Streamline Moderne was all the rage in the 1940s. Architect A.S. Arrasmith was a leading proponent—designing more 60 Greyhound stations with exceptional post-Deco grace and style.
“Greatest Bus Terminal in World,” barked the Cleveland News when the Greyhound Bus Terminal opened its doors on March 30, 1948. And why not? Replacing a shabby and outmoded terminal on East 9th Street, the new Chester Avenue station, like many others nationwide, brilliantly channeled a design movement called Streamline Moderne (an offshoot of Art Deco). Across the US, homes, cars, trains, bicycles, furniture, clocks, radios and even telephones were being “streamlined.” Think Airstream trailers, Buick Roadmasters, butterfly chairs, and even the Cleveland Coast Guard Station (built in 1940). Faced in light Indiana limestone, the Cleveland Greyhound station epitomized the trend: Prominent horizontal lines. Undulating walls. Smooth exterior surfaces. Curved staircases leading to a curved balcony. All these features worked together to create the fluid effect Greyhound execs wanted—the home of an innovative, forward-moving transportation services provider.
The brains behind the building was architect William Strudwick Arrasmith (1898-1965) for whom designing Greyhound stations was almost a career. Arrasmith’s first Greyhound commission work was a Louisville terminal that opened in 1937. During World War II, Arrasmith commanded forces in Europe and served with the Army Corps of Engineers. After the war, he and his family moved to Cleveland where he began work on the Chester Avenue terminal. Altogether Arrasmith designed more than 60 Greyhound stations, along with several hospitals, hotels, and even a prison.
Today, Greyhound continues to operate out of the Chester Avenue building. Although many things have changed, the basic interior is intact. Originally, the west end of the terminal had a Post House restaurant with 17 booths and three U-shaped counters. A Gray Drug Store in the east wing had a 45-foot soda fountain. A ticket counter used to be where the restrooms are now located. The facility also had an onsite barber shop. The second floor continues to house sleeping rooms for Greyhound drivers. The gold and tan terrazzo floor remains unchanged and two giant pillars still frame the entrance.
The 1948 opening was quite the affair. Ohio Governor Thomas Herbert, Cleveland Mayor Thomas Burke and copious press and spectators celebrated the 250-foot-long station, ringed with 21 bus docks—a “landlocked ocean liner,” according to Cleveland historian Carol Poh Miller. Also unveiled at the 1948 ceremony was a sleek new Greyhound model: the Highway Traveler. Nowadays bus travel is no longer considered a dashing way to travel. However, the terminal remains a model of architectural style and grace. The station was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
A Speedy Building The horizontal lines created by the rows of windows, the edges of the roofs, and the curved walls at the end of the first and third levels of the structure all add to the Streamline Moderne Style. The style is characterized by an aerodynamic look and a feeling of speed. As can be seen in this 1950s photograph, these elements are clearly present in the Greyhound Terminal building. Image courtesy of Cleveland State University. Michael Schwartz Library. Special Collections.
The Largest Lobby This photograph of the Greyhound Terminal lobby demonstrates the size of the station itself. Built as the largest bus station in the United States, the terminal lobby has the ability to accommodate 300 travelers at one time. Image courtesy of Cleveland State University. Michael Schwartz Library. Special Collections.
Capital Design 1. The Greyhound Bus Terminal in Washington, DC, was completed in 1940 for a cost total cost (land and building) of $1,000,000. This photo was taken in 1976 during an extensive remodeling.
Early Streamline Moderne The Louisville Bus Terminal—completed in 1937—was William Arrasmith’s first Greyhound commission.
Great Lines Arrasmith’s Cincinnati station, since demolished, was completed in 1942.
“Go Greyhound” This 1950s postcard depicts the Norfolk, VA, Greyhound station which was built in 1942.
Going to the Source In 2011, retired Cleveland attorney Frank E. Wrenick wrote “The Streamline Era Greyhound Terminals: the Architecture of W.S. Arrasmith.”
