A TRIBUTE TO THE WOMEN OF IRAN AT THE FDR FOUR FREEDOMS STATE PARK
THE 846th EDITION
HILLARY CLINTON SALUTES IRAN’S WOMEN ON THE ISLAND
Former US Secretary Of State And NY Senator Hillary Clinton Visited Roosevelt Island FDR Four Freedoms Park Today To Support Opening Of Eyes On Iran, Woman Life Freedom Art Exhibit
A NEW LIFE FOR A FORMER TROLLEY BARN.
After shopping at Dollar Tree on Northern Blvd., I was in need of lunch.. With three loaded shopping bags I headed for the closest place for lunch. It was THE RAIL YARD pizzeria, just across the parking lot.
Located in the former site of a Pizza Hut, this locally owned neighborhood pizzeria had a neighborhood feel. Jimmy, the owner was schmoozing with the patrons and the Coca Cola salesman when I arrived. He seemed to know every person who entered and it was fun to be in a real neighborhood joint.
We discussed trolley cars and the RIHS trolley car kiosk along with local Sunnyside history. Jimmy has been a lifelong resident and we had a fun time while I had a slice and Diet Coke.
Jimmy told me that he acquired the spot in 2020 and it took a year to restore the brickwork and other elements from the original use as a trolley barn. Only the tower of the barn remains but the decor of old photos and real bricks and beams bring back the old days of trolley cars traversing Northern Blvd.
Time to return to the island after a fun trip to historic Queens.
Judy and Jimmy at a photo composite mural of Northern Blvd. in the 1910’s
Trolleys were not Jay Gatsby’s speed as he raced his yellow roadster along Northern Blvd. past a cathedral-like structure with imposing twin spires. The Cathedral-like structure was the Woodside carbarn.
The Woodside carbarn, located at the southwest corner of Newtown Avenue and Northern Blvd, was built by the New York & Queens County Railway at a cost of $150,000. The New York & Queens County, about to acquire Steinway Lines Railway in 1896, was in need of carbarn facilities with enough space to house trolleys of both New York & Queens County and Steinway Lines. The Woodside carbarn was the largest carbarn in Queens.
When the New York & Queens County and Steinway Lines Railway (reorganized as the New York & Queens Railway), went bankrupt in 1922, and lost control of the Steinway Lines, the Woodside carbarn continued to house Trolleys of both New York & Queens and Steinway Lines. An oddity of that arrangement was that the Calvary Cemetery Line, (now MTA Q67 bus), not directly connected to other New York & Queens routes, thus needed permission from its Former subsidiary, Steinway Lines, to use its tracks for carbarn moves.
The Woodside carbarn fire
On June 24, 1930, a disastrous fire occurred at the Woodside carbarn (below). The blaze broke out during the night and caused tremendous damage. One Steinway Lines revenue car #629, plus one workcar, were destroyed.
The New York & Queens suffered far more damage: 24 of the older wooden ‘300’ series cars, and 10 of the modern Birney Safety Cars were destroyed along with some others. The whole east end of the carbarn had been gutted out and beyond repair (below, left). The blackened wall was torn down and what was once an enclosed space was made into an open space. The fire crippled New York & Queens lines as only 25 cars were left to maintain service. In its dire need, New York & Queens rented cars from the Jamaica Central Railway and the Department of Plant structures. By a stroke of good luck, 2 newly bought cars from the defunct Auburn & Syracuse Railway lying in the yard waiting for painting, escaped unscathed. The New York & Queens pressed these cars into service the very next morning with their old colors and numbers unchanged. Without these cars the New York & Queens could not have maintained service.
Looked at from the perspective of years the carbarn fire was not a complete disaster. Thirty-eight of the burnt-out cars were old and worn and due for replacement anyway. The fire hastened the process and helped the riding public get newer and faster equipment. The New York & Queens sustained barely any financial losses, for the insurance on the burnt cars came to $104,483, a big sum that came in handy for buying equipment and roadbed materials.
From Carbarn to Shopping Center
With the coming of the automobile and the development of a practical motor coach by the thirties, the days of trolley operators in Queens as well as elsewhere were numbered. Jamaica Central Railway in central Queens converted to Jamaica Buses in 1933. On October 3, 1937, old #332 made the final run on the Calvary Line, then was taken to the Woodside carbarn, where it was soaked in gasoline and set on fire to the sound of Taps. Thus old #332, as well as New York & Queens Railway trolley service went out in a blaze of glory.
