Meredith Ward Fine Art is pleased to present Frank Diaz Escalet (1930-2012), an exhibition of 18 paintings and inlaid cut leather works and on view from May 14 through June 25, 2021. This will be the first exhibition of Escalet’s work since the artist’s death. Almost entirely self-taught, Puerto Rican-born Escalet was a painter and master leathercrafter, and developed his own technique for creating images out of cut leather that vividly capture the dynamics of a scene.
V.E. DAY 1976
FROM THE CATALOG:
Frank Diaz Escalet (1930-2012) was filled with a desire to make things from a young age. Almost entirely self-taught, Escalet picked up what he knew about creating art wherever he could. His story is one of invention, adversity, and resilience, but perhaps more than anything else, curiosity was the true wellspring of his work. Escalet was born on March 16, 1930, in Ponce, Puerto Rico. At the age of four, he moved with his family to New York City, where he was raised in Greenwich Village and Spanish Harlem. Growing up in a poor, immigrant family, Escalet drew his own comic books. When he discovered that the model airplanes he designed on brown paper shopping bags could actually fly, he sold them to his friends. At the age of 13, Escalet started working to help support his family. He delivered blocks of ice, firewood, and cans of kerosene around the neighborhood before and after school and on the weekends, and would be lucky to get a nickel tip. After eighth grade, Escalet dropped out of school to work full-time factory jobs and always felt the lack of formal education. Yet, he took full advantage of whatever opportunities he had, and through perseverance, achieved success and recognition. “The more of a challenge something is,” he once said, “the more fanatical I become. There’s a tremendous drive within myself that I will not stop. I will not let it beat me.”
Escalet enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1947. After serving for three years, mostly in Texas, he briefly went to school under the GI Bill for automotive mechanics. However, when the Korean War broke out in June of 1950, he reenlisted hoping to travel. Stationed in Liverpool, England for three years where he was in charge of unloading American ships, Escalet noted, “I identified with the Irish laborers in the Liverpool docks. We would party and everything else, and I really got to know those people. I have a deep love for them.” In 1953, Escalet married his first wife. They had two daughters, but marriage was short lived and they divorced in 1955.
After the war, Escalet returned to New York. While working in a garage changing tires and pumping gas, he took the opportunity to apprentice in coppersmithing after meeting a customer who made copper tables and lamps. Escalet then began silversmithing and opened his own jewelry shop in 1956 called, “The Talent Shop.” Soon after, he moved into the more profitable leather goods and, with just $80 in his pocket, opened a leathercraft shop in 1958 in Greenwich Village, The House of Escalet.
Escalet spent 17 years as a master leathercrafter. By the early 1960s, he had developed a celebrity clientele, designing and creating leather garments for Sly and the Family Stone, The Rolling Stones, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, and Aretha Franklin. At one point, his shop was so successful that he had five salesmen working for him. The House of Escalet undertook high-profile commissions from Pablo Casals to make a leather cello case, and from the Museum of Modern Art to design and create leather cushions for the stone slab seats in the museum’s sculpture garden.
In 1964, Escalet married his second wife, Marjorie, a painter who worked in oils and had some training. They moved into a large loft in the Bowery, in which Escalet built rooms so that they had living space in the center and each had a studio on either end. Marjorie recalled that Escalet would frequent jazz clubs to unwind after work. In February 1968, their son Frank Danny Escalet (Danny) was born. Concerned about raising a child in New York City, in 1971 the Escalets moved to Eastport, Maine, in Washington County, where they lived for the next 11 years.
Speaking about Washington County, Escalet remarked, “I got taken in by the beauty, I mean, it was nature in the raw, it was really fantastically beautiful up there.” (3) Despite the beauty of their new surroundings, these were tough years for the Escalets. They opened a shop called Pandora’s Box and, for extra income, Escalet taught leathercraft to the native Passamaquoddy people through a government program. However, the social acceptance and business success they had enjoyed in New York City did not transfer to the remotest reaches of downeast Maine. There was no way for them to earn a living and they struggled to make ends meet.
Perhaps it was in response to these hardships that Escalet began making his inlaid leather compositions in 1974. Drawing on memories and personal experiences, he created bold and innovative works that speak to the joys and hardships of ordinary people. Conceived with what he called a “birds-eye-view of the world,” his compositions chronicle the dignity and determination of laborers, iron workers, lobstermen, and railroad workers. Images emerged from his childhood in Puerto Rico, his time in Texas and England, and from hanging out in New York City jazz clubs. They tell the stories of his life and the lives of those around him, and reflect the experiences of immigrants, Latin Americans, and people of color. “I always portray life, the story-telling of people,” he said. “Today my work tells of Latin Americans, their struggles, hopes, dreams, and sorrows.”
The social atmosphere of Washington County was starkly different from bohemian lower Manhattan. Whereas they felt part of the cultural fabric in New York, the Escalets were outcasts in Washington County and their son, Danny, was brutally bullied in school. When he was forced to stand on a fractured leg, the Escalets sued the town and settled out of court. Shortly after, they moved to Kennebunkport, where Escalet reestablished The House of Escalet as a gallery and studio. In 1986, Danny, who was severely depressed and had become a heavy drug user, committed suicide at the age of 18. Escalet attributed this act to the psychological damage his son had suffered from being bullied in school.
Heartbroken, Escalet threw himself into his work. At the age of 55, he began painting more consistently, first with his wife’s oil paints and then with acrylics, which better suited his quick painting style. Instead of using an easel, he preferred to paint on his leather workbench. Escalet noted, “I paint people. I paint life. Disaster or happiness. Nothing is planned. That’s how I capture things—in the spur of the moment.” (5) In the late 1980s, he also began working in sculpture using found metal pieces scavenged from building sites. Speaking on the diversity of his art practice, Escalet remarked, “as a rule, it happens by being dictated by what materials are available, what’s on hand.” (6)
Within a decade, Escalet was featured on three different television programs, including a 1988 episode of La Plaza, a Public Broadcasting program targeted at Latin Americans. In the 1990s, Escalet began exhibiting widely. In 1991, 135 of his works were selected to travel abroad in a five-year World Peace Art Tour through 7 countries and 15 museums behind the Iron Curtain. Escalet had multiple one-person shows at higher education institutions, including Rutgers University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Pennsylvania State University. He was also included in group exhibitions at the Housatonic Museum, Bridgeport, Connecticut and the New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut.
Always mindful of the value of the education that he had missed, Escalet donated hundreds of lithographs of his work to public schools in Massachusetts, New York, and Texas in the mid-1990s. He enjoyed exhibiting at colleges and universities, and used those exhibitions as opportunities to share his story. In 1996, Escalet stated:
I have quite a track record as far as achieving things, although it wasn’t quite mapped out for me. The road wasn’t even paved. I want to give kids some inspiration, to bring out their talents. … I always worked with my hands. I grabbed everything that was anything, and was able to turn it into things. … I know there are kids going through the same things. This is to wake up a sleeping giant. The one thing about art is there is no end to it. … You reach your goal and you are beat and exhausted, but if you just look into the horizon, there is never enough time in the day to continue. (7)
The Escalets lived in Kennebunkport for the rest of their lives. Escalet continued to exhibit locally late into his life and died February 12, 2012, a little over six months after Marjorie passed away. He is buried in the Southern Maine Veterans Cemetery.
(1) Frank Diaz Escalet, “Mask of Solitudes: A Portrait of Frank Diaz Escalet,” interview for La Plaza, PBS/WGBH Boston, Nov. 3, 1988. (2) Interview with Derek Fowles, “Portrait of an artist’s life: Frank Diaz Escalet paints from experience,” University of Massachusetts Amherst Student Newsletter, Sept. 29-Oct. 20, 1994. (3) Escalet, “Mask of Solitudes,” interview for La Plaza, 1988. (4) Michael R. Vosburgh, “Latin artist portrays ‘life’ in his work,” The Daily Globe, Worthington, Minnesota, Oct. 1995. (5) Jared Quinn, “MultiCultural Center Showcases African-American Exhibit Illustrating Cultural Influences,” UC Santa Barbara Daily Nexus, Santa Barbara, California, Oct. 8, 1999. (6) Escalet, “Mask of Solitudes,” interview for La Plaza, 1988. (7) Interview with Jenifer McKim, The Boston Globe, Nov. 10, 1996.
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New York City has seen its fair share of civil unrest. One of them, however unlikely, was caused by rocking chairs and took place in Madison Square Park.
The upscale Madison Square Park neighborhood, located in front of the posh Fifth Avenue Hotel, teamed with elegantly dressed and well heeled elites. One day in 1901, a businessmen named Oscar F. Spate saw an opportunity for procuring a buck. The idea was based both on the natural human desire to rest one’s tired body in a comfortable chair combined with the lack of an equal desire to share seating arrangements with lower-ranking members of society.
