Joseph Rugolo, Mural of Sports, ca. 1937-1938, oil on linen, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Newark Museum, 1966.31.16
(Joseph Rugolo was one of the artists who painted murals at Goldwater Hospital)
Moses Soyer, Children at Play and Sport I, ca. 1938, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, 1974.89.2
Henry Chawner Shenton, Abraham Cooper, A Day’s Sport in the Highlands, 1845, engraving, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Nigel Cholmeley-Jones, 1967.54.28
Morris Kantor, Baseball at Night, 1934, oil on linen, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Morris Kantor, 1976.146.18
W. H. Martin, Great Sport Fishing Here, ca. 1910s, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Charles Isaacs and Carol Nigro, 2002.79.8
Mahonri Young, Right to the Jaw, 1926-1927, bronze, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mahonri Sharp Young, 1976.122.2 Mahonri Young was enthusiastic about sports throughout his childhood and often attended boxing matches with his younger brother, Wally. On a trip to Paris in 1926, Young began his popular Prizefighter series, which included Right to the Jaw. Sporting events and sports heroes were very popular in the American market during the 1920s, and Young’s prizefighters, which emphasized the excitement and glamour of boxing, brought him widespread recognition. “To me the problem has always been to animate the inert and lifeless material, whether bronze, stone, or wood, and to make it function like one of nature’s own creations.” Artist quoted in Thomas E. Toone, Mahonri Young: His Life and Art, 199.
Unidentified Photographer, Untitled (historical photograph, baseball team) from the Buffalo, New York Documentary Survey Project
Carl Newman, Abstract–Two Women with Tennis Racquets, drawing, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1967.63.134
Home Eye Level Pitch Perfect: On David Levinthal, Roberto Clemente, and Baseball An image of the author’s favorite player, Roberto Clemente, is currently featured in the David Levinthal exhibition at SAAM Anne on July 9, 2019 Blog author in front of the David Levinthal image of Roberto Clemente The author “fangirling” in front of David Levinthal’s photograph of legendary baseball player Roberto Clemente.
Baseball fans looking to see some of the sport’s all-time greats in action this All-Star Week don’t need to look any further than the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The exhibition American Myth & Memory: David Levinthal Photographs includes ten works from the artist’s Baseball series. In true Levinthal fashion, his subjects are not the fabled players themselves but rather their action figure doppelgangers. It is as if the artist has brought a Who’s Who of Starting Lineup figures to life. Levinthal’s signature approach is to photograph toys and figurines in such a way that they often appear to be the real thing. Obscuring their “toyness” is his use of selective and soft focus: one small area of the photograph is crystal clear while the rest of the image is intentionally blurred. Some of the photographs in the Baseball series replicate a player’s most iconic moment. There’s Babe Ruth’s called shot. Jackie Robinson stealing home. Hank Aaron hitting 715. In other instances, the image deftly captures a player’s essence. There’s Rickey Henderson, forearms resting on bent knees, about to steal another base. There’s Satchel Paige, posed and poised on the mound, about to deliver a pitch. And there’s Roberto Clemente, his legendary rocket arm propelled forward in mid-throw. I look at my work as a narrative that taps into each individual’s own memory. — David Levinthal In Clemente’s photograph, it is the glove on his left hand and the letters across the front of his jersey that have found the camera’s focus—a fitting choice for a twelve-time Gold Glove Award winner who played all eighteen of his major league seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates. When I look at this image of Clemente, I see much more than what can be found within the frame. A highlight reel of my childhood flashes through my mind. Levinthal’s work—its nostalgic subjects, its intentional blurriness—encourages the viewer to draw upon their own experiences and associations:
“I look at my work as a narrative that taps into each individual’s own memory,” the artist says. I grew up in a tiny town in western Pennsylvania during the 1980s. Baseball was my sport, the Pittsburgh Pirates was my team, and Roberto Clemente was my hero. For a kid whose parents encouraged her to always do her best, to stand up for what is right, and to help other people, Roberto was the embodiment of all that I hoped to be when I grew up. A fifteen-time All-Star, Clemente’s formidable skill in the outfield and the batter’s box was a perennial force in the league, yet his impressive stats don’t capture the unquantifiable talent and grace that he possessed as a ballplayer. Black and Puerto Rican, Clemente proudly embraced his cultural heritage and spoke out against the discrimination and xenophobia that he and his fellow players of color faced. Deeply committed to humanitarian efforts, he died at the age of thirty-eight in a plane crash on December 31, 1972, while delivering aid to victims of a massive earthquake in Nicaragua. Like other public figures who have departed long before their time, Roberto Clemente is timeless.
