Do you remember the 3.9 magnitude earthquake that shook the New York City region on November 30, 2010?
No reason you should, unless you’re a seismologist. The US Geological Survey reported that the tremor occurred in the Atlantic Ocean, about 80 miles off the coast of Southhampton. The earthquake wasn’t big enough to do any damage or hurt anyone, and the Coast guard said there was no threat of a tsunami. It was the biggest earthquake for our area in 18 years.
Not a danger, but the 2010 quake wasn’t unusual. Five earthquakes have occurred in the same area in the past 20 years, including a 4.7 magnitude quake in 1992. New York, which is riddled with faults, has a long history of earthquakes: On average, the region has witnessed a moderate quake (about a 5.0 on the Richter scale) every hundred years. The last one was in 1884 and had a magnitude of approximately 5. For this earthquake, observations of fallen bricks and cracked plaster were reported from eastern Pennsylvania to central Connecticut, and the maximum intensity reported was at two sites in western Long Island (Jamaica and Amityville). Two other earthquakes of approximately magnitude 5 occurred in this region in 1737 and 1783.
“Riddled with Faults”??!?!? Some basic geology: At plate boundaries like the San Andreas Fault, scientists can often identify the specific fault on which an earthquake took place. In contrast, east of the Rocky Mountains this is rarely the case. The New York City area is far from the boundaries of the North American plate, which are in the center of the Atlantic Ocean, in the Caribbean, and along North America’s west coast.
But this doesn’t mean we are home free. The seismicity of the northeast is felt to be due to ancient zones of weakness that are being reactivated. In this model, pre-existing faults formed during ancient geological episodes persist in the intraplate crust, and earthquakes occur when present stress is released along these zones of weakness. The stress that causes the earthquakes is generally considered to be derived from rifting at the Mid-Atlantic ridge. Some experts feel that seismicity is scattered throughout most of the New York metropolitan area, particularly around Manhattan Island. What about faults?
Map of geologic faults lines in NYC region
The Ramapo Fault is viewed by some as a major seismically active feature of our wider region. The Ramapo Fault zone spans more than 185 miles in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
A 2008 study argued that a magnitude 6 or 7 earthquake might originate from the Ramapo fault zone, which would almost definitely lead to many fatalities and billions of dollars in damage. And by the way, just off the northern terminus of the Ramapo fault is the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. You don’t have to worry about this one – the plant was closed down in April.
Earthquake Likely?
By looking at the City’s past earthquakes, experts point to the likelihood of 5.0 or greater hitting the city soon. “Researchers say New York City is susceptible to at least a magnitude 5 earthquake once every 100 years, a 6 about every 670 years, and 7 about every 3,400 years,” writes one. “It’s been 134 years since New York was last hit by at least a magnitude 5.”
Damage worse?
As quakes go, a 5 would not be a big one. But earthquake damage could be worse here than out west. Why? One reason is the nature of our geology. The cooler rocks in the northeast contribute to the seismic energy propagating as much as ten times further than in the warmer rocks of California. A magnitude 4.0 eastern earthquake typically can be felt as far as 60 miles from its epicenter. A magnitude 5.5 eastern earthquake, although uncommon, can be felt as far as 300 miles from its epicenter.
But not just geology. “While uncommon, the earthquake hazard of the New York City metropolitan area has been assessed as moderate,” the New York City Area Consortium for Earthquake Loss Mitigation writes on its website. “Considering population density and the condition of the region’s infrastructure and building stock, it is clear that even a moderate earthquake would have considerable consequences in terms of public safety and economic impact.”
Only is 1995 were seismic provisions included in the Building Code, meaning that relatively few buildings currently located throughout the city were erected with earthquake protections in mind. 200,000 buildings in NYC are unreinforced brick, with the most located in Brooklyn. These are most vulnerable to an earthquake because the walls in these buildings are prone to collapse outward.
Also, much of New York City’s waterfront is built on fill that will be unstable in a quake. Other areas that rest on artificial fill vulnerable to soil liquefaction are JFK Airport and the World’s Fair site in Queens. The UES and Chinatown are the same and they also have many unreinforced masonry buildings.
Earthquake scene from the film San Andreas 2015
But that’s not all. Experts wonder how our City’s ancient infrastructure would hold up in the event of an earthquake. Rubble of crumbled brick and stone buildings will clog already congested roads, blocking first responders and public transportation. Tunnels? Construction on the Steinway tunnel began around the time of the last earthquake, long before seismic codes or even modern engineering practices. In the event of a quake, holes where the tunnel walls no longer reach the surrounding mud will cause the tunnel to rattle around. And because the tunnel runs through both the soft mud of the riverbed and the hard bedrock on either side, different segments are going to rattle around at different speeds and frequencies. More than a dozen tunnels like the Steinway connect Manhattan to New Jersey and Long Island. All are at risk of serious damage in the event of a quake. Yikes.
Fact is that the City is doing better. Since the first seismic building codes for NYC were passed in 1995, additional steps have been taken to mandate earthquake protections into NYC structures. The Department of Building’s City Construction Codes in 2008 aim to make buildings stronger, more flexible, and more ductile – able to absorb energy without breaking in a brittle manner. The Codes have sections on soil types and building foundations. Seismic detailing is required to enable a building’s joints, structural connections and piping to hold up during an earthquake. Critical facilities such as firehouses and hospitals were required to be designed to both survive an earthquake event and to also remain open and functional following one. In 2014, the DOB revised the Construction Codes to follow the model of American Civil Engineers Standard for designing and constructing seismic-resistant structures, which requires “that new buildings in New York City are designed so it is less likely they will collapse or sustain significant damage during an earthquake.” To account for the inherent vulnerabilities posed by the prevalence of soft soil that structures all across New York are erected upon, “building designs must account for site-specific soil conditions and building foundations, and must ensure that joints and structural connections are flexible. Special detailing for electrical and mechanical systems, building contents, and architectural components are also specified.”
Still, unless we are too comfortable, did you see the piece in a recent Sunday Times that only three of New York’s 25 tallest residential buildings — and none of the towers on Billionaires’ Row — have completed building safety tasks required by the city?
And while new buildings may be built to the new codes, the vast majority of buildings in Manhattan were built long before these codes were introduced. Retrofitting these structures to make them more earthquake resistant – not to mention our abovementioned infrastructure – would be quite a task.
But I’m not going to worry about earthquakes here. Except, perhaps, about the fault on our Island.
New Supertalls Test the Limits, as the City Consults an Aging Playbook, New York Times, October 1, 2021
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
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The Jerome Park Racetrack, once described as the “national race course of America,” was a thoroughbred horse racing facility from 1866 until 1894 in that part of Westchester County that was annexed into the Bronx in 1874. There is nearly no trace of this once esteemed track that hosted the Belmont Stakes for over two decades. It and the land surrounding it became the site of the Jerome Park reservoir, but part of the reservoir was never built and became home to several educational institutions. A walk around the reservoir today brings you to several charming small parks and Revolutionary War fort sites.
Jerome Park on race day, as pictured in Harper’s Weekly in 1886. Image from Library of Congress.
Financier Leonard W. Jerome (who was Winston Churchill‘s maternal grandfather; the “King of Wall Street;” and founder of the American Jockey Club, the most exclusive organization of its kind in the U.S.) and August Belmont, Sr. built a racetrack on 230 acres that Jerome bought from James Bathgate in 1866. The racetrack hosted the Belmont Stakes, the oldest Triple Crown race, from 1867 until 1889. The first U.S. outdoor polo match was held there in 1876. According to the New York Times, it was “one of the most famous and charming spots in America that has ever been devoted to the interest of sport” and “the nursery ground of the sport of thoroughbred racing” It featured a large dining room, magnificent ballroom, and clubhouse accommodations comparable to a luxury hotel. However, what began as an exclusive resort for the social elite, attracting the belles and social and financial powers of New York and the U.S., eventually degenerated into a money-making machine dominated by scandals and bookmakers that catered to the lower classes.