Mr. Spate arranged a deal with the city to place comfy rocking chairs in Central Park and Madison Square Park that would be made available for a modest fee of five cents per sitting body. This highly undemocratic concept was met with resentment and righteous indignation by those who happened to lack the proper means to afford the chairs but nevertheless desired to be seated just as much as the next person. In order to protect the chairs from un-paying public, Spate hired special attendants—a move which led to clashes between the hired hands and unruly citizens attempting to sit for free.
The problem was compounded by the heat wave of 1901—one of the longest the city had ever experienced—during whichthe temperature in Manhattan hit at least 99 degrees every day for over a week straight. Prior to air-conditioning, public parks were the only places where citizens could cool down and regain strength. Problematically, not only did parks not have enough public benches, but most of those benches in Madison Square Park were located in the open sun while the desirable shady spots were occupied by Spate’s paid chairs.
As an act of protest, some people actually went so far as paying for a chair, only to immediately break it down to pieces. One of the attendants, after attempting to remove a non-paying boy from a chair, had to run for his life to the safety of the Fifth Avenue Hotel when a mob of one-thousand men proceeded to chase the poor soul with the war-like cries of “Lynch him!”
The situation escalated two days later when the chair skirmishes erupted into a full-on rocking chair riot. It all started with one weary, overheated young man who refused to yield to the demand to either pay or vacate his comfortable, shady place of rest. His right to stay seated was vocally supported by a sizable, irritable, overheated crowd demanding equal sitting rights, free of charge. The struggle got physical as unruly members of the crowd started expropriating the chairs and threatening attendants. The police rushed over, but to no avail—the crowd was too large to handle. The uprising soon ended in the complete and utter success of the public: the Parks Commissioner canceled the five-year contract with Spate. A 10,000-person celebration ensued, with victory being sealed when the NY Supreme Court issued an injunction forbidding anyone to charge money for park seating.
In a final attempt to monetize his chairs, the relentless Spate sold some of them to Wanamaker’s Department Store under the label of “Historic Chairs.” The rest of the chairs were left in the parks with the humane and democratic sign, “FREE.”
As for Oscar F. Spate—the chair riot apparently wasn’t the most colorful episode of his life. Prior to the “chair” saga, he divorced his wife on the grounds that she turned out to be a man and later ended up in jail for some of his shady “business deals.” What a shame it was for him to find out, while incarcerated, that after his mother’s death he had inherited more than a million.
OLD METROPOLITAN OPERA HUSE AT 39 STREET NO ONE GUESSED THE OLD MET!!
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
PortableNYC – New York history, architecture and secrets
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In 1920 Park Avenue was much-changed. Once a mixed bag of small houses and businesses like butcher shops and groceries; it now saw the rise of modern apartment buildings and mansions. The soot-belching locomotives had years ago been moved below street level, making the avenue acceptable to well-heeled residents. No. 1145 Park Avenue was a narrow three story brownstone, just 16 feet wide. By 1898 it was home to Doctor Jennie E. Gore, a permanent member of the Homoeopathic Medical Society of the State of New York and a member of the staff of the Hospital of the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women. Dr. Gore leased the house from another physician, Dr. James V. S. Wooley, who owned several other properties. Unlike many doctors at the time, she preferred to operate her medical office not from the house, but at No. 615 East 79th Street (office hours were 11 to 2 “except Sundays’). On November 5, 1912 The Sun pointed out the feverish buying and redevelopment of the area around No. 1145 Park Avenue. No. 1215 Park Avenue, “a three-story high stoop dwelling,” had just been sold, and Mrs. Frederick Bronson purchased the northeast corner of Park Avenue and 91st Street, abutting No. 1145, “where she is building two private residences.” She then acquired and resold No. 1145. The newspaper said that almost simultaneously “Robert S. Minturn acquired for the site of two residences, one for himself, the old Ursuline Convent property at the northwest corner of Ninety-third street and Park avenue. Last month the sale of the northeast cor5ner of Park avenue and Ninety-fourth street was reported, and the purchaser will alter the building, a dwelling of the American basement type for his own use.” No. 1145 became home to Horatio N. Gardner. Ignoring the flurry of redevelopment, Gardener seems to have been satisfied with the Victorian appearance of his old brownstone. In the meantime silent films had evolved from nickelodeon attractions to “photo plays” and lavish motion picture theaters were being constructed. The star status of stage actors and actresses was suddenly being shared by motion picture artists. Far away in Dallas, Texas, young Mae Elizabeth Hampton longed for the live of a silver screen star. Despite family reservations (she later told a reporter “but you should have seen my grandmother! She was a Quakeress and she brought me up), she traveled to New Orleans where she enrolled in the Sophie Newcomb School. After she won a newspaper beauty contest “there were several immediate and flattering offers to act in the silent drama,” reported the New-York Tribune several years later. But Hampton (she took the name Hope for professional purposes) held out. “Miss Hampton, conscious of her own limitations, realized wisely that without experience, as she was, her career on the screen would be disappointingly brief.” Hope Hampton relocated to New York City, the epicenter of the film industry, and enrolled in Sargent’s Drama School—a two year course. After a single year, in 1919, the faculty graduated her, feeling “she had made herself ready.” Part of the graduation process was an “annual presentation of the dramatic talent of the school.” Forty-eight-year old Jules E. Brulatour was in the audience that year and Hope Hampton caught his attention. Brulatour was, as described by the New-York Tribune, “one of the deans of the motion picture industry.” Hope Hampton was on the way to stardom.
The silent screen star would become famous for her wardrobe — photo from the collection of the Library of Congress.
While the 21-year old actress’s dreams were beginning to come true, Horatio N. Gardener’s were crashing. On August 29, 1918 The Sun had reported on his petition of voluntary bankruptcy. In September 1920 his old brownstone house on Park Avenue was purchased by Holborn Realty Co. and a month later the New-York Tribune reported that the firm was “reconstructing the house into a whitestone American basement dwelling.” As Park Avenue was being transformed into an upscale, modern thoroughfare, Holborn Realty had commissioned esteemed architect Emery Roth give the house a total make-over. The result was a dignified four-story mansion with one expansive window at each of the upper levels. Roth introduced the 19th century building to the Roaring Twenties with straight lines, sparse ornamentation and up-to-the-minute interiors.
No. 1145 is third from right in this 1929 photograph. Only one unaltered brownstone remains on the block. from the collection of the New York Public Library.
As the house was being completed, the Texas girl who longed for fame and fortune was on a whirlwind ride. On March 14, 1920 the New-York Tribune had reported “her very first picture, ‘A Modern Salome,’ has been completed only recently and Miss Hampton herself has just returned from a two months’ trip to England, France and Italy.”
Jules Brulatour had no intention of letting her rise lose momentum. “The production of a second picture waits only on the discovery of a story that both Mr. Brulatour and Miss Hampton consider suitable,” wrote the New-York Tribune. The newspaper noted “the difficulty of the search, a difficulty caused by the demands of both.” As she had earlier proved, Hope Hampton was not simply a pretty face. “For Miss Hampton knows full well that she is at the mere beginning of her screen career; it is for this reason that she is so concerned with the future and so careless of the past.”
The explosive success of Hope Hampton appeared obvious when the New-York Tribune ran the headline “Hope Hampton, Actress, Buys Home on Park Avenue” on October 23, 1921. The $20,000 mortgage would translate to about $260,000 today. Decades later The New York Times would reveal that the house was a gift from her manager, Jules Brulatour.
Hope Hampton may have been new to the silent screen, but she was quick to absorb the flashy lifestyle of 1920s stars. The New York Times later described the décor of her new 10-room home. “Its interior is almost completely covered with mirrors. The furniture and decorations are French, of the Louis XV period. The floors and the winding banisters, are covered with English leopard-spotted carpeting.”
Not content with merely acting, the silent screen star turned to song as well. She began studying operatic singing under Isadore Luckstone, with some success. Four months before the purchase of her Park Avenue mansion, the New-York Tribune reported “Miss Hampton has a beautiful soprano voice which is quite wasted in the silent drama, as it is heard only when she makes personal appearances. Alf. T. Wilton heard her sing the ‘Ave Maria’ on such an occasion and has ever since been trying to persuade Miss Hampton to remain silent no longer.” Wilton gave her a “flattering vaudeville offer” which she refused.
Nevertheless, Harriette Underhill, the New-York Tribune’s version of Hedda Hopper, reported on July 9, 1922 that Luckstone “tells her that if she studies hard perhaps in four or five years she might try for grand opera.” Until that day, the aggressive and ambitious actress worked on her command of foreign languages.
“As soon as I began to sing I realized that I never could amount to anything unless I knew some of the languages, so I started with Italian, and now I’m studying French, too. It is as easy to learn two as one while you are about it,” she told Underhill. The beautiful Hope Hampton broke the hearts of men worldwide who sat in the darkened theaters and watched her on screen. The Evening World said on September 13, 1921 that every ship that pulled into New York Harbor “brings her a number of ‘mash notes.’” The newspaper copied one, from the Philippines, for its readers:
Dear Madame: I am in great pleasure when this reaches you. I can tell you I have seen you in the movies and was moved by a strong heartfull of desire to be your acquaintanceship. In delight I would have a fine picture of you and am I not very bold? But there is no blame in it when one is so pretty good like you—Andrea Crispina.