J. FREDERICK MUGGS “CO-HOST” WITH DAVE GAROWAY ON THE ORIGINAL “TODAY” SHOW GUY LANDIS AND 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
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
CLEVELAND HISTORICAL
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Douglas DC-3 airliner (1935) The DC-3 had many exceptional qualities compared to previous aircraft. It was fast, had a good range, was more reliable, and carried passengers in greater comfort. Before the war, it pioneered many air travel routes. It was able to cross the continental US from New York to Los Angeles in 18 hours, with only three stops. It is one of the first airliners that could profitably carry only passengers without relying on mail subsidies.[2][3]
The Lockheed Constellation (“Connie“) is a propeller-driven, four-engined airliner built by Lockheed Corporation starting in 1943. The Constellation series was the first pressurized-cabin civil airliner series to go into widespread use. Its pressurized cabin enabled commercial passengers to fly well above most bad weather for the first time, thus significantly improving the general safety and ease of air travel.
TRAINS
The train was streamlined after wind tunnel experiments, a sort of research which was pioneered by the developers of the high-speed interurban railcar Bullet a couple of years before. The Fliegender Hamburger design was very similar to the Bullet’s. Its lightweight, articulated construction and Jakobs bogies were also known on the US interurban scene. However, the Fliegender Hamburger had diesel-electric propulsion. Each of the two coaches had a 12-cylinder Maybach diesel engine with a direct current generator directly coupled to it, which drove a Tatzlager traction motor. The two engines developed a combined power of 604 kW.
The 1931 WIKOV Supersport, Prostějov Moravia was one of the first produced truly aerodynamically designed automobiles.
Stout Scarab (1935) on display at Houston Fine Arts Museum
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Streamline style can be contrasted with functionalism, which was a leading design style in Europe at the same time. One reason for the simple designs in functionalism was to lower the production costs of the items, making them affordable to the large European working class.[13] Streamlining and functionalism represent two different schools in modernistic industrial design.
NBC TV STUDIO IN ROCKEFELLER CENTER, NEXT TO FORMER GARAGE ENTRANCE.
NOW CHRISTIES AUCTION HOUSE
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
Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design, it was used in railroad locomotives, telephones, toasters, buses, appliances, and other devices to give the impression of sleekness and modernity.[1]
In France, it was called the style paquebot, or “ocean liner style”, and was influenced by the design of the luxury ocean liner SS Normandie, launched in 1932.
Front and southern side of the former Blytheville Greyhound Bus Station, located at 109 N. Fifth Street in Blytheville, Arkansas, United States. Built in 1937, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
As the Great Depression of the 1930s progressed, Americans saw a new aspect of Art Deco, i.e., streamlining, a concept first conceived by industrial designers who stripped Art Deco design of its ornament in favor of the aerodynamic pure-line concept of motion and speed developed from scientific thinking. The cylindrical forms and long horizontal windowing in architecture may also have been influenced by constructivism, and by the New Objectivity artists, a movement connected to the German Werkbund. Examples of this style include the 1923 Mossehaus, the reconstruction of the corner of a Berlin office building in 1923 by Erich Mendelsohn and Richard Neutra. The Streamline Moderne was sometimes a reflection of austere economic times; sharp angles were replaced with simple, aerodynamic curves, and ornament was replaced with smooth concrete and glass.
The style was the first to incorporate electric light into architectural structure. In the first-class dining room of the SS Normandie, fitted out 1933–35, twelve tall pillars of Lalique glass, and 38 columns lit from within illuminated the room. The Strand Palace Hotel foyer (1930), preserved from demolition by the Victoria and Albert Museum during 1969, was one of the first uses of internally lit architectural glass, and coincidentally was the first Moderne interior preserved in a museum.
Coca-Cola factory, Los Angeles by Robert V. Derrah (1936)
Streamline Moderne appeared most often in buildings related to transportation and movement, such as bus and train stations, airport terminals, roadside cafes, and port buildings. It had characteristics common with modern architecture, including a horizontal orientation, rounded corners, the use of glass brick walls or porthole windows, flat roofs, chrome-plated hardware, and horizontal grooves or lines in the walls. They were frequently white or in subdued pastel colors.
An example of this style is the Aquatic Park Bathhouse in the Aquatic Park Historic District, in San Francisco. Built beginning in 1936 by the Works Progress Administration, it features the distinctive horizontal lines, classic rounded corners railing and windows of the style, resembling the elements of ship. The interior preserves much of the original decoration and detail, including murals by artist and color theoretician Hilaire Hiler. The architects were William Mooser Jr. and William Mooser III. It is now the administrative center of Aquatic Park Historic District.