The racetrack was accessible by both road and rail. Central Avenue, a plank road, was laid out in 1874 and connected what is now the Macomb’s Dam Bridge with the racetrack. It was paved and expanded into a tree-lined boulevard to be named after a city alderman. Jerome’s outraged widow paid for expensive bronze “Jerome Avenue” street signs and hired workers to install them. The Board of Aldermen relented, resulting in the officially named Jerome Avenue, at 5.6 miles, one of the longest streets in the Bronx. (Jerome Avenue becomes Central Park Avenue and then Central Avenue in current Westchester County and runs all the way to White Plains.)
Leonard Jerome‘s one-mile Jerome Park Railway ran from 1880 to 1906. It was a spur beginning at the N.Y. & Harlem River Railroad just north of the present-day Mosholu Parkway bridge and ran to the racetrack station south of Burnside Avenue at the rear of the grandstand. The N.Y. Central Railroad operated racetrack shuttles and special trains from Grand Central Terminal. The 1879 rapid transit routes map shows the Jerome Park Railway crossing Central (now Jerome) Avenue. Parts of the railway’s route can still be seen today where several oddly shaped buildings were built along its right of way.
After the racetrack closed, the railway was used by the Jerome Park Reservoir contractor to haul away excavated material until 1906. The rail spur was extended four miles across the N.Y. & Harlem River Railroad tracks, through Bronx Park, and down Pelham Bay Parkway to the Meadows, tide lands formed by the head waters of Westchester Creek and Westchester Bay. A total of 3,200,000 cubic yards of sand, gravel, hardpan, and solid rock was dumped and filled in to a depth of 18 to 20 feet to turn the marsh into “valuable property.”
In 1875 the Jerome Park Reservoir was first formally recommended by the Public Works Commissioner and was included in Frederick Law Olmsted’s 1877 streets and parks plan. The Croton Aqueduct Commissioners decided to build the storage and distributing reservoir in 1884.
New York City condemned and purchased the racetrack in 1895 for the reservoir that was completed in 1906. The Morris Park Racecourse (in the Morris Park neighborhood), built by John Albert Morris, the Louisiana “Lottery King,” replaced the Jerome Park Racetrack, where racing ended in 1894. Morris Park opened in 1889, with Leonard Jerome as president.
The Jerome Park Reservoir is a major component of the Croton Aqueduct system built on the Old and New Croton Aqueducts. Most of the Bronx and Yonkers were surveyed to find an appropriate site close to the same elevation as the aqueduct at the reservoir site. This avoided loss of the water’s hydraulic head (or pressure) or the construction of extremely high reservoir walls.
The site selected was a natural depression in a high ridge of land that was excavated for an artificial basin. It contains 94 acres of 25-feet deep water and its two mile circumference is surrounded by 30 acres of constructed and landscaped earth. It became and remains the largest body of water in the Bronx. The reservoir has massive elegantly crafted Roman-inspired walls and brick and stone WPA-era Art Deco gate house superstructures with stone voussoir (wedge-shaped) arches below. The walls tower more than 30 feet above the reservoir bottom but are only 8 or 10 feet above the surrounding ground level.
The reservoir was designed with four separate basins divided by north-south and east-west roads. With the later construction of the Catskill and Delaware Aqueducts, it did not need to be as large as originally planned. In 1911 the state legislature authorized the building of the Kingsbridge Armory on the southern part of the eastern basins. Although excavation of the eastern basins began in the early 1900s, they were filed in and graded in 1912 and two roads were eliminated.
The Kingsbridge Armory
Numerous facilities were built on the unused reservoir site including the Kingsbridge Armory, Walton High School., Lehman College of the City University of New York (former Hunter College Bronx Campus that now includes High School of American Studies), Bronx High School of Science, DeWitt Clinton High School, early 1920s Jerome and 1930 Concourse Subway Yards (with Tracey Towers and Scott Tower apartments added over the yards), High Pumping Station, and Harris Field. The site was considered, but not used for the Museum of the Peaceful Arts.
The Kingsbridge Armory, reputedly the world’s largest, was built in 1912-17 on the site of the Bathgate home that was razed in the early 1900s. It is considered among the city’s finest brick facades. The city offered it to the United Nations as a temporary meeting place. The military turned it over to city management in 1996 and it has not had a permanent use ever since. Various failed redevelopment proposals have included a school, athletic center, shopping mall, and homeless shelter. The latest proposal is for the world’s largest indoor ice rink.
Lehman College
Lehman College was initially designed with nine collegiate Gothic buildings but only four were completed by 1934. During WWII its buildings were leased to the Navy to train 81,000 women volunteers for military service in the WAVES, becoming the main and largest women’s training site in the U.S. The U.N. held its first Security Council sessions in the gymnasium from March to August 1946. Lehman College sits directly behind reservoir walls.
DeWitt Clinton High School, opened in 1897 as the Boys High School in Greenwich Village, was renamed for New York governor DeWitt Clinton in 1900. It moved to Hell’s Kitchen in 1906 and then to the Bronx in 1929. With 12,000 students, it was said to be the largest high school in the world in 1934. (In 1935, an annex of DeWitt Clinton was located at the 1918 Evander Childs High School building at Creston Avenue and 184th Street and also served as the original home of Bronx Science in 1938 and then housed Walton High School in 1930.) DeWitt Clinton was the last gender-segregated public school in New York City until 1983. In 1999 US News and World Report named it as one of 96 outstanding schools in America.
The High Pumping Station on Jerome Avenue south of Mosholu Parkway South is an historic neo-Romanesque red brick building with a slate gable roof. It was built 1901-06 as part of the Jerome Park Reservoir complex. It was used to provide increased water pressure for tall buildings.
One of the more interesting proposed but unbuilt facilities was the “Museums of the Peaceful Arts.” In 1912 mineralogist and mineral collector George F. Kunz (in association with Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Robert Peary, Jacob H. Schiff, and Henry E. Huntington) proposed twenty museums (including a stadium, library, and meeting rooms) devoted to industry and learning either in Riverside Park or near the Jerome Park Reservoir. Estimated to cost $20 to $25 million, they would be the largest museum complex in the world. Incorporated in 1914 with a $1 million bequest from engineer and head of the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company, Henry R Towne, to illustrate industrial progress, it began with a few exhibits at 24 West 40th St. in about 1920.
In 1930 it moved to the Daily News Building at 220 E. 42nd St. In 1930 the N.Y. Times opined that “In time, perhaps, the enlarged museum may rival in importance of Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History and hold its own with such famous institutions as the Deutsches Museum of Munich, the Science Museum of London and the Technical Museum of Vienna.” In the 1930s the 20-museum complex plans were scrapped and the collection was transferred the New York Museum of Science and Industry and the endowment given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History.
The reservoir area was the site of several Revolutionary War forts and is now the site of four parks. Jerome Park, along the north and northeast sides of the reservoir, was opened as a park in 1940. Fort Independence Playground, at the northwest corner of the reservoir, came under Parks Department jurisdiction in 1915. It has a plaque commemorating Fort Independence that was located nearby. Its elevated site gave an extensive view of the surrounding countryside. Historic markers describe the Revolutionary War and transformation of the land since then.
Washington’s Walk, along the southern side of the reservoir, was a defensive palisaded earthwork redoubt atop a schist outcrop. Old Fort Four Park, at the southwest corner of the reservoir, was the largest fortification in the area. It also had an extensive view and is now marked by a flagstaff and bronze tablet. A playground opened in 1934.
The story of the Jerome Park Racetrack, its rise, fall and rebirth as a reservoir and site for institutional buildings, tells the story of a certain point in time in Bronx’s history (and the city as a whole). The Bronx shifted from a land of Gilded Age estates, where the upper crust of American society would gather for leisure activities like horse racing and the racetrack was taken over to provide essential services for a growing city that had a need for clean water, outdoor space, and educational institutions.
Street level view West on 34th St looking up to the Second Ave El station over the 34th St Spur Second Ave station.
HELP US MOUNT THIS HISTORIC PLAQUE IN THE KIOSK
We have just acquired this wonderful plaque from the Elevator Storehouse Building. We need your help to pay for the mounting of this 130 pound bronze tablet in the kiosk
To donate online go to www.rihs.us, choose donations and select amount.
You can send us a check to: R.I.H.S., P.O. BOX 5, NY NY 10044
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
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On June 23, 1909 The New York World reported, “The largest apartment house in the world is being built on a site covering the entire block bounded by Eighty-sixth and Eighth-seventh streets, Broadway and Amsterdam avenue…It will be known as the Belnord. It will house a community as large as that of many a town.”
