IS NOW A NURSING HOME ON STATEN ISLAND. SEAVIEW HAS A LONG HISTORY AS A FARM COLONY, HOSPITAL AND HISTORIC SITE
Sometime I think our island has had a vast history. The Staten Island Farm Colony and Seaview Hospital, also municipal institutions have a great place in medical and research history. Long forgotten and abandoned many parts of this campus have been left to history, Today, Seaview is a long term care home and rehabilitation facility. Parts of the campus have new housing for seniors, while this vast campus in the middle of Staten Island is a treasury of the forgotten.
The New York City Farm Colony was a poorhouse on the New York City borough of Staten Island, one of the city’s five boroughs. It was located across Brielle Avenue from Seaview Hospital, on the edge of the Staten Island Greenbelt.
Part of the town of Castleton from the 1680s onward, the land was taken over by the government of Richmond County in 1829 and the Richmond County Poor Farm was established thereon. When Staten Island became a borough of New York City in 1898, the city assumed responsibility for the property and redesignated it the New York City Farm Colony, although it was sometimes also referred to as the Staten Island Farm Colony. In 1915, its administration was merged with that of Seaview Hospital, which had been set up with the expressed purpose of treating tuberculosis (it is now a city-run nursing home, under the new name of Sea View Farms).[1]
Jurisdiction over the site was transferred in 1924 to the city’s Homes for Dependents agency, which lifted the requirement that all residents of the colony had to work — with most of the work involving the cultivation of many varieties of fruits and vegetables, and at various times even grains such as wheat and corn; these crops fed not only the colony’s residents but met the needs of other city institutions as well.[1]
The abandoned tuberculosis hospital that is styled architecturally similar to Triboro in Queens and Riverside on North Brother Island. All were built in the 1930’s.
On a remote hilltop in Staten Island, New York City is preparing for battle in the fight against one of the nation’s most deadly diseases…again.
A hundred years ago at the height of the tuberculosis epidemic, New York City’s planners and public health establishment mobilized to develop what the New York Times called “…the largest and finest hospital ever built” for tuberculosis. Operating in the absence of any known cure for the disease, the Sea View Tuberculosis Hospital’s medical facilities were, in a real sense, speculative and aspirational. Tuberculosis (TB) had topped the list of causes of death in New York City for decades, and the call to action was urgent.
Sea View Patient Pavilion with Balconies, NYC Dept. of Records.
For the next 40 years, research and medical treatment were conducted alongside the general care of tuberculosis patients at Sea View. Fresh air, sunshine, and a nutritious diet – all known at the time to have therapeutic effects on TB patients – were woven into the hospital’s design and provided patients with relief and, on occasion, recovery.
Indeed, until a cure was discovered, Sea View’s most therapeutic agents may well have been its location, site planning, and design. Archival photos of onsite vegetable gardens, hiking trails, patient pavilions with balconies, and social gathering spaces all read like an early manual for what planners today call “Active Design” and presaged the 21st-century distillation of core Healthy Community goals: physical activity, fresh local food, access to nature, and sociability. Then, in the early 1950s, doctors at Sea View began clinical trials of hydrazides. That drug famously led to the widespread cure of the disease, and is now part of Sea View’s public health legacy.
Architects of the Seaview Hospital Complex: Renwick, Aspinwall & Owen and that firm’s successor-Renwick, Aspinwall & Tucker, Raymond F. Almirall and Charles B. Meyer.
Many structures on the Seaview campus are abandoned and you can catch a glimpse of the Delft tile ceramic tiles on the exterior.
THOSE WHO TENDED TO THE PATIENTS AT SEAVIEW
Black Angels Nurses at Sea View Hospital Honored in New Mural
from Untapped New York
Just in time for Black History Month, a new mural has just been unveiled at Staten Island’s Sea View Hospital. “The Spirit of Sea View” by Yana Dimitrova, depicts the hospital’s deep history dedicated to serving the most vulnerable populations of New York, including the role of the Black Angels. The project was completed under New York City Health + Hospitals Community Murals Project in partnership with the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund and is located in the E. Robitzek Building at Sea View. It consists of four panels, each highlighting significant individuals and events of Sea View’s past. In the mural, you’ll see a reference to the Delft terra cotta panels that were salvaged from the abandoned tuberculosis buildings in the hospital.
The first panel highlights Sea View’s beginnings as a part of the New York City Farm Colony. Founded in 1829 as the Richmond County Poor Farm, it welcomed the poor, mentally ill, criminals, and other outcasts of the time. In exchange for a place to stay, people were given work on the farm and in various shops that specialized in skills such as carpentry, print, and tailoring. Seaview Hospital was built as a tuberculosis sanatorium right by the Staten Island farm colony, and the two later merged in 1915, forming Seaview Farms. Combining the farm colony and the hospital enabled both institutions to maximize each others’ resources and services.
Panel ones depicts individuals involved in manual labor such as farming and construction. Photo by Michael Paras.
Called Black Angels by their parents, around 300 of African American nurses came to Seaview from across the country between 1928 to 1960 to help patients fight tuberculosis. Although many white nurses left Seaview during the height of the pandemic, Black nurses fearlessly and heroically served patients at the risk of their own lives. Their story will also be the subject of a forthcoming book from Oprah Books by Mara Smilios, The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis.
