I have breakfast on my balcony most mornings, looking across at Queens (I’m in the Rivercross 03 line). I’ve watched, fascinated by the growth of Long Island City, and I’ve tentatively put my toe in, writing about LGA, Ravenswood and William Steinway. But it’s time to take a deeper dive into Queens.
Let’s begin with infrastructure, how the railroad and then, the subway transformed Queens (what I call the growth of “Steel Rail Suburbs”) and then a second essay looking at Garden Cities, an interesting subcategory of the growth of Queens.
In 1900, Queens was mainly rural, the largest of the City’s five boroughs by area, but with only about 4% of its population (a bit more than 150,000 people). Clifton Hood writes that “Queens was so far removed from the hectic pace of city life that contemporary guidebooks encouraged Manhattanites to take day trips there” to see close up country life.
The sudden expansion of rapid transit changed Queens forever. When the Pennsylvania Railroad purchased the Long Island Rail Road in 1900, then electrified it through Queens in 1905-1908, and opened the Penn Tunnels under the East River in 1910, it brought virtually the whole of Queens within the suburban commuting zone of Manhattan. The Queensboro Bridge in 1909 would soon bring autos to Queens and, finally, the long delayed opening of the Steinway tunnel led the IRT into the borough.
Of course, exceptions.
Some parts of Queens were already developing. Beginning in the early 19th century, affluent New Yorkers constructed large residences in what became known as Astoria Village (now Old Astoria). Hallet’s Cove, incorporated in 1839 was a noted recreational destination and resort for Manhattan’s wealthy. The area was renamed for John Jacob Astor to persuade him to invest in the neighborhood. He only invested $500 and never visited, but the name stayed. Astoria was connected on the Sylvan ferries that ran from downtown to Harlem, then another community of wealthy New Yorkers. And industrial developments also grew along the East River where supplies came by boat – think of Steinway, his factory and the community he developed.
The suburban movement
By the mid-19th century, commuter railways using steam locomotives (essentially short-haul passenger rail) connected affluent residents living in small suburban areas to places of work and entertainment in large cities. Some purchased summer homes, away from the heat and smell of the City. Year round upper-middle-class towns, such as New Rochelle and Scarsdale, grew with commuter rail service to New York City. Railroad companies and real estate developers encouraged New Yorkers to move away from the city, boasting less noise and congestion, lower costs, quick and comfortable train rides, more light, fresh air, and healthfulness, and even more births than deaths.
Harper’s Weekly, August 5, 1893
The suburban movement intensified in the early 20th century. New York City was one of the most crowded places in the world (with a population density of 161 per acre, compared with 32.5 in Brooklyn and 3.8 in Queens). A rising middle class confronting massive building projects and huge numbers of immigrants looked to move further out of town. (In an earlier essay, I wrote about how the Williamsburg Bridge (1903) was an escape route for many people packed into the lower east side.) Queens would be a rising target. Forest Hills (1906,) South Ozone Park (1907), Howard Beach (1911), and Kew Gardens (1912) were some of early Queens towns.
The expanding subway system, especially the opening of Queens to five-cent fare service, soon brought much of northern and southwestern Queens within reach. In June 1915 the Interborough service opened to Long Island City and later Queensboro Plaza (1916,) and Astoria (1917). Another branch extended along Queens Boulevard and the newly laid out Roosevelt Avenue, reaching Corona in 1917 and Flushing in 1928. In southern Queens, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company built an elevated line along Liberty Avenue through Ozone Park and Woodhaven to Richmond Hill in 1915 and along Jamaica Avenue from the Brooklyn border through Woodhaven and Richmond Hill to Jamaica during 1917-1918. Now, instead of the hour-and-a-half streetcar and ferry ride just to get to Manhattan’s shore, in 22 minutes, commuters could be in the center of the city.
Promoting the possibilities of an idealistic country lifestyle, many suburb guides and advertisements offered would-be commuters practical information for relocating such as details on new real estate developments, communities along train lines, and descriptions of towns and their amenities. Social reformers in New York joined a wider movement emerging from England to create new healthy “garden cities”. I’ll write on this movement next.
Most of these weren’t one-off home developments. Rather than a rush of small transactions and construction shortly before and after the lines opened, big developers such as the Queensboro Corporation bought great blocks of land, then built and marketed the homes themselves. The companies aggressively advertised their offerings, stressing their public transit connections.
Queens was no longer a sanctuary for wealthier New Yorkers. Cheap, rapid and reliable transportation and the construction of many smaller single family homes and larger apartment buildings drew a much wider array of middle class New Yorkers. Indeed, the agreement among the city and subway lines called the Dual Contracts forced the IRT and BMT to invest in lines in areas where there would be no riders at first to win lucrative routes through the core areas of Brooklyn and Manhattan – what became a “build it and they will come” strategy. The vast expanses tapped by those lines kept land prices low enough that developers could make a profit putting up single- and two-family homes and apartment buildings in these neighborhoods.
