Lyric and Dramatic; as well as Jewish Poems and Translations.
Early years and education
Emma Lazarus was born in New York City, July 22, 1849,into a large Sephardic Jewish family.
She was the fourth of seven children of Moses Lazarus, a wealthy Jewish merchant and sugar refiner, and Esther Nathan. One of her great-grandfathers on the Lazarus side was from Germany; the rest of her Lazarus and Nathan ancestors were originally from Portugal and resident in New York long before the American Revolution, being among the original twenty-three Portuguese Jews who arrived in New Amsterdam fleeing the Inquisition from their settlement of Recife, Brazil
] Lazarus’s great-great-grandmother on her mother’s side, Grace Seixas Nathan (born in New York in 1752) was also a poet.[12] Lazarus was related through her mother to Benjamin N. Cardozo, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Her siblings included sisters Josephine, Sarah, Mary, Agnes and Annie, and a brother, Frank. Privately educated by tutors from an early age, she studied American and British literature as well as several languages, including German, French, and Italian.[16] She was attracted in youth to poetry, writing her first lyrics when eleven years old.
Writer
Poems and ballads of Heinrich Heine The first stimulus for Lazarus’ writing was offered by the American Civil War. A collection of her Poems and Translations, verses written between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, appeared in 1867 , and was commended by William Cullen Bryant.
It included translations from Friedrich Schiller, Heinrich Heine, Alexandre Dumas, and Victor Hugo. Admetus and Other Poems followed in 1871. The title poem was dedicated “To my friend Ralph Waldo Emerson”, whose works and personality were exercising an abiding influence upon the poet’s intellectual growth.
During the next decade, in which “Phantasies” and “Epochs” were written, her poems appeared chiefly in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine and Scribner’s Monthly. By this time, Lazarus’ work had won recognition abroad.
Her first prose production, Alide: An Episode of Goethe’s Life, a romance treating of the Friederike Brion incident, was published in 1874 (Philadelphia), and was followed by The Spagnoletto (1876), a tragedy. Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heine (New York, 1881) followed, and was prefixed by a biographical sketch of Heine; Lazarus’ renderings of some of Heine’s verse are considered among the best in English.
In the same year, 1881, she became friends with Rose Hawthorne Lathrop. In April 1882, Lazarus published in The Century Magazine the article “Was the Earl of Beaconsfield a Representative Jew?” Her statement of the reasons for answering this question in the affirmative may be taken to close what may be termed the Hellenic and journeyman period of Lazarus’ life, during which her subjects were drawn from classic and romantic sources..
Lazarus also wrote The Crowing of the Red Cock,[5] and the sixteen-part cycle poem “Epochs”. In addition to writing her own poems, Lazarus edited many adaptations of German poems, notably those of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Heinrich Heine. She also wrote a novel and two plays in five acts, The Spagnoletto, a tragic verse drama about the titular figure and The Dance to Death, a dramatization of a German short story about the burning of Jews in Nordhausen during the Black Death.
During the time Lazarus became interested in her Jewish roots, she continued her purely literary and critical work in magazines with such articles as “Tommaso Salvini”, “Salvini’s ‘King Lear'”, “Emerson’s Personality”, “Heine, the Poet”, “A Day in Surrey with William Morris”, and others.
Joseph Puliter’s NEW YORK WORLD was the motivating force to have people donate for the base.
Lines from her sonnet “The New Colossus” appear on a bronze plaque which was placed in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903. The sonnet was written in 1883 and donated to an auction, conducted by the “Art Loan Fund Exhibition in Aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund for the Statue of Liberty” in order to raise funds to build the pedestal.
Lazarus’ close friend Rose Hawthorne Lathrop was inspired by “The New Colossus” to found the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne. She traveled twice to Europe, first in 1883 and again from 1885 to 1887.[ On one of those trips, Georgiana Burne-Jones, the wife of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, introduced her to William Morris at her home[ She also met with Henry James, Robert Browning and Thomas Huxley during her European travels. A collection of Poems in Prose (1887) was her last book. Her Complete Poems with a Memoir appeared in 1888, at Boston.
Activism
Lazarus was a friend and admirer of the American political economist Henry George. She believed deeply in Georgist economic reforms and became active in the “single tax” movement for land value tax. Lazarus published a poem in the New York Times named after George’s book, Progress and Poverty. Lazarus became more interested in her Jewish ancestry as she heard of the Russian pogroms that followed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. As a result of this anti-Semitic violence, and the poor standard of living in Russia in general, thousands of destitute Ashkenazi Jews emigrated from the Russian Pale of Settlement to New York. Lazarus began to advocate on behalf of indigent Jewish immigrants. She helped establish the Hebrew Technical Institute in New York to provide vocational training to assist destitute Jewish immigrants to become self-supporting. Lazarus volunteered in the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society employment bureau; she eventually became a strong critic of the organization. In 1883, she founded the Society for the Improvement and Colonization of East European Jews.
The literary fruits of identification with her religion were poems like “The Crowing of the Red Cock”, “The Banner of the Jew”, “The Choice”, “The New Ezekiel”, “The Dance to Death” (a strong, though unequally executed drama), and her last published work (March 1887), “By the Waters of Babylon: Little Poems in Prose”, which constituted her strongest claim to a foremost rank in American literature. During the same period (1882–87), Lazarus translated the Hebrew poets of medieval Spain with the aid of the German versions of Michael Sachs and Abraham Geiger, and wrote articles, signed and unsigned, upon Jewish subjects for the Jewish press, besides essays on “Bar Kochba”, “Henry Wadsworth Longfellow”, “M. Renan and the Jews”, and others for Jewish literary associations.
] Several of her translations from medieval Hebrew writers found a place in the ritual of American synagogues.[5] Lazarus’ most notable series of articles was that titled “An Epistle to the Hebrews” (The American Hebrew, November 10, 1882 – February 24, 1883), in which she discussed the Jewish problems of the day, urged a technical and a Jewish education for Jews, and ranged herself among the advocates of an independent Jewish nationality and of Jewish repatriation in Palestine. The only collection of poems issued during this period was Songs of a Semite: The Dance to Death and Other Poems (New York, 1882), dedicated to the memory of George Eliot.
Death and legacy
Lazarus returned to New York City seriously ill after her second trip to Europe, and died two months later, on November 19, 1887,most likely from Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
She never married. Lazarus was buried in Beth Olam Cemetery in Cypress Hills, Queens. The Poems of Emma Lazarus (2 vols., Boston and New York, 1889) was published after her death, comprising most of her poetic work from previous collections, periodical publications, and some of the literary heritage her executors deemed appropriate to preserve for posterity.
Her papers are kept by the American Jewish Historical Society, Center for Jewish History, and her letters are collected at Columbia University.
A stamp featuring the Statue of Liberty and Lazarus’ poem, “The New Colossus”, was issued by Antigua and Barbuda in 1985. In 1992, she was named as a Women’s History Month Honoree by the National Women’s History Project.Lazarus was honored by the Office of the Manhattan Borough President in March 2008, and her home on West 10th Street was included on a map of Women’s Rights Historic Sites. In 2009, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame .The Museum of Jewish Heritage featured an exhibition about Lazarus in 2012. Biographer Esther Schor praised Lazarus’ lasting contribution.
“The irony is that the statue goes on speaking, even when the tide turns against immigration — even against immigrants themselves, as they adjust to their American lives. You can’t think of the statue without hearing the words Emma Lazarus gave her.”
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EDITORIAL
The other day Jay Jacobson told me that he often confused Emma Goldman with Emma Lazarus. All I knew of Lazarus was that she was the author of the “The New Colossus.”
With the magic of on-line research I have discovered an amazing woman who accomplished so much and was so talented in her short life. She touched so many and learning from her family and the joy of helping others.
Enjoy her story and writings.
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 unless otherwise indicated
Wikipedia for both
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Above Official program and guidebook American Negro Exposition that opened the Chicago Coliseum on July 4, 1940. Photo Credit: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Below Truman Gibson, executive director of the American Negro Exposition With replica of Springfield’s Lincoln Monument at the Chicago Coliseum. Photo Credit: Chicago Tribune
October 15, 2020
The official program of the Diamond Jubilee of Negro Progress, which opened at the Chicago Coliseum on July 4, 1940, proudly states, “This is the first real Negro World’s Fair in all history…The Exposition will promote racial understanding and good will; enlighten the world to the contributions of the Negro to civilization and make the Negro conscious of his dramatic progress since emancipation.”
Duke Ellington played during the Bronze America beauty contest. Arctic explorer Matthew Henson was lauded, as was Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, the man who performed the first successful open-heart surgery. The popular dance team, Pops and Laurie, performed in a production of “Tropics After Dark.” Mechanical Man greeted visitors to the Labor section of the fair. Paul Robeson sang ‘Ol’ Man River’ and poet Langston Hughes co-wrote a musical pageant for the Jubilee. Not to be outdone, choral director J. Westley Jones led a chorus of voices, a thousand strong, under seven large religious murals painted by Aaron Douglas.
The Firestone Rubber Company sponsored an educational exhibit on Liberia, the West African nation founded by freed slaves, then the focus of a Black repatriation movement by the American Colonization Society. The fair’s journalism booth showcased the mastheads of 235 Black newspapers. The greatest collection of Negro art ever assembled was on exhibit, as was the Court of Dioramas—33 dioramas the Exposition’s program extolls as “spectacularly beautiful,” and “historically important… illustrating the Negro’s large and valuable contributions to the progress of America and the world.”
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt opened the fair with the press of a button from his Hyde Park, New York home. The fair was the brainchild of James Washington, a Chicago real estate developer. He successfully lobbied the Illinois legislature to appropriate $75,000 for the project. Soon after, Congress matched those funds. Washington hoped the fair would counteract the stereotypes of Black people perpetuated by the 1933 World’s Fair that also took place in Chicago. That fair included a “Darkest Africa” exhibit that offered visitors voyages in canoes “manned by dusky natives.”
The fair was hoping to draw two million visitors to the mammoth convention hall to celebrate the contributions of Blacks to America since emancipation 75 years previous. The President was honored to participate, and Chicago Mayor Edward Kelly said, “The nation pays a debt of gratitude to the Negroes today.”
The exposition was dominated by booths showcasing the many New Deal programs and accomplishments. There was a booth for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC); another for the Federal Works Agency (FWA). “The contribution of the Federal Government to the social and economic progress of the American Negro,” reads the official program, “is the theme of the Exhibit of the Federal Works Agency occupying a commanding space in the Exposition Hall.” The program goes on extolling the virtues of the FWA, citing that the previous year, 300,000 Negro workers were employed on WPA projects and were paid some $15 million in wages.
Above Hall of Flags overlooking the American Negro Exposition The columns in the center surround the Court of Dioramas. Photo Credit: Chicago Tribune Archive
Below Pin American Negro Exposition Photo Credit: Live Auctioneers
The Illinois WPA’s Writers’ Program wrote a book on the fair, Cavalcade of the American Negro, published by the Diamond Jubilee Exposition Authority, it highlighted Black history along with the fair’s extensive offerings, including 33 plaster dioramas, which took center stage at Coliseum.
The dioramas depicted contributions of Africans and others of African descent to world events and culture since Black slaves built the Great Sphinx of Giza. Measuring about 4 by 5 feet, and exquisitely detailed, each diorama was populated with sculpted figures of wood or clay. One diorama depicts the Boston Massacre that ended the life of Crispus Attucks, thought to be the first colonist to die in the American Revolution. Another is of enslaved Africans disembarking a ship onto Virginia soil in 1619. There’s one of dancers celebrating Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States, dating back to 1865. Another one honors the Black soldiers of World War I.
