Wednesday, March 16, 2022 – FROM A DOWN A THE HEELS NEIGHBORHOOD TO SUPER HIGH RISES

By admin

WEDNESDAY,  MARCH 16, 2022


623rd Issue

JOSEPH LAMBERT CAIN

ARTIST

&

THE GAS HOUSE DISTRICT

FROM EPHEMERAL NEW YORK

The teens who found splendor on the gritty East Side docks of the 1940s

The smokestacks and storage tanks of the East River waterfront of the 1930s or 1940s should be an unappealing place to meet friends. But painter Joseph Lambert Cain has captured a group of teenagers gathered on a pier here to sunbathe, talk, and pair off.

For these teens, perhaps from the Lower East Side or the Gas House District in the East 20s, the waterfront is an idyllic location—away from the critical eyes of adults and into the warm embrace of the working class city they likely grew up in.

Cain titled his painting “New York Harbor.” I’m not sure of the date, but my guess is about 1940. The riverfront industry surrounds them, but the modern city of skyscrapers is within sight and reach.

The East Side’s long-gone Gas House District

The gas-house district is not a pleasant place in the daytime, much less at night,” explained a 1907 article in Outlook magazine.

That’s partly because the neighborhood, centered in the teens and 20s on the far east side of Manhattan, looked pretty grim: dominated by giant gas storage tanks lining the East River.

The streets didn’t smell so great either, considering that the tanks sprang leaks occasionally.

The grittiness of the Gas House District kept tenement rents low and made it a magnet for poor immigrant Irish in the mid-19th century, then Germans, Italians, Eastern Europeans, and Armenians by the 1920s.

But it also attracted a bad element. Crime was high, and it was home base of the Gas House Gang, which committed a reported 30 holdups every night on East 18th Street alone around the turn of the century.

Change was coming though. By the 1930s, most of the storage tanks were gone, and the development of the then-East River Drive opened up the ugly streets to development.

Soon, it was deemed the perfect place to put Met Life’s new middle-class housing developments, Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.

In 1945, 3,000 families were moved out of the Gas House District, their homes bulldozed. By 1947, the neighborhood was paved over and lost to the ages.

[Right photo: East 20th Street looking toward First Avenue by Berenice Abbott, 1938]

WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

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TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

WILLIAM, THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM HIPPO
HARA REISER, CLARA BELLA, GLORIA HERMAN & LAURA HUSSEY GOT IT.

FROM ED LITCHER:

Hippopotamus (“William”), ca. 1961–1878 B.C. From Egypt, Meir, Tomb B3. Faience. L. 7 7/8 x W. 3 x H. 4 1/2 in. (20 x 7.5 x 11.2 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Edward S. Harkness, 1917 (17.9.1). The ancient Egyptian hippo was placed in a tomb. It was thought to magically transfer all its positive powers of life and rejuvenation to the tomb owner, helping him to be reborn. Today this blue hippo is nicknamed William and he is the unofficial mascot of the Museum. 

The color blue was very special for the ancient Egyptians. Real hippos are of course not blue, but mainly grey or brown. Blue was the color of the Nile River, where hippos lived. The Nile was a main source of life for the Egyptians, so among other things this bright blue symbolized life. William is made of faience (fay-AHNCE), a ceramic material that was often produced in a blue or blue green color. Egyptians used a brilliant blue for this hippo and for many other burial objects. Such objects were placed in tombs to magically give life to the deceased.

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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