Overlooking the East River on the extreme western tip of Queens is Long Island City, one of New York’s fastest-growing neighborhoods. On May 4, 1870, Long Island City was created through a merger between the Village of Astoria and the hamlets of Ravenswood, Hunters Point, Blissville, Sunnyside, Dutch Kills, Steinway, Bowery Bay, and Middletown in the Town of Newton. At the time, the city had between 12,000 and 15,000 residents and was split into five wards, each receiving two representatives to serve on the Board of Alderman along with an elected mayor. During the 1880s, Mayor De Bevoise was convicted of embezzlement, nearly bankrupting Long Island City’s government in the process. As a result, in 1884 many residents living in the former Astoria area petitioned the state legislature to allow it to secede from Long Island City and reincorporate again as an independent village, though the petition was eventually dropped. Long Island City remained an incorporated city until 1898, when Queens was annexed to New York City.
Once known for being an epicenter of the manufacturing industry, Long Island City was rezoned as a residential neighborhood in 2001 — causing the area to undergo significant gentrification as new developments such as Hunter’s Point South were erected. Today, Long Island City is known for its stunning waterfront and thriving arts community, with must-visit places like MOMA PS1, the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Museum, and Culture Lab LIC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the development of art in Western Queens.
The neighborhood houses the Hunters Point Historic District
On the south side of Long Island City along Newtown Creek is Hunters Point, a subsection of the neighborhood known today for its East River waterfront and stunning views of the Manhattan skyline. The area gained its name in 1825 from British sea captain George Hunter, whose family operated the site as a 210-acre farm. The area is also home to the Hunters Point Historic District, a national historic district created in 1968. The district is made of a row of 47 townhouses built between 1871 and 1890 in the Italianate, French Second Empire, and Neo-Grec styles along 45th Avenue between 21st and 23rd Streets.
Visitors can also stroll through Hunter’s Point South Park, an expansive green space featuring a waterside promenade, a 30-foot-tall cantilevered platform for viewing the skyline, and a 13,000 square-foot pavilion. The park was erected on a peninsula built from landfill extracted during the excavation of the city’s tunnels, resulting in steep piles of earth with a wildly curved perimeter. During the 1990s, the area was designated a park by Governor Mario Cuomo, with construction overseen by the engineering firm ARUP and design firms SWA/Balsley and Weiss/Manfredi. Hunter’s Point South Park’s design involved separating the peninsula from the mainland, ringing it with new marshes and riprap that fill with water twice a day during high tide — discretely returning the piece to the water. In addition, all the streets leading to the park have bioswales with landscaped tree beds and other plants designed to absorb stormwater before it reaches the park.
Before its burial, Sunswick Creek’s source was located close to 21st Street north of what is now the Queensboro Bridge and Queens Plaza. The creek’s name may have originated from the Algonquin word “Sunkisq,” which translated to “Woman Chief” or “Sachem’s Wife.” In 1664, the land on the northern shore of the creek was purchased by British settler William Hallet from two native chiefs named Shawestcont and Erramorhar, and the peninsula was renamed Hallets Cove. Due to increased industrialization, the lack of a proper sewage system, and the high population density of Long Island City and nearby Astoria, Sunswick Creek became heavily polluted by the 1860s and 1870s. After the outbreak of diseases in 1871 and 1875, the marshes surrounding the creek were drained in 1879. By 1893, the creek had been diverted into one of the new sewage system’s brick tunnels. In 1915, protest arose among the residents of Ravenswood over the infestation of the creek’s tide gates by mosquitos, arguing to the New York City Board of Health that the tide gates should be opened as they were actually making the water stagnant and trapping the mosquitoes inside the creek. One year later in April 1916, residents broke down the tide gates themselves using axes, which prompted the New York City health commissioner to remark that the residents preferred “to live like hogs.” By the end of 1916, New York City’s government proposed closing the creek and mandated households to divert their sewage elsewhere. Today, the creek exists underground as part of a sewage tunnel, with Socrates Sculpture Park occupying what was once the creek’s mouth.
The abandoned Montauk Cutoff has its very own community garden
While the High Line may no longer be abandoned, one major disused railroad lying fallow in New York City is the Montauk Cutoff. Likely built in 1908 among the construction of a wave of overpasses in industrial Queens, it is called a “cutoff” as it bypassed the city below it. Measuring only a third of a mile long, the railroad was primarily used to get trains in and out of Sunnyside Yard.
The Montauk Cutoff remained popular until the 1970s, when freight train traffic in Long Island City began to decrease. Abandoned completely in the 1990s, the site was used by the now-defunct Sextantworks (Wanderlust Projects) for a speakeasy and urban exploration mixed event. In 2011, Smiling Hogshead Ranch, an urban farm collective created by a group of Long Island City neighbors, formed a guerrilla garden on the abandoned tracks of Montauk Cutoff — later securing a lease from the MTA to become an official nonprofit organization. By day, Smiling Hogshead Ranch is an agricultural farm and community garden and by night a social club and cultural venue.
Socrates Sculpture Park is surrounded by boulders recycled from old grave markers
One of Long Island City’s most prominent art venues is Socrates Sculpture Park, named after the Greek philosopher Socrates. The park’s name also serves as a nod to the people of nearby Astoria, which holds New York City’s largest Greek community. The site where Socrates Sculpture Park resides today was once a port for offloading stone and sand, which eventually transformed into a dumping area and landfill. In 1985, local sculptor Mark di Suvero spearheaded the area’s restoration, opening the 4-acre park one year later. For 14 years, Socrates Sculpture Park operated as a temporary city park, only being granted official status by then-Mayor Rudolph Guiliani in 1998 after a developer attempted to build luxury hotels and a marina on the site after the park’s lease had expired.
Unknown to most, Socrates Sculpture Park is surrounded by stone fencing built in part from boulders recycled from old grave markers. Unfortunately, nobody knows which graveyard the stones were pulled from. Hidden within the park is a beach at Hallets Cove, whose sandy shore is often concealed from view during high tide. On select weekends in July and August, visitors can participate in free kayaking and canoeing sessions through the LIC Community Boathouse.
The Long Island City Courthouse served as a set piece for the hit Marvel series Jessica Jones
Constructed in 1874, the Long Island City Courthouse was designed by architect George Hathorne in the Beaux-Arts style. The decision for the courthouse’s location at 25-10 Court Street was decided as the Queens County seat was being moved from Jamaica to Long Island City. After a portion of the courthouse was destroyed by a fire in 1904, the building was remodeled and enlarged by Peter M. Coco. Though two jails were once part of the complex, they were replaced by a parking garage in 1988. Formerly housing Criminal Court, County Court, the District Attorney staff, and the county sheriff’s office, the courthouse is home to the Civil Term of the Supreme Court for Queens County, which also sits in Jamaica.
The Long Island City courthouse has also been featured on the screen. During season 2 of the hit Marvel series Jessica Jones, Trish and Griffin meet Jessica at the courthouse after her arraignment for the assault of Pryce. On Person of Interest, the courthouse is featured in the pilot episode and once more in season 4 during a meeting between Reese and Fusco as they investigate the murders of several Brotherhood members.
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In a new book, author David Oshinsky, PhD, uncovers the history and misconceptions of Bellevue, America’s first public hospital.
