Long ago, in the early 1950s, my mom loaded me and my sister into our stick shift, non-airconditioned Chevy and headed south on pre-Interstate highways from Pittsburgh to Miami Beach. I handled our AAA Triptic maps and she drove, 4 or 5 days. We spent summers in the ‘50s there, visiting her family, watching Miami Beach grow and change. Now with friends fleeing south to warmer climes, I thought it would be fun to think again about Florida.
Of course, some history. Florida was contested by the Spanish, French and British from earliest colonial times. West Florida (the Panhandle) was a distinct region (important because it bordered on the Mississippi); the east and west coasts of the peninsula developed separately, and the south was an impossible, disease-ridden swamp. And, also, Key West (important because it overlooked Caribbean trade routes).
Florida was ceded by Spain to the US in 1819 and became a territory in 1821, sparsely settled by Seminole Native Americans, escaped African American slaves (many lived with the Seminoles), Spaniards and folks from older Southern plantation regions. With territorial status, the pieces were merged into a single entity with a new capital city in Tallahassee, chosen because it lay halfway between the St. Augustine and Pensacola, the old governmental centers.
The US fought 3 bloody wars with Seminoles – who were finally forcibly removed from the territory (think Andrew Jackson). Florida became our twenty-seventh state in 1845; by 1850 the population had grown to some 87,000 (New York City’s population in 1850 was 590,000), including about 39,000 African American slaves and 1,000 free Blacks. Before the Civil War, Florida was becoming another southern cotton state.
After the War, Florida took a different route. Jacksonville and Pensacola flourished because of the demand for lumber and forest products in the nation’s growing economy. During the final quarter of the nineteenth century, large-scale commercial agriculture, especially cattle, grew in importance. Industries such as cigar manufacturing took root in the immigrant communities of the state.
And tourism: By the late 1880s, Naples and Marco Island were viewed as winter resorts for wealthy Northerners and sportsmen. Steamboat tours on Florida’s winding rivers were a popular attraction for these visitors. Travelers praised Florida’s climate and its reported ability to ease various ailments. Florida was even said to be an aphrodisiac, for “heat stimulates powerfully the faculty of reproduction,” as Daniel Garrison Brinton, medical doctor turned anthropologist, wrote in an 1869 guidebook.
Travelers could make their way to Florida by steamboat and the great private yachts of the age, built for blue sea travel, could have made the trip. But the number of visitors arriving this way could not have been very great. Rail transformed Florida from a backward agricultural state with poor transportation connections to the North and Midwest. By 1900, the foundation of the state’s growth had laid down with the construction of railroad systems along both coasts. Henry Morrison Flagler and Henry Plant are the two figures most associated with Florida railroads.
Henry Morrison Flagler was one of John D. Rockefeller’s partners in creating Standard Oil. Flagler came to St. Augustine in 1883 on his honeymoon and found the city lacking in luxurious accommodations that would attract wealthy families. He realized that paradise could be marketed and sold, and he launched a new career. In 1885 Flagler started developing the area around the old city of St. Augustine, building a grand hotel, the Hotel Ponce de Leon in 1888. (The hotel is now Flagler College.)
But even the grandest hotels would be empty unless guests could get there. Flagler realized that the key to developing Florida was transportation. In the next two decades, he bought smaller railroads, put them all on the same standard gauge track, and opened Florida to wider tourism. Flagler also built schools, a hospital and churches in St. Augustine, “transforming St. Augustine from a seedy southern Saratoga into a glamorous winter Newport.”
By 1912, Flagler’s trains traveled the length of the state to Key West, constructing a string of luxury hotels from St. Augustine to Miami.
In 1893, he selected a small, sandy island called Palm City and built a huge hotel called “The Breakers” to promote his railroad growth. Even before the railroad reached Palm Beach, affluent Northerners were already planning their winter mansions. Flagler built his new wife a massive marble winter mansion called Whitehall and Palm Beach soon became the winter watering hole of America’s industrial elite.
On the West Coast, a Connecticut businessman, Henry Bradley Plant, started another railroad boom when he obtained a charter for a South Florida Railroad on the St. Johns River to Tampa Bay. Plant’s railroad turned Tampa into a deep-water center for freighters and steamers from Cuba and South America. The rail line opened the region to citrus and vegetable growers – a vast improvement over the twenty days to reach Northern markets by boat.
Plant’s railroad quickly attracted the Key West cigar industry and Northern manufacturers to Tampa, as well as investors who started trolley lines and electric companies. Nothing was as spectacular as Henry Plant’s largest hotel, the Tampa Bay Hotel. At one hundred dollars per day, Plant hoped to attract the Northern rich to his empire. (The hotel is now part of the University of Tampa.)
With railroads now stretching the length of the state, the Everglades being drained and then World War I, which cut off richer Americans from traditional European beach resorts, Florida boomed. Developers pushed Florida real estate – Carl Fisher who backed Miami Beach development, purchased a huge billboard in Times Square proclaiming “It’s June In Miami”. Brokers and dealers speculated wildly, selling underwater properties to clueless northerners. In 1925, some 7,000 people seeking a new life and perhaps a new fortune entered Florida each day. In Massachusetts alone, owners of more than 100,000 bank accounts used their savings to invest in Florida land. Deposits in Florida banks increased 400 percent in three years.
In the increasing frenzy of Florida real estate speculation in the 1920s, lots were bought and sold for double their prices in a matter of weeks. Then options on lots were traded, and options on options were sold. Fabulous stories abounded, like the one of a cabby who took a couple the thirteen hundred miles from Manhattan to Palm Beach and, with his fare and tip, invested in real estate and made a million dollars. Check out the Marx Brothers’ film “The Coconuts” for a hilarious but all too accurate picture of the boom.
Even in January 1925, investors began to read negative press about Florida investments. Forbes magazine warned that Florida land prices were based solely upon the expectation of finding a customer, not upon any reality of land value. The Internal Revenue Service began to scrutinize the Florida real estate boom as a giant scam. Speculators intent on flipping properties at huge profits found new buyers increasingly scarce. And then bust.
Before the bust, one day’s Miami Daily News ran to 504 pages and weighed as much as a healthy baby; just two years later, in 1927, a single edition of another Florida daily carried 41 pages of tax delinquency notices. In time, nearly 90 % of Florida’s municipalities defaulted on their bonds. Overleveraged banks collapsed. Empty lots stretched across mile after mile of unbuildable land. The developer Walter P. Fuller offered the not-quite-last word in a memoir published three decades later: “We just ran out of suckers.” Florida’s property bubble burst did not set off the Great Depression, but the Depression rolled over and exacerbated Florida’s situation.
World War II was a powerful accelerator in Florida’s recovery with military bases sprouting in all directions. After the war, many who had been stationed in Florida returned to live there. Florida remained a winter resort largely for the well-off until the earthquake change produced by air conditioning and economy non-stop flights. Summer tourism boomed. Middle class New Yorkers could pay in advance with one check for transportation, accommodation and meals (the “American Plan, two meals a day), and Florida – particularly the billowing Miami Beach – stole the clientele from the upstate borscht belt resorts in the Catskills. Retirement communities and long-term care facilities expanded across the state and, finally, new forms of destination resorts drew in floods of tourists. And my mother and me.
The story of Miami Beach, dear to me (and to my dermatologist) is worth a story of its own. In any case, keep warm. Spring is coming
MODEL OF FLUSHING MEADOW PARK FROM THE\PANORAMA OF NEW YORK CITY AT QUEENS MUSEUM, .ED LITCHER 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
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A tough, feisty photographer who began freelancing for the Associated Press in 1935, Wolcott hasonly recently received the attention she deserves. Most of her fairly short career was spent working under Roy Stryker at the Farm Security Administration, following the Stryker formula for “documenting” working-class life across the country during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Her New England pictures are eloquent examples of that formula, merging old and new New Englands into an (almost) comfortable relationship with each other. Her own inclination, after studies at the New School for Social Research in New York and the University of Vienna (she heard Hitler speak in Berlin), was to be more of a social activist, an inclination that occasionally surfaces in her “off duty” pictures. In 1941, with husband Lee Wolcott, she moved to a farm in Virginia. For the next three decades she raised a family, taught school, and traveled with her husband, who joined the Foreign Service after a farming accident. In 1975, she returned to photography, this time specializing in color. She and her husband settled in San Francisco in 1978.
