The #4 Jerome Avenue line is one of a trio of Bronx IRT subway routes built between 1917 and 1920 under the Dual Contracts, a history-making set of subway projects that saw new routes built between Manhattan and The Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. The idea was to reduce Manhattan’s overcrowded population by providing mass transit access to areas with vacant land for new residential construction. In 1910 Manhattan housed 2,332,000 people, 49% of the entire five boroughs, on only 8% of the total city land area. By contrast, The Bronx population in 1910 was 431,000, 9% of the city’s total, on 14% of its land area. The need to disperse the population was obvious.
For The Bronx, a new four track trunk link along Lexington Avenue, north of 42nd Street, was constructed that allowed three Bronx branches direct access to Manhattan’s business districts. Going west to east, these branches were the Jerome Avenue, White Plains Road, and Pelham Bay Lines. The Jerome has two underground stops at 138th and 149th Streets, and then follows an elevated line from 161st Street to Woodlawn. Four elevated stations have atypical entrance buildings compared to most NYC elevated routes. The Jerome Line route also presented some unique challenges because of the topography and street layout. In one case an older elevated line, since abandoned, was connected with the Jerome Line, and unmistakable evidence of this still exists today. A generation later, In the 1950s and 1960s, when new expressways were built in The Bronx, the Jerome Line presented a major challenge to the highway builders.
We will begin at 161st Street, the first station after the train emerges from its underground tunnel, familiar to many people because it serves Yankee Stadium. When it opened in 1917, Yankee Stadium was not yet built or even a thought. The station building was clad in concrete (below) to announce the line’s entrance into The Bronx (photo from www.nycsubway.org). The first Yankee Stadium, opened in 1923, was located to the right of the photo; since 2009 it’s been to the left.
Walking to the left of the first photo, alongside the current stadium, you will encounter an unused track connection below the active Jerome Line tracks (see photo below). This connection led to Manhattan’s 9th Avenue elevated, a 19th century route, was extended north and east for about two miles to connect with the #4 in 1917. The connection provided direct service between Manhattan’s west side and the Jerome Avenue route. The 9th Avenue El closed in 1940 south of 155th Street, made redundant by the new IND subways along the Grand Concourse and 6th and 8th Avenues. The 9th Avenue Line’s connection to Jerome Avenue remained in use until 1958, known as the Polo Grounds Shuttle, operating between 155th Street (Manhattan) and 167th Street on the #4 line. The connection went along 162nd St., through today’s Yankee Stadium site. A tunnel that carried it under the Highbridge neighborhood and across the Putnam Bridge into Manhattan, ending at the old Polo Grounds ballpark at 155th Street. (photo from www.nycsubway.org).
In 1940, the same day the 9th Ave. El closed south of 155th St, a free paper transfer was established between the Jerome Avenue and IND Concourse lines at 161st St.-Yankee Stadium. Passengers obtained a small paper ticket from dispensers at the turnstile exits, which were accepted at the other station. In October 1961, a new escalator connection opened between the two stations, eliminating paper transfers.
Now let’s proceed uptown. The 161st and 167th Street stations are astride River Avenue. The #4 Line’s namesake avenue, Jerome, does not join us until just north of 167th; that location is obvious when the train does a slight jog prior to 170th Street Station. Jerome Avenue is named for Leonard W. Jerome (1817-1891), a wealthy businessman who built a horse racing track near today’s Bedford Park Blvd. station. Jerome’s daughter, Jennie (1854-1921), married a wealthy British Lord, Randolph Churchill; their son Winston (1874-1965) became Great Britain ‘s famous prime minister during World War II. In other words, Leonard Jerome was Winston Churchill’s maternal grandfather. So, the rather working-class Jerome Avenue is a direct link to British aristocracy and the man who led the United Kingdom through its dark days in World War II.
We will proceed to Mount Eden Avenue , which illustrates the infrastructure challenges that subway and highway builders encountered at this location. The land is hilly and rocky. Jerome Avenue follows a valley between two ridges, which creates many “step streets” perpendicular to it. The ridge east of Jerome is the route of the Grand Concourse, a roadway conceived in the 1890s and opened in 1909. For many years, its large apartment houses were a prestigious address. Many of the cross streets go under (or in one instance, over) the Concourse, an innovative design when the boulevard opened. The highway in the photo is, of course, the Cross-Bronx Expressway, which disrupted much of The Bronx when it was constructed in the 1950s and early 1960s. The IRT elevated had to be supported carefully during the construction because service could not be interrupted in this transit-dependent neighborhood.
Top photo (Andy Sparberg collection) is looking east; the bottom photo (NY Transit Museum collection) is looking west towards Manhattan. Two contemporary views of this location are shown above. Re-boarding the #4 going uptown, our next stop is Bedford Park Blvd. Here, Jerome Avenue jogs east and then west, which caused the elevated structure to remain on its own, straight alignment for about two blocks atop a right-of-way instead of being over Jerome Avenue itself. Thus, the Bedford Park station building is just west of Jerome Avenue, on private right of way, an unusual layout in New York but quite common on Chicago’s elevated lines. Photo of the station entrance is below (Andy Sparberg collection).
The last two stations on the #4 Line, Mosholu Parkway and Woodlawn, each feature a station house with concrete cladding because each is located adjacent to a large park or cemetery. Mosholu is on the first one below, taken when new, and Woodlawn is on the next page. Both photos are from www.nycsubway.org. Mosholu features an arch bridge over the Parkway’s traffic lanes.
In 1930, after the Dual Contacts lines were built, The Bronx population reached 1,265,000, or a nearly threefold increase over its 431,000 residents 20 years earlier – proof that the new subway routes such as the Jerome Line did as they were intended. In 2019 The Bronx housed 1,418,000 people, or 17% of the total NYC five-borough population.