A group of doctors and nurses are ready for surgery at Bellevue.NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue
The history of American medicine is inextricably linked with Bellevue Hospital in New York City. In the 2016 book, Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital, acclaimed author David Oshinsky, PhD, recounts the story of America’s first public hospital from its beginning as an almshouse in the 1730s to a modern center of medical innovation that has trained thousands of physicians.
Bellevue has been known for delivering high-quality care to the disadvantaged and homeless, to dignitaries and U.S. presidents. The hospital has been at the forefront of advancements in American medicine, including cardiac catheterization and the treatment of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis patients. America’s first nursing school and the first ambulance service—a horse-drawn carriage—also originated at Bellevue.
Nearly 300 years later, one thing has remained constant: Bellevue treats every patient who walks through its doors.
Oshinsky is director of the Division of Medical Humanities at NYU School of Medicine. He received the Pulitzer Prize in history in 2006 and the Herbert Hoover Book Award in 2005 for his book Polio: An American Story.
What compelled you to write about the history of Bellevue?
I am a baby boom–generation child from New York City. When I was growing up, Bellevue was a frightening and disturbing institution, but it was mainly known for one aspect—the psychiatric wards. It’s a dichotomy. On the one hand, Bellevue was seen by the public, certainly beyond New York City, as almost exclusively as a place for “crazy people.” It had a reputation in movies—in Miracle on 34th Street when I was growing up and later in The Godfather—as being almost a gothic, medieval, and scary place. When I was acting up, my mother would say, “Keep it up, David, and you’re on your way to Bellevue.” One of the largest misconceptions about Bellevue was certainly that it was a psychiatric hospital.
“From the beginning, you can chart the history of New York City and the medical history of the United States through this hospital.”
But for New Yorkers in the know, it was an extraordinary public hospital. There was a lot more to Bellevue than what was known in popular culture. It was the first public hospital in America and had terrific services, including the best trauma unit, probably in the world. When a cop was shot or a fire fighter was overcome by smoke, the person was taken to Bellevue. Foreign dignitaries, the president, or the pope would also go to Bellevue.
What other misunderstandings did you uncover about Bellevue?
Another misconception was that as a public hospital it was just overrun by filth, vermin, and bad doctoring. The belief was that those who went to Bellevue had no other options, and that was true to some extent. But it also was a dumping ground for other hospitals that didn’t want certain types of patients—particularly difficult patients and those who couldn’t pay for their medical care. For [nearly] 300 years, Bellevue’s ethos has been that it turns no one away.
Another thing I learned, which had always been quite obvious to the patients and the staff, is that the medical care was superb, and Bellevue attracted the best doctors in the country. When doctors came to Bellevue, they knew they would have an extraordinary learning experience and would see every imaginable medical condition and disease.
How has Bellevue evolved as clinical research and medical innovation advanced?
For generations, Bellevue was the biggest public hospital in the United States, and that meant there was a lot of medical innovation—everything from surgery, anesthesia, germ theory, and vaccine trials. Bellevue was a welcoming place for physicians who were on staff or who trained there—from William Gorgas who conquered yellow fever to Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin who developed the polio vaccines. Dickinson Richards won the Nobel Prize for cardiac catheterization [in 1956]. They all were trained extraordinarily well.
You suggest that the history of Bellevue is intertwined with the history of New York City.
The Bellevue Atrium, completed in 2005, links the old and new Bellevue buildings. NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue
From the beginning, you can chart the history of New York City and the medical history of the United States through this hospital. Every immigrant group went through New York City, so every group also went through Bellevue, starting with the Irish [in the mid-1800s] and continuing with Jews, Italians, and Eastern Europeans [in the early 20th century]. Today, the patients are almost entirely immigrants, but they are from very different places: Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Yet they are the same as the immigrants who came before in that they are poor, and Bellevue is still the place where they will go and get the best medical care.
Death bed of Lincoln (cropped).jpg
Print shows the interior of a room with Abraham Lincoln lying on a bed surrounded by cabinet members, generals, and family members, from left: William Dennison, Post Master General, Sec. John P. Usher, Sec. Gideon Welles, Sec. Hugh McCulloch, General Montgomery C. Meigs, General Christopher C. Augur, General Henry Halleck, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, Surgeon General Joseph Barnes, Mary Todd Lincoln, Major John M. Hay, Captain Robert Todd Lincoln, surgeon Charles Leale, Senator Charles Sumner, Sec. Edwin M. Stanton, and Attorney General James Speed.
You use the stories of physicians who passed through Bellevue to illustrate the history of the institution. How were some of these physicians significant in shaping the institution?
The first real doctor at Bellevue was Alexander Anderson. He was a young doctor when he took a job at Bellevue in the 1790s, at the height of the great yellow fever epidemics. No one knew what caused yellow fever. There were endless deaths, and it was dangerous work. His wife, his child, both parents, and his brother all died of yellow fever. But he stayed the course taking care of these patients because he believed it was God’s work. His legacy of extraordinarily compassionate patient care has continued through the centuries.
Oshinsky devoted years of research to tell Bellevue’s 300-year history of American medicine, social responsibility, scientific research and advancement, and public health crises. As Oshinsky communicates throughout the book, “Bellevue has borne witness to every imaginable disease and public health scare, every economic swing and population surge, every medical breakthrough and controversy going back more than two centuries.”
In the 19th century, Stephen Smith was the father of modern public health. He understood that there were two classes of citizens in New York—those who lived in dismal conditions and others who were wealthy—and that the medical care each side had was so different that there were basically two cities in New York. He made it his creed to bring the notion of public health to New York City and the United States.
Another was Charles Augustus Leale, who was a young Bellevue physician in the 1860s. When President Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre, Leale was the first physician who reached him, and he did everything he could to save him. He held Lincoln in his arms and stayed with him for 18 hours. When he was asked why he stayed so long he said, “I wanted the president to know in his blindness that he had a friend.” To me, that represents the Bellevue credo.
The AIDS crisis was a significant event in Bellevue’s history. How did the early days of the epidemic reinforce Bellevue’s role as a safety net hospital?
In the early 1980s, Bellevue began receiving patients with opportunistic infections that had rarely, if ever, been seen before. At this time, the patients were almost all young gay men, and they started coming in by the dozens and then by the hundreds. But within a short period of time a majority of the AIDS patients at Bellevue were intravenous drug users.
“[The] legacy of extraordinarily compassionate patient care has continued through the centuries.”
At the time, the medical community was frightened to death by a disease that had no cure and was 100% fatal. You couldn’t find a single dentist in Manhattan who would treat an AIDS patient. But as AIDS patients came to Bellevue, the doctors realized that they would have to learn to deal with this. There were staff who would refuse to clean the rooms of AIDS patients, deliver food, or give them CPR. All this had to be overcome, and Bellevue was absolutely amazing at training the entire staff.
More AIDS patients died at Bellevue than at any other hospital in America, but the staff performed heroically. The response reflected the original example of Alexander Anderson: you stayed, and you took care of patients. In the end, the three-drug cocktail that transformed AIDS from a death sentence to a manageable condition was tested at Bellevue. The hospital’s role in treating patients, dealing with the disease, and overcoming the fears is one of its finer chapters.
POST SCRIPT
For many years I have served on the Community Advisory Board at Coler. I have gotten to know Bellevue and the care offered and received. Without glory (and lots of press Bellevue) has served thousands thru every disease from Ebola to Covid -19. Our municipal system is here for every person, rich or poor with never a question on ability to pay. The building though massive throbs with the comings and goings of the city it serves.