The Queensboro Corporation’s 350-acre Jackson Heights development was a model. After the Flushing line reached the area in 1917, the company began building cooperative apartment blocks that formed walls around large, private gardens for residents. In ads, the company played up the 22-minute commute to Grand Central.
The target customers for the Queensboro Corporation were middle class residents of New York who could afford to live in the suburbs. In contrast to traditional suburbs of single-family houses, the Queensboro Corporation decided to build upscale apartment buildings distinguished by shared garden spaces. The apartments were of high quality with ornate exteriors and features such as fireplaces, parquet floors, sun rooms and built-in bathtubs with showers. The apartments, or “homes”, were sold rather than rented under what was first called a “collective ownership plan”. This was later changed to “cooperative ownership”, probably because the first name had connotations of socialism.
During the years that followed, the interests of the Jackson Heights community and the Queensboro Corporation were closely intertwined. The local newspaper sometimes sounded like the voice of the corporation. The corporation encouraged development of the commercial area that surrounded the 82nd Street subway station, and assisted in setting up a community board to ensure the growth of civic institutions and churches. In the early years, the community was organized around a policy of “reasonable restriction in accepting tenants thus bringing together tenants having ideals and living standards in common.” In plain English, this meant that Jews, Blacks, and perhaps Greeks and Italians were excluded from the community. Only white Anglo-Saxon Protestants were welcome.
During the 1920s, Queens’ population reached 1,079,129. By the time the main IND lines were completed in the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn in 1940, the subway had succeeded in mitigating the worst of the overcrowding in Manhattan. The city’s total population rose 56 percent from 1910 to 1940, but Manhattan’s fell 19 percent, and the most crowded neighborhoods, such as the Lower East Side and East Harlem, saw bigger drops.
No sooner had this outward movement begun than commuters’ tales of woe commenced. And soon, Manhattan’s population would be doubled each day as commuters flooded into the city.
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY NEW SEATING ON WESTERN SIDE OF THE SOUTHPOINT PARK
VICKI FEINMEL AND GLORIA HERMAN 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 Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
Clifton Hood, 720 Miles; The Building of the Subways and How They Transformed New York (1993)
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American Art’s exhibition Ralph Fasanella: Lest We Forget will open at the American Folk Art Museum in his home city of New York on September 2, 2014, celebrating both the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth as well as the soul of Labor Day as an American holiday of commemoration and honor. Folk and self-taught art curator, Leslie Umberger, writes about the artist and his connection to the ideas intrinsic to Labor Day.
The paintings that New Yorker Ralph Fasanella made between 1945-1995 are bold narratives of the working class. They are testaments to urban American life in the early and mid-twentieth century drawn from both personal and shared experience. Fasanella identified so strongly with the workers of America that he claimed Labor Day as his official birthday—making it known that to celebrate his life was to praise the achievements of the working class.
Fasanella’s parents immigrated to the United States in 1910 seeking a better life for their family. They were part of the immigrant wave that fueled America’s industrial age, an era when labor was cheap and plentiful and industrial practices were unregulated, unfair, and unsafe. As members of the working class became more unified, they fought for their rights with increasing success, and Fasanella learned from both his parents and his community how effective solidarity could be.
Fasanella was just fifteen years old when the stock market crashed and America was plunged into the Great Depression. To help the family get by, he took work as a delivery boy when he could find it. But the jobs never lasted and Fasanella increasingly came to believe that the Capitalist system was propelled only by greed. He became a dedicated activist, determined to fight for his rights rather than endure injustice.
The Federal holiday of Labor Day dates to 1894, but it wasn’t until 1923 that all states in the Union observed it, and in the 1930s the day meant to honor the societal contributions of the working class was reinvigorated by New Deal programs such as the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, which guaranteed the basic rights of individual workers, and the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 which limited working hours and fixed minimum wages. Fasanella was among hundreds of thousands who joined in the annual parade meant to show the strength and spirit of the masses.
Douglass Crockwell, Paper Workers, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.152
The paper plant where these men are laboring was the mainstay of Glens Falls, New York, where Douglass Crockwell had his studio. Crockwell, like many artists on the Public Works of Art Project who anticipated the public exhibition of his painting, proudly depicted the chief industry of his town. The workers are smoothing and stamping an enormous roll of newsprint, the plant’s principal product.
Crockwell noted that in this scene dominated by mighty iron machinery he took “some liberties with the human form” because “the whole composition of the picture requires hard structural forms.” By showing the workers as blocky figures that appear to be roughly carved out of wood, the artist visually likened the men to the source of the wood pulp from which they made newsprint. The workers appear powerfully identified with their work. The question “what do you do for a living?” became a poignant one during this time when so many had no answer. Crockwell, a busy illustrator for much of his life, recalled that when “the depression arrived . . . there wasn’t much work.”