Panel three continues the narrative of Seaview’s integral role in the tuberculosis pandemic. In it, Dr. Edward H. Robitzek, who discovered a cure for tuberculosis, has provided the mediation to a patient who is celebrating her recovery. Before, the only recommendations doctors could recommend for tuberculosis patients were ample sunlight, fresh air, and a good diet. However, Dr. Robitzek’s discovery of the effectiveness of the drug isoniazid led to drastic recoveries in patients who were likely to die from the disease. Alongside the Black Angels, Dr. Robitzek is portrayed as another commendable hero of Seaview’s history
The final panel reflects the present. Although for many years Sea View’s buildings were abandoned and forgotten, they have been revived and transformed into a rehabilitation center, nursing home, and a volunteer fire company as a part of The New York City Economic Development Corp’s efforts to create a Wellness Community. In the mural, the patient is the portrait of Miss Marquita, an actual patient of Sea View, in the greenhouse of the hospital. The four panels reflect the rich history of a hospital that has created opportunities for the poor, served tuberculosis patients with the help of Black Angels, and helped instigate a cure for tuberculosis patients.
The Wrigley Building in Chicago T.W. Visee, Andy Sparberg got it!
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 NEW YORK HEALTH + HOSPITALS UNTAPPED NEW YORK NYC MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES
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Jules Guérin (November 18, 1866 – June 14, 1946), American muralist, architectural delineator, and illustrator.
Jules Vallée Guérin was born in St Louis, Missouri on November 18, 1866 and moved to Chicago to study art in 1880. In 1889 he is known to have shared a studio with Winsor McCay, the noted cartoonist. They influenced each other in their use of daring points of view. In 1893 Guerin made a painting of one of the buildings at the Chicago World’s Fair. His only confirmed art instruction occurred in Chicago, though biographies claim that he studied in Paris. Though of French Huguenot descent, he is not likely to have spoken French fluently as a child. Nothing in his style or method indicates a Beaux Arts education.
In 1900 he established a studio in New York, where he made his name as an architectural delineator and illustrator. His first major break occurred when he was hired by Charles Follen McKim to create some illustrations for the Senate Parks Commission (McMillan Plan) for Washington. These were exhibited and published in 1902. Architects began hiring Guérin to make similar, dramatic renderings of their buildings. He worked mainly in watercolor, gouache, and tempera, usually on colored board. His fame as a colorist soon spread, and he took on more work as a magazine illustrator and sold lithographs. Guérin was a frequent contributor to Scribner’s Magazine and Century Magazine during the first decade of the Twentieth Century.
As a result of his success in the Washington plan Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett hired Guérin to make perspective illustrations for their monumental work, The Plan of Chicago in 1907. The spectacular color views of the proposed city, many from a bird’s eye perspective, are his most famous works. The majority of these original renderings—by Guérin and other artists—are in the collection of the Department of Architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago, while others are currently owned by the Chicago Historical Society.
In 1912, when the architect Henry Bacon was competing with John Russell Pope to win the commission for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., he hired Guérin to create renderings of alternative designs. The paintings, still in the National Archives, were likely influential in Bacon’s triumph. After he received the commission, Bacon retained Guerin to paint two large murals, Reunion and Emancipation, that decorate the cella of the memorial above the Gettysburg and Second Inaugural Addresses. They were recently cleaned, revealing a subtle color palette that complements Daniel Chester French’s Seated Lincoln statue. In 1916 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1931.
As an adjunct to his work as an illustrator, Guérin took an active part in the international expositions of his day, showing at the Pan American Expo in Buffalo, New York, 1901, the Louisiana Purchase Expo held in St Louis in 1904 at which he won a silver medal, and the Lewis & Clark Expo in Portland, Oregon in 1905. He published illustrations of these fairs in popular magazines of the day. In 1915, Guérin was asked by Edward Bennett to serve as Director of Color at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Unlike previous fairs, this west coast effort used a palette of Mediterranean colors to accent the buildings to take advantage of the local climate and flora. It is likely that connections that he made there led to his one-man show at the University of California, Berkeley two years later, followed by several large murals in the old Federal Reserve Bank Building of San Francisco.
Probably because of his early Chicago based background, Guérin was a frequent collaborator with the Chicago architectural firm (and the successor firm to Daniel Burnham’s practice) Graham, Anderson, Probst & White. Most notable of these commissions was the dramatic fire curtain for the theatre in GAPW’s Chicago Civic Opera Building in 1929.
Guérin’s work as a book illustrator came as a result of magazine commissions. Articles in The Century by Maria Hornor Lansdale resulted in her 1906 travel book, The Chateaux of Touraine, which supplements its many photographs with Guérin’s paintings. From 1909 to 1911 the painter traveled with Robert Hichens to create similar illustrations for his popular books on Egypt, the Holy Land, and the Near East. The superb color lithography in these books, as well as two he published with Maxfield Parish, has made them highly collectible today.
Despite his wish to be regarded as a major serious artist, Jules Guérin is most highly regarded as an illustrator and architectural delineator. Indeed, he stands tall among a distinguished group of American artists who brought to life the scenes and buildings of the Progressive Era in the emerging print media of the early Twentieth Century.
THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL MURALS
Above each of the Lincoln Memorial Inscriptions is a 60′ x 12′ mural painted by Jules Guerin graphically portraying governing principles evident in Lincoln’s life. Both scenes contain a background of cypress trees, the emblem of Eternity. The murals were crafted with a special mixture of paint which included elements of kerosene and wax to protect the exposed artwork from fluctuations in temperature and moisture conditions.
Entitled Emancipation, the south mural above the Gettysburg Address represents Freedom and Liberty.The central panel shows the Angel of Truth releasing slaves from the shackles of bondage.On the left hand side of the mural Justice and Law are represented. On the right hand side, Immortality is the central figure surrounded by Faith, Hope and Charity.