Marion Post Wolcott, Miner’s wife on porch of their home, an abandoned company store. Pursglove, West Virginia, ca. 1938, printed later, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Dr. John H. and Jann Arrington Wolcott, 1998.120.15
Marion Post Wolcott, Dancing during the Cotton Carnival. Memphis, Tennessee, May 1940, printed later, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Dr. John H. and Jann Arrington Wolcott, 1998.120.43
Marion Post Wolcott, The Piney Hotel, ca. 1938, printed later, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Dr. John H. and Jann Arrington Wolcott, 1998.120.35
Marion Post Wolcott, White man on wagon, ca. 1938, printed later, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Dr. John H. and Jann Arrington Wolcott, 1998.120.30
Marion Post Wolcott, Gathering of black men, ca. 1938, printed later, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Dr. John H. and Jann Arrington Wolcott, 1998.120.26 Title
Marion Post Wolcott, Work horses on a Farm Security Administration project. Scott’s Bluff, Nebraska, 1941, printed later, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Dr. John H. and Jann Arrington Wolcott, 1998.120.53
Marion Post Wolcott, Hanging bands of tobacco in barn to dry, Russell Spear’s farm. Near Lexington, Kentucky, 1940, printed later, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Dr. John H. and Jann Arrington Wolcott, 1998.120.21
Marion Post Wolcott, Workers and truck, ca. 1938, printed later, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Dr. John H. and Jann Arrington Wolcott, 1998.120.8
Marion Post Wolcott, Coney Island Lunch, ca. 1938, printed later, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Dr. John H. and Jann Arrington Wolcott, 1998.120.34
GREYHOUND BUS TERMINAL ON 38TH STREET NEXT TO OLD PENN STATION GUY LUDWIG, ANDY SPARBERG, GLORIA HERMAN, GLORIA HERMAN AND CLARA BELLA GOT IT RIGHT!
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Sources
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Macy’s Bldg. & Herald Square, New York City, 1907.
Irving Underhill
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Irving Underhill (1872–1960) was one of the most notable commercial photographers in New York City during the first half of the 20th century. He produced work that was featured in postcards and numerous publications while he was still alive, and that continues to be exhibited and receive recognition long after his death.
Wall Street, New York City
Glossy color postcard of Wall Street, New York, New York. Back is divided. Published by The American Art Publishing Co., New York City, #R-34320. It reads “Wall Street Canyon, the financial heart of America, is occupied entirely by banks, trust companies and financial interests. The Stock Exchange on left, the U. S. Sub-Treasury and Bankers Trust Building 39 stories high on right.”
Underhill took a particular interest in capturing the cityscape, landmarks, tall buildings, and nautical scenes. In 1911 Woolworth hired Underhill – whose studio directly fronted the building site – to document the construction of the Woolworth Building at regularly timed intervals. The photographs were then mailed to store managers throughout the country and abroad, with the recommendation that they be distributed and published as “widely as possible.”[6][7] Another self-published work that was a promotional piece in collaboration with the Hudson River Day Line was entitled The Hudson River: photo-gravures.[8]
He was enlisted in the Prohibition with photographs from a Federal Prohibition Laboratory that accompanied a 1926 New York Times article, showing shelves and shelves of liquor.[9]
Irving Underhill was particularly adept at showing the juxtaposition of old pedestrian-scaled buildings and newer skyscrapers that seemed to dominate the older city. Such was the case with one photo of the Trinity Church Spire, shown against the new fifty-story 1 Wall Street at Broadway and Wall, which in 1931 was said to be the most costly plot of real estate in the entire world.[10] Underhill also photographed the rise of the Empire State Building.
In an article celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Architectural League of New York, in 1931, an article in The New York Times entitled “From Roofs to Towers and Slats”, prominently featured a photograph Irving Underhill.[11] This photograph showed the skyline below City Hall Park at the beginning of the century, to symbolize the passing of an era before tall buildings began to dominate the cityscape.
In 1982, a book entitled New York, photographs, 1850-1950 featured some of Underhill’s work, particular his photo of Columbus Circle between 58th and 60th Streets.[12]
A photo of the Woolworth Building in 1913 made shortly after construction was completed was highlighted in a 1993 New York Times article. Charles Hagen compared this photo with an etching from John Marin about the same time, and wrote “Irving Underhill’s photo, made the same year, offers a more sober depiction of the building’s Gothic forms than Marin’s giddy impression, but records it with a mixture of down-to-earth factuality and pride.”[13]
Irving Underhill’s work was displayed along with Berenice Abbott‘s in 1993 exhibition by the Museum of the City of New York entitled “New York Saved: 30 Years of Landmarks Preservation.” The exhibition displayed Underhill’s photo of the exterior of Grand Central Terminal in 1919.[14] Still later, a photograph showing the West Street Building and the Singer Tower from the Hudson River, taken by Underhill ca. 1908, was included in a book on Cass Gilbert.[1]
The work of Irving Underhill continues to resonate today. A colored postcard of Columbus Circle from 1925, was used in a 2005 New York Times article.[15] His picture of the Manhattan Bridge from a New York Times article in 1909, was highlighted in a 2009 article talking about the same bridge and how it has struggled to earn recognition and respect. Underhill’s photo shows the beginning of decking being hung tenuously from the thick and heavy cables overhead.[16]
Digitization efforts have brought Underhill’s work into the public spotlight once again. The New York Public Library Digital Gallery, includes 249 Items under the name “Underhill, Irving” in their digital collection available via their website. Likewise, the Museum of the City of New York has 142 results of digitized images available to view in their online collection. The Brooklyn Museum now has 119 Underhill images in their online digital collection.
Title: Hydro-aeroplane – Wright model at Battery, N.Y. Abstract/medium: 1 photographic print.
Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress Public domain
Hydro-aeroplane – Wright model at Battery, N.Y. LCCN2002718324.ti 1912
New York City- Century Opera House, Central Park west & 62nd St. LCCN2003678134.jpg Title: New York City: Century Opera House, Central Park west & 62nd St. Abstract/medium: 1 photographic print.
Title: Arsenal Central Park Abstract/medium: 1 photographic print.Date1914
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As the 1920s roared on in New York City, Irving Chanin was busy building. The developer was responsible for several Garment Center buildings, as well as the famous Roxy Theatre, the Majestic Apartments and the Century Apartments on Central Park West, and the Royale and Majestic Theatres.
His signature building would rise at 122 E. 42nd Street at Lexington Avenue, The Chanin Building. Chanin commissioned architects Sloan & Robertson to design his 56-story tower. It would be the first major Art Deco office building in the city and, according to The City Review, “the finest expression of Art Deco in the city.”
Mayor James Walker was on hand for the dedication of the building in January 1929. It heralded the beginning of an age of iconic Art Deco buildings in Manhattan: Rockefeller Center, the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building would all rise in a matter of years.
Although the bulk of the structure, complying with the city’s demand for set-backs, has been declared somewhat unexciting; the crown of the building with its buttresses and piers has been called the finest in the city. What no one complains of, however, is the exuberant Art Deco decoration.
In “New York 1930, Architecture And Urbanism Between the Two World Wars,” authors Robert A. M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin and Thomas Mellins write “Above shop fronts sheathed in bronze and black Belgian marble, a bronze frieze narrated the story of evolution, beginning with the lower marine forms and then bursting forth with fish and birds. This formed a plinth for a two-story colonnade of massive Norman piers whose squashed cushion capitals were carved with writhing sea monsters. The fourth story was sheathed in terra-cotta panels rendered with a bold overall pattern of abstract floral patterns”
The frieze depicting evolution stopped at geese; the designers no doubt feeling that including man in the process, only four years after the Scopes Trial, might be too controversial.