Sadly for Crispina and the other “mash note” writers, Hope already had a love interest—none other than her manager, Jules E. Brulatour. Falling in love with Brulatour was a risk for the young woman. The New York Times tried to untangle his romantic history for its readers on November 8, 1923.
“Under the terms of a preliminary separation agreement with his first wife in 1915, she was to receive $20,000 a year. In April of that year the first Mrs. Brulatour made an application in the Supreme Court to compel her husband to insure his life for $65,000 in her favor. Mr. Brulatour delayed insuring himself, and while he was still fighting the pressure brought against him he was sued by Mrs. Julia Smith for $20,000 for injuries received when she was hit by Mr. Brulatour’s automobile. When the damage action came up in court testimony revealed the fact that at the time of the accident Mr. Brulatour’s car was being drive by Miss Dorothy Gibson, who was then studying for the operatic stage. Miss Gibson was one of the Titanic survivors, and she became Mr. Brulatour’s second wife, a divorce having been obtained on incompatible grounds in the Kentucky courts. The second Mrs. Brulatour attained fame as the original ‘Harrison Fisher Girl.’ She later became a motion picture actress.”
Dorothy Gibson Brulatour filed for divorce in August 1919, asking for $48,000 alimony. That was the same year that Jule Brulatour sat in the audience of the Sargent Drama School presentation and first saw the 19-year old Hope Hampton.
Now, on November 8, 1923 friends of Brulatour and Hampton were shocked to find out that they had been married for three months. The secret ceremony took place in Baltimore on August 22, 1923. Hope had stayed in her Park Avenue house, while her new husband officially remained in his residence, No. 1207 Park Avenue about three blocks north.
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Brulatour explained the ruse saying “We kept it dark just because we wanted to be a little different. We thought we would reveal it in one year, but it became known, you see. We imagined that it would be rather original for a well-known motion picture actress not to make known the fact that she had been married.” At the time, Hope’s latest film The Gold Diggers, “in which she made her most successful screen effort,” according to The Times, had just come out. Now that the marriage was public knowledge, the pair moved into Hope’s mansion. While the actors and actresses followed the movie industry to Hollywood, they preferred New York.
The year 1927 turned out to be a litigious one for the couple. It began on December 20, 1926 when Hope, like a true 1920s movie star, emerged on the street with her Russian wolfhound in tow. According to Fred Palmer, the dog “attacked him and bit him on the right cheek.” Hope was in court on March 9 answering his charges of “permanent injuries and disfigurement.” He wanted $3,000 in damages. Later that year Brulatour’s film My Princess premiered. Produced by Alfred E. Aarons, it starred Hope Hampton and poked gentle fun at the opera business. Their mistake was to use the actual name of Italian tenor Guido Ciccolini in the dialogue. Ciccolini’s wife sat in the audience one evening “and heard her husband’s name used to describe a roustabout singer, who was called ‘you big wop’ by the actress and who in one scene tried to attack Miss Hampton,” reported The New York Times on December 20, 1927. The tenor sued all three—Brulatour, Aarons and Hampton. Although Justice Cotillo decided in their favor, he lambasted them for their “shockingly bad taste.” It was not long after this that Hope essentially retired from the film business; no doubt prompted in part by her blossoming operatic career. In 1928 she opened with the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company in Massenet’s Manon; and the following year on May 25 sailed from New York on the Leviathan headed to Paris “to begin a season with the Opera Comique,” reported The New York Times. The newspaper added “She said she would sing the leading roles in ‘Manon’ and ‘La Boheme.’ After Paris, Miss Hampton will be in concert at Deauville and Cannes.”
By 1939 both Hampton and her husband were, for all purposes, retired. They nevertheless remained a larger-than-life couple and newspapers nationwide covered the mysterious shooting of Jules E. Brulatour in the Park Avenue mansion on January 22, 1939. Shortly before 11 p.m. that Sunday, one of the maids “ran screaming” into a nearby drugstore. According to the clerk, David Fine, she frantically told him that “Brulatour fell and cut himself.” When Dr. Carl Theobald arrived at the house, he found Brulatour with a bloody towel wrapped around his head. The wounded man was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital where he was treated for a “wound and a nick on the ear made by the bullet that lodged under the skin of his neck,” as reported by The Times several days later. The police did not find out about the shooting until two days after the incident. On Thursday, January 26 The Chicago Daily Tribune reported “Brulatour, who made millions in the sale of film to movie companies, was arrested in bed in Lenox Hill hospital this afternoon on a felony charge of possessing a loaded gun. After he was fingerprinted and posted $530 bond, a patrolman left his bedside.” The newspaper said “Hope Hampton, actress and singer, frustrated police and prosecutors today in their feverish attempts to rip the veil of mystery from the shooting of her wealthy husband” and she “flatly refused to testify before the grand jury under a waiver of immunity.” Joining Hope in the grand jury room were three maids, a chauffeur and her lawyer. Brulatour deepened the mystery by telling detectives he had two guns, but “I destroyed them—also the bullet.” Then he contradicted himself saying, according to Assistant Chief Inspector Francis J. Kear “he had locked the guns in a vault and would produce them later.” In the end Jules Brulatour pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge of possessing a weapon without a license and before long the public had forgotten about the entire murky incident. While her aging husband appeared in public attired in non-descript tan suits and fedoras, Hope Hampton was ever the silent screen star years after her last picture. Tagged by Walter Winchell “the duchess of Park Avenue” she was later described by actor George Hamilton in his 2008 autobiography Don’t Mind If I Do, as “a sophisticated Mae West.” The couple attended every opening night, either at the theater or the opera, and Hope was always draped in sequins, jewels and furs. The New York Times would later mention that with the opening season after their marriage “Mr. and Mrs. Brulatour began their custom of regular attendance at opening night performances on Broadway.” Drama critic Burton Rascoe described them as “models of manners for playgoers…they were always in their seats five or ten minutes before the curtain goes up. They never rattle their programs or converse while a play is in progress. They do not light cigarettes while going up the aisles. They come to a show to see the show and not to be seen. They usually speak French in the lobby, but in a low tone.” The appearance of Hope Hampton was expected and gossip columnists and movie magazine journalists waited to get a glimpse of her dazzling ensembles. The couple was routed from their home on December 20, 1942 when fire broke out in Schmidt’s Pharmacy on the ground floor of No. 1143 Park Avenue next door. The flames spread upward through the walls and into the rafters of the Brulatour mansion. Smoke filled the house and the pair was forced to spend the evening at the nearby home of columnist Arthur (Bugs) Baer. Brulatour called the damage the following day “considerable.” After an illness of several weeks, Jules E. Brulatour died in Mount Sinai Hospital on October 26, 1946 at the age of 85. His more than $2 million estate was divided among Hope, and Brulatour’s three children (one of which, Yvonne Brulatour, lived in the Park Avenue home). In 1951 Hope, now 53 years old, was concerned about the Cold War. She began construction on a country house in Greenwich, Connecticut to, as she explained, “get away from a possible atomic bombing.” On the weekend of April 14, she left New York to inspect the ranch-type house with her lawyer, Sinclair Robinson. Hope’s butler, 41-year old Charles Joseph Mourey had left the house Saturday night. A gay man, Hope Hampton would later describe him, according to the 1998 book Contemporary Perspectives on Serial Murder, as preferring “frisky young men.” When he returned to the house around 3:30 Sunday morning, he found the front door open and a light on in Hope’s third floor bedroom. Opening her door, he found the room ransacked. Hope had most of her jewelry in a small safe, about 15 inches square, that weighed around 150 pounds. The burglars walked out of the house with the safe. The New York Times said “The gems, which had added luster to numerous social events and theatrical first nights, were valued at $300,000. They were not insured.” Hope was upset to find that other items were missing as well. Included were her $15,000 silver blue milk coat and $15,000 in cash. She estimated that 40 pieces of jewelry were gone, including “four diamond-and-emerald bracelets valued altogether at $90,000; two diamond clips worth $50,000; diamond earrings worth $15,000, and other assorted pendants, rings, necklaces and gems.” In reporting on the robbery The Times mentioned that the house “is one of the showplaces of the area.” Although the three thugs who committed the burglary were arrested in October, none of the loot was recovered. Although the amount of the loss was lowered to $150,000 after a careful inventory; that amount would still translate to about $1.35 million today. Hope Hampton and her staff were grief-stricken in 1960. Long-time butler Charles Mourney, who had discovered the burglary nine years earlier, left for vacation in Miami in August. A week after his arrival, on August 10, six gunshots were heard on North Biscayne River Drive. Police arriving at the scene found Mourney dead on the dirt road. Evidence pointed to a struggle before the butler was hit with three .22 caliber bullets. It would be 26 years before the murderer was sentenced to 10 years in prison The flamboyant former film star continued making her dramatic lobby appearances at the opera and the theater even as she grew older. Her good friend and companion Tony Carlyle later told reporters “They would hold the curtain until she arrived, and wherever she went she would be in the newsreels that night or the papers the next day, especially in the 60s.” She was unafraid to appear at nightclubs as well and haunted the Peppermint Lounge where the dance The Twist was born. In 1962, at the age of 64, she was named Miss Twist at the club. In 1977 she showed up at a gala benefit “swathed in a floor-length chinchilla coat, complete with train,” said Joyce Purnick of The New York Times later. The following year a reporter approached her on opening night of the Metropolitan Opera. She was wearing a “black broadtail with a black mink collar” and he asked “What happened to the chinchilla?” Hope Hampton casually explained “I wore it last year. It would be repetitious.” Joyce Purnick said of her “Hope Hampton loved all that glittered, and would display her sparkling wares—diamonds and emeralds to offset the sequins—everywhere.” But opening night at the Metropolitan Opera in 1978 would be the last time the opera crowd would be dazzled by her presence. That night she spotted a young woman in “dungarees.” Dashed, she told her escort “Glamour is finished, I don’t want my picture in the papers next to a girl with jeans on.” It was the last Metropolitan Opera opening night attended by Hope Hampton. On Saturday, January 23, 1982, 84-year old Hope Hampton suffered a fatal heart attack. The Eugene Oregon Register-Guard noted that she had appeared in 28 silent films. “She also appeared in ‘Road to Reno,’ a talkie with Randolph Scott and in several movies with then child star Milton Berle.” Upon her death Tony Carlyle said “She was the first lady to be photographed with Norell dresses. She had one of the greatest collections of Norell gowns. I just hope something is done with the clothes. She would have liked that.”