Entitled Unity, the north mural located above the Second Inaugural Address, features the Angel of Truth joining the hands of two figures representing the north and south. Her protective wings cradle figures representing the arts of Painting, Philosophy, Music, Architecture, Chemistry, Literature, and Sculpture. Emerging from behind the Music figure is the veiled image of the future.The left group represents Fraternity while the right group represents Charity. The fourth figure from the left of the Angel of Truth is Lincoln Memorial architect Henry Bacon.
PENNSYLVANIA STATION
It is written that Jules Guerin was the artist for two mural maps in Pennsylvania Station, 1913
Elliot, and David are the names I know. We will try to find the others.
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 Roosevelt Island Historical Society ALCHETRON WIKIPEDIA NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
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The Roosevelt Island Aerial Tram is not the most glamorous cable ride – indeed it’s not ranked among the Top Ten on any scorecard. Many of the best are ski lifts, but not all. See, for example, the high ranking Skyline Gondola in Queenstown, New Zealand (below). That’s pretty wild.
SKYLINE- QUEENSTOWN
EL TELEFERICO-LA PAZ
For quite a number of years, we lived by our Roosevelt Island Aerial Tramway (and suffered when it was down). And, more or less, I came to love it.
I arrived on the island shortly after the tram was opened – and missed the pre-Tram, red bus to Manhattan era. The Tram made a huge difference. I told friends who feared I had banished myself to the far reaches of Queens that we were only 4 minutes from Bloomingdales. Which was true, sort of. But it was true, too, that we were further away. It was hard to return to Manhattan after a day’s work. The island was cooler, quieter, and always lovely. The tram was only 4 minutes (and we were only 4 minutes from B’dales), but it took us to a different place. Still, the Tram was our lifeline, even if the line to board at rush hour on the Manhattan side wound around the block to 3rd Ave.
Earlier, folks arrived on Welfare Island (usually not by choice) by boat until 1909 when the Queensboro Bridge was opened. Then they could drop in, catching the upside-down elevator from the Bridge. The trolly-elevator service was ended in 1957 though by then a new bridge to Queens had opened (in 1955).
As most of the Welfare Island institutions decayed in the ‘50s and ‘ Manhattan and the cabin wasn’t crowded. Someone had a boom box and we played music and danced. As dusk came on, we blinked our lights and some apartments blinked back. The only casualty was a guy who was off to meet his wife at a Broadway theater and took the Tram because he didn’t like to ride the subway. Long before cell phones, he had no way to get in touch with her. And we returned ultimately to the Island side.
For quite a number of years, we lived by our Roosevelt Island Aerial Tramway (and suffered when it was down). And, more or less, I came to love it.
I arrived on the island shortly after the tram was opened – and missed the pre-Tram, red bus to Manhattan era. The Tram made a huge difference. I told friends who feared I had banished myself to the far reaches of Queens that we were only 4 minutes from Bloomingdales. Which was true, sort of. But it was true, too, that we were further away. It was hard to return to Manhattan after a day’s work. The island was cooler, quieter, and always lovely. The tram was only 4 minutes (and we were only 4 minutes from B’dales), but it took us to a different place. Still, the Tram was our lifeline, even if the line to board at rush hour on the Manhattan side wound around the block to 3rd Ave.
Earlier, folks arrived on Welfare Island (usually not by choice) by boat until 1909 when the Queensboro Bridge was opened. Then they could drop in, catching the upside-down elevator from the Bridge. The trolly-elevator service was ended in 1957 though by then a new bridge to Queens had opened (in 1955).
As most of the Welfare Island institutions decayed in the ‘50s and ‘60s, ideas were bruited about for what might follow. The best seemed to create a new residential community on the island.
And remember when a cable was dropped on 2nd Avenue? Twice! In those days, a cable was changed every 3 years. The Tram went down and had to be reset afterwards. Somehow someone dropped the cable – though luckily it didn’t hit anything on the street. Profuse apologies, and then it happened again a few days later. This time, the Mayor closed down the Tram, punishment for us all!
Nonetheless, we came to love it, and when the subway finally arrived in October 1989, we hoped the Tram would remain in service. By then, it had become a New York City treasure. It was well known and figured prominently in climatic battle in Spider-Man 2002. Even earlier, the Sylvester Stallone thriller Nighthawks (1981) depicted the tramway as a terrorist target where United Nations delegates were taken hostage. It was used in the opening credits of City Slickers (1991). It also appeared in the 2005 horror movie Dark Water.
Still, when the Tram closed down in 2010, we feared it was lost forever – commitments for a $25 million project to upgrade and modernize the system notwithstanding. But it did return, just two months late. With the help of the French company Poma (a French company famous for its ski lifts), all components were replaced except for the three tower bases. Each car now operates independently, so there are now really two separate systems. The cabins’ suspension from the cable is tauter, with much less swaying and swinging. Docking is smoother. Everything seems incredibly automated. (Do you remember when a guy sat in the booth above the Island docking station? Was he controlling the thing?)
There’s much less drama with the new Tram. At one moment, it looked like the second of the new black glass buildings on the Manhattan side would block the Tram – or we just might have to bounce around it. Didn’t happen, but did you see the big guy, on the big bed with the giant TV in an apartment on the southeast corner of the building? No, of course no one looks into the apartment windows when riding by on the Tram. Over the years, we’ve found things to complain about here on the Island. But not the Tram.
Marvel Comics, (c) 1980
2009 OUT WITH THE OLD TRAM AND ERECTING THE NEW TOWER TOPS
I arrived in 1977 and remember some unique tram or tramless experiences.