Chanin used his own architectural department head, Jacques I. Delamarre and Rene Chambellan, an architectural sculptor, to decorate the interiors. Fantastic Art Deco grills, elevator doors, mailboxes and sculptures greeted the visitor. Two bronze-painted plaster reliefs by Chambellan represent Achievement and Success. The means to gain these are represented in six matching reliefs: three are physical, Effort, Activity and Endurance; and three are mental, Enlightenment, Vision, and Courage.
On the 54th Floor was an roof top observatory and on the 50th and 51st floor was a 200-seat theatre decorated in silver and black for the tenants’ sole use. Later the space was converted to offices.
Chanin installed his own offices on the 52nd floor, lavishing it with Art Deco ornamentation, including bronze gates. Below ground the Baltimore Ohio Railroad Company leased space for ticket offices, waiting rooms and a bus terminal – complete with an immense turntable to turn the busses around.
The Chanin Building was perhaps solely responsible for making 42nd Street the premier commercial address of the time. The imposing structure became the subject of one of Hugh Ferriss’s architectural paintings.
Throughout the 20th Century to the present it remains a striking presence in midtown — an Art Deco masterpiece.
ANDY SPARBERG, LAURA HUSSEY AND MITCHELL ELINSON KNOW THEIR TRAIN STATIONS!
SOURCES
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
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. 2022 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
Born in 2020 as a way to celebrate the strength and resiliency of New Yorkers during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Flag Project at Rockefeller Center replaced the flags surrounding the plaza with crowd-sourced art for the first time in the Center’s history. The 193 flagpoles normally fly the flags of the countries recognized by the United Nations. Now, Rockefeller Center is putting out an open call for artists to submit artwork that reflects this year’s theme “Only One Earth.”
The wildly popular first edition of the Flag Project received over a thousand submissions for the 193 spots available. The two past editions featured flags designed by famous artists and designers like Jeff Koons, Marina Abromovich, KAWS, Christian Siriano, Elliott Erwitt, Tyler Mitchell, and Ryan McGinley, though the project is certainly not limited to renowned artists. Indeed, artists from all walks of life are invited to submit their work for consideration via Rockefeller Center’s website.
The Flag Project returned in 2021 and celebrated New York City through photography. It was presented in partnership with the non-profit Aperture Foundation and featured a lightbox exhibition with works by esteemed street photographer Jamel Shabazz in addition to the flags.
This year’s Flag Project will be presented by Tishman Speyer, the developer behind Rockefeller Center, in partnership with the Climate Museum and the United Nations Environment Programme. “Submit an original piece of art that shows us what the environment means to you, how you live sustainably and in harmony with nature, and the daily steps you take towards positive climate action,” the submission page states.
The winning designs will be created as eco-friendly, biodegradable flags that will fly from April 1st until May 6th and on June 5th in honor of World Environment Day. The flags will be a focal point of Rockefeller Center’s free public programming for Earth Day on April 22nd. Submissions are open until February 24th.
“We’re delighted to be partnering with UNEP and the Climate Museum to address the global threat of climate change this year with inspirational art by artists from around the world. The Flag Project has quickly become one of Rockefeller Center’s most beloved events. It’s an opportunity for artists of all ages, near and far, to share their visions for our one earth,” EB Kelly, Managing Director and Head of Rockefeller Center, said in a statement.
This year’s edition of the Flag Project coincides with Stockholm+50, an international environmental meeting that will be held in Stockholm on June 5th to discuss the UN’s Sustainable Development goals, including the Paris Agreement, the 2030 Agenda, and the post-2020 global Biodiversity Framework.
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.”
No Less Than Everything Came Together by Marcel Dzama at the Bedford Avenue Station. Photo by Kris Graves.
As an additional pop of color, the MTA has unveiled Queens of the Night and No Less Than Everything Comes Together, two permanent mosaic series inside the 1st Avenue and Bedford Avenue L train stations. Created by artist Katherine Bradford, Queens of the Night serves as a tribute to the creatives and essential workers who ride the L train daily. Located in the East Village at the 1st Avenue station, the ethereal figures in Bradford’s work come together to inspire viewers to consider the outward expression of their own interior vivacity. One of the most striking panels from Queens of the Night is “Superhero Responds,” portraying New York’s essential workers in the style of Superman.Situated in Williamsburg at Bedford Avenue, No Less Than Everything Comes Together features theatrical fairy-like figures under the sun and moon. Created by Marcel Dzama, scenes depicted in No Less Than Everything Comes Together are populated with elegant ballet performers, many of whom are adorned with the black-and-white costumes typically worn by NYC Ballet dancers. Scattered throughout the mosaic series are numerous characters representing infamous Brooklynites including Bugsy Siegel and Captain Jonathan Williams — the founder of Williamsburg.
Every One by Nick Cave at Transit Times Sq 42 St Station. Courtesy of MTA Arts & Design.
Inside the new 42nd Street Connector between Times Square and Grand Central is Every One, the first of a three-piece installation by artist Nick Cave. Commissioned by MTA Arts & Design, the installation was created as part of the 42nd Street Shuttle reconstruction and reconfiguration project, costing the city more than $250 million. The figures were made from recomposed source photos of soundsuits taken by James Prinz, which were then interpreted in glass for display on the subway station’s walls.
Every One’s design features a series of figures wearing colorful soundsuits — costumes that camouflage the shape of the wearer. Taking inspiration from African art traditions, ceremonial dresses, and haute-couture fashion, soundsuits are unique in that through covering the entire body, they conceal the wearer’s gender, race, and class, which eliminates audience judgment throughout the performance. Throughout the installation, the figures can be seen jumping and twirling along the wall, with their suits swaying as if moved by the wind. The other two parts of Cave’s installations, Each One and Equal All, will be installed next year at the new shuttle entrance and on the center island platform wall at Grand Central Terminal respectively.
A soaring Art Deco masterpiece and a National Historic Landmark, Cincinnati Union Terminal is also a museum and cultural center where discoveries await. Following a complete renovation, the building reopened to the public in late 2018. ANDY SPARBERG, LAURA HUSEY AND M. FRANK GOT IT!
FROM A READER
From Jay Jacobson But my folks left NYC in the middle 1960s to live in Rome. A few years later (about 1972, i think) my mother returned to New York. She moved into a room in our Mitchell Lama coop on the West Side until she could find a place to live with my dad when he finished up in Rome and came back to NYC. Somehow, my mother was able to rent a one bedroom apartment in the Century. It had the sunken living room, a fake fireplace, and no view at all of Central Park West. The interior garden of building was an unattractive sight of building materials, so looking out the apartment windows offered no views of anything.
When my dad returned, he joined my mother in the Century. She died in 1979, just before our son Dan’s birthday. My dad stayed on as widower, buying the apartment when the condo plan was offered. It was the last home he had, as he died in 2010, shortly after Pat and I brought him to an assisted living facility in Massachusetts to be nearer to us. We celebrated his 100th birthday with family coming from many parts of the United States with a huge dinner from The Great Wall, a local Northampton Chinese restaurant set out in the nursing home main activity room.
When it was clear that my dad would not return to the Century, it became my job to empty his apartment, to have it painted and to arrange for the sale. My dad had delayed selling for as long as he could. He had an idea of the value of the place well beyond reality. He had made friends with many of his neighbors, including one broker, who he trusted to do a good job for him. When I reported the results of the sale, he was disappointed. “How much did the lawyers get for a fee?” he asked. When I told him there was no fee he paid, he was mollified but still grumpy.
About a week later, visiting him in the nursing home, he asked “Who was the lawyer?” When I told him I handled the transaction, he looked at me and said, “Thanks”.
Sent recently from an iPhone transmitting near my home planet
JJJ
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The massive 1909 Century Theatre (originally the New Theatre) was sold by the Shubert Brothers in 1929 to the Chanin Construction Co., headed by architect/developer Irwin Salmon Chanin. In fact, on May 28 the Chanin firm announced its intentions to purchase the entire block from 62nd to 63rd, and from Central Park West to Broadway.
