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Nov
8
Nov
6
Weekend, November 6-7, 2021 – A SONG THAT SET SAILORS TO SONG DURING WWII
PENNIES FOR PRESERVATION
BRING YOUR PENNIES, NICKELS DIMES AND QUARTERS TO OUR TABLE AT THE FARMER’S MARKET THIS SATURDAY
THE PENNIES WILL BE SUPPORTING THE R.I.H.S.
AND HELP RE-CIRCULATE COINS.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
WEEKEND, NOVEMBER 6-7, 2021
THE 514th EDITION
The Sinking
of the
Ford Freighter Green Island
NEW YORK ALMANACK
The Sinking of the Ford Freighter Green Island
November 3, 2021 by Bill Orzell
When hostilities in 1939 created a combat situation between allied European nations and Germany, initiating the Second World War, the United States was officially neutral. However, the construction of ships began in America, to aid Great Britain and her allies.
When the events of 1941 pulled the U.S. into the conflict, the Navy and the Wartime Shipping Administration had a very serious need for vessels to transport war materials. This task was the duty of the country’s Merchant Marine, and all possible craft were requisitioned, including those on the Great Lakes and inland waterways.
Sailors at sea, since ancient times, have crafted all types of tales. The ferocity of a dark windswept night and the splendor of the sun descending into an endless horizon have wrought fantastic tales, which have survived for generations before the mast. One such yarn, which morphed into a fabled saga amongst seamen, was that of the Lorelei.
This sea spirit was the mythic form of a young woman who, finding herself the victim of an unfaithful fisherman, cast herself into the Rhine River in Germany. She emerged as an eternal specter, still alluringly beautiful, yet seeking to wrought vengeance on all those who took to boats. The methods of the Lorelei were that of a licentious and dissolute profligate, which certainly aided in the retelling of the tale amongst sailors.
Several years before the Second World War, George and Ira Gershwin, the wizards of Tin Pan Alley, produced a Broadway show titled, Pardon My English, based upon the legend of the Lorelei. This show was not the greatest success for the Brothers Gershwin, but its Lorelei lyrics made a lasting impression on many.
In late 1932 the New York Times opined “several of the tunes may be crooned in the privacy of one’s bathroom without the assistance of a symphony orchestra.” The New York Sun review of Pardon My English termed the show a “biological comedy.” In upstate New York, the Knickerbocker Press wrote, “it is also occasionally dirty in its lines and suggestion.” Indeed Ira Gershwin’s lyrics about the Lorelei may have precipitated that interpretation:
Back in the days of knights in armor
There once lived a lovely charmer
Swimming in the Rhine
Her figure was divine
She had a yen for all the sailors
Fishermen and gobs and whalers
She had a most immoral eye
They called her Lorelei
She created quite a stir
And I want to be like her
I want to be like that gal on the river
Who sang her song to the ships passing by
She had the goods and how she could deliver
The Lorelei
She used to love in a strange kind of fashion
With lots of hey-ho-de-ho-hi-de-hi
And I can guarantee I’m full of passion
Like the Lorelei
I’m treacherous, yeah-yeah
Oh, I just can’t hold myself in check
I’m lecherous, yeah-yeah
I want to bite my initials on a sailor’s neck
Each affair has a kick and a wallop
For what they crave, I can always supply
I want to be just like that other trollop
The Lorelei
Much like the popular song “Lili Marlene,” the legend of The Lorelei was known to many mariners during World War II, no matter what flag their vessels flew.
Industrialist Henry Ford built a manufacturing empire, based near Detroit, Michigan. Ford also built plants on the eastern seaboard, which he networked together with four specially built motorships which were constructed to maximize the dimensions of the New York State Barge Canal, which linked the Great Lakes to the Atlantic.
The Ford vessels were named for the east coast plants, Chester (Pennsylvania), Edgewater (New Jersey), Norfolk (Virginia) and Green Island in New York’s Hudson River. All these vessels were transferred to the Merchant Marine when Uncle Sam went to war, and used in coastal transport.
The United States Merchant Marine, or civilian sailors serving aboard Federal vessels, has existed since the Revolutionary War. One such merchant seaman was Curzon Scott, originally from Deposit, New York and the son of Cornelius E. Scott, a prominent attorney there.
During the First World War Curzon Scott served as a Merchant Marine officer. He was aboard a vessel which was sunk, or in sailor slang, “bumped.” Following that conflict, he found a position with the New York State Department of Public Works, and was assigned to the Binghamton office.
In 1920, as a reserve officer, Scott passed the government examination held by the United States shipping board in New York and received a license as chief mate on steam vessels of any tonnage. His wife, the former Mabel Owen, a native of Wellsburg in Chemung County, was a nurse at the Binghamton State Hospital.
In April of 1941, eight months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Curzon Scott received a commission and re-entered the Merchant Marine. He was aboard the merchant vessel Pine Ridge, and “bumped” a second time when they ran aground near Nova Scotia, victims of saboteurs who had shifted channel buoys. The ship and everyone aboard eventually reached port safely.
Curzon Scott was next assigned as Chief Mate on the former Ford vessel Green Island, under the command of Master Josef Anderson. On May 6th, 1942, Scott was taking his turn at the helm of the Green Island while transiting the Caribbean about 80 miles southwest of Grand Cayman Island on a clear day.
Suddenly, the Green Island was struck about six feet below the waterline, between the fourth and fifth cargo hatch, by a torpedo fired from the Nazi submarine U-125. The resulting explosion nearly broke the out-of-place canal boat in half, but no one aboard was injured. The pilot in command, Curzon Scott issued the order to abandon ship, and the full complement of 22 men evacuated to the two life boats.