The Belnord was rising at a time when many affluent families were giving up private homes for the conveniences of sumptuous apartments. On August 1, 1908 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide noted that The Belnord would not only be the largest, but “one of the highest grade apartment houses in the world.” The Belnord Realty Company had hired the architectural firm of Hiss & Weekes to design the leviathan structure that the New York World said “will contain 175 apartments, with 2,080 rooms, and the number of occupants, including servants will be 1,225.”
Completed in 1909, the 12-story brick and Indiana limestone Belnord was designed in the Italian Renaissance style. Notable was the large, landscaped courtyard, accessed by two arched carriage entrances on 86th Street (one for incoming and the other for outgoing vehicles), and a “footway entrance” on Broadway. Residents were not subject to public view in alighting from their carriages or cars. “All the entrances to the building proper open into the garden court,” said an advertisement. There were four entrances in the courtyard, one at each corner.
The court was accessed by two carriage entrances on 86th Street (bottom) and a pedestrian entrance on Broadway (left). Entrances into the building were at each interior corner. The Record & Guide, November 7, 1908 (copyright expired)
The smallest of the apartments contained seven rooms. Suites came with “two, three and four bath rooms and two or three servants’ rooms and baths, according to the size of the apartment,” said an advertisement. For those families needing extra servants rooms, those were available elsewhere in the building.
To ensure residents a good night’s sleep, almost all the bedrooms faced the courtyard. Management explained, “the width of the court is greater than that of the average city street, thereby securing more privacy, quiet and sunlight.”
Each apartment had windows on the street and the courtyard. from The World’s New York Apartment House Album, 1909 (copyright expired)
The New York Times noted on September 4, 1908, “A remarkable feature of the house will be its sub-courtyard, which will lie beneath the central court and will be lighted with skylights and gratings. No tradesmen’s wagons will be allowed to drive into and stand around in the main courtyard, but will drive down into the sub-courtyard by means of an inclined driveway from Eighty-seventy Street.”
from The World’s New York Apartment House Album, 1909 (copyright expired)
Residents would enjoy the latest in domestic amenities. “All kitchens and pantries are equipped with specially designed gas ranges, porcelain-lined refrigerators and sundry other modern devices…including a garbage receptacle built in the wall and ventilated,” said an advertisement. The built-in refrigerators were capable of producing “ample ice for table use.” Each apartment had a wall safe.
Domestic Engineering explained, “These refrigerators are attached to a refrigerating coil and do not use ice’ the refrigerator is built in the wall, thus giving enlarge space in the room.” December 25, 1909 (copyright expired)
The New York Times wrote, “The interior decorations of each apartment will be in the style of Louis XVI. The doors will be of solid mahogany. The floors will be of hard wood.” While there was a laundry on the roof with “individual tubs, ironing boards, and lines for each tenant,” wash tubs in the kitchens provided maids the convenience of doing quick small jobs.
Rents in The Belnord in 1909 started at $2,100 per year–or about $5,125 per month in today’s terms.
Among the initial tenants were John Jacob Taylor and his wife, the former Caroline Clarke. His grandfather, John Bloomingdale Taylor, had been the manager of John Jacob Astor’s estate. Born in 1845, The Yonkers Statesman said he “spent his early boyhood in New York City and Newport, and his early manhood in traveling around the world.” He lived on significant inherited wealth. “He never engaged in business,” said The Yonkers Statesman following Taylor’s death in his apartment on March 24, 1911.
The courtyard featured a fountain and manicured gardens. from The World’s New York Apartment House Album, 1909 (copyright expired)
Another early resident was playwright and lyricist Henry Martyn Blossom. He primarily worked with Victor Herbert, although he also collaborated with composers like Raymond Hitchcock and A. Baldwin Sloane, and wrote the lyrics for Montgomery and Stone’s successful The Slim Princess.
The early 1920’s saw two theater owners in The Belnord. Joseph “Joe” Leblang was a part owner of the George M. Cohan Theatre, the Sheridan Theatre, and the Broad Street Theatre in Newark.
Simultaneously, Walter Reade and his wife, the former Gertrude Blumberg, had an apartment. Known as the “showman of The Shore,” Reade owned six motion picture theaters in Asbury Park. His chain of theaters would eventually swell to 40.
A somewhat colorful tenant was Lillian N. Duke. She had married tobacco magnate James Buchanan Duke in 1904, but he quickly divorced her over infidelity. She received a $500,000 settlement, more than $15 million in today’s money. But her finances were seriously impacted when she trusted an unscrupulous broker, Alfred E. Lindsay. On March 2, 1922 The Morning Telegraph reported that Lillian had charged him with “grand larceny in the first degree,” saying he had “taken money ostensibly to invest.” She won the case and Lindsay was “sent to prison for swindling Mrs. Duke out of $325,000 in cash and $50,000 in jewelry,” said The New York Times.
It was a Pyrrhic victory. Lindsay had lost his freedom but Lillian had lost her fortune. She soon left The Belnord and moved to West 88th Street, where she died on October 25, 1925. In reporting her death, The New York Times mentioned, “Several days ago it was learned that she had been nearly destitute for months.”
By the 1930’s, grand Victorian apartment buildings had generally fallen from favor as wealthy New Yorkers moved to modern Art Deco style buildings. But The Belnord held its own. An advertisement in The New York Sun on June 17, 1930 boasted, “Everybody who ever lived in The Belnord likes it, and nearly everybody who ever lived there is still living there now!”
A view from 86th Street through the opulent carriage entrance into the courtyard. photo via thebelnord.com
But the third quarter of the century did see remarkable change. On November 16, 1980 The New York Times began an article saying, “At the Belnord, the wages of battle is more battle. And more battle. And more battle.” The disputes between the tenants and the landlord had started nearly a decade earlier. The article said, “the splendor that was the Belnord’s is mostly gone. Although Isaac Bashevis Singer and scores of other success stories live there now, much of the grace has been chased by the shrill battles pitting many of the 225 current residents against the owner, Lillian Seril.”
Amy Munetz recalled that when she moved into the building in August 1940, “the staff used to include full-time carpenters, electricians and laundry room attendants.” Now, she said, “we are down to about a dozen people for this huge place.”
Although the exterior of the building had been given landmark designation in June 1966, inside was another story. “The roof, the elevators and the electrical and plumbing systems are said to need major repairs. Chunks of ceiling in some apartments have collapsed and other apartments have leaks. The platform holding the garden is cracking, shifting and leaking and stalactites have formed in the basement,” said the article.
The hostility between the tenants and landlord raged on for another 14 years. Then, on October 29, 1994 The New York Times journalist Shawn G. Kennedy reported, “Twenty years after angry tenants went to war with the owner of one of the Upper West Side’s grandest apartment buildings, a peace settlement was reached yesterday, ending one of the longest rent strikes in New York City’s history.”
Lillian Seril had thrown in the towel, selling The Belnord to Property Markets Group. “The new owners…have agreed to spend $5 million on new plumbing and electrical systems, a new security system and more staff members,” said the article. The owners inherited “hundreds of building code violations and state-imposed penalties.”
Interestingly, one of the tenants was Lillian Seril. She died in her 3,000-square-foot, $450 per month rent-controlled apartment at the age of 95 on June 24, 2004. In reporting her death, The New York Times mentioned that The Belnord had been “a center of the Upper West Side’s intellectual life, home over the years to figures like the Nobel Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer, the Actors Studio founder Lee Strasberg and the actor Zero Mostel.” Other well-known residents include actors Matt Damon and Walter Matthau.
The much-improved Belnord was sold in 2015 to HFZ Capital Group, which announced plans to convert the building to condominiums. Architect Robert A. M. Stern was commissioned to remodel the apartments. And while carriages and touring cars no longer pass in and out of the majestic iron gates, the dignity of the grand apartment building has been recaptured. (Currently the Belnord is the set of the Hulu series “Only Murders in the Building.”)
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A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
Nineteenth century critics constructed an image of the artist as masculine, ignoring the fact that women were very much part of the bohemian subculture. In literary and pictorial representations, the figure of the “grisette” was consistently associated with the Latin Quarter.