Originally, Irwin Chanin announced that his Palais de France would occupy the site–a multi-use building that would include exhibition space, French-based stores, offices of the French consulate, a hotel, and additional office space for French firms. Chanin traveled to France to negotiate the sale of the site to the Government, but things fizzled. Instead of the ambitious Palaise de France, Chanin’s focus turned to a modern high-rise apartment building. At the time, Chanin’s Art Deco style Hotel Majestic was rising ten blocks north on Central Park West. Like that building, the Century Apartments (named in honor of the theater), would mark the Central Park West skyline with twin towers. The 30-story structure brought welcomed jobs to the Depression-crippled construction industry. On June 21, 1931 The New York Times reported, “At one stage in the steel construction thirty trades were employed simultaneously. The number of men at work has been 1,050, and at one time there were 1,400 workers.”
Chanin stressed vertical and horizonal planes in his Art Deco, or “modern American,” design. The completed building held 417 apartments, many with Hollywood-set-ready sunken living rooms and fireplaces. Residents had views of Central Park or the landscaped private garden within the U-shaped building.
Irwin S. Chanin was undoubtedly pleased with his latest project, since he and his family were among the initial residents.
An advertisement in The Princeton Alumni Weekly was entitled, “The Century Has Everything and Central Park.” It touted that the apartments included “such ‘Century Specialties’ as 3-room duplexes, 2-room and 4-room tower units with 3 exposures, 6-room tower suites with 4 exposures and 7-room corner solarium units facing the Park.” (Those “solarium units” featured imported glass from England that permitted ultra-violet rays to penetrate the interiors.)
Along with the expected bankers and businessmen, the Century Apartments quickly attracted residents from the entertainment industry. On March 9, 1934 The Sun reported that actress Sally O’Neill had leased a duplex suite. Largely forgotten today, she was a film headliner, appearing in more than 40 films with co-stars like Constance Bennett and Joan Crawford.
Another entertainer in the building was Ethel Merman, whose career was skyrocketing. When she opened in Girl Crazy at the Alvin Theatre in 1930, The New Yorker deemed her “imitative of no one.” Sharing her apartment were her parents, Edward and Agnes Zimmerman. (Ethel explained to The New York Sun, “Some people think I’m Jewish. I’m not. I’m Scotch-German. Mother is Scotch; father is German. And Merman was better for the stage than Zimmerman. So I dropped the Zim.”)
Ward Morehouse, The New York Sun‘s drama critic interviewed Ethel in her apartment shortly after midnight on November 6, 1936, following the opening of performance in Red, Hot and Blue. Agnes stayed up while he was there, possibly for propriety’s sake. He wrote, “The living room was a flower shop; it had taken three cabs to haul her first-night tributes homeward.”
The 28-year-old singer and actress had come a long way in a few years. Morehouse said, “It’s my impression that when Mr. [Vinton] Freedley hired you for your first show, he paid you $350 weekly, but that you now get $3,500 a week.”
In typical Merman fashion, she responded, “Something around that. It’s a percentage arrangement. So far it’s worked out all right. When Vinton told me he wanted me for Red, Hot and Blue I said sure, I’d like to work for him, but he’d have to pay me. Well, he did…We’re giving a swell show right now.” (Merman’s Depression Era pay for Red, Hot and Blue would equal nearly $64,500 per week today.)
In 1937 Rose Gershwin, mother of George and Ira Gershwin, moved in. George had purchased a house on West 103rd Street for the family, but following his death that year the house was sold. Rose was the sold beneficiary of his estate. (She died at the age of 71 in her apartment on December 16, 1948.)
Other entertainment figures followed. On August 30, 1938 The New York Times announced, “Among those reported as having taken space in the thirty-story Century Apartments, 25 Central Park West, were Graham McNamee, radio announcer, and Al Goodman, orchestra leader. The former leased a terrace suite on the twelfth floor; the latter a seven-room solarium, facing Central Park.” Al Goodman was one of the most sought-after conductors on Broadway, eventually directing over 150 first-night performances.
Film star Carmen Miranda took a duplex apartment in June 1939. And on the same day producer and stage manager Bernard Hart signed a lease for a duplex. Although Hart was overshadowed by his famous playwright brother, Moss Hart, he more than made a name for himself. Among the hit plays he would manage were My Fair Lady and Camelot.
Film sensation Carmen Miranda leased an apartment in 1939 after the filming of Banana da Terra. from the collection of the New York Public Library
Not everyone in the Century Apartments, of course, came from the entertainment field. In 1940 residents included F. Tirade, president of the Gulf Shipping Company of Mexico; Chester Gash, president of the A. Gash Olive Oil Company; and at least eight physicians.
That year author William March moved in. The former highly-decorated U.S. Marine was well-known for his parties. According to biographer Roy S. Simmonds in his 1984 The Two Worlds of William March:
It was here, in Apartment 30-K…that March gave the more flamboyant of his legendary cocktail parties. Findley McRae, one one occasion arriving early for a party, found in the refrigerator jugs of cocktails which had been mixed the previous day for the large influx of guests…Clay Shaw has also recalled those parties in the “tremendous living room” with its “marvelous view over the Park,” and the seemingly inexhaustible jugs of prepared cocktails.
Motion picture actress Elaine Ellis did some entertaining of her own. On May 13, 1941 Ward Morehouse reported that she “entertained at the Century Apartments for [film director] Jus Addiss and Hayden Rorke. Guests included Ruth Chatterton, Constance Collier, Shirley Booth, Whitford Kane, Ann Corio, Anthony Brown, John Colton, Alexander Kirkland, Tonio Selwart, Thelma Schnee and Barry Thomson.”
Surrounded by high profile residents, the Irwin Chanins led comparatively subdued lives. Their names appeared in the society columns, however, on June 3, 1951, following the wedding of daughter Doris Joy to Alan Joseph Freeman. The ceremony took place in the garden of the Chanin country home in New Rochelle, New York.
Abraham “Abe” Bennett Minsky and his brothers were famous for their risque burlesque shows. The city outlawed burlesque in 1939, essentially putting an end to their careers. Following Abe’s death in 1949, his widow Mollie Minsky moved into the Century Apartments. Active in Jewish charities and the treasurer of the Burley Amusement Corp., she was unapologetic about her husband’s shows. “Burlesque never hurt anybody,” she told a reporter, “Anyone who objects to burlesque, authorities or no authorities, doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Irwin S. Chanin was not the only architect in the Century Apartments. In 1966 architect Robert A. M. Stern and his wife, Lynn, moved in. In his Between Memory and Invention, My Journey in Architecture, he noted:
In a rental unit I could not make changes to structural walls, but I daringly did as much as possible to express my point of view, commissioning stage carpenters to build a platform over much of the “sunken” living room without damaging the underlying floor. The platform had the effect of transforming our Central Park-facing casement windows into “French windows” (without any safety rails!) and forming a conversation pit a la Paul Rudolph, focused on the fake fireplace that was building standard.
The renovated Stern apartment. photo by Hans Namuth via Between Memory and Invention.
Stern’s alterations earned a two-page spread by Barbara Plumb in The New York Times on January 29, 1967.
Theater architect Herbert Knapp lived here at the time. The chief architect for the Shuberts, he was responsible for the Hammerstein Theatre (now the Ed Sullivan) in 1925, and the 1928 Ethel Barrymore Theatre. He suffered a fatal heart attack in his apartment here on February 16, 1973 at the age of 86.
photo by David Shankbone
In 1976, Sylvia Schofler Chanin died. Twelve years later, on February 25, 1988, after having lived in his Century Apartments for more than half a century, Irwin Chanin died in his apartment at the age of 96. Astoundingly, he had gone to his office in the Chanin Building every day until suffering an injury a month earlier. Chanin had lived to see several of his buildings, including the Century, the Beacon Theater and the Chanin Building designated as individual New York City landmarks.
At the time of Chanin’s death, the residents and owners of the Century Apartments had been locked in a heated conflict for about five years regarding conversion to cooperatives. Then, on February 19, 1989 The New York Times headlined an article “At Last, The Battle of the Century Ends.” Journalist Richard D. Lyons began the article saying, “One of the longest, bitterest conversion fights in Manhattan apartment house history has ended with the imposing Century Apartments…becoming a condominium.” Of the now 410 apartments, 229 had been sold to their occupants at from one-half to one-third the market rate.