Upon his return to Upstate New York, Scott detailed his experience staring down the surfaced sub’s gun barrel to the Binghamton Press thus, “After the lifeboats were launched, and before the submarine commander had time to ask for his information, I asked: “Have you got the third verse of the Lorelei aboard?”
The U-125 was commanded by Kapitanleutnant Ulrich Folkers, who had been awarded the Iron Cross, and had sunk four vessels previously. Scott continued with his retelling of his encounter with the Nazi Commander, “I told him that I’d been bumped three times and that I was supposed to add a new verse of the Lorelei every time — that, furthermore every member of my crew could sing two verses verbatim.”
Scott signaled his name and rank, and appealed once more “to send me the third verse” of the Lorelei if it were aboard. This elicited a response from the submarine commander who answered “No” to having the requested third verse. Scott was pleased to relate Commander Folkers’ next action, “he stood on the bridge and saluted me and motioned that we were to shove off. The ship sank in a short time.”
Curzon Scott concluded with his feeling “that he believed the crew of the Green Island was saved by his humor.” Certainly it helped that Commander Folkers was apparently familiar with the legend of the Lorelei.
The survivors of the Green Island, and their two lifeboats were picked up on May 7 by the British merchant steamer Fort Qu ‘ Appelle, which was sailing on its maiden voyage. The ship had recently been built in Vancouver, British Columbia, and launched in March, having transited the Panama Canal on its way to the United Kingdom by way of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Fort Qu ‘ Appelle landed the Green Island merchant sailors at Kingston, Jamaica on May 9, 1942, where they were repatriated.
Curzon Elliott Scott did not survive the war. He had long been under care for a heart ailment, and succumbed to a heart attack in Binghamton. The April 19th, 1943 Binghamton Press wrote that the, “43-year-old merchant- mariner and native of Deposit whose ability to grin and sense of humor probably saved the lives of 22 crewmen of a 3,000-ton motorship last May when it was torpedoed by a German submarine in the Caribbean Sea.”
Ulrich Folkers also did not survive the war, perishing with all aboard the U-125 when it was sunk by the Royal Navy in the North Atlantic, ironically a year to the day after the sinking of the Green Island, on May 6th, 1943.
The new British merchant vessel Fort Qu ‘ Appelle, never made it to Halifax, being sunk in the busy shipping lanes approximately 250 miles south and east of the Port of New York by another Nazi U-Boat (U-135). An unfortunate outcome resulted for many involved in a single wartime incident in the warm Caribbean, lending more credence to the lethal legend of the Lorelei.
Photos, from above: the launching Ford Motor Company ship “Green Island” at Great Lakes Engineering Works, Ecorse, Michigan, 1937; the Green Island arriving at New York City dock, August 4th, 1937; Curzon Scott (Binghamton Press); and Kapitanleutnant Ulrich Folkers (courtesy Uboat.net).
WEEKEND PHOTO
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FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
LAURA HUSSEY AND ED LITCHER BOTH GOT IT RIGHT!
This photo of Floating Woman by Gaston LaChaise 1927 at the Museum in Canberra, Australia in the sculpture garden. One of nine casts created of this sculpture is now installed at Hunters Point South Park in Long Island City for a year.
Funding Provided by:
Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation Public Purpose Funds
Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD
Text by Judith Berdy
NEW YORK ALMANACK
Edited by Deborah Dorff
ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C)
PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
Copyright © 2021 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com
Nov
5
Friday, November 5, 2021 – ALMOST READY FOR THE UNVEILING THE LADIES ARE IN PLACE AT LIGHTHOUSE PARK
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2021
THE 513th EDITION
“THE GIRL PUZZLE”
NEARS COMPLETION
NO WORD FROM RIOC
WE ARE HAPPY TO REPORT THAT THE GIRL PUZZLE IS NEARLY COMPLETE, WITH THE ART PIECES ERECTED, THE SITE CLEANED AND THE GRASS HAS BEEN SEEDED. THOUGH STILL BEHIND A FENCE THE WORKS ARE CLEARLY VISIBLE.
YESTERDAY, THE LILY, FROM THE WASHINGTON POST PUBLISHED AN ARTICLE ABOUT THE PROJECT.
https://www.thelily.com/this-massive-monument-to-women-is-quietly-taking-shape-in-new-york-city/
ONE THING LACKING IS ANY WORD ON THE PROJECT FROM RIOC. OUR FOUR MEMBER “COMMUNICATIONS TEAM” MEMBERS SEEM TO BE MISSING IN ACTION.
LET’S HOPE THAT WE SOON SEE SOME WORD FROM OUR OWN STAFF.
WE KNOW THAT OUR FRIENDS AT PROMETHEUS, WHO DESIGNED, BUILT, SUPERVISED HAVE HAD NUMEROUS REQUESTS ABOUT THE GIRL PUZZLE. THE BEST PUBLICITY IS THE CURIOUS PUBLIC ASKING ABOUT THE PROJECT.
ONE OUTSTANDING MEMBER OF THE RIOC STAFF IS PROJECT MANAGER PRINCE SHAH WHO HAS GONE ABOVE AND BEYOND TO SEE THIS PROJECT THRU. HE IS TIRELESSLY MULTI-TASKING WHILE OTHERS ARE OUT OF SIGHT.
JUDITH BERDY
NEXT TO EACH HEAD IS A MINIATURE MODEL AND A DESCRIPTION IN BRAILLE WITH A QR CODE TO HEAR THE HISTORY.