The other-worldly aura that infuses his legendary life adds an additional layer of meaning to the haziness that surrounds him in Levinthal’s image. I’m reminded of a line uttered by a mythological Babe Ruth to the young Benny “the Jet” Rodriguez in the 1993 classic baseball film The Sandlot: “Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.”
Paul Faulkner, Winter Sports (mural study, Kewaunee, Wisconsin Post Office), 1939, tempera on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, 1974.28.346
Thomas Höpker, Muhammad Ali, ca. 1970, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Kenneth B. Pearl, 1997.118.26
Next time you are in D.C. stop by the NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY and see the wonderful permanent exhibit “Champions.”
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Another famous architect on Roosevelt Island! Alexander Jackson Davis (1803–1892) is widely considered America’s greatest architect of the mid-nineteenth century. “Imaginative, innovative and influential, Alexander J. Davis was an extraordinary figure in American architecture…He introduced and developed new ideas and new forms while producing some of the finest buildings of his time,” writes Jane Davis in the introduction to the splendid volume, Alexander Jackson Davis, American Architect 1803-1892.
Davis’ work covers a broad range of fields – public buildings, universities, grand mansions, interiors and, perhaps his greatest love, gardens. And, back to our island, he and his partner, Ithiel Town, designed our Lunatic Asylum – our Octagon.
Born in New York City on July 24, 1803, the son of a bookseller and publisher of religious tracts who moved around the Northeast in search of a market for his works, Davis grew up in Newark and then the rapidly growing towns of Utica and Auburn in central New York State.
In these years, the US was booming. The purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 doubled the size of the new nation, and from 1800 to 1860, 17 new states joined the Union. In these years, millions of immigrants came from other countries. US population more than tripled from 1800 to 1850, from 7 million to 24 million. Our fiscal system remained chaotic and bank failures were not uncommon (in 1837, the country suffered a huge fiscal crisis). Issues of the future of slavery roiled politics, but there was a lot of money about and a new class of wealthy drove the emergence of a new American cultural life
Grace Hill for Edwin C. Litchfield, Brooklyn, New York (front elevation)1854
Alexander Jackson Davis American
Davis’ greatest Italianate villa, Grace Hill, is now the headquarters of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. The original stucco has been removed from the house, and many of the interior details, including the elaborately painted ceiling murals, have been lost. Davis also designed a coach house, greenhouse, and chicken house for the property, none of which are extant.
Proposal for Astor House (Park Hotel), New York (perspective)ca. 1830–34
Designed by Ithiel Town American
This drawing shows a design produced by A.J. Davis and Ithiel Town (as Town & Davis, 1829-1835) for the Astor House, the first luxury hotel in New York City envisioned by John Jacob Astor. Although Town & Davis’ imaginative study was very modern and quite spectacular, the actual commission went to Isaiah Rogers in 1834 and the hotel opened in 1836 as the Park Hotel. The south side of the building was demolished in 1913 to make way for the subway constructions, and the rest of the building was torn down in 1926.
Davis at 14 was sent to Alexandria, Virginia, to learn the printing trade in a half-brother’s newspaper office. When his apprenticeship was completed in 1823, he returned to New York City where he studied at the American Academy of the Fine Arts and other top art schools.
New York City was growing rapidly, with an 1820 population of 122,000, but it was still a pretty small community for artists. Young Davis knew many, including John Trumbull, Samuel F. B. Morse, and Rembrandt Peale. His friends advised him to concentrate on architectural drawing – and he went to work as a draftsman in 1826 for Josiah R. Brady, a New York architect who was an early exponent of the Gothic revival.