1934: A New Deal for Artists exhibition label
Douglass Crockwell made a massive machine the focus of this image, operated by three workers. The geometric forms and dull gray colors of the men make them appear like components in the machine, and their concentration emphasizes the determination of many Americans to overcome hardships during the Depression. The suited figure on the left, however, represents the new managerial class, who controlled the men as well as the machines. His presence emphasizes the threat to hourly workers in the 1930s, as machinery grew more sophisticated and required supervisors rather than laborers.
Charles F. Quest, The Builders, ca. 1934-1935, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.1
This painting shows a group of busy workers on a building site, mixing mortar, hanging cabinets, and carrying supplies. Charles F. Quest was a sculptor and printmaker as well as a painter, and enjoyed the satisfaction of making things with his hands. Here, he painted a cheerful view of construction workers that celebrates physical labor and teamwork. The thick, gritty paint evokes the sand, cement, and rough-hewn wood of an unfinished building.
Harry Shokler, Waterfront–Brooklyn, ca. 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.121
This image shows a busy Brooklyn harbor with a view of Manhattan in the distance. Many artists during the 1930s focused on laborers and industrial scenes to emphasize the value of hard work in pulling the country out of the Depression. The smoking chimneys, groups of workers, and tracks in the snow evoke a sense of activity and perseverance in the face of hardship. To Americans in the 1930s, the skyscrapers of New York symbolized the city’s achievements and sustained the hope that the country’s economy would recover.
Arthur Durston, Industry, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.92
At the worst point of the Great Depression, more than fifteen million American workers were unemployed. Many who continued to work struggled to support themselves and their families. In Industry, Arthur Durston painted three dispirited women in the foreground walking away from the factories, while hunched, shirtless men toil in the background. The rooftops, pipes, towering chimney stacks, and smoke plumes appear to blend together to form one giant machine, of which the distant workers are just parts. The repetition of the women, men, and smokestacks (all are in groups of three) suggest the monotony of daily life. A newborn baby held by the most prominent woman symbolizes a hope for a better future and the ability of Americans to work through the Depression, but also a futility because the child will probably grow up to join the masses laboring in the factories.
Harry W. Scheuch, Finishing the Cathedral of Learning, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.42
Workers scurry like busy ants to complete the University of Pittsburgh’s lofty Cathedral of Learning. The men and trucks trample the winter’s snow into mud as they labor through the frigid winter of 1933–1934 to house much-needed new classrooms. Carpenters nail timbers together to finish the scaffolding. The main part of the structure rises at the upper right, already clad in limestone blocks, while masons are still covering the lower stories of the façade in stone. Behind the Cathedral of Learning stand the gleaming white columns of the Mellon Institute Building, which was also under construction.
Artist Harry Scheuch painted the Cathedral of Learning twice for the PWAP. The first image is a close-up view of the masons at work(1964.1.157), while this second painting (1964.1.42) is a more distant view that reveals the horde of workers involved. Together the two paintings tell the story of this mighty undertaking. The forty-two-story structure was not substantially completed until 1937, and some interior work continued for decades after that. Like the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge, the Cathedral of Learning demonstrated that the Great Depression could not stop Americans from accomplishing great things.
1934: A New Deal for Artists exhibition label
Harry W. Scheuch painted this image in 1934, three years before the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh was finished. The cathedral was built to solve the university’s problems with overcrowding and to “convey a mood of power” to both students and residents of the city (Brown, The Cathedral of Learning, Exhibition Catalogue, 1987). The workers scurry around the base like ants, carrying equipment back and forth to the giant structure, which is the second tallest educational building in the world after Russia’s Moscow State University. The project struggled for money during the Depression, and hundreds of schoolchildren contributed dimes to “buy a brick” and help complete the work. Here, Scheuch emphasized the dramatic scale of the cathedral against the tiny workers to show what can be achieved when people work together.
Ferdinand Lo Pinto, Native’s Shack, Ketchikan, Alaska, 1937, gouache on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U. S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.210
Marcy Woods, The Oro Plata, Murphy’s Camp, California, 1934, oil on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.116
NYC Vaccine Hub – Long Island City Wheelchair access Community Health Center/Clinic 5-17 46th Road,** Queens, 11101 (877) 829-4692 Vaccines offered: Pfizer (12+) Johnson & Johnson (18+) $100 incentive available Walk-up vaccinations available to all eligible New Yorkers FIRST DOSE APPOINTMENTS AVAILABLE! THIS SITE IS OPEN THURSDAY THRU SUNDAY ** TWO BLOCKS FROM NYCFERRY LANDING
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)
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
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Red Grooms, Gertrude, 1975, color lithograph and collage on paper mounted on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Kainen and museum purchase through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, 1975.3
Red Grooms, Aarrrrrrhh, 1971, color lithograph, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Harry W. Zichterman, 1973.