Breyers Ice Creams sign on former plant on Queens Blvd. Ed Litcher got it right!!! But the story continues since Alexis Villafane and Laura Hussey said it was Philadelphia.
Apparently there were Breyers plants n Queens, Philadelphia and Newark. This photo is Newark. Above is Philadelphia and below is Queens!!!
Just to add interest the building started as a Pierce Arrow service 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
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated:
Sources
Andy Sparberg
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Wayne Thiebaud, Jackpot Machine, 1962, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible by the American Art Forum and gift of an anonymous donor, 1995.37
Thiebaud painted Jackpot Machine just as he broke into the national scene after years of surviving on commercial art and cartooning. A coin slot peers over the top edge of the machine like one wary eye. The one-armed bandit blocks the viewer’s path and the pay slot gapes as if to say “your money or your life.” But the image is as seductive as it is aggressive. Thiebaud believes that “painting is more important than art,” and he uses luscious paint to capture the jacked-up colors of California’s unabashedly commercial culture. Creamy strokes of red, white, and blue invite the viewer to follow the American dream, grab the handle and get rich quick, like all those who come to the West Coast looking for the prize. Only two out of three tokens line up, however, as if Thiebaud wanted to point out how random success can be. Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006
Wayne Thiebaud, Gum Machine, from the book Delights, 1964/published 1965, etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Frank Lobdell, San Francisco, 1992.43.9, (c) 1965, Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud, Candied Apples, from the book Delights, 1964/published 1965, etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Frank Lobdell, San Francisco, 1992.43.12, (c) 1965, Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud, Cake Window, from the book Delights, 1964/published 1965, etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Frank Lobdell, San Francisco, 1992.43.13, (c) 1965, Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud, Glassed Candy, from the Presidential Portfolio, 1980, color lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Democratic National Committee, 1981.174.6
Wayne Thiebaud, Renwick Gallery Tenth Birthday, color offset eproduction, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Smithsonian Resident Associate Program, 1982.7
http://Wayne Thiebaud, Three Sandwiches, 1961, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Woodward Foundation, 1976.108.144
Wayne Thiebaud, Levee Farms, 1998, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Sam Rose and Julie Walters, 2004.30.4 The vantage point of Levee Farms is that of a low-flying bird as it surveys planting fields and a river suffused with the warm light of the California sun. A tour de force of curving lines, gentle color, and subtle shadows describe fields that follow the contours of the river as it flows toward the delta. Here, Thiebaud toyed with perspective–there is no horizon line, for example–and manipulates space to celebrate the confluence of man in harmony with the natural world. Title Levee Farms Artist Wayne Thiebaud Date 1998 Location Smithsonian American Art Museum 2nd Floor North Wing Dimensions
Wayne Thiebaud, Lunch Counter, from the book Delights, 1964/published 1965, etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Frank Lobdell, San Francisco, 1992.43.7, (c) 1965, Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud, Pies, from thWayne Thiebaud, Pies, from the book Delights, 1964/published 1965, etching and aquatint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Frank Lobdell, San Francisco, 1992.43.15, (c) 1965, Wayne Thiebaud
Bloomingdale Asylum Aron Eisenpreiss and Andy Sparberg got it right
EDITORIAL
Theibaud passed away this week at age 101. I am craving different foods so the art of Wayne Theibaud is perfect for me, It is delicious looking and is calorie free.
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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Throughout his life, painter Ernest Lawson lived in many places. Born in Halifax in 1873, Lawson moved to New York at 18 to take classes at the Art Students League.
“High Bridge at Night, New York City” Over the years he studied and worked in Connecticut, Paris, Colorado, Spain, New Mexico, and finally Florida, where his body was found on Miami Beach in 1939—possibly a homicide or suicide.
Shadows, Spuyten Duyvil Hill”
But if there was one location that seemed to intrigue him, it was Upper Manhattan—the bridges and houses, the woods, rugged terrain, and of course, the rivers.
“Ice in the RIver”
From 1898 to about 1908, while fellow Ashcan School artists focused their attention on crowded sidewalks and gritty tenements, Lawson lived in sparsely populated Washington Heights, drawing out the rural beauty and charm of the last part of Manhattan to be subsumed into the cityscape.
“Boathouse, Winter, Harlem River” “Less committed to social realism than his peers, his works are more remarkable for their treatment of color and light than their social relevance,” states the National Gallery of Canada.
“A House in the Snow, the Dyckman House”
Lawson’s Upper Manhattan is an enchanting, often romantic place, which he rendered in “thick impasto, strong outlines, and bold colors,” according to Artsy.com. His nocturnes reflect the seasonal beauty of still-extant spots like the High Bridge, Harlem River, Spuyten Duyvil, and the Dyckman Farmhouse (the last Dutch colonial-style farmhouse in Manhattan).
Rivershacks)”
Though one critic described him as “a painter of crushed jewels,” according to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA), and another noted his “peculiar power of finding sensuous beauty in dreary places,” Lawson never found fame like Ashcan painters George Luks and John Sloan.
Portrait of Ernest Lawson by fellow Ashcan artist William Glackens
“Despite great acclaim from certain critics, Lawson remained under-appreciated in his lifetime, and was often depressed and struggling financially,” per PAFA. His name may not be well-known, but Lawson captured the mood and feel of Upper Manhattan’s landmarks and landscape just before urbanization arrived.
SACRED HEART CHAPEL, WELFARE ISLAND Located across front the Octagon and was demolished to make room for tennis courts in the early 1980’s
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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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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photo by Brian Clark (“sooner”) via Centralpark.com
In 1853, the same year that the New York State Legislature set aside more than 750 acres to create The Central Park, authorities noticed a suspicious rise in the amount of cow’s milk being brought from outlying farms into Manhattan. Previously about 90,000 quarts arrived in the city each day; now the number rose inexplicably to 120,000. An investigation was launched.