CHASE BANK AT THE CORNER OF 23rd STREET AND FIRST AVENUE LAURA HUSSEY 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)
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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.
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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Fernando Botero Angulo (born 19 April 1932) is a Colombian figurative artist and sculptor. Born in Medellín, his signature style, also known as “Boterismo”, depicts people and figures in large, exaggerated volume, which can represent political criticism or humor, depending on the piece. He is considered the most recognized and quoted living artist from Latin America, and his art can be found in highly visible places around the world, such as Park Avenue in New York City and the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Self-titled “the most Colombian of Colombian artists” early on, he came to national prominence when he won the first prize at the Salón de Artistas Colombianos in 1958. Working most of the year in Paris, in the last three decades he has achieved international recognition for his paintings, drawings and sculpture, with exhibitions across the world. His art is collected by many major international museums, corporations, and private collectors. In 2012, he received the International Sculpture Center’s Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award.
Fernando Botero was born as the second of three sons to David Botero (1895–1936) and Flora Angulo (1898–1972) in 1932. David Botero, a salesman who traveled by horseback, died of a heart attack when Fernando was four. His mother worked as a seamstress. An uncle took a major role in his life. Although isolated from art as presented in museums and other cultural institutes, Botero was influenced by the Baroque style of the colonial churches and the city life of Medellín while growing up.
He received his primary education in Antioquia Ateneo and, thanks to a scholarship, he continued his secondary education at the Jesuit School of Bolívar. In 1944, Botero’s uncle sent him to a school for matadors for two years. In 1948, Botero at age 16 had his first illustrations published in the Sunday supplement of the El Colombiano, one of the most important newspapers in Medellín. He used the money he was paid to attend high school at the Liceo de Marinilla de Antioquia.
Botero’s work was first exhibited in 1948, in a group show along with other artists from the region.
From 1949 to 1950, Botero worked as a set designer, before moving to Bogotá in 1951. His first one-man show was held at the Galería Leo Matiz in Bogotá, a few months after his arrival. In 1952, Botero travelled with a group of artists to Barcelona, where he stayed briefly before moving on to Madrid.
In Madrid, Botero studied at the Academia de San Fernando. In 1952, he traveled to Bogotá, where he had a solo exhibit at the Leo Matiz gallery.
In 1953, Botero moved to Paris, where he spent most of his time in the Louvre, studying the works there. He lived in Florence, Italy from 1953 to 1954, studying the works of Renaissance masters. In recent decades, he has lived most of the time in Paris, but spends one month a year in his native city of Medellín. He has had more than 50 exhibits in major cities worldwide, and his work commands selling prices in the millions of dollars. In 1958, he won the ninth edition of the Salón de Artistas Colombianos.
Fernando Botero ‘Guerrilla de Eliseo Velásquez’.jpg
This painting by Fernando Botero depicts guerrillas led by Eliseo Velásquez in the early stages of “La Violencia”, a ten year period of violence/civil war that plagued Colombia. 1988
SCULPTURES
Barcelona. Raval cat. By Fernando Botero..jpg
This piece used to be on Park Avenue and 79th Street.
A famous ‘Sphinx’ sculpture is now on display in NYC
The piece is by iconic artist Fernando Botero. This one’s worth a trip to the Meatpacking District: renowned artist Fernando Botero’s visually-striking, eight-foot-tall Sphinx statue is now on display at 14th Street Square through April 19.
The outdoor installation is part of “Fernando Botero,” a new exhibit presented by David Benrimon Fine Art in celebration of the artist’s upcoming 90th birthday on—you guessed it—April 19. The showing of Sphinx is presented by the gallery in partnership with the New York City Department of Transportation’s Art Program and the Meatpacking Business Improvement District (BID).
“With characteristic wit and joyous play of volumes, Botero interprets the classical creature with a head of a human, body of a lion and wings of a falcon, common to Egyptian, Greek, and Central Asian traditions,” reads an official press release. “In his ‘Boterismo’ exaggerated form, the astonishing eight-foot tall Sphinx looks down at the viewer below.” The artist re-imagines the classical creature with a head of a human, the body of a lion and the wings of a falcon in an exaggerated—and remarkable—form. The sculpture has traveled the world. It has been on display in Medellin, Berlin, the Netherlands and more. Botero’s life story is just as enthralling as his work has been throughout the years. He was born in Medellín in 1932 and actually initially went to school to become a matador until discovering his passion for art. In 1952, he moved to Spain, then relocated to France and eventually settled down in Italy (Florence, to be precise) where he was really able to nurture his talent. New Yorkers who wish to learn even more about Botero should head to the Museum of Modern Art, where more of his work resides.
ED LITCHER, ANDY SPARBERG, LAURA HUSSEY 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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Southeast Florida grew slowly. In 1830, after Florida became a US territory, Richard Fitzpatrick established a slave plantation. But the bloody Second Seminole War drove off Fitzpatrick and other settlers. A small army force replaced civilians with the establishment of Fort Dallas on the north bank of the River. Population grew slowly, and even at the turn of the century, what would become today’s Dade County contained fewer than 1,000 persons.
But, as we saw in the first part of this article, Florida had begun to attract the attention of wealthy Northerners, and new railroads grew a tourist industry. Southeast Florida would follow, driven by several remarkable individuals – names which anyone who visits Miami will recognize.
Julia Tuttle’s parents had come to Florida where her father became a state senator. When he died, Julia, widowed, purchased land where the city of Miami is now located. She converted the house built by Fitzpatrick’s slaves into her home, with sweeping views of the river and Biscayne Bay. William and Mary Brickell arrived in Miami at the outset of the 1870s and were successful Indian traders as well as shrewd real estate investors. They lived across the river from Julia Tuttle.
Tuttle knew that transportation was necessary to attract development. She persuaded Henry Flagler to extend his railway to Miami in exchange for hundreds of acres of prime Tuttle and the Brickell real estate. He agreed to build a magnificent hotel near the confluence of the river and Biscayne Bay. On April 22, 1896, the Florida East Coast Railway arrived. On July 28, 344 registered voters, many of whom were black laborers, voted to incorporate a new city, Miami.
Going was tough. Miami suffered from a devastating fire in 1896 and a yellow fever epidemic a few years later. Miami survived largely because of Flagler’s magnificent Royal Palm Hotel. Five stories tall (its rotunda in the center added another story), the yellow frame building was topped by a red mansard roof and counted among many prominent features a 578-foot-long verandah. The hotel had 350 guest rooms and accommodated 400 – 600 guests. The hotel had electric lights, two electric elevators and 200 bathrooms and an additional 100 rooms were available for maids and servants.
In the years before WWI, The Royal Palm became a popular winter resort for America’s Gilded Age princes. John Jacob Astor was the first of many distinguished guests arriving for the opening. Others included Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, Cyrus H. K. Curtis, JP Morgan, Edward F. Hutton, Charlie Schwab, and Gerard Lambert. The Royal Palm was the center of Miami social life.
The hotel’s season ran from January to March, but some visitors decided to make Miami a home or second home. Mansions were raised along Brickell Avenue, known as “Millionaire’s Row.” The most prominent was the Villa Serena, built by William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democrat presidential candidate. Bryan taught Sunday Bible classes at the Royal Palm hotel attracting, it is said, as many as 5,000 people.