FROM ARTNET: Red Grooms is an American artist known for his painted-collage sculptures of both fictional and observed scenes. Characterized by his distinctive stylization and humorous portraits of people, Grooms’s works are constructed from illustration board and a hot glue gun, pieced together into a believable physical space. “In the New York works I’ve done I have tried to make it a kind of portraiture thing where I was really trying to get the texture of what I thought I saw, particularly in the neurosis of the population, and present it in context with the props—the mailboxes, fireplugs, any texture of the city,” he has explained. Born Charles Rogers Grooms on June 7, 1937 in Nashville, TN, he went on to study at the Art Institute of Chicago, before moving to New York in 1956. There, Grooms befriended and exhibited with artists such as Alex Katz, Jim Dine, and Claes Oldenburg, gaining recognition for his unique take on Pop Art. In 1986, the award-winning film Red Grooms: Sunflower in a Hothouse was released, documenting the artist’s process and personality. Grooms continues to live and work in New York, NY. Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, among others.
WEEKEND PHOTO OF THE DAY
DOCKED IN ANABLE BASIN IN LONG ISLAND CITY IS THE PRUDENCE FERRY FROM BRISTOL , R.I.JUST IN CASE YOU NEED AN ESCAPE TO A FAR AWAY ISLAND, YOU CAN VIEW THIS SLIGHTLY BEAT-UP FERRY DOCKED ACROSS THE WAY.
FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
HORACE GREELEY IN CITY HALL PARK ANDY SPARBERG AND ED LITCHER GOT IT!!!!
Born into poverty, the son of an unsuccessful farmer, Horace Greeley began his career in journalist at the age of 15 in 1826 as a printer’s apprentice. He moved to New York City in 1831 and worked for several newspapers, saving his money and in 1840 embarked on a risky proposition–the founding of the New-York Tribune. The one-cent newspaper was four pages–a single sheet folded in the middle. After a long, rocky beginning it was a success.
In stark contrast to its great competitor, James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald, the Tribune refused to publish stories of scandal and sensational crimes. Greeley lobbied for reform, abolishment of slavery, and an end to political corruption. He served in Congress in 1848-49 and ran for President in 1872 as the Liberal Republican candidate.
Greeley died on November 29, 1872, before Electoral ballots were counted and just a month after his wife May’s death. Harper’s Weekly lamented, “Since the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, the death of no American has been so sincerely deplored as that of Horace Greeley.”
On May 19, 1888 The Evening World reported “The committee of printers interested in the movement to erect a statue to Horace Greeley will meet at 475 Pearl street to-morrow.” The project gained ground quickly and five days later The New York Times wrote, “A well-defined effort is being made by the union printers of this city and Brooklyn and the members of the Horace Greeley Post, Grand Army of the Republic, to erect a statue in honor of Horace Greeley in City Hall Park.”
On May 28 The New York Times advised, “Alexander Doyle, the artist, was selected to submit a design for the statue and it was recommended that the statue represent Mr. Greeley in a sitting posture. It is expected that a model of the statue will be completed in about six weeks.”
The chosen site for the monument was on Printing House Square. The Patterson Sunday Call wrote, “It will stand in City Hall park, just across the way from the magnificent building of The Tribune…Alexander Doyle, the celebrated American sculptor, has the work in hand.” The article said, “The statue will be placed on a granite pedestal of chaste classic design of the severest simplicity.”
The cost of the project was placed at “$15,000, perhaps more,” said the Patterson Sunday Call. (The figure would translate to about $420,000 today.) Newspapers reported on the fund raising and according to The Sun by the fall of 1890 $10,557 had been raised. It was no longer only typesetters and printers contributing to the project. The Horace Greeley Statue Committee published the names of wealthy New Yorkers like Levi P. Morton and Cornelius N. Bliss as they donated funds. James Gordon Bennett, once Greeley’s greatest rival, donated $1,000.
At some point two significant changes were made to the plan. First, the well-known sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward took over the project. Secondly, the location was changed from City Hall Park to directly in front of the Tribune Building.