The findings were chilling. Investigators found that some dairymen were diluting the milk with water, then adding flour to restore its consistency. But worse, unscrupulous dairy farmers, many in Brooklyn, were feeding their cows the alcoholic mash left over from the whiskey distillery process.
These cows were stricken with disease and deformities – losing their tails and hooves and developing open sores. The resulting milk, called “swill milk” by the press, was a thin, bluish liquid. To disguise it, the dairymen added plaster of paris, starch and eggs. Molasses gave it the proper coloring of wholesome milk. Harper’s Weekly, the newspaper that lead the charge against swill milk, reported that up to 8,000 children in New York died every year.
In the meantime, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won the 1858 design competition for Central Park. Their vision would create open space for all New Yorkers, including the poor and underprivileged. The green spaces, terraces, ponds and roadways were designed not only for their beauty, but to contribute to public health. As the Park developed, it would play a substantial role in the milk crisis.
But for now the unspeakable corruption and tragedy continued. When, in 1862, a Brooklyn “distillery dairy” caught fire, The New York Times described the deplorable condition of the milk cows that were released into the streets:
Many of the cows were in such a weak condition that they were thrown down and trampled upon by the more recent additions to the stock, and several will have to be braced up before they can undergo the process of milking again…One cow in particular, owing to her deformed feet, being unable to stand, attracted considerable attention, and yet the lookers-on were assured that she gave the best milk of any animal in the whole country. [The cows had] long tails, short tails, stub tails, and some with no tails at all. Their appendages were in every conceivable condition, from a sound stump down to stumps in every degree of decomposition… It was a most pitiable and disgusting spectacle.
At the southern point of Central Park–the spot where families would first enter–was to be a Children’s Area. Although not originally part of Olmstead and Vaux’s design, plans were laid for a dairy here in 1869. Its purpose would be to provide children with wholesome milk and pastries with no fear of contamination.
On February 18, 1870 The New York Times happily anticipated the new project. “The Commissioners of the Central Park have determined to erect and open next Spring a dairy for the supply of pure, wholesome, and unadulterated milk for the special use of invalid and delicate ladies and their infant children visiting the Park…There is a cottage being erected, with a handsome steeple and ornamental turrets, for the accommodation of ladies and infants. There will be female attendants there, and all the regular conveniences. In the basement cows will be kept in readiness to supply the demand made of them. Around this cottage a fine area of land is set apart for a playground, exclusively for the very young children, being distinct and separate from the present boys’ and girls’ playground…The milk will be supplied at cost price.”
Calvert Vaux designed the dairy, a whimsical fantasy of Victorian Gothic, multi-colored gingerbread right off the pages of Hansel and Gretel. The polychrome wooden loggia was intended to shelter the children from the elements and catch cool breezes in the summer. The stone block dairy, a combination of Manhattan schist and sandstone, took its inspiration from picturesque country German church architecture.
Victorian children gather on the grass outside the Dairy not long after its completion. from the collection of the New York Public Library
Despite the promise that the milk would be supplied “at cost” and the refreshments would be affordable, one Southern family visiting the park in 1874 was thunderstruck at their bill. After visiting the menagerie on October and seeing among the exhibits the laughing jack-ass, they “discovered they were hungry.”
According to the letter to the editor of The New York Herald written by a New York friend, they entered the Dairy and ordered two cups of coffee, one glass of milk and three sandwiches. When they were finished, the father asked how much he owed. When the waiter told him $2.50, he hesitated. John Bangles, who write the letter, said “Our friend does not roll in wealth…he demurred and the waiter, with a glance of pity and a smile, said, ‘Well, $2.25.'” The reduced bill would be equal to about $50 today.
“My friends then departed, the little boy asked what was the mater, the father muttered something about seeing another laughing jackass.”
One can almost hear the cacophony within the Dairy in this etching by J. N. Hyde that appeared in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper in 1872 (copyright expired)
It seems that the Southern family were victims of an unscrupulous waiter. In his 1882 New York by Gaslight, James D. McCabe, Jr. described the Dairy as “a tasteful gothic structure of brick and stone. Here pure milk and refreshments may be had at moderate prices. Residents of the city can always purchase fresh milk or cream here, for sick children, and a great quantity is sold daily for this purpose.”
An unusual view reveals the surprising scale of the building, including the cow barn section. photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
The dairy not only provided children wholesome refreshments in 1899, it was a source of amusement in the form of one draft horse. On January 18 the Pennsylvania newspaper Republican, wrote about “‘Dan Sorrel,’ who draws the milk wagon that takes the milk to Central Park Dairy every morning. His driver often amuses the children that gather about his pet by saying:
‘Now, Dan, I believe you are a Democrat.’
‘No,’ shakes the head.
‘What! a Republican?’
‘Yes, yes, yes,!’ and a stamping of both front feet, while the tail is slashed about like a banner to emphasize his sentiments.”
In November 1911 New Yorkers may have been surprised and disappointed when they read that Park Commissioner Charles B. Stover planned to do away with the Dairy as a concession. The New-York Tribune reported that Stover had announced “in the near future he would convert the Dairy, one of the oldest refreshment stands in the park, into playrooms, doing away with the privilege, which dates back to the early days of the park.”
The playroom idea did not work out. By the 1950s the building was essentially abandoned and dilapidated. Vaux’s once-colorful loggia, now rotted and sagging, was ripped down by the Parks Department and the Dairy suffered the humiliation of becoming a maintenance shed.
After being left forgotten for two decades, the Central Park Administration hired designer James Lamantia and Weisberg Castro Associates to restore the interior of the Dairy. In 1979 it was opened as the Park’s first visitor center.
Two years later the new Central Park Conservancy took over the Dairy and restored its wonderful wooden loggia. Today a permanent exhibit of the history and design of Central Park is housed here.