The term refers to a group of independent young women who frequented Parisian cafés, posed as artist’s models, and provided additional sexual favors. The most enduring grisette is Mimi in Henri Murger’s “Scènes de la vie de Bohème,” the source for Puccini’s opera La bohème.
In New York, the bohemian scene at 647 Broadway seemed a male dominated affair too. Historians have given ample attention to Charles Pfaff, the Swiss-born owner of the establishment, and to Henry Clapp, the journalist who brought bohemianism to the attention of a wide readership.
The fact that Walt Whitman’s growing reputation was linked to his association with Broadway’s unruly band, obscured the presence of those who were left in his shadow. Yet, some of the strongest characters within the Pfaffian circle were women.
Pioneering Theatre
In November 1856 a new playhouse opened at 622/4 Broadway, between Bleecker and Houston Streets, called Laura Keene’s Theatre (later renamed the Olympic Theatre). Close to Pfaff’s basement, Keene and many of her actors and actresses made their way to his establishment after or in between performances.
Pfaff’s was one of the few of New York’s saloons that welcomed women. Laura Keene was born Mary Frances Moss in July 1826 in Winchester, Hampshire. She was seventeen when she married Henry Wellington Taylor, who claimed to be a nephew of the Duke of Wellington. The couple had two young daughters when Henry was arrested, convicted (crime unknown), and shipped to a penal colony in Australia. Mary had to earn her own living.
She joined a theater company. As acting was considered a suspect occupation, she had to re-invent herself. Leaving her daughters with her widowed mother, she changed her name to Laura Keene and made her debut in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s melodrama The Lady of Lyons in October 1851. She gained further experience working with Lucia Elizabeth [Madame] Vestris, a prominent figure in theatrical management, who became a role model.
In 1852 she accepted an offer from London-born James William Wallack to join his New York theater company. The latter had just assumed the management of Brougham’s Lyceum (renaming it Wallack’s Lyceum) on the west side of Broadway. It was a profitable move and she was soon able to send for her mother and two girls. She toured in the States, and in between acting duties traveled to Australia in the forlorn hope to trace her missing husband.
On her return to the United States Laura met John Lutz (whom she married in 1860) who would take charge of the business side of her acting career. Back in New York, funds were raised and a specialist architect nominated to design a Broadway theater after Laura’s specifications. Keene’s Theatre soon made its mark. In November 1860, she premiered the extravaganza The Seven Sisters (with music by Thomas Baker) which ran for 253 performances, an astonishing total for the time.
Keene built a reputation as a fine actress and shrewd manager at a time when only men held this position. As her daughters grew up they also became involved in the theater business, either in management or supporting and/or singing roles.
Her name lives on in American historiography for another reason. Laura’s most famous production was the three-act farce Our American Cousin by English playwright Tom Taylor which had premiered on Broadway in 1858. At the end of the Civil War she was requested to produce a celebratory performance of the play on April 14th, 1865 in the presence of Abraham Lincoln.
Keene was in the wings awaiting her cue when the President was shot by the actor John Wilkes Booth. She claimed to have held the Lincoln’s head and that her gown was soaked with his blood, although many suspect that the tale may have been a fabrication.
Queen of the Long Table
Ada Agnes McElhenney was born in 1834 on her family’s cotton plantation on Toogoodoo Creek in Charleston County. Having been orphaned at a young age, she grew up in the care of her maternal grandfather as part of an aristocratic South Carolina family.
Having escaped the life of a Southern belle and estate mistress at nineteen, she settled in Greenwich Village earning a living as a columnist. Using the pseudonym Ada Clare (after Charles Dickens’s orphan in Bleak House), she built up a following of readers with an interest in New York’s theater and demi-monde.
At the same time, Ada pursued a career as an actress although initially was limited success. She was then offered the opportunity to travel to Paris as correspondent for the successful Sunday newspaper The New York Atlas. Between November 1856 and January 1857, she published a series of lively and provocative reports from the Latin Quarter which were received with delight by her New York readership.
In one of those articles she revealed her passion for the New Orleans-born virtuoso pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the son of a Jewish businessman from London and a French Creole mother. Louis composed music portraying the songs and dances of Louisiana slaves which captured his Parisian audiences and satisfied the era’s craze for exotic cultures. Not long after her return to New York in the summer of 1858, Ada gave birth to a son out of wedlock. Aubrey was believed to be Gottschalk’s child.
She participated in New York’s literary life and wrote a weekly column in Henry Clapp’s Saturday Press in which she discussed topics from female emancipation to the status of American theater. From her home she ran the Sunday night West 42nd Street Coterie, a gathering of writers and actors.
She provoked public opinion by introducing herself and Aubrey as “Miss Ada Clare and Son.” She refused to accept the contemporary characterization of a ‘fallen’ woman. Instead, Clare presented herself as a proud and unapologetic single mother. More outrageously, she preached the doctrine of free love and adopted a bohemian lifestyle.
With utter contempt for convention and decorum, she was the perfect Pfaffian. The primary seat at Pfaff’s long table (offering space to some thirty people) was for reserved for Ada Clare, the Queen of Bohemia. To Walt Whitman, she represented the ideal of the modern woman: talented, intelligent, and emancipated.
Ada Clare moved to California in 1864. For some time she contributed articles to the Golden Era and penned a poorly received confessional novel, Only a Woman’s Heart (1866). In 1874, she returned to acting and went on a tour of cities in upstate New York. She died in Rochester in March that same year, stricken by rabies after she had been bitten by a theatrical agent’s dog.
Magic Menken
Adah Isaacs Menken was a poet and actress known for her sensual stage performances. Born Adelaide McCord in June 1835 near New Orleans probably into a Catholic family, Adah worked from an early age (her father had died young) as an actress in various theaters learning her trade. Aged twenty-one, she married the Jewish musician Alexander Menken in Texas. Her partner wished for a conventional relationship. While prepared to adopt the Jewish faith, she refused to give up acting. The marriage ended in divorce.
In 1858 she settled in New York where she met prize fighter John Heenan, the Benicia Boy. Having married him, he turned out to be an abusive character. She lost his baby at birth and divorced him. Adah returned to the theater and became a minor celebrity on the Bowery circuit, appearing blackface in a minstrel show, and doing impersonations of the great actor Edwin Booth as Hamlet.
ons of the great actor Edwin Booth as Hamlet.
A friend of Ada Clare, Menken was one of those regulars at Pfaffs’s who openly ignored conventions of propriety. She rose quickly to notoriety. At a time when women were expected to be self-effacing, Menken smoked in public, cropped her hair, starred in provocative stage roles, and wrote poetry. Encouraged by Walt Whitman, she had poems published in the New York Sunday Mercury. She was a “New Woman” in the making.
Her role in the melodrama Mazeppa (based on Lord Byron’s poem) which opened in 1861 in Albany, NY, created a sensation. Dressed in a flesh-colored body stocking which gave the illusion that she was nude, she appeared strapped to a horse which “galloped” down a ramp towards the audience.
Having disposed of two husbands, she left New York in August 1863, heading for San Francisco where Mazeppa brought her a new enthusiastic following. During her stay in the city she went through another two failed marriages. Longing for wider adoration, she took Mazeppa to Paris where she had an affair Alexandre Dumas pére whose son threatened his father for being a senile Romeo. Menken then left for London where her act excited Charles Dickens, Walter Swinburne, and others.
Bohemianism had been a dazzling firework display, a short-lived spectacle. Soon after, dark skies returned. The world moved on, routinely and relentlessly. Menken’s health declined; her wealth was wasted. The wild flower wilted.
In 1867 she collected her poems in the volume Infelicia dedicated to Charles Dickens with the novelist’s permission. She gave her last London stage performance in May 1868 and returned to Paris, but the fast-living city had forgotten her. She faded away (most likely tuberculosis), forgotten and friendless. Her passing went unmarked. Thirty-three years old, she was buried in the Jewish section of the cemetery of Montparnasse.