Miami was booming when the Roaring Twenties began. The city’s population had climbed to nearly 30,000, a 440 percent increase over the figure for 1910. It represented the largest per capita increase of any municipality in the nation. Everglades Reclamation (or drainage) further stimulated a feverish real estate industry as speculators purchased millions of acres of reclaimed land from the State of Florida, then marketed it aggressively. The tactics of promoters who sold unwitting investors land that was underwater earned for Miami the reputation for marketing “land by the gallon.” When the property boom went bust, thousands of homes were destroyed, unfinished subdivisions were leveled, and the entire region was plunged into a severe economic depression three years before the rest of the nation.
Still, Miami fared better than many other communities. The advent of commercial aviation helped: Pan Am and Eastern put headquarters in the Magic City—and tourism resumed in the second half of the decade.
World War II in 1941 helped even more as the region became a huge training base for hundreds of thousands of members of the military. Many veterans who had trained here during the war had “sand in their shoes,” and returned as permanent residents. The post-WWII years saw a dramatic boom in population and commerce. Downtown Miami had become a world-famous destination, with shopping, entertainment, and a gorgeous waterfront. But the glow would face. Miami deteriorated as the Beach and growing suburbs offered more spacious living, as well as malls and shopping centers. Businesses closed and moved on to more lucrative neighborhoods, leaving the city core to mostly poor communities. Tourists avoided Miami City. But soon, that would change, and a new, more Latin city would emerge.
Miami Beach
What became Miami Beach was an uninhabited, 1600-acre, jungle-matted sand bar three miles out in the Atlantic, cut off from Miami by Biscayne Bay. The first structure on the oceanfront was the Biscayne House of Refuge, constructed in 1876 to provide aid for shipwreck survivors. When a plan to create ae a coconut plantation there failed, John Collins (soon linked with Julia Tuttle and Henry Flagler) bought out his partners.
Collins saw the potential in developing the beach as a winter resort and with several others, particularly entrepreneur Carl Fisher, began to promote the town. Until then, only day-trippers took a ferry from Miami, across the bay. The first hotel, Brown’s Hotel, was built in 1915 and, remarkably still exists at 112 Ocean Drive.
Miami Beach had grown to 2,800 acres when dredging and filling operations were completed. To connect Miami Beach to the mainland, Collins started work on a 2½-mile-long wooden bridge, the world’s longest wooden bridge at the time. When funds ran dry, Fisher provided financing to complete the Collins Bridge in return for land. That kicked off the island’s first real estate boom.
Opening of the Collins Bridge, 1913, then the longest wooden bridge in the world
Fisher promoted Miami Beach as an Atlantic City-style playground and winter retreat for the wealthy. By 1915, Collins and Fisher were living in mansions on the beach; three hotels had opened, an aquarium built, and an 18-hole golf course landscaped. Soon, grand hotels were built – the Flamingo Hotel, The Fleetwood Hotel, The Floridian, The Nautilus, and the Roney Plaza Hotel.
The Beach struggled through the bust and Great Depression, prospered during the War, and by the 1950s was enjoying rapid growth in summertime tourism, thanks to air conditioning and economy flights from northern cities. I remember well, each summer, a new top hotel opened – and finally, the last of the old Collins Avenue mansions, the Firestone Estate, was torn down to make way for the Fontainebleau. Air conditioning was ramped up so that summertime visitors could wear their fur collared sweaters comfortably.
Miami was a southern town and deeply driven by race. After incorporation, property deeds prohibited sale to Blacks everywhere except in one quarter, although Black Floridians comprised as much as a third of Miami’s population. From the late 19th century to the 1960s, segregation was the rule. In Miami Beach’s early days, the only Blacks allowed were hotels staff or servants. In 1936, Miami Beach required more than 5,000 seasonal workers at hotels, restaurants, and nightclubs, as well as domestic servants, to register with police and to be photographed and fingerprinted. Once registered, those workers, many Black, had to carry ID cards in the city.
Nonetheless, the Black community grew – but would decline sharply in the 1960s for various reasons, not least the construction of an extensive expressway system that ripped through the heart of the quarter and led to the displacement of 20,000 residents (about one-half of its population).
Early Miami and the Beach was also profoundly antisemitic. Carl Fisher, who developed the beach, prohibited Jews and blacks from staying in hotels or leasing apartments. Brochures advertised hotels and luxury apartments “Gentiles Only,” or “Always a View, Never a Jew,” or “Located near Protestant and Catholic Churches.” Jewish doctors were prohibited from working in hospitals. In 1947, religious discrimination was legally ended, but as late as 1953, on one of our drives from Pittsburgh to Miami, we were turned away from a hotel in Hollywood – “you would not be comfortable here.”
In fact, as Miami Beach became a summer resort, waves of Jews flowed in, many seeing it as perfect for retirement. Jews had been permitted to own land south of Fifth Street, which became the home of shabby-grand Art Deco apartment buildings and hotels, and then older Jewish retirees from the North and finally, one of the hottest resort centers in the US – South Beach. In 1980, more than 60 percent of Miami Beach’s population was Jewish, many in South Beach. During the 1980s, as Miami and South Beach underwent a profound transformation, many moved to newer Florida communities. In 1999, there were only 10,000 Jewish people living in Miami Beach. My mother complained that overnight the language in South Beach went from Yiddish to Spanish.
So much more to talk about. But the old clock on the wall says it’s time to go. Thanks for reading.
ARON EISENPREISS, GLORIA HERMAN, M. FRANK, ANDY SPARBERG, KIM BRUCE, LAURA HUSSEY & HARA REISER ALL GOT IT! ED LITCHER SENT US THIS: North East view of Madison Square Park that was taken in between 1909 and 1925, with: A statue of U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward in the foreground, which was dedicated in 1876, said to be the first New Yorker to be honored with a monument in the city.
Madison Square Garden II (1890 – 1925) The MetLife building that was built in 1909 on the right side of the image.
FROM A READER Thanks for the wonderful article on 186 Fifth Avenue. Stephen & I lived near there on 28th St. for 24 years & I always wondered the history of that building. I always found it very beautiful in an understated way–especially considering the many flashier buildings in the area. SO many mom & pop places have disappeared….. Have a great weekend– Best: Thom
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
Founded in 1851 The New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company immediately began gobbling up other financial services and communications firms. When it laid plans to extend telegraphic wires from the East to the West Coast, it changed its name to the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1856. It completed the first transcontinental telegraph line–the wires fabricated in iron–on October 24, 1861. Two days later the Government ceased operation of the Pony Express service. Individual users no doubt thought hard before using the cutting edge technology, though. Sending a telegram coast-to-coast could coast as much as $20–about $575 today.
The Western Union Telegraph Company continued its aggressive policy of acquiring competitive firms and by 1884 it had absorbed 500 telegraph companies nationwide.
Western Union was also zealously building in New York City. In addition to its massive headquarters building at No. 145 Broadway, designed by George B. Post, there were more than 130 branch buildings throughout the city. Two of them were completed in 1884–one on Broad Street and the other at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and West 23rd Street.