The unveiling was held at 11:00 on September 20, 1890. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Printing House Square in New York is no longer without a memorial of Horace Greeley, who did more than any other one man to make the spot famous.” Chauncey M. Depew was the “orator of the day,” according to the New-York Tribune. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle said, “After Mr. Depew’s speech Miss Gabrielle Greeley, Horace Greeley’s daughter, pulled the cord, the flags which had enveloped the statue dropped away, the crowd cheered, the band played ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and the ceremonies were over.”
from the collection of the New York Public Library
Ward’s design closely followed that of Doyle, which had originally been approved. Greeley was depicted in a sitting position in a heavily-fringed Victorian easy chair. He held a copy of the New-York Tribune loosely over his knee, as if in deep thought. Gabrielle Greeley later recalled that Ward “spent hours studying my father as he worked in his office [and] after his death took a mask of his face.” The polished Quincy granite base was designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt.
from the collection of the New-York Historical Society
In 1915 the Tribune leased the corner, ground floor space in its building to a drugstore. The deal included the remodeling of the storefront and that presented a problem. On June 13 The New York Times explained “An up-to-date American druggist cannot display the latest concoctions of ice cream and fruit flavors with a twenty-foot statue right where a show window ought to be.”
The New-York Tribune was deeply concerned that the statue of its founder be relocated to a proper place. “It is the hope of the officers of The Tribune Association and many others who revere the memory of Mr. Greeley for the great work which he accomplished by his public services that a new site may be found for the statue, as least as near to the scene of Mr. Greeley’s journalistic labors as the City Hall Park,” said an article on September 21, 1915.
No one was more concerned than Gabrielle Greeley, the last of the Greeley family. When a proposal to move the statue to Battery Park was suggested, she responded with an open letter to New Yorkers, published in The Sun on December 24. It said in part, “I do appeal to you not to have my father’s statue buried in an out of the way obscure park…let his statue rest somewhere in Printing House Square, that his feet trod so often in his busy life.” She ended her letter with an emotional plea, “Again, as the work of a great American sculptor, as a remarkable likeness of a characteristic American, let it not pass into obscurity, O people of this city and of his heart.”
The decision was finally made to relocate the statue to the exact spot for which it was originally intended–City Hall Park directly across from the Tribune Building. In 1922 The Evening World romantically mused:
It is only a couple of years since the statue of Horace Greeley was shifted from the barren surroundings of the Tribune doorway to a little green spot in City Hall Park, on the Park Row side near Chambers Street. The trees here now have grown up around the worthy old gentleman and he sits as he liked to in life, amid a leafy bower.
A century later the description applies. The statue of Greeley is considered by many to be among Ward’s best works.
non-credited photographs taken by the author
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
SMITHSONIAN AMERIAN ART MUSEUM MARLBOROUGH GALLERIES ARTNET DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
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Today a friend and I were in Long Island City and passing by this industrial building on 46th Road, a few blocks from the NYC Ferry stop.
We inquired and the friend was eligible to get the booster vaccination.
The staff was courteous, friendly, efficient and the place is large, roomy and spotless. Within a short time we thanked the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene staff and we were on the way home.
NYC Vaccine Hub – Long Island City Wheelchair access Community Health Center/Clinic 5-17 46th Road, Queens, 11101 (877) 829-4692 Vaccines offered: Pfizer (12+) Johnson & Johnson (18+) $100 incentive available Walk-up vaccinations available to all eligible New Yorkers FIRST DOSE APPOINTMENTS AVAILABLE!
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2021
The
459th Edition
NEW ART PUBLIC INSTALLATIONS IN NYC SEPTEMBER 2021
FROM UNTAPPED NEW YORK
Image from CowParade installation at Bronx Community College. Photo by Rommel Demano.
From August 18 through September 30, 2021, God’s Love We Deliver will be bringing back CowParade to New York City. Known as one of the largest and most successful public art events in the world, CowParade has been staged in over 80 venues since 1999. The event features a series of colorfully designed cow sculptures displayed for public enjoyment. Over the years, around 5,000 cows have been created and were viewed by more than 250 million people. Following the end of every event, the cows are put up for auction, with profits given away to worldwide charitable organizations. Over the past 22 years, CowParade has raised more than $30 million.
This year in New York City, the cow sculptures will be placed in eight pastures across the five boroughs. These locations include Industry City, Hudson Yards, the New York Hall of Science, Bronx Community College, the National Lighthouse Museum, Rockaway Beach, Macy’s at 34th Street and Bloomingdale’s at 59th Street. The cows will be sold by Heritage Auctions to benefit God’s Love.
Experience The Times of Bill Cunningham. Courtesy of ESI Design.
Located at 26 Fulton Street at the South Street Seaport, Experience The Times of Bill Cunningham transports viewers into the vibrant world of famed street photographer Bill Cunningham. Today, Cunningham is known for his photographs of world-renowned personalities such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Anna Wintour and Andy Warhol on the streets of Manhattan. Over six decades, Cunningham captured shots of celebrities across a wide variety of environments including fashion shows, social events, and on the streets of New York City. The exhibit is inspired by The Times of Bill Cunningham, a 2020 acclaimed documentary by Mark Bozek and hailed by the Hollywood Reporter as being “a snapshot of a life that leaves you grateful for having encountered it.” Experience The Times of Bill Cunningham was designed by NBBJ’s New York Experience design studio, ESI Design and co-presented by Live Rocket Studio founded by Bozek, Creative Edge Parties and Blue Note Entertainment Group.