Although Streamline Moderne houses are less common than streamline commercial buildings, residences do exist. The Lydecker House in Los Angeles, built by Howard Lydecker, is an example of Streamline Moderne design in residential architecture. In tract development, elements of the style were sometimes used as a variation in postwar row housing in San Francisco’s Sunset District.
WILLIAM VAN ALEN, ARCHITECT OF THE CHRYSLER BUILDING DRESSED UP AS HIS STRUCTURE
ALEXIS VALLAFANE AND JOYCE GOLD 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
Sources
WIKIPEDIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Like swallows coming back to Capistrano (admittedly that happens in March, but you get the idea), New Yorkers come back from their summer homes. Could be Maine, Upstate New York (anything north of Westchester), Cape Cod or Out East. Like the swallows, this return is nothing new. New Yorkers have been coming back from their summer homes almost since the very beginning of the City.
They went not just for a change from the crowded, dirty streets of what was then New York City, tucked at the far bottom of the Manhattan island, but rather more pressing, to escape from the continuing epidemics of yellow fever and cholera that racked the City. Where in these early days – the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries – did they go?
Some went up the island.
One of the most famous summer homes in what now is the UES belonged the wealthy merchant and shipowner Archibald Gracie. Born in Scotland in 1755, Gracie arrived in New York in 1784 with a cargo of goods that netted him enough money to invest in a trading company and soon he was very rich. His regular residence was a State Street townhouse known as “The Pillars”. But like other wealthy city residents, he wanted a summer house, too.
For $3,700, Gracie bought 11 acres of rolling land facing Hell Gate, the section of the East River between Astoria and Randall’s Island, just beyond the northern tip of our own Island.
It took a day to sail from the Battery to reach his house at today’s East 88th Street. But Gracie and his family made the trip often, entertaining political and literary figures such as Alexander Hamilton (a business partner and the owner of a lovely summer estate in Harlem), James Fenimore Cooper, John Quincy Adams, and Washington Irving. Irving wrote of the Gracies, “Their country seat was one of my strongholds last summer, as I lived in its vicinity. It is a charming, warm-hearted family, and the old gentleman has the soul of a prince.”
Alas, but not the purse. Gracie lost much of his fortune by 1819 and the home. Through the mid- to late-19th century, the house changed owners at least twice. As the area’s summer estates were sold off and parceled out and Yorkville became more urbanized, the house fell into disrepair. And then, thanks to Robert Moses, it became the home of our Mayors.
John Jacob Astor build a mansion close by Gracie’s place, a modest summer home for America’s first multi-millionaire. It became known more for its literary and musical associations than for its architectural grandeur. When Washington Irvin wasn’t enjoying Gracie’s hospitality, he lived here, writing Astoria, a patriotic account of Astor’s failed fur-trading colony at Oregon. (Makes you think about long term summer guests.)
Nathaniel Prime also lived in this prime real estate hood. By 1830, Prime was one of New York’s five millionaires and first President of the New York Stock & Exchange Board. His country home stood near the East River facing east over Hell Gate and Long Island, situated between William Rhinelander’s estate to the north and the Astor Mansion to the south and close on to Gracie’s mansion.
And the UWS too. We have a contemporary photo of a spectacular summer palazzo owned by Dr. Valentine Mott.
Dr Mott was the most prominent physician in 19th century New York—a pioneer of heart surgery who at the age of 75 helped Civil War battlefield hospitals implement anesthesia. His year-round residence was on fashionable Gramercy Park. But during the summer, he left behind the hot city and fled to today’s West 94th Street and the former Bloomingdale Road – just about as far away as could be managed then. Today, the house would be smack in the middle of Broadway. Back then, this was the country; the Upper West Side was a collection of estates and small villages in the mid-1800s.
Others chose Harlem for their summer estate.
Why Harlem? The flat, rich, eastern portion of Harlem was fertile farmland, and some of New York’s most illustrious early families, like the Delanceys, Bleekers, Rikers, Beekmans, and Hamiltons kept large estates in the high western section. Harlem recovered slowly from the Revolutionary war struggles that took place there and remained largely rural through the early 19th century. Some of the estates were available at knockdown prices, and Harlem also attracted new immigrants to the City. Undeveloped, but not poor. It is said that Harlem was “a synonym for elegant living through a good part of the nineteenth century.”