He was successful as an architectural illustrator and his drawings were widely published, but he soon moved on from drawing buildings (though his drafting skills remained central to his identity) to designing them. Davis set up a practice and his first executed design was a country house outside of New Haven, Connecticut for the poet James A. Hillhouse. His Greek Revival design piqued the interest of Ithiel Town, one of the premier architects of the time and the leading designer of Greek Revival style buildings. Davis joined the firm of Town and Martin E. Thompson and, in 1829, became a partner. Working with Town gave Davis, just 26, extraordinary opportunities. It brought him to the cutting edge of American architecture—Town was not only a leader in the Greek Revival style, he was also a respected engineer and enjoyed wide social contacts.
ABOVE: INDIANA CAPITOL BELOW: lLYNDHURST
BLACKWELL’S ISLAND ASYLUM PLAN AND RENDERING
In the six years he spent with Town, in what became the first recognizably modern architectural office, Davis developed into a brilliantly original designer. He designed many late Classical structures, including several well-known buildings in Washington DC. We recognize him because he and Pool were the architects of the Custom House of New York City (now known as Federal Hall, where in an earlier iteration George Washington was sworn in as our first president). Federal Hall is one of the best surviving examples of Greek Revival architecture in New York, and was the first purpose-built U.S. Custom House for the Port of New York.
After the Town-Davis firm submitted the winning design for the State of Indiana capitol building (modeled on the Parthenon except for a large central dome) and then completed it ahead of schedule, the firm was consulted on the design of several other state capitols –- North Carolina, Illinois and Ohio. Back in New York City, they designed the Greek Revival “Colonnade Row” on Lafayette Street, the first apartments designed for the prosperous American middle class, and built several iimportant New York churches and several impressive residences: Samuel Ward’s New York City house (1831-33) included an art gallery, pilasters and introduced columns in the townhouse doorways. “Glen Ellen,” a large country estate built for Robert Gilmor outside of Baltimore, Maryland, was an early indicator of Davis’ future career. Davis designed buildings for the University of Michigan in 1838, and in the 1840s he designed buildings for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At Virginia Military Institute, Davis’s designs from 1848 through the 1850s created the first entirely Gothic revival college campus.
Davis and Town also designed the Blackwell Island Lunatic asylum, though only some of which was ever built. More on this will come.
The partnership with Town was dissolved in 1835, and Davis worked without an architectural partner for the remainder of his career. In 1836, he began writing Rural Residences, the first American book about the design of country houses, illustrated with hand-colored lithographs that helped introduce the concepts of picturesque architecture to the United States. His many drawings and watercolors provide idealized documents of mid-nineteenth-century designed landscapes as they were built and imagined.
Because of the 1837 financial panic, only two of the proposed six parts of the book were issued. But in 1839, he joined with the influential landscape and architectural theorist A. J. Downing in a most important collaboration. Davis designed and drew illustrations for Downing’s widely read books, such as The Architecture of Country Houses (1850) and his journal, The Horticulturist. Together, they popularized the ideas and styles of the picturesque.
Yes, the same Downing who invited Frederick Chase Withers to come to the United States and became his partner (and brother-in-law), a partnership which included Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmstead. Talk about small worlds!
In the 1840s and ‘50s, Davis shone brightly as a designer for country houses. Over 100 of his designs for villas and cottages were built among which “Lyndhurst” at Tarrytown is the most famous. Davis developed two main types of residential structures: large, asymmetrical villas for wealthy clients and smaller rectangular cottages intended for clients of more modest means. Both types featured a veranda or porch wrapped around the building, which connected the house to its immediate surroundings, while his villas often incorporated “prospect towers” or “prospect rooms” that provided sweeping views of the landscapeFor some houses he drew interior details, and occasionally designed furniture. Many of his villas were built in the Hudson River Valley— and his style called Hudson River Bracketed gave Edith Wharton a title for her last novel — but Davis also sent plans and specifications to clients far away from New York. He was crucial in transforming the English idea of picturesque into an American Romanticism. Davis felt the English house style was too grand for the new republican nation, and insisted on the individualism of Americans by varying each house design to it landscape as well as owner’s tastes. His designs were instrumental in opening up the boxy American house form, and moved toward open floor plans. (Are we thinking Frank Lloyd Wright?) All of this was carried out as the Hudson River setting was being popularized and romanticized by the Hudson River School of artists – again the close connections in style and setting among these new America-focused artists and designers.