Little has changed to the block since the 1929 photograph above.
Indeed, Hope Hampton would have approved of what happened to her wardrobe. On March 26, 1983 a four-day auction was held at the prestigious William Doyle Galleries. The auction house announced the auction of “The fabulous fashions of Hope Hampton, ‘The Duchess of Park Avenue.” The announcement mentioned “from the 60s: Gowns by Norell, sequined jackets, evening dresses, coats, furs, capes—about 100 lots in all.”
Hope Hampton’s Park Avenue mansion remained a single family house—reportedly one of only two on the avenue. When it came on the market in 2013 (without the mirrors and leopard skin carpeting), it was listed for $18.9 million.
THE ORIGINAL WALDORF ASTORIA HOTEL AT 350 FIFTH AVENUE ANDY SPARBERG AND LAURA HUSSEY 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)
A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
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Portrait of Mrs. Astor by Carolus-Duran, 1890. This painting was placed prominently in Mrs. Astor’s house; she would stand in front of it when receiving guests for receptions. Today, it is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[1]PP
Mrs. Astor and “The Four Hundred”
The winter social season in Gilded Age New York, which lasted from October until Easter, was a whirlwind of frantic activity that included dinner parties, luncheons, receptions, opera performances, and, of course, balls.
The single most important event of the season was indisputably Mrs. Astor’s annual ball, which always took place on a Monday in January. To comprehend the importance of this event one must understand that a Gilded Age ball wasn’t simply a frivolous pastime, but rather a battlefield of social domination. Winning or losing such a battle could forever define a young lady’s status and chart the subsequent course of her life. Debutantes came out knowing that their marriage prospects would hinge entirely on their success at these balls. Attending better balls meant meeting better prospects. A worse fate than failing to attract suitors at a ball was not being invited to one, and not being invited to Mrs. Astor’s annual ball meant relegation to social obscurity.
Caroline Astor (née Schermerhorn) could trace her ancestry to the original New York settlers with Dutch names — the trait that defined her as a member of the newly-formed American aristocracy. Big-boned and plain-featured, she was far from beautiful but possessed a no-nonsense personality and a fiery drive to become a leader of society. She married William Backhouse Astor Jr., grandson of the original money-making Astor, one of the wealthiest Americans of his time. The couple was rather mismatched, as the handsome and jovial William had no interest in “society.” He was a “sporting man” and spent most of his time on his yacht, leaving his capable spouse to lead social functions all by herself. Caroline Astor, however, maintained an unflappable attitude towards the situation, reckoning that “that the sea air was so good for dear William” while regretting that she could not “accompany him as she was such a poor sailor. “
But she was not completely left to her own devices. She found a right-hand man in Ward McAllister, a connoisseur of the “finer things in life, from food to etiquette.” He was teasingly called “make-a-lister” because of his habit of drawing lists of people he deemed worthy of belonging to the elite. Armed with ambitions to create a high society and earn Caroline Astor’s friendship, he achieved his goal by organizing the so-called “Four Hundred.”
He professed to the New York Tribune, “There are only about four hundred people in the fashionable New York Society. If you go outside that number you strike people who are either not at ease in a ballroom or make other people not at ease … ” Virtually overnight, McAllister christened the city’s upper crust as “The Four Hundred.” This “society” consisted primarily of members of the old Knickerbocker families, as McAllister maintained that “it took four generations to make a gentleman,” and was sprinkled with a few nouveaux riches. A self-proclaimed “social arbiter,” he understood that the most important feature of his plan was its exclusivity. Guided by the motto “Only invite nice people,” he invented the artificial limit of 400. Incidentally, 400 was the approximate number of people that fit into Mrs. Astor’s ballroom.
The family of William Astor in their home in New York City. Oil painting by Lucius Rossi
The anxiety wrought by the possibility of not receiving a little card with the words “Mrs. Astor requests a pleasure…” could only be compared with the agony of not getting one at all. The poor souls excluded from the list had to invent reasons for leaving town to cover the indignity of not being invited. These excuses varied from taking one’s daughter on an educational trip to Paris to attending a sudden family funeral to falling victim to some dramatic ailment. But this was all to no avail — their social status shattered, the unfortunates were forever doomed to obscurity.
Greeting Guests at a Ball (Getty Images)
The anointed ones, however, would arrive at the Astors’ mansion at 350 Fifth Ave to attend a lavish and prestigious annual ball. The night of the ball, the huge mansion would be magnificently lit and filled with flowers. Guests would arrive after the opera performance at 11 pm to be greeted by the regal Mrs. Astor, who stood stiffly in front of a portrait of herself, both figures bedecked in diamonds. Mrs. Astor, an awe-inspiring presence, wore a diamond tiara on her head, a triple diamond necklace around her neck, and a huge diamond broach once belonging to Marie Antoinette. (The broach was the French queen’s famous “stomacher,” a necklace that fell over the breast to the stomach.) It was customary at the time to flaunt one’s wealth by wearing as much jewelry as possible. In the irreverent words of one of her contemporaries, Mrs. Astor, the queen of society, looked like a “walking chandelier.”
She presided over the festivities sitting in the ballroom on her red velvet divan. It was considered a special honor to be invited to sit next to her. As per tradition, the first dance was the quadrille. After a few hours of dancing, supper was served. Unlike other hostesses, who settled for a buffet, Mrs. Astor served an elaborate multi-course sit-down dinner. The festivities continued with more dancing and lasted into the small hours of the morning. Reportedly, Mrs. Astor’s annual ball wasn’t a place to enjoy oneself so much as the place to be as if one’s life depended on it!
Due to the Astor family scandal, the annual tradition was interrupted for six long years until Mrs. Astor moved to a bigger and more spectacular mansion at 840 Fifth Ave. The annual balls were held for a few more years until they ceased in 1905. A few days after her last party, the “queen of society,” aged 75, fell on her staircase and broke her hip. She never recovered, neither in body nor in spirit, and died three years later.
Her “social arbiter” Ward McAllister died in 1895. After publishing Society As I Have I Found It, in which he took too much credit for shaping the upper ranks, he fell out of favor with Caroline and subsequently the rest of high society. He died after dining alone (it was an opera night after all), but got a lavish funeral attended by the “nice people.” He would certainly have approved!
Mrs. Astor presided over fashionable society in Gilded Age New York for almost four decades until her death. With her passing, the task of leading the elite was split among three extremely capable ladies: Mrs. Vanderbilt, Mrs. Fish, and Mrs. Oelrichs. The times changed along with ideas behind exclusivity and propriety. In the end, Mrs. Astor’s once spectacular balls were considered old-fashioned and, frankly, rather boring.
The Asser Levy Recreation Center is a recreational facility in Kips Bay, Manhattan, New York City, composed of the Asser Levy Public Baths and Asser Levy Playground. The recreation center is bounded by East 23rd Street to the south, East 25th Street to the north, and FDR Drive to the east. The facility, along with the former Asser Levy Place to the west, was named after Asser Levy, one of the first Jewish citizens of New York City, and a strong and influential advocate for civil liberties. The Asser Levy Public Baths, the recreation center’s main building, was designed by Arnold W. Brunner and Martin Aiken. The building’s main entrance on Asser Levy Place consists of two large arches flanked by pairs of columns. Inside are recreational rooms, a swimming pool, and lockers. The bathhouse originally contained separate waiting rooms and showers for men and women, though the waiting rooms were subsequently combined and the showers were relocated. The outdoor recreational facilities, including additional swimming pools and the playground, surround the bathhouse. The bathhouse was built in 1905–1908 to alleviate sanitary problems in the city and was transferred to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) in 1938. Originally known as the East 23rd Street Baths, it was renamed for Levy in the mid-20th century. The bathhouse building was designated a New York City landmark in 1974 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The building was restored by NYC Parks in 1988–1990, and the other recreational facilities were built in 1993 and 2014.