To reach Harlem from lower Manhattan Island by stagecoach and later by horse car took a hard hour and a half to two-hour ride. But by boat, there was no lovelier vista than the banks of the East River from Jones’ Wood north, where the shore was dotted by splendid country homes with large grounds of well-to-do New Yorkers – except when steaming past Blackwell’s Island. “Sylvan” steamboats raced up and down the East River from Peck’s Slip to 120th and 130th Streets in Harlem via a stop in Astoria and through Hell Gate.
Alexander Hamilton’s uptown estate was called the Grange, after his father’s ancestral home in Scotland. In 1802, disenchanted with Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, he “threw himself into building a house in northern Manhattan nine miles from town,” writes Richard Brookhiser in Alexander Hamilton, American. Hamilton commissioned architect John McComb Jr. (who also designed Gracie’s mansion) to build a Federal-style mansion on 32 acres near today’s 143rd Street and Convent Avenue in Harlem.
It was a simple, dignified house on a high foundation amid fields and woods. “The bay windows had sweeping views of the Harlem River to the east and the Hudson River to the West,” writes Brookhiser. Front and rear porticos were complemented by side piazzas. On the lawn, Hamilton planted 13 sweet gum trees (for the 13 colonies), gifts from George Washington.
Aaron Burr lived in Halem, too – but briefly – in Manhattan’s now oldest surviving house. The Morris-Jumel Mansion was built in 1765 as a summer retreat for British colonel Roger Morris and his American wife Mary Philipse. With the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Morris, a Loyalist, left for England. His home, which he called “Mount Morris,” was occupied by George Washington and then British Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton, and the Hessian commander Baron Wilhelm von Knyphausen.
In 1810, Stephen and Eliza Jumel bought the property. She was poor, he wasn’t. The Jumels spent several years in France, where they made friends in the elite circle around Napoleon’s court. They returned to the United States in 1828 to settle in the mansion. Inspired by cutting-edge French fashion, Madame Jumel bought new furniture and redecorated her home in the elegant Empire style. One year after her husband’s death in 1832 from injuries sustained in a carriage accident, Madame Jumel married former Vice President Aaron Burr in the mansion’s front parlor. The marriage was not a success, and the couple formally divorced in 1836.
And Astoria
By the 1830s, wealthy New Yorkers were finding that bucolic Queens made for a convenient escape from the ever more crowded and sometimes unhealthy conditions of their own tiny island. Between 1835 and 1841, streets in the townships along Long Island’s East River coast were laid out and buildings erected. By this time, ferries connected with Manhattan. Soon, these coastal areas would become refuges for wealthy New Yorkers, particularly Astoria and Ravenswood. Country estates with names like Bodine Castle and Mount Bonaparte served as getaways for rich Manhattanites. The Jacob Blackwell family (our Blackwells) lived there during the Revolution, in a large house at 37th Avenue overlooking the river.
These waterfront villas, built in Ravenswood during the 1800s, were abandoned and crumbling a hundred years later. Courtesy of the New York Public Library. These wealthy residents swam in the coves, sailed in local yacht clubs, fished in the river, and hunted ducks, plover, and snipe in the nearby marshes of Sunswick Creek (roughly along today’s 21st Street.)
The New York Times urged New Yorkers to make the trek out to Queens. In 1852, the New York Times urged New Yorkers to take a day trip to the countryside: Queens was underrated, fancier than Broadway, a great place to explore, and worth the trip from Brooklyn. “There are charming residences and delightful lawns at Ravenswood and Astoria,” said the paper as it urged people to take long walks to Astoria. “It is lamentable that with such fine weather and pleasant country promenades at hand, our fair friends, especially of Brooklyn and Williamsburg, do not avail themselves of their privileges. They would find an agreeable change from the usual hackneyed routes…Throw off this deathly indolence that is benumbing your physical and spiritual faculties”
On this last day of September, welcome home dear readers, from your summer estates and world travels. Thank you for reading.