ENJOY THE VIEW OF SKATERS PROS AND AMATEURS ON THE ROCKEFELLER RINK
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
I am distressed to hear that neighbors have not received results from PCR tests taken at the mobile unit 5 days ago. My test at Bellevue e-mailed me results in 24 hours. Please use our municipal system that is here to serve every person, no questions asked.
TWO RELIABLE, FREE AND PERMANENT TESTING SITES ARE OUR MUNICPAL HOSPITALS. BELLEVUE HAS LARGE AND WELL ORGANIZED INDOOR WAITING AREAS FOR VACCINATONS, BOOSTERS AND TESTING.
THIS IS A MUCH BETTER IDEA THAT FREEZING ON A LONG LINE FOR POP-UP TESTING.
TAKE THE NYC FERRY AND BELLEVUE IS A QUICK WALK ON FIRST AVENUE OR METROPOLITAN IS ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE 96 STREET Q TRAIN(YOU CAN TAKE NYC FERRY TO 90 STREET DOCK FOR A WALK UP TO MET)
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MONDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2021
556th Issue
The Other Pandemic:
Comparing 1918 and Today
Stephen Blank
The Other Pandemic: Comparing 1918 and Today Stephen Blank
So here we sit, wondering if Omicron will be worse than Delta, or indeed, if something worse is around the corner. Perhaps our minds wander to the “Other Pandemic” that devastated much of the world, the 1918 influenza epidemic better known as the Spanish Flu.
The 1918 disease came in two waves. In late spring of 1918, outbreaks of a flu-like illness were detected in the United States. This wave was mild and attracted little attention. Few deaths were reported, and victims recovered after a few days. By July of 1918, even as newspapers began calling it “Spanish influenza”, most health officials predicted that it would soon disappear.
But it appeared again in the fall, and far more deadly. The worst phase began in late August 1918, with widespread cases and a sudden increase in deaths in several army camps in the eastern US. By mid-September, cases and then deaths began to increase quickly in cities and then throughout the country, reaching epidemic proportions in a month. Victims died within hours or days of developing symptoms, their skin turning blue and their lungs filling with fluid that caused them to suffocate. In the six months from October 1918 to March 1919, an estimated 675,000 Americans died from influenza or pneumonia. Young adults, usually unaffected by these types of infectious diseases, were among the hardest hit groups along with the elderly and young children. The flu afflicted over 25 percent of the US population. In one year, the average life expectancy in the United States dropped by 12 years.
Victims of the Spanish flu at a barracks hospital on the campus of Colorado Agricultural College, Fort Collins, Colorado, 1918. American Unofficial Collection of World War I Photographs/PhotoQuest/Getty Images
This was a global pandemic. As the war was ending, the world was on the move. Soldiers were closely packed in trains and ships, coming home. Masses of people displaced by years of fighting flowed back home or sought new living places. The disease ran along roads and rails and into ships carrying troops.
Some historians say that 20 percent of the world’s population was infected, and that 20-50 million people were killed by it, more people than any other illness in recorded history. The range of uncertainty – 20 to 50 million – is so large because data collection was poor, particularly in war-torn Europe and Russia, and almost nonexistent in other parts of the world. Many experts feel that the actual total deaths might have been even larger, even 100 million.
Back then, there were no vaccines, no CDC or national public health department. The Food and Drug Administration was a tiny office. There were no antibiotics, intensive care units, ventilators or IV fluids. Scientists hadn’t yet seen a virus under a microscope. They lacked the technology and knew almost nothing of virology, a nascent science because viruses are physically smaller under a microscope and more difficult to identify than bacterial infections.
Today’s pandemic, COVID-19, is caused by a novel coronavirus—a new coronavirus strain not previously found in people. Symptoms include respiratory problems, fever and cough, and can lead to pneumonia and death. The first reported case appeared November 17, 2019, in the Hubei Province in China, but went unrecognized. Eight more cases appeared in December with researchers pointing to an unknown virus.
Without a vaccine, the virus quickly spread around the world. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization announced that the COVID-19 virus was officially a pandemic after barreling through 114 countries in three months and infecting over 118,000 people. And the spread wasn’t anywhere near finished. By December 2020, it had infected more than 75 million people and led to more than 1.6 million deaths worldwide. The number of new cases was growing faster than ever, with more than 500,000 reported each day on average. Deaths in the US are reaching 800,000 as we write.
In October 1918, more than 30,000 Pennsylvanians died from the epidemic. In New Jersey, one in every 250 citizens died of pneumonia or influenza in just this one month. Six midwestern states, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, and Wisconsin, totaled more than 30,000 deaths in October 1918, even with rates lower than states located to the east. California recorded nearly 5,000 deaths in October, and a slightly higher total in November, as the epidemic peaked later in the western regions.
What about New York City? In the first months of Covid, our City was the epicenter of the disease. In 1918, New York City seems to have managed better – or been luckier – than other major cities.
Without vaccines or protective devices, New York in 1918 responded to the epidemic relying on tools it had used in the past – surveillance, isolation, and quarantine. In September, influenza was added to the City’s list of reportable diseases, requiring all cases to be isolated. Health commissioner Dr. Royal Copeland’s strategy for combating the epidemic was not to issue closure orders, but rather to quickly identify and isolate those who fell ill. He reiterated the need to put sick family members in their own room while they recovered and to limit contact with that person for the duration of their illness. Homes with cases would be quarantined while the patient recovered, while cases in tenements would be isolated in a city hospital.
Copeland and the board of health amended the New York Sanitary Code to allow boroughs to close public places where food and drink were handled or stored if those places were found in an unsanitary condition. In conjunction with business owners, the board enacted a staggered schedule for most stores in the hope of reducing congestion on public transportation. Each theater and movie house was assigned a specific opening schedule between 7:00 pm and 9:00 pm to spread out the evening entertainment crowds. The board also made coughing and sneezing without covering your nose or
New York City Municipal Archives
Major disagreement rose over Copeland’s decision to keep schools open. In an interview with the Times, Copeland said that three-quarters of New York’s one million schoolchildren live in tenements, where their homes were frequently crowded and unsanitary and where their parents were primarily occupied in putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads…It was much better, therefore, to keep the schools open so that children could be monitored for illness by school physicians and nurses.