Orange-and-cream Queens-Nassau Transit buses (a New York & Queens subsidiary) replaced the trolleys. The year 1939 marked the end of trolleys being housed in the Woodside carbarn when Steinway Lines replaced its trolleys with orange-and-cream Steinway Omnibus buses. The former Woodside carbarn soldiered on as a bus garage for Queens-Nassau Transit until 1957, when it moved its bus facilities to College Point and became Queens Transit. At the same time Steinway Omnibus became Steinway Transit and also moved to College Point.
Today, the site of the former Woodside carbarn is occupied by the Tower Square shopping center. The front facade of the former carbarn with its imposing twin spires has been preserved as the front entrance to the shopping center. Sadly, the Maspeth Depot didn’t enjoy a similar fate, being obliterated by the LIE in 1952.
WEDNESDAY PHOTOS OF THE DAY FROM TRASH TO CLASS
THE FIRST RED TRASH CAN TO BE REHABILITATED AND RESTORED HAS BEEN RETURNED TO MAIN STREET. THESE TRASH CANS ARE MADE OF STRONG STEEL AND WERE REPAIRED AND POWDER COATED SO THEY CAN SERVE MANY MORE YEARS ON MAIN STREET. THE CANS WERE PURCHASED DURING THE ADMINISTRATION OF HERBERT BERMAN, PRESIDENT OF R.I.O.C, (2003-2007). AT ABOUT 18 YEARS OF AGE, THEY HAVE MANY MORE PRODUCTIVE YEARS AHEAD.
TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Jon Batiste, former bandleader for Stephen Colbert, playing at yesterday’s event at 4 Freedoms Park w Hillary Clinton … Thanks, Nina Lublin
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
JUNIPER VALLEY CIVIC ASSOCIATION JUDITH BERDY
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Little more than a century ago, deep in America’s rural South, a community-based movement ignited by two unexpected collaborators quietly grew to become so transformative, its influence shaped the educational and economic future of an entire generation of African American families.
Between 1917 and 1932, nearly 5,000 rural schoolhouses, modest one-, two-, and three-teacher buildings known as Rosenwald Schools, came to exclusively serve more than 700,000 black children over four decades. It was through the shared ideals and a partnership between Booker T. Washington, an educator, intellectual and prominent African American thought leader, and Julius Rosenwald, a German-Jewish immigrant who accumulated his wealth as head of the behemoth retailer, Sears, Roebuck & Company, that Rosenwald Schools would come to comprise more than one in five Black schools operating throughout the South by 1928.
Only about 500 of these structures survive today, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Some schools serve as community centers, others have restoration projects underway with the support of grants from National Trust for Historic Preservation while others are without champions and in advance stages of disrepair. Eroding alongside their dwindling numbers is their legacy of forming an American education revolution.
Photographer and author Andrew Feiler’s new book, A Better Life for Their Children, takes readers on a journey to 53 of these remaining Rosenwald schools. He pairs his own images of the schools as they look today with narratives from former students, teachers, and community members whose lives were molded by the program. A collection of photographs and stories from the book are also set to be featured in an exhibition at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, later this spring.
When Feiler, 59, first learned of Rosenwald Schools in 2015, it was a revelation that launched a nearly four-year journey over 25,000 miles throughout the southeast where he visited 105 schools.
“I’m a fifth-generation Jewish Georgian and a progressive activist my entire life. The story’s pillars: Jewish, southern, progressive activists, are the pillars of my life. How could I have never heard of it?” says Feiler, who saw an opportunity for a new project, to document the schools with his camera.
That the schools’ history is not more widely known is in large part due to the program’s benefactor. Rosenwald was a humble philanthropist who avoided publicity surrounding his efforts; very few of the schools built under the program bear his name. His beliefs about the philanthropic distribution of wealth in one’s own lifetime contributed to the anonymity, as his estate dictated that all funds supporting the schools were to be distributed within 25 years of his death. Many of the former students Feiler met with were unaware of the scope of the program, or that other Rosenwald Schools existed outside of their county, until restoration efforts gained national attention.
As Feiler outlines in the book, Rosenwald and Washington were introduced by mutual friends, and Washington lobbied Rosenwald to join the board of directors at Tuskegee Institute, the Alabama university for African Americans he co-founded. They began a lengthy correspondence about how they might collaborate further and soon focused on schools for black children.