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:
Justin Kaplan “When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age”, Penguin Books; 1st edition (June 1, 2006)
Greg King “A Season of Splendor: The Court of Mrs. Astor in Gilded Age New York”, Wiley; 1 edition (October 1, 2008)
Cecelia Tichi “What Would Mrs. Astor Do?: The Essential Guide to the Manners and Mores of the Gilded Age”, NYU Press (November 27, 2018)
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Water-themed designs like porpoises surrounding the cartouches and Neptune’s tridents decorate the facade — photo by Alice Lum As the 19th century drew to a close and the city’s poor crowded into cramped tenements, the problem of bathing was increasingly serious. In the Lower East Side in 1896 there was one bathtub for every 79 families.
Half a century earlier the public had demanded action by the city. By the time of the Civil War middle- and upper-class families in New York had begun bathing regularly, as the Europeans did. But the lower classes had no means to bathe. By 1858 the Committee for Free Public Baths had been formed, but nothing would be done about the situation for decades.
Even after the New York Senate passed a law on April 21, 1895 requiring that all first and second class cities create free public bathing facilities, Manhattan’s first bath did not open until 1901; governmental red tape miring the process.
Following the opening of the Rivington Street baths on the Lower East Side in 1901, the project gained momentum. In 1903 the City bought two lots at 538-540 East 11th Street in the Tomkins Square neighborhood which was populated mainly by German immigrants. Architect Arnold Brunner was commissioned to design a public baths. Construction was completed in 1905.
The first years of the 20th century were marked by the City Beautiful Movement. The philosophy behind it was that imposing, monumental structures would inspire citizens to behave consistently with their surroundings. Brunner’s baths would follow that viewpoint—a gleaming white Italian Renaissance structure with splashes of Beaux Arts ornamentation. Situated among the dark brown brick tenement buildings, it shimmered like a pearl. The building, constructed of Indiana limestone, cost the city $102,989.
The Bureau of City Betterment of the Citizens’ Union of the City of New York had laid out their instructions for proper public baths:
1 * People’s baths houses should look and be clean, feel warm, smell sweet and be quiet and orderly.
* Bathing is a means of safeguarding the public welfare by the prevention of disease and by the raising of the standard of personal cleanliness and morality.
By the maintenance of free public baths universal bathing is more nearly and most economically accomplished.
The 11th Street Baths followed these principals. There were two separate entrances; one for males and one for females. No proper Victorian would have mixed the sexes even in the lobby. There were 94 rain baths (today called “showers”), 67 for men and 27 for the women; and seven bathtubs, two for men and 5 for women. Bathers would bring their own towels and soap. Privacy was an important factor and each stall had its own changing room. Each person was allowed 20 minutes to bathe.
Male and female patrons had totally separate facilities — “Modern Baths and Bath Houses” 1908 (copyright expired) William Paul Gerhard, in his 1908 book “Modern Baths and Bath Houses,” noted that the 11th Street Bath was “the only bath in which the generally insufficient city water pressure on the second floor is taken into consideration, and in which provision is accordingly made for pressure and air tanks, supplied from steam pumps and air compressors.”
Privacy was assured by individual shower stalls, each with its own dressing area — “Modern Baths and Bath Houses” 1908 (copyright expired)
The first summer after the baths opened was insufferably hot. On the last day of June 1906 14 people died of the heat and The New York Times reported “it was the hottest June since 1901.” The indigent poor in the Tompkins Square neighborhood suffered. The newspaper noted “The east side, which has always been the worst sufferer in hot waves, again supplied the biggest number of heat cases yesterday.” To escape the heat people sought the cooling waters of the Public Baths. “At the Eleventh Street baths people stood in lines four deep,” reported The Times. “By and by the crush became so great that, despite the eighty-seven sprays and numerous tubs…the police reserves had to be called to preserve order. The lines broke, and as each batch came out of the baths two or three hundred rushed to get in. Order was finally evolved by the police and it was not necessary to make any arrests.” The public school system used the baths, as well. With no bathing facilities in students’ homes, shower baths were installed in public schools to promote personal cleanliness. In 1917 the Board of Education’s Annual Report noted “The public bath is located in 11th street near Avenue B. This bath supplements nicely our school shower baths and enable us to reserve the latter for pupils of the intermediate or lower grades.” In March of 1926 The Times remarked on the success of the city’s system of 15 public baths. “Tenants in houses that were reared along about the time when the only tub in town was the celebrated marble affair in the late mansion of the Vanderbilts, are using the city-owned showers and pools three or four times a week instead of once or twice.” Despite the newspaper’s optimistic attitude, it was obvious to the city that the poor were using the public baths to keep cool rather than clean. Patronage fell sharply off during the winter months. Gradually, private bathrooms were installed even in the tenement houses and the need for the free public baths eroded. By the middle of the century, only three public baths were in operation in the city, one of which was East 11th Street. Although in 1958 131,000 persons used the three baths, the city closed the 11th Street and 109th Street baths in money-saving move. Brunner’s miniature limestone palazzo sat neglected for three years, then it was sold in 1961 and converted into a parking garage. The steps into the arched men’s and women’s entrances were removed and ramps installed to enable cars to drive in. As the neighborhood declined in the next decade, with Tompkins Square park becoming a notorious drug center, the baths building became a warehouse. Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Eddie Adams and his wife Alyssa purchased the building in 1995. It was converted into a photography studio, the grimy façade cleaned and replacement gates to the arched entrances installed.
East Village’s landmarked Bathhouse Studios building is up for sale for $20M
Once a free public bathhouse, now transformed into studio space, the Bathhouse Studios in the East Village has been listed for sale. The landmarked Neo-Italian Renaissance style building opened in 1905, offering public baths to the nearby crowded tenements. (Back then, bathing facilities were non-existent in apartments.) People used the seven bathtubs and 94 showers up until 1958, when the building shuttered and fell into disrepair. In 1995, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Eddie Adams and his wife Alyssa Adams bought and converted it into a high-end studio and work space. And now, it’s a professional studio space you’re able to rent out, or outright buy for a hefty $19.95 million (h/t EV Grieve).
Cushman & Wakefield has the listing, noting that the studio has hosted brands like Lamborghini, Vogue, Gucci, Nike, Lacoste, Ketel One Vodka, and Ford. The ground floor, where bathers once entered, features 20-foot ceilings, oak floors, exposed brick, antique frosted windows, blue glass tile and glass block skylights with electric shades. Then, the 11-foot-high English basement consists of tile and cement floors, alongside antique glass framed doors.
Perhaps most importantly, the building comes with 10,000 square feet of air rights, which the new owners could either build up (without destroying the existing building, since it’s a landmark) or sell off. Either way, the building has seen huge improvements from its days as an abandoned bathhouse.
LOCATED ON THE NOW SOUTHPOINT PARK ENTRY. ED LITCHER AND ARON EISENPREISS GOT IT! Originally named Penitentiary Hospital and located on what was then known as Blackwell’s Island, the first hospital was built in 1832 to serve the prisoners housed at Blackwell’s Penitentiary. After the hospital was destroyed by a fire in 1858, architect James Renwick, Jr. designed a new building to be called City Hospital, on which prisoners completed construction in 1861. It served both inmates and New York City’s poorer population.[In 1870, the hospital was renamed Charity Hospital and a medical superintendent was hired after the quality of care was criticized.
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)
A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN 6SQUARE FEET
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The Cornell Graduate Hotel has opened. Who would have believed we would have a glam university campus, conference center and hotel? An impossible dream! Many dreams have been bruited about over the years on what this 147 acre bit of land in the East River might become. I wrote about several earlier, but today I’ll dig more deeply into one of the most important plans for the Island, the Johnson Burgee Master Plan.
First of all, what and when.
In 1966 Mayor Lindsay announced the city’s intention to develop Welfare Island. He also announced the creation of The Welfare Island Planning and Development Committee—a group of influential and interested New Yorkers, including Ralph Bunche, Mrs. Vincent Astor, the architect Philip Johnson and various city officials. The committee’s plan, financed by money it raised itself, was incorporated into the General Development Plan produced by Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s newly formed New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC), the agency responsible for building subsidized low-and moderate income housing throughout New York State, headed by Ed Logue. In 1969, the UDC issued a report reviewing the options for Welfare Island – and then the city told the UDC to carry out the committee’s recommendations to create a new community on the island. The UDC tasked Philip Johnson and his partner John Burgee with developing a master plan. Their plan was unveiled in October 1969, in a Met Museum exhibition “The Island Nobody Knows”.
Who?