In the end, 4.7 of every 1,000 New Yorkers died of the 1918 influenza, a lower rate than those of other cities on the East Coast: 6.5 in Boston and 7.4 in Philadelphia.
It’s difficult to compare the impact of the two pandemics in the United States. A key factor is the difference between totals and rates. The current US population, a little more than 330 million, is more than three times larger than the population in 1918, estimated at 105 million. The 675,000 deaths attributed to the influenza epidemic made up 0.64 percent of the total population, a little more than six in every thousand people. By contrast, 800,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 make up less than 0.2 percent of the total population, or around two in every thousand people. If COVID-19 caused deaths at the same rate as the 1918 epidemic, the total would approach two million.
During the peak of the 1918 influenza outbreak in New York City, a total of 31,589 all-cause deaths occurred among 5,500,000 residents, yielding an incident rate of 287.17 deaths per 100,000 person-months. During the early period of the COVID-19 outbreak in New York City, 33,465 all-cause deaths occurred among 8,280,000 residents, yielding an incident rate of 202.08 deaths per 100,000 person-months. But studies suggest that while the absolute increase in deaths over baseline observed during the peak of 1918 pandemic was higher, the far greater medical resources of the City in 2019 than meant that the two were quite comparable. Indeed, one might argue, because baseline mortality rates from 2017 to 2019 were less than half that observed from 1914 to 1917 (owing to improvements in hygiene and modern achievements in medicine, public health, and safety), the relative increase during early COVID-19 period was substantially greater than during the peak of the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic.
So, what does this mean? We’re still in the middle of the pandemic, just buffeted by a new variant – with no reason to believe there won’t be another. But roughly, one might conclude that, without modern medicine and public health resources, and, mostly, without vaccines, this one might well have been as bad – or worse – than 1918.
In New York City, more than 16,000 people died from influenza and pneumonia in October 1918, an average of more than 500 deaths a day just in this one city. On April 7, 2020, there were 598 new deaths due to COVID-19 in New York City, higher than any other day since the pandemic hit the city. On December 17, 2021, 21,027 new coronavirus cases were reported in NYC, the highest single day total since the early days of the pandemic. Yesterday, 200,000 new Covid cases were announced in the US, along with 1,400 deaths. The fat lady ain’t sung yet.
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
DO YOU HAVE A STORY OF THE TREE, SEND IT TO US….
Happy Holidays ahead from New York, where we had a perfect dusting of snow this morning. But it melted away before dawn’s light might have enabled us to take a photo for you.
In substitution, here’s the slippery ice rink below the tree at Rockefeller Center. Not to brag about our ability to photograph action in the blink of an eye, but you’ll note the man in gold lamé is in the midst of an awkward fall.
Liz & Herbert
WEEKEND PHOTO OF THE DAY
ED LITCHER, HARA REISER AND JOHN GATTUSO ALL ARE CORRECT THAT THIS THE JOHNSON WAX COMPANY HEADQUARTERS, RACINE, WISCONSIN DESIGNED BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT.
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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Funding Provided by: Roosevelt Island Corporation Public Purpose Funds Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD Text by Judith Berdy
Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2021 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
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FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2021
“New York Wonders
I’m Sorry I Missed”
Stephen Blank
The 554th Edition
Many engineering achievements are stars in our City’s history. The old Croton aqueduct was an engineering marvel that made the City safe and also created the foundation for its growth. The Brooklyn Bridge was an amazing feat and so were our skyscrapers that pushed higher and higher. But other engineering exploits have been long forgotten. So, let’s take a brief tour of a couple of these lost wonders.
New York Crystal Palace
The New York Crystal Palace was a dome-topped glass structure that took up nearly an entire square block. It was constructed for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York City in 1853, on a site behind the Croton Reservoir, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues on 42nd Street, in today’s Bryant Park. The Crystal Palace was the centerpiece of this first World’s Fair hosted by the United States.
Designed by architects Georg J. B. Carstensen and Charles Gildermeister, the Crystal Palace was inspired by the Crystal Palace built in London’s Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851. At the time, the New York Crystal Palace was the largest building in the western hemisphere. The massive scale, expansive walls of glass, and beautifully ornate wrought iron details of the building brought visitors from everywhere
Visitors to the fair saw the era’s most technologically advanced innovations. One invention that debuted at the fair was Elisha Otis’s elevator. Another attraction that drew visitors to the Exhibition was the Crystal Palace’s neighbor, the Latting Observatory. At more than 300 feet tall, it was the tallest manmade perch on the continent at the time.
Sadly, the Crystal Palace would not survive much longer than the Exhibition. After the fair closed in November 1854, the building was leased as a special events space. It became the new home of the Fair of the American Institute, an event similar to the World’s Fair but smaller. Just four years later, in October 1858, a raging fire destroyed the gleaming Palace.
London had its Crystal Palace, and so did we. And San Francisco had (still has) its cable car system. And so did we.
New York Cable Car System
While horse-cars remained in operation until 1917, their network was gradually converted to cable car operation after the Civil War. Cable cars were invented in 1873 by Andrew Hallidie to climb the hills of San Francisco. They relied on an underground cable that was pulled by a remote steam-powered engine – later electric – that moved at a constant speed, with cable car operators able to either engage or disengage from the system in order to move forward or come to a stop. Third Avenue Railway System cable car, c. 1885, public domain archival image
Third Avenue Railway System cable car, c. 1885, public domain archival image
The very first New York cable car was actually a steam driven device to help rail cars cross the new Brooklyn Bridge. The Third Avenue Railroad, a horsecar operator since 1858, built the first street-running cable line from Manhattan to Harlem, on 125th Street. Apparently, in entrepreneurial New York City, there were several different cable operations, most tangled in lawsuits over Hallidie’s patent infringement. A gorgeous power station for one of these lines still stands at the corner of Houston and Broadway – the Cable Building designed by McKim, Mead & White for the Metropolitan Traction Company.
