Wednesday, October 12, 2022 – The RPA has provided vital services to this city for decades

By admin

FROM THE ARCHIVES

WEDNESDAY,  OCTOBER 12,  2022


THE  804th EDITION

Design in NYC
and
Traces 100 years of Urban Planning
Grand Central
at
New Exhibition

6SQFT

Photos courtesy of Regional Plan Association

In celebration of its centennial, the civic group Regional Plan Association has opened a free public exhibition in Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall. Designed by James Sanders Studio and curated by RPA, The Constant Future: A Century of the Regional Plan explores 100 years of New York City’s development from 1922 to the present day. The two-story display will be on view through October 24.

Established in 1922, the Regional Plan Association is a non-profit group that develops ideas and recommendations to improve the quality of life in New York City and its surrounding area.The exhibition will include photomurals and a series of large display panels that present text, images, and archived videos that tell a story of NYC throughout its history. All of the photos and information come from the RPA’s extensive archive.The Constant Future covers events starting with the rise of the automobile, the social, economic, and racial tensions of the 1960s, Superstorm Sandy and climate change, and the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a press release.The Vanderbilt Hall exhibit will revolve around four landmark Regional Plans from 1929, 1968, 1996, and 2017. Visitors will learn about “cultural products of their own time” and “bold, imaginative, and influential responses to formidable challenges of metropolitan life.” This includes things like housing, public health, jobs, and transportation.

The exhibit is designed by James Sanders Studio, whose principal James Sanders co-produced with Ric Burns PBS’s award-winning series, New York: A Documentary Film. 

Concluding the exhibition is a QR display that asks New Yorkers to imagine the future of New York and the region, as the area continues to recover from the pandemic. RPA will host a series of public programs this month that will explore the past, present, and future of New York.

WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

SEND YOUR ANSWER TO ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM

TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

FORMER AMERICAN STOCK EXCHANGE

FROM ED LITCHER:
The New York Curb Market had a tradition of street trading. Its brokers had unwritten territorial rights to lampposts and other easily-recognized street structures where they could be easily picked out by their clerks. Except for the coffered roof above the brokers’ heads, Starrett & Van Vleck were to recreate the outside Curb Market.


The $1.2 million building rose rapidly and on Saturday, June 25, 1921 the Curbstone brokers held their last outdoor session. The following Monday an impressive ceremony opened the new New York Curbstone Market. Around 8:00 in the morning the Curbstone brokers assembled on Broad Street as they always had, along with their clerks. Each broker was assigned his position in the new building. In 1931, now known as the New York Curb Exchange, the group remodeled the main façade at No. 86 Trinity Place, giving it an up-to-date modernistic face. Perhaps to save money, however, the Greenwich Street façade was left as-is. Change came again to the Curb when in 1953 the name was changed to the American Stock Exchange.

Massive lettering was affixed to the Trinity Place front announcing the new name. But on Greenwich Street “NEW YORK CURB MARKET” still remained carved into the stone.

In 2008 the exchange was absorbed by NYSE Amex Equities and it abandoned its old headquarters for Wall Street. The massive building sits unused and largely ignored, the last remnant of an uncanny and quirky time in New York stock trading.

GLORIA HERMAN GOT IT TOO!!

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

Sources

6SQFT

FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD

Copyright © 2022 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com