Philip Johnson (1906–2005) was a key figure in modern architecture. Influenced by Mies van der Rohe, Johnson became a proselytizer for the new architecture and was a key figure behind the landmark 1932 MOMA show “The International Style: Architecture Since 1922”. In 1930, he founded MOMA’s Department of Architecture and Design and later, as a trustee, was awarded an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and the first Pritzker Architecture Prize. John Burgee (1933-) is an American architect noted for his contributions to Postmodern architecture. Burgee and Johnson established Johnson/Burgee in Manhattan in 1968, with Burgee as CEO. Burgee eased Johnson out of the firm in 1991, and it subsequently went bankrupt.
Their Master Plan
There would be no private cars. One main street would wind through the sections of the new island community. Two distinct “towns” would be separated by parkland: Northtown, a dense zone of horseshoe shaped apartment buildings, 4 to 12 stories tall, with numerous views of the water; next an area of park around the Blackwell farmhouse; and finally Southtown, with a town center of shops, offices, hotel and arcade extending across the island from a harbor to the subway stop. With the two towns both clustered tightly, a third of the island could be open space. The island’s remarkable buildings were to be preserved as “important landmarks”. The master plan underlined protecting the island’s grand vistas. A network of waterfront promenades and paths would serve pedestrians and cyclists. It laid out impressive ideas for “docks and harbors for water buses and taxis of the sort that have long and efficiently served Venice… and two glass-tower elevators for pedestrian access from the 59th St Bridge.”
Philip Johnson and John Burgee’s master plan for Roosevelt Island. From The Island that Nobody Knows, New York State Urban Development Corporation, 1969.
The roughly 5,000 units of housing for some 20,000 people would be well spread among the poor, the old, the moderate and middle incomed, and the well‐to‐do, with schools, library, daycare and community centers, churches and sports facilities of many kinds. There was to be accommodation for patients well enough to live outside of hospital and for hospital staff. The response was largely positive. To some, the plan seemed “to project a believable and appealing image of medium density urbanism, comparable to that of prewar Forest Hills or Kew Gardens…”
The masterplan was approved in October 1969 and the UDC immediately leapt into action, hiring architects for the housing, garage, commercial facilities, infrastructure, and parks.
The first phase of construction commenced in the summer of 1971 with 2,138 units of housing for 5,000 residents in four apartment buildings, along with streets, sewers and commercial space and a parking garage with a firehouse, post office, full-sized supermarket and retail. Rivercross Apartments and Island House, designed by John Johansen with Ashok Bhavnani were completed in 1975. Sert, Jackson & Associates designed Eastwood and Westview Apartments, completed a year after Rivercross and Island House.
With much reduced federal financing for housing under President Nixon, building plans had to be revised. Most significantly, the towers grew taller, and courtyards were cut off from the East River. Johnson’s master plan sought to maintain a human scale, with buildings not more than 10 stories. But the UDC analysis found buildings would have to reach up to 22 stories to meet the required density. Sert and Johansen’s buildings were able to retain Johnson’s human scale by gradually stepping the 22 story east-west sections back from the river, preserving the water views and capping the longer north-south portions that followed Main Street to seven stories. But Main Street seemed more of a canyon between higher buildings with few vistas of the water. Ada Louise Huxtable who had praised the original design now said that the “plan’s most felicitous features, the side views through to the water from the central north-south main street were lost, with the street turned into an almost solid wall of the highest buildings.”
John Johansen later wrote: “The urban plan by Philip Johnson proposed an angled central street with buildings as fingers reaching and stepping down toward both banks of the river. As his proposal did not deal with a realistic density, it was not literally a master plan, and the team’s studies resulted in building heights not 10 stories, as he intended, but 18 stories. Johnson was insulted and said, ‘That is no longer my Island.’”
Buildings were not only higher, but materials changed as well. Johansen continued, “At first we were encouraged to be highly innovative in our design and use of building technology. Later, as the corporation became fearful of construction costs and anticipated market resistance to anything other than conventional housing, we were advised to modify our designs. Rossant and Giurgola refused and they were fired. Sert and I somehow held course and, as good friends, coordinated our separate designs rather well. Later, with Adam Yarmolinski as director, we were advised that, for security reasons, courtyards of the upper income apartments must be barricaded against the potentially threatening lower income people across the street. As this contradicted Ed Logue’s central idea of an open neighborhood, I resigned as architect until this directive was finally withdrawn.”
Still, the impressions were not bad. In 1974, in the midst of construction, Anthony Bailey of the NYTimes, wrote “What the Johnson‐Burgee concept did was combine many of the desired elements—housing, parks, historic buildings—in a plan that honored the exhilarating island site, while letting itself be shaped by what was there: the river, the narrowness of the island, the Queensboro Bridge winging across it and the constraints of the two hospitals, which were too recent and too expensive to replace elsewhere.” And Johnson himself seemed OK with what was working out. Bailey quotes him, “I think they’re all doing very well. Force of events, money and the actual conditions have caused them to make changes in my master plan, but they’re following it as well as they can. Ed Logue’s got fine architects working on the job, and Logue’s a genius. He’s the only person who could get this done.”
So? Many years later.
Certainly – my view – what we got is not what the Johnson Burgee Master Plan depicted. Most important, Main Street became a deep canyon with very limited views of the water. The water front described in the Master Plan never materialized. But perhaps the essence of the Master Plan was preserved.
Looking in context, one critic (David Turturo) writes that “the re-imagination of Roosevelt Island, at the time, manifested an awakening of activist-architect-urbanists. New York’s new island town became a symbol of the nascent urban design (UD) movement, led by Sert himself. He established the first UD program at Harvard while GSD dean there in 1960…So Roosevelt Island was the perfect test site. In a city shaken by the civil rights movement, white flight, and an unpopular war, the site’s master planners Johnson and Burgee reached outside the box to build real change. They reconciled diverse concrete structures with historic landmarks to help create a real, vibrantly modern place. The result was striking and collaborative: refined, interwoven, and cumulative—a cross-disciplinary exemplar of urban design.”
And the island itself – notwithstanding the “what might have beens” – was viewed as a remarkable achievement. Robin Herman, in the Times, writes, “Just three and a minutes from Bloomingdale’s by way of the Tinker Toy colored tram, it is yet a world apart from the heat and bustle of Dry Dock country…” Of course, not everyone loved being a world apart.
This was a bit longer than usual. I’m sorry, and thanks for sticking it out.
The former USS Growler first opened at the Intrepid Museum in 1989 and is the only American guided missile submarine open to the public. Growler offers museum visitors a firsthand look at life aboard a submarine and a close-up inspection of the once “top-secret” missile command center.
ED LITCHER AND MITCH HAMMER GOT IT RIGHT
P.S. FIORELLO LA GUARDIA WIVES:
La Guardia married twice. His first wife was Thea Almerigotti, an Istrian immigrant, whom he married on March 8, 1919.
In 1929, La Guardia remarried to Marie Fisher (1895–1984) who had been his secretary while in Congress. They adopted two children.
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)
Chapter 8 Roosevelt Island, in Robert Stern, Thomas Mellins, David Fishman, New York 1960 (Monacelli Press, 1995)
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)
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Through foregrounding the growth, evolution, and creation of the organic materials found within Wave’s works of art, Webster brings the exhibit into direct conversation with the natural world. In addition, striking connections are made between the past and present. Wave is rooted in the historical art movements of minimalism and land art while simultaneously engaging with contemporary conversations surrounding nature, ecology, sustainability, and technology.
Curated by Alice Russotti and located in The Arts Center’s Upper Gallery, Wave masterfully connects the audience to its natural landscape components while highlighting the important role humans play within our planet’s ecological biomes. Drawing from a selection of pieces from Meg Webster’s career, which first began during the 1980s, Wave emphasizes the artist’s continued commitment to exploring nature in her work.
Largest Blown Spheres,Courtesy of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.Photo by Ian Douglas
“[Webster’s] passion and commitment to presenting [nature’s] radical content is intoxicating and drive’s one to learn more about the world around us that we so often not only overlook but also misuse,” Russotti said. “Through a visual language of poetic simplicity and physical directness, she shows us that the simplest of organisms exist because of a universe of wonderfully complex interconnecting systems.”
Moss Mound
Wave is split into six distinct sections. With nothing separating each from the other, visitors can move through the gallery as if they have become another living and evolving entity transplanted into its confines, only to later be returned to the outside world upon exiting. The first section, Waterfall, consists of projections of the Houston Brook Falls in Maine from 1996. The recordings perfectly capture the area’s idyllic landscape, honing in on the waterfalls‘ serenity. Directly in front of Waterfall is Largest Blown Spheres, a series of five blown glass orbs. Made from human breath, the orbs are the largest size possible without using artificial means, connecting them to one of the world’s most important natural organisms.
To the right of the orbs is Moss Mound—created in 2021 within The Arts Center. Reaching just below eye level, Moss Mound presents the rolling hills of nature in a beautifully condensed form. Its curves break up the gallery’s rectangular space. Adding to the gallery’s reflection on nature is Nearest Virgin Forest, a chorus of unedited bird and insect field noises that can be heard while traversing the space. First recorded in 1987 and then again in 2021, the sounds emanate from the Hutcheson Memorial Forest, one of the last uncut forests within the Mid-Atlantic region.
Growing Piece, Courtesy of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council,.Photo by Ian Douglas.
The final two works—Growing Piece and Pollinating Garden—both created in 2021, interconnect with their shared usage of organic materials, space, and time. At 54 feet long, Growing Piece sits across the gallery’s floor as a living nursery for plants located in Pollinating Garden, just a short walk away on Governors Island at GrowNYC’s Teaching Grove. Over the season, seeds germinated within Growing Piece will be transported to Pollinating Garden and elsewhere across Governors Island to continue their natural life-span while also serving the environment’s bees, butterflies, insects, and pollinating plants. In doing so, Wave is brought into direct conversation with Governors Island’s ecosystem.
“The unique context of The Arts Center and Governors Island is central to the work presented, providing audiences with opportunities to inquire into these systems and environments that bend, fluctuate and connect us, while creating possibilities for conversations and change,” Lili Chopra, Executive Director of Artistic Programs at LMCC, said.
Onyedika Chuke’s The Forever Museum Archive_Circa 6000BCE
Dismembered feet of Hermes in Reflection Pool, Courtesy of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Photo by David Gonsier.
The Forever Museum Archive_Circa 6000BCE project, located in the Lower Gallery of the Arts Center, focuses on creating social change in the context of the United State’s criminal justice system. Utilizing sculptures as an archival form of investigation, orphaning, and rehoming mythical markers, Onyedika Chuke works to expose the less visible but deeper psychological meanings they shroud. Co-commissioned by LMCC and Pioneer Works, the exhibition traverses the history of the United States’ penal codes from antiquity to today.
Chuke was inspired to create The Forever Museum Archive during his time collaborating with incarcerated individuals as a New York City Public Artist-in-Resident at Rikers Island from 2018 to 2019. There, Chuke fought to create better access to the arts and foster dialogue between New York City policymakers and individuals in custody. This connects to his installation’s larger goal of shifting debates surrounding the purposes behind the United State’s justice system to critically examine how it came to be and the powers which have kept it alive.
Labyrinth of Quaker church pews.
As Gabe Florenz, Curator for Pioneer Works, commented, “His work immediately stands out on a visceral level and once you start to look closer you realize there are layers and layers you can peel back.”
Upon entering The Forever Museum Archive, visitors are immediately introduced to a labyrinth of Quaker church pews. These pews connect to the Christian Church’s involvement in establishing the first institution for the punishment of criminals in the United States. A Renaissance painting—a tool commissioned by the Church to promote their belief system over all others—in the foreground further highlights the ways in which capital and religion intersect with the carceral system. Interspersed between the pews are two of Chuke’s new hand-sculpted works created in replication of the decapitated head and dismembered feet of the Greco-Roman deities Hercules and Hermes. In encasing these sculptures within the pews, Chuke works to subvert the mythologized notion of heroism in Euro-American philosophy.
Painting of the Death of Saint Anne by Fabrizio Chiari, Courtesy of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.Photo by David Gonsier.Severed head of Hercules, Courtesy of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Photo by Onyedika Chuke.
To the left of the gallery is another sculpture molded to resemble the structures of the human body’s thoracic spine. It serves as the point of origin for a series of plastic tubes pumping a solution of liquid soap throughout the exhibition. The cleaning product used was specifically chosen as it was produced by Corcraft Industries—the brand name for New York State’s Division of Correctional Industries. With Corcraft paying its incarcerated workers just 16 cents an hour, the tubes and soap were created by Chuke to critique the exploitation of prison labor. In a way, as the tubes travel across the floor, they could represent our body’s central nervous system, highlighting the pervasive cycle of oppression and injustice found within the United States today.
Thoracic spine inspired sculpture.
For Chopra, “As the site of The Forever Museum Archive_Circa 6000BCE, Governors Island is a potent stage for these layered and interconnected dynamics, as the land of the Lenape, the Island’s original inhabitants; in its later colonization and use as a military base; and presently as a space for public life and social engagement.”
Muna Malik’s Blessing of the Boats
Blessing of the Boats, Courtesy of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Photo by Muna Malik.
As the final exhibit on display at The Arts Center at Governors Island this year, Muna Malik’sBlessing of the Boats is an outdoor interactive steel boat-shaped sculpture. Over the years, Malik has worked to generate cultural awareness in connection to the arts, with her most recent work focusing on capturing the narratives of women and refugees of color through poetry.
Blessing of the Boats seeks to foster collective empathy and action through individual engagement by asking its viewers to consider the prompt: “We have an opportunity to set sail towards a new future—what society would you build and how do we get there?”
Side view of Blessing of the Boats, Courtesy of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.Photo by Ian Douglas.
To do so, visitors are encouraged to create origami boats in which they can write their answer to the suggested prompt before placing it into the crevices lining the sculpture’s structure. Inside the Arts Center, sealed packets with materials to create the boats can be found, allowing anyone to participate in the sculpture’s effort of collecting the thoughts and dreams of all its visitors.
MAYOR FIORELLO LA GUARDIA AND WIFE M. FRANK, JAY JACOBSON, GLORIA HERMAN ALL GOT IT
IF I MISSED YOUR NAME, WE WERE AT THE POLL SITE LATE TONIGHT!!
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
Be advised that the NYC Mobile Vaccine Clinic is on site to provide the COVID-19 vaccination to the Roosevelt Island Community.
The mobile van will be located in the Riverwalk area outside of 460 Main St., Monday, June 21st through Friday, June 25th, each day from 8 AM to 6 PM.
TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2021
The
396th Edition
From the Archives
What an artist captured
on
1950s Orchard Street
FROM EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
What an artist captured on 1950s Orchard Street
When Joseph Sherly Sheppard painted these three scenes of Orchard Street in the 1950s, this eight-block stretch of the Lower East Side was devoted to cut-rate commerce.
Unglamorous tenement storefronts jockey for space, merchandise spills onto the sidewalk, and sign after colorful sign advertised such utilitarian items like coats, linens, eyeglasses, and hosiery.
Orchard in the 1950s seems emptier than it had been in the early decades of the 20th century, when it was a packed Jewish immigrant enclave.
Commerce continues to reign on Orchard today, and some blocks still have the feel of a mid-20th century flashback. But like so much of today’s Lower East Side, this old city street (named for the orchards that once graced the 18th century DeLancey estate) is glammed up with new condos, restaurants, and trendier, higher-end stores. Older ladies carrying bulging shopping bags are a rarer sight these days.
Born in Maryland in 1930, Sheppard has had a long career as a realist painter. He painted unique scenes of humanity, from sunbathers to circus performers to grape pickers. Most of his work depicts places other than New York City. But something drew him to Orchard Street. Sheppard once again painted Orchard Street in 1982: it’s a scene outside a clothing store that displays its wares like an open-air market.
The 1982 painting is similar to those from the 1950s (the “I Love NY” shirt confirms its era): clothes hang over the sidewalk, pedestrians and delivery people go about their business, and the occasional curious customer contemplates a deal.
[First and second images: Artnet.com; third image: Invaluable.com; fourth image: Artnet.com]
Tags:Joseph Sheppard New York City paintings, Joseph Sheppard Orchard Street, Joseph Sherly Sheppard painter, New York in the 1950s, Orchard Street 1950s New York, Orchard Street Shopping 1950s
THE ICE CREAM FREEZER AT CORNELL TECH CAFE VICKI FEINMEL, LISA FERNANDEZ, JOAN BROOKS, GLORIA HERMAN, JINNY EWALD, & LINDA BECKER HAVE ALL HAD PERSONAL VISITS TO THIS SITE
OOOPS! WE FORGOT TO THANK THE 400 VOTERS WHO TOOK THEIR TIME TO VOTE EARLY AND SUPPORT THE EFFORT.
THANKS TO RICK AND DAVID FOR PUBLICIZING THE EFFORT.
JUDYB
A VERY BIG THANK YOU! THE LAST 10 DAYS WE HAVE PREPARED AND HAD A EARLY VOTING SITE AT SPORTSPARK. WE THANK REBECCA SEAWRIGHT FOR GETTING THE SPACE DESIGNATED BY THE BOARD OF ELECTIONS. WE THANK RIOC FOR THE USE OF SPORTSPARK WE THANK THE SPORTSPARK STAFF WHO WERE GREAT HOSTS WE THANK PSD FOR GETTING US IN THE BUILDING AND PATROLLING. WE THANK NYPD FOR BEING ON SITE EVERY DAY WE THANK CORNELL TECH FOR BEING SUCH GREAT NEIGHBORS AND THE CORNELL CAFE FOR FEEDING US. WE THANK GRADUATE HOTEL STAFF FOR WELCOMING ALL OUR CURIOUS WORKERS. WE THANK FOODTOWN FOR REFRESHMENTS WE THANK EVERYONE WHO MADE MANY OF OUR OFF-ISLAND WORKERS WELCOME ON OUR ISLAND. THE VISITING POLL WORKERS WERE SURPRISED TO SEE OUR WONDERFUL ISLAND AND ENJOYED WORKING HERE. ALL OUR WORKERS WERE GREAT THE ONLY THING WE MISSED WERE VOTERS WE HAD SUCH A POOR TURNOUT OF VOTERS, THAT WE DOUBT WE WILL GET EARLY VOTING ON THE ISLAND AGAIN. JUDY BERDY
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff Sources
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
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
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
THE LAST 10 DAYS WE HAVE PREPARED AND HAD A EARLY VOTING SITE AT SPORTSPARK. WE THANK REBECCA SEAWRIGHT FOR GETTING THE SPACE DESIGNATED BY THE BOARD OF ELECTIONS. WE THANK RIOC FOR THE USE OF SPORTSPARK WE THANK THE SPORTSPARK STAFF WHO WERE GREAT HOSTS WE THANK PSD FOR GETTING US IN THE BUILDING AND PATROLLING. WE THANK NYPD FOR BEING ON SITE EVERY DAY WE THANK CORNELL TECH FOR BEING SUCH GREAT NEIGHBORS AND THE CORNELL CAFE FOR FEEDING US. WE THANK GRADUATE HOTEL STAFF FOR WELCOMING ALL OUR CURIOUS WORKERS. WE THANK FOODTOWN FOR REFRESHMENTS WE THANK EVERYONE WHO MADE MANY OF OUR OFF-ISLAND WORKERS WELCOME ON OUR ISLAND. THE VISITING POLL WORKERS WERE SURPRISED TO SEE OUR WONDERFUL ISLAND AND ENJOYED WORKING HERE. ALL OUR WORKERS WERE GREAT
THE ONLY THING WE MISSED WERE VOTERS
WE HAD SUCH A POOR TURNOUT OF VOTERS, THAT WE DOUBT WE WILL GET EARLY VOTING ON THE ISLAND AGAIN.
JUDY BERDY
Many tourists to Roosevelt Island think of it as a quickly modernizing two-mile long island with high-rises, a new Cornell University campus, and waterfront structures with views of Manhattan. Yet much of the island’s dark history has eroded away — along with some of its historic buildings. The Renwick Ruin was originally built in 1856 on the southern end of Roosevelt Island as part of a series of prisons and hospitals constructed on the island during that time. Designed by architect James Renwick, Jr. as the nation’s first hospital dedicated to the treatment of smallpox, the structure is breathtaking in its abandonment and stands as our city’s only landmarked ruin. As the building continues to slowly deteriorate, efforts to stabilize the structure and increase public access highlight the importance of preserving this rare piece of New York City history.
Recently released is the new short film Unforgotten: Renwick Ruin by artist Aaron Asis, Untapped New York’s Artist in Residence. Asis and his team at Green Ghost Studios were given special access inside the abandoned structure and the film showcases perspectives of the Renwick ruin that are rarely seen by the public. We’ll be hosting a premiere of the film in our upcoming event, Unforgotten: The Renwick Ruin on July 15th, featuring Asis and Stephen Martin, Founder of Friends of the Ruin and the former Director of Design & Planning for FDR Four Freedoms Park Conservancy. In the event, see rare video and photographic imagery from inside the remnant structure, hear from the experts associated with the Ruin about the value of the ruin for our city, and hear from the advocates working closely with the Ruin about current preservation efforts. The event is free for Untapped New York Insiders —get your first month free of membership with code JOINUS.
The Renwick Ruins are what remains of the Renwick Smallpox Hospital and later the Maternity and Charity Hospital Training School. The 100-bed hospital opened on what was at the time known as Blackwell’s Island. Although the smallpox vaccine first was developed in 1796, New York City still experienced large smallpox outbreaks. This was due in part to increased immigration from countries where the vaccine was not readily available. The hospital was specifically built on the island’s southern tip to quarantine the ill from the rest of the island and the city.
The new film Unforgotten: Renwick Ruin takes viewers inside the ruins and rubble of the site, showcasing from the inside the structure that had been neglected for decades. Through close shots and drone footages, Asis and his team reveal the true extent of the structure’s damage, calling for increased efforts for preservation. In the film, the dilapidated structure contrasts with the pristine Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, as well as the robust buildings of downtown Manhattan.
The team interviewed four people who have led efforts to increase awareness of the ruins. Judith Berdy, President of the Roosevelt Island Historical Society reflected on how “peaceful and tranquil” the island is, while Stacy Horn, author of Damnation Island noted how that quiet atmosphere may have meant the exact opposite for those at the hospital 150 years earlier. Susan Rosenthal, former president of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation noted that “boats would come from Manhattan to here with all the people they wanted to get rid of,” suggesting that Roosevelt Island used to be a place of segregation, not paradise. And Stephen Martin, Founder of the Friends of the Ruin, stated that the city has been obsessed with building “new shiny structures at every turn, but you have this very beautiful that’s actively decaying and the city almost doesn’t know how to respond to that.” Horn further reflected on how because few people know about the terrible conditions of patients in the hospital, her writing seems to “restore them” and uncovers the truth.
Until 1875, Renwick Smallpox Hospital, built in the Gothic Revival style, was a dark place. The hospital treated over 7,000 people a year, and about 450 patients died there annually. The deadly disease that killed millions would continue to take its toll on New Yorkers, and in 1875 the smallpox hospital was moved to North Brother Island since Blackwell’s Island had become too populated.
The building was converted into a nurses’ dormitory and training hospital, and in 1905 two Gothic Revival wings were added. The hospital had closed by the 1950s after the island became more urbanized and many nearby structures fell into disrepair. After years of inactivity inside the buildings, they became ruins, and it wasn’t until 1972 that it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In the 1990s, activists pushed to raise funds to stabilize the structure, but a section of the north wing collapsed in 2007. In 2009, ground was broken on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, which included plans for stabilizing the ruins. If all goes well, the Renwick Ruin would be open to the public following a $4.5 million stabilization project.
GENERAL GORDON GRAINGER WHO FREED THE LAST SLAVES IN GALVESTON, TEXAS
JAY JACOBSON, ED LITCHER, ROBIN LYNN AND M. FRANK ALL 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)
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
On June 19, 1865, enslaved African-Americans in Galveston, Texas, were told they were free. A century and a half later, people in cities and towns across the U.S. continue to celebrate the occasion.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Derrick Bryson Taylor June 16, 2021 This story was first published in 2020. It was updated in June 2021.
Juneteenth, an annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, has been celebrated by African-Americans since the late 1800s. But in recent years, and particularly following nationwide protests over police brutality and the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and other Black Americans, there is a renewed interest in the day that celebrates freedom. The celebration continues to resonate in new ways, given the sweeping changes and widespread protests across the U.S. over the last year and following a guilty verdict in the killing of Mr. Floyd. Here’s a brief guide to what you should know about Juneteenth.
What is Juneteenth?
On June 19, 1865, about two months after the Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Va., Gordon Granger, a Union general, arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform enslaved African-Americans of their freedom and that the Civil War had ended. General Granger’s announcement put into effect the Emancipation Proclamation, which had been issued more than two and a half years earlier on Jan. 1, 1863, by President Abraham Lincoln.
The holiday received its name by combining June and 19. The day is also sometimes called “Juneteenth Independence Day,” “Freedom Day” or “Emancipation Day.”
How is it celebrated?
The original celebration became an annual one, and it grew in popularity over the years with the addition of descendants, according to Juneteenth.com, which tracks celebrations. The day was celebrated by praying and bringing families together. In some celebrations on this day, men and women who had been enslaved, and their descendants, made an annual pilgrimage back to Galveston.
Celebrations reached new heights in 1872 when a group of African-American ministers and businessmen in Houston purchased 10 acres of land and created Emancipation Park. The space was intended to hold the city’s annual Juneteenth celebration.
Today, while some celebrations take place among families in backyards where food is an integral element, some cities, like Atlanta and Washington, hold larger events, like parades and festivals with residents, local businesses and more.
While celebrations in 2020 were largely subdued by the coronavirus pandemic, some cities this year are pressing forward with plans.
Galveston has remained a busy site for Juneteenth events over the years, said Douglas Matthews, who has helped coordinate them for more than two decades.
In 2021, the city will dedicate a 5,000 square-foot mural, entitled “Absolute Equality,” on the spot where General Granger informed enslaved African-Americans of their freedom. The city will also mark the holiday with a parade and picnic. Events and activities in Atlanta this year have been scaled back, but organizers have made plans for a parade and music festival at Centennial Olympic Park. Similar events are scheduled in Annapolis, Md.; Chicago; Detroit and Los Angeles.
THE FAMOUS HANGING CHAD COUNT IN FLORIDA IN THE 2000 ELECTION JAY JACOBSON, ARLENE BESSENOFF, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, NINA LUBLIN ALL TO 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 Roosevelt Island Historical Society
THE NEW YORK TIMES (C)
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