The landmarked building continued to attract celebrity residents. Over the years professional boxer Jack Dempsey, theater mogul Lee Shubert, actors Nanette Fabray, Joey Heatherton, Carol Lawrence and Robert Goulet, and television personage Bill Cullin lived here.
Classical clarinetist David Glazer and his wife, Mia, were residents in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, as were actor Kevin Conway and television soap opera star Eileen Fulton. And in 2010 Dorothy Lichtenstein, widow of the Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein purchased a two-bedroom apartment here. The sale prompted a headline in The New York Times on February 11, “No Need to Buy Artwork.”
photo via realtor.com
Irwin S. Chanin’s sleek and imperious Art Deco structure is an integral part of Central Park West’s skyline–the backdrop for so many tourist photographs and motion picture scenes throughout the decades.
STRAUSS MEMORIAL ON BROADWAY AND 103 STREET. THE STRAUSS’ PERISHED ON THE TITANIC
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)
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia & Daytonian in Manhattan
In the last half of the 19th Century 23rd Street was the theatre district of Manhattan – opera houses, music halls, theatres and vaudeville houses lined the street from 5th to 8th Avenue. At the northwest corner of 23rd Street and 6th Avenue was Bryant’s Opera House – the home of the highly elaborate and popular minstrel troupe, Bryant’s Minstrels, perhaps most remembered for premiering the song “Dixie” and other Stephen Foster songs. When it was put up for sale in 1878, German-born Albert Bial and John Koster, who ran German-style concert hall and beer garden next door, took it over.
The concert hall of Koster & Bial’s — photo NYPL Collection
The newly-named “Koster and Bial’s Music Hall” included a closed 1200-seat vaudeville theatre and open-air beer garden. Because there was a law against selling alcohol in a theatre, the stage curtain was removed and a folding screen put in its place. And with that the music hall became a restaurant offering entertainment rather than a theatre offering food and drink. Moses King, in his 1892 Handbook of New York City referred to Koster and Bial’s as “high-class” and said that the “entertainments are of the vaudeville or variety order, like those given at the Alhambra in London and the Eldorado in Paris, with a burlesque to lead the programme…”
In 1886 Koster and Bial commissioned German architects Herman J. Schwarzmann and Albert Buchman to build a saloon and retail outlet for their beer bottling business a block north at the corner of 24th Street and 6th Avenue. Construction of the 4-story brick building with brownstone and terra cotta trim was completed on January 25, 1887. The saloon was dubbed “The Corner” and an exuberant metal cornice proclaimed the name as well as KOSTER & BIAL. On the 2nd floor corner of the building brownstone plaques carved with whimsical late Victorian lettering reading “The Corner,” doubled as street signs. Patrons entered through an ornate entrance of cast iron, stained glass and polished wood. The music hall and the saloon were joined so theatre-goers could enter either through the main entrance at 23rd Street or through The Corner building.
Koster and Bial’s Music Hall
Koster and Bial’s Music Hall was an important vaudeville theatre in New York City, located at Broadway and Thirty-Fourth Street, where Macy’s flagship store now stands. It had a seating capacity of 3,748, twice the size of many theaters. Ticket prices ranged from 25¢ for a seat in the gallery to $1.50 for one in the orchestra.[1] The venue was founded by John Koster (1844-1895) and Albert Bial (1842-1897) in the late 19th century and closed in 1901.
Trouble started when Koster and Bial offered more than food, drink and vaudeville. They also offered gentlemen patrons the paid favors of women. The New York Times, in a 1902 article reminiscing about former theatres, remarked “While Koster & Bial were in Twenty-third Street the notorious ‘cork room’ existed in their theatre. The walls of this room were covered with stoppers from champagne bottles, and the affairs that took place in the room in the late hours after show time would have astonished the churchgoers. In fact, what happened in the ‘cork room’ did finally become so well known that the affairs had to be stopped.”
The scandal of police raids forced John Koster to close the music hall on 23rd Street in 1893. Koster and Bial moved to 34th Street, partnering with Oscar Hammerstein I in the opening of a new Koster and Bial’s Music Hall.
The last Koster and Bial’s Music Hall originated when they moved uptown into the former Manhattan Opera House, a huge theatre built in Herald Square in 1892 by Oscar Hammerstein I in pursuit of his passion for grand opera.[citation needed] Quickly running into financial problems, Hammerstein decided to convert his theatre to a vaudeville format. He offered Koster and Bial a partnership under which he would manage the entertainment and they would manage the food. The new Koster and Bial’s Music Hall opened on August 28, 1893 and proved to be very successful. Hammerstein however quarreled with his partners and lawsuits ensued. Ultimately Koster and Bial bought out Hammerstein and operated the theater solely on their own.[4] The theatre finally closed in 1901 and was demolished to make way for Macy’s Department Store.[5]
The pictures were projected on a twenty-foot screen in an ornate gilded frame.
On April 24, the Times reported: Koster and Bial’s Music Hall.jpg EDISON’S VITASCOPE CHEERED. “Projecting Kinetoscope” Exhibited for First Time at Koster and Bial’s. …
The ingenious inventor’s latest toy is a projection of his kinetoscope figures in stereopticon fashion on a white screen in a darkened hall. In the center of the balcony of the big music hall is a curious object, which looks from below like the double turret of a big monitor. In the front of each half of it are two oblong holes.
The turret is neatly covered with … blue velvet brocade… The moving figures are about half life size. …a buzzing and roaring were heard in the turret, and an unusually bright light fell upon the screen. Then came into view two precious blonde young persons of the variety stage in pink and blue dresses, doing the umbrella dance with commendable celerity.
Their motions were clearly defined. When they vanished, a view of an angry surf breaking on a sandy beach near a stone pier amazed the spectators.
A burlesque boxing match between a tall, thin comedian and a short, fat one, a comic allegory called “The Monroe Doctrine”; an instant of motion in Hoyt’s farce, “A Milk White Flag,” repeated over and over again, and a skirt dance by a tall blonde completed the views, which were all wonderfully real and singularly exhilarating.
Walking past Macy’s between 6th and 7th Avenues, I passed this plaque commemorating Edison’s Vitascope first presenation on this site.
Placed on the wall with millions passing by daily. And, I stopped to read it!
Shakespeare’s Globe theatre opened in 1997 is a replica of the original Globe theatre in Bankside, England near the site of the original Globe Theatre. from Laura Hussey. Ed Litcher also 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) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Wikipedia Daytonian in Manhattan
BROOKLYN MUSEUM New York City collection by Dior.Photo courtesy Brooklyn Museum. There are never-before-seen sections from Dior dedicated only to the Brooklyn Museum. Photo courtesy Brooklyn Museum. Marilyn Monroe’s The Last Sitting byBert Stern Y line dress worn by Dovima.Photo courtesy Brooklyn Museum.
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ENTERTAINMENT STYLES AND PERFORMANCES HAVE CHANGED OVER THE YEARS. WHAT WAS ACCEPTABLE IN THE 1900’S MAY BE CONSIDERED INAPPROPRIATE AND SEXIST IN THE 2000’S. JUDITH BERDY
Chorus Girls In the 1930s and ‘40s, New York was famous for its chorus girls. Paris had its Folies Bergère and London its Windmill (where nudity was permitted only when naked starlets stood stock still as living statues). But in film and in real life, nothing was like New York.
The New York chorus line had several godfathers. One was the English musical comedy which included (and largely depended on) a line of gorgeously attired of beautiful girls (referred to at the time as ballet girls). Impresario George Edwardes established the Gaiety Theatre as the spiritual home of musical comedy and his “Gaiety Girls” were soon world famous, setting the pattern all others would try to copy.
New York had seen women unclad on stage before. Before the Civil War, theaters offered tableaux vivant, women posing as figures in a mythological diorama (perhaps “Psyche Going To The Bath” or “Venus Rising From the Sea”), not nude but wearing a body stocking. Soon, the tableaux part fell away, and nude bodies (or at least bodies that appeared to be nude) became the main idea. These “artist models” soon became so common on New York stages that they became incorporated into productions, such as The Black Crook at Niblo’s Garden in 1866, considered the first Broadway musical.