When the tram was down, RIOC chartered buses to take us to Manhattan. The ride thru the industrial area in Queens was an educational ride, since the ladies of the eve were on the street early in the morning…..an eye opening experience.
When mass transit was on strike in the early years, we watched thousands of Queens residents walk over the 59th Street Bridge. It was the first time ladies wore sneakers to work, with their stocking on.
The embarrassing cable incident was when an un-named person cut the cable 6 feet too short and the entire cable, all thousands of feet of hit had to be discarded and weeks later a new cable arrived, with a new person to make the cuts.
When “Night Hawks” was being filmed here, the producers thought they would calm the mass anger of the passengers by inviting Sylvester Stallone to a meeting in the Chapel. He was booed and left very fast.
The summer of 2009 was amazing. While most Islanders were using the subway and not watch the goings on at the tram reconstruction. At the same time the RIHS Visitor Center kiosk was being restored and we shared the space and watched with amazement as cranes and barges moved in to replace the tower tops. It was extremely hot that summer, but the work got done and the new tram and RIHS visitor kiosk opened on November 30th!!!
I am looking forward to a crowded tram and welcoming all those tourists!
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 Deborah Dorff Roosevelt Island Historical Society
Sources Wikipedia Smithsonian American Art Museum Google Images
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Jean Xceron, Watercolor #308, 1947, watercolor on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost, 1986.92.107
Jean Xceron, Greek by birth, came to the United States when he was fourteen years old. For the next six years he lived and worked with relatives in Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and New York City. In 1910, determined to be an artist, he moved to Washington, D.C., and enrolled in classes at the Corcoran School of Art. At the Corcoran, where the curriculum focused on the traditional academic practice of drawing from plaster casts, Xceron perfected his skills as a draftsman. He first encountered modernism when, in 1916, two fellow students arranged an exhibition of avant-garde paintings borrowed from Alfred Stieglitz. The show made a deep impression on Xceron, whose own appreciation for flat color and expressive distortion paralleled the work being done by others.
Jean Xceron, Portrait No. 38, 1932, oil on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost, 1986.92.106
In 1920, Xceron moved to New York and became friends with Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Max Weber, Abraham Walkowitz, and Joseph Stella. He exhibited in the New York Independents’ exhibitions in 1921 and 1922. In New York, Xceron studied Céanne and read as much as possible about new artistic movements abroad. Xceron was finally able to travel to Paris in 1927. There he began writing reviews of the latest in art for the Boston Evening Transcript and the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune. His articles on Jean Hélion, Hans Arp, John Graham, Theo Van Doesburg, and other artists showed his increasingly sophisticated understanding of recent art. About the same time, his own painting underwent a dramatic transition. As a writer, he was quickly accepted into the Parisian art world as one of the few critics sympathetic to modern art; but few realized that Xceron was an accomplished painter as well. Soon, however, members of the Parisian Greek community became aware of Xceron’s talents, and Christian Zervos, editor of the influential magazine Cahiers d’Art, arranged a solo exhibition at the Galèrie de France in 1931. Visitors to this first exhibition saw an artist who was working his way through Cubism. Still-life and figural motifs remained prominent, but the artist was striving to capture rhythmic and fluid movement rather than solid form. Over the next several years, Xceron moved away from his figural foundations, introducing at first gridlike structural patterns and, by the mid 1930s, planar arrangements of severe Constructivist purity.
Jean Xceron, Portrait No. 61, 1932, oil on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost, 1986.92.105
When Xceron returned to New York in 1935 for an exhibition at the Garland Gallery, he was among the inner circle of Abstraction-Création and other leading Parisian art groups. Moreover, he had achieved some reputation. He again visited New York in 1937 for a show at Nierendorf Gallery. Although planning only a visit, his move proved permanent. Xceron soon joined the American Abstract Artists, who welcomed him as a leading Parisian artist. Despite his reputation, however, he fared little better commercially than did his new colleagues. He was hired by the WPA Federal Art Project and executed an abstract mural for the chapel at Riker’s Island Penitentiary. In 1939 he began working for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, where he remained for the rest of his career.
Figure 3: Installation view of Abstraction in Relation to Surrounding Architecture by Jean Xceron, Hebrew Chapel, Assembly Room, Rikers Island Penitentiary. (Presumed destroyed). Photograph by Blitzstein, May 6, 1942. Collection of the Public Design Commission of the City of New York.
Abstraction (1942) by John Xceron, left panel, oil on canvas, Hebrew Chapel. Collection of the Public Design Commission of the City of New York.
Abstraction (1942) by John Xceron, right panel, oil on canvas, Hebrew Chapel. Collection of the Public Design Commission of the City of New York.
Untitled by Arshile Gorky, 86 square feet, stained glass, Protestant Chapel, never installed. Collection of the Public Design Commission of the City of New York.
In 1940 and 1941, the Art Commission reviewed abstract murals by Balcomb Greene and John Xceron, as well as a stained glass installation by Arshile Gorky, for new chapels in the Rikers Island penitentiary.
Balcomb Greene proposed a mural installation opposite a work by John Xceron in the Assembly Room of the Christian Science Chapel. Greene noted his intention to use non-objective imagery, as the Chapel served members of both the Orthodox Jewish and Christian Science religions, which “do not jointly permit of any representation.” For reasons undocumented, Greene’s proposal was rejected by the Commission, and instead the Commission approved two murals in the room by Xceron. Both have either been covered up or removed.