THE ORBS REFLECT THE WOMEN AND THEIR IMAGES REFLECT
GRASS IS GROWING ON THE NEWLY LANDSCAPED SITE
FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
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THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
THE RIHS VISITOR CENTER KIOSK, AN EXAMPLE OF
CAST IRON ARCHITECTURE
Andy Sparberg, Thom Heyer 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
All image are copyrighted (c)
THE LILY
WASHINGTON POST
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Copyright © 2021 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com
Nov
4
Thursday, November 4, 2021 – THE METAL BUILDINGS HAVE SURVIVED FOR A CENTURY?
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2021
THE 512th EDITION
THE DISTINCTIVE
CAST IRON
ARCHITECTURE OF
NYC’S SOHO
FROM: UNTAPPED NEW YORK
New York is a city defined by its neighborhoods, and in Manhattan, there is one district that stands out for its heritage of unique architecture. In downtown Manhattan lies the SoHo district, whose name is an amalgam describing the area “SOuth of HOuston.” The moniker was first coined by city Planner Chester Raskin in a 1963 city planning report.
Photo by Marc Gordon
The neighborhood has had many incarnations since its early beginnings in the 17th century as New York’s first free Black settlement, granted to former slaves by the Dutch West India company. By the 1660s, the land was acquired by Nicholas Bayard, the nephew of Peter Stuyvesant, Director General of Dutch New York. The area maintained its rural character until the mid-18th century, but as the city’s population grew and development inched northward, the local marshes and streams were drained and hills 2343 leveled for development. Once Broadway was paved, it ushered in the construction of Federal and Greek Revival-style row houses and developed into a middle-class enclave.
Canal Street circa the 1700s. Image in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons user SteinsplitterBot.
By the mid-19th century, the area became the heart of Manhattan’s burgeoning shopping, hotel, and entertainment district. This growth led to the development of more substantial buildings. Retail establishments such as Tiffany & Co. and Lord & Taylor got their starts in SoHo. Theaters, music halls, and bars sprang up along Broadway, with less respectable establishments located along the side streets. Brothels, primarily located on Greene and Mercer Streets, formed the city’s first red-light district. With the decline of the neighborhood’s residential character, many middle-class residents chose to relocate uptown. By the end of the Civil War, factories, mills, and warehouses started moving into the area, driving the need for larger industrial structures to accommodate machinery and storage needs.
For many years, cast iron had been used in bridge construction, building beams and columns, and decorative elements. Developed in New York, the timely innovation was to use cast iron not only for the structure but also for the façade. The primary advantage of cast iron was its ability to span longer distances than masonry, thus allowing for larger window openings to bring in more natural light. It also afforded more open floor space, important for arranging equipment and unfettered storage space.
The earliest example of a complete cast-iron building façade erected in New York City was introduced by James Bogardus, recognized as a pioneer of cast-iron architecture. The Edgar Laing Stores (1849) in the Washington Market District was the first self-supporting, multi-story structure with iron walls and served as the prototype for all cast-iron buildings that followed. It was designated a landmark in 1970 by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. When urban renewal all but cleared the district, the building was carefully dismantled and stored for subsequent reconstruction; however, the pieces were stolen — presumably to be sold for scrap metal.
Edgar Laing Store, Washington & Murray Streets (James Bogardus 1849). Photo via the Library of Congress.
Casting building façades was cheaper than the typical masonry construction of the day. The castings were fabricated in local foundries, usually located near the East or Hudson Rivers where shipments of coal and iron could be received. Some were located only a few blocks from SoHo, which sped up delivery and construction. Many foundries offered stock building designs that could be selected from catalogs, streamlining the design process. The process of making cast iron started with wood patterns, which were pressed into sand molds to form a negative of the casting. Molten iron would then be poured into the mold filling all the voids. When cooled, the sand mold was broken, and the casting emerged to be finished by removing any overcasting and smoothing and priming it before shipping it to a site.
Some of the local cast iron foundries included Aetna Iron Works, James L. Jackson Iron Works., Badger’s Architectural Iron Works, Long Island Iron Works, S.E. Ferdon Iron Works, and Cornell Iron Works (still in business), to name but a few.
FOUNDRY PLAQUES
While many clients opted to choose designs right out of a catalog, many prolific architects of the time (Henry Fernbach, Ernest Flagg, Griffith Thomas, John B. Snook, John Kellum, and Richard Morris Hunt) designed cast-iron buildings for their clients.
Illustration from Architectural Iron Works Catalogue via the Smithsonian Libraries.
Castings could be customized with elaborate designs, and elements could be replicated uniformly as many times as needed. Cast iron could be produced much faster than cutting and carving stone, and it imitated the look of masonry façades once painted. New castings could easily be fabricated from existing patterns to replace damaged pieces. If needed, a façade could be disassembled and reassembled at a different location. Elements were lighter than their masonry counterparts, which made them easier to ship and handle. Cast iron façades were designed with an eclectic mix of primarily neo-Grec, Italianate, Renaissance Revival, and French Second Empire features, popular styles at the time.
Cast-iron buildings were the forerunner of the skyscraper, presaging innovations such as curtain wall construction, standardized prefabricated building elements, and repeating bays. Another innovation that was introduced in a cast-iron building was the world’s first public passenger elevator, installed by Elisha Otis at the E.W Haughwout Department Store in SoHo.
Despite all this, the era of cast-iron architecture was relatively short-lived. Although the buildings were touted as incombustible, floor joists and girders, usually wood and unprotected, were susceptible to fire. With the decline of urban manufacturing after World War II, many industrial businesses started moving out and the neighborhood deteriorated into an industrial slum. After a devastating fire on Wooster Street in 1958 that claimed the lives of six firefighters, the FDNY commissioner, Edward Cavanagh, called the neighborhood “Hells Hundred Acres.”