Julius Rosenwald Fund schoolhouse construction map Fisk University Archives
Washington knew education was key to black Americans rising from generations of oppression. His memoir, Up From Slavery, inspired many, including Julius Rosenwald, who was impressed with Washington’s zeal for education as it aligned so closely with his own beliefs.
In the Jim Crow South, institutionalized segregation pushed rural black students into poor public schools. Municipal education expenditures were a small fraction of monies spent on educating similarly situated white children. In North Carolina alone, the state only spent $2.30 per black student was spent in 1915 compared to nearly $7.40 per white student and nearly $30 per student nationally, according to research by Tom Hanchett, a Rosenwald Schools scholar and community historian.
“Washington saw group effort as key to real change in America,” says Hanchett. “Education is one way to harness powerful group effort. If everyone can read and write, they can work together in a way they could not previously. The schools themselves were ways to bring not just children together but entire communities that were geographically dispersed.”
Interior of the Tankersley School in Montgomery County, Alabama, active 1923-1967 Andrew Feiler
Bay Springs School in Forrest County, Mississippi, active 1925-1958 Andrew Feiler
Rosenwald felt, too, that rural America held great promise. “Rosenwald had to think broadly about who Sears’ customers were,” says Hanchett, “The advent of rural free delivery by the U.S. Postal Service had dramatically increased Sears’ base from in-store shopping to catalog-based procurement. Having rural customers made Rosenwald more aware of the disenfranchisement for blacks, especially in education.”
Out of this collaboration came the thousands of schoolhouses across the South, which lived up to Washington’s aspirations of community togetherness for a generation. In 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that race-based segregation in schools was unconstitutional, Rosenwald schools began to consolidate with white schools over time and most of the structures were lost.
A central legacy of the Rosenwald School program is its contribution to educating leaders and foot soldiers of the civil rights movement. Feiler’s research crossed paths of several Rosenwald alumnus including Medgar Evers, Maya Angelou, members of the Little Rock Nine and Congressman John Lewis, whose portrait Feiler captured before Lewis’s death last year.
Feiler’s initial photoshoots began with exterior images, yet the schoolhouses themselves only revealed part of the story. “By far the most emotionally rewarding part of my experience was meeting people who attended, taught, and are devoting their lives to saving these schools,” says Feiler.
One of the most compelling anecdotes Feiler shares is from an encounter on his very first school visit to Bartow County, Georgia. There, he met Marian Coleman, 74, who attended grades 1 -3 at the Noble Hill School from 1951 to 1955, when the school closed. Reborn in 1989 as the Noble Hill-Wheeler Memorial Center, the former schoolhouse serves as a black cultural museum and features historical aspects of black culture in Bartow County. For 21 years, Coleman served as the center’s curator, a position now held by her niece, Valarie Coleman, 44.
Coleman’s great-grandfather, Webster Wheeler, led the effort to have Noble Hill built in 1923 with Rosenwald funds. Having left Georgia for Detroit as part of the Great Migration that saw a post-WWI exodus of black farmers from the rural agricultural South move to northern cities for higher paying industrial jobs, he worked for years as a carpenter for the Ford Motor Company. Wheeler returned home upon learning of the Rosenwald grant from family correspondence. Feiler’s photograph captures the two Colemans inside the center, holding a photograph of Wheeler that he had sent to family back home marking his arrival in a new land of promise.
Noble Hill School in Bartow County, Georgia, active 1923-1955 Andrew Feiler
Coleman recalls that even in the 1950s, the school had no electricity or interior bathroom, though nearby schools for white children had modern facilities. “I was aware other [white] schools had different standards,” says Coleman, who went on to become an elementary school teacher herself. “Many times, our parents weren’t able to buy materials we needed. We had books from the white schools after they were finished with them.”
A sense of community made the greatest impression upon Coleman as a child. “My parents would always plan special things for us,” says Coleman, “There were fundraising dinners for the development of the school and folks made quilts that were raffled off. We knew they were interested in us having a better education.”
To Feiler, the connection between Rep. Lewis and the Rosenwald schools made sense; he had lived in the congressman’s district for many years. “Lewis embodied the conscience of American optimism,” he says. “Education was always a high priority to his legislative agenda.”