Arshile Gorky’s stained glass proposal was based on traditional medieval church symbols. It was initially rejected in March of 1940 but then approved the following month. However, the project was never realized, because, according to Gorky’s assistant Giorgio Cavallon, the artist was depressed over a lost love.
Portrait No. 61 andPortrait No. 38, both of 1932, represent midway points in Xceron’s artistic development. Created several years after his move to Paris, they reflect Xceron’s simultaneous commitment to a tactile surface and the rhythmic movement of line and form. By the early thirties, Xceron was fully indoctrinated into the aesthetics of De Stijl, but had not yet accepted the geometric formulation of spatial balance that would shape his work during the mid 1930s. The muted palette of soft gray tones in the portraits had not yet yielded to the vibrant, almost optical color that became his hallmark during the geometric phase of his work. By the late 1930s, Xceron’s paintings took on striking similarities to Kandinsky’s work of the mid 1920s, and works like Watercolor #308 (1947) show parallels with the paintings of Rudolf Bauer that played so prominent a role in the exhibitions Hilla Rebay presented at the Guggenheim Foundation and later at the at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting. This connection with Rebay meant that Xceron never became closely involved with the inner circle of the American Abstract Artists. They, for the most part, rejected the mystical notions of art propounded by the influential baroness.(1)
COMPOSITION #8 LEFT SIE COMPOSITION #239 A RIGHT SIDE CHRISTIES (C)
The history of murals in municipal buildings is always mystifying. Every time I discover one more, others pop into view. With the continual digitalization of City records, recently of the design commission more treasures are discovered,
Judith Berdy
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM MASTER ART CHRISTIES
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)
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William H. Johnson, Children’s Dance, ca. 1940-1941, oil on plywood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.580
Politicians have always ended up on the shelf. Maybe a safe place for them.
Unidentified (Mexican), (Children Swimming), n.d., woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Olin Dows, 1983.90.187
Jean-Francis Auburtin, Children at Play, 1915, pencil and watercolor, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Republic of France, 1915.11.3
Unidentified, The Mabie Children, ca. 1852, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Sturm, 1963.12.11
Elizabeth Olds, Silkscreen for Children, 1955, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1984.31.45
William H. Johnson, Children Playing at Dockside, ca. 1939-1942, tempera and pen and ink with pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.1066
Eddie Arning, Mother Feeding Children, 1973, oil pastel on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Sackton, 1987.51.15
Patsy Billups, Three Children, A Car and A Church, 1976, colored pencil and pen on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 1997.124.106
Lloyd McNeill, Lou Stovall, Feed Kids, 1969, screenprint, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1970.29
Viola Frey, Self Portrait with Toys, 1981, alkyd oil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Bernard Koteen Revocable Trust, 2013.85.2
Zelermy, Memory Vessel with Doll Parts, n.d., sewer pipe clay? overlaid with applied brown compound, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr., 1998.84.67
The folk art tradition of “memory vessels” grew out of grave-marking or commemorative rituals found in several cultures. Objects embedded in the surface of the piece often provide clues to the person who owned or used the items. With its doll parts and clocks, this vessel may have been created to commemorate a child, suggesting a too-short life. These special items may have been from the maker’s childhood, and were gathered here as a keepsake.
63 rd and Lexington Avenue subway station Nina Lublin and Hara Reiser got it right!
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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I had the opportunity today to take a M103 bus from City Hall to 63rd Street. It is an unusual and sad feeling to see the emptiness of some neighborhoods. From my left hand seat, I had a great view on a sunny morning to discover sites we usually ignore. The architecture and design and wonderful hodge-podge of our downtown structures lends excitement to the buildings thru the graffiti and shabbiness of some areas.
No demonstrations or even visitors this morning. City Hall is working from home.
The gracious entry to the Manhattan Bridge and off to Brooklyn
The wonderful former Bowery Savings Bank Building in Chinatown is now a Capitale catering hall. Two icons stand guard at the gates.
You knew your money was safe with all that looks over the building
The lady is protecting the water tank
Chair, table, booth and that is what we sell!
A blur on a mural heading north
The Bouwerie Lane Theatre is a former bank building which became an Off-Broadway theatre, located at 330 Bowery at Bond Street in Manhattan, New York City. It is located in the NoHo Historic District.
The building’s facade on the Bowery (2010) The cast-iron building, which was constructed from 1873-1874, was designed by Henry Engelbert in the Italianate style for the Atlantic Savings Bank, which became the Bond Street Saving Bank before the building was completed.
When the bank failed in 1879, the building was sold to the German Exchange Bank, which served the German immigrant community. ] Prior to the 1960s, the building was used for the storage of fabrics. Then in 1963, the building was converted into a theater by Honey Waldman, who produced several plays there.
From 1974 to 2006, it was the home of the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre. Among the many plays and musicals that were produced at the theatre, the first was The Immoralist (1963) with Frank Langella, Dames at Sea (1968), Night and Day (2000) by Tom Stoppard, Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera (2003), and the Cocteau’s final production, Jean Genet’s The Maids X 2 (2006).
] The building was purchased by Adam Gordon in 2007 for conversion into a private mansion with a climbing wall, and the Bowery street front used for retail. In 1967, the building was designated a New York City landmark,[1] and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The AIA Guide to New York City calls it “One of the most sophisticated cast-iron buildings.”
WIKIPEDIA
Arches, bay widows and some contemporary at the street level and dining too!
Lisa Fernandez, Nina Lublin, Gloria Herman got it right WALKING DOWN 7TH AVENUE IN Manhattan’s fashion district, you might be surprised to see a massive button and needle leaning against the Fashion District Information Center. While the sculpture was designed in the style of works by Claes Oldenburg, it was designed and built along with the information center by Pentagram Architectural Services.