Completed in 1873, The Western Union headquarters sat downtown at Broadway and Dey Street. Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide, June 25, 1898 (copyright expired)
The uptown building, with the addresses of No. 186 Fifth Avenue and No. 10 West 23rd Street, was designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh, who had just recently designed the Dakota Apartments on Central Park West.
Hardenbergh turned to the currently popular Queen Anne style for the Western Union Telegraph Company building. Seven stories high, including the peaked roof punctured by story-high dormers, it was faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone and terra cotta. Hardenberg’s treatment of the two-story base was highly unusual. Its highly-unusual Fifth Avenue elevation included a protruding show window nestled within slightly recessed storefront, and a metal-framed oriel within a gaping arch on the second floor. Two-story arches along 23rd Street were separated by brick-and-stone piers.
Valentine’s Manual of New York City (copyright expired)
Hardenberg embellished what was other a somewhat reserved structure with elaborate terra cotta and stone decorations. Elaborate panels decorated the third and sixth floor piers, terra cotta Queen Anne-style motifs adorned the frieze below the cornice and filled the pediments of the dormers. Most striking was the panel above the 23rd Street entrance. Here an intricate panel announced The Western Union Co. and two profiles representing the East and West Coasts were connected by a telegraph cable.
Electricity sparks from the twisted telegraph cable connecting the East to the West, depicted by a Native American.
A creative innovation was included in the 23rd Street building. On February 20, 1883 The Sun reported that it would be connected to the Broadway headquarters by pneumatic tubes. “Within six months the pneumatic tubes are to be laid between the new up-town headquarters and the main offices at Dey street.” Their purpose was to “carry a large batch of dispatched. One tube will be used for distributing and one for collecting messages.” Messages could cover the two-mile distance within two minutes.
Hardenberg included delicate, subtle Aesthetic Movement decorations like the sprouting plants carved into the second floor arch.
The ground floor space became home to the branch offices of the New York Herald newspaper. The second floor housed the National Wood Mfg. Co., makers of parquet flooring and other architectural woodwork. Offices in the upper floors filled with a stunning number of architectural firms.
photo by Irving Underhill from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
The several architects were, most likely, attracted by the fact that the Architectural League installed its headquarters in the building. It was here that the League’s highly-anticipated annual exhibitions were staged. On December 15, 1887, for instance, the New-York Tribune reported “At the Architectural League’s rooms, No. 10 West Twenty-third-st., there was an exhibition yesterday of the forty-four entries for gold and silver medals to be exhibited at the League’s annual exhibition, to be opened on December 19.”
Not only did Henry J. Hardenbergh move his offices into the building which he had designed, but so did Berg & Clark, Walter C. Hunting, Charles L. Eidlitz, A. C. Jacobsen, William E. Young and Charles B. Gillespie.
Th Crown Perfumery Co. was a much different type of tenant. The stench of horse dung and other unpleasant odors on city streets, especially in hot months, prompted refined ladies to carry pierced silver vinaigrettes that held perfume-soaked pumice stones or smelling salts. The Crown Perfumery Co. melded the two with its perfumed pocket salts.
The American University Magazine, May 1897 (copyright expired)
Elegant glass containers were sold within kid leather “purses.” The company’s 1897 advertisements noted that their wholesale offices could be accessed by a “private elevator at 5th Ave.”
In 1901 Seth Low was elected Mayor of New York on the newly-formed Fusion ticket, defeating the Tammany Hall candidate. He immediately launched a hiring campaign to replace the civil servants of the former corrupt administration.
On November 9 The Evening World reported “Already the Army of Fusion is busy seeking jobs for the men who worked hard for the success of the ticket. Mayor-elect Seth Low has rented an entire floor at No. 10 West Twenty-third street…where his secretary, John C. Clarke, will open ‘application headquarters’ on Monday morning.”
In the first years of the 20th century the publishing firm Revell Company called the building home, as did offices of The Roovers Manufacturing Co., machinery makers.
In May 1905 the architectural firm of John B. Snook’s Sons remodeled the ground floor storefronts. The renovations would last only seven years. When the upscale Chicago-based silver manufacturer Lebolt & Company took the first and second floors in 1912 the show windows were updated by architect J. P. Whiskeman. His plans, filed on August 16, estimated the cost at $2,000, or just over $52,000 today.
Lebolt & Co.’s showroom included astonishing light fixtures. photo via chicagosilver.com
The upscale silver firm moved in just as the shopping district of the Ladies’ Mile was migrating northward. On June 10, 1916 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide commented on the plummeting property values in the Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street district. “The building at 186 Fifth avenue, southwest corner of 23d street assessed at $620,000 in 1908, stands now at the assessed value of $220,000.” The store nevertheless remained at least through 1918.
Lebolt & Co. installed a three-faced corner clock above the ground floor. J. P. Whiskeman’s new storefronts can be seen in this 1914 detail. from the collection of the New-York Historical Society
In 1919 the building became national headquarters for the Delta Upsilon fraternity. It published its Delta Upsilon Quarterly here for several years.
The Boy Rangers of America, a precursor of the Boy Scouts of America’s cub scouts program, was organized in 1913. By 1923 its national headquarters was at No. 10 West 23rd Street. Open to boys from 8 to 12 years old, it described itself in an advertisement that year as “An Indian Lore Organization” and said it offered a “most fascinating and developing program.” The organization would remain here at least through 1938.
As the neighborhood continued to change, so did the tenant list of No. 186 Fifth Avenue. In 1927 the headquarters of the Lord’s Day Alliance of the United States was here, a group determined to “make the modern Sunday conform with the old-time Sabbath,” according to The Evening Post.
And when a boy scout named Peter Briglin wrote to Boys’ Life magazine in December 1936 asking “Where can I get white quills, or duck feathers suitable for making a headdress?” the editor directed him to “Plume Sales & Trade Co., 10 West 23rd Street.”
Other tenants throughout the 20th century included the Allied Brief Case Company in the 1950’s and ’60’s; and Shake Records, The Viking Press, and the Pecos Valley Spice Company in the 1980’s.
In 1993 the ground floor space that had once exhibited costly sterling silver bowls, trays and tea sets became home to Isaac Mor’s Multi-Security Locksmith shop. But eleven years later the Ladies’ Mile neighborhood was being rediscovered by massive retailers like Bed, Bath and Beyond, Staples, and–most threatening to Mor–Home Depot. He was understandably nervous, telling The New York Times journalist Glenn Collins in September 2004 “This will affect the whole neighborhood. A lot of stores around here will go out of business.”
Mor was right. Mom-and-pop operations were nudged out by rising rents as trendy cafes and shops moved in alongside the behemoth retailers in what was now called the Flatiron District. On February 25, 2007 The Times reported “five floor-through condos are planned” for No. 186 Fifth Avenue, and Leah Goldfarb, its sales director, said that two had already been sold.
In 2018 Bank of America leased the ground floor and part of the second as a full-service branch. Plans were approved to redesign the ground floor storefronts at the time.
A rendering of the proposed storefronts was released in 2018 by Winick Realty Group. via commercialobserver.comHenry Hardenberg’s striking Queen Anne style building is greatly overshadowed by the magnificent attention-grabbing Flatiron Building directly across the street. It nevertheless deserves a pause to take in those glorious panels and overall design.
THE UNIQUE TOP TRACK TRAINS IN DORTMUND GERMANY GLORIA HERMAN AND ED LITCHER GOT IT!