Another ancestor was our more raucous burlesque. American burlesque also looked to England. The English genre had been successfully staged in New York from the 1840s, and it was popularized by a visiting British burlesque troupe, Lydia Thompson and the “British Blondes”, beginning in 1868. New York burlesque built on this and on the earlier tradition of minstrel shows, and consisted of songs and ribald comic sketches, acrobats, magicians, solo singers, and chorus numbers, all usually concluded by an exotic dancer or a wrestling or boxing match.
The transition from old line burlesque to striptease was gradual. At first, ladies showed off their figures while singing and dancing. Then they stopped singing. The borders between vaudeville (more family directed, no chorus girls), burlesque (risqué and lots of girls) and strip are blurry, and all coexisted in New York in the early 20th century.
Surely the most famous chorus girls in New York performed in Florenz Ziegfeld’s “Follies” – the “Ziegfeld Girls.” Crowds watched scores of beautiful young women dressed (really undressed) in risqué outfits — a nod to burlesque – whose headdresses frequently involved more fabric than their costumes. The girls didn’t dance or sing but sashayed and posed – and so chorus girl as a “showgirl” was introduced and became a staple in all shows.
Chorus girls weren’t the highlight of the show; initially, the girls were transitional entertainment and accessories. But audiences and hopeful “Stage Door Johnnies” scanned the line for the newest beauty.
Where did they come from? One article says that chorus girls generally fell into one of four types. First, the born trooper, the real chorus girls, mainstay of the crew, who took to the stage from the sheer love of acting; Second, the showgirls, matrimonial fisherwoman who saw the stage as route to snaring a rich husband; Third, the runaway, the girl who ran away from home imagining she was doing something exciting and romantic; and Fourth, the society girl from a wealthy family who took up stage work as a lark, who were darlings of the tabloid, and might be tolerated purely because of their publicity value.
I don’t know how accurate this is, but they were all turf for a lot of films. And surely many in the chorus dreamed for the chance in 42nd Street when the leading lady breaks her ankle and the unknown youngster from the chorus has her big moment
Chorus girls were obviously sexy – that was the point – and attracted newsprint, with headlines such as “Showgirl Miss Virginia Lee Engaged to Eleven Men.” And books, too, like Madge Merton’s “Confessions of a Chorus Girl”, Grace White’s “Fallen by the Wayside, or a Chorus Girl’s Luck”, Frank Deshan’s “Chorus Girls I have Known” which were eaten up by the public. Even the New Yorker paid attention to the line. (Peter Arno’s “Valerie won’t be with us for several days. She backed into a steaming potato”.)
And movies. From Ziegfeld to Busby Berkeley isn’t a very big step. Berkeley took Ziegfeld’s girls into a magic cinematographic world of unlimited space and unbelievable camera angles. These are chorus girls moving in military precision (Berkeley was much influenced by military drill) but not in military outfits in head-spinning routines. Many of the most famous Berkeley scenes are in Gold Diggers of 1933, 42nd Street, Footlight Parade and Fashions of 1934.
Chorus girls and night clubs. One thinks of small, dark places with three musicians and a couple of strippers – burlesque drifted here. But New York had night clubs for a long time, back into the late 19th century. Mostly illegal, they focused on liquor, gambling and sex. Many jazz clubs of the 1920s were closed by Prohibition (but see below) and the Big Bands of the 1930s required more space than New York clubs could provide.
The New York night clubs we remember best opened in the 1940s. One of the most famous was the Latin Quarter, opened in 1942 by Lou Walters, Barbara Walters’ father. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, the Latin Quarter presented floor shows that featured chorus girls and can-can dancers, and headliners that included Frank Sinatra, Frankie Laine and the Andrews Sisters. It rivaled the Copacabana, which had opened two years earlier, in attracting the rich and the famous of post-World War II New York.
What about Chinese restaurants? Weren’t there chorus girls in Chinese restaurants or is this something I saw in a noir film? Well, it’s true, there were Chinese restos with chorus girls. But not in New York City. In San Francisco, this became a thing. Patrons were promised “’a taste of China,’ but really, it was more China-by-way-of-Hollywood….The Chinese American chorus girls might make their entrance in modest cheongsams, but would quickly discard them to reveal sexy burlesque costumes underneath.” And it fits, as most film noirs took place in San Francisco. New York had more cop films.) The Rockettes? Wonderful, but not chorus girls.
Thanks for taking a trip with me on this snowy day
CHINESE SCHOLARS GARDEN SNUG HARBOR CULTURAL CENTER AND BOTANICAL GARDEN LAURA HUSSEY, MITCHELL ELINSON, GLORIA HERMAN AND HARA REISER 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) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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In the 1880s and 1890s, Staten Island was home to some of New York City’s wealthiest families, among them Vanderbilts and Roosevelts, who turned an agricultural community into a sportsman’s paradise, with clubs devoted to tennis, boating, hunting, and bicycling. Among the residents was a young competitive athlete named Alice Austen, the amateur photographer who brilliantly captured the relaxed luxury of the island suburb and much else in the Gilded Age city. In 1945, ailing and destitute, Austen was forced to leave her home and might have died unknown and unappreciated. But the Staten Island Historical Society (today Historic Richmond Town) rescued her photographs—7,000 negatives and prints—and, in 1951, the year before she died, the public finally learned of her work in the pages of Life Magazine. Due to this recognition, her family’s home was saved from demolition and today is a public museum. Alice spent the last 50 years of her life partnered with Gertrude Tate, and in 2017, the Alice Austen House was designated a national site of LGBTQ history.
In 1976, Ann Novotny published the only monograph on Austen, which is long out of print. Last year, the Gotham Center for New York City History, at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, granted me a Robert D.L. Gardiner Fellowship to complete a new biographical study of this pioneering figure. My work expands upon Novotny and will be published by Fordham University Press. One can preview my research and see over 100 photographs from this prized collection in a new digital exhibit just released by the Gotham Center and formally announced here in Untapped New York.
Ragmen and Cart, Twenty-third Street between Third and Lexington Avenues. Courtesy of the Collection of Historic Richmond Town
The first group of Austen’s photographs to attract the notice of historians were her “Street Types of New York,” an 1896 portfolio of working class New Yorkers, which immediately drew comparison with Jacob Riis’s and Lewis Hine’s contemporaneous works. All the more notable was that a well-to-do young woman from Staten Island had taken the photographs.
Trude & I masked, short skirts, August 6, 1891. Courtesy of the Collection of Historic Richmond Town
Trude and Alice grew up together. In this photograph, the two twenty-five-year-olds mirror each other, masked, with their hair down, wearing only their undergarments and stockings, and pretending to smoke cigarettes, looking vaguely like women of ill repute. They stand in Trude’s bedroom in the rectory of St. John’s Church, where Trude’s father was pastor. The church was around the corner from Clear Comfort, the Austen family home.
More recently, portraits showing Alice and her friends dressing in men’s clothing or posing as prostitutes have gone viral online. Not only do they upend Victorian gender norms, but they seem to foretell Austen’s lesbian relationship with Tate. Having had access to Historic Richmond Town’s Alice Austen Collection—now digitized and extensively researched by former curator Maxine Friedman—and a cache of letters written to Austen, which belong to the Alice Austen House, I place these images into the larger narrative of Austen’s life.
Austen was a conservative rebel, deeply attached to Staten Island’s high society yet very much a New Woman, physically active and fiercely independent. Born in 1866, she came of age when outdoor leisure activities were the lifeblood of Staten Island’s elite society, and she pursued social status as if it were a competitive sport, collecting her dance cards, newspaper mentions, and tennis scorecards. After a decade of what she called “the larky life,” she came to doubt its ultimate goal—marriage to a suitable man. In 1895, Austen met Daisy Elliott, a Manhattan-based gymnast, ardent feminist and lesbian with whom she had a romantic affair. In 1897, she met Tate, a Brooklyn-born dancing instructor, with whom she shared the rest of her life. When Tate moved to Austen’s Staten Island home in 1917, the women were perceived as middle-aged friends without the stigma that was then growing around lesbianism.
Austen’s photographs of her lifelong friend Gertrude (Trude) Eccleston illustrate her rebellious yet conservative nature.
Group of our party, self in it, August 10, 1888. Courtesy of the Collection of Historic Richmond Town
Alice was very close to the entire Eccleston family, and she often accompanied them on vacation, cameras in tow. In August 1888, she photographed the vacationers at a Lake Mahopac resort, where she was visiting for two weeks. In this sunlit group portrait, Trude and Alice sit in chairs at right. Family friend Charles Barton sits at Trude’s feet, holding her hand. They married twelve years later, but Trude was not interested in him at the time. Prior to Alice’s arrival, Trude wrote, “There is a great dearth of men up here and although every place is full of people they all seem to be old people or very young girls.”
[Trude, Mr. Gregg and Fred Mercer], August 9, 1891. Courtesy of the Collection of Historic Richmond Town
This Clear Comfort photograph shows Trude with her cousin Fred Mercer (at right) and Lieutenant John C. Gregg. Trude had met Gregg at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City in May 1890, while accompanying her sister Edith on a visit to Edith’s in-laws. Trude described their flirtation to Alice:
This morn. I went for a little stroll with him out to see target practice. He wanted me to fire off one of the guns but they kick so hard that I could not & finally consented pulling the trigger if he held the gun & took aim, this necessitated my embracing him somewhat, well the thing went off and kicked so hard his shoulder hit my cheek & nearly upset me in the arms of another officer. I wish you could have seen the performance, it was great.
Smitten by Trude, Gregg requested a transfer to New York the following summer, when this photograph was taken. During his visit, Alice took the photograph of “Trude & I masked, in short skirts.” Perhaps as relief from Gregg’s high-stakes wooing, Alice and Trude celebrated a moment of rebelliousness. In October, Trude accepted Gregg’s marriage proposal, and they remained engaged for three years until Trude broke off the engagement.
[Daisy Elliott carrying a bicycle], ca. 1895. Courtesy of the Collection of Historic Richmond Town
Alice met Daisy Elliott through her enthusiasm for bicycling, a national craze of the 1890s. Alice’s friend Violet Ward wrote the popular guide, Bicycling for Ladies (1896), and Daisy posed for the illustrations based on Alice’s photographs. Nine years older than Alice, Daisy and Alice had a rocky romantic affair. Her last letter, dated January 18, 1898, exemplifies their cat-and-mouse game: “My darling … You have made me believe in your love, you never made it more evident than to-day—and now I am willing to be set aside till you again have time for me.”
[Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate in the Catskills], 1897. Courtesy of the Collection of Historic Richmond Town
In 1897, on vacation with the Ecclestons at Twilight Park in the Catskills, Alice met Gertrude Tate. Alice was 31 and Gertrude 26. Recovering from an illness, Gertrude had lost her hair and wore a wig, which did not stop her from enjoying herself, as this photograph shows. (Gertrude wears a white shirt and dark skirt, Alice a tan, wide-brimmed hat.) After Alice left, Trude wrote to her about Gertrude, whom they had nicknamed “the Chipmunk”: “Hardly any one will be left here after Labor day—the Tates go then. I will miss them so much, we must keep track of the Chipmunk, she is a great girl. She sends lots of love to you & says she misses you more than she can say.”
[Alice Austen and friends], n.d. Courtesy of the Collection of Historic Richmond Town
Gertrude regularly visited Clear Comfort, and between 1903 and the outbreak of World War I, she and Alice traveled to Europe almost every summer. In 1917, Gertrude moved to Staten Island, where the two women lived contentedly until 1929, when Alice lost her inheritance in the stock market crash.
Alice remained close to Trude and other friends from childhood, as this 1930s photograph shows. Seated on the steps of the piazza at Clear Comfort are Alice (front right) and Trude (rear right), who by then had moved from Staten Island to New Jersey. It is likely that Gertrude Tate took the photograph.
Mosaic image of the Galapagos giant tortoise, an endangered species, one of the mosaics in the subway station at the Museum of Natural History at 81st St station on the C train line
HARA REISER, ANDY SPARBERG, LAURA HUSSEY, ARO EISENPREISS, M. FRANK, JAY JACOBSON, VICKI FEINMEL, AND GLORIA HERMAN GOT IT RIGHT
CREDITS STATEN ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY HISTORIC RICHMOND TOWN
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In 1904 architects Herbert Spencer Harde and Richard Thomas Short designed and built the sophisticated West 85th Street apartment building called Red House. The upscale brick, stone and terra cotta structure was frosted with elaborate Gothic elements. Three years later they would outdo themselves with the even grander Manhattan Square Apartments. Portrait painter Walter Russell had by now added real estate development to his interests. He formed the Walter Russel Bond & Realty Co. and before the outbreak of World War I would be responsible for what The Sun called in 1914 “several buildings notable for size and attractiveness.” Among his first would be the lavish apartment building at Nos. 44 through 48 West 77th Street. The site was exemplary. It overlooked Manhattan Square where the New York Natural History Museum stood. Next door was the fashionable Manhattan Square Hotel. Russell, perhaps inspired by Red House, commissioned Harde & Short in 1907 to design his 14-story structure. The results were stunning. The architects created a soaring neo-Gothic fantasy of brick and terra cotta. As they had done with Red House, they dropped Gothic screens along the tops of expanses of windows and lavished the façade with tracery, trefoil carved balconies and a French Gothic tower. While Red House smacked of a great English estate; this new cooperative apartment building was cathedral-like.
On January 9, 1909 The New York Times remarked “In its architectural features the building represents a distinct departure from anything hitherto attempted in apartment house construction in this city.” The Sun said it “is considered among the finest specimens of Gothic architecture among city apartments.”
A sketch appearing in The New York Times on January 9, 1909 included both a stylish carriage and an automobile. (copyright expired)
There were just two apartments per floor, prompting The Times to say “It has been possible to provide rooms of a size seldom found outside of the largest private residences.” The living rooms, or “salons,” measured 18.5 by 27.5 feet and dining rooms were 15 by 20 feet. Residents could choose between “studio suites” of ten rooms and three baths, or nine rooms and three baths. In the basement, servants would find the “ironing room.” The Edison Monthly noted that “an electric iron, with separate outlet and meter, are provided for each tenant. Each outlet is provided with a lock and key, making it impossible for one tenant to make use of an outlet belonging to another.” The New-York Tribune mentioned that budgetary overruns. “The plans for the building were filed in March 1907, Harde & Short, the architects, estimating the cost at $750,000. The building, however, cost considerably more than this.” Even if it had come in on budget the expense would have topped $18.5 million in today’s dollars.
A postcard of the Manhattan Square Hotel (with red flag) also showed the Manhattan Square Apt. Across the street is the red brick Natural History Museum.
Before the first brick was laid Russell had made an agreement to sell the finished building. On November 19, 1909 the New-York Tribune reported that the title would be transferred “within a few days” to the Manhattan Square Apartment Association. The building quickly filled with a broad array of well-to-do residents. Because of their association with Walter Russell and the window-walled “studios,” several well-known artists moved in.
The “ironing room” of the Manhattan Square Apartments was a major convenience. Edison Monthly June 1909 (copyright expired)
Among these was eminent sculptor Karl Theodore Bitter who was one of the first residents. Following Joseph Pulitzer’s death in 1911 a competition was held to design an ornamental fountain in the open area in front of the Plaza Hotel which the publisher had envisioned. Bitter won the commission for the fountain’s figure of Pomona, while Thomas Hastings of Carerre & Hastings would design the basin. The project stretched on for several years; but Bitter would never see it completed. He finished his clay model of Pomona in 1915. Only a few days later, on April 9, the 47-year old artist left the Metropolitan Opera House with his wife around 11:30 p.m. They headed across Broadway to catch an uptown streetcar. “The street was filled with automobiles, picking up owners in front of the opera house,” reported The New York Times, “and Mr. and Mrs. Bitter threaded a dangerous way across the thoroughfare to the northbound car tracks.” Edward T. James was driving south and swerved to avoid a limousine turning away from the opera house. “The sculptor saw the danger and threw his wife to one side. He got her so far from the automobile’s path that, while she was struck, she was only tossed aside.” Things did not fare so well for Bitter. He was struck and dragged for 30 feet, “crushed between the pavement and the car.” Bitter suffered a fatal skull fracture. Marie Bitter’s grief was exacerbated when only a month later a 23-year old chauffeur objected to the probate of the will. Carl Bitter claimed he was the artist’s son; the result of a common-law marriage with Adelaide Omar. The untidy affair would play out in the courts for months.