Just next to the information booth, a statue of a garment worker toils in the shadow of the huge needle and button. This weathered-looking bronze statue is a work by Judith Weller. It depicts her father, one of a great many Jewish immigrants who moved to New York and wound up working in the garment district. Looming over the immigrant worker, the needle and button feel less whimsical and more menacingly oppressive.
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
Judith Berdy Wikipedia Foursquare
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated 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
is well known and active in many quilting groups including: Quilt N Queens, Brooklyn Quilters Guild, Empire Quilting Guild, Quilters of Color of NYC, Quits for Cops
PRAYER WARRIOR AFRICAN MASK
ROCHELLE HOLLAND
DR. ROCHELLE A. HOLLAND
QUILT BIO
My educational background is in sociology and mental health; however as a teen, during the weekends , I took classes at a local arts center. During 2012, I started learning mixed media art by watching YouTube and completing classes at Craftsy. Currently I enjoy creating mixed media fine art by using fabric, canvas and/or paper as substrata. I equally enjoy designing and sewing quilts. I have always admired the works of other artists and I have grown to enjoy my autistic process and work,
A BIT MORE ON WATER TANKS
STEPHEN BLANK SENT US TWO GREAT IMAGES HE TOOK OF MANHATTAN WATER TANKS
THIS IMAGE IS A FEATURED AD IN TODAY’S NY TIMES MAGAZINE.
THE AMERICAN STANDARD BUILDING ON WEST 40TH STREET OVERLOOKING BRYANT PARK, ALSO KNOW AS AMERICAN RADIATOR BUILDING. CLARA BELLA, ARON EISEMPRESS AND HARA REISER GOT IT RIGHT
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
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On Monday, January 25, a brand new Roosevelt Island branch will open at 504 Main Street. The new 5,200-square-foot location will open with grab-and-go service, and replace Roosevelt Island’s former one-room branch.
At this time, you will be able to access a small area of the branch to pick up, check out, and drop off material requested online or over the phone. Beginning today, you can use our website to request items that can be picked up from the new branch as soon as Monday; an email notification will be sent to you when your items are ready. If you prefer, you are now also able to use your phone to reserve material at this location and use contactless self-checkout when you download the new NYPL app, available for iOS and Android devices. For full details on our grab-and-go service and reopening policies, please visit our website.
The Library currently offers a wide range of free virtual programs and services to all New Yorkers. When conditions allow us to expand services, the new library will offer significantly more space for additional classes, storytimes, and computers, plus designated areas for children, teens, and adults, a community room, an outdoor seating area with an exterior book drop, and more. Learn more about our Roosevelt Island location.
The completion of this exciting project, managed by the New York City Department of Design and Construction, ensures that the Roosevelt Island Library will continue to serve New Yorkers now and in the future. The Library is thankful to Mayor Bill de Blasio, Speaker Corey Johnson, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, City Council Member Ben Kallos, NYS Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright, NYS Senator José Serrano, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, Former Speaker Gifford Miller, Former Council Member Jessica Lappin, and the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp. for their support of this project.
Yours,
Sumie Ota
Associate Director for the East Manhattan Neighborhood Library Network The New York Public Library
269th Edition
January 23-24, 2021
Stephen Blank
“The Wondrous Water Towers of New York City” is an art print by Pop Chart Lab featuring a “curated selection of New York City’s best rooftop darlings.”
Tanks for the Memories
If you have kept up with the reading, you will recall that the Croton Aqueduct system (and High Bridge) were completed in 1848. But that was scarcely the end of the story of water in Manhattan. Read on.
Bear in mind that a lot of things were going on in the city. Most important, New York City’s population doubled every decade from 1800 to 1880, and it expanded physically north rapidly on Manhattan Island as well. This radical growth demanded a lot of water (and, we shall see, produced a lot of water).
The Croton system brought clean water to the city, but remember that getting water into the city was one thing. Getting water into building where people lived and worked was another, and getting waste water (and other waste) out of buildings and roads was still another. These tasks were not carried out in any coherent fashion across the city, and some neighborhoods lagged badly behind.
The water towers we see on New York City roofs played an important part in the complicated evolution of our city’s water system. They have become a symbol, an icon of the city.
In 1865, New York State created a general sewage system that took into account the natural water histories of New York City districts when creating drainage lines. Unfortunately, these requirements only extended to unsewered areas; older districts would continue to struggle with sewage issues and access to clean water. Imagine the task of laying down water lines and sewer pipes in the crowded, narrow streets of much of the city.
By this time, some wealthier city households had indoor plumbing, which would have included one faucet and a water closet of some sort, but drainage systems were still in their infancy: builders buried house drains under cellar floors, rendering them inaccessible for repair or cleaning and preventing proper ventilation. If you weren’t that rich, you shared a water tap and privy in a common yard or hall. What this meant, of course, was that these districts were not only poorer but more crowded and sicker – suffering much more from typhus and small pox. Only during the 1880s, did indoor plumbing begin to appear more widely, and roughly 50 years later, top-floor storage tanks started popping up all over the city. Soon, the city mandated that every building more than 6 stories tall have a water tower.
The Tenement Act of 1901 states, “In every tenement house here after erected there shall be a separate water-closet in a separate compartment within each apartment.” Although new tenement construction had to comply and nearly all buildings erected after 1910 were built with indoor toilets, many existing tenement owners were slow to come into line with the new regulations. Indeed, in 1937, an estimated 165,000 families living in tenements were still without access to private indoor toilets.