To bring the photographer’s work to life, Experience The Times of Bill Cunningham will feature large-scale reproductions of Cunningham’s most iconic photos, video, and audio interviews — including artifacts like Cunningham’s iconic Biria bicycle and his trademark blue french worker’s jacket. Across two stories, 18,000 square feet and six distinct faces, the exhibit will also showcase a grand staircase where guests’ outfits will be digitally transformed into a one-of-a-kind fashion statement. Additionally, guests can pose on a simulated city crosswalk just like the subjects in Cunningham’s work or relax on a bench made of milk crates and a foam mattress — alluding to the artist’s bed in his Carnegie Hall studio. Launching September 12 for Fashion Week, Experience The Times of Bill Cunningham will run through October 30, 2021.
Faces of Harlem by Sade Boyewa El. Courtesy of the artist.
Curated by Sade Boyewa El and Kate Sterling, Faces of Harlem is a multi-site outdoor photography installation. The project features 100 portraits of Harlem friends and residents, helping to document what the neighborhood has become 100 years after the Harlem Renaissance. Preparation for Faces of Harlem began in early 2021 when nine additional photographers from Harlem were invited to create portraits of the neighborhood’s residents to spark conversation, foster connections and build bridges between the community’s visible gaps. Particular emphasis was placed on highlighting work and people often underrepresented in Harlem, with an extra focus on the neighborhood’s African American and diasporic cultures.
Open through October 31, 2021, portraits from Faces of Harlem will be on display across four parks in Harlem: Morningside, Jackie Robinson, Marcus Garvey, and Rucker parks. Events pertaining to the installation will occur on the first Saturday of every month. Visitors will be given opportunities to respond to the images on view and share their own unique perspectives.
Founded in 2011 in Brooklyn, Photoville is a New York-based non-profit organization that works to promote a wider understanding and increased access to the art of photography. The organization was built on the principles of addressing cultural equity and inclusion in the art world with a focus on incorporating these practices in relation to gender, class, and race. Specifically, Photoville works to activate public spaces with the goal of giving visual storytellers a venue to tell their stories and viewers a chance to broaden their views on the artistic field.
This year, on September 18, the Photoville Festival will return to New York City for its 10th anniversary. As New York City’s free premier photo destination, the Photoville Festival will feature virtual online storytelling events, artist talks, workshops, demonstrations, educational programs, community programming, and open-air exhibitions across parks and public spaces. One exhibition at the festival will be Women in the Face of History — presented by the Department of Photography & Imaging and the 370 Jay Street Project at New York University to showcase America’s complicated history of suffrage. A second exhibition included in the programming will be Signs of your Identity — a selection of portraits of Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian survivors of the US government’s Indian Boarding School system by artists Catherine Blackburn, Gregg Deal, Mo Thunder, and Daniella Zalcman. The festival will run through December 1, 2021.
The New York Public Library has always been more than just a repository of books. From the stunning architecture of its main building on 42nd Street (including pneumatic tubes!) with a site history connected to the Croton Reservoir, to more recent additions like the 2016 renovation of the Rose Reading Room and an adorable book train system, there is plenty of history and curiosity to take in — especially at the new Polonsky Exhibition, a new permanent exhibition that showcases the library’s most precious historical treasures.
Rehearsal by Claudia Wieser. Photo by Nicholas King. Courtesy of Public Art Fund, NY.
Scattered around the iconic terminus of Washington Street in Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Main Street Park section — where the Manhattan Bridge perfectly frames the Empire State Building — is Rehearsal, the public debut for Berlin-based artist Claudia Wieser. Presented by the Public Art Fund, Rehearsal will feature five distinct large-scale geometric sculptures made from mirror-polished stainless steel, reflecting the movements of visitors as they pass by. Ranging in height from 7 to 13 feet, the sculpture’s warm and cool-toned hand-painted glazed clay tiles define each sculpture. At the same time, they also echo the patterns of neighboring historic red buildings and Belgian-block paving stones. As a further connection to its surroundings, Rehearsal includes contemporary photographs of New York City and slides of a German family’s trip to the city from the 1980s. Reproductions of ancient Roman and Greek antiquities endow the installation, serving as a meeting place and theatrical setting much like ancient Roman forums once did. Moreover, the title ‘rehearsal’ draws attention to the interplay between visitors and artwork, suggesting that the sculptures and even life itself are ever-evolving processes. Rehearsal will be on display until April 17, 2022.