Siloam School in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, 1920s-1947 Andrew Feiler
Feiler asked Lewis to bring readers into his Rosenwald School classroom, Dunn’s Chapel School in Pike County, Alabama, to share how his education there shaped his life. “I loved school, loved everything about it, no matter how good or bad I was at it,” Lewis writes in the book’s foreword. “Our school had a small library, and biographies were my favorite, stories that opened my eyes to the world beyond Pike County.”Siloam School, a one-teacher classroom in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, built around 1920, is captured by Feiler in evident disrepair, its pine siding decaying and foundation melting into a soft earthen slope. Sixty black children were registered here in 1924, according to the Charlotte Museum of History, which has undertaken an ambitious project to restore the schoolhouse as an interpretive education and community center. “Preserving Siloam School will provide context to this difficult history and a place to interpret it,” says Adria Focht, the museum’s president and CEO. “Once restored, the school will return as a community space and place for conversation, dialogue, and progress to help build a stronger, more equitable and just future.”Like all Rosenwald Schools, Siloam’s architectural plan followed a highly prescribed manner and was developed at Tuskegee Institute as part of the Rosenwald Schools program. Detailed school plans dictated everything from the schools’ physical orientation—north- or south-facing to allow for all-day sunshine through large windows—to the color of the walls—cream or eggshell—to encourage calm and learning.
The guidelines were devised under the stewardship of architect Robert Robinson Taylor, who before becoming a professor at Tuskegee was the first black student enrolled at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the nation’s first accredited black architect. (Taylor’s great-granddaughter, Valerie Jarrett, a former senior advisor to President Barack Obama, sat for a portrait posing with a sheet of commemorative U.S. postage stamps honoring her ancestor.) The story of education as a central focus of civil and human rights is an important framework for helping people understand their role in the culture, in society, and their and political and economic rights,” says Calinda N. Lee of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. “Education is fundamental to being able to advocate for individual rights and work in solidarity with other people. This story is part of what is so compelling about [Feiler’s] work.”
Perhaps no building showcases that dynamic more than Sumner County, Tennessee’s Cairo School, built in 1922. Frank Brinkley, 79, attended Cairo School grades 1-8 from 1947 to 1958, where his father, Hutch, served as the sole teacher and principal for 23 years. “I always loved math,” he says. “When I was in 7th and 8th grade, my father let me teach and help the 1st graders with their arithmetic and math lessons.”
He continued being a teacher on through adulthood, instructing high schoolers and adults in science and mathematics. “At that time, about the only position blacks could hold in education was teaching school,” says Brinkley. “Father encouraged all his children and wanted it known that if you went to Cairo School, you were good students academically. He took a great deal of pride in knowing all six of his children graduated from college.”Feiler’s portrait of Frank and his younger brother, Charles Brinkley Sr., embodies the dignity, pride and honor these men feel about the school serving as a vehicle to shape their family’s lives. All of Hutch’s 10 grandchildren would also continue on to college.“I still have chills when I go back to the school,” says Brinkley. “I feel how far we have come, yet we still have a long way to go. While we are standing the shoulders of giants, our heads are still below the water.”
Classroom in Shiloh School, Anderson County, South Carolina Andrew Feiler
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
Michael J. Solender |Michael J. Solender lives and writes in Charlotte, N.C. Website: michaeljwrites.com
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Photo by Justin Lui, Courtesy of the New York Transit Museum
R-33, R-33WF and R-36 cars from the Musem’s vintage fleet have been selected to make up this year’s Train of Many Colors. All of the cars featured were manufactured in the 1960s. The “Tartar Red” and “Gunn Red” redbirds, Kale Green “Green Machines”, blue-and-silver “Platinum Mist” and striking two-tone robin’s egg blue and cream “Bluebird” paint schemes give the train its festive name and a festive look. The diversity of the cars exemplifies how the subway changed throughout different eras of its history.
Today, it is easy to find a soft pretzel out on the streets and many subway stops have food vendors at the station — like the Turnstyle Underground Market at Columbus Circle — but the most convenient way to grab this classic snack, and not miss your train, would be to have a pretzel vendor right on the subway platform. In the 1960s, commuters at the Union Square station were able to do just that. In recent years, the city has been cracking down on subway food vendors, and in 2017, the MTA Chief even suggested banning food on the subway.
Vintage subway car at the New York Transit Museum with fabric “straphangers”. Courtesy of New York Transit Museum.
