The Fall River Line was a combination steamboat and railroad connection between New York City and Boston that operated between 1847 and 1937. It consisted of a railroad journey between Boston and Fall River, Massachusetts, where passengers would then board steamboats for the journey through Narragansett Bay and Long Island Sound to the line’s own Hudson River dock in Manhattan. For many years, it was the preferred route to take for travel between the two major cities. The line was extremely popular, and its steamboats were some of the most advanced and luxurious of their day.
Origins
The origins of the Fall River Line can be traced back to Colonel Richard Borden, a businessman from Fall River who had established his fortune in the iron and textile industries. He had operated steamboats between Fall River and Providence as early as 1827. In 1846 Richard Borden completed the Fall River Railroad, which enabled a land route between Fall River and other cities such as Taunton, New Bedford, Providence and Boston. A direct rail line to South Braintree would also be added.
Observing the success of the steamboat line which ran between New York and Stonington, Connecticut, Richard Borden began regular steamboat service between New York City and Fall River in 1847, establishing the Bay State Steamboat Company, with its first steamer, the Bay State. The following year, the Empire State was launched. The Fall River Line was an immediate success. By 1850, it had paid six percent dividends per month, for ten consecutive months. In 1854, the Metropolis was added.
In 1863 the line was sold to the Boston, Newport and New York Steamboat Company, and the railroad was extended between Fall River and Newport, Rhode Island. For a short period after this, the rail connection was made at Newport for the trip to Boston. During this period, the new steamers the Old Colony and the Newport were added to the fleet. This was also a time of increased competition from other steamboat lines to New York City, including the Neptune Line to Providence as well as the Stonington Line. For a short time, Bristol, Rhode Island was also used as the ending point of the boat journey from New York.
In 1867, two new steamers, the Bristol and the Providence, were introduced. Jim Fisk became president of the company, and would declare himself “admiral”. In 1869 the line was sold to the Narragansett Steamboat Company. With Fisk still president, he returned the line’s terminus to Fall River, where it would remain until the line’s demise in 1937, although there were several winters where the connection through Narragansett Bay was not possible due to ice, so Newport was used instead
Maturity
The Pilgrim In 1872 the Fall River Line was completely reorganized and became part of the Old Colony Railroad, under the name Old Colony Steamboat Company.
In 1883, the Pilgrim was launched. The first modern liner of the fleet, she featured a double-hull for increased safety, was 370 feet long, and had sleeping quarters for 1,200 passengers. At the time of its launch it was the largest steamboat in the world. The Pilgrim could make the 176 mile trip between Fall River and New York in about 8.5 hours.
The Puritan was added in 1889, and would serve the line until 1908 when the Commonwealth was introduced.
In 1894, the Fall River Line launched the Priscilla, which at the time was the largest side-wheeler afloat, capable of accommodating 1,500 passengers.
Maritime historian Roger Williams McAdam referenced the ships as “floating palaces.” The interiors of the vessels were extremely ornate and luxurious. Introduced in 1908, the Commonwealth was the last and largest of the fleet, measuring 456 feet in length and 96 feet wide, and was 5,980 gross tons. She provided 425 staterooms for passengers and boasted a grand staircase, a dining saloon, barber shop, writing room, and a dance floor.
During its history, the Fall River Line was travelled by several U.S. presidents including Grant, Harrison, Cleveland and both Roosevelts, as well as dignitaries such as the Vanderbilts, Astors, Belmonts and Rockefellers. One Boston editor declared, “If you went on a trip to New York and didn’t travel the Fall River Line, you simply didn’t go at all.”
Although much of high society traveled with the Fall River Line, the middle class were also able to experience the gilded age of travel that the line had to offer. The romantic aspect of the ocean voyage was the subject of a popular 1913 song called “On the Old Fall River Line.”
REFLECTION OF THREE CROSSES ON TOP OF GOOD SHEPHERD IN APARTMENT WINDOW.
RESPONSES WILL BE PUBLISHED WEDNESDAY
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)
WIKIPEDIA
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
In 1925, the New York Giants shared a stadium with the New York Giants. No, the other New York Giants. Back in the golden age of baseball in New York, the city hosted three teams: the Yankees, the Dodgers and the Giants. But there was also the football Giants, and both Giants teams shared a stadium at the long-gone Polo Grounds. But by 1956, they moved to the larger Yankee Stadium until the team announced that it would play in a brand new stadium in New Jersey. So over the next three years, the Giants jumped from Yankee Stadium to the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Conn., to Shea Stadium until finally moving to Giants Stadium in 1976.
THE ORIGINAL YANKEE STADIUM
ED LITCHER, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, HARA REISER, ANDY SPARBERG,JAY JACOBSON, M . FRANK,
FROM JAY JACOBSON: Yankee Stadium — the original one— laid out for football. Constructed for the second team that Brooklyn Dodger Fans loathed, the stadium was Used occasionally for major college football games (Army — Notre Dame, I remember). Later, in the late 1950s, the Stadium became the home for the New York Football Giants before that team moved to the New Jersey swamps. About 50 years ago, the Giants left New York and, by failing or refusing to change their name to the New Jersey Giants, insured the loss of a lifelong fan who now roots only for their opponents. (When the teams with New York names —Giants and Jets— play each other, I root for biblical rain storms to make conditions unbearable for the teams and for people going to support the apostates. ). At least when New York was deserted by the baseball Giants and Dodgers, those teams had the basic decency to adopt the names of the cities to which they had moved. No such luck in the football sphere. If you think I have a long sense of fury and outrage at having been abandoned, don’t get me wound up on the destruction of PS 87 and its replacement by a cleaner, newer, better elementary school building around the corner from Amsterdam Avenue and 77th Street.
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
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
THE R.I.H.S. ARCHIVES JUDITH BERDY
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
The site of the new airport had been earlier occupied by the Gala Amusement Park. Developed by the piano magnate William Steinway, Gala boasted the first Ferris wheel on the East Coast. It was home to saloons, rides, carousels, a zoo, a bowling alley, concert venues, gambling, and a giant beer hall. “Electric lights, amusement piers and thrill rides were added, and fireworks displays, vaudeville acts and ragtime music sweetened the atmosphere,” the New York Times recalls. At night, “single young men and women drank beer, danced and caroused.” Prohibition closed the beer hall, and the amusement park’s beaches were overwhelmed with horrifying water pollution.
TWA DC-2 sitting at LGA in the late 1930s, with American Airlines Hangars 1, 3 and 5 in the background. (Jon Proctor Collection)
Building the airport was an enormous construction project for the time. It required that landfill be brought from Rikers Island and a nearby garbage dump, then laid onto a metal framework. It is said that the metallic presence still affects compass readings on aircraft departing on runway 13.
The airport leapt forward in October 1938 when American Airlines signed a long-term lease to locate its overhaul base and main office, then located in Chicago, at LGA. Finally dedicated on October 15 as New York City Municipal Airport, “La Guardia Field” was tacked on by a hyphen two weeks later. It would become, simply, LaGuardia Airport in 1947. The airport opened officially on December 2, 1939, when a TWA DC-3 from Chicago landed just minutes after midnight.
PanAm moved from Port Washington to a new facility at LaGuardia, the Marine Air Terminal. First called the Overseas Terminal, the art deco structure was designed in 1939 by William Delano and completed a year later. An overhead mural inside the terminal portrayed the history of man’s creation and involvement in flight. Titled “Flight” and created by James Brooks, it would be painted over in the 1950s due to some saying that its use of dark greens and reds gave it too much of a “communist” feel. It would later be restored in 1979-80.
The nation’s five largest airlines — Pan American Airways, American, United, Eastern Air Lines, and Transcontinental and Western Air — began offering flights from the new airport and, within a year, LaGuardia was the busiest airport in the world.
Following the war, the Marine Air Terminal became the airport’s international departure point for land planes, but larger aircraft and a need for more space led carriers to move to Idlewild Airport. In the early 1950s, the Douglas DC-7 and Lockheed 1049 Constellation began flying nonstop across the country but, unable to take off heavily loaded from La Guardia, they flew from Idlewild. Many of us are all too familiar with LGA’s descent into what Joe Biden called a n airport “in some third-world country.”
Still, LGA is easily reachable from our Island – no bridges or tunnels, and many of us (me) became more or less used to it. But it will be fun to see what has happened there.
Thanks for flying with me!
SPECIAL MOTHER’S DAY SHOPPING AT RIHS KIOSK FRIDAY TO SUNDAY 12 NOON TO 5 P.M.
INTERNATIONAL ARRIVALS BUILDING JFK 1959 ED LITCHER , MITCH HAMMER 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 Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Our aviation neighbor. From my balcony, I can sometimes see 4 or 5 planes in a long row preparing to land on runway 4. I’m looking forward to a trip out of the newly redone LGA, but let’s pause before take-off.
Well before LGA, Long Island was home to many aerodromes. Indeed, over the 20th century, some 70 airfields were located on the Island, most in aviation’s “Golden Age” of the mid ’20s to late ‘30s. Largely small with only simple structures. But some are memorable. On the morning of May 20, 1927, Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field airport and pointed his airplane towards Paris, on way to a successful transatlantic flight. Flying for 33 1/2 hours and covering approximately 3,600 miles, Lindbergh was the first person to fly nonstop from the United States to France.
On June 28, 1939, Pan Am’s Boeing 314 Dixie Clipper lifted off the water in the Port Washington airport to begin the first regular trans-Atlantic passenger service to Europe. The aircraft carried 22 passengers on the southern route to Horta, Lisbon, and Marseilles. Later, on July 8, the Yankee Clipper would launch Pan Am service across the Atlantic on the northern route, carrying 17 passengers to England.
Aerial view of Floyd Bennett Field
Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn was New York’s first municipal airport. During the 1920s, air travel in Europe, with shorter distances between main centers, was more popular than in the United States which was still more enraptured with trains. Interestingly, while other localities such as Atlantic City and Cleveland had municipal airports, New York City had a multitude of private airfields, and felt no need for a municipal airport until the late 1920s. Newark was the main airport serving New York City into the 1930s.
But Lindbergh’s flight changed this. Billed as New York to Paris, Roosevelt Field was outside the city. New York City now wanted its own airport. A city panel selected Barren Island in Brooklyn as the location, and New York’s first municipal airport was named Floyd Bennett Field, honoring the pilot on Byrd’s 1926 North Pole flight. Dedicated on May 23, 1931, it was rated A-1-A, the highest classification of the Civil Aeronautics Board. It boasted concrete runways, fours hangers that could service the largest aircraft of the day, and an Administration Building that served as a terminal.
Floyd Bennett Field was the site of many adventures. In 1938, Douglas Corrigan planned to fly out for Los Angeles. But he somehow got turned around and ended up in Ireland instead, earning him the nickname “Wrong Way” Corrigan. Probably not really an error. Lacking funds and permission for a transatlantic flight to Ireland, Corrigan decided to take the matter into his own hands. With the owner’s unspoken support, Corrigan landed in Ireland, having consumed two chocolate bars and a couple boxes of fig bars on the way over. Despite his adamant assertion that he had made an honest mistake, the country knew the truth and cities from New York to Chicago threw ticker tape parades to honor the lovable rogue.
Floyd Bennett Field in the 1930s. Eagle postcard photo by Rudy Arnold
On Sunday July 10, 1938 at 7:20 PM, Howard Hughes and four companions lifted off from Floyd Bennett Field to try to break the record for a round the world flight. On July 14 at 2:34 PM, they returned to the same airport completing their tour in 3 days 19 hours 14 minutes and 10 seconds, less than half the time of Wiley Post’s record-breaking flight in 1933. Nothing new, however, for Floyd Bennett Field: Between 1931 and 1939, 26 around the world or transatlantic flights started or ended there.
Flushing Airport was one of New York City’s early airports and was located only a mile east of present-day LaGuardia Airport. Opened in 1927 on city-owned land leased to private operators, Flushing Airport was briefly New York City’s busiest airfield, until the much bigger LaGuardia superseded it. But ever since its closure by Mayor Koch in 1984, it has been largely forgotten, save by aviation and history buffs, and Queens old-timers.
In addition to LaGuardia and JFK, four Long Island airports continue to be active: Brookhaven Calabro (HWV), East Hampton (HTO), Long Island MacArthur (ISP) and Republic (FRG).
And LaGuardia. As a publicity stunt in 1934, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia refused to deplane after landing on a TWA flight from Pittsburgh to Newark, declaring that his ticket showed his destination as New York. TWA quickly agreed to fly the mayor and several reporters on to Floyd Bennett Field. The press conference that followed underlined that it was time for a new, modern facility closer to Manhattan. In conjunction with the City of New York and the Federal Works Progress Administration, ground was broken in 1937 to create a 558-acre airport in Flushing.
CONTINUED TOMORROW
SPECIAL MOTHER’S DAY SHOPPING AT RIHS KIOSK THURSDAY TO SUNDAY 12 NOON TO 5 P.M.
ANDY SPARBERG, ED LITCHER, SUSAN RODETIS, HARA REISER, GLORIA HERMAN, LAURA HUSSEY, VICKI FEINMEL ALL 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 Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Many of us have never heard of Stone Street until we have to go there to get our Senior Metrocards. @ Stone Street is the address that is really the back of 2 Broadway, where the MTA offices are located.
Stone Street is a short street in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. It runs in two sections between Whitehall Street in the west and Hanover Square in the east. The street originally ran as one continuous roadway from Whitehall Street to Hanover Square, but the section between Broad Street and Coenties Alley was eliminated in 1980 to make way for the Goldman Sachs building at 85 Broad Street. The one-block-long western section between Whitehall and Broad Streets carries vehicular traffic, while the two-block-long eastern section between Coenties Alley and Hanover Square is a pedestrian zone.
Stone Street is one of New York’s oldest streets, incorporating two 17th-century roads in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. In 1658 it became the first cobbled street in New Amsterdam. Following the British conquest of the colony, the street was called Duke Street before being renamed Stone Street, for its cobblestone paving, in 1794. Many of the early structures around Stone Street were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1835, after which Stone Street was redeveloped with stores and lofts for dry-goods merchants and importers. Following many decades of neglect, Stone Street was restored in the late 20th century and the eastern section became a restaurant area.
1 Hanover Square is in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. It occupies the northeastern side of a block bounded by Stone Street to the northwest, Hanover Square and William Street to the northeast, Pearl Street to the southeast, and Coenties Slip to the southwest.The building carries the alternate addresses 2 Hanover Square, 60–66 Stone Street, and 95–105 Pearl Street.1 Hanover Square contains frontage of 72 feet (22 m) on Hanover Square, 123 feet (37 m) on Stone Street, and 114 feet (35 m) on Pearl Street.[5][6] The building is near 1 William Street to the northwest and the British Garden at Hanover Square to the northeast.[3]
The site was historically part of New Amsterdam, a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement in modern-day Lower Manhattan; the building’s site was acquired by Richard Smith in the 1640s.[7] By the next decade, the southern portion of the lot was sold to Evert Duyckingh (also “Duyckinck”), who developed a house on the site.[8] The northern portion was given to Abraham Martens Clock, who also developed a house on his site; after 1673, town official Nicholas Bayard bought the western end of Clock’s land and built a house there.[9] There were numerous buildings on the site by 1812, occupied by various dwellings and businesses.[4] These structures were all destroyed in the Great Fire of 1835, which leveled a large portion of the neighborhood.[10]
Dutch colonial era
Stone Street is one of New York’s oldest streets, having been built not long after the Dutch West India Company established New Amsterdam in 1624.[14] It contains parts of two colonial streets: Breuers Straet (literally “Brewers Street”), from Whitehall to Broad Streets, and Hoogh Straet (literally “High Street”), from Broad to Hanover Square. The streets formed a longer road running from Peck Slip Ferry at what is now South Street Seaport;[ they were originally connected by a bridge spanning an inlet in the middle of Broad Street.[18][20] The original street surface is about 6.5 to 7 feet (2.0 to 2.1 m) beneath the modern street.
Western section of Stone Street (originally Breuers Straet), looking toward Broad Street Breuers Straet (renamed Straet van de Graft in 1655 and Brouwer Straet by 1668) was named after the breweries along the street.David T. Valentine subsequently wrote that, from the occupations of the residents, “it is to be inferred that this was one of the best streets of the town”.[In March 1657, residents of Breuers Straet filed a petition to pave the street with cobblestone, funding the project with their own money.The petition was approved and, in 1658, Breuers Straet became the first cobbled street in New Amsterdam.
Hoogh Straet was so named because it was on a low embankment flanked by the East River to the south and a swamp, called Bloemmaert’s or the Company Vly, to the north.[ Hoogh Straet continued northeast of Hanover Square, along what is now the northern side of Pearl Street, to modern-day Wall Street; On Hoogh Straet, the Dutch West India Company had laid out two rows of land lots by 1642, which were granted to property owners including Wessel Evertsen, Thomas Willett, and Richard Smith.[14] Around 1656, Hoogh Straet was shifted about 20 to 25 feet (6.1 to 7.6 m) northward, to align it with Breuers Straet.[Some time afterward, Hoogh Straet was paved, although the date of this paving is unknown. The Castello Plan of 1660 indicated that many structures on both streets were gable roofed houses.[
TO BE CONTINUED
MOTHER’S DAY GIFTS FROM THE R.I.H.S. VISITOR CENTER KIOSK
SPECIAL MOTHER’S DAY WEEK HOURS WEDNESDAY, MAY 5 THRU SUNDAY, MAY 9 12 NOON TO 5 P.M. DAILY
Perfect for mom our QUOTABLE ELEANOR, COOKIES FOR ELEANOR, ROOSEVELT ISLAND AND OUR ZINE….ALSO A GREAT MODGY VASE AN FLORAL POUCH.
A dog lovers gift APRON, POUCH AND NOTEBOOK
For someone with Queens roots………….GREAT BOOKS ON OUR NEIGHBOR BOROUGH
We remember our friend, neighbor and WIRE editor Dick Lutz. NINALUBLIN, VICKI FEINMEL, ALEXIS VILLEFANE AND JAY JACOBSON REMEMBERED DICK
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
WIKIPEDIA
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
at the Kiosk Wed-Sun 12-5 p.m. See details in tomorrow’s edition
TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2021
The
354th Edition
From Our Archives
ALFRED MIRA
ARTIST OF OUR CITY SCENE
FROM EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
The Greenwich Village vision of artist Alfred Mira Alfred S. Mira and his realistic, gritty, intimate Greenwich Village street scenes should be better known. [“Seventh Avenue, Greenwich Village”]
Born in 1900 in Italy to a carpenter father, he left school and began working for an interior decorator, dreaming of going to art school but without the 50 cents a day it cost to attend.
Alfred S. Mira (on left, with arms crossed) at the Grand Central Art Galleries with Associate Director Claude Barber (on right) [photograph] / (photographed by Peter A. Juley & Son)
He did make a career out of painting though; he listed his address as East 8th Street and his occupation as painter in the 1940 census. And he sold his work at the Washington Square outdoor art exhibit, a heralded event decades ago.
Though he painted scenes from all over the city, Mira focused his work on the sites and monuments of Greenwich Village: the Washington Arch, MacDougal Street, and Seventh Avenue South. His inspiration seems to come from the urban realists who made a name for themselves in the early 1900s, such as George Bellows and George Luks.
Rainy Day in Washington Square Park
“Mira painted angled, bird’s eye viewpoints, thereby creating what one critic categorized as ‘moving camera eye impressions,’” explains gallery Questroyal Fine Art LLC. He died in 1980 or 1981, depending on the source, and his work still inspires. It also still sells, with several paintings going for thousands of dollars at top auction houses.
60th STREET LAMPPOST BASE THAT WAS REMOVED WHEN TRAM WAS BUILT. THE SECOND AVENUE EL WAS ON THE AVENUE AND A ROW OF BROWNSTONES ON 60th STREET. (WILLIAM H. JACKSON COMPANY) Vicki Feinmel 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 Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
Sources
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
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
American illustrator best known for his fifty-year career as a cover artist for The New Yorker magazine. Between 1938 and 1988, two hundred and thirteen Getz covers appeared on The New Yorker, making Getz the most prolific New Yorker cover artist of the twentieth century.
Getz was also a fine artist, painted murals for the Works Progress Administration Program, wrote and illustrated children’s books, and taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the University of Connecticut, and the Washington Art Association in Washington, Connecticut.
In addition to his New Yorker covers and spot drawings, Getz’s illustrations were published in American Childhood, Audubon, Collier’s, Consumer Reports, Cue, Esquire, Fortune, The Nation, The National Guardian, The New Masses, The New Republic, PM, Reader’s Digest, Saturday Review, Stage, and The Reporter.
TURKEYS IN THE TUNNEL, 1956
JULY 5, 1967
NOVEMBER 14, 1964
CONSTRUCTION NEXT DOOR, JULY 9, 1955
Getz relocated to the country-side and his work changed in later years
HARA REISER, ANDY SPARBERG, ED LITCHER, ARON EISENPREISS, VERN HARWOOD, GLORIA HERMAN, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, NINA LUBLIN, HARRIET LIEBER, JAY JACOBSON ARLENE BESSENOFF, THOM HEYER ALL 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 Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources: THE NEW YORKER (C)
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
JANE’S WALK LED BY THEODORE LIEBMAN, ARCHITECT, PERKINS EASTMAN, AND JUDITH BERDY, PRESIDENT, ROOSEVELT ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY MONDAY, MAY 3, 1:00 P.M. ON ZOOM
We will review the history of the island and its change from the infamous Welfare Island to today’s vibrant Roosevelt Island community and the 1969 Johnson Plan and its execution. We will review all the architecture, the restoration of landmarks, and sustainability features on the island, the tram and subway, the new Cornell Tech University and Four Freedoms Park created as a memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and designed by Louis I. Kahn. TO REGISTER:
When watching the news about an FBI raid, I recognized the building at Madison Avenue and 66th Street. I decided to stop wondering and check it out along with the architects who designed this apartment house and two others
45 EAST 66 STREET
45 East 66th Street / 773 Madison Avenue
Describing this trio of buildings as “the best gingerbread in town,” Paul Golberger noted in his book, “The City Observed, A Guide To the Architecture of New York, An Illustrated History” (Vintage Books, 1979), that this was “the best” of the trio, adding that “The detail is an eclectic mix of Elizabethan and Flemish Gothic, and it is just elaborate enough to be showy, but restrained enough not to compete with the separate, secondary level of texture created by the dozens of 12-over-12 double-hung windows, a veritable curtain of tiny square panes.”
Some history of the site by Christopher Gray (1988):
“In 1905, Charles F. Rogers, who had built the Prince George and other hotels, bought the All Souls church site at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 66th Street. Rogers, the son of the sculptor John S. Rogers, lived at 60th Street and Madison Avenue and was an All Souls parishioner….The new building dominated the Madison Avenue brownstones, and its distinctive round corner tower was unusually prominent. The square-doughnut structure has a central light court, but the majestic multipaned windows -framed in white terra-cotta and rising to overhanging, screen-like assemblies of Gothic ornament – are what catch the eye….The building was divided into only two apartments…on each floor. Only a handful survived intact, still grand and elegant but with most of their unusual woodwork painted over. The building opened in 1908 as 777 Madison Avenue…..In 1929 the entrance was moved onto East 66th Street, giving the building its present address,…The exterior remained in fairly good shape except for a gradual buildup of grime from engine exhaust (Madison Avenue streetcars were replaced by buses in the 1930’s). From 1928 to 1973, the building was owned by the Bing & Bing real estate company. Major change came after the mid-50’s, with most of the overhanging decorative work at the sixth and 10th floors either cut back or stripped away entirely. In 1973, 45 East 66th Street was acquired by a builder, Sigmund Sommer, who cut back some services, discharged the elevator attendant and replaced incandescent lighting with fluorescent in the hallways. Tenants conducted a rent strike….They ultimately won most of their battles and the Bing interests took the building back in the spring of 1977, just as a tenant effort of landmark designation was starting….In 1987, a partnership managed by M. J. Raynes bought the building and began a cooperative conversion plan that was completed last month.”
ALWYN COURT
ALWYN COURT 180 WEST 58 STREET
The Alwyn Court, also known as The Alwyn, is an apartment building at 180 West 58th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.
The building is at the southeast corner with Seventh Avenue, one block south of Central Park. The Alwyn Court was built between 1907 and 1909 and was designed by Harde & Short in the French Renaissance style. It is one of several luxury developments constructed along Seventh Avenue during the late 19th and early 20th century.
The building is thirteen stories tall. Its facade is clad with elaborate terracotta ornamentation in the Francis I style, with a main entrance on Seventh Avenue and 58th Street. Inside is an octagonal courtyard with a painted facade by artist Richard Haas, as well as a location of the Petrossian caviar bar. The Alwyn Court was originally built with twenty-two elaborately decorated apartments, two on every floor, which typically had fourteen rooms and five bathrooms. The interior was subdivided into 75 apartments in 1938.
The Alwyn Court was named after Alwyn Ball Jr., one of the building’s developers. Despite a fire shortly after opening, the Alwyn Court quickly became one of New York City’s most expensive apartment buildings. During the early 20th century, ownership changed several times. By the 1930s, the last luxury tenant had moved out, and the building’s interior was completely rebuilt. The Alwyn Court was made a New York City designated landmark in 1966, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The building was renovated and converted to cooperative apartments in 1980, and the facade was restored in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
RED HOUSE
From A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
Harde & Short’s 1904 “Red House” — No. 350 West 85th Street
Architects Herbert Spencer Harde and Richard Thomas Short kept themselves busy around the turn of the century designing tenement houses throughout the city. Harde branched out into real estate at some point, establishing the Eronel Realty Company – “Eronel” being his wife Lenore’s name spelled backwards. With the Upper West Side rapidly developing, Eronel Realty acquired the plot of land at 350 West 85th Street and, in 1903, commissioned Harde & Short to design an apartment building on the lot – in short, Harde hired himself. Terra cotta was just making its mark as a remarkably versatile and relatively inexpensive material and the architects embraced it with gusto for this project. In an effort to lure well-to-do residents from private homes into apartments, Harde & Short lavished the façade with intricate terra cotta ornamentation. It would be a stark departure from the firm’s usual tenement buildings. Drawing on several styles and periods, they created an eye-catching and unique structure. Expanses of multi-paned windows hardened back to great English country estates while dripping Gothic screens coexisted with terra cotta salamanders – the symbol of Francis I.
Harde & Short played the red brick and white terra cotta against one another, creating visual interest that was accentuated by the light and shadow of the façade’s angles and bays. The distinctive six-story building was completed in 1904, drawing the unexcited comment from The Real Estate Record & Guide which said it was “a departure from the usual.”
The salamander, symbol of Francis I, would appear again in the facade of Harde & Short’s magnificent Alwyn Court — photo by Alice Lum Harde named his building “Red House” and immediately moved in with Lenore. Joining them in the new building were socially-important Mr. and Mrs. William Smith Young and their two daughters, Caroline Grace and Lucy. The 32-year old attorney was a member of no fewer than five exclusive clubs, including the Columbia Yacht Club and the Cornell Club.
Mrs. Young, who went by the ponderous name Caroline Marshall Page Young was a Daughter of the American Revolution and was active in philanthropic and charitable causes. On May 14, 1907, for instance, she and Mrs. Franklin P. Duryea, who lived in the elaborate Ansonia Apartments, hosted “a bridge” to aid the School for Crippled Children. Reflective of the difference between West Side and East Side, many of the tenants here were movers and shakers; unafraid to break the chains of tradition or to question the status-quo.
At this same time the banker Ashton Parker was living here. His astonishingly modern views on smoking in public sound more like 2011 than 1905. Parker complained to the editor of The New York Times, calling public smoking “a nuisance” and “disagreeable to ladies.” “Why is it that smoking is forbidden in the ladies’ cabin, yet is permitted in the Wall Street ferry house, where the ladies wait for the boats?” he asked. Other early tenants were Harvard graduate Semour M. Peyser and William Robinson. The modern-thinking Robinson owned an early motorcycle which, sadly in 1906, caused him to be charged with “overspeeding on a motor bicycle.” He was released on $100 bail. Smith College alumna Nancy Elizabeth Barnhart was living here in 1915 when the women’s rights advocate won honorable mention for her submission of a poster design for the Woman Suffrage Campaign Poster Competition exhibited at the gallery of the Society of Beaux Arts Architects. Not all of the endeavors of the residents were so lofty, unfortunately. Alexander S. Timson was a 20-year old insurance broker when he lived here in 1911. On his wedding day, June 10, Detectives arrived at Red House where they arrested Timson as a jewel thief. When he was searched at the station house, police found two diamond rings set with sapphires, two diamond hatpins also set with sapphires, one diamond ring set with pearls and another diamond ring. “This is terrible. I am to be married tonight,” Timson protested. “My people, who live in this city, are wealthy, and will help me out of this trouble.” Timson’s people never showed up. Little has changed on the exterior of Red House. The windows have been replaced, as have the entrance doors and the original paint scheme for the windows has been changed to black. Yet it appears very much as it did when Lenore and Herbert Harde moved in in 1904 – what the AIA Guide to New York City calls “a romantic six-story masterpiece.”
IN HONOR OF GLASS ART, THE PHOTO IS FROM STEUBEN GLASS, THE GAZELLE BOWL. SEE MONDAY’S EDITION LAURA HUSSEY& ED LITCHER 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 Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
WIKIPEDIA FRIENDS OF UPPER EAST SIDE A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN NY TIMES/CHRISTOPHER GRAY
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