By the ’60s, the fate of the neighborhood was in jeopardy. Robert Moses proposed ramming a federally funded highway project, the Lower Manhattan Expressway (LOMAX) through the heart of SoHo.
Luckily there was vocal opposition from a coalition of community groups headed by the activists Jane Jacobs and Margot Gayle. The project was ultimately defeated in 1969. Due to the efforts of preservation groups like the Friends of Cast Iron Architecture (founded by Margo Gayle), a large portion of SoHo was designated as a historic district by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1973 and as a national historic landmark in 1978. While there are cast-iron buildings scattered throughout lower Manhattan, SoHo has the largest collection of full and partial cast-iron buildings in the world, with about 250 existing examples.
Pioneering artists in the 1960s seeking studio space realized the open floor plates, high ceilings, and large windows of these buildings were ideal as live-work studios and started occupying the abandoned industrial lofts even though they were zoned for commercial and manufacturing uses. Since occupancy was technically illegal, the artist community banded together to form the Artists Tenants Association to petition the city to allow live-work occupancy in non-residential zoned areas. The city agreed as long as tenants could prove they were an “artist in residence.” Galleries soon followed the artists and SoHo was transformed into the city’s premier art district. Since it’s heyday in the 1990s and 2000s, many of the district’s galleries have been displaced by high-end boutiques and restaurants. In addition, the onset of gentrification has turned artist’s studios into million-dollar residential lofts.
While the next chapter in the life of SoHo is yet to be written, the heritage of New York’s cast-iron district will remain a unique example of a stylistic and technological moment in time for fans of architectural design to appreciate and enjoy for generations to come.
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
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WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
VICKI FEINMEL, GLORIA HERMAN, NANCY BROWN ALL RECOGNIZED THE BENCHES
OUTSIDE THE SUBWAY STATION.
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
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
NYPL
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Copyright © 2021 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com
Nov
3
Wednesday, November 3, 2021 – WONDERFUL AND JOYOUS BEACH SCENES
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2021
The 511th Edition
EDWARD HENRY POTTHAST
NEW YORK ARTIST
BOATING IN CENTRAL PARK
EDWARD HENRY POTTHAST
Edward Henry Potthast was born on June 10, 1857 in Cincinnati, Ohio to Henry Ignatz Potthast and Bernadine Scheiffers.[2] Starting in 1870 he studied art at the McMicken School in Cincinnati and in 1873 he started working at the Strobridge Lithography Company.[3] From June 10, 1879 to March 9, 1881,[citation needed] Potthast studied under Thomas Satterwhite Noble, a retired Confederate Army captain who had studied with Thomas Couture in Paris.[4] Potthast later studied at the Royal Academy in Munich with the American-born instructor Carl Marr. After returning to Cincinnati in 1885 he resumed his studies with Noble. In 1886, he departed for Paris, where he studied with Fernand Cormon. In 1895 he relocated to New York City and remained there until his death in 1927.[citation needed]
Until the age of thirty-nine Potthast earned a living as a lithographer. The purchase of one of his paintings by the Cincinnati Museum of Art may have encouraged him to abandon lithography for a career as a fine artist.[5] His paintings retained the subdued colors and strong contrasts of the Munich school until he adopted the Impressionist palette late in his career.[citation needed]
After his arrival in New York Potthast worked as a magazine illustrator, and exhibited regularly at the National Academy of Design, the Society of American Artists and the Salmagundi Club, winning numerous prizes. By 1908 he was installed in a studio in the Gainsborough Building. Thereafter he painted sun-saturated images of Central Park, New England landscapes, and the Long Island beach scenes for which he is best remembered.[6]
His work is included in many major museums in the United States,[7] including the Orlando Museum of Art,[5] the Brooklyn Museum,[8] the Cape Ann Museum,[9] the Delaware Art Museum,[10] the University of Michigan Museum of Art,[11] the Phoenix Art Museum,[12] the Nasher Museum of Art,[13] and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.[14]
READING BY THE LAKE IN CENTRAL PARK
NIGHT SCENE NEW YORK 1912
AT THE BEACH 2
 |
| KIDDIES |
FOR THE LOVE OF ART
TOY BALLOONS
WEDNESDAY PHOTOS OF THE DAY
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TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
FORMER POPULAR PLAYGROUND CASTLE IN BLACKWELL PARK, REPLACED BY PLASTIC!
WE WERE WORKING AT THE POLL SITE TODAY AND WILL POST ANSWER TOMORROW
THANKS TO OUR EARLY VOTING TEAM!
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island
Historical Society unless otherwise indicated:
EDWARD HENRY POTTHAST.COM
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
RIHS (C) FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Copyright © 2021 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com
Nov
2
Tuesday, November 2, 2021 – THEY TREATED AND HEALED THE ILL
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2021
The 510th Edition
The Lost Society
for the
Relief of the Ruptured & Crippled
42d St. and Lexington Avenue
from DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
from the collection of the New York Public Library
Dr. James Knight arrived in New York City from Baltimore in 1842 at the age of 32, and became associated with the famed Dr. Valentine Mott. The New York Times later said, “While thus engaged he conceived the idea of establishing a hospital for the relief of the offspring of the poor, who by reason of deformity and malformation were rendered helpless.” The need was severe, as the New-York Tribune later recalled. “The majority of the [crippled] children died. The rest were thrown out on the world to become beggars, and to trade on their deformities.”
Dr. Knight (who developed his own methods to treat physical deformities) organized the Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled in 1863, with backing from R. M. Hartley, Robert B. Minturn and Joseph B. Collins. Knight was appointed its resident surgeon.
But there was a problem. “It was not rich enough to purchase a site and build,” explained The New York Times, so Knight “offered the use of the upper story of his own private dwelling.” The make-do space could accommodate 28 beds, and received its first patient, a four-year-old boy, on May 1, 1863.
Twenty-eight beds would not be sufficient for long. The New York Times reported that the hospital had treated 2,000 patients in 1868. Its Board of Managers, therefore, acquired the plot of land on the northwest corner of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue as the site for a proper facility. In January 1869 architect E. T. Polland filed plans for a four-story and basement hospital “to accommodate 200 children.” The cost of construction was placed at $150,000. As it turned out, it soared to $250,000, more than $4.8 million today.
Designed in the Ruskinian Gothic style, the building was faced in brick and trimmed in “brown and Ohio stone.” The two colors of stone provided the alternating hues of the arches, obligatory in the style. Two massive turrets formed the corners of the 115-foot wide front, and a lacy iron balcony girded the fourth floor. Within a circular cartouche above the main entrance was a carved angel assisting a crippled woman on crutches. Below it was inscribed, “Then shall the lame man leap as an hart.”
The basement held the general dining room; the first floor contained the offices of the physicians, the matron, and the nurses. The boys’ dormitory engulfed the second floor, and the third held the girls’ dormitory. The entire fourth floor was used as a playground, classrooms, and gymnasium. It was not all fun and games there, however. In the gymnasium the children received physical therapy and treatments–often experimental.
A stretching exercise was part of this group’s physical therapy in 1902. New-York Tribune, November 2, 1902 (copyright expired)
The patients were also given schooling, The New York Times explaining that they “received in the hospital such an education as, under happier circumstances, they would get in the public schools.” There was a special focus on making them self-sufficient despite their disabilities. (As The New York Times reminded readers on April 3, 1869, “These children, except for charity, would be burdens upon the public, left to drag out their lives in hopeless suffering.”)
A “social reception” was held for supporters in “their magnificent new hospital,” as worded by The New York Times, on November 10, 1870. The article noted that since its organization the facility had treated 11,000 children.
The site which the Society chose was, perhaps, in danger from the beginning. Cornelius Vanderbilt was amassing land just to the west for his massive Grand Central Depot. The Sun described the block on December 14, 1869, saying, “The western portion of the east half is covered by the Croton Market, and the corner of Lexington avenue by an elegant new building for the hospital for the relief of the ruptured and crippled. It is understood that the Commodore designs a raid on these institutions in order to secure possession of the entire block for the purposes of his railroads.” It was a “design” the Vanderbilts would not give up.
An annex to the hospital, erected a few years later behind the main building, held employee bathrooms, sleeping rooms for servants, and storerooms.
Dr. Knight remained at the helm, with the title of Surveyor-in-Chief, despite a few rocky periods. In August 1887 he was forced to defend the nurses and teachers when complaints of what today would be termed child abuse reached the newspapers. An investigation, he said, did uncover one teacher who boxed the ears of a student, but “no patient was injured.” The teacher was fired. He was also accused of firing any physicians on staff who did not agree with his procedures or who wanted to try their own treatments. Knight died on October 24, 1887.
from the collection of the New York Public Library
Around 6:30 on the evening of January 29, 1888 a little girl was passing the room of resident surgeon Dr. Eli E. Joselyn when she smelled smoke. She ran to him and the small fire on top of his bureau was quickly squelched. The New York Times reported, “no damage except the destruction of the bureau cover and a pair of suspenders was done.”
The article continued, “After the fire was extinguished the doctor went to dinner. Ten minutes later fire was discovered in the bathroom at the bottom of the stairway running through the annex.” That fire was discovered by two girl patients who informed a nurse. “By this time,” said the article, “the fire had assumed threatening proportions.”
The 163 children were quickly and systematically evacuated. The New York Times reported that “calamity was averted by the courage and coolness of the doctors and nurses in charge of the little cripples and the ready help given by the police, firemen, and many citizens.” The children who were mobile were lead out, while those who could not walk “were aroused quietly, wrapped in their blankets, and carried down stairs.” Most of the children were taken in by the Vanderbilt Hotel, while homeowners “threw open their doors and were proud to have the privilege of sheltering and caring for the little unfortunates.” One patient, 18-year-old Alice Ramsey, had only one arm, but she “made good use of her remaining arm in carrying several children across the street to the hotel.”
The fire had broken out in the annex, occupied solely by the servants. Tragically, while the children were all safely evacuated, the head cook, Mary Donnelly, was asleep in her bed and died of smoke inhalation.
Investigators were at a loss to explain the origin of the blaze. A newspaper noted, “It started in a part of the building in which fire is not kept, and it is difficult to see how gas could have started the blaze.” Fire investigators dismissed the earlier fire in Dr. Josselyn’s room as “not worth mention as a coincidence.” As things turned out, however, it was anything but a coincidence.
The following day Dr. W. Travers Gibb noticed that someone had been in his room, which was uncomfortably hot. He discovered that a box of matches had been placed on the floor register, the heat turned fully up, and a reclining chair moved over the heater. The would-be arsonist intended for the matches to ignite. The same thing occurred the next day in another room. Once again the matches were found before they could ignite.
The Fire Marshall was notified and he was interviewing staff one-by-one on February 2 when yet another fire broke out. A maid entered the drawing room to find it filled with smoke. The Fire Marshal and doctors rushed to the scene, to find the pantry off the dining room “blazing fiercely.” Again the children were evacuated. The fire was quickly put out, but was “attended with great excitement and almost a panic among the children and nurses,” said The New York Times.
At the time May Wilson had been a patient in the hospital for three years. Affectionately called Mamie, the 11-year-old suffered from a “wry neck,” a condition known today as torticollis, a twisted or tilted neck. Because of that she wore “an iron frame” which forced her head into a straight position. Mamie was well-liked by the other children and the staff. She was highly intelligent and because she was totally ambulatory, was allowed to move freely throughout the building. She was often entrusted to go outside the hospital on errands for the staff and routinely answered the doorbell.
Now, as hospital employees talked to one another, suspicion began to focus on Mamie. One chambermaid remembered her coming out of the dining room and shutting the door behind her just minutes before the fire was discovered. The matron said that Mamie had “hurried” into her room, asking if she did not have an errand for her to attend to outside. And another servant recalled that Mamie had just come out of the ladies’ bathroom prior to the first fire.
Fire Marshall Sheldon called for her. Initially the girl denied any involvement, but finally broke down and gave a tearful confession. On February 4 the New Jersey newspaper The Patterson Morning Call reported, “Little May Wilson, the 11-year-old child who confessed to having on several occasions set fire to the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled, was arraigned in the Yorkville police court and turned over to the care of the Children’s society. Richard Wilson, the father of the young culprit, is entirely at a loss to account for the child’s conduct.”
Mamie’s plight was dire. Legally, because a death had occurred because of her actions, she could face execution. She first appeared before a judge on the day of her arrest, too traumatized to answered with anything more than “yes” or “no.” A trial before a coroner’s jury was held on February 8. The girl was not forced to take the stand in her own defense “on account of the highly-excited state she had been in every since the occurrence,” according to the Children’s Aid Society physician. Despite Mamie’s written confession, she was exonerated for a lack of evidence–an apparent act of compassion by the coroner and the jury. She was remanded to the custody of the Children’s Aid Society.
Activities taking place on the fourth floor in 1875. from the collection of the New York Public Library
On January 27, 1902 excavation work was underway for the subway trench below Park Avenue at 41st Street. At noon workmen attempted to dry rain-dampened dynamite by igniting loose powder. The imprudent idea resulted in half a ton of dynamite exploding. Eight people were killed immediately, four others died later, and several hundred were injured by flying glass and rocks. The impact was felt more than a block away at the hospital. The New-York Tribune reported that “beyond a small panic among the two hundred children inmates of the institution, there were no fatalities…Many of the windows on the Forty-second-st. side of the hospital were smashed, and the patients in these rooms had to be removed to other parts of the building.” Sixteen injured civilians were brought to the hospital, keeping the four house surgeons and nurses busy for more than two hours. On December 23, 1910 the New-York Tribune reported, “Even this afternoon the jingle of sleigh-bells will send the color to the cheeks of children at the New York Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled…Children will act in a play called ‘Santa Claus’s Visit.” It would be the last Christmas party in the building. A month earlier, on November 26, the Record & Guide had reported that the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company had finally acquired the property it had eyed for nearly half a century. “It is announced that a portion of the block will be improved with a high-class hotel building,” said the article. The Hotel Commodore–named for Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt–would be part of the new Grand Central Terminal complex designed by Warren & Wetmore. Demolition on the hospital began on June 1, 1911, while construction was underway for a new facility down the street at 321 East 42nd Street. The Commodore Hotel still stands, albeit completely unrecognizable after being gutted and refaced in the 1980’s for the Hyatt chain.
HOSPITAL FOR SPECIAL SURGERY is the continuation of the work that began in 1863
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MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
THOM HEYER, ARON EISENPREISS, HARA REISER
& LAURA HUSSEY GOT ITLaGrange Terrace (Colonnade Row)
The grandest speculative row houses to date in New York City, these houses were built for the mercantile elite, miles away from their places of work. Unlike the typical row house, this group is not brick, it is not a box with a door, and it doesn’t have an exterior stoop or dormer windows. Instead, it is a New York version of Regent’s Park in London, with columns built by Sing Sing prisoners.
Colonnade Row is among the greatest architectural treasures of the Village. Built on Lafayette St. in 1832, its official name is LaGrange Terrace, after Lafayette’s country estate in France, though this ensemble row is really a monument to fur trader and real-estate baron, John Jacob Astor.
The landmarked Colonnade Row on today’s Lafayette Street was built in 1833 by architect Seth Geer and originally consisted of nine houses, of which only four remain today. When first built the houses were occupied by social bright lights of the era such as the Astors and Vanderbilts.As Lafayette Street grew, ironically Colonnade Row shrunk!
Living in a landmark building like Colonnade Row may sound romantic — after all, the residences, built in 1833, once housed Cornelius Vanderbilt, Washington Irving, and William Makepeace Thackeray. But that imposing Neoclassical façade hid an elegant mess. When architects Clarissa Richardson and Heidar Sadeki, of UT, were called to renovate this duplex, they found floors that canted right like the deck of a ship, French doors that were crumbling to dust. Even the marble fireplace was falling apart. UT held on to the mantelpiece as a totem of the building’s grand past, but stripped the rest to its bones, creating a smooth, streamlined space. They kept the bedroom small and gave the bathroom — fitted with two oversize lilac tubs — a glass wall, to integrate it into the living space (yes, the glass turns opaque). The other design challenge was accommodating the owners’ two diminutive and obsessively loved dogs.
https://www.nyc-architecture.com/LES/LES026.htm
Ed Litcher
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS
CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Copyright © 2021 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com
Nov
1
Monday, November 1, 2021 – THE AMAZING HISTORY OF THE ASTOR FAMILY
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2021
The 509th Edition
THE ASTOR DYNASTY:
RAG STREET TO
BROADWAY,
A WALDORF TALE
OF NEW YORK
The Astor Dynasty: Rag Street to Broadway, A Waldorf Tale of New York
October 24, 2021 by Jaap Harskamp
In 1780, a young man traveled from his provincial hometown in Baden-Württemberg to London to meet his elder brother who had settled there two years previously as a wooden instrument maker. The many small states that constituted Germany at the time had a reputation for developing and producing musical instruments. The export of technology was an important feature of German design and many craftsmen had migrated to London (and eventually to New York and other American cities).
The seedy location of his brother’s workshop must have come as a shock to the youngster and he was eager to better himself. Four years later he left the capital for the docks of Southampton, carrying few belongings and a number of flutes with him, and set sail for America. Half a century later he owned large parts of Manhattan.
This remarkable tale could have served as one of the “rags to riches” stories that made Horatio Alger such a popular author in America during the later decades of the nineteenth century.
Tailors & Pornographers
Demolished in 1901 and now part of London’s lost history, Holywell Street was a narrow squalid alleyway with overhanging fronts, just off Westminster’s fashionable Strand. It was named after one of the local wells, the sacred waters of St Clements Church that still survives today, and gave Holywell Street its nickname of the “Backside of St Clements.”
The first homogeneous group of occupants in the district were Jewish immigrants. Many of them worked as tailors and for years one side of the street was almost entirely tenanted by second-hand clothes dealers who collected and repaired discarded garments, re-selling those as rags (or “clobber” in London slang). Holywell Street was referred to as Rag Street.
The opposite side of the alleyway housed a number of small independent printers and booksellers. In the aftermath of the French Revolution the area was a hideout for radical thinkers, publishers, spies, and informers. For a while, Holywell Street was a hotbed of rebellion. Increasingly, the nature of literature changed in content. Unregulated bookshops started flogging erotica and obscene books.
By the early nineteenth century Holywell Street had effectively become the center of London’s pornographic output. In 1834 there were an estimated fifty-seven porn shops in the street selling lewd novels, prints, catalogues on prostitute services, guides for homosexuals, and listings of erotic flagellation specialists. The nickname “Bookseller’s Row” was used as a euphemism for the smut on sale.
It was in this sordid environment that America’s first multi-millionaire started his career as a young immigrant from Germany.
Instrument Maker & Fur Dealer
Johann Jakob Astor (now remembered as John Jacob Astor) was born on July 17, 1763, in Walldorf (near Heidelberg). Aged seventeen, he moved to London to join his elder brother Georg (George) Peter who worked there as an instrument maker, specializing in flutes (he later also sold pianofortes on behalf of other manufacturers). Having been trained in his brother’s workshop, they traded as George Astor & Co.
George was the craftsman; John the sales manager. It was a mutual decision for John to move to America in order to explore the potential import market for flutes and other musical instruments. At a later stage he would also act as American agent for John Broadwood’s rapidly expanding British piano company. The plan was encouraged by Heinrich Astor (Henry Astor), the second eldest child in the family, who had signed up in 1775 as a Hessian mercenary to fight for the British in the American Revolution. Once in North America, he left the military and settled in the city of New York.
In November 1783 John boarded the North Carolina, reaching Baltimore in the spring of 1784 after a hazardous crossing. On board he befriended a dealer who made him aware of the potential riches of the North American fur trade. Soon after arrival in New York he worked several months for the prominent Quaker merchant Robert Bowne, learning how to buy and sell furs. He then began to purchase raw hides from Native Americans himself and had them prepared for export to London at great profit.
In September 1785, Astor married Sarah Cox Todd who descended from Scottish immigrants. She proved to be an astute partner who took her share in running the business, managing the firm when he was on work trips away from home. Four years later he became an American citizen. That same year John Jacob was accepted as a Freemason of the Holland Lodge no. 8 (part of the Grand Lodge of the State of New York), which gave him the opportunity to start building a network of contacts amongst business leaders and political power-brokers. In 1790, his name first appeared among other leading merchants in the New York Directory and Register.
Astor opened his own fur goods shop in the late 1780s. He initially traded from a rented property in Little Dock Street, Manhattan. In 1794, he and his wife bought a home and business property at 149 Broadway, right in the commercial heart of the city. Business was booming.
In 1808, he founded the American Fur Company, controlling the trade for the next three decades. His monopoly extended to the Great Lakes Region and Canada, and later expanded into the American West and Pacific Coast. He also remained involved in the music business, although his brother had died in London in 1813. Ruthless and efficient, he diversified his interests, becoming active in banking, shipping, and even smuggling opium into China.
After Astor sold his share in the American Fur Company in 1834, he used his vast wealth to buy and develop large tracts of real estate, having sensed that the city’s rapid expansion would move northward onto Manhattan Island. John Jacob became America’s first multi-millionaire merchant.
At the time of his death in 1848, he left money in his will to build Astor Library in East Village, Manhattan, which was later consolidated with other libraries to form the New York Public Library. The neighborhood of Astoria in Queens was named after him and so was Astor Place, a one-block street in East Village, beginning at Broadway Avenue around 8th Street and leading to Lafayette Street.
From 1852 until 1936, Astor Place was the location of Bible House, home of the American Bible Society. Not bad for a young man who had started his working life residing in London’s heart of profanity.
British Astors
Members of the Astor dynasty continued to play a dominant role in financial affairs and high-society for many generations to come. There would be an ongoing American and British family line.
William “Willie” Waldorf Astor, the only child of John Jacob III, was an arch-conservative with political ambitions. After three years as U.S. minister to Italy, he became increasingly disgruntled about his lack of political advancement, and moved himself and his fortune to England. In 1893 he acquired the country estate Cliveden in Buckinghamshire and became a British citizen six year later.
When in 1906 his son Waldorf married Virginia-born Nancy Langhorne (who, in December 1919, was the first woman to sit in the House of Commons, representing Plymouth), the couple received Cliveden as a wedding gift. They turned the estate into a center of political and literary life with guests that included Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Gandhi, George Bernard Shaw, Charlie Chaplin, and many others who arrived to enjoy the lavish hospitality.
During the late 1930s, the “Cliveden Set” came to be associated with more sinister socio-political developments. The estate was a meeting place for Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and supporters of his appeasement policy towards Adolf Hitler. The Astors themselves were accused of Nazi sympathies as they expressed support for the movement’s anti-Semitic and anti-communist ideology. Nazism was promoted as a way of quelling social unrest and political polarization in Europe.
Waldorf-Astoria
One of the more intriguing members of the Astor dynasty was John Jacob IV, great-grandson of the immigrant fur and instrument trader who had founded the family fortune. Born on July 13th, 1864, in Rhinebeck, Hudson Valley, he was the only son of financier and race horse breeder/owner William Backhouse II and Caroline “Lina” Schermerhorn who had been born into a shipping family that was part of New York’s aristocracy of original Dutch settlers.
John Jacob IV was a real estate developer, a Colonel in the Spanish-American War, and a science fiction novelist. In 1894 he published A Journey in Other Worlds, a Romance of the Future. Set in the year 2000, the novel describes mankind’s first interplanetary voyage and visits to Jupiter and Saturn by brave explorers. He also patented a number of inventions, including a pneumatic road improver, but his name is above all associated with New York City’s most famous hotels.
The original Waldorf-Astoria was built in two stages, as the Waldorf Hotel and the Astoria Hotel (the world’s “most luxury hotel”), which accounts for its dual name. The site was situated on Astor family properties along Fifth Avenue. The complex was opened in 1893 and demolished in 1929 to make way for the construction of the Empire State Building.
John Jacob was also responsible for the Knickerbocker Hotel. Built in 1906 at the crossroads of 42nd Street and Broadway, the venue shook Times Square out of its slumber by hosting the biggest names in entertainment, politics, and high society. With its sophisticated Beaux-Arts design, European ambience and sumptuous parties, the hotel attracted both glitterati and dignitaries. It also served as the home of Enrico Caruso and others.
The onset of Prohibition marked the beginning of the end for the hotel. In 1921 the property was converted into offices, becoming known as the Knickerbocker Building.
Tragedy & Compassion
John Jacob’s career was cut short when he died after the Titanic sank on her maiden voyage in April 1912. His pregnant second wife Madeleine Force Astor survived the disaster. In the aftermath, ships were sent to search for the bodies of 1,517 passengers and crew who had drowned in the sinking. Only 333 of them were ever found.
At the time of the tragedy, the cable layer Mackay-Bennett was berthed at Halifax, Nova Scotia, as she was involved in maintaining the underwater line of communication between Canada and France. She was contracted by the White Star Line to recover bodies from the Atlantic. On completion of the gruesome task by members of the crew, first-class passengers were embalmed on board and placed in coffins; second-class passengers were embalmed and wrapped in canvas; and 116 third-class passengers were buried at sea.
Astor’s remains were recovered on April 22nd. Labelled body no. 124, he was identified by his diamond finger ring and the initials sewn on the label of his jacket. Inquiries into the calamity would later take place in New York. Location of the inquest was John Jacob’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
At times it takes a disaster to rattle political or moral belief systems. The sinking of Titanic made a deep impact on both sides of the Atlantic and forced a fundamental rethink of values and convictions. To many social commentators the sad event was more than a catastrophe, it was a warning against human pride and presumption. As Edward Stuart Talbot, Bishop of Winchester, preached in April 1912, the fate of the ship was a “mighty lesson against our confidence and trust in power, machinery, and money.”
(William) Vincent Astor, John Jacob’s son from his first marriage, was born on November 11, 1891. The pain of losing his father at a relatively young age may well have affected his moral compass. Having inherited a fortune, he dropped out of Harvard University, and ditched the family’s hard line capitalist practices. Vincent showed concern for New York City’s social inequalities by seeking compassionate solutions.
Over time, he disposed of the family’s notorious slum housing and reinvested in more ethical undertakings. Having sold properties under generous terms for conversion into homes, he was responsible for the construction of a large housing complex in the Bronx. In Harlem he transformed a piece of real estate into a children’s playground. In addition, he backed the New Deal and supported other reforms. Vincent was the first Astor to show a real sense of social commitment.
Between 1937 up until his death in 1959 Vincent headed the corporation that published Newsweek magazine. Fittingly, for a time the magazine’s headquarters was located in his father’s former Knickerbocker Hotel.
Illustrations, from above: Holywell & Wych Street (postcard drawing by F.L. Emanuel); John Jacob Astor IV in 1909 (Library of Congress); drawing of the Astor Library in 1854 (artist unknown); electioneering: Nancy Astor meeting fishermen in Plymouth, 1919; Knickerbocker Hotel seen from Seventh Avenue, circa 1909; sinking of Titanic as reported by The New York Herald featuring a photo of John Jacob Astor IV; and service led by Rev. Canon Hind aboard the Mackay-Bennett for the burial-at-sea of 116 third class passengers on the Titanic whose remains had been recovered from the North Atlantic.
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WEEKEND PHOTO OF THE DAY
NATIONAL WORLD WAR 1 MUSEUM,
KANSAS CITY, MO.
LAURA HUSSEY GOT IT!!!
SOURCES
NEW YORK ALMANACK
JAY HERITAGE CENTER
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS
CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Copyright © 2021 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com