PIGEONS FEASTING ON NEWLY LAID GRASS SEEDS AT THE TRAM LAWN. AFTER THE RAINS, THE GRASS SEED WILL BE LAID AGAIN
GLORIA HERMAN HAD THE RIGHT ANSWER.
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
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Occasionally we hear from descendants of doctors who worked on Blackwell’s Island. This is part of the story of Dr. Arthur Mc Farland. Thanks to Laura Mc Kibbin for sharing the photos and story of her grandfather’s connection to our island.
Judith – attached are photos from my grandfather’s photo album.His name was Dr. Arthur H. McFarland, and he attended medical school at Columbia University.
I found him in the 1915 New York Census data and could not make sense of why he was living at the same place as other doctors, students, nurses, prisoners and asylum patients until I learned about Roosevelt Island.
He was an intern there at what he called “New York City Hospital” from June 1915 to June 1917. Some of his photos are labelled with the names of the people if anyone is interested in that information.
Laura McKibbin
Top row: Joe Smith, Pop Snyder, AH McFarland, John Webster, Stanley Boller, Joe Price, Lockrey, A.H. Smith2nd Row: Chief Bender, Price, Weiss, Bert Bastedo, John Lisa, Hayes, Sam Bayer, Brewster Doust, Amry Ellington 1st Row: D.A. Quick, Howe, Fluker, Damraus, Crawford, Donaldson, Cady, Larry Blake
Here are the people in the photos labelled RI 5 f: Top Row: Bostanian, unknown, Potter, Scoreson, Anderson, Weiss, Hayes, Roth, Greaves Third Row: Boller, Simpson, Miles, Rosenprang, Smith, Amett, Siebert, Price, Snyder Fourth Row: Newfield, AH McFarland, Lopez Bottom Row: Ellington, Bender, Boller Jr., Lisa, V. Weiss
I do not know much about the child in the photo, except that my grandfather labelled him “Boller Jr.,” so I imagine he is the son of the man in the left in the black pants, also labelled “Boller.”
Young doctors who worked at City Hospital
Three photos made into a composite of City Hospital
The former Smallpox Hospital , the Nursing School
Nurses from the New York Training School for Nurses.
Nurses in front of residence
Page from 1915 New York Census listing doctors
Dr. Arthur H. McFarland was born in 1891 As a boy in Merriam Park Neighborhood, St. Paul, MN
Working on the survey crew for the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, about 1910
In the Bugle Corps at the University of Minnesota, 1911
If I understand correctly, the hospital in 1915 specialized in treating Tuberculosis? After his internship on Roosevelt Island, my grandfather was stationed in the Army in Jacksonville Florida, 1918-1919. This was at the height of the Spanish Flu in that area, and I have read many of the soldiers returning from WW1 that year were infected. I imagine grandpa treated many with Spanish Flu. He must have had a hearty immune system!
After the war, he moved back to Minnesota and joined the practice of Dr. Louis Nippert in Minneapolis. He was also on staff at Eitel Hospital, Later Abbott Hospital. He was married to Lilian Ferguson McFarland and they raised two children in Minneapolis. They had six grandchildren (I am one of their grandchildren.)
LAURA HUSSEY, GLORIA HERMAN AND VICKI FEINMEL 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
LAURA MC KIBBIN
GRANTS
CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE JULE MENIN DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
When the little Congregation Ahawath Chesed decided to move from their Ludlow Street synagogue where they had been since 1846, they set out to impress.
And impress they did.
Numbering only 150 families, the German Reform congregation chose Henry Fernbach to design their new building. Fernbach was a Jewish German immigrant who had come to the U.S. in 1855 and would go on to make his mark in two widely divergent architectural venues: cast iron commercial buildings and Moorish Revival synagogues.
The fashionable 19th Century architectural styles had posed a problem for synagogue designers for decades. Gothic Revival was heavily used for Christian churches, while Greek Revival smacked of a tradition of pagan worship. Moorish Revival, however, harkened back to the pre-Inquisition days when Jews enjoyed relative freedom in Spain.
Central Synagogue 1892 — photo NYPL Collection
On the site at Lexington Avenue and 55th Street, Fernbach built for the tiny congregation a grand synagogue inspired by the Dohany Street Synagogue of Budapest. Twin octagonal towers rose 122 feet, topped by polychromed and gilded onion domes. A huge central rose window dominated the Lexington facade while two-story arched stained glass windows lined the sides.