Before we turn our attention to water tanks, let’s answer a question I know you want to ask. Before we had a comprehensive sewer system, what happened to our waste?
Well, until the late nineteenth century, most New Yorkers relied on outhouses located in backyards and alleys. While some residents had their own private outhouses, anyone living in a tenement would have shared facilities with their neighbors. The outhouse/resident ratio varied, but most tenements had just three to four outhouses and it was not uncommon to find over 100 people living in a single tenement building. This meant that people often shared a single outhouse with anywhere from 25 to 30 of their neighbors, making long line-ups and limited privacy common problems. Uncomfortable at best in the daytime and often dangerous at night. So, many continued to use chamber pots and – hopefully – empty them in outhouses and not in the street.
You cannot photograph the smell Wiki Commons
In 1975-77, I lived in a 5 story tenement on 2nd Ave at 82nd Street. Each floor had two apartments – front and back (with a window for air circulation in the dividing wall) – and a sleeping room in the hallway that would have been rented in 8-hour shifts to 3 working men. Perhaps 20 people had lived on each floor. In the hall on each floor was one toilet (and a water tap in each kitchen).
In the City, outhouses were permanent structures which meant that removing human waste was a thriving business in the nineteenth-century New York. Human waste was known as “night soil” probably because so-called night soil cart men, who worked for companies that had been lucky enough to win a coveted city contract for waste removal, made their living largely after dark. They shoveled waste from the city’s outhouses into carts (sometimes other garbage and animal carcasses would also be collected) and then disposed of the contents. Where did it go? Into the rivers, of course, and, we are told (though I am not absolutely sure of this), it was dumped on what became the UWS – which may account for some of the oddness some find there.
Even as toilets began to replace outhouses, there was still much work to be done as most cities had not yet built enough sewer pipes to connect every house. In the 1880s, two-thirds of flush toilets still emptied into backyard cesspools, which had to be cleaned to keep from overflowing. In New York, not until the first decades of the twentieth century were all toilets finally connected to main sewer lines.
In any case, water towers.
As you know, the source of New York’s water was in the Croton Highlands, considerably more elevated than the city (the water had to flow downhill in the aqueduct to reach the city). The force of this change in height (hydrostatic pressure) pushed water up to about five floors in standard multi-story buildings. But as buildings grew taller – and by the first decade of the twentieth century, much taller – the city needed a way to get water to the higher floors of buildings. One way would be to increase pressure to push water to higher levels. But this was viewed as dangerous, leading to exploding pipes. A second method, storing water in roof top tanks was viewed as a safer and cheaper alternative. Thus water tanks. Water tanks are simply giant barrels that store between 5,000 and 10,000 gallons of water which cover all uses. When the water level drops below a certain level, pumps are activated and the tanks are filled. Their design hasn’t changed substantially since they were mandated to ensure that all New York City residents had access to water. Made of untreated wood (originally redwood, now from cedar planks) so that no chemicals or sealants will seep into drinking water, the tanks leak when first constructed until water saturates the wood, making it swell, closing any gaps between the planks held together with cable. Steel tanks are possible, but are more expensive and require more maintenance. Roof top water tanks look old, New York City antiques, but they are all pretty new. A well maintained wooden tank lasts about 25 years and then requires replacement, thus keeping the water-tower-building business alive.
When first introduced, they were used solely to provide water to the occupants of the building. After the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, buildings were required to install fire safety measures. The bottom 40% of the water in a tank is now saved for fire protection and the rest is for domestic use.
The water tanks reduce the chance that water will freeze during cold weather. It is difficult for water in a water tower to freeze if it is constantly being drained and refilled. Water can be supplied during a power failure (at least until tank needs to be refilled). Water towers provide water during peak usage times, reducing stress on the municipal water system. They are a cheaper alternative to pumps, which demand electricity and must be maintained.
Rather than roof top tanks, other systems make use water pressure tanks, which store very little water and continuously supply water at the necessary pressure by pumping. Sometimes builders hide the tanks inside elaborate structures.
Originally, water tank builders were barrel makers who expanded their craft to meet a growing need, as city buildings grew taller. Today, New York water tanks are all made by one of two local, family-owned companies — Rosenwach Tank Company and the Isseks Brothers.
The Rosenwach Tank Company, the best known of the group, first began on the Lower East Side in 1866 by barrel maker William Dalton, who later hired Polish immigrant Harris Rosenwach. After Dalton died, Rosenwach bought the company for $55 and, along with his family, expanded services over the decades to include historic building preservation, outdoor site furnishings, and new water technologies.
Rosenwach boasts that they’re the only company that mills its own quality wood tanks in New York City. Isseks Brothers opened in 1890 and is now overseen by David Hochhauser, his brother, and sister. As Scott Hochhauser told the NY Times, there has been little changes to their water tank construction process over the past century. Despite this, a lot of people are curious about the tanks. “Some are interested in the history; a lot of artists like them, for the beauty; and there are people who are into the mechanics of them. But I don’t get too many people call up to say, ‘Hey, tell me about those steel tanks.’”
SONJA HENIE NINA LUBLIN, MARTIN DORNBAUM, GLORIA HERMAN, LIDA FERNANDEZ, ARLENE BESSENOFF WERE THE FIRST ONES.
SPELLING DID NOT COUNT
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 Roosevelt Island Historical Society
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Agnes Tait, Skating in Central Park, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.15
Agnes Tait had long wanted to make a large, festive painting of winter revelers in Central Park, but without a patron she could not take on this project. When the Public Works of Art Project gave her support in the winter of 1933–1934, the artist had her opportunity. As skaters and sledders flocked to the frozen lake and snowy slopes of Central Park, Tait joined them to sketch the winter fun. Then she retreated to her studio to make her painting.