African American artist Charles Dawson designed the 33 dioramas and supervised the 120 Black artisans employed to create them. Twenty of the dioramas are housed at Alabama’s Tuskegee University’s Legacy Museum. Conservators with the Alliance of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) oversaw the restoration of the dioramas, introducing Black students to the field of art conservation.
Dr. Jontyle Robinson, Curator and Assistant Professor at the Legacy Museum notes that those “who organized the 1940 Negro Exposition in Chicago understood the importance of African Americans to American History.” The dioramas reflect that, and are part of that history themselves.
Restoration. Kiera Hammond works on the diorama of the Boston Massacre death of Crispus Attucks. Restoration Kiera Hammond works on the diorama of the Boston Massacre death of Crispus Attucks. Photo Credit: Courtesy Winterthur Museum Other than these twenty dioramas, little else remains of those 1940 Jubilee days. The fate of the13 missing dioramas remains unknown. The Mechanical Man who drew crowds has rusted into oblivion. The remnants of the Chicago Coliseum itself were finally cleared in the early 1990s. Coliseum Park, a dog park across from where the imposing building once stood is the only acknowledgement of the Coliseum in the neighborhood’s history.
When the exposition closed on September 2, 1940, only 250,000 visitors had taken in the exposition, far fewer than the producers had hoped. In the eyes of many, it was deemed a failure. Yet, the first real Negro World’s Fair still resonates 80 years later. As Dr. Robinson says, “All the police brutality, mass incarceration, lynching, health disparities, red lining, Jim Crow laws and economic discrimination cannot disrupt the truth.” And the truth is, Black Americans contributions continue and continue.
Ticket Stub American Negro Exposition celebrating 75 years of progress and achievement. Photo Credit: Swan Auction Galleries
American Negro Exposition. Set of 6 original sepia photographic postcards, postally unused, sold at the 1940 Chicago Exposition, captioned: General View; Tanner Hall Art Galleries; Part of Agricultural Exhibit; 2 Catholic Church Exhibit; Scenes from “Chimes of Normandy” [choral concert]. 3.25 x 5.5”. With: Used $1 admission ticket, “American Negro Exposition / Celebrating 75 Years of Progress and Achievement / Coliseum, 15th and Wabash Ave., Chicago”. 2 x 4 inches.
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THE LIVING NEW DEAL This afternoon while on the F train to take another Board of Elections class, I read the latest issue of the Living New Deal’s Fireside.
The article about the Negro World’s Fair was engaging and I decided to share it with you. I suggest you check out the articles from the Living New Deal publications. The subjects are interesting and realizing that many of these ideas were from the early 1930’s and the FDR administration.
(The Board of Election class was fine and over in a few hours. I have taken and given enough classes this year and can’t wait to serve the voters!!! )
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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*** Steel baron Henry Clay Frick and the connection to Emma Goldman
ARRESTED 19 TIMES
Roosevelt Island: “One of the most dangerous women in America”!
Roosevelt Island: “One of the most dangerous women in America”!
Many illustrious folks have lived on our Island. From Boss Tweed to Buddy Hackett, from Nelly Bly to Mae West. Al Lewis – Grandpa – and (maybe) Sarah Jessica Parker. Some were here because they liked the Island and some, because they were confined here.
But did you know the person J. Edgar Hoover called “one of the most dangerous women in America” also lived here? Nelly Bly called her “a modern Joan of Arc.” She was one of the most famous orators in the United States attracting crowds of thousands. Reporters spoke of her “magnetic power”, her “convincing presence”, her “force, eloquence, and fire.” An anarchist political activist with a worldwide reputation, a nurse and a midwife (skills she learned while a visitor here), she also joined Margaret Sanger in crusading for women’s access to birth control. (Both were arrested for violating the Comstock Law which prohibited the dissemination of “obscene, lewd, or lascivious articles”, which authorities defined as including information relating to birth control.)
Her lover, Alexander Berkman, shot the steel magnate Henry Clay Frick in his office after the Homestead Strike, ordering her to stay behind in order to explain his motives after he went to jail. He would be in charge of “the deed”; she of the associated propaganda. (Frick, though seriously wounded, wrestled his assailant to the ground, called the police and continued working through the day.)
She sought, briefly and unsuccessfully, to cover legal costs by prostitution. (Remembering the character of Sonya in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment, she mused: “She had become a prostitute in order to support her little brothers and sisters…Sensitive Sonya could sell her body; why not I?”)
She was arrested at least 19 times between 1893 and 1919, and spent several years in prison. She fought against the World War I draft and was deported with Berkman and 248 other radicals in the 1919-1920 Red Scare. In Russia, her expectations were disappointed, and she felt the new Revolutionary state was as oppressive as any other.
This was Emma Goldman who spent a year on our island, in prison. Widely known at the time – admired and reviled – she is scarcely remembered today.
Goldman was probably the most accomplished, magnetic speaker of her time in the United States. A labor organizer and anarchist leader, she crisscrossed the county lecturing on anarchism, economics, drama, birth control, free love, and women’s emancipation. Everywhere she attracted enormous crowds who became spellbound by her rhetoric. In 1893, a terrible year of economic crisis during which urban children were dying of hunger, she addressed an enormous demonstration in New York City’s Union Square, urging her listeners to invade food stores and take what they needed to feed their families in a vivid example of the anarchist principle of direct action. The police dragged Goldman off the protest stage and sent her to the prison on Blackwell’s Island for two years. While in jail, she worked as a practical nurse and upon her release in 1895, she went to Vienna, Austria, where she studied midwifery and nursing. Goldman was arrested again and again for her dangerous ideas and even more dangerous speeches and upon every one of her releases she returned to the speaking circuit, firing the passions of her eager audiences. In 1901, when a young anarchist shot President William McKinley, Goldman startled her admirers by offering—from jail—to nurse the dying president.
Born in Lithuania in 1869, Goldman came from a Jewish family who lived in a ghetto and, at the age of 13, took a factory job to help support her family. Her tyrannical father began trying to marry her off at the age of 15, a fate Goldman strongly resented and resisted. The Goldmans immigrated to Rochester, New York, and lived in an area of Jewish immigrants. Goldman was abruptly married off to a young man whom she did not love and who was unable to consummate the marriage. At the age of 17, she learned about the labor struggles in Chicago, Illinois, where workers were demanding an eight-hour day. During a strike against the International Harvesting Company, the police killed several of the strikers, and anarchists called a protest meeting in Haymarket Square. The meeting began peacefully but when the police broke it up, someone tossed a bomb and wounded 66 policemen. The police then fired into the crowd, killing several people, and wounding hundreds. They arrested the anarchist leaders and hanged four of them, who are now known as the “Haymarket Martyrs.”
These events had a profound influence on Goldman’s life: soon afterward she left her job, her family, and her husband and moved to New York City. There she met anarchist Alexander “Sasha” Berkman and they became lovers. They were outraged when Henry Clay Frick, the manager of one of Andrew Carnegie’s steel mills, set the Pinkerton Detective Agency on striking workers, killing seven of them. Berkman decided to assassinate Frick and burst into Frick’s office, shooting at him multiple times, but merely wounding him. Berkman went to jail for 22 years.
Although Goldman loved and admired Berkman, she also had many other lovers; when he was released from jail, they remained friends and comrades and together published the anarchist journal, Mother Earth. In 1917, they were arrested for leading the opposition to WWI and conscription, sentenced to prison, and then deported to the new Soviet Union. The new socialist state was not the revolutionary ideal Goldman and Berkman had imagined; disillusioned, they soon left the country and spent their time traveling and giving lectures. In 1931, Emma published her autobiography, Living My Life. In 1936, Berkman, who was seriously ill, committed suicide.
After Berkman’s death, Goldman went to London to campaign for understanding and support for those fighting against General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. On a fundraising trip to Canada, she suffered a stroke and three months later died in Toronto at the age of 71. Her body was returned to Chicago, where she was buried near the graves of the Haymarket Martyrs.
Stephen Blank RIHS October 16, 2020
J. EDGAR HOOVER Who called Goldman “one of the most dangerous women in America”
AFTER THE ALTERCATION WITH HENRY CLAY FRICK
On July 9, 1917, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were sentenced to two-year prison terms for violating the Selective Service Act of 1917. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
GOLDMAN WAS IN FULL SUPPORT OF MARGARET SANGER’S EFFORTS
A crusader for birth control
HENRY CLAY FRICK AND THE HOMESTEAD STRIKE
A founding member and perhaps one of, if not the most famous, member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club; perhaps second only to Andrew Carnegie.
The following is from: Historic Structures Report Areated position of president. In 1897, however, he and Carnegie became embroiled in a dispute that threatened to end their relationship.
Though James Reed [a Club Member] helped broker a resolution, their relationship was never the same, and they remained estranged until their deaths. In 1900, though J.P. Morgan consolidated both Carnegie Steel Co. and H.C. Frick Co. (as well as other companies) into U.S. Steel, and Frick became a director of the corporation. The position was in reality the final post in Frick’s remarkable career. Frick’s philanthropic activities are too numerous to catalog, although it should be noted that he left behind after his death an art collection virtually unmatched in this country. Among other charitable actions, Frick bequeathed a sizable park to the city of Pittsburgh and gave liberally to Princeton University. Frick was father to four children: Henry Clay, jr. [sic], who died in infancy; Martha Howard, who died prematurely in 1881; Helen Clay; and Childs.” (Historic Structures Report Appendices: Clubhouse, Brown Cottage, Moorhead Cottage, Clubhouse Annex, p. 387)
Henry Clay Frick is probably most infamous for his role in the Homestead Strike. In July of 1892 workers at the Homestead Works of the Carnegie Steel Company, went on strike because they wanted to organize, something that Frick adamantly opposed. Until they refused to come back to work, Frick locked the workers out of the mill. On July 5, 1892, 300 Pinkerton detectives were brought in to guard the mills surrounded by what workers dubbed “Fort Frick.” The workers and the Pinkertons clashed and the “Battle of Homestead,” as it was called was only quelled by the intervention of the Pennsylvania State Militia (National Guard). Many workers were killed; many more were injured. Frick’s actions in the Battle of Homestead resulted in an attempt on his life.
On Saturday, July 23, 1892, Frick and Carnegie Steel vice-president, as well as member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club John G.A. Leishman were having a conversation in Frick’s office when all of the sudden there was a commotion at the office door. Alexander Berkman, native of Worcester, MA, influenced by social reformer Emma Goldman, had come to pay Mr. Frick a sinister visit. At first Frick was annoyed, but then became fearful when Berkman pulled a revolver and took a shot at Frick. Frick fell to the floor, then Berkman aimed the gun again between Frick’s shoulder blades. Leishman jumped to action and forced Berkman to shoot off aim. Frick was wounded in the neck and two stories exist about what happened next: 1.) That a company carpenter struck Berkman in the back with a hammer. 2.) That when Berkman’s next shot did not go off, the wounded Frick and Leishman went after Berkman. Berkman was apprehended by the local sheriff. When the doctor was summoned, Frick refused anesthesia and assisted the surgeon in probingppendices: Clubhouse, Brown Cottage, Moorhead Cottage, Clubhouse Annex written for the National Park Service.
“Henry Clay Frick was born December 19, 1848 [should be 1849] in West Overton, Pa., a fourth generation American of wealthy parentage. The second of six children, he was named for the Whig leader and Kentucky Senator Henry Clay. Receiving his formal education in the brief span of thirty months (in 1864 and 1865 Mt. Pleasant Institute, and for ten weeks at Otterbein College in Ohio in 1866), Frick entered the business world as quickly as possible. After a short stint as a salesman in Pittsburgh, he returned home to serve as a bookkeeper in his grandfather’s distillery, A. Overholt and Company.