Fernbach, reportedly the first Jewish architect in the U.S., used contrasting horizontal bands of stone, Moorish stone arches and exuberant roofline crenellation for dramatic effect. When it was completed in 1872 with only a few buildings around it, the synagogue was — as intended — impressive.
More so, however, was the spacious interior which could accommodate 1000. Fernbach’s High Victorian interpretation of the Moorish theme blanketed the surfaces with colorful and intricate stenciling. Deep, vivid colors like crimson and cobalt, burst from the walls. Gold stars against the deep blue ceiling represented the heavens above the worshippers.
Fire damaged the synagogue in 1886; however the interior was restored using the original 1872 plans; reclaiming the inticate stenciling and colors.
In 1898 Shaar Hashomayim merged with Ahawath Chesed and in 1915 the name was changed to Central Synagogue.
As the middle of the 20th Century neared, the congregation decided to refurbish the aging building. In 1949 they engaged Ely Jacques Kahn, who designed several skycrapers and simliar commercial structures. Not a fan of historic preservation, Kahn’s plan instead was a make-over.
His updating called for, among other things, the painting over of the Victorian stencilwork and replacing the Moorish chandeliers with Art Deco fixtures. Much of Ferbach’s lavish ornamentation was stripped away. The exterior was, happily, relatively untouched save for the removal of the roofline crenellation. Years later architect Hugh Hardy would explain Kahn’s renovation to The New Yorker as “He was embarrassed by all this decoration—you can see how he simplified it.”
Kahn’s mid-century designs would still be in place were it not for the devastating fire that tore through Central Synagogue in 1998. Started by a welder’s torch, the fire destroyed the roof, which collapsed into the interior. Because of water damage, 85 percent of the decorated surfaces were destroyed.
To many it appeared that Central Synagogue was lost. But for the intrepid congregation “lost” was not an option.
Hugh Hardy, who had restored several other New York City landmarks like Radio City Music Hall and The Rainbow Room, took up the challenge. The stained glass windows were in shards. Shattered pieces of encaustic tiles littered the ashes.
Sunlight streamed through the void where the ceiling had been. Molds were made of the chunks of decorative plasterwork before they were discarded. Drawings were done to document the sequence and placement of the ornamentation. Enough original glass from the windows was salvaged to restore one full window — which was dedicated to the firemen who saved the building. The remaining windows were reproduced using the original designs, photographs and matching glass
Referring to as much pre-Kahn documentation as could be found, Hardy’s plan to bring Central Synagogue back to its Victorian splendor took shape. When completed, the mid-20th Century constraints were gone. “What we have done is much more exuberant than what people here are used to, but it is original to the building,” Hardy told The New Yorker. “Now the building is as raucous as ever.”
Craftsmen, using 19th Century methods, painstakingly revived the interior. More than 5000 stencils were applied to the walls and ceiling by hand, using 69 colors. The pews were reproduced in walnut and ash to match the originals and they sit on flooring consisting of 4,000 square feet of multi-colored encaustic and quarry tiles. Of the 40,000 tiles only 10,000 of the originals could be salvaged. The remaining tiles were hand-made in England. While the exquisite ark miraculously survived the fire, it required careful cleaning, reguilding, refinishing, and partial repainting. Today the stars twinkle on a cobalt sky over the heads of the worshippers at Central Synagogue once again.
On Sunday, September 9th, 2001,I stood outside Central Synagogue and attended the celebration for the re-opening of the Central Synagogue. It was a wonderful afternoon and we all admired the restoration. Just 2 days later our world stopped, It was September 11th, 2001.
The Normandie at Hudson River Pier 38 – the Transatlantic Ocean Steamship Terminal of the French Line. FROM ED LITCHER:
On 9 February 1942, French Lines’ Normandie caught fire and capsized in New York Harbor. Normandie was in New York when France fell to the Nazis. She languished at her pier there, nor returning to France because of the war. She was seized by the U.S. government and it was decided to convert her into a troopship named Lafayette in honor of the Frenchman who aided the U.S. in its Revolutionary War struggle to escape from British rule.
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
GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE JULIE MENIN DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD, ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS