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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
The #1 IRT Broadway-7th Avenue Local is unique in many ways. It encompasses a substantial portion of New York’s first subway route, opened 1904-8, which includes its entire northern segment above 96th Street. Here we find a whole collection of unique stations and structure that illustrate the challenges the early subway builders faced. The #1 line above 96th Street encompasses a high viaduct, a large bridge, shallow tunnels, deep tunnels, and a conventional elevated route.
From a point just north of today’s Times Square to 242nd Street and Broadway, the #1 is the west side portion of the first New York subway route. At 96th Street the #1 splits from the #2 and #3 routes, which veer to the east to serve Harlem and The Bronx. The #1 continues along Manhattan’s western spine into adjacent parts of the Bronx to 242nd St.
We’ll begin this trip at 96th Street, which has been rebuilt twice in its history. Like most #1-line stations it is cut and cover construction, meaning it is in a shallow tunnel right below the street level. The most recent rebuild here was about ten years ago and saw the installation of a large entrance building in Broadway’s median strip, to permit ADA accessibility from the street level. A photo of the new entrance building is below (Andy Sparberg collection).
Indianapolis circa 1905. “Knights of Pythias Building.” Last glimpsed here, 10 years ago! 8×10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company.
After 116th Street the #1 line goes outdoors for its 125th Street stop, and then goes back underground at 137th Street. 125th is on an arch bridge, about 50 feet high, necessary to carry the #1 across the steep Manhattanville Valley.
To keep the tracks level, the engineers decided to build a viaduct because a tunnel would have had steep grades and would have been susceptible to floods. Photo below is from www.nycsubway.org. It is a tribute to the original subway builders that the 125th Street viaduct is still in daily use after 118 years of daily use.
137th and 145th Streets are shallow cut-and-cover stations, but there is an unusual a five-track underground storage yard between the stops, completed in October 1904 because the original north terminal was 145th.
157th Street opened in November 1904, and then the next five stops, up to and including 215th Street, opened in March 1906 . A sixth stop, 191st Street, would be added in 1911.
This stretch includes the unique Fort George Tunnel, which few riders notice as the train rushes along. The topography rises steeply after 157th Street, which necessitated building the deep Fort George Tunnel to keep the tracks level and flat as they traverse the hilliest part of Manhattan Island. The engineers literally built a mountain railroad between the 157th Street and Dyckman Street stations. The result was three very deep stations, 168th,181st, and 191st Streets.
The first two opened in 1906 and are among the grandest in New York with their high, barrel=vaulted ceilings. In 1911, the 191st St. Station opened; it was not originally built because no one could have foreseen the sudden growth of Washington Heights caused by the new subway
All three stations require elevator access between the street and the platforms. An unusual feature at 168th Street is that the newer Eight Avenue IND A train subway is built above the older IRT tunnel. That’s because the #1 line tunnel is over 100 feet below street level and was built first.
The IND A train tunnel follows St. Nicholas Avenue on a high ridge and goes over the IRT tunnel. In most places on the NYC subway where two lines cross, the older route is on top.
It is necessary to use an elevator between the IND and the #1 at 168th St., as the #1 is 100+ feet below the street level. The original elevators were the construction shafts used to build the tunnel. When the IND was built (opened in 1932) those elevators were destroyed, and the current elevator shafts installed. New elevators were installed here very recently. Below is a 2017 photo of the #1 station at 168th Street. (Andy Sparberg photo).
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
ANDY SPARBERG
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Just prior to the Civil War commercial buildings began replacing the staid old homes of Broadway below Houston Street. In 1860 the two matching white marble structures at Nos. 591 and 593 Broadway were completed. With modified Italian Renaissance touches like robust arched pediments over the central windows of the second and third floors they rose five stories to a shared, bracketed cornice. Stone quoins ran down the sides of the buildings. Merchant tailors Alonzo R. and William H. Peck established their business in No. 591. While the brothers sold apparel to its well-heeled clients, two other brothers, Henry and Edward Anthony, were establishing themselves elsewhere as leaders in a new technology: photography. Although both of the Anthony brothers had been educated at Columbia College as engineers, neither was satisfied with his profession. Both men worked on the Croton Aqueduct—the engineering marvel that brought fresh drinking water to Manhattan. Before the completion of the project James Renwick called upon Edward to assist him in a survey of the northeastern boundary of the United States. There was, at the time, a dispute between Great Britain and the U.S. regarding the Canadian border. Edward Anthony had been for sometime fascinated with the “new art of making pictures with the aid of sunlight, just introduced by Daguerre,” as explained in “America’s Successful Men of Affairs” later, in 1895. During the survey Anthony took photographs of the terrain, documenting hills along the boundary line that England denied existed. The resulting proof ended the controversy and was the first example of photography being used to settle diplomatic disputes. Upon his return to New York, Edward Anthony went into the business of supplying photographic materials to the trade in 1842. Henry, all the while, bounced around trying to find himself. After the Croton project he entered banking, working in the Bank of the State of New York. He left that position to return to engineering, working on the New York section of the Hudson River Railroad. The American Bookseller recalled “Tiring of that, he again entered the business of banking, and remained in it until 1852, when he joined his brother in dealing in photographic materials.” Edward’s firm, which now became E. & H. T. Anthony & Co., had already become the largest manufacturer of photographic materials in the world. By 1870 the company took over the entire building at No. 591 Broadway and operated a chemical works in Jersey City, and had three factories for the manufacture of cameras and other apparatus in Brooklyn, Hoboken and New York. In addition, the firm published periodicals such as Anthony’s Photographic Bulletin.
The two buildings at Nos. 591 and 593 were mirror-images in 1895 — King’s Handbook of the United States (copyright expired)
The Bulletin was aimed at photographers. The Inland Printer said of it, “Every issue copiously illustrated. Practical articles on process work and on photography by practical men.” On a Wednesday afternoon in October 1884, Henry T. Anthony left No. 591 Broadway heading to his home at No. 108 Lexington Avenue. He decided to make a quick stop at 17th Street and 4th Avenue and, while crossing the street, had to bolt out of the way of an oncoming horse car. The 70-year old bachelor took a hard fall onto the pavement and was seriously injured. The doctors at New York Hospital had him taken to his residence as “it was known that his injuries were fatal,” said The American Bookseller the next week. With his death, Edward was once again the sole principal. It was a time when photography was for professionals only. Not only were the supplies expensive, but the equipment was ungainly and the process complicated. That was soon to change.
A fascinating view of Broadway and the twin buildings was depicted on a stereopticon slide produced by E. and H. T. Anthony. image courtesy of Ronald K. Edge On August 18, 1885 The New York Times reported on revolutionary developments.
“The progress which has been made of late years in the science of photography has been something remarkable—the modes of posing are as different as can possibly, while the apparatus employed have been changed and improved in a high degree. The photographer of the old school fixed the person to be taken in front of a sort of ‘bull’s-eye’ and requested him or her to ‘look natural.’ Then, after a half hour of fixing and twisting, the cap was taken off the bull’s-eye, and a minute or more of torture followed, in which the sitter gazed fixedly at nothing. The result is well known to all.”
But now, said the article, E. & H. T. Anthony’s “Detective” camera changed all that. The comparatively lightweight camera operated by means of a modern shutter, allowing photographs to be “literally taken ‘on the wing.’” The Times called it “the lightest, neatest, and most compact camera ever made.” The process of taking a picture was like nothing before. “When needed for use it is only necessary to insert a ‘plate,’ a little catch is raised, a ‘click’ is heard, and quick as the twinkling of an eye the view is secured. There is no trouble, and scarcely any mechanical skill is exercised.”
With the new device E. & H. T. Anthony had made amateur photography possible. Tourists found the new plaything indispensable–to the point that the firm was unable to keep up with the demand. In 1891 The Illustrated American urged tourists to contact the company in preparation for their vacation. “For twenty-five dollars, Anthony, of 591 Broadway, can give you an excellent photographic equipment for your trip With the camera, tripod, and box of plates they sell the chemicals prepared for use, so that, by the aid of an instruction-book, you can gather enough information to teach you the camera’s use.”
Along with its cameras, the firm sold everything related to the field: portable dark rooms, photographic films, sensitized papers and “amateur photographic outfits,” among them.
Professional photographers could purchase the above stereopticon camera, for making three-dimensional slides –The School Journal 1897 (copyright expired)
On December 14, 1888 Edward Anthony died. His son, Richard A became secretary of the firm which continued under the presidency of Vincent M. Wilcox.
In 1895 “King’s Handbook of the United States” noted that “The universally popular interest in photographic art, which is so marked a feature of the present day, depends largely on apparatus and supplies devised or introduced by E. & H. T. Anthony & Co., preeminent in all the world as manufacturers and sellers of all photographic materials.”
While easier to transport, the cameras were still expensive in 1896. The $60 spent on a Marlborough would equal over $1,000 today–McClure’s Magazine (copyright expired) After three decades in the building, on December 15, 1899 E. & H. T. Anthony advertised its “removal sale” in the New York Tribune. Although the firm would continue to do limited business here until around 1904, the bulk of the building was taken over by The Strobel & Wilken Co., importers and dealers in toys.
In March 1900 No. 591 Broadway was sold at auction to William Cohen, of Cohen, Endel & Co., for a bid of $157,500. Three months later the new owners announced their intentions to “make elaborate alterations to the building, including an additional story,” as reported in The New York Times.
The report was not exaggerated. All traces of the old marble building above the ground floor—which had been modernized along with its neighbor around 1895—were wiped away and a fantastical, updated façade installed. Slender cast iron piers rose through the four central floors affording extensive expanses of glass.
The new sixth floor which sat above a decorated cast iron entablature was frosted with terra cotta ornamentation. Above the rows of arched windows rose a brick pediment covered in terra cotta.
The toy dealer would remain here for fifteen years, followed by apparel firms as the dry goods and millinery industry firmly implanted itself in the neighborhood. In 1916 Nelson, Siegel and Company was here manufacturing ladies’ hats. By 1920 shirt manufacturers Nibenberg & Saltzman had its offices here. The sizable firm turned out about 1,500 dozen shirts every week from its factory in Johnston, New York. At the same time Kalter-Cerf Mercantile Company operated from the building. The diverse company dealt in shoes as well as operating as jobbers and wholesale auctioneers. Today the handsome building is little changed. As is the case with its former twin next door, the late Victorian storefront at street level is miraculously intact. Art galleries replace shirt manufacturers and a Victoria’s Secret retail store occupies the ground floor where cameras and toys were sold. And passersby would never guess that the building once matched its more pious neighbor before a unique, near-whimsical remodeling of 1900.
108 LEONARD STREET ALSO KNOWN AS 346 BROADWAY, THE CLOCKTOWER BUILDING
SUMIT KAUR 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)
Sources
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
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Gurney worked in the jewelry trade in Little Falls, New York, but soon moved his business to New York City and shortly after turned to photography, having been instructed and inspired by Samuel Morse. He was one of the pioneering practitioners of the daguerreotype process, opening the first American photo gallery at 189 Broadway in 1840, and charging $5 for a portrait.
He created remarkably detailed portraits, using to the full the remarkable tonal rendition of the process. He selected his clients from New York’s society elite, calling them “Distinguished Persons of the Age” and eschewing the political and entertainment figures favoured by his rival, Mathew Brady. The quality of Gurney’s portraits soon ensconced him as the finest daguerreotypist in Gotham.[1]
Gurney’s photographic skills received numerous accolades, including a write-up in the Scientific American of 5 December 1846. The New York Illustrated News, in an 1853 article, wrote that his establishment at 349 Broadway “consisted of nine spacious rooms, devoted exclusively to this art.” In the 1840s Gurney showed his images at numerous exhibitions such as the American Institute Fair and later at the Crystal Palace in London, achieving international renown. His business flourished and in 1858 he built a three-story white marble studio at 707 Broadway to house his pictures, and it was the first building built for the sole purpose of photography in the United States.
Gurney played a leading role in the training of the first wave of pioneering photographers such as Mathew Brady, who made a name for himself as a Civil war photographer. Brady had been employed as a journeyman making jewelry cases for E. Anthony & Co., and also made display cases for Gurney’s daguerreotypes.
One of the things Gurney is best known for is having taken the only known photograph of Abraham Lincoln in death.[2][3][4]
Portrait of Jeremiah Gurney (1812-1895), New York daguerrotypist
Gurney’s Daguerreian Saloon at 349 Broadway, NYC
Wedding Party of Julia Parmly and Frederick Billings. Parmly and Ward Family and Friends, April 1862
Two Girls in Identical Dresses”, Daguerreotype, 4 7/16 x 3 1/4 in. (11.3 x 8.2 cm)
Lincoln in open casket by Benjamin Gurney
Bessie Sudlow is the stage name of Barbara Elizabeth Johnstone (22 July 1849 – 28 January 1928), who was active in New York as a burlesque performer from 1869 to 1873, then in Britain as an opera bouffe soprano from 1875 to 1880. This stereo photograph was taken in New York.
-Pair of Portraits of Man and Woman (Husband and Wife?)- MET DP700063.jpg
William Horace Lingard in Drag by J Gurney & Son, NYC.jpg
RIVERSIDE DRIVE VIADUCT FROM 115 STREET. NY CENTRAL RAILROAD BELOW AND G. WASHINGTON BRIDGE UNDER CONSTRUCTION
ED LITCHER, HARA REISER, ANDY SPARBERG, ARON EISENPREISS, JAY JACOBSON, CLARA BELLA, LAURA HAUSER ALL 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 Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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As the 19th century became the 20th, Riverside Drive saw the erection of mansions that rivaled those along Fifth and Madison Avenues. Millionaires were lured by fresh area and the breathtaking views of the Hudson River from the high cliffs. Builder Joseph A. Farley got in on the action. The son of Terence Farley, a well-known builder for many years, Joseph went into business for himself around 1895 focusing on the rapidly developing Riverside Drive area. By 1900 he had erected more than 25 houses in the neighborhood between 105th to 108th Streets, and on West End Avenue. In 1901 he began construction on four magnificent houses designed by James & Leo on Riverside Drive between 105th and 106th Streets. They would be his undoing. Farley paid the staggering amount of $160,000 for the building lots alone—about $3.5 million in today’s dollars. The total cost of the project would rise to around $430,000. But the results, completed in 1902, were magnificent. The three mansions facing Riverside Drive were nearly identical—French-inspired townhouses fit for New York’s wealthy upper crust. But the corner house was the show-stopper.
photo by Ephemeral New York
Although the entrance was squarely on West 105th Street, the residence took the more prestigious address of No. 330 Riverside Drive. A grand Parisian mansion, it stretched eastward along West 105th Street and turned a shoulder to its less impressive neighbors. The architects blended exquisitely carved limestone with buff colored brick to produce a restrained and elegant design. Ornamentation was reserved, on the whole, for the window openings while large areas of façade were purposefully left blank. On October 4, 1902 the Real Estate Record and Builder’s Guide praised the homes. “These houses…represent all that is latest in fashionable dwelling construction, and are furnished with all the devices for insuring the convenience and comfort of their occupants, besides being designed with artistic correctness and finished with taste.”
The Real Estate Record & Builder’s Guide published this photograph on October 4, 1902 (copyright expired)
The writer made note of the pleasant location. The houses were “on the summit of a hill, from which the Drive slopes away both north and south. It commands magnificent views of the Hudson River and the Riverside Drive, and is, therefore, airy, cheerful and salubrious.” Financially Farley had stretched himself to the limit to construct the lavish homes. And by the end of the year, when none of them had sold, he was in trouble. On Christmas Eve 1902 The Sun ran the headline “Builder Jos. A. Farley Fails.” The blame for his bankruptcy was placed squarely on the new Riverside Drive houses. “Inability to sell the houses is given as the principal cause of the assignment,” said the newspaper. The mansions, of course, would eventually sell and No. 330 became home to Robert Benson Davis—founder of the Davis Baking Powder Company—and his wife and daughter. When the fabulously wealthy Davis was in his 40s, he had married the teenaged Jennie Weed. The couple had one child, Lucretia, born in 1886. In 1905, a few years after the family moved into the 25-room Riverside Drive mansion, Davis purchased their sprawling country estate “Hillcrest” in Cazenovia, New York.
photo by Alice Lum
By now Robert Davis was aging. The Civil War veteran was 62 years old in 1905 and his wife was 30 years younger. Jennie Weed Davis’s focus was turning away from her husband and to his money. In 1908 Jennie tried to have Davis ruled “of unsound mind.” She had three doctors examine him and she spread rumors to the Davis Baking Powder Company executives that he was mentally incompetent. The New York Times reported that “He objected to that step, and the trouble ensuing resulted in divorce proceedings.” Divorce was not on the agenda of Jennie Weed Davis. When her husband became ill that year, she grasped the opportunity to control him. According to newspaper reports in 1911, he told a judge that “when he was taken sick she ‘usurped’ his business in Hoboken and surrounded him with spies that made of his home a prison.” Jennie intercepted the mail and kept Davis locked in the bedroom on the fourth floor until September 1910. Jennie found Davis’s will and discovered he had amended the terms. She and Lucretia were allotted a yearly stipend from the estate and she was not pleased with the amount. She told Davis “Unless you change this I shall be compelled to allow Lucretia to go on the stage, and you will be responsible if she falls into the many pitfalls of that career and becomes a low woman. It costs $40,000 a year to run the New York house. You must let us have more money after you are gone.” Davis devised an escape plan by dropping a letter addressed to a friend from the bedroom window. As luck would have it, it was found by a passerby and, remarkably, delivered. The ally positioned a motorcar outside the residence and when the servants were taking the dinner dishes out of his room, Davis made his escape. Later The New York Times printed a more dramatic version of the escape. “Disguised as a physician and accompanied by two nurses in uniform, he eluded the hired caretakers.” Jennie initiated a search for her husband, whom she still maintained was incompetent. A special report to The New York Times on September 26, 1910, said “It is understood here that Robert M. Davis, a wealthy baking powder manufacturer, 70 years old, has eluded the efforts of relatives to detain him at his New York home, 330 Riverside Drive, but he has not appeared here [i.e., the country estate].” Davis had fled on a train to Los Angeles and immediately began divorce proceedings based on “cruelty.” On June 13, 1911 Robert Benson Davis took the stand. The Times wrote “Mrs. Davis, appearing at least thirty years younger than her husband, was in the court room. She has a daughter, Lucretia, aged 26. Mrs. Davis’s head wagged in indignant denial at several of her husband’s statements.” Two days after the shocking testimony of imprisonment, guards, spies and threats of his daughter losing her virtue, Davis was denied his plea for divorce because he was not a California resident and the court had no authority. Jennie, almost immediately, filed a suit for “separate maintenance.” She received a monthly allowance of $1,500 as well as $1,500 for costs. That was not enough for Jennie Weed Davis. She countered, asking instead for a $5,000 monthly allowance. An unsympathetic Judge Walter Bordwell, on September 27, 1912 ruled “that Mrs. Davis’s action in driving her husband from his Riverside Drive home…while he was ill, showed conclusively that she was not entitled to any allowance.” Somewhat unexpectedly, with everyone disappointed at their own rulings the family traveled back to New York and continued life in the Riverside Drive mansion. The Davises were seen at their customary box—Box H—at the Metropolitan Opera during Saturday matinees despite the many lorgnettes one might imagine were focused on Jennie. On September 8, 1915 Lucretia Weed Davis was married to George Shipman Jephson in St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Cazenovia. The newlyweds lived on in the Riverside Drive house and George was given a job at the R. B. Davis Company—as President. Ironically three months later Jennie Weed Davis died. The scheming wife of the millionaire—three decades his junior–did not live to inherit the estate. Her funeral was held in the Riverside Drive mansion on Tuesday, December 28 at 2:30 in the afternoon. Robert Benson Davis lived another five years. On Thursday, February 19, 1920 his funeral, too, took place in the house. Lucretia and George maintained the Davis lifestyle. They lived on in the Riverside Drive and Cazenovia mansions and kept Box H at the Opera.
At the time of Robert B. Davis’ funeral, the neighborhood was only slightly changed — photograph NYPL Collection
With the coming of the Great Depression the grand mansions of Riverside Drive began being divided into multifamily homes or razed for modern apartment buildings. Perhaps to protect the exclusive nature of his block, George Jephson bought the adjoining mansions on Riverside Drive as they became available. At the beginning of 1933 he already owned No. 331 next door (where, by the way, film actress Marion Davies had lived) and in February that year he purchased No. 332. “Mr. Jephson now controls a frontage of 78 feet in a block containing several private homes,” reported The Times on February 8.
On September 30, 1951 George S. Jephson died in the summer house at Cazenovia. Four years later, deciding to live solely in Hillcrest, the aging Lucretia sold the three Riverside Drive mansions to Fred H. Hill. If New Yorkers were concerned that the large parcel would mean the end of the lovely mansions, they heaved a sigh of relief when No. 330 was quickly resold in January 1955 to the Brothers of the La Salle Provincialate. The group, parochial school teachers, planned “to occupy the house for a residence in place of their present living quarters at 112 West Seventy-seventh Street,” reported The Times.
Lucretia Davis Jephson lived on in Hillcrest until her death in April 1979 at the age of 93. Meanwhile, the Provincialate remained on at No. 330 Riverside Drive until 1978. Unlike many of its neighbors, the Davis mansion has never been broken up into apartments. Its stately presence is a reminder of a time when millionaires rebuffed Fifth Avenue for the vistas of the Hudson River.
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
Sources
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN IVAN BRICE ARCHITECTS
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