The term straphangers may be confusing to modern-day riders, after all, there are no straps on the subway. However, the first standing subway car riders held onto canvas straps to stabilize themselves. Over time, the canvas straps were replaced by metal “grab holds” and eventually replaced entirely by plain metal bars.
No solution keeps the spread of germs away, but individual straps at least eliminate the awkwardness of accidentally touching a stranger’s hand or having to fight for a spot on a pole to hold onto. Those who want to relive the strap-hanging experience can check out the entire level of vintage subway trains at the New York Transit Museum, ride on a nostalgia train, or purchase metal subway grab holds from the Transit Museum store.
Classic white subway tile is having a moment in interior design, but our focus is on the colorful mosaics that adorn the walls of New York City subway platforms. During the construction of the subway system, many architects and artists were commissioned to design ceramic flourishes for signage. The original intent of the decorative signs was to announce the name of the stop and to help non-English speakers, who couldn’t read the words on signs, orient themselves based on the artwork. Most original Arts and Crafts/Beaux Arts-style ceramic designs were created by Heins & LaFarge and Squire Vickers.
While many newer subway stations, like the World Trade Center Transportation Hub and the Second Ave subway, have a streamlined and modern aesthetic, we are happy that the tradition of showcasing art in the subway is being upheld, and that new stations continue to feature artwork that incorporates the mosaic technique.
No subway station can rival the grandeur of the City Hall Station, even in its decommissioned state. It features architectural wonders, such as tiled arches, brass chandeliers, and skylights. However, due to its curved platform, which was not able to accommodate newer, longer cars, the station was ultimately closed in 1945. Today, new subway stations and transit hub renovations showcase exciting new sleek, and modern designs, but we’re nostalgic for the Gilded-Age extravagance of City Hall Station.
PROMOTING ETIQUETTE
MAN SPREADING HAS ALWAYS BEEN A PROBLEM……HEAR THAT GUYS???
DOOR BLOCKERS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN WITH US, TODAY WITH A CELL PHONE AND NOT A NEWSPAPER!
SOME COMPLAINTS REMAIN THE SAME THROUGHOUT THE YEARS!
A VIEW OF THE BLACKWELL’S ISLAND PENITENTIARY FROM QUEENS WITH THE WATER TANK OF THE TERRA COTTA WORKS ON VERNON BLVD IN FOREGROUND.
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)
The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation is a nonprofit organization that “promotes the legacies of the artists Milton Resnick (1917–2004) and Pat Passlof (1928–2011) and supports the work of other painters.” The foundation opened to the public in 2018 inside a repurposed Lower East Side synagogue at 87 Eldridge Street. The synagogue served as Resnick’s studio from the 1970s to the 1990s. Restoration of the building and its conversion into an art space was done by Ryall Sheridan Architects. While the interior looks much like any other art gallery with plane white walls hung with paintings, there are remnants of the building’s past that peek through.
Angel Orensanz Center at 172 Norfolk Street, the oldest synagogue building still standing in New York state, currently serves as an arts center. It opened in 1850 as the Ansche Chesed Synagogue. At the time, it was the largest synagogue in the country, and services were conducted in German.After multiple shifts in ownership, the space was abandoned in the 1970s. Eventually, in 1986, Angel Orensanz, a Jewish Spanish sculptor and painter, converted the building into a gallery and performance space. The local Reform Shul of New York still holds holiday services here twice a year. Plus, the place has had its fair share of celebrity visits: Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick were married here, and composer Philip Glass and Florence + The Machine have hosted concerts.
58-60 Rivington Street used to be the address of the First Warschauer Congregation, a Romanian synagogue. The congregation began in 1886 as Kehal Adath Yeshurin of Yassay at 131 Hester Street. By 1903, the congregation was looking to upgrade its place of worship.
They turned to Emery Roth — a Hungarian immigrant and the architect behind dozens of New York buildings like The San Remo, The Beresford, and the Ritz Tower. The synagogue facade that Roth designed was in a Moorish Revival style. The interior was upgraded as well. In 1904, the congregation celebrated their new home with a four-hour parade march, carrying their sacred Torah scrolls to the new location.
Many famous New Yorkers worshipped here including George and Ira Gershwin (who both grew up on Eldridge Street), Republican New York Senator Jacob Javits, co-founder of MGM and film producer Samuel Goldwyn, and comedian George Burns. After some financial struggles, the building was left vacant in 1973.