Illustrations, from above: Deux grisettes by Constantin Guys (The Metropolitan Museum); Ada Clare during her Pfaff days; interior of Laura Keene’s New Theatre, Broadway, December 1856 (NYPL); the blood-stained sleeve cuff belonging to Keene (National Museum of American History, Washington); Adah Isaacs Menken in Mazeppa; Sensational Adah Menken in Mazeppa; and 1902 edition of Menken’s poems, published in Philadelphia by J.B. Lippincott.
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Today, we live in a veritable ferry-land. Ferries up and down the East River, ferries scuttling across the Hudson, ferries hauling tourists to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, Staten Island ferries. This ferry-abundance replaced a long ferry-drought. Here’s the story:
Throughout much of New York history, ferries were key to economic and social growth. Ferry service from New Amsterdam to Breuckelen dates back to the 1630s. The first ferry to New Jersey was founded in 1661. Ferries along the Harlem River, between uptown Manhattan and the Bronx, started in 1667, and a ferry to Staten Island began in 1712.
In 1904, 147 ferryboats operated on New York City waters. Then a wave of bridge and tunnel construction pushed development far into Brooklyn and Queens, diverting density from the waterfront. These new communities and business districts required land-based connections that ferries could not provide. The old ferry network became obsolete and the City began taking over failing services. By the 1920s, New York had an extensive municipal ferry system, backed by public investment in vessels and terminals. But it was shortlived; most of the routes lost their riders and the municipal network fragmented. In the 1960s, ferryboats disappeared from the East River, severing the oldest link between the boroughs. The last cross-Hudson ferry between Hoboken and Battery Park City) hung on to 1967 when it ceased operations.
“Fort Amsterdam about 1650”, NYPL Digital Collections
A little history
It all goes back to the Dutch – of course. The story is that in the early 1630s, Cornelius Dircksen, a farmer and owner of real estate at Peck Slip ran an informal ferry service to Breuckelen. If someone wanted to cross, they just had to blow on a horn hanging from a tree and Cornelius would do the deed. His landing on the Breuckelen side would become, of course, the future dock of the Fulton Ferry
Robert Fulton created the first steam ferry service across the East River in. In the early 1800s, and other Brooklyn businessmen competed for profitable routes to Lower Manhattan. By 1853, the Union Ferry Company of Brooklyn, the successor to Fulton’s business, consolidated control over the Brooklyn ferry business with 7 routes from Fulton Ferry to Hamilton Avenue and 40,000,000 annual passengers. And Brooklyn was home to the largest ferry company in the world. At the time the Brooklyn Bridge opened, there were at least 12 ferry routes in operation between Manhattan and Brooklyn, using 10 different ferry terminals in Brooklyn and 11 in Manhattan.
A ticket from the 1814 Fulton Ferry steamboat. The ferries carried both people and horse-drawn carriages and wagons. There were three cabins on the modern ferries of 1900. On the main deck, a cabin was provided for each sex. Most likely it wasn’t modesty that necessitated providing a women’s cabin, but rather the appetite for cigar smoking among men. It was taken as a given that women didn’t smoke. But if by chance a woman did, she could go to the unisex upper-deck cabin. Between the two main-deck cabins, an open area ran the length of the ferry. This is where horse-drawn vehicles made the voyage.
In the ferry-abundant second half of the 19th century, ferries streamed across the Hudson as well. Ferries moved people (passengers arriving by rail lines at their New Jersey Hudson River terminus and everyday commuters) and goods (from the same railroads). At one time, twenty passenger docks existed on the Manhattan side of the river.
In 1908, NYC ferryboats reported a total of 201,300,000 passenger rides. The ferry system was at its peak.
Ferries on the Hudson, ferries to Brooklyn. What about the rest of the East River?
This is the less told story. As settlements on what became Queens grew, so did ferry services, but ferries were never as dense as between Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. Early settlers transported grains, livestock, timber, and firewood across the river from Hallets Cove to New Amsterdam. The first passenger boats began operating in the 1700s from Hallets Cove to Hornes Hook—present-day 86th street—in Manhattan.
The Astoria Ferry
Peter Fitzsimmons began the first regular ferry service between Astoria and Manhattan in 1782. A fleet of row boats and sail boats would depart, at predetermined intervals, from a dock at Hallets Cove not far from what is now Socrates Sculpture Park. The fare was one shilling per person. When Stephen Halsey arrived in 1835, an overhaul of the ferry system was part of the sweeping changes he brought to Astoria. Halsey bought the ferry service, constructed new wharves at the foot of Astoria Boulevard on Hallets Point, and upgraded the boats being used to ship people to and from Manhattan. Soon, Astoria would become a refuge for wealthy New Yorkers’ “country” homes and a stop on the fast ferry route from South Street Seaport to Harlem, another center for New Yorkers of money.
In 1936, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia arranged to end the then city-operated ferry and transfer the land to the Triborough Authority to build a new approach to the Triborough Bridge. La Guardia finalized the plans for the turnover on July 15 but gave the ferry an additional sixty days to wind down operations while ferry riders found alternative ways across the East River. However, Robert Moses, who headed the Triborough Authority, didn’t want to wait that long. Long story short, on July 21, as the ferry Rockaway had pulled away from the terminal, Moses directed his contractor to tear the dock apart – even though passengers were waiting on the Manhattan side to return. At the last minute, La Guardia was able to get the police to stop the contractors from destroying the rest of the dock. That night, the city hastily rebuilt the damaged dock and ferry house. By morning, the Rockaway was back in service. But the Astoria ferry was over.
The Greenpoint Ferry
The first Greenpoint ferry dates from the 1830’s. The ferry was started by a Greenpoint carpenter, Alpheus Rollins. Neziah Bliss later established regular ferry service to Manhattan from Greenpoint around 1850, which is one of many changes that allowed for Greenpoint to become part of the City of Brooklyn in 1855. Bliss sold the ferry off to Sheppard Knapp, and the Knapp family ran the local ferry for many years.
On September 25, 1921, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that, after many years of running in the red, “the City of New York took over the ferry thanks in large part to the non-stop badgering of Alderman Pete McGuinness who so often berated Mayor Hylan that Hyland told him that the city would take over the ferry if Pete would only shut up. Amazingly, McGuinness did and the city began to run the ferry.” On February 12, 1933, the Greenpoint Ferry made its final run. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle tells us “Starting this morning, the East River Ferry is no more…” It would be part of a reorganized city ferry service. “The good thing about the new city-subsidized service,” the Daily Eagle stated, “is that fares are being slashed to $2.75 for a one-way ticket (formerly up to $6).” But it was gone.
The 34th Street Ferry
The ferry terminals at 34th St and James Slip both connecting with Long Island City at Hunters Point opened in 1858. When the Long Island Railroad moved from Brooklyn to Hunters Point, the ferry was linked to the LIRR. It closed down on in March 1925, after 67 years of East River crossings. The New York Times piece on the closing (March 4, 1925) focuses on the ferry skipper: “’Too slow for New York today,’ soliloquized Skipper Schow. ‘The ferryboats that were good enough for the late Theodore Roosevelt, Russell Sage, Charles Dana, August Belmont, William Whitney and William Vanderbilt, as they went to and fro between Manhattan and their Long Island homes, won’t do for the army of wage-earners riding nowadays from home to their work and back again. ‘T.R.’ and all the rest of them were satisfied with our speed then, but now even the hearse drivers complain when funerals cross the river.”
The Municipal Ferry Service
What about the Municipal Ferry Service? In 1905, the City of New York began a “progressive takeover of the ferry system” when it acquired the ferry route running between Whitehall Street (Manhattan) and Saint George (Staten Island) from the Staten Island Rapid Transit. By 1925, the New York City municipal ferry system had reached its pinnacle as it operated over a dozen routes that provided ferry service to all five boroughs and New Jersey. But the times had moved on. More bridges, better steel rail transportation and much greater use of automobiles doomed the project. Twenty years later, only one municipally-operated ferry route remained, the same route that it started with in 1905, the Staten Island Ferry.
So the ferry drought – except, as most of us saw as kids, the venerable Staten Island Ferry. And, now, ferry supreme. And our own dock.
STRECKER MEMORIAL LABORATORY ARLENE BESSENOFF 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 Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
Stephen L. Meyers, Manhattan’s Lost Streetcars The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 25, 1921
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Sometimes it is the exception to the rule that produces the most interesting result.
Read this fascinating story of how a small donation to the Municipal Archives connects all the photos and a family history.
42nd Street, looking East to 6th Avenue, Manhattan, ca. 1890. De Gregario Lantern Slide Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
On October 7, 1989, Leonora Gidlund, then head of collection processing, set up a table at the “Heritage Day” event sponsored by the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York at the McBurney YMCA on West 23rd Street. Two visitors, Felice and Marion De Gregario noticed Ms. Gidlund’s display and asked if she would be interested in a donation to the Archives of four dozen 19th century lantern slides. The De Gregarios said they had found them in the basement of their home on West 13th Street in Manhattan. Ms. Gidlund explained that the Archives usually only took in records created by agencies, departments, or officials of NYC government, and not from private organizations or persons. But Ms. GIdlund was intrigued by the offer and asked for more information. And we are glad she did.
Bethesda Fountain and Terrace, Central Park, ca. 1890. De Gregario Lantern Slide Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
The collection now known as the De Gregario Lantern Slides is fascinating and unique. Although only numbering 55 items, the slides provide rare views of iconic venues around the city—Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, Fifth Avenue, etc.—all dating from the last decades of the 19th century. Images from this time period are especially valuable as most City agencies did not adopt photography to document their work until after 1900.
Brooklyn Bridge from Coenties Slip, ca. 1890. De Gregario Lantern Slide Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
On the appraisal report for the collection, Ms. Gidlund noted that the De Gregarios said their house had been owned by Robert Devlin some years before they bought it in 1967. They believed he may have been the source of the slides. Caption information on the slides attributed several to “Robert J. Devlin,” adding to the probable connection. Other captions listed “W. T. Colbron.” According to the “Guide to the Records of the New York Camera Club,” at the New York Public Library, Colbron was an amateur photographer who joined the newly-formed Camera Club in 1888. The Club had split from the Society of Amateur Photographers, founded in 1884.
Post Office, Broadway, near Vesey Street, ca. 1890. De Gregario Lantern Slide Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
Perhaps further research in other Archives records would provide more information about Mr. Devlin and add to our knowledge of the collection’s origin.
The first stop in research involving a house or building is the property card collection. The cards provide basic information about every structure in the city—dimensions, classification, ownership, and assessed valuation—typically dating from the 1930s through the 1970s or 80s, depending on the Borough. They also include a photograph of the building taken circa 1940. (The original negatives of the prints have been maintained as a separate collection in the Archives. Recently digitized and available online, the “1940 Tax Photographs” are one of the Archives’ most well-known collections.)
153 West 13th Street, 1940 Tax Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
After determining the block and lot number for 153 West 13th Street (Block 603, Lot 11), the card was quickly located. The conveyance section on the card listed an “S. Devlin” as owner of the building beginning in 1881. The 1881 date recorded on the card is very unusual; most property card conveyance information only dates back to the 1930s, when they were first created by the Department of Finance.
The next stop in the research quest was the 1890 “Police” census. It listed the inhabitants of 156 E. 13th Street as Samuel Devlin, age 55, Hannah Devlin, age 55, Robert Devlin, age 32, Samuel B. Devlin, age 23, and Mary Devlin, age 18. Although the 1890 census does not indicate relationships, it seems reasonable to assume that Robert, Samuel B. and Mary were the children of Samuel and Hannah Devlin, and that at some point Robert assumed ownership of the house.
Perhaps more details could be found to confirm that supposition. Luckily, for the purposes of this research, the De Gregario home was located in lower Manhattan which meant there might be a folder of applications in the Manhattan Department of Buildings collection. Indeed, there was. The earliest documents in the permit folder for Block 608, Lot 11 dated from a 1904 application to alter the building. In addition to information about the proposed alteration, the document indicated the name of the owner. And there he was: “Dr. Robert Devlin.” Devlin proposed to add a one-story extension to the back of the house to serve as an office. The alteration architect was Henry J. Hardenbergh, the architect of the Dakota apartment building on Central Park West, among other iconic structures.
Alteration Application 1392 of 1904 (detail). Department of Buildings Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
The DOB folder contained other applications including one that listed the basement as being used for “photography,” although the time period of that function was not clear. Information listed on another application stated the building had been converted from a one-family to a two-family dwelling with a medical office in the basement, and funeral home on the first floor. That would seem an unfortunate juxtaposition – but perhaps these occupancies were not simultaneous.
Based on the knowledge that Robert Devlin was in New York City as early as 1890, and the pictures attributed to W. T. Colborn in the collection, it seems quite possible that Devlin was also a member of the Camera Club. Perhaps further research in the Club records at the New York Public Library would confirm Devlin’s association with the Club.
Hudson River Pier 42, Horatio and Jane Streets, ca. 1890. Photographer: Robert Devlin. De Gregario Lantern Slide Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
This question may never be resolved, but it is obvious that these ‘amateurs’ were talented photographers. The pictures are well-composed and show that the photographer saw the value in documenting important places and events in the city’s history. And fortunately for historians today, lantern slides are a very stable medium. The emulsion layer is on glass and is protected by another layer of glass. Lantern slides are positive images and were intended to be projected for viewing, just like Kodachrome slides, or today’s Powerpoint presentations.
Here is a selection of more lantern slides from the De Gregario collection. And take a moment to look at the entire series in the gallery. You might agree that sometimes it is the exception to the rule that produces the most interesting result.
Crowds awaiting cornerstone laying ceremony for the General Grant National Monument, Riverside Drive and 120th Street, Manhattan, 1892. Photographer: W. T. Colbron. De Gregario Lantern Slide Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
Crowds awaiting cornerstone laying ceremony for the General Grant National Monument, Riverside Drive and 120th Street, Manhattan, 1892. Photographer: W. T. Colbron. De Gregario Lantern Slide Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
Crowds awaiting cornerstone laying ceremony for the General Grant National Monument, Riverside Drive and 120th Street, Manhattan, 1892. Photographer: W. T. Colbron. De Gregario Lantern Slide Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street, Manhattan, horse-drawn wagon of N. Y. Transfer Company, ca. 1890. De Gregario Lantern Slide Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
WASHINGTON STREET MARKET, OR THE REMAINS OF THE ONCE THRIVING WHOLESALE MEAT DISTRIBUTORS
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
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“I believe the man who will go down to posterity is the man who paints his own time and the scenes of every-day life around him,” Childe Hassam said in 1892, three years after this Boston-born Impressionist painter settled permanently in New York City.FROM EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
New York Winter,” 1900
Painting scenes of everyday life around him is exactly what Hassam did for the next four decades. From his first studio at Fifth Avenue and 17th Street, he began depicting random moments in the Gilded Age city. His Impressionist style brilliantly captured light and color: of gaslit lamps, snowy sidewalks, rain-slicked umbrellas, and the sky at the “blue hour” just before twilight.
“Messenger Boy,” 1900
Perhaps his best-known works are urban landscapes near Washington Square, Union Square, and Madison Square, and Ephemeral New York has posted many examples over the years. But ultimately, Hassam was interested in what he termed “humanity in motion.”
“The Manhattan Club,” 1891
“‘There is nothing so interesting to me as people,’ he remarked in 1892,” according to an article from Smithsonian Magazine. “’I am never tired of observing them in every-day life, as they hurry through the streets on business or saunter down the promenade on pleasure. Humanity in motion is a continual study to me.’”
“Broadway and 42nd Street,”
1902 Hassam’s subjects engage in habits and rituals New Yorkers still take part in, and they occupy a city that looks familiar to us today. Despite transportation options like elevated trains, streetcars, and horse-drawn cabs, Gotham was a city of walkers, then and now.
“Bottleman 1892”
New York was also a class-structured city in Hassam’s era, as it remains today. Elegant men and women enjoy leisure time while cab drivers, messengers, doormen, vendors, and other workers earn a living around them.
“View of Broadway and Fifth Avenue,” 1890
Critics then and now have pointed out that Hassam’s work lacks the rough edges and raw social realist energy of many of his contemporaries. “In New York, for example, he ignored the new heterogeneity and hardships, romanticized symbols of modernism such as skyscrapers, and emphasized fast-fading Gilded Age gentility,” states Boston’s Gardner Museum.
“Rainy Day, Fifth Avenue,” 1893
Hassam had a simple answer for his critics and those in the art world who latched onto trends. According to the Smithsonian Magazine article, he told a critic in 1901: “I can only paint as I do and be myself. Subjects suggest to me a color scheme and I just paint.”
INTERNATIONAL ARRIVALS TERMINAL JFK AIRPORT HARA REISER GOT IT. FROM ED LITCHER: In 1957, Calder was commissioned to make a monumental work for the International Arrivals Building of Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport) by the Port Authority of New York. “People think monuments should come out of the ground, never out of the ceiling, but mobiles can be monumental too,” Calder said of the project, “I made three models to scale, 17 inches wide. The one that was bought had to be blown up to forty-five feet wide.” The sculpture, titled .125 after the gauge of the aluminum elements, now hangs over the departure hall in Terminal 4.
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
Source: ephemeralnewyork | October 11, 2021 at 12:59 am | Tags: Childe Hassam Fifth Avenue, Childe Hassam Impressionist NYC, Childe Hassam New York City, Childe Hassam Paintings NYC, New York City in the gilded age, NYC Gilded Age Painters | Categories: art, Flatiron District, Music, art, theater | URL: https://wp.me/pec9m-9
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Let’s talk about our neighbor across the river, Long Island City. But first, what is Long Island City? Today, LIC faces us, bordered by Astoria (at Steinway Street) to north and Newtown Creek to the south.
Some maps label part (or even all) of this region Hunters Point, and the huge development our fine ferry calls Long Island City is officially named Hunters Point Park.
So, clearly, we need a little historical context here. (This is a story largely about infrastructure, how infrastructure drove and hindered development.)
The Dutch government at New Amsterdam chartered townships in what became Long Island City, including Newtown, on Long Island’s western shore; Hallett’s Point, a squarish peninsula that sticks into the East River just across from Roosevelt Island’s north end (the new tall glassy apartments are “Hallett’s Point”); Hunters Point; and Dutch Kills. Hallett did well: His 2,200 acres included his original property and the lands of current Astoria and Steinway. Following the English capture of New Amsterdam, Hallett’s estate was confirmed in a patent dated April 8, 1668 and called the Hell Gate Neck tract. In November 1683, now under British rule, the Colonial Assembly organized Queens County as one of the twelve original counties of the Province of New York (named for Queen Catherine of Braganza, wife of King Charles II). Queens was later subdivided into the townships of Flushing, Hempstead, Jamaica, Oyster Bay and Newtown (which included all of what became Long Island City).
Between 1835 and 1841, streets in the townships along the coast were laid out and houses and stores erected. The first major roads were the Hallett’s Cove and Flushing Turnpike, today’s Astoria Boulevard, and the Ravenswood, Hallett’s Cove and Williamsburgh Turnpike and Bridge, today’s Vernon Avenue. Stephen Halsey, a settler in Hallett’s community involved in infrastructure construction, founded a new village in 1839 which he named Astoria in the hope of gaining the interest – and financial aid – of the wealthiest man in the country. By this time, ferries connected with Manhattan.
Soon, these coastal areas would become refuges for wealthy New Yorkers, particularly Astoria and Ravenswood. Country estates with names like Bodine Castle and Mount Bonaparte served as getaways for rich Manhattanites. The Jacob Blackwell family lived there early on, during the Revolution, in a large house at 37th Avenue overlooking the river. It is said that the family in the 1830s owned much of Hallett’s Point.
In 1852, the New York Times urged New Yorkers to take a day trip to the countryside: Queens was underrated, fancier than Broadway, a great place to explore, and worth the trip from Brooklyn. “There are charming residences and delightful lawns at Ravenswood and Astoria,” said the paper as it urged people to take long walks to Astoria. “It is lamentable that with such fine weather and pleasant country promenades at hand, our fair friends, especially of Brooklyn and Williamsburg, do not avail themselves of their privileges. They would find an agreeable change from the usual hackneyed routes…Throw off this deathly indolence that is benumbing your physical and spiritual faculties”
Century Currier and Ives print depicts mansions on the Long Island City waterfront. https://www.gothamcenter.org
Astoria developed as a port, and coal and lumber yards and shipyards grew up along the shore of Hallett’s Cove where products could move readily by barge. In 1854, rail arrived with the New York & Flushing Railroad’s new terminus in Hunters Point. Ferry service remained the only way for travelers to get to Manhattan.
LIC’s big chance came when Brooklyn banned steam locomotives in 1861 and the Long Island Railroad moved its terminus to Hunters Point, where it connected with the 34th Street ferry. LIRR purchased the New York & Flushing Railroad in 1867 and in a few years, would own or control most of the rail traffic in Long Island, centered now in LIC. Sunnyside Yards opened in 1910, the year that the Pennsylvania Railroad began running trains under the East River. Located just east of Queensboro Plaza, it would become the world’s largest rail yard (and a constant temptation to be decked over and developed).
The creation of the LIRR terminus led to an explosion of industry, commerce and entertainment sites. LIC became a hub for produce from Long Island’s farms headed to Manhattan. Factories, tanneries and gas plants sprang up along the waterfront. Hotels and taverns opened and the breweries and bars became destinations themselves, and soon the Times commented that “Hunters Point has gained an unenviable notoriety.” The Queens waterfront was no longer a quiet oasis for the rich. By the turn of the century, many of Astoria’s estates had been torn down as New York’s aristocrats moved to Long Island’s Gold Coast.
In the 1860s, development in Hunters Point and Astoria was the catalyst for the consolidation of neighboring communities into Long Island City. In 1870, Steinway, Astoria, Hunters Point, Newtown, Ravenswood, Blissville, and Dutch Kills, joined to form LIC. By this time, the area was an urban center with industry and a growing population. Even so, LIC remained short on paved roads and water. In 1871, a revised charter mandated a police force of 30 men, but the city lacked the revenue to hire them. No adequate fire department existed until 1893.
A 1929 plan for decking over Sunnyside Yards.
The one grand idea to transform Long Island City was to make Sunnyside a mega-project deck over the railyard. A modern, streamlined “Skyscraper Terminal” would consolidate access to the region’s twisted network of subway and rail lines, and serve as an anchor for growing neighborhood. The Great Depression paused these plans. And the deterioration of LIC continued.
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
When I arrived here 40-some years ago, I might have titled this essay “The Rise and Fall of LIC”. But look across the river now. “The Rise and Fall and Rise Again”! More to come. Thanks for reading. Stephen Blank RIHS October 1, 2021
HELLGATE BRIDGE STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION, 1916 ANDY SPARBERG, HARA REISER BOTH GOT IT RIGHT
ED LITCHER ADDED THE FOLLOWING: Hell Gate Bridge engineers, in front of the bridge they designed and built. At centre is the bridge’s designer, Austrian-US engineer Gustav Lindenthal (1850-1935, white beard). To his right is his chief assistant Othmar Hermann Ammann (1879-1965, moustache). This steel through-arch railroad bridge, built from 1912, was opened in September 1916.
It spans 310 meters, crossing Hell Gate, a tidal strait in New York’s East River. At the time, it was the world’s longest steel arch bridge. This view looks north, with the approach viaduct curving away to the right in the background. Photographed on 11 October 1916. Although this bridge is a beautiful structure and an important part of the Astoria landscape, when I think of this bridge I see it as the endpoint of an Inclined Plane that begins in the Sunny Side Yards, goes through Maspeth and ends up in Astoria. A “Simple Machine” whose only task is to slowly lift millions of tons of freight and passengers from the ground to a point more than 100 feet in the air, before the train safely accesses the bridge or crosses the river.
HELP US MOUNT THIS HISTORIC PLAQUE IN THE KIOSK
We have just acquired this wonderful plaque from the Elevator Storehouse Building. We need your help to pay for the mounting of this 130 pound bronze tablet in the kiosk
To donate online go to www.rihs.us, choose donations and select amount.
You can send us a check to: R.I.H.S., P.O. BOX 5, NY NY 10044
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19th PROGRAM AT THE RI NYPL BRANCH
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)
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)
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Nellie Bly told the stories of other women. Now, we tell hers.
Although her life and legacy include broad professional experience as a journalist, women’s rights advocate, suffragist, WWI correspondent, inventor/patent holder, industrialist, and humanitarian, a common thread for Nellie Bly is that she experienced the plight of those who are marginalized. She wrote stories that would move the needle toward equality and progress, especially for women. Highly regarded as America’s first investigative journalist, she set a precedent for what it means to be a voice for the voiceless.
Bly gave a voice and a face to women who had no visibility or prominence in society.
The Girl Puzzle honors Nellie Bly by presenting, on a monumental scale, faces of many women who have endured hardship, but are stronger for it. The monument gives visibility to Asian, Black, Young, Old, Immigrant, and Queer women. Their stories and lives are forever commemorated alongside Nellie Bly, whose face is cast in silver bronze, while the other four faces are cast in bronze. Each of them, rendered in partial sections that appear like giant puzzle pieces, show a depth of emotion and complexity of being broken and repaired. As the viewer approaches and enters, they become part of the puzzle by interacting with the reflective surfaces and seeing sections of the faces come together at different vantage points.
This installation is dually inspired by Bly’s incredible response to bigotry which became her first published headline in 1885, The Girl Puzzle; and by her seminal work, Ten Days in a Madhouse, that shaped her life of dedication and empathy for others.
The story of each woman can be downloaded from “The Girl Puzzle: website or from the QR code below.
The back of the Nellie piece with the quote “while I live, I hope” engraved in it
The reflective orbs give different visions of each piece
Adjoining each sculpture will be a miniature of the face and a braille description so that a visually impaired person can feel the features and texture of the face.
This QR code will give you the entire story in spoken and written text.
The initial stages of the lighthouse restoration are proceeding at the same time as this installation. Soon a new historically accurate top will grace the Renwick designed lighthouse.
Entry Gate a Cyprus Hill Cemetery Queens, New York ARON EISENPREIS, ANDY SPARBERG AND CLARA BELLA GOT IT RIGHT
EDITORIAL
Two years ago when this project was announced, I was hoping it would not be another failed effort. I am happy to report that “THE GIRL PUZZLE will be a rousing success and bring multitudes of visitors to the Lighthouse Park and the north end of the island.
Watching the work this week has been wonderful. Seeing the detail and textures of the sculptures brings the faces to life.
The project is so well thought out that it will include touchable surfaces, braille interpretation, and an easily downloaded audio narration.
Amanda Matthews and Brad Connell have given their lives to the project, not just designing it but fabricating, transporting, installing, perfecting every detail. It will show in the long term.
Rarely do you feel the stories come alive as in the oral narration and written text.
This art piece is gracing our island, finished or not. Come see it thru the construction fence. RIOC should be proud and immediately tell the world of the new addition to the island.
Welcome Nellie
Funding Provided by: Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation Public Purpose Funds Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD Text by Judith Berdy
JUDITH BERDY PROMETHEUS ART (Text) ROOSEVELT ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
We have just acquired this wonderful plaque from the Elevator Storehouse Building. We need your help to pay for the mounting of this 130 pound bronze tablet in the kiosk Your can send us a check or e-mail us and we will take your donation by charge card towards the $1000.00 charge to install the tablet. Help us add this wonderful to our collection of artifacts on view. Thank you R.I.H.S., P.O. BOX 5, NY NY 10044 or e-mail us at rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021
THE 489th EDITION
‘LAYERS’
ART INSTALLATION
AT THE BROOKLYN NAVY YARD
INVITES VISITORS TO
CONTEMPLATE THE HISTORY
BENEATH THEIR FEET
from UNTAPPED NEW YORK
Following a year of isolation and social restriction, the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative has invited artist Aaron Asis to create a site-specific installation designed to honor and celebrate the multifaceted history of the Naval Cemetery Landscape at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The installation, entitled ‘Layers’ is designed in two parts to showcase the past and remind us of the layered history beneath our feet — and to allow us to contemplate our layered past, to inform our shared future.
“It’s too easy to ignore the past and it’s far easier to look ahead than to look behind — but there is much we can learn from our history, we just need to pause long enough to consider its impact and appreciate its value,” says Aaron Asis.
Along the entrance facade a large-scale mural displays the pre-development landscape surrounding the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Naval Cemetery Landscape site. Inside, hundreds of stripes along the boardwalk evoke the history of the earth beneath it. Footprints left along these striped paths honor the lives historically laid to rest on these grounds. These temporary installations are designed to acknowledge our human impact on the land and to inspire public attention, inquiry, and contemplation into the layered history of this site, the city, and our lives.“The year-round beauty and unique history of the Naval Cemetery Landscape make it a particularly inspiring venue for site-specific art,” Terri Carta, Executive Director of the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, notes. “Aaron Asis’ latest piece, Layers, interprets the site’s topography and natural history while inviting visitors to reflect on its cultural significance and meaning for the communities that interact with it.”
The Naval Cemetery Landscape is located in the southeast corner of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which was established on the shores of Wallabout Bay and was America’s premier naval shipbuilding facility from 1801 to 1966. Prior to the NCL, the Brooklyn Naval Hospital Cemetery was an active burial site from 1831 to 1910. In 1926, the Navy relocated individuals buried in the cemetery to Cypress Hills National Cemetery. However, in the 1990s, a series of archaeological investigations concluded that hundreds of burials were unaccounted for and are potentially still at the site.
“Art has a profound ability to inspire and engage and ‘Layers’ is a public invitation to explore a unique New York City history. We should all take a moment to consider the significance of this history and contemplate how understanding our past can improve our lives,” Asis continues.
WATCH THE YOU TUBE VIDEO:
Today the Naval Cemetery Landscape is a project of Brooklyn Greenway Initiative to create a place for retreat and remembrance while honoring its rich layers of natural and cultural history — without disturbing the hallowed ground. ‘Layers’ is currently on display at the Naval Cemetery Landscape at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in Brooklyn NY — through October 2021.
Operating Hours
Monday: CLOSED
Tuesday: CLOSED
Wednesday: 10am-6pm
Thursday: 10am-6pm
Friday: 10am-6pm
Saturday: 10am-6pm
Sunday: 10am-6pm
The Naval Cemetery Landscape is following CDC and New York State COVID guidelines.
Face coverings are required for all NCL program participants.
Please note that bike and scooter riding is not permitted at the NCL. As our site is a wildlife habitat, dogs are also not permitted on our grounds.
Getting There
Located on the eastern edge of the Brooklyn Navy Yard and accessed from the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway at Williamsburg St West between Kent and Flushing Avenues. We highly recommend taking public transportation, biking or walking to NCL.
KING COLE BAR AT THE ST. REGIS HOTEL BY MAXFIELD PARRISH GLORIA HERMAN, LINDA BECKER, LAURA HUSSEY, ARLENE BESSENOFF, THOM HEYER 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 Melanie Colter and 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
In November 1856 a new playhouse opened at 622/4 Broadway, between Bleecker and Houston Streets, called Laura Keene’s Theatre (later renamed the Olympic Theatre). Close to Pfaff’s basement, Keene and many of her actors and actresses made their way to his establishment after or in between performances.
Adah Isaacs Menken was a poet and actress known for her sensual stage performances. Born Adelaide McCord in June 1835 near New Orleans probably into a Catholic family, Adah worked from an early age (her father had died young) as an actress in various theaters learning her trade. Aged twenty-one, she married the Jewish musician Alexander Menken in Texas. Her partner wished for a conventional relationship. While prepared to adopt the Jewish faith, she refused to give up acting. The marriage ended in divorce.
A friend of Ada Clare, Menken was one of those regulars at Pfaffs’s who openly ignored conventions of propriety. She rose quickly to notoriety. At a time when women were expected to be self-effacing, Menken smoked in public, cropped her hair, starred in provocative stage roles, and wrote poetry. Encouraged by Walt Whitman, she had poems published in the New York Sunday Mercury. She was a “New Woman” in the making.
Having disposed of two husbands, she left New York in August 1863, heading for San Francisco where Mazeppa brought her a new enthusiastic following. During her stay in the city she went through another two failed marriages. Longing for wider adoration, she took Mazeppa to Paris where she had an affair Alexandre Dumas pére whose son threatened his father for being a senile Romeo. Menken then left for London where her act excited Charles Dickens, Walter Swinburne, and others.