In the meantime another well-known resident found himself in the courts. Dr. Otto G. T Kiliani, too, was one of the first owners. Born in Germany, he was Professor of Clinical Surgery at Columbia University and a surgeon at the German Hospital. Patients who could not afford to pay were offered free treatment at the hospital and such was the case in April 1912 when Jacob Weiss was operated on. Two years later he sued Dr. Kiliani, charging “that after operating on him they had sewed up two sponges in his abdominal cavity,” explained The Times on January 23, 1914. When the case went to trial, not only did Weiss produce “practically no evidence in support of his charge;” but “It was shown that Dr. Kiliani had not even been present at the operation.” Dr. Kiliani later told reporters “Suits like these are being brought constantly against physicians and surgeons and the plaintiffs are usually those who have received free treatment.” Also living in the Manhattan Square Apartment in 1915 was 70-year old former politician Theodore W. Myers. Myers had served as City Controller, was former President of the National Democratic Club, a member of the Chamber of Commerce and a partner in a banking firm Arthur Lipper & Co. The New-York Tribune estimated his worth at between $3 and $4 million. The wealthy Myers held memberships to the New York Athletic Club and New York Yacht Club. He was apparently well-traveled for he also was a member of the Automobile Club of America, the Automobile Clubs of France and England, and the Travelers’ Club of Paris. Several years earlier Rose Alixis Knight moved into the building with her mother. Rose was about 30 years younger than the widowed Myers, so their sudden marriage on February 10, 1915 was a shock to political and social circles. The New-York Tribune began its report of the wedding saying “Cupid has taken to politics and is playing queer pranks with the politicians.” The couple remained in Myers’ apartment where his noted collection of paintings and engravings was hung. They spent winters in Florida and on March 20, 1918 after just having returned to New York, Myers suffered a fatal heart attack in the apartment. His funeral was held here two days later. His young widow was left in grief; but considerably wealthy. Another well-known artist in the building was Samuel Montgomery Roosevelt. As war ravaged Europe and before the United States entered the conflict, wealthy New Yorkers often worked for war relief. On Sunday, March 26, 1916 at 9 p.m. Roosevelt and his wife hosted a musical recital “to aid widows and orphans of French soldiers,” as noted in The Sun that afternoon. Roosevelt would remain in the Manhattan Square Apartment for years. The cousin of Theodore Roosevelt, he was as much a member of the artistic world as high society. He was a member of the exclusive Knickerbocker, Lambs, Manhattan, New York Yacht, Tuxedo, and Larchmont Yacht Clubs, among others. A close friend of John Singer Sargent and James A. McNeill Whistler, he too painted society portraits like that of Theodore Roosevelt, Bishop James H. Darlington, Oliver Belmont and the Earl of Kintore. As with all wealthy New Yorkers, the newspapers followed the Roosevelts’ movements. On June 10, 1919 The Sun mentioned “S. Montgomery Roosevelt, 44 West Seventy-seventh street, will leave New York to-day for the Grand Cascapedia, Canada, for salmon fishing, and will be gone a fortnight.” A year later the coverage would be more shocking. The headline in the New-York Tribune on August 20, 1920 read “Samuel M. Roosevelt Drops Dead in Club.” The 64-year old artist collapsed on a staircase of the Knickerbocker Club. Before a doctor could arrive, he was dead of a brain hemorrhage. Another portrait painter in the building was Italian-born Francesco Paolo Finocchiaro. He had arrived in New York around the turn of the century and in 1910 was made a chevalier by the King of Italy. The artist married widowed socialite Florence Angell Mason in her Madison Avenue home on October 30, 1918. The Sun said “The bride has been identified with the summer life in Newport, where she has a home in Catherine street known as Wabun.” The newspaper noted that the newlyweds would be living in Finocchiaro’s Manhattan Square apartment. As expected, the couple remained socially active and hosted entertainments like the “reception with music” in the apartment on May 8 1920. Not involved in the arts was Robert Reis, the head of the underwear firm Robert Reis & Co. The wealthy businessman lived here with his wife, Sarah—their three children were all grown by now. In 1918, the same year that Finocchiaro and his new bride were getting settled, Robert Reis died leaving an estate of about half a million dollars. Sarah remained on in the apartment, enjoying her summers at Loon Lake in the Adirondacs through the 1920s. By the time of Reis’s death the United State was firmly entrenched in the European war. It would shape the lives of several residents, such as German exporter Engen Schwerdt whose offices were at No. 79 Wall Street. On Tuesday February 26, 1918 The Sun ran the headline “Wool Exporter Held as Leader in German Plot.” The newspaper explained that Schwerdt had been arrested for master-minding a plot to divert wool to the German army. “For the purpose of hoodwinking the Textile Alliance, which was organized for the purpose of preventing wool from falling into German hands, dummy concerns appear to have been employed by the plotters, and from evidence in the hands of the authorities it has been learned that the schemers became so bold as to store their wares in London.” The newspaper said “Schwerdt’s American wife is at her residence, 44 West Seventy-seventh street.” She pleaded to reporters “We are both for the Allies. I am as good an American as can be found.” At the other end of the spectrum was Marjorie Snare Mason. Her husband, Colonel Charles W. Mason, Jr., was in France with the 30th Infantry; her brother, Frederick Snare, Jr. was also in France with the 305th Machine Gun Battalion; and her father, Frederick Snare was commander of the Red Cross Base Hospital No. 6 at Bordeaux, France. With the men in her life fighting abroad, the 36-year old woman was alone in her Manhattan Square apartment. On January 19, 1919, she died in her home of heart disease. The building would become home to members of the theater, as well. Actress Selma Paley was living here in 1920 when she was sued by the wife of Oliver Morosco for, according to the New York Clipper on June 30, “alienating the theatrical man’s affections.”
Modernization streamlined the facade, removed the pinnacle and Gothic screens, and enlarged the upper floor openings.
Samuel Goldwyn had an apartment here at the same time, and throughout the decades it would become home to Erica Jong in the 1940s, and to actress Patricial Neal and her new husband Roald Dahl in 1954. At some point before mid-century the building lost the name Manhattan Square Apartment (possibly because of the 1922 building on West 81st Street that took the same name) and became known as The Studio Building. On September 28, 1939 The New York Times reported that “A forty-five foot studio living room is being constructed for the special use of Paul Trebilcock, portrait painter, in the building at 44 West Seventy-seventh Street.” It is possibly at this time that the windows of the top floor were stripped of their mullions and plate glass installed. Tragically, at some point a misguided attempt at modernization resulted in much of the Gothic ornamentation of the upper floors being stripped away and the marvelous gables, parapets and pinnacle were destroyed. The dripping Gothic screens, as well, were trashed.
The building would make a brief appearance in Tom Wolfe’s 1987 The Bonfire of the Vanities: A Novel in the line “Kramer had that vision comfortable in place when just up ahead, from the swell-looking doorway of 44 West Seventy-seventh Street emerged a figure that startled him.” Despite the vandalism of the upper stories, the building still has, for the most part, only two apartments per floor. Even in its decimated state, Harde & Short’s “distinct departure from anything hitherto attempted” is still an eye-catcher.
WEEKEND PHOTO
FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
FISHING BOATS AT SHEEPSHEAD BAY LAURA HUSSEY GOT IT RIGHT
SOURCES
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
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. 2022 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