By 1980 there was a new tenant, SoHo-based sculptor Hale Gurland. Gurland transformed the space into his own personal studios and living quarters. The Roth-designed facade still maintains most of its original features, but some additions have been made. You’ll notice if you look at the central round window, the grilles are arranged to make it look like a camera aperture.
The former synagogue building at 13-15 Pike Street once served the congregation Sons of Isreal Kalw Arie. Now, it serves a congregation of another faith, Buddhism. Built in 1903-1904 and designed by architect Alfred E. Badt, the synagogue is a New York City landmark. The Sons of Isreal Kalw Arie, which began in 1853 remained in this large synagogue until the 1980s.
Today, the building has many uses. On the ground floor, flanked by the former synagogue’s twin staircases there is a commercial space. The main level houses a Buddhist temple and apartments can be found on the upper floors.
Meseritz Shul at 415 E. 6th St. is one of the smallest and most narrow urban synagogues in New York. It’s also been embroiled in quite a bit of controversy. For a time, the interior of this 1888 building was in shambles. There were many development plans put forth for the building and the site, including plans that simply knocked down the structure. The building was saved however by a highly debated landmark ruling in 2012. The designation set up a historic district in the East Village/Lower East Side covering 330 buildings located along Second Avenue and its adjacent side streets.
The cash-strapped congregation did move forward with a deal to convert its upper floors into condos. The deal also included the restoration of the lower-level worship space. The building’s gorgeous facade, in line with the landmark designation, didn’t change significantly. The upper-floor condos were put up for sale in 2016. One of the condos that hit the market was a $4.3 million dollar penthouse! After a four-year hiatus, the synagogue restarted services in 2017. We’ll consider this one partially repurposed!
Perhaps the most famous repurposed synagogue is at 12 Eldridge Street. Now known as the Museum at Eldridge Street, this landmark synagogue was built in 1887. According to the Museum’s website, it was the first synagogue in America purpose-built by immigrants from Eastern Europe. After fifty years of wild success, by 1924, the synagogue started to decline. The recently enacted Immigrant Quota Laws and an increasing exodus of the Jewish population to other boroughs were major factors.
For forty years, the congregation worshipped in the lower levels of the building, leaving the gorgeous main sanctuary space closed off. It wasn’t until 1986 that restoration began, a process that would take nearly twenty years. Today, the beautifully restored space hosts tours, school programs, concerts, talks, festivals, and other cultural events that celebrate the history of the neighborhood and Jewish New York.
St. Barbara’s Greek Orthodox Church at 27 Forsyth Street in Chinatown is another synagogue turned church conversion. It is named after the martyr Saint Barbara, the patron saint of firefighters and artillery, a saint many looked to during World War II.
The synagogue building dedicated in 1892 for the Congregation Kol Israel Anshe Poland. After more than thirty years in service, the synagogue was foreclosed on in 1926. Eventually, a Greek Orthodox congregation acquired the building and in 1934 it became St. Barbara.
The former synagogue at378 Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn has unclear origins. But in 1917, whatever existed there became the Talmud Torah Beth Jacob Joseph, a school and synagogue. In the ’70s, the building switched functions twice, first to a heating/AC company and then to an antique shop.
Finally, in 2004, the former shul became the aptly named Deity, a nightclub, although it never reached the Limelight’s highs (or lows). Now, it’s transitioned into a high-end lounge and event space that hosts weddings.
The synagogue’s/church’s Corinthian pillars exemplify Neoclassical architecture.
Mount Olivet Baptist Church at 120th and Lenox Avenue shares a story with many synagogues in New York that have been converted into churches. The Temple Israel of the City of New York was founded in 1873 and is still active today in Harlem. One of its many previous homes was a 1907 Harlem building, constructed for the synagogue in the Neoclassical style.
Perhaps it was the resemblance to a Roman temple that caused Mount Olivet to acquire it in 1925. The influential black Baptist congregation has left most of the Judaica intact, including an ark and Star of David fanlights.
From 1905 until the ’70s, this building at 636 E. 6th Street in the East Village was a functioning synagogue for the Congregation Ahawath Yeshurun Shar’a Torah. Since then, it has served as a nonprofit health center seeking to educate and empower lower-income households in the area, Sixth Street Community Center. For instance, the center runs a Community Supported Agriculture program that supplies members with local produce.
Although the interior of the building has been renovated and the entrance painted over, most of the former shul’s exterior artistry has been preserved or restored. Check out the plaque bearing the synagogue’s name that is still in placed above the entrance.