As Public Art Fund Associate Curator Katerina Stathopoulou (Rehearsal’s curator) states in the artwork’s press release: “Wieser is acutely aware that the sculptures will become part of the landscape of the city for a time and wanted to create a powerful synergy with the bustling surroundings of DUMBO. Building a dialogue between the public and the sculpture is an integral part of Rehearsal… Park-goers will activate the works by touching, resting, and seeing themselves and the city reflected as they weave their way through the constellation of sculptures.”
Barnum’s American Museum was located at the corner of Broadway, Park Row, and Ann Street in what is now the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City, from 1841 to 1865. The museum was owned by famous showman P. T. Barnum, who purchased Scudder’s American Museum in 1841. Wikipedia
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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In cities with growing populations and increased prosperity during the eighteen and nineteenth centuries, the demand for amusement venues rose dramatically. Leisure became an economic factor and show biz took off with a bang.
Urban pleasure gardens were recreational spaces that featured landscaped grounds, lights, fountains, grottos, music, and theater. Offering a variety of entertainments, they were open day and night.
In England, Vauxhall Gardens at Kennington once stood on the Surrey side of the Thames, a short distance east of Vauxhall Bridge, and was a popular place of public resort from the reign of Charles II to the end of the nineteenth century. In the early 1730s, Vauxhall was transformed into a fashionable favorite when Jonathan Tylers assumed the management of the Gardens. He introduced supper boxes decorated with paintings and statues. Vocal music was introduced in 1745, with some of the greatest singers of the day performing at the Gardens. In 1749 a rehearsal of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks attracted an audience of 12,000.
London set an example to Manhattan. New York’s Vauxhall Gardens were opened in 1767 on Greenwich Street by the Hudson River. Vauxhall was later relocated between Broadway and the Bowery (practically countryside at the time).
In 1825, William Niblo transformed a square block on Broadway into a pleasure garden lit by hanging lanterns. Later renovations included a theater where in April 1850 he presented America’s premiere of Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth with the legendary Italian operatic soprano Angiolina Bosio as Lady Macbeth.
Theatrical historians have pointed to Niblo’s Garden as the birthplace of the modern musical.
Niblo’s Garden
Irish immigrant William [Billy] Niblo started his career behind the bar, working for his future father-in-law David King who ran a tavern at 9 Wall Street and later at 6 Sloat [Slote] Lane.
An enterprising character, the young man went his own way in 1812 by opening the Bank Coffee House. Located at the rear of the Bank of New York, it became a center of commerce where private rooms were hired out for business meetings and social gatherings. The house prospered and was the scene of many sumptuous banquets. Green turtle was a specialty of the house.
In 1823 William changed his career. Having acquired the estate of the New York lawyer and race horse breeder Charles Henry Hall, he turned the grounds into a pleasure park and converted the stables into a saloon. The Garden occupied almost the entire block between Broadway and Crosby Street.
Niblo’s became the staging area for a range of entertainments: music, pyrotechnic displays, and balloon ascents. Guards were hired to maintain standards, prevent “improper” behavior, and keep out unaccompanied women. William’s brother John operated Niblo’s Hotel at 112 Broadway to accommodate visitors from afar.
Once a theater was added to the premises, Niblo took on the role of impresario. He offered a wide repertoire of performances, from sacred music to orchestral productions or trumpet competitions; from acrobatic acts to popular drama.
The attractions at Niblo’s included blind Joice Heth, an elderly enslaved woman who was exhibited with the claim that she was 161 years old and had nursed the infant George Washington. After making a few appearances with promoters in Kentucky and Philadelphia, she was sold to young P.T. Barnum in August 1835. It was his first venture into “show” business.
A fire in 1846 brought proceedings to a temporary halt, but three years later the Garden re-opened bigger and better than before. In 1855, Barnum contracted the tightrope walker Charles Blondin to tour America and appear at the Garden (four years later a massive crowd watched him crossing Niagara Falls on a rope).
By the mid-nineteenth century, Niblo’s was considered New York’s most fashionable theater. In September 1866 the playhouse staged The Black Crook. Written by Charles Barras, the historical melodrama included many special effects. The scantily-clad French dancers in skin-colored tights were a big draw too. The show ran for a record-breaking 474 performances and then toured extensively.
Musical Theater
The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was part of a European wide struggle for liberal democracy. Most governments suppressed any form of political dissent. As a result, secret political societies sprang up all over the Continent, plotting ways to blow up the existing order. Many of the leaders of the Hungarian Revolution were part of this network.
It came to an end when young Emperor Franz Joseph appealed to Tsar Nicolas I for assistance.
Fearing unrest in his own backyard, Nicholas agreed. The Magyar idealists were no match for the might of the Russian army and were crushed in August 1849.
Four years previously, Imre Königsbaum had been born in Budapest to a thriving Jewish clothing manufacturer and his wife. Encouraged by his parents, young Imre showed a talent for dancing. At the age of four he was already appearing on stage. His father’s participation in the Revolution ruined the business and forced the family to flee.
They settled in Berlin first, before moving to Paris. Having adopted the stage name Kiralfy, Imre and his younger brother Bolossy started touring Europe as Hungarian folk dancers with other members of the family. In May 1869 they traveled to New York and were eventually contracted to perform at Niblo’s Garden.
Their first foray as producers came in 1871 with the pantomime Humpty Dumpty at the Olympic Theatre, Broadway. They went on to produce extravagant stage shows with large chorus lines, elaborate costumes, and special effects. Their list of productions included the 1877 breath-taking Jules Verne adaptation of Around the World in Eighty Days.
In August 1873, the brothers first produced their own musical spectacle, reviving The Black Crook at Niblo’s Garden. It turned out to be an immense success. The Jewish partnership of Imre & Borossy Kiralfy introduced the concept of musical extravaganza to New York. Historians consider their version of The Black Crook a prototype of the modern musical as song and dance are organically interspersed throughout a unifying story line.
Yiddish Broadway
In Judaism, the interaction of language and music has theological significance. Melody and chant are integral parts of worship. There are specific tunes for morning, afternoon, and evening prayers. The Torah is not read during service – it is sung. This central place of linguistic musicality in Jewish culture continued even as Yiddish supplanted Hebrew over time.
Yiddish is a Germanic language with a strong Hebrew-Aramaic component and a vocabulary deriving from Slavic tongues. The exodus of East European Jews to New York put Yiddish in the spotlight. Verbal mastery led to a wealth of (political) journalism; the emergence of a distinct theater tradition; and the molding of wordsmiths. David Daniel Kaminsky (Danny Kay: of Ukrainian descent) and Melvin Kaminsky (Mel Brooks: of Polish-Russian descent) would be their legatees.
Modern Yiddish literature developed in the nineteenth century. Newspapers served as vehicles of social emancipation by publishing serialized novels, sketches and essays. The process of Jewish acculturation in New York was carried out through the institutions of the Yiddish language. From the 1880s New York’s Yiddish theater offered its audience an outlet to highlight and discuss the various challenges facing an immigrant population.
At the same time, most newcomers saw little sense in preserving the autonomy of Yiddish and were committed to adapt English in their determination to integrate. The stage played a crucial role in that process, while also providing the metropolis with some of its finest actors, playwrights, scenic artists, and comedians.
In Romania, composer Abraham Goldfaden had begun turning popular Yiddish songs into musical plays by connecting them with story lines. They proved a big success and he proceeded by adapting familiar Jewish narratives into lavish operettas. His work became the model for New York’s nascent Yiddish theater, beginning in the Bowery in the early 1880s, and later flourishing on Manhattan’s Second Avenue, the “Yiddish Broadway.”
The Kiralfy brothers beat all competitors with their flair for spectacles, producing musical performances with a huge cast of singers and dancers, against a background of superb decors painted by professional artists, and accompanied by sensational accessories and special effects.
Jewish settlers were instrumental in the development of theatrical entertainment. In the early twentieth century the traditions of New York’s vibrant Yiddish theater district first rivaled and then fed into Broadway. There would be no American musical without immigrant Jews.
Illustrations, from above: Vauxhall Gardens at Broome Street, its second location (1803); Niblo’s Garden, c. 1887; Around the World, 1882. (Library of Congress); Program from original production; Poster of the 1873 revival of the musical.
Inside the new Mignone Hall of gems and minerals at the Museum of Natural History, New York
Laura Hussey, Hara Reiser, Alexis Villafane know their gems!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
NEW YORK ALMANACK
JAY HERITAGE CENTER
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Artist Jennifer Angus presents Magicicada, taking inspiration from the museum’s collection of cicadas – one of the world’s largest. Angus has created an immersive environment to discover, full of exquisite and ornamental patterns and imaginative vignettes, unexpectedly created with hundreds of preserved insects.
Magicicada is the genus of seven species of periodical cicadas which emerge out of the ground in remarkable numbers every 13 or 17 years.
This exhibition celebrates not just cicadas but all insects, ‘the little things that run the world’ as described by renowned biologist E. O. Wilson.—Jennifer
MAGICADA PHOTOS BY CHRISTINE CRUZ MAGICADA IS ON EXHIBIT AT:
Staten Island Museum at Snug Harbor 1000 Richmond Terrace, Building A, Staten Island, New York STATENISLANDMUSEUM.ORG
Our first program with our partners the R.I. branch of the NYPL is on TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21st. The program with author Kim Todd will be at 6:30 p.m. There are two ways to enjoy the program: Watch on ZOOM at the Community Room at our NYPL branch Watch on ZOOM at home
Jennifer Angus: Magicicada is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Staten Island Museum is supported in part by public funds provided through the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and by the New York State Council on the Arts.
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