In 1871, Frick founded the coke company that would bear his name. Having survived the Panic of 1873, Frick sought to expand his business, having acquired additional funds by brokering the sale of a local railroad to the Baltimore and Ohio Company for $50,000. His company flourished, and by the age of thirty, Frick had already become a millionaire. In 1882, Frick reorganized the firm into H.C. Frick Coke Company with two million in assets and a stock issue of 40,000 shares.
Soon after his marriage to Adelaide Childs (in December 1881), Frick became acquainted with steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, beginning a long business relationship. In 1889, Frick was entrusted with the reorganization of Carnegie Brothers Steel, and soon orchestrated the consolidation of several companies into the Carnegie Steel Company. In 1895, Frick relinquished control as corporate manager, giving greater autonomy to the newly c for the bullets. Frick died on December 2, 1919.
LIVING MY LIFE
GOLDMAN IMPRISONED AT THE BLACKWELL’S ISLAND PENITENTIARY
Chapter 12I was called before the head matron, a tall woman with a stolid face. She began taking my pedigree. “What religion?” was her first question. “None, I am an atheist.” “Atheism is prohibited here. You will have to go to church.” I replied that I would do nothing of the kind. I did not believe in anything the Church stood for and, not being a hypocrite, I would not attend. Besides, I came from Jewish people. Was there a synagogue?She said curtly that there were services for the Jewish convicts on Saturday afternoon, but as I was the only Jewish female prisoner, she could not permit me to go among so many men.After a bath and a change into the prison uniform I was sent to my cell and locked in.I knew from what Most had related to me about Blackwell’s Island that the prison was old and damp, the cells small, without light or water. I was therefore prepared for what was awaiting me. But the moment the door was locked on me, I began to experience a feeling of suffocation. In the dark I groped for something to sit on and found a narrow iron cot. Sudden exhaustion overpowered me and I fell asleep.I became aware of a sharp burning in my eyes, and I jumped up in fright. A lamp was being held close to the bars. “What is it?” I cried, forgetting where I was. The lamp was lowered and I saw a thin, ascetic face gazing at me. A soft voice congratulated me on my sound sleep. It was the evening matron on her regular rounds. She told me to undress and left me.But there was no more sleep for me that night. The irritating feel of the coarse blanket, the shadows creeping past the bars, kept me awake until the sound of a gong again brought me to my feet. The cells were being unlocked, the door heavily thrown open. Blue and white striped figures slouched by, automatically forming into a line, myself a part of it. “March!” and the line began to move along the corridor down the steps towards a corner containing wash-stands and towels. Again the command: “Wash!” and everybody began clamouring for a towel, already soiled and wet. Before I had time to splash some water on my hands and face and wipe myself half-dry, the order was given to march back.Then breakfast: a slice of bread and a tin cup of warm brownish water. Again the line formed, and the striped humanity was broken up in sections and sent to its daily tasks. With a group of other women I was taken to the sewing-room.The procedure of forming lines — “Forward, march!” — was repeated three times a day, seven days a week. After each meal ten minutes were allowed for talk. A torrent of words would then break forth from the pent-up beings. Each precious second increased the roar of sounds; and then sudden silence.The sewing-room was large and light, the sun often streaming through the high windows, its rays intensifying the whiteness of the walls and the monotony of the regulation dress. In the sharp light the figures in baggy and ungainly attire appeared more hideous. Still, the shop was a welcome relief from the cell. Mine, on the ground floor, was grey and damp even in the day-time; the cells on the upper floors were somewhat brighter. Close to the barred door one could even read by the help of the light coming from the corridor windows.The locking of the cells for the night was the worst experience of the day. The convicts were marched along the tiers in the usual line. On reaching her cell each left the line, stepped inside, hands on the iron door, and awaited the command. “Close!” and with a crash the seventy doors shut, each prisoner automatically locking herself in. More harrowing still was the daily degradation of being forced to march in lock-step to the river, carrying the bucket of excrement accumulated during twenty-four hours.I was put in charge of the sewing-shop. My task consisted in cutting the cloth and preparing work for the two dozen women employed. In addition I had to keep account of the incoming material and the outgoing bundles. I welcomed the work. It helped me to forget the dreary existence within the prison. But the evenings were torturous. The first few weeks I would fall asleep as soon as I touched the pillow. Soon, however, the nights found me restlessly tossing about, seeking sleep in vain. The appalling nights — even if I should get the customary two months’ commutation time, I still had nearly two hundred and ninety of them. Two hundred and ninety — and Sasha? I used to lie awake and mentally figure in the dark the number of days and nights before him. Even if he could come out after his first sentence of seven years, he would still have more than twenty-five hundred nights! Dread overcame me that Sasha could not survive them. Nothing was so likely to drive people to madness, I felt, as sleepless nights in prison. Better dead, I thought. Dead? Frick was not dead, and Sasha’s glorious youth, his life, the things he might have accomplished — all were being sacrificed — perhaps for nothing. But — was Sasha’s Attentat in vain? Was my revolutionary faith a mere echo of what others had said or taught me? “No, not in vain!” something within me insisted. “No sacrifice is lost for a great ideal.”One day I was told by the head matron that I would have to get better results from the women. They were not doing so much work, she said, as under the prisoner who had had charge of the sewing-shop before me. I resented the suggestion that I become a slave-driver. It was because I hated slaves as well as their drivers, I informed the matron, that I had been sent to prison. I considered myself one of the inmates, not above them. I was determined not to do anything that would involve a denial of my ideals. I preferred punishment. One of the methods of treating offenders consisted in placing them in a corner facing a blackboard and compelling them to stay for hours in that position, constantly before the matron’s vigilant eyes. This seemed to me petty and insulting. I decided that if I was offered such an indignity, I would increase my offence and take the dungeon. But the days passed and I was not punished.News in prison travels with amazing rapidity. Within twenty-four hours all the women knew that I had refused to act as a slave-driver. They had not been unkind to me, but they had kept aloof. They had been told that I was a terrible “anarchist” and that I didn’t believe in God. They had never seen me in church and I did not participate in their ten-minute gush of talk. I was a freak in their eyes. But when they learned that I had refused to play the boss over them, their reserve broke down. Sundays after church the cells would be opened to permit the women an hour’s visit with one another. The next Sunday I received visits from every inmate on my tier. They felt I was their friend, they assured me, and they would do anything for me. Girls working in the laundry offered to wash my clothes, others to darn my stockings. Everyone was anxious to do some service. I was deeply moved. These poor creatures so hungered for kindness that the least sign of it loomed high on their limited horizons. After that they would often come to me with their troubles, their hatred of the head matron, their confidences about their infatuations with the male convicts. Their ingenuity in carrying on flirtations under the very eyes of the officials was amazing.My three weeks in the Tombs had given me ample proof that the revolutionary contention that crime is the result of poverty is based on fact. Most of the defendants who were awaiting trial came from the lowest strata of society, men and women without friends, often even without a home. Unfortunate, ignorant creatures they were, but still with hope in their hearts, because they had not yet been convicted. In the penitentiary despair possessed almost all of the prisoners. It served to unveil the mental darkness, fear, and superstition which held them in bondage. Among the seventy inmates, there were no more than half a dozen who showed any intelligence whatever. The rest were outcasts without the least social consciousness. Their personal misfortunes filled their thoughts; they could not understand that they were victims, links in an endless chain of injustice and inequality. From early childhood they had known nothing but poverty, squalor, and want, and the same conditions were awaiting them on their release. Yet they were capable of sympathy and devotion, of generous impulses. I soon had occasion to convince myself of it when I was taken ill.The dampness of my cell and the chill of the late December days had brought on an attack of my old complaint, rheumatism. For some days the head matron opposed my being taken to the hospital, but she was finally compelled to submit to the order of the visiting physician.Blackwell’s Island Penitentiary was fortunate in the absence of a “steady” physician. The inmates were receiving medical attendance from the Charity Hospital, which was situated near by. That institution had six weeks’ post-graduate courses, which meant frequent changes in the staff. They were under the direct supervision of a visiting physician from New York City, Dr. White, a humane and kindly man. The treatment given the prisoners was as good as patients received in any New York hospital.The sick-ward was the largest and brightest room in the building. Its spacious windows looked out upon a wide lawn in front of the prison and, farther on, the East River. In fine weather the sun streamed in generously. A month’s rest, the kindliness of the physician, and the thoughtful attention of my fellow prisoners relieved me of my pain and enabled me to get about again.During one of his rounds Dr. White picked up the card hanging at the foot of my bed giving my crime and pedigree. “Inciting to riot,” he read. “Piffle! I don’t believe you could hurt a fly. A fine inciter you would make!” he chuckled, then asked me if I should not like to remain in the hospital to take care of the sick. “I should, indeed,” I replied, “but I know nothing about nursing.” He assured me that neither did anyone else in the prison. He had tried for some time to induce the city to put a trained nurse in charge of the ward, but he had not succeeded. For operations and grave cases he had to bring a nurse from the Charity Hospital. I could easily pick up the elementary things about tending the sick. He would teach me to take the pulse and temperature and to perform similar services. He would speak to the Warden and the head matron if I wanted to remain.Soon I took up my new work. The ward contained sixteen beds, most of them always filled. The various diseases were treated in the same room, from grave operations to tuberculosis, pneumonia, and childbirth. My hours were long and strenuous, the groans of the patients nerve-racking; but I loved my job. It gave me opportunity to come close to the sick women and bring a little cheer into their lives. I was so much richer than they: I had love and friends, received many letters and daily messages from Ed. Some Austrian anarchists, owners of a restaurant, sent me dinners every day, which Ed himself brought to the boat. Fedya supplied fruit and delicacies weekly. I had so much to give; it was a joy to share with my sisters who had neither friends nor attention. There were a few exceptions, of course; but the majority had nothing. They never had had anything before and they would have nothing on their release. They were derelicts on the social dung-heap.I was gradually given entire charge of the hospital ward, part of my duties being to divide the special rations allowed the sick prisoners. They consisted of a quart of milk, a cup of beef tea, two eggs, two crackers, and two lumps of sugar for each invalid. On several occasions milk and eggs were missing and I reported the matter to a day matron. Later she informed me that a head matron had said that it did not matter and that certain patients were strong enough to do without their extra rations. I had had considerable opportunity to study this head matron, who felt a violent dislike of everyone not Anglo-Saxon. Her special targets were the Irish and the Jews, against whom she discriminated habitually. I was therefore not surprised to get such a message from her.A few days later I was told by the prisoner who brought the hospital rations that the missing portions had been given by this head matron to two husky Negro prisoners. That also did not surprise me. I knew she had a special fondness for the coloured inmates. She rarely punished them and often gave them unusual privileges. In return her favourites would spy on the other prisoners, even on those of their own colour who were too decent to be bribed. I myself never had any prejudice against coloured people; in fact, I felt deeply for them because they were being treated like slaves in America. But I hated discrimination. The idea that sick people, white or coloured, should be robbed of their rations to feed healthy persons outraged my sense of justice, but I was powerless to do anything in the matter.After my first clashes with this woman she left me severely alone. Once she became enraged because I refused to translate a Russian letter that had arrived for one of the prisoners. She had called me into her office to read the letter and tell her its contents. When I saw that the letter was not for me, I informed her that I was not employed by the prison as a translator. It was bad enough for the officials to pry into the personal mail of helpless human beings, but I would not do it. She said that it was stupid of me not to take advantage of her good-will. She could put me back in my cell, deprive me of my commutation time for good behaviour, and make the rest of my stay very hard. She could do as she pleased, I told her, but I would not read the private letters of my unfortunate sisters, much less translate them to her.Then came the matter of the missing rations. The sick women began to suspect that they were not getting their full share and complained to the doctor. Confronted with a direct question from him, I had to tell the truth. I did not know what he said to the offending matron, but the full rations began to arrive again. Two days later I was called downstairs and locked up in the dungeon.I had repeatedly seen the effect of a dungeon experience on other women prisoners. One inmate had been kept there for twenty-eight days on bread and water, although the regulations prohibited a longer stay than forty-eight hours. She had to be carried out on a stretcher; her hands and legs were swollen, her body covered with a rash. The descriptions the poor creature and others had given me used to make me ill. But nothing I had heard compared with the reality. The cell was barren; one had to sit or lie down on the cold stone floor. The dampness of the walls made the dungeon a ghastly place. Worse yet was the complete shutting out of light and air, the impenetrable blackness, so thick that one could not see the hand before one’s face. It gave me the sensation of sinking into a devouring pit. “The Spanish Inquisition come to life in America” — I thought of Most’s description. He had not exaggerated.After the door shut behind me, I stood still, afraid to sit down or to lean against the wall. Then I groped for the door. Gradually the blackness paled. I caught a faint sound slowly approaching; I heard a key turn in the lock. A matron appeared. I recognized Miss Johnson, the one who had frightened me out of my sleep on my first night in the penitentiary. I had come to know and appreciate her as a beautiful personality. Her kindness to the prisoners was the one ray of light in their dreary existence. She had taken me to her bosom almost from the first, and in many indirect ways she had shown me her affection. Often at night, when all were asleep, and quiet had fallen on the prison, Miss Johnson would enter the hospital ward, put my head in her lap, and tenderly stroke my hair. She would tell me the news in the papers to distract me and try to cheer my depressed mood. I knew I had found a friend in the woman, who herself was a lonely soul, never having known the love of man or child.She came into the dungeon carrying a camp-chair and a blanket. “You can sit on that,” she said, “and wrap yourself up. I’ll leave the door open a bit to let in some air. I’ll bring you hot coffee later. It will help to pass the night.” She told me how painful it was for her to see the prisoners locked up in the dreadful hole, but she could do nothing for them because most of them could not be trusted. It was different with me, she was sure.At five in the morning my friend had to take back the chair and blanket and lock me in. I no longer was oppressed by the dungeon. The humanity of Miss Johnson had dissolved the blackness.When I was taken out of the dungeon and sent back to the hospital, I saw that it was almost noon. I resumed my duties. Later I learned that Dr. White had asked for me, and upon being informed that I was in punishment he had categorically demanded my release.No visitors were allowed in the penitentiary until after one month had been served. Ever since my entry I had been longing for Ed, yet at the same time I dreaded his coming. I remembered my terrible visit with Sasha. But it was not quite so appalling in Blackwell’s Island. I met Ed in a room where other prisoners were having their relatives and friends to see them. There was no guard between us. Everyone was so absorbed in his own visitor that no one paid any attention to us. Still we felt constrained. With clasped hands we talked of general things.My second visit took place in the hospital, Miss Johnson being on duty. She thoughtfully put a screen to shut us out from the view of the other patients, she herself keeping at a distance. Ed took me in his arms. It was bliss to feel again the warmth of his body, to hear his beating heart, to cling hungrily to his lips. But his departure left me in an emotional turmoil, consumed by a passionate need for my lover. During the day I strove to subdue the hot desire surging through my veins, but at night the craving held me in its power. Sleep would come finally, sleep disturbed by dreams and images of intoxicating nights with Ed. The ordeal was too torturing and too exhausting. I was glad when he brought Fedya and other friends along.Once Ed came accompanied by Voltairine de Cleyre. She had been invited by New York friends to address a meeting arranged in my behalf. When I had visited her in Philadelphia, she had been too ill to speak. I was glad of the opportunity to come closer to her now. We talked about things nearest to our hearts — Sasha, the movement. Voltairine promised to join me, on my release, in a new effort for Sasha. Meanwhile she would write to him, she said. Ed, too, was in touch with him.My visitors were always sent up to the hospital. I was therefore surprised one day to be called to the Warden’s office to see someone. It proved to be John Swinton and his wife. Swinton was a nationally known figure; he had worked with the abolitionists and had fought in the Civil War. As editor-in-chief of the New York Sun he had pleaded for the European refugees who came to find asylum in the United States. He was the friend and adviser of young literary aspirants, and he had been one of the first to defend Walt Whitman against the misrepresentations of the purists. Tall, erect, with beautiful features, John Swinton was an impressive figure.He greeted me warmly, remarking that he had just been saying to Warden Pillsbury that he himself had made more violent speeches during the abolition days than anything I said at Union Square. Yet he had not been arrested. He had told the Warden that he ought to be ashamed of himself to keep “a little girl like that” locked up. “And what do you suppose he said? He said he had no choice — he was only doing his duty. All weaklings say that, cowards who always put the blame on others.” Just then the Warden approached us. He assured Swinton that I was a model prisoner and that I had become an efficient nurse in the short time. In fact, I was doing such good work that he wished I had been given five years. “Generous cuss, aren’t you?” Swinton laughed. “Perhaps you’ll give her a paid job when her time is up?” “I would, indeed,” Pillsbury replied. “Well, you’d be a damn fool. Don’t you know she doesn’t believe in prisons? Sure as you live, she’d let them all escape, and what would become of you then?” The poor man was embarrassed, but he joined in the banter. Before my visitor took leave, he turned once more to the Warden, cautioning him to “take good care of his little friend,” else he would “take it out of his hide.”The visit of the Swintons completely changed the attitude of the head matron towards me. The Warden had always been quite decent, and she now began showering privileges on me: food from her own table, fruit, coffee, and walks on the island. I refused her favours except the walks; it was my first opportunity in six months to go out in the open and inhale the spring air without iron bars to check me.In March 1894 we received a large influx of women prisoners. They were nearly all prostitutes rounded up during recent raids. The city had been blessed by a new vice crusade. The Lexow Committee, with the Reverend Dr. Parkhurst at its head, wielded the broom which was to sweep New York clean of the fearful scourge. The men found in the public houses were allowed to go free, but the women were arrested and sentenced to Blackwell’s Island.Most of the unfortunates came in a deplorable condition. They were suddenly cut off from the narcotics which almost all of them had been habitually using. The sight of their suffering was heart-breaking. With the strength of giants the frail creatures would shake the iron bars, curse, and scream for dope and cigarettes. Then they would fall exhausted to the ground, pitifully moaning through the night.The misery of the poor creatures brought back my own hard struggle to do without the soothing effect of cigarettes. Except for the ten weeks of my illness in Rochester, I had smoked for years, sometimes as many as forty cigarettes a day. When we were very hard pressed for money, and it was a toss-up between bread and cigarettes, we would generally decide to buy the latter. We simply could not go for very long without smoking. Being cut off from the satisfaction of the habit when I came to the penitentiary, I found the torture almost beyond endurance. The nights in the cell became doubly hideous. The only way to get tobacco in prison was by means of bribery. I knew that if any of the inmates were caught bringing me cigarettes, they would be punished. I could not expose them to the risk. Snuff tobacco was allowed, but I could never take to it. There was nothing to be done but to get used to the deprivation. I had resisting power and I could forget my craving in reading.Not so the new arrivals. When they learned that I was in charge of the medicine chest, they pursued me with offers of money; worse still, with pitiful appeals to my humanity. “Just a whiff of dope, for the love of Christ!” I rebelled against the Christian hypocrisy which allowed the men to go free and sent the poor women to prison for having ministered to the sexual demands of those men. Suddenly cutting off the victims from the narcotics they had used for years seemed ruthless. I would have gladly given the addicts what they craved so terribly. It was not fear of punishment which kept me from bringing them relief; it was Dr. White’s faith in me. He had trusted me with the medicines, he had been kind and generous — I could not fail him. The screams of the women would unnerve me for days, but I stuck to my responsibility.One day a young Irish girl was brought to the hospital for an operation. In view of the seriousness of the case Dr. White called in two trained nurses. The operation lasted until late in the evening, and then the patient was left in my charge. She was very ill from the effect of the ether, vomited violently, and burst the stitches of her wound, which resulted in a severe hemorrhage. I sent a hurry call to the Charity Hospital. It seemed hours before the doctor and his staff arrived. There were no nurses this time and I had to take their place.The day had been an unusually hard one and I had had very little steep. I felt exhausted and had to hold on to the operating-table with my left hand while passing with my right instruments and sponges. Suddenly the operating-table gave way, and my arm was caught. I screamed with pain. Dr. White was so absorbed in his manipulations that for a moment he did not realize what had happened. When he at last had the table raised and my arm was lifted out, it looked as if every bone had been broken. The pain was excruciating and he ordered a shot of morphine. “We’ll set the arm later. This has got to come first.” “No morphine,” I begged. I still remembered the effect of morphine on me when Dr. Julius Hoffmann had given me a dose against insomnia. It had put me to sleep, but during the night I had tried to throw myself out of the window, and it had required all of Sasha’s strength to pull me back. The morphine had crazed me, now I would have none of it.One of the physicians gave me something that had a soothing, effect. After the patient on the operating-table had been returned to their bed, Dr. White examined my arm. “You’re nice and chubby,” he said; “that has saved your bones. Nothing has been broken — just flattened a bit.” My arm was put in a splint. The doctor wanted me to go to bed, but there was no one else to sit up with the patient. It might be her last night: her tissues were so badly infected that they would not hold the stitches, and another hemorrhage would prove fatal. I decided to remain at her bedside. I knew I could not sleep with the case as serious as it was.All night I watched her struggle for life. In the morning I sent for the priest. Everyone was surprised at my action, particularly the head matron. How could I, an atheist, do such a thing, she wondered, and choose a priest, at that! I had declined to see the missionaries as well as the rabbi. She had noticed how friendly I had become with the two Catholic sisters who often visited us on Sunday. I had even made coffee for them. Didn’t I think that the Catholic Church had always been the enemy of progress and that it had persecuted and tortured the Jews? How could I be so inconsistent? Of course, I thought so, I assured her. I was just as opposed to the Catholic as to the other Churches. I considered them all alike, enemies of the people. They preached submission, and their God was the God of the rich and the mighty. I hated their God and would never make peace with him. But if I could believe in any religion at all, I should prefer the Catholic Church. “It is less hypocritical,” I said to her; “it makes allowance for human frailties and it has a sense of beauty.” The Catholic sisters and the priest had not tried to preach to me like the missionaries, the minister, and the vulgar rabbi. They left my soul to its own fate; they talked to me about human things, especially the priest, who was a cultured man. My poor patient had reached the end of a life that had been too hard for her. The priest might give her a few moments of peace and kindness; why should I not have sent for him? But the matron was too dull to follow my argument or understand my motives. I remained a “queer one,” in her estimation.Before my patient died, she begged me to lay her out. I had been kinder to her, she said, than her own mother. She wanted to know that it would be my hand that would get her ready for the last journey. I would make her beautiful; she wanted to look beautiful to meet Mother Mary and the Lord Jesus. It required little effort to make her as lovely in death as she had been in life. Her black curls made her alabaster face more delicate than the artificial methods she had used to enhance her looks. Her luminous eyes were closed now; I had closed them with my own hands. But her chiselled eyebrows and long, black lashes were remindful of the radiance that had been hers. How she must have fascinated men! And they destroyed her. Now she was beyond their reach. Death had smoothed her suffering. She looked serene in her marble whiteness now.During the Jewish Easter holidays I was again called to the Warden’s office. I found my grandmother there. She had repeatedly begged Ed to take her to see me, but he had declined in order to spare her the painful experience. The devoted soul could not be stopped . With her broken English she had made her way to the Commissioner of Corrections, procured