Dutch Reformed Church, Newburgh, NY
With the onset of Civil War in 1861, patronage in house building dried up, and after the war, new popular styles were unsympathetic to Davis’s work. He closed his office in 1878 and built little in the last thirty years of his life. Rather he spent his easy retirement in West Orange drawing plans for grandiose schemes that he never expected to build, and selecting and ordering his designs and papers
So what about the Lunatic Asylum?
This section is taken largely from the fine materials prepared by the RIHS (think Jude Berdy.) The Blackwell’s island Asylum was the first lunatic asylum for the city of New York and the first municipal mental hospital in the country as well as the first in what later became a larger system of New York City Asylums comprised of hospitals on Blackwell’s, Ward’s, and more briefly Hart’s and Randall’s Islands. Up to 1825, the city’s insane were either kept in the city almshouse or at the Bloomingdale Asylum. In 1825 the insane of the city were moved to the basement and first floor of a building built as a General Hospital on Blackwell’s Island. Here the mentally ill remained in conditions described by the very commissioners in charge of the hospital as “a miserable refuge for their trial, undeserving of the name Asylum, in these enlightened days”.
Only in 1834 did the city approve the construction of a separate institution for the insane on the island. Designs for the Asylum were prepared by Davis and Town in 1834-35, and the building was opened in 1839. Their plans called for a much more elaborate scheme than was actually built; the Octagon was to have been one of a pair within a great U-shaped complex, ordered around a central rectangular pavilion. As built, the single Octagon, from which two long wings extended, became the focal point of the building.
North Carolina Hospital for the Insane
The architectural historian, Talbot Hamlin, has praised Davis’ “consistent feeling for logical planning.” The original symmetrical plan for the Asylum took into account efficient supervision of patients, ease of circulation and ample provision for good lighting and ventilation in the wards. Davis’ plan was a variant of the influential “panoptic plan,” which was centralized with radiating wings, developed in Great Britain by Jeremy Bentham (1742-1832), a philosopher and jurist interested in prison reform. While only a portion of Davis’ original proposal for the Lunatic Asylum was actually built, the plan still functioned very effectively. Davis’ New York City Asylum project was also significant in that it served as the prototype for his North Carolina Hospital for the Insane at Raleigh.
Dr. R.L. Parsons, Resident Physician of the Lunatic Asylum during the 1860s, remarked in his annual report of 1865 that the Octagon “has a symmetry, a beauty and a grandeur even, that are to be admired.” These qualities are still in evidence, not only to the visitor to Roosevelt Island, but also from Manhattan where the picturesque silhouette of the Octagon is a prominent feature of the island’s skyline.
Did you guess them?Trestle Bridge, Roosevelt Island Bridge London Tower Bridge, Pont Neuf, Paris Bow Bridge, Central Park., Hellgate Bridge, New York
References Wikipedia https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/davs/hd_davs.htm https://tclf.org/pioneer/alexander-jackson-davis https://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php/Alexander_Jackson_Davis http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/nyhs/davis/bioghist.html https://rihs.us/landmarks/octagon.htm Amelia Peck, ed., Alexander Jackson Davis, American Architect 1803-1892
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THE THIRD EAST RIVER BRIDGE WAS MALIGNED AND IGNORED UNTIL WILLIAMSBURG BECAME MECCA.
Williamsburg Bridge
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carries 8 lanes of roadway, 2 tracks of the “J” train”M” train”Z” train trains of the New York City Subway, pedestrians, and bicycles Crosses East River Locale Manhattan and Brooklyn, New York City Maintained by New York City Department of Transportation
Characteristics Suspension bridge and truss causeways Total length 7,308 feet (2,227 m) Width 118 feet (36 m) Longest span 1,600 feet (490 m) Clearance above 10 feet 6 inches (3.2 m) (inner roadways only) Clearance below 135 feet (41 m) at mean high water
History Architect Henry Hornbostel Designer Leffert L. Buck Opened December 19, 1903; 116 years ago Statistics Daily traffic 105,465 (2016)
Completed in 1903, it was the longest suspension bridge span in the world until 1924. The bridge is one of four toll-free vehicular bridges connecting Manhattan Island and Long Island. The others are the Queensboro Bridge to the north, and the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges to the south. The Williamsburg Bridge once carried New York State Route 27A
CONSTRUCTION
Construction on what was then known as the “East River Bridge”, the second to span it, began in 1896 after approval by the Governor of New York on May 27, 1895. The new bridge was to be built north of the Grand Street Ferry, terminating at Delancey and Clinton Streets on the Manhattan side and at South Fifth Street and Driggs Avenue on the Brooklyn side. Leffert L. Buck was the chief engineer, Henry Hornbostel was the architect, and Holton D. Robinson was the assistant engineer.
Engineers first constructed caissons on either side to support the future bridge] The caisson on the Manhattan side was completed in May 1897,upon which time the caisson on the Brooklyn side was launched. The caissons were manufactured in a shipyard in Williamsburg. In January 1898, Mayor Robert Anderson Van Wyck removed the members of the East River Bridge Commission due to “charges of extravagance”.[ A commission of six people appointed by the state was proposed, but the bill was rejected.
As part of the Williamsburg Bridge’s construction, the section of Delancey Street between the bridge’s western end and the Bowery was widened. The portion of Spring Street between the Bowery and Lafayette Street was also expanded. This was the third plan for the bridge’s western approaches that was publicly announced. Public opposition had caused the cancellation of previous proposals, which included a wide street extending from the end of the bridge to either Cooper Square or the intersection of Houston Street and Second Avenue.[To accommodate the bridge’s approaches, 600 houses were demolished in total, including 330 on the Manhattan side and 270 on the Brooklyn side. More than 10,000 people were evicted from these houses during construction.
The bridge’s supporting wires were ready to be installed by February 1901.The first temporary wires between the East River Bridge’s two towers were strung on April 9, 1901. They were to be replaced later with permanent 18 3⁄4-inch-thick (48 cm) main cables made up of 7,696 smaller cables twisted together.[ The pair were fully strung by April 16, and work on the bridge’s pedestrian deck begun soon afterward.] The pedestrian path on the East River Bridge was completed in June 1901.] Afterward, construction progressed at a fast pace, owing to the ease of manufacturing the steel.Ornamental lights were also placed on the bridge .[The East River Bridge was renamed the “Williamsburg Bridge”, after its Brooklyn terminus,
In 1902
The bridge was damaged by fire while under construction in 1902There were several deaths during construction, including a worker who fell from the Manhattan approach in May 1900;[the main steelwork engineer, who fell from the Brooklyn approach in September 1900; and a foreman who drowned in March 1902Additionally, a fire occurred on the Brooklyn side’s tower in November 1902, which nearly severed the bridge’s cables. The bridge opened on December 19, 1903, at a cost of $24.2 million ($624 million in 2016).[At the time it was the longest suspension bridge span in the world, and remained so until the opening of the Bear Mountain Bridge in 1924.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVE FRIEDER (C) New Orthotropic Deck was being installed
Rebuilding the Bridge During the 1990’s, the DOT invested more than $600 million in the Williamsburg Bridge. In 1991, the DOT began a major rehabilitation of the Williamsburg Bridge. The program was designed to undo the effects of age, weather, increased traffic volumes and deferred maintenance and prepare the bridge for another 100 years of service to the City of New York.
Completed projects have
rehabilitated the main cables; reconstructed the south roadways; reconstructed the BMT Transit Structure between the Manhattan and Brooklyn approaches; reconstructed the North roadways. Now that the DOT has completed work on Contract #7, all of the bridges supports and roadways, walkways and subway tracks have been completely rebuilt. For the City of New York and the many users who drive, walk or ride across the bridge every day, a major component of the New York City infrastructure has been preserved for future generations.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVE FRIEDER (C)
Painting contract
Our adventurous friend Dave Frieder has published a wonderful book of his spectacular bridge photographs. This beautiful edition is a wonderful gift for New York (and New Jersey) admirers. For more information go to davefrieder.com
FRIDAY PHOTOS OF THE DAY
CHECK OUR RIVERCROSS WINDOW DISPLAY. BUILDING BRIDGES IS REAL FUN! CAN YOU IDENTIFY EACH OF THE 6 BRIDGES?
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
FDNY TRAINING SCHOOL ON WELFARE ISLAND LOCATED JUST NORTH OF NOW MOTORGATE CLOSED IN 1970 AND RELOCATED TO WARD’ ISLAND NINA LUBLIN GOT IT FIRST JAY JACOBSON GOT IT NEXT
EDITORIAL
Yesterday, I finished climbing thru the Rivercross Display window putting the final touches on our holiday display. Our great friend Melanie Colter was the great train display engineer. We have all kinds of goodies hidden in the scenery. We have everything to make kids happy in the window. The fun thing of standing inside, is watching little kids see the trains and bridges. Can they find the three owls? We have all kinds of gifts for everyone at the visitor center. We have gloves for kids and adults, goodies for all and even NYC themed face masks. WE NEED A BIG CHEERFUL SAFE HOLIDAY. STOP BY THE KIOSK AND DO YOUR HOLIDAY SHOPPING WITH US!!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS
Judy Berdy Bill, Jon. Ellen, Barbara- The Kiosk Staff
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 SocietyMATERIALS USED FROM:
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DAVE FRIEDER NYC DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION WIKIPEDIA
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While riding by this corner of Forest Park in Queens, this building stands out. What is it? Our friends at UNTAPPED New York answered our question. Story by Jeff Reuben (c).
Spread across the five boroughs of New York City, the Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations stand in City parks as reminders of the City’s efforts decades ago to improve the efficiency of its fire fighting system. They are architecturally distinctive buildings set in bucolic park settings, with minimal signage to indicate their purpose.
During the 1910s and ’20s, the Fire Department of New York built Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, to serve as central dispatching offices. Unlike firehouses and the Fire Headquarters, they were deliberately placed in isolated park sites, so as to minimize the risk that fires from neighboring buildings could endanger. It also provided space for freestanding radio towers.
Reflecting the City Beautiful Movement of that era, which emphasized that public buildings should not only be functional but also should enhance the visual character of their surroundings, New York’s Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations could easily be mistaken for being cultural or educational buildings.
But, the Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations were built to save lives first and be beautiful second. Plans for the first three facilities were approved in 1912, just a year after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire killed 146. McClure’s magazine declared in December 1911 that “the New York fire-alarm system is the worst in the United States.”
Manhattan Fire Alarm Telegraph Station In Manhattan,
The Fire Alarm Telegraph Station was placed hard up against the 79th Street Transverse Road that cuts through Central Park in a trench. Even though this low-slung one-story building is hidden from the view of most park visitors, it was designed in an English Gothic style with a stone facade to be compatible with other structures and buildings in the park, including Belvedere Castle which is located nearby. The Manhattan station was designed by Morgan & Trainer architects, who also created several firehouses across the city. The emphasis on architectural quality was not only for the exterior; the plans also included Guastavino tile for the vaulted ceiling of the instrument room.
Bronx Fire Alarm Telegraph Station
The Bronx and Brooklyn Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations, which are virtually identical in appearance, are Italian Renaissance Revival style buildings featuring a triple-arch entry loggia and a red tile hip roof. They were designed by Frank J. Helmle, an architect responsible for many buildings in Brooklyn including the Prospect Park Boathouse.
The Bronx station is located at the southeastern corner of Bronx Park, near the Bronx Zoo, while the Brooklyn station is located on parkland adjoining the Botanic Garden. Both are set back slightly from the street with lawns, creating stately settings along major urban thoroughfares. The Brooklyn station is a NYC Landmark (designated 1966), but its Bronx twin is not.
Queens Fire Alarm Telegraph Station
Following the opening of the three original Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations, a Queens Fire Alarm Telegraph Station in Forest Park was built and started operating in 1928. It sits prominently on a grassy knoll facing Woodhaven Boulevard and Park Lane South with a grove of trees rising behind it. The one-story station features an octagon-shaped central section with arch windows and a hip roof crowned by a cupola. There are flanking wings with limestone framed entrances. Curiously, this impressive building, incorporating Beaux-Arts and neo-Georgian design elements, is attributed to John R. Sliney, the Fire Department’s Building Inspector. Any architect who assisted Sliney is unrecorded.
The placing of the Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations in parks was not without controversy. For example, after widespread opposition, original plans to put the Bronx station near a playground in Crotona Park were dropped and the Bronx Park site was selected instead.
Staten Island Fire Communications Center
Staten Island did not get a dedicated facility of this type until 1962, when the island’s fire communications center moved from Borough Hall to a new building in Clove Lakes Park. Apart from the adjoining 200-foot tall radio tower, it’s easy to miss and lacks the architectural character of the earlier Fire Alarm Telegraph stations. Reflecting the Cold War times it was built in, the Staten Island facility was designed to withstand an atomic bomb attack, “except in case of direct hit or near miss,” the New York Times reported. It was built with a 35-foot below-ground bunker capable of operating for up to two weeks after an atomic bomb attack.
ARM OF STATUE OF LIBERTY PLACED IN MADISON SQUARE PARK AS A FUND RAISER TO BUILD BASE ON LIBERTY ISLAND Susan Lees and Lisa Fernandez guessed correctly
LETTER FROM A READER
Oh hello Ms. Berdy, thank you for the reply! I share your wonderful Editions with a colleague of mine who is in charge of our Greenacre Library at MAS (Erin Butler) and I was actually trying to tell her that you mentioned us! But please let me take this opportunity to tell you (and all involved) that your RIHS Editions have helped me thru these very difficult times we are all going thru, especially the first three months! It is something I look forward to reading every day, something that is so very interesting, beautiful, varied, and often featuring my favorite subject, Art (and in so many different forms!). It is just AMAZING that you have been able to put this out EVERY day!! Again, my thanks to you and all involved. Sincerely, Maia p.s. Lovely kitties today!
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)
UNTAPPED NEW YORK (C)
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One of the best ways to celebrate the season is to enjoy wonderful public art this winter.
Most are free and easily accessible.
Many of the sites are available by NYCFerry.
http://Photo by Yunkai. Courtesy of LuminoCity Festival.
December this year is going to be an unusual holiday season for many New Yorkers, with winter ahead amidst a worsening pandemic. Despite this, the holiday spirit is high in New York City, with many exciting, socially distanced art events and installations coming this month. Whether you are spending Christmas and New Year’s Eve alone or with family and friends, don’t forget to check out the many vibrant holiday light shows throughout the city. Brookfield Place is returning strong this month with Luminaries and Light Up Metrotech, while LuminoCity Festival is coming back to Randall’s Island Park.
This holiday season, let it GLOW at The New York Botanical Garden in an all-new outdoor experience illuminating NYBG’s landmark landscape and the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. With lots of room to spread out, explore a glowing world of color and light featuring the Haupt Conservatory as the centerpiece—its iconic exterior a glittering canvas. Washes of brilliant colors, thousands of dazzling lights, and picture-perfect installations fill the Reflecting Pool and enliven surrounding gardens and collections. Also during your visit, enjoy artistic ice sculpting, music, and pop-up performances by The Hip Hop Nutcracker. Due to COVID, the annual Holiday Train Show will only be open to NYBG Members, Patrons, and Bronx Community Partners.
http://Photo by Julienne Schaer
Socially distant winter video art installation Light Year returns to Dumbo this month. Some of the largest outdoor video art installations in New York City will be projected on the Manhattan Bridge each first Thursday of the month from dusk to 10pm at dimensions of 65 by 40 feet. The full installations are approximately 30 minutes in length, and on December 3rd, the first installation, ”Thresholds and Beyond 1”, will show the places where disparate realities meet, overlap and create hybrid realities.
Light Up MetroTech in Downtown Brooklyn, presented by Brookfield Properties. The event takes place during varied hours over December 2 and December 3, and visitors can walk amongst an exhibition of beautifully carved ice sculptures celebrating “nature emerges” by the talented NY-based Okamoto Studio. This event is free and open to the public, however, for health and safety reasons, a limited number of people will be admitted into the ice sculpture exhibition at MetroTech Commons on Myrtle Street between Bridge and Lawrence Streets at one time.
The holiday installation Luminaries returns to Brookfield Place in Lower Manhattan this month, with a series of mesmerizing light shows and new touchless wishing in the Winter Garden. Designed by the LAB at Rockwell Group, the light show features a canopy of colorful lights emitting from hundreds of lanterns suspended among the palms, along with contactless wishing stations located on the ground. These wishing stations allow visitors to send a motion-activated wish to the canopy of lanterns above, prompting a magical display of lights and colors to appear. For each wish made at the stations, Brookfield Place will donate $1, up to $25,000 to Relief Opportunities for All Restaurants (ROAR). Luminaries runs from November 27 to January 3. 7.W
Long Island City-based sculptor, Jack Howard-Potter, makes large, often kinetic, figurative steel sculptures that can be seen in city governments, sculpture parks, and public art shows around the country. The outdoor public arena is the perfect setting for the academic roots to be easily recognizable and accessible, bridging the gap between the fine art institution and the public. It all comes together in an effort to brighten the landscape and shift one’s gaze to break the daily routine with something beautiful. Torso II, Swinging II, Messenger of the Gods will be on-site at Court Square Park in Queens through September 12, 2021.
Photo by Daniel Avila, courtesy of NYC Parks
Located in Hunter’s Point South through next September, this work is one of French sculptor Gaston Lachaise’s best-known, monumental works dating from the late 1920s. The buoyant, expansive figure represents a timeless earth goddess, one Lachaise knew and sought to capture throughout his career. This vision was inspired by his wife, who was his muse and model, Isabel, that “majestic woman” who walked by him once by the Bank of the Seine. This work is a tribute to the power of all women, dedicated to ‘Woman,’ as the artist referred to his wife, with a capital W. Lachaise devoted himself to the human form, producing a succession of powerfully conceived nude figures in stone and bronze that reinvigorated the sculptural traditions of Auguste Rodin and Aristide Maillol.
WANDA AND SPEEDY WERE THE GREATEST PAIR OF FELINES. THEY WERE NOT CONJOINED, BUT NOW ARE CELEBRATING THEIR TOGETHERNESS IN KITTY HEAVEN. CLARE BELLA AND JAY JACOBSON ADMIRED THEM
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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Hildegarde Haas, Rain, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Zabriskie Gallery, 1975.18.4
Elias M. Grossman, Rain on the Square, n.d., color etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Peter E. Blau and Andrew J. Blau in memory of their father, Alan J. Blau, 2012.13.1
Ansei Uchima, Rain in the Mountains, n.d., woodcut, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1969.1
Bertha Lum, Umbrellas in the Rain, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1981.97.3
Bertha E. Jaques, Rain on Thames, ca. 1913, etching, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chicago Society of Etchers, 1935.13.473
Bernice Cross, Georgetown Corner in the Rain, ca. 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.76
E. Lap, End of the Rain, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1979.78.2
Tony Mattei, Rain, Ketchikan, Alaska, 1937, watercolor, oil, and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, 1972.31
Peter Minchell, Amazon Region Series, 1974,Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Robert and Joan Doty, 1992.57
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 Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM PHOTOS BY JUDITH BERDY / RIHS (C) FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