Tait showed the park in late afternoon as the Manhattan sky began to blush and the street lamps to glow, but skating and sledding were still in full swing. Once she had the landscape painted, Tait added figures in groups to create a colorful pattern against the snow and ice. The dark branches of the bare trees make a more subtle design against the white snow and mist and the golden sky. Around the ends of tree branches and in patches along the snowbanks, Tait painted areas of gray into which she drew snow-covered twigs and grasses by scraping away the gray paint with the end of her paintbrush.
Frank McClure, Skating on the Potomac, ink, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Frank McClure, 1979.98.318
Winslow Homer, Skating on the Ladies’ Skating Pond–Central Park, from Harper’s Weekly, January 28, 1860, 1860, wood engraving on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Ray Austrian Collection, Gift of Beatrice L. Austrian, Caryl A. Austrian and James A. Austrian, 1996.63.108
Winslow Homer, Skating at Boston, from Harper’s Weekly, March 13, 1859, 1859, wood engraving on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Ray Austrian Collection, gift of Beatrice L. Austrian, Caryl A. Austrian and James A. Austrian, 1996.63.31
Avery F. Johnson, Skating on Bonaparte’s Pond (mural study, Bordentown, New Jersey Post Office), ca. 1940, oil on canvas mounted on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1965.18.6
Palais de Glace Ice Skating Rink Paris – Vintage Advertising Poster by Jules
NINA LUBLIN, HARA REISER, BILL WILLARD WERE THE FIRST TO GET IT!
EDITORIAL
What a relief, a joyous transition from daily trepidation to a new day of enlightenment and truthfulness.
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 Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
Sources
Wikipedia
Smithsonian American Art Museum Google Images
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The Painting Presented to the Bidens After the Inauguration
Robert S. Duncanson, Landscape with Rainbow, 1859, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Leonard and Paula Granoff, 1983.95.160
Robert Seldon Duncanson was America’s best known African American painter in the years surrounding the Civil War. Based in Cincinnati, he was supported by abolitionists who bought his paintings and sponsored his trip to Europe to study from the Old Masters. In this pastoral landscape, a young couple strolls through fertile pastureland, toward a house at the end of a rainbow.The cattle head home toward the nearby cottage, reinforcing the sense that man lives in harmony with nature. Duncanson’s vision of rural America as Arcadia, a landscape akin to paradise, is a characteristic feature of his work, a late hope for peace before the onset of Civil War.
Winslow Homer, The Inaugural Procession at Washington Passing the Gate of the Capitol Grounds, from Harper’s Weekly, March 16, 1861, 1861, wood engraving on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Ray Austrian Collection, Gift of Beatrice L. Austrian, Caryl A. Austrian and James A. Austrian, 1996.63.11
Charles Sheeler, Nation’s Capitol, 1943, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of State, 1971.281
Bertha E. Jaques, Capitol in Winter, n.d., etching, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chicago Society of Etchers, 1935.13.46
Joseph C. Claghorn, The United States Capitol, ca. 1930-1939, drypoint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Constance Claghorn, 1971.93
Unidentified, Family Group before United States Capitol, ca. 1850, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1968.36
Thomas Doughty, Childs and Inman, The Capitol. Washington, D.C., 1832, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1980.67.6
The Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as President, from Harper’s Weekly, March 4, 1861, attributed to Winslow Homer Greetings from D.C. where change comes every four—or sometimes eight—years. It’s an interesting time to be in the nation’s capital. On January 20th, our newest president will be sworn in; his election was a momentous achievement in so many ways. The same can be said for Abraham Lincoln who was sworn in as the nation’s sixteenth president on March 4, 1861. Famed American artist Winslow Homer was in attendance and created this wood engraving on paper for Harper’s magazine. It shows Lincoln delivering his remarks on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, under a specially designed canopy. Dignitaries fill the area behind him, while the well-dressed throngs below share Homer’s perspective. The men wear hats, the women bonnets, while one woman in the foreground carries an parasol, presumably to shade herself from the glare of the sun. Painter and graphic artist Winslow Homer, whose work is well represented at American Art, was known for his illustrations of the Civil War, also published by Harper’s, and his luminous seascape paintings. While you’re at American Art, check out the exhibition, The Honor of Your Company is Requested: President Lincoln’s Inaugural Ball. It gives an inside, behind-the-scenes look into American history and pageantry in the same building where Lincoln’s second inaugural ball was held. Since we’re starting off a new year, I’m going to end this post with Lincoln’s famous words from his second inaugural speech in 1865 as a new year’s wish for 2009: “With malice toward none; with charity for all . . . .”
Samuel F. B. Morse, Study for The House of Representatives, ca. 1821, oil on panel, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through a grant from the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, 1978.166
James F. Minnicks, District of Columbia, from the United States Series, 1949, gouache on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Container Corporation of America, 1984.124.216
Isidore Laurent Deroy, Augustus Kollner, Washington–Capitol (East View), ca. 1848, color lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of International Business Machines Corporation, 1966.48.60
Emily Burling Waite, White House from South Gardens, 1923, etching, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chicago Society of Etchers, 1935.13.366
ARLENE BESSEOFF WAS THE ONLY PERSON TO GET IT RIGHT
Letter to the Editor
What a wonderful day. The pall of four years of destructive politics has ended. As I have for every inauguration since John F. Kennedy’s, in 1961, This one was special, very special.
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)
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM (c)
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