When it became operational in 1893, a fleet of 125 cars served 100,000 passengers from Bowling Green to 36th Street each day. Today, the Angelika Film Center occupies the basement space which formerly housed the cable powerhouse.
In 1883, the big idea was to build a system of 29 lines of three major uptown cable lines running on embankments. But it all came to an end around 1909 when all trollies had converted to electricity.
Paris had its pneumatic mail system. And so did we.
New York Pneumatic Mail
Beginning in 1897, New York City’s Post Office Department moved a large portion of its mail underground, through miles of pneumatic tubes installed under the city, connecting the major postal stations. Letters were packed into metallic canisters and swooshed throughout the city. In 1913, the postmaster installed new, 24-inch-wide tubes between the Grand Central and Pennsylvania Terminals, which were built large enough to carry 100-pound bags of mail.
Terminals of the Tube Receiving and Sending Apparatus in the Sub-Postoffice
The Manhattan installation was constructed by the Tubular Dispatch Company which was purchased by the New York Pneumatic Service Company, which continued to operate the tubes under contract to the postal service. Construction after 1902, starting with the line between the New York and the Brooklyn general post offices, was completed by the New York Mail and Newspaper Transportation Company, all owned entirely by the American Pneumatic Service Company.
Eventually the network stretched up both sides of Manhattan all the way to Manhattanville and East Harlem, forming a loop running a few feet below street level. Travel time from the General Post Office to Harlem was 20 minutes. A crosstown line connected the two parallel lines between the new General Post office on the West Side and Grand Central and took four minutes for mail to traverse. Using the Brooklyn Bridge, a spur line also ran from lower Manhattan, to the general post office in Brooklyn, taking four minutes. Perhaps best of all, operators of the system were called “Rocketeers”.
Image Credit: Library of Congress via Flickr // No known copyright restrictions
At its peak, the tubes transported almost 100,000 letters daily—about 30% of the city’s mail. But I don’t think our pneumatic system ever rivaled the romanticism of the Parisian “petit bleu”. In François Truffaut’s 1968 movie Baisers Volés (Stolen Kisses), we can follow the physical journey of the protagonist’s heartbreak around the city, after he poignantly posts a farewell love letter in the slot marked ‘PNEUMATIQUES’ and bids it adieu.
When we entered World War I, the high cost of operating the tubes was seen as too expensive, since funds were needed for the war effort. The underground delivery system ended permanently in 1953.
Remarkable memories in our City’s history. Thanks for taking the trip with me.
It’s the Holland Tunnel ventilation shaft/building, this one on the New Jersey side. And thank you for the interesting article on the Houston Hall buildings. I work a block away, at Hudson Street (I am in the office half of the time these days, remote the other half). I’ve never had occasion to go to Houston Hall though.
Andy Sparberg, our transportation guru got it right, too!!
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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The owner of the livery stable at 62 Downing Street was in financial trouble in 1873 and lost his property in foreclosure. On September 18 a “mortgage sale” was held of “a large number of very valuable Horses, Clarences, open and closed Coaches, light and road Wagons, Hearses, Phaetons, double and single Harness, Blankets, Whips, Stable Fixtures, &c.” according to the listing. Directly behind the stable was the Hammersley Foundry. (West Houston Street had been called Hammersley Street prior to 1860.)
In 1877 John Nichol sold both properties to David I. Christie and Charles H. See for the equivalent of $120,000 in today’s money. The Downing Street building was three stories tall, while the former foundry building was just one. Neither of the brick-faced structures aspired to architectural significance, their builders content to create utilitarian structures. Christie and See joined the two disparate buildings internally.
It appears they operated the combined buildings as a stable. On May 2, 1886 Christie advertised in the New York Herald:
For Sale–A sidebar top buggy, Brewster make; single set harness, three blankets, three lap robes, all as good as new; also a good work horse. Inquire of D. E. Christie, No. 224 West Houston St.
The sale may have been prompted by the men’s having leased the property to Daniel H. Johnson that year. He converted it to a wagon factory.
In the 1890’s the neighborhood was filling with Italian immigrants and Blacks. By 1896 a portion the building was home to the Unique Club, a gathering spot for local Blacks. Its proprietor, Thomas Jones, described it as “a regularly organized club,” meaning that it was a legitimate social club. Whether the it was strictly “regular” is debatable. But either way, Detective John J. Gerrity saw potential profit. He demanded $20 per month for police “protection.”
Trouble came in February when Gerrity pressured Jones for $5 more per month, threatening to shut the club down. Jones refused and then reported Gerrity’s threats to the captain of detectives at the police station. But, according to The Sun, he “heard nothing more of it.” Then, on Saturday night, February 27, the Unique Club was raided, and 13 men were arrested and charged with gambling.
In court, Jones told the judge of Gerrity’s extortion. On March 1, 1897, The Sun reported that the judge asked why “he paid for police protection if the club was regularly organized and the law was not violated.” Jones explained that he did it “to avoid trouble as he knew that other clubs had had trouble through stool-pigeons sent in by the police, who would swear to anything asked of them.” Considering racial bias rampant within the police force at the time, Jones made a valid point.
Judge Simms considered the charges against Gerrity “very serious.” He discharged the other 12 men, but held Jones for trial for operating a gambling house (Gerrity had provided a “stool-pigeon,” exactly as Jones had feared.) Nevertheless, the judge urged Jones “to report his story of Gerrity to the officials at Police Headquarters,” as reported by the New York Herald. “Jones said he would certainly visit [Police Commissioner Theodore] Roosevelt.”
Robert Christie sold the property to the Enarem Realty Corporation in 1927. On October 28, The New York Evening Post remarked that it had been in the Christie family “for nearly fifty years,” adding, “It is occupied by [an] old three-story building.” The following year, in December, the new owners leased the buildings to the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company, Inc. for $6,000 per year (closer to $91,000 today).
A renovation completed the following year resulted in a “garage for more than five automobiles.” It was possibly at this time that the upper floors of the Downing Street building were removed. It became one of the firm’s New York Firestone Service Stores.
The renovations done by Firestone did not extend to exterior charm. via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services. In June 1933, Harvey Firestone described the service stores to The New York Sun. “One of the most important things in the eyes of the motor car owner today is the element of time…It annoys car owners to make many stops for service. As a result, Firestone has established its system of one-stop service store, equipping them with highly efficient machinery to give the car owner the best of service quickly and economically.” He said that only “factory trained experts are employed” in the stores.
The Firestone store occupied the building for decades. It had become the King Bear Auto Service Center by 1981. But the changing in the neighborhood resulting in a renovation in 2003 for an “eating and drinking establishment.”
On February 27, 2013 Brian Sloan, writing in The New York Times, reported, “There’s a new beer hall in town and, surprise, it’s actually in Manhattan. You’d think it would be tough to fit one into the bourgeois West Village, but the owners of Heartland Brewery have done just that, repurposing a parking garage…into a fine de siècle themed drinking parlor for up to 500 people.” Sloan called Houston Hall “Disney does Five Points,” saying “it almost feels like a Hollywood backlot version of Tammany-era new York, with rusticated brick walls, meticulously faded old-timey signage and period props galore.”
The rather bedraggled appearance of the two structures testifies to their unglamorous history.
photographs by the author
For years I have passed by these buildings on my way to the Board of Elections at 200 Varick Street. Not much to admire since the sites are busy after I leave the area. The area now is the home of Shake Shack, Chipolte, and even Trader Joe’s at Spring between 6th and Varick!
GROUP OF FOUR TREES BY JEAN DUBUFFET AT ONE CHASE MANHATTAN PLAZA 404040 ED LITCHER, LAURA HUSSEY BOTH GOT IT!!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
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Winter Cathedral by Mandylights. Courtesy of Brooklyn Botanic Garden.Through January 9, 2022, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) will host Lightscape, an after-dark illuminated spectacular celebrating the beauty of winter. The exhibition will feature a festive trail winding through the garden’s 52-acre landscape complete with colorful light displays highlighting the trees, landscape, and architecture and site-specific music and sounds. More than 18 works of art will be on display and will be animated with over one million lights. One standout display will be the Mandylights’ Winter Cathedral, a 100-foot tunnel adorned with thousands of LED lights in the shape of a traditional Gothic arch. Covering the Cherry Esplanade will be the animated light show Sea of Life by Ithaca. Other attractions will include Ashley Bertling’s Fire Garden, which uses bespoke structures to fill the garden with real fire from candles, accompanied by seasonal music, and Frog Man’s Laser Pond, which involves laser beams being shot across the water in the Japanese-Hill-and-Pond Garden to the sound of music. Lightscape will also directly highlight the work of local artists including Jacqueline Woodson’s site-specific poems, collectively known as Remember the Light Inside You, which will be projected onto trees, shrubs, and hillocks near Bluebell Wood. Through this series of poems, Woodson aims to engage visitors’ senses and immerse them fully into the beauty of nature, even during one of the darkest times of the year. For nonmembers of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, tickets are priced at $34 for adults and $18 for children ages 3-12. BBG member admission tickets are $30 for adults and $16 for children.
The Great Debate by Hebru Brantley. Photo by @pixelatedstreets.
On display at The Battery in Lower Manhattan is artist Hebru Brantley’s 16-foot steel sculpture The Great Debate, depicting Flyboy — a superhero character of color created by Brantley in response to the few characters of color found within the comic book world. Brantley was inspired by the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American military aviator pilots who fought in World War II. Flyboy serves as a nod of admiration towards these men, aimed at inspiring future generations to soar above their predicted possibilities, regardless of the challenges standing in their way. Presented in partnership with NYC Parks’ Art in the Parks program, The Great Debate forces its audience to reflect on the meaning of freedom in American society today. The Great Debate will be available for view through November 13, 2022.
A view of The Fifth Season: Annual Holiday Lighting on Fifth Avenue. Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for Fifth Avenue Association.Located along Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue is The Fifth Season, a series of 32 hand-crafted-in-Brooklyn animal sculptures across from the Plaza Hotel, 5,000 feet of lighting, a skating rink, and 24 handmade icebergs surrounding the Pulitzer Fountain. The installation is accompanied by music from composer Paul Brill, with all elements created by artisans of Harlequin Designs.
Day Into Night Into Day in the 138 St-Grand Concourse Subway Station Stairwell. Photo by Argenis Apolinario. Inside the downtown stairwell between the mezzanine entrance and southbound platform at the 138th St-Grand Concourse Subway Station in the Bronx is Amy Pryor’s mosaic artwork Day Into Night Into Day. Presented by MTA Arts & Design, the four-part mosaic depicts the shifting hours of daylight and darkness over four seasons using a spectrum of colors. Its structure is uniquely based around a twenty-four-hour clock and pie charts. Overlapping the seasonal sunrises and sunsets are charts of stars rarely seen from the Bronx at night. The mosaic’s top left square depicts the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, while the top right represents the vernal equinox, the first day of spring. In the lower-left is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, and in the lower right is the autumnal equinox, the first day of fall.As Sandra Bloodworth, Director of MTA Arts & Design stated: “In many ways, Day Into Night Into Day parallels the daily journeys taken by travelers through the station to and from the Mott Haven neighborhood. Amy’s rendering of the rising and setting of the sun highlights the cosmic energy involved in determining the length of our days and nights. The sparkling surfaces of the mosaics bring a contemplative spirit into the station, reminding us that while the evening brings our day to a close, every morning provides us with a fresh start. The artwork captures our imagination and adds a burst of energy and a wave of tranquility to the beginning and conclusion of our travels.”
Photo credit: Martin Seck,
Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership In collaboration with the New York City Department of Transportation’s Temporary Art Program and Van Alen Institute, the Flatiron Partnership will present Atelier Cho Thompson’s art installation Interwoven in the Flatiron North Public Plaza. Inspired by New York’s tapestry of cultures and peoples, Interwoven is a series of interactive archways activated with color-coded sensors. When two or more people pass through sensors of the same color, Interwoven responds with the corresponding light and musical compositions by local artists. The installation also features an interactive story wall made of backlit papers hung on a grid — allowing visitors to share responses to the prompt “I dream of a world where together we can…” which was selected by Youth Fellows from the People’s Bus NYC. Alongside Interwoven, four acapella performances by Christmas carolers will take place in the North Public Plaza. Interwoven was chosen through the eighth annual Flatiron Holiday Design Competition and will remain on display through January 2, 2022.
NYBG Photo. Courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden. This November the Holiday Train Show will return to the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) for its 30th anniversary. Visitors will have the opportunity to marvel as model trains zip through a display of more than 175 New York landmarks, each having been recreated from natural materials such as birch bark, lotus pods, cinnamon sticks, cones, acorns, and seeds. Inside the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, a miniature wonderland will feature classic New York structures like the Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge, and Rockefeller Center. In honor of the show’s 30th anniversary, a new replica of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library and Haupt Conservatory has been created. The Holiday Train Show will run from November 20, 2021 through January 23, 2022.On 25 select nights starting November 24, 2021 until January 22, 2022, NYBG GLOW will light up the Botanical Garden. Around 1.5 miles of the Botanical Garden will be filled with washes of bright colors, thousands of energy-efficient LED lights, and illuminated plant stories, with the Haupt Conservatory and Mertz Library Building serving as the centerpieces. During NYBG GLOW nights, beverages and light fare will be served at the outdoor bars or the Bronx Night Market Holiday Pop-Up. To celebrate the holiday season, ice sculpting, music, and pop-up performances will be available around the garden.
A PERFECT HOLIDAY GIFT
Ron Crawford’s new print of the Queensboro Bridge is available at the kiosk, a perfect holiday gift, $35-
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:
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
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JOYOUS HOLIDAY GREETINGS FROM OUR FRIENDS AT COLER. THANKS TO MARGARET LOPES AND THE THERAPEUTIC RECREATION STAFF FOR THE WONDERFUL DECORATIONS
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2021
ISSUE #551
FROM EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
THE HOTEL WOLCOTT
IN DAYS GONE BY
A stunning Christmas feast served to guests at a posh Gilded Age hotel
The Wolcott at 31st Street and Fifth Avenue, about 1910
In the Wolcott’s Gilded Age heyday, however, the hotel’s clientele were a lot higher on the social ladder. Opened in 1904 in the hopping theater and shopping district near Herald Square that was fast supplanting the rough and ready Tenderloin, this Beaux-Arts beauty hosted notables like Edith Wharton and Isadora Duncan.
The Wolcott menu front cover The Wolcott operated on what was known as the “European plan,” which meant that meals were not included in the room price. So when the hotel dining room put together this mind-blowing Christmas dinner menu for December 25, 1905, hotel guests had to pay extra.
What a feast it was! The menu featured more than a hundred options, starting with an array of oysters and clams and then 25 or so relishes (lots of caviar and “chow-chow”), soups (turtle, of course; it’s an old New York favorite), and fish (codfish tongues?) before getting to the official entrees.
If beef, ham, or chicken isn’t your idea of a Christmas dinner main course, the Wolcott offered plenty of game options, like grouse, woodcock, and partridge.
A chef in the Wolcott kitchen, 1917
The vegetable choices were quite extensive, and that list included different varieties of potatoes, including “French fried”—perhaps an early mention of the classic side we’re so used to with a burger today.
The dessert course went old-school with plum pudding. But look at all those ice cream options! Fruit, cheese, and then coffee and tea rounded out the feast. I wonder what “Wolcott special milk” is?
The menu reveals some things about life among the upper classes in Gilded Age New York. Unlike today’s pared-down, curated restaurant menu, variety seems to have been important. French dishes were certainly popular, likely thanks to the influence of Delmonico’s, which by 1905 had moved up to 44th Street and was still a leading option in a city where dining out was becoming more of a regular thing. How the hotel’s dining staff managed to obtain and store all of these food choices is mind-boggling. Chefs must have been down at the city’s great food markets, like Washington Market, early in the morning, and an army of cooks likely chopping, peeling, and cleaning all day.
One thing remains the same, though: Christmas dinner was meant to be a celebration, just as it is today.
At the foot of Old Fulton Street in Brooklyn Bridge Park, sits a clapboard house with a tower. Built in 1926 at the former site of the Fulton Ferry landing, this structure was a fireboat house for the New York City Fire How the hotel’s dining staff managed to obtain and store all of these food choices is mind-boggling. Chefs must have been down at the city’s great food markets, like Washington Market, early in the morning, and an army of cooks likely chopping, peeling, and cleaning all day.
One thing remains the same, though: Christmas dinner was meant to be a celebration, just as it is today.
ED LITCHER, ARON EISENPREISS, LAURA HUSSEY GOT IT.. IF I MISSED YOUR NAME, SORRY, I AM CATCHING UP FROM 3 DAYS AWAY!!
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
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
[Top image: MCNY, x2011.34.303; Second image: NYPL
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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