a pass, and come to the penitentiary. She handed me a large white handkerchief containing matzoth, gefüllte fish, and some Easter cake of her own baking. She tried to explain to the Warden what a good Jewish daughter her Chavele was; in fact, better than any rabbi’s wife, because she gave everything to the poor. She was fearfully wrought up when the moment of departure came, and I tried to soothe her, begging her not to break down before the Warden. She bravely dried her tears and walked out straight and proud, but I knew she would weep bitterly as soon as she got out of sight. No doubt she also prayed to her God for her Chavele.June saw many prisoners discharged from the sick-ward, only a few beds remaining occupied. For the first time since coming to the hospital I had some leisure, enabling me to read more systematically. I had accumulated a large library; John Swinton had sent me many books, as did also other friends; but most of them were from Justus Schwab. He had never come to see me; he had asked Ed to tell me that it was impossible for him to visit me. He hated prison so much that he would not be able to leave me behind. If he should come, he would be tempted to use force to take me back with him, and it would only cause trouble. Instead he sent me stacks of books. Walt Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Spencer, John Stuart Mill, and many other English and American authors I learned to know and love through the friendship of Justus. At the same time other elements also became interested in my salvation — spiritualists and metaphysical redeemers of various kinds. I tried honestly to get at their meaning, but I was no doubt too much of the earth to follow their shadows in the clouds.Among the books I received was the Life of Albert Brisbane, written by his widow. The fly-leaf had an appreciative dedication to me. The book came with a cordial letter from her son, Arthur Brisbane, who expressed his admiration and the hope that on my release I would allow him to arrange an evening for me. The biography of Brisbane brought me in touch with Fourier and other pioneers of socialist thought.The prison library had some good literature, including the works of George Sand, George Eliot, and Ouida. The librarian in charge was an educated Englishman serving a five-year sentence for forgery. The books he handed out to me soon began to contain love notes framed in most affectionate terms, and presently they flamed with passion. He had already put in four years in prison, one of his notes read, and he was starved for the love of woman and companionship. He begged me at least to give him the companionship. Would I write him occasionally about the books I was reading? I disliked becoming involved in a silly prison flirtation, yet the need for free, uncensored expression was too compelling to resist. We exchanged many notes, often of a very ardent nature.My admirer was a splendid musician and played the organ in the chapel. I should have loved to attend, to be able to hear him and feel him near, but the sight of the male prisoners in stripes, some of them handcuffed, and still further degraded and insulted by the lip-service of the minister, was too appalling to me. I had seen it once on the fourth of July, when some politician had come over to speak to the inmates about the glories of American liberty. I had to pass through the male wing on an errand to the Warden, and I heard the pompous patriot spouting of freedom and independence to the mental and physical wrecks. One convict had been put in irons because of an attempted escape. I could hear the clanking of his chains with his every movement. I could not bear to go to church.The chapel was underneath the hospital ward. Twice on Sundays I could listen on the stairway to my prison flame playing the organ. Sunday was quite a holiday: the head matron was off duty, and we were free from the irritation of her harsh voice. Sometimes the two Catholic sisters would come on that day. I was charmed with the younger one, still in her teens, very lovely and full of life. Once I asked her what had induced her to take the veil. Turning her large eyes upwards, she said: “The priest was young and so beautiful!” The “baby nun,” as I called her, would prattle for hours in her cheery young voice, telling me the news and gossip. It was a relief from the prison greyness.Of the friends I made on Blackwell’s Island the priest was the most interesting. At first I felt antagonistic to him. I thought he was like the rest of the religious busybodies, but I soon found that he wanted to talk only about books. He had studied in Cologne and had read much. He knew I had many books and he asked me to exchange some of them with him. I was amazed and wondered what kind of books he would bring me, expecting the New Testament or the Catechism. But he came with works of poetry and music. He had free access to the prison at any time, and often he would come to the ward at nine in the evening and remain till after midnight. We would discuss his favourite composers — Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms — and compare our views on poetry and social ideas. He presented me with an English-Latin dictionary as a gift, inscribed: “With the highest respect, to Emma Goldman.”On one occasion I asked him why he never gave me the Bible. “Because no one can understand or love it if he is forced to read it,” he replied. That appealed to me and I asked him for it. Its simplicity of language and legendry fascinated me. There was no make-believe about my young friend. He was devout, entirely consecrated. He observed every fast and he would lose himself in prayer for hours. Once he asked me to help him decorate the chapel. When I came down, I found the frail, emaciated figure in silent prayer, oblivious of his surroundings. My own ideal, my faith, was at the opposite pole from his, but I knew he was as ardently sincere as I. Our fervent was our meeting-ground.Warden Pillsbury often came to the hospital. He was an unusual man for his surroundings. His grandfather had been a jailer, and both his father and himself had been born in the prison. He understood his wards and the social forces that had created them. Once he remarked to me that he could not bear “stool-pigeons”; he preferred the prisoner who had pride and who would not stoop to mean acts against his fellow convicts in order to gain privileges for himself. If an inmate asseverated that he would reform and never again commit a crime, the Warden felt sure he was lying. He knew that no one could start a new life after years of prison and with the whole world against him unless he had outside friends to help him. He used to say that the State did not even supply a released man with enough money for his first week’s meals. How, then, could he be expected to “make good?” He would relate the story of the man who on the morning of his release told him: “Pillsbury, the next watch and chain I steal I’ll send to you as a present.” “That’s my man,” the Warden would laugh.Pillsbury was in a position to do much good for the unfortunates in his charge, but he was constantly hampered. He had to allow prisoners to do cooking, washing, and cleaning for others than themselves. If the table damask was not properly rolled before ironing, the laundress stood in danger of confinement to the dungeon. The whole prison was demoralized by favouritism. Convicts were deprived of food for the slightest infraction, but Pillsbury, who was an old man, was powerless to do much about it. Besides, he was eager to avoid a scandal.The nearer the day of my liberation approached, the more unbearable life in prison became. The days dragged and I grew restless and irritable with impatience. Even reading became impossible. I would sit for hours lost in reminiscences. I thought of the comrades in the Illinois penitentiary brought back to life by the pardon of Governor Altgeld. Since I had come to prison, I realized how much the release of the three men, Neebe, Fielden, and Schwab, had done for the cause for which their comrades in Chicago had been hanged. The venom of the press against Altgeld for his gesture of justice proved how deeply he had struck the vested interests, particularly by his analysis of the trial and his clear demonstration that the executed anarchists had been judicially killed in spite of their proved innocence of the crime charged against them. Every detail of the momentous days of 1887 stood out in strong relief before me. Then Sasha, our life together, his act, his martyrdom — every moment of the five years since I had first met him I now relived with poignant reality. Why was it, I mused, that Sasha was still so deeply rooted in my being? Was not my love for Ed more ecstatic, more enriching? Perhaps it was his act that had bound me to him with such powerful cords. How insignificant was my own prison experience compared with what Sasha was suffering in the Allegheny purgatory! I now felt ashamed that, even for a moment, I could have found my incarceration hard. Not one friendly face in the court-room to be near Sasha and comfort him — solitary confinement and complete isolation, for no more visits had been allowed him. The Inspector had kept his promise; since my visit in November 1892, Sasha had not again been permitted to see anyone. How he must have craved the sight and touch of a kindred spirit, how he must be yearning for it!My thoughts rushed on. Fedya, the lover of beauty, so fine and sensitive! And Ed. Ed — he had kissed to life so many mysterious longings, had opened such spiritual sources of wealth to me! I owed my development to Ed, tied to the others, too, who had been in my life. And yet, more than all else, it was the prison that had proved the best school. A more painful, but a more vital, school. Here I had been brought close to the depths and complexities of the human soul; here I had found ugliness and beauty, meanness and generosity. Here, too, I had learned to see life through my own eyes and not through those of Sasha, Most, or Ed. The prison had been the crucible that tested my faith. It had helped me to discover strength in my own being, the strength to stand alone, the strength to live my life and fight for my ideals, against the whole world if need be. The State of New York could have rendered me no greater service than by sending me to Blackwell’s Island Penitentiary!
Fasanella spent time in reform schools run by the Catholic Church, an experience that instilled a deep dislike for authority and reinforced Fasanella’s hatred for anything which broke people’s spirits. (I suggest Lineup at the Protectory 2 here) He quit school after the sixth grade.
During the Great Depression, Fasanella, then a member of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1227, became strongly aware of the growing economic and social injustice in the U.S., as well as the plight and powerlessness of the working class. During the Spanish Civil War, Fasanella volunteered for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and, after the War, returned to the United States and became a union organizer.
In the mid-1940s, Fasanella began to suffer from intense finger pain caused by arthritis. A union co-worker suggested that he take up painting as a way to exercise his fingers and ease the pain. Soon he began to paint full-time. To pay the bills, he bought a service station and worked there. As early as 1947, his work was exhibited alongside the most important social realist painters of the day, including Philip Evergood and Ben Shahn. By the 1970s he had gained national recognition and soon devoted all of his energies to making art. He appeared on the October 30, 1972 cover of New York magazine. The cover depicted him wearing a work shirt and standing in his tiny studio. Accompanying the photo was the headline: “This man pumps gas in the Bronx for a living. He may also be the best primitive painter since Grandma Moses.”
Fasanella developed a reputation for large-scale depictions of New York City’s streets, portraying baseball games, political campaigns, strikes, factories, union halls, and, occasionally, scenes of leisure. In addition to drawing and painting, the artist began his lifelong practice of carrying a sketchbook with him. A tireless advocate for workers’ rights, he created artworks as teaching tools, rallying cries, and memorial documents. He felt so strongly about the need to remember the sacrifices of previous generations that he inscribed the phrase “Lest We Forget” on several of his paintings.
He spent three years in Massachusetts in the mid-1970s living in an $18-a-week room at the YMCA while completing 18 canvases. He produced several very large paintings of New England mill towns, three of which depicted the Lawrence textile strike of 1912. He also produced a painting of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and violent, blood-red image of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
THIS IS A REPRODUCTION OF AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE
The Berg Brothers: Bibliophile Surgeons Posted on February 26, 2016 by nyamhistorymed By Anne Garner, Curator, Center for the History of Medicine and Public Health
New York physicians Henry W. and Albert A. Berg are well-known to students of literature. In 1940, Albert A. Berg founded the New York Public Library’s spectacular Berg Collection, endowed in his older brother Henry’s memory. It is a magical place, nestled on the third floor of NYPL’s Steven A. Schwarzman building, with endlessly deep collections in its vaults (I should know, I was lucky enough to work there). Highlights include a typescript draft of T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, annotated by Ezra Pound; the manuscript notebooks containing five of Virginia Woolf’s seven novels; and a map drawn by Jack Kerouac of territory covered on the cross-country trip that inspired On The Road.
Left: Dr. Albert A. Berg, holding Blake’s Europe, in an oil portrait by Jean Spencer hanging in The New York Public Library’s Berg Collection. Right: Dr. Henry W. Berg in an oil portrait by Ellen Emmett Rand, also in the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection. In Szladits, Brothers: The Origins of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection,1985. Click to enlarge.
Fourteen years separated the eldest and youngest Berg siblings, but they had much in common, including interests in book collecting and literature, along with an aptitude for real estate investment (a pastime that funded their library interests). The two doctors lived together until Henry’s death in 1939 in a townhouse on East 73rd Street. The story of Henry and Albert Berg’s establishment of one of the world’s great literary collections is told in Lola Szladits’ excellent book, The Brothers.
The medical legacy of the brothers, both prominent New York doctors, is less widely known. Henry and Albert’s father, Moritz Berg, immigrated to America from Hungary in 1862 with designs to work as a doctor. He found work instead as a tailor to support his family of eight children. Moritz died of cancer when Albert was young, and Henry, already interested in medicine himself, determined that Albert should follow the same career path.
Henry W. and Albert A. Berg (seated, second and third from left), most likely in a family portrait (circa 1900). In Szladits, Brothers: The Origins of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection,1985. Henry earned his medical degree from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1878, specialized in infectious disease, and headed Mount Sinai’s isolation service. He taught both neurology and pediatrics at the College of Physicians and Surgeons.2 Henry was attending physician at Willard Parker Hospital on East 16th Street for 40 years, until his death in 1939.3 His active role on Willard Parker’s board is documented in the Academy’s collection of Willard Parker minute books. It was Henry who mentored Albert, put him through medical school, and showed him he could be a great doctor. All early indications were to the contrary: Albert repeatedly ditched class to play pool. Their mother was skeptical that Henry could ever make a doctor out of him.4 But by graduation (also from College of Physicians and Surgeons), Albert was a decorated prizewinner.5 And as a surgeon, he proved a brilliant and visionary pioneer, a key player in the development of abdominal surgery in the United States.
Albert’s exceptional skill as a surgeon is attested in a tribute article by Dr. Leon Ginzberg in a festschrift volume of the Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital devoted to Albert’s career: [Dr. Berg’s] tremendous capacity for work, his boldness and resolution, his extraordinary operative skill and his refusal to remain on the accepted path, had brought his service to an enviable position in the field of abdominal surgery. The most significant studies from his clinic were in the fields of gastroduodenal and jejunal ulcers. Other important contributions were made to the subjects of colonic, and more particularly rectal and recto-sigmoidal carcinoma….to chronicle adequately all of Dr. Berg’s ‘labors in the vineyard’ would be to write an important chapter in the history of the development of abdominal surgery in the United States.6
Albert’s exceptional skill as a surgeon is attested in a tribute article by Dr. Leon Ginzberg in a festschrift volume of the Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital devoted to Albert’s career: [Dr. Berg’s] tremendous capacity for work, his boldness and resolution, his extraordinary operative skill and his refusal to remain on the accepted path, had brought his service to an enviable position in the field of abdominal surgery. The most significant studies from his clinic were in the fields of gastroduodenal and jejunal ulcers. Other important contributions were made to the subjects of colonic, and more particularly rectal and recto-sigmoidal carcinoma….to chronicle adequately all of Dr. Berg’s ‘labors in the vineyard’ would be to write an important chapter in the history of the development of abdominal surgery in the United States.6
Mount Sinai Hospital, circa 1913. From The Dr. Robert Matz Collection of Medical Postcards.
A stone’s throw away from A.A. Berg’s beloved Guggenheim pavilion at Mount Sinai Hospital, the Berg name lives on. On the third floor of the New York Academy of Medicine in the former periodicals room is a bronze plaque commemorating the gifts of Drs. Henry W. and Albert A. Berg to the Academy. A bequest from Albert endowed the third floor room that bears their name and still supports the acquisition of library periodicals today. Both brothers were Academy Fellows (Henry beginning in 1890, Albert in 1900).
Albert seems to have recognized how vital a good set of tools were to students of surgery. A copy of his last will and testament in the Academy’s archives entrusts his surgical instruments, instrument bags, and laboratory equipment, including two microscopes and examination tables and one portable operating table, to “one or more deserving young surgeons” to be selected at the Academy’s discretion.11 The items are no longer at the Academy; perhaps they were also used by a student whose path to medicine was at first uncertain, but later found his or her way.
New York Times article from July 18, 1950 announcing Albert A. Berg’s bequests, including to the New York Public Library and the New York Academy of Medicine.
References 1. Szladits, Lola. Brothers : The Origins of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection. New York: New York Public Library, 1985. pp. 9-10.
Szladits, pp. 10-11.
Medical Society of the State of New York. Medical Directory of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. New York: 1899-1939.
Louchheim, Katie. “Sweeping Formalities and Offstage Flourishes.” The New Yorker 3 Nov. 1975: 40-48. Print.
Szladits, pp. 11. 6. Ginzburg, Leon. “Some of the Principles and Methods contributed by the service of Dr. A.A. Berg.” Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital Volume 17.6 (1951): 356-368. The Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital has been digitized and is available online.
Szladits, 39.
Loucheim, 41.
New Yorker and Szladits.
Szladits, 42.
The New York Academy of Medicine Archives. Library Correspondence, 1927-1974.
THE BERG COLLECTION AT THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
The Berg Collection of English and American Literature at the New York Public Library, where rare treasures are on display.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York Times
A selection of Dickensiana in The New York Public Library’s Berg Collection, including a mahogany writing table and brass lamp from Gad’s Hill Place. The typewriter is one in the collection that includes J.D. Salinger’s.
History of the Berg Collection
The establishment of the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library, on October 11, 1940, was made possible by the avid book-collecting and generosity of the brothers Henry W. Berg (1858–1938) and Albert A. Berg (1872–1950). Henry was born in Hungary and immigrated to America with his parents in 1862; Albert was born fourteen years later in New York City. Six other siblings completed the family—three sisters and three brothers. Both Henry and Albert attended City College and Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. After graduation, Henry joined the staff of Mount Sinai Hospital, where he specialized in the treatment of infectious diseases; shortly thereafter, he was appointed to the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Albert, too, joined Mount Sinai, gaining nation-wide renown as an innovator in the field of abdominal surgery. The two bachelors lived together for most of their later lives in a town house on East 73rd Street, off of Fifth Avenue, which they filled with their rare editions of English and American literature.
In 1937, the Bergs approached The New York Public Library’s Board of Trustees to propose donating their collection to the Library. They found a warmly receptive audience—but in 1938, Henry died, leaving Albert to conclude the negotiations. In February 1940 Albert donated and endowed the collection in his brother’s memory. The opening celebration, attended by Mayor LaGuardia, was held in the Berg reading room in October. The collection of literary rarities comprised some 3,500 works, mostly printed books and pamphlets, representing more than 100 authors, though the collection also contained groups of prints and drawings, a few manuscripts, and about two dozen letters (including nine from John Ruskin to Fred Harris). The most heavily represented authors were Dickens (104 items, counting as single items the books-in-parts, and several collections of individual prints and drawings), who had been Albert’s favorite since his days as a page in the stacks of the Cooper Union library; Thackeray (31 items), Henry’s favorite; and Sir Walter Scott (27 items), beloved by both.
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
We were overwhelmed by today’s responses from:BILL SCHMINDER, LISA FERNANDEZ, HARA REISER, VICKI FEINMEL, JOYCE GOLD AND JAY JACOBSON!!!!
EDITORIAL
When researching Mt. Sinai Hospital for the Thursday issue, I came across the NYAM article about the Brother Doctors Berg. The story was so interesting that I have reproduced it in today’s issue………Then I looked up the history of the Berg Collection at the NYPL. More fascination……… I have excerpted some of the NYPL article. The link to the NYPL article is:
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
MATERIALS USED FROM:
NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Barbara J. Niss Director, The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD Archives & Mount Sinai Records Management Program
All images are from the Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD Archives at Mount Sinai. For more information, contact Barbara Niss at msarchives@mssm.edu
Last Friday there was a wonderful piece in the RIHS From the Archives email about Hamilton Square, which existed on the Upper East Side from 1807-1869. I found this fascinating since, as mentioned in the article, The Mount Sinai Hospital moved to the site of the former Square in 1872. I knew that the City ‘seeded’ this area with non-profit entities: Hunter College, many hospitals, and schools, but I had never heard about the Square itself, which ran from 66th to 69th Streets between 3rd and 5th Avenues. Finally, Mount Sinai could have its Hamilton Moment! This is the story of how Mount Sinai ended up on the Upper East Side.
In 1867, The Mount Sinai Hospital (MSH) was located at 232 W. 28th Street, between 7th & 8th Avenues. It had been founded in 1852 as the Jews’ Hospital in the City of New York (the name was changed in 1866) and had opened its first building in 1855. After the Civil War, the leadership realized that the facility was inadequate and the location less than ideal due to the growth of the City. On November 2, 1867 the Directors authorized the purchase of ten lots of land from 65th to 66th Street on the west side of Park (then 4th) Ave. and later added eight more lots there. But then on October 6, 1868, the City leased Mount Sinai twelve lots of land at 66th to 67th on Lexington Ave. for $1 a year for 99 years. The earlier lots were later resold, saving Mount Sinai thousands of dollars. On May 25, 1870, the cornerstone for the second MSH was laid at 66th St. and Lexington Ave. The President of the Hospital, Benjamin Nathan, and Mayor Oakley Hall were there. (Within two months, Nathan was murdered in his bed on a ‘dark and stormy night.’)
On May 29, 1872 a dedication ceremony was held for the new Mount Sinai Hospital. When the new building opened, it had a greatly expanded capacity of 110 beds. It was three stories tall and included a basement and attic. The building was designed by the well-known architect, Griffeth Thomas, and cost $335,000 to complete. It had an operating room in the basement of the north wards, rooms for our new House Staff to live in, a meeting room for the Directors, and a synagogue. Lexington Ave. remained unpaved for two more years, and the Hospital never wired the facility for electricity. A telephone was installed in 1882; the number was “Thirty-Ninth St., 257”. It was at this site that Mount Sinai transformed from a 19th century hospital into what we would recognize as a modern hospital, with medical education and research joining its core mission of providing patient care. In typical Mount Sinai fashion, this facility quickly became too small. Additional out buildings were built and major renovations were begun in 1882. In 1890, Mount Sinai added a building across from the Hospital on the north side of 67th St. for our Nursing School and Out Patient Department. This building is the only remnant of Mount Sinai that remains today. It later served as the home of the Neurological Institute, the Polish legation, and finally became a school for the Archdiocese of NY. The Mount Sinai Hospital moved from Lexington Ave. in 1904 to its current location on 100th St., between Madison and 5th Avenues. Apartment buildings now stand on the former site of the Hospital.
In 1881, Alma deLeon Hendricks and a small group of women founded The Mount Sinai Hospital Training School for Nurses. The school closed in 1971 after graduating 4,700 nurses – all women except one man in the last class. This is the Mount Sinai Legacy. www.mountsinai.org
The image shows medical rounds being done on a female ward. The nurses are all students in the Mount Sinai Training School for Nurses, and the woman on the far left is the Superintendent, Anna Alston. The desk in the foreground is the nurse’s station. The nurse in the left background is pouring medicine from the medical cabinet in the ward. Note the shelf above each bed to hold medicine or personal items. The plaques, obviously, recognize donors.
House Staff in 1902. It was taken on the roof of the Lexington Ave. building, so you can see a little of the neighborhood in the background. I picked this one because on the top right is S.S. Goldwater. Here is a description of the image from our database: House Staff of The Mount Sinai Hospital at the Lexington Ave. site. Seated on ground: Drs. Meyer M. Stark and Major G. Seelig. 2nd row: Drs. Alfred Fabian Hess, Edwin Beer, Eli Moschcowitz. Top row: Fred H. MacCarthy, D. Lee Hirschler, S. S. Goldwater.
WILDLIFE FREEDOM FOUNDATION SHELTER AT SOUTHPOINT PARK Vicki Feinmel was the first followed by Joan Brooks!!!
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
EDITORIAL
Thanks to archivist Barbara Miss, the Director of the Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD Archives at Mt. Sinai, we have the story of the hospital’s history at 67th Street. Most of our great hospitals have archives that are treasure troves of how these institutions were started and developed into the proud sites of medical achievements they are today. We are lucky that a dedicated group of archivists continue to gather and maintain their institutional history.
If you have contacts at other organizations we would love to feature them in FROM OUR ARCHIVES.
Judth 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)
Images are all from the Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD Archives at Mount Sinai. For more information, contact Barbara Niss msarchives@mssm.edu
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Graduate Hotels partnered with Chicago-based artist Hebru Brantley and Bridgewater Studio to design and fabricate the largest commissioned sculpture of Flyboy, Hebru’s iconic character IP, for its hotel Graduate Roosevelt Island. The figure reaches over the Hotel lobby desk in a curious pose, shining light onto the lobby desk below with an over-sized, illuminated incandescent lightbulb. Flyboy’s design features a durable hardcoat, virtually seamless construction and a flawless, semigloss finish.
A UNIQUE SPACE
Our challenge was to integrate Flyboy seamlessly into the surrounding lobby architecture and furniture while still maintaining access to power and an accessible installation route. We successfully determined an optimal location and preliminary install direction using provided CAD data of the building and a rough Flyboy 3D model.
A DIGITALLY DRIVEN PROCESS
We were provided with a rough Flyboy 3D model and building CAD data that we used to block in the form and verify the intended installation location. After the rough concept was green lit, we acquired an 18″ tall Flyboy vinyl figure, 3D scanned it, remastered the data, and posed him to fit into the Hotel space according to Hebru’s vision. Employing a digital workflow allowed us to quickly process feedback, make updates to the sculpt and then preview them accurately inside a rendering of the space.
Hebru Brantley creates narrative-driven work revolving around his conceptualized iconic characters which are utilized to address complex ideas around nostalgia, the mental psyche, power, and hope. The color palettes, pop-art motifs, and characters themselves create accessibility around Brantley’s layered and multifaceted beliefs. Majorly influenced by the South Side of Chicago’s Afro Cobra movement in the 1960s and 70s, Brantley uses the lineage of mural and graffiti work as a frame to explore his inquiries. Brantley applies a plethora of mediums from oil, acrylic, watercolor and spray paint to non-traditional mediums such as coffee and tea. Brantley’s work challenges the traditional view of the hero or protagonist and his work insists on a contemporary and distinct narrative that shapes and impacts the viewer’s gaze.
Recognized internationally, Hebru Brantley has exhibited in Chicago, Hong Kong, London, San Francisco, Atlanta, Miami, Seattle, Los Angeles and New York including Art Basel Switzerland, Art Basel Miami, Scope NYC, and Frieze London. Brantley has been recognized in publications including the Chicago Tribune, Forbes, WWD, HypeBeast, Complex Magazine, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the New York Post.
Collectors of his work include LeBron James, Jay-Z and Beyonce, Lenny Kravitz, George Lucas, and Rahm Emanuel, among others. Brantley has collaborated with brands like Nike, Hublot, and Adidas.
In October 2019, Brantley opened an experiential fine art installation fueled by the narrative of his characters FLYBOY and LIL MAMA. The 6,000-square-foot installation in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood hosted over 23,000 ticketed guests and offered them limited-edition merchandise. Brantley currently resides in Los Angeles where he is expanding into content creation including the adaptation of the FLYBOY Universe through his media company, Angry Hero.
Brantley earned a B.A. in Film from Clark Atlanta University and has a background in Design and Media Illustration. HEBRU BRANTLYE WEBSITE (C)
TUESDAY’S PHOTO OF THE DAY JOAN BROOKSidentified FLYBOY FIRST
EDITORIAL
On Sunday afternoon I spent a few fun hours at the WFF Cat Sanctuary in Southpoint Park. Many visitors stopped by to chat with Rosanna Cerruzi while she tended to the animals. It is wonderful to watch her talking to parents and kids explaining the animals, their rescues and how she is rehabbing them to return to the wild. It is sad that many of our island families do not take advantage of this fun way to learn about nature’s creatures.
It is also great to see so many visitors enjoying Southpoint Park, with bike riders and strollers enjoying the areas many of us take for granted.
We drove north we spotted Flyboy in the future Graduate Hotel at the north entry to Cornell Tech campus. Most of the barriers are gone and you can get a great view of him thru the lobby windows. You can read all about Flyboy in today’s issue and on the Bridgewater website.
I think this would be a great opportunity for us to write about the adventures Flyboy will have at Cornell Tech and on the Island. Let’s hear from you.
JUDITH BERDY
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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
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Cass Gilbert was born in Zanesville, Ohio on November 24, 1859. His parents were Samuel Gilbert and Elizabeth Wheeler Gilbert. He was named for a very prominent uncle, U.S. Senator Lewis Cass.
In 1868, when Cass was nine years old the family left Ohio to join his father, who was working as a surveyor in St. Paul, Minnesota. Samuel Gilbert died soon after the family’s arrival in Minnesota.
Elizabeth Gilbert made sure Cass and his two brothers would complete the schooling they had begun in Ohio. In 1876, Cass entered an apprenticeship as draftsman in the office of Abraham Radcliffe, a St. Paul architect. This is where he began his long friendship with fellow architect Clarence Johnston, Sr.
In 1878, Cass entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study architecture under William Robert Ware. He completed one year of the two-year program. In the summer of 1879, he worked as a surveyor to earn money for his “Grand Tour” of Europe.
On January 3, 1880, Cass Gilbert left New York City for Liverpool, England, with $420.00. For almost a year he made his way through the countrysides and cities of picturesque England, France, and Italy. He sketched architectural features that he would later use in many of his designs.
Disappointed that he could not secure employment in London, Cass Gilbert returned to New York in September 1880 and went to work for the prestigious architecture firm of McKim, Mead and White, serving as Stanford White’s assistant.
In 1882, he returned to St. Paul, Minnesota. He represented the interests of McKim, Mead and White in the West and began his Minnesota architecture career. He kept offices in the Gilfillan Block, the same building as his boyhood friends Clarence Johnston and James Knox Taylor who had also returned to St. Paul from New York City.
In 1883, Gilbert completed his first residential work in St. Paul- his mother’s house at 471 Ashland Avenue.
In 1885, he formed a partnership with James Knox Taylor. Together their office would build residences, churches, office buildings, railroad stations and commercial buildings in Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, and Montana.
In 1891, Gilbert and Knox dissolved their partnership. Gilbert went out on his own and continued his St. Paul work.
In 1895, Cass Gilbert was selected to design the new state capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota. Gilbert knew this would be the job to bring him national attention and would make his architectural career.
In 1899, Gilbert won the commission for the U.S. Custom House in New York. He opened his New York office and moved there the same year. His St. Paul office would remain open until 1910.
Gilbert would go on to build many buildings in New York including the West Street Building, the New York Life Insurance Company Building, the New York County Lawyers Association Building, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, and the U.S. Courthouse.
In 1913, Gilbert completed the Woolworth Building in New York City. It would stand as the world’s tallest building for over a decade. His career continued all over America. He worked on the capitol in Arkansas, and he designed the West Virginia Capitol. His last building was the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington D.C.
U.S. CUSTOM HOUSE, NEW YORK CITY
Cass Gilbert, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris, 1933, watercolor and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Emily Finch Gilbert through Julia Post Bastedo, executor, 1962.13.25
U.S. TREASURY ANNEX, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Cass Gilbert, Temple of Neptune, Paestum, 1898, watercolor and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Emily Finch Gilbert through Julia Post Bastedo, executor, 1962.13.34
SUPREME COURT
1st Street and East Capitol Street, Washington, D.C., Washington, D.C.Design & Construction:1928-1935 [1928-1935 Irish-1999; 1928-1935 Christen-2001] Architect:ass Gilbert and Cass Gilbert, Jr.
Broadway Chambers Building Location: 277 Broadway, New York, New York Design & Construction: 1899-1900 [1899-1900 Irish-1999] Architect: Cass Gilbert
Cass Gilbert, Pont du Gard, France, 1926, watercolor and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Emily Finch Gilbert through Julia Post Bastedo, executor, 1962.13.6
New York Life Building, New York
Cass Gilbert, Cathedral Tower, Siena, 1927, watercolor, charcoal and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Emily Finch Gilbert through Julia Post Bastedo, executor, 1962.13.59
Woolworth Building, New York
Federal Courthouse, Foley Square, New York
Cass Gilbert, Cathedral at Monreale, Sicily, 1902, watercolor and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Emily Finch Gilbert through Julia Post Bastedo, executor, 1962.13.40
Building the Hell Gate Bridge CLARA BELLA WAS THE FIRST TO RECOGNIZE THE IMAGE!
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EDITORIAL
I was looking thru the Smithsonian American Art website and spotted these watercolors by Cass Gilbert. I knew Gilbert as an architect not artist. In his biography, it was noted that he traveled thru Europe sketching architectural features. Enjoy the comparisons.
Check out the Cass Gilbert website for details on all his works. The Cass Gilbert Society can give you details on all his works and family.
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
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We picked a color and it was TOMATO Let’s see what wonderful pieces of art appeared.
John Haberle, Torn in Transit, ca. 1890-1895, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Sheila and Richard J. Schwartz, and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2018.6
FUN TO EXPLORE THE COLOR
THAT IS IN ARTPIECES
Kenneth M. Adams, Taos Indian Woman, ca. 1920-1930, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Arvin Gottlieb, 1993.48.1 Kenneth Adams painted his portraits of Pueblo Indians from life. In Taos Indian Woman, his sitter stares off into space, as if her mind wandered far from the studio. Adams draped her in a Pendleton blanket that many viewers might have mistaken for an authentic Indian textile. These blankets copied Native American designs, and Pendleton Mills shipped them from Oregon to the Southwest to be exchanged for wool, silver jewelry, and other handcrafted items. American Indians wove fewer textiles as they acquired more Pendleton blankets through trading, and unsuspecting East Coast tourists collected the blankets as souvenirs of the Wild West.
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 made.
Eddy Mumma, Untitled (Figure with Green Face and Bared Teeth), ca. 1978 – 1986, oil on board, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Josh Feldstein, 2015.56.5
Unidentified, Green Fish Decoy with Clackers, 20th century, painted wood, metal, and plastic, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase made possible by Mrs. E. C. Hobson, 1997.124.202
Carved fish decoys are one of the earliest forms of American folk art. Hunters around the Bering Sea first used small bone or ivory decoys for ice fishing around 1000 AD. They believed that the decoys embodied the innua, or inner spirit of the fish. The practice spread to upstate New York and the Great Lakes, where it became a tourist industry with many communities growing around prime fishing areas. Ice fishing was banned in 1905, however, because the popularity of the sport had brought about a serious decline in large game fish. During the Depression, many hunters and fishermen turned again to fish spearing for survival. The decoys from this period are simpler, focusing on realistic shapes, colors, and movement rather than fanciful decoration (Steven Michaan, American Fish Decoys, 2003).
Alma Thomas, The Eclipse, 1970, acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1978.40.3
George Catlin, Mong-shóng-sha, Bending Willow, Wife of Great Chief, 1832, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., 1985.66.98
“I visited the wigwam of [Great Chief] … several times,” George Catlin wrote, “and saw his four modest little wives seated around the fire, where all seemed to harmonize very well; … I selected [Bending Willow] … for her portrait, and painted it … in a very pretty dress of deer skins, and covered with a young buffalo’s robe, which was handsomely ornamented, and worn with much grace and pleasing effect.” The artist painted this portrait at a Ponca village in 1832. (Catlin, Letters and Notes , vol. 1, no. 26, 1841; reprint 1973)
Dodge Charger R/T, 1969 (model car, 1:18 scale), 1969, metal, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Albert H. Small, 2017, AHS.48
William H. Johnson, Red Cross Nurses Handing out Wool for Knitting, ca. 1942, gouache and pen and ink with pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.168R
Dickson Carroll, McGhee’s House, 1988, carved and painted poplar, fir plywood, and redwood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Beau, Linda, and Dan Kaplan in memory of Nora, 1998.19A-B
Vin Giuliani, “True religion shows its influence in every part of our conduct; it is like the sap of a living tree, which penetrates the most distant boughs.”–William Penn, 1644-1718. From the series Great Ideas of Western Man., 1961, painted wood on wood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Container Corporation of America, 1984.124.106
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THE FORMER SOHMER PIANO FACTORY ON VERNON BLVD PRELIMINARY RENDERING OF CHAPEL PLAZA FROM 1970. JAY JACOBSON WAS THE FIRST TO RECOGNIZE
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EDITORIAL
Let’s have fun with color and art. It is easy to see some of the art objects and paintings at the Smithsonian American Art Museum by choosing a color. Hers is how to find the pages Browse Artworks by Color https://americanart.si.edu/art/colors
THIS PAGE WILL COME UP AND PICK A COLOR AND OFF YOU GO TO EXPLORE ART USING THAT COLOR.
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)
TEXT AND IMAGES FROM THE SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
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Outsider in New York: Ralph Fasanella Stephen Blank
Judy introduced Ralph Fasanella in an earlier article. This delves a bit deeper into an artist whose subject was our city.
First, what is “Outsider Art”? Outsider Art is one of many clusters living under the unruly umbrella of Folk Art. The term refers to artists who had no formal training in the arts. Many Outsider Artists began working later in life, after an earlier career. Some, and this is a specific group within the Outsiders, suffered from some form of disability, and some began artistic work in institutions – mental institutions or even prisons. Some were completely cut off not only from the arts world but from society at large, their work discovered only after their death.
MC CARTHY PRESS, 1958
Several very well-known artists had no formal training – for example, Frida Kahlo and Henri Rousseau. (Vincent van Gogh doesn’t quite squeeze into this box because he did attend various classes.) But the term Outsider typically refers to more recent artists. One might think of Grandma Moses as a starting point, but the contemporary story really begins with the effort by the French artist Jean Dubuffet to identify and publicize art he discovered in mental institutions and hospitals after World War II. He called this Art brut, French for “raw art”, works he said that were “created by people outside the professional art world… from their own depths and not from the stereotypes of Classical or fashionable art.”
THE MC CARTHY’S GREY DAY, 1963
Ralph Fscanella fit awkwardly into all of this. He began painting later in life, initially to exercise his arthritic fingers. He was completely untrained and developed his own very personal style over years of painting. But he was no outsider when it comes to his purpose. Fasanella’s work is very focused on major social issues of his time.
Ralph Fasanella was born to Italian immigrants, in the Bronx in 1914. His father delivered ice from a horse-driven wagon. He saw his father as representative of all working men, beaten down day after day and struggling for survival (though he abandoned the family and returned to Italy in the 1920s.) His mother worked in a neighborhood dress shop, and spent her spare time as an anti-fascist activist. She seems to have instilled in him a strong sense of social justice and political awareness.
FAREWELL COMRADE , END OF COLD WAR 1939-99
Fasanella spent time in reform schools run by the Catholic Church, an experience that instilled a deep dislike for authority and reinforced Fasanella’s hatred for anything which broke people’s spirits. (I suggest Lineup at the Protectory 2 here) He quit school after the sixth grade.
During the Great Depression, Fasanella, then a member of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1227, became strongly aware of the growing economic and social injustice in the U.S., as well as the plight and powerlessness of the working class. During the Spanish Civil War, Fasanella volunteered for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and, after the War, returned to the United States and became a union organizer.
In the mid-1940s, Fasanella began to suffer from intense finger pain caused by arthritis. A union co-worker suggested that he take up painting as a way to exercise his fingers and ease the pain. Soon he began to paint full-time. To pay the bills, he bought a service station and worked there. As early as 1947, his work was exhibited alongside the most important social realist painters of the day, including Philip Evergood and Ben Shahn. By the 1970s he had gained national recognition and soon devoted all of his energies to making art. He appeared on the October 30, 1972 cover of New York magazine. The cover depicted him wearing a work shirt and standing in his tiny studio. Accompanying the photo was the headline: “This man pumps gas in the Bronx for a living. He may also be the best primitive painter since Grandma Moses.”
1972 photo courtesy of American Folk Art Museum (c)
MC CARTHY ERA GARDEN PARTY, 1954
Fasanella developed a reputation for large-scale depictions of New York City’s streets, portraying baseball games, political campaigns, strikes, factories, union halls, and, occasionally, scenes of leisure. In addition to drawing and painting, the artist began his lifelong practice of carrying a sketchbook with him. A tireless advocate for workers’ rights, he created artworks as teaching tools, rallying cries, and memorial documents. He felt so strongly about the need to remember the sacrifices of previous generations that he inscribed the phrase “Lest We Forget” on several of his paintings.
He spent three years in Massachusetts in the mid-1970s living in an $18-a-week room at the YMCA while completing 18 canvases. He produced several very large paintings of New England mill towns, three of which depicted the Lawrence textile strike of 1912. He also produced a painting of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and violent, blood-red image of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
AMERICAN HERITAGE, 1974
By the end of his life, many of the social and economic causes Fasanella fought for were no longer relevant. “It’s over”, he said. “What I wanted to do was to paint great big canvases about the spirit we used to have in the movement and then go around the country showing them in union halls. When I started these paintings I had no idea that when they were all finished there wouldn’t be any union halls in which to show them.”
Over the course of Fasanella’s fifty-two years as a practicing artist,his work evolved from the anger and radical politics of his youth, through the social and political engagement of the 1960s and ’70s, and into more personal and nostalgic reflections on his childhood. In all of this, his paintings were bound to memory. Fasanella’s imagery is, in a sense, documentation. His paintings are documents of a certain time and place that the artist wanted to keep as part of the cultural consciousness; to tell stories and instruct the masses. The stories he told were ones of political upheaval, as in McCarthy Press; the monotony of a work-a-day life, as in Subway Riders; or relished moments of leisure and play, as in Coney Island. The elaborate geometries within his compositions helped to make sense of his densely arranged canvases and hold together their narrative structure. In creating these artworks, Fasanella was able to remind himself, and others, where they came from—and where they are going.
Stephen Blank has contributed today’s report. Stephen and his wife Lenore were avid collectors of Outsider Art. Lenore, who passed away was a docent at the American Folk Art Museum. The museum is open and located across the street from Lincoln Center. (https://folkartmuseum.org/) Try a visit and see the fun works of creative persons who expressed their art with many materials.
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
Until 1869, amid the huge farms and estates that occupied today’s Upper East Side, a little neighborhood called Hamilton Square existed.
“On the old map of the city streets as laid out by the commission in 1807, from which came the present system of rectangular streets, an Alexander Hamilton Square was laid out on an extensive tract of city lands comprising the area bounded by Third and Fifth Avenues, 66th and 69th Streets,” a 1921 New York Times article explains.
There’s not a lot out there about Hamilton Square, so it’s hard to get a sense of what kind of neighborhood it was. An illustration of a church (below) exists, as do newspaper accounts of a proposed monument to George Washington in 1849.
Then, soon after Central Park opened in the 1859, it was wiped off the map, according to the Times piece:
“The western half, including the blocks west of Park Avenue with the Fifth Avenue frontage, was sold and the eastern portion was alloted by the city to various charitable and philanthropic institutions.”
These included Normal College (now Hunter College), the Seventh Regiment Armory, and Mt. Sinai Hospital.
Uptown, the city hosts another, newer Hamilton Square, at the junction of Hamilton Place, 143rd Street, and Amsterdam Avenue.
Until the 1860s the City did little to improve Hamilton Square in what was then the outskirts of the City though it did allow a church to be constructed at the north end of the square. In 1847, a ceremony was held in Hamilton Square to place the cornerstone for a planned 425-foot tall monument to George Washington. However, that project never advanced further. In the 1850s Hamilton Square was used as the site for special events such as Cattle Shows.
With the decision in 1853 to create Central Park, a large public square nearby was seen as redundant and the City provided the land to public institutions instead. This included a home for the Normal College, a new institution for the training of women teachers, which was established in 1870 under its first president, Thomas Hunter. (In 1914 Normal College was renamed for Hunter.)
As Hamilton Square was being developed in the 1870s,Thomas Hunter and other local leaders attempted to preserve the last remaining undeveloped block. They signed a petition in 1879 stating that the empty block “is now a public nuisance covered with shanties and occupied by the lowest class of people, their dogs, goats and swine” and they urged the state legislature to “pass an act converting the aforesaid square into a public park to be named Hamilton square.”
JONE’S WOOD
Jones’s Wood
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jones’s Wood was a block of farmland on the island of Manhattan overlooking the East River. The site was formerly occupied by the wealthy Schermerhorn and Jones families. Today, the site of Jones’s Wood is part of Lenox Hill, in the present-day Upper East Side of New York City.
History
Tomb of David Provoost (1857)
The farm of 132 acres (53 ha), known by its 19th-century owners as the “Louvre Farm”, extended from the Old Boston Post Road (approximating the course of Third Avenue) to the river and from present-day 66th Street to 75th Street. It was purchased from the heirs of David Provoost (died 1781) by the successful innkeeper and merchant John Jones, to provide himself a country seat near New York. The Provoost house, which Jones made his seat, stood near the foot of today’s 67th Street.After his death the farm was divided into lots among his children. His son James retained the house and its lot. His daughter Sarah, who had married the shipowner and merchant Peter Schermerhorn on April 5, 1804, received Division 1, nearest to the city. On that southeast portion of his father-in-law’s property, Peter Schermerhorn, soon after his marriage, had first inhabited the modest villa overlooking the river at the foot of today’s 67th Street.
19th century
In 1818, Peter Schermerhorn purchased the adjoining property to the south from the heirs of John Hardenbrook’s widow Ann, and adding it to his wife’s share of the Jones property—from which it was separated by Schermerhorn Lane leading to the Hardenbrook burial vault overlooking the river at 66th Street—named his place Belmont Farm. They at once moved into the handsomer Hardenbrook house looking onto the river at the foot of East 64th Street; there he remained, his wife having died on April 28, 1845. The frame house survived into the age of photography, as late as 1911. It survived an 1894 fire that swept Jones’s Wood almost clear and remained while the first building of The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, now Rockefeller University, was erected to its south. The block of riverfront property now occupied by Rockefeller University is the largest remaining piece of Jones’s Wood. The house was razed after 1903.
Behind the Facades
Tucked behind 65th and 66th Streets, just west of Third Avenue are a dozen townhouses that share a communal yard. Instead of each house fencing off their yard, there is one community garden area with a small fountain in the center of the area. There is no way to see the splendid oasis from the street.*
You can read more on Ephemeral New York about the garden.
the Squibb Bridge to Brooklyn Bridge Park, a pedestrian shortcut to the waterfront. Bill Schimoler was the winner!
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EDITORIAL
For years my parents apartment looked out over part of the Jone’s Wood houses and the garden. It is a secret joy of living in the City.
My favorite part of being (working in one for years) in a Manhattan high rise was looking into the secret gardens and backyards. We were in luck that no high-rise obstructed views of the world below.
We should be so appreciative of our openness and views from our Island homes.
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 MATERIALS USED FROM: EPHEMERAL NEW YORK NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY WIKIPEDIA
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