WELFARE ISLAND BRIDGE, 1970 BEFORE THE ISLAND DEVELOPMENT THE BRIDGE EXITED TO THE WEST ROADWAY TO REACH ISLAND BUILDINGS. NOTE RED FIRE ENGINES AT NORTH SIDE OF BRIDGE, NEUROLOGICAL HOSPITAL TOTHE SOUTH OF THE BRIDGE ANDY SPARBERG, GLORIA HERMAN. ALEXIS VILLAFANE 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
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
I decided to spend the afternoon in the Visitor Center Kiosk on Thanksgiving. While the wonderful staff Ellen, Barbara, Gloria and Vicki) were off and enjoying their families, I had the opportunity to meet and greet visitors arriving on the Island. It has been 15 years since we opened in 2007!
You never know who comes into to request a map, get directions, find a bathroom or ask questions.
A sample our visitors this afternoon:
A sailing instructor from Annapolis who loved the island and FDR Four Freedoms Park, He returned after visiting the park to purchase two books.
An Island family that will be moving home to Europe soon and wanted a large poster of the island. We had one by artist Julia Gash, measuring 24 X 36″. They were thrilled to have this souvenir of their short stay on the island.
A dentist from Argentina, whose phone was in need of a charge. While it was charging we discussed Argentina and her dental profession in (my) mangled Spanish. She was enthralled with our large stuffed owls and purchased one for her niece. After the phone charges, she was off to NISI for lunch.
A mother and son from Tenerife, Canary Islands. We had a great chat about that beautiful island and her son studying engineering in Kansas City, Mo.
Some fun visitors from Texas, Alabama, Fishkill amongst those who stopped in.
Some visitors asked for a map and left immediately. Others stayed as I described the sites on the island. We suggest Southpoint Park and the Girl Puzzle in Lighthouse Park.
Of course there are numerous people looking for a restroom. We suggest Cornell Tech if it is open, if not restaurants or the Southpoint Park. This is the most frustrating part of our job, that RIOC is blind to the needs of visitors.
We do not realize how visitors are thrilled to visit the island and constantly comment on our location, beauty and friendly people. We are loosing so much business to the island by RIOC’s lack of publicity and making visitors welcome. The RIHS can only do so much along without more support of RIOC.
When was the last time you were in the kiosk? Have you come in to say hello, check out our merchandise, buy some gifts, leave a donation to support the RIHS?
Looking forward to seeing you for holiday shopping.
Judith Berdy
THESE ARE A FEW OF THE GREAT KIDS BOOKS ON SALE AT THE KIOSK
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
JUDITH BERDY
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
STOP BY THE KIOSK FOR YOUR HOLIDAY SHOPPING AND TOMEET OUR GREAT STAFF.
JULIA GASH MUGS $15-
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THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Horatio Walker, Watching the Turkeys, n.d., watercolor, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Dwight Wardlaw, 1968.59.3
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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JUDITH BERDY R.I.H.S.
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ENJOY SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR WINTER READING. THE ABUNDANCE OF NEW BOOKS FOCUSING ON NEW YORK HISTORY IS CONSTANTLY GROWING.
Bits and pieces of the lives led long before the age of skyscrapers are scattered throughout New York City, found in backyards, construction sites, street beds, and parks. Indigenous tools used thousands of years ago; wine jugs from a seventeenth-century tavern; a teapot from Seneca Village, the nineteenth-century Black settlement displaced by Central Park; raspberry seeds sown in backyard Brooklyn gardens―these everyday objects are windows into the city’s forgotten history.
Buried Beneath the City uses urban archaeology to retell the history of New York, from the deeper layers of the past to the topsoil of recent events. The book explores the ever-evolving city and the day-to-day world of its residents through artifacts, from the first traces of Indigenous societies more than ten thousand years ago to the detritus of Dutch and English colonization and through to the burgeoning city’s transformation into the modern metropolis. It demonstrates how the archaeological record often goes beyond written history by preserving mundane things―details of everyday life that are beneath the notice of the documentary record. These artifacts reveal the density, diversity, and creativity of a city perpetually tearing up its foundations to rebuild itself. Lavishly illustrated with images of objects excavated in the city, Buried Beneath the City is at once an archaeological history of New York City and an introduction to urban archaeology.
Fundamentally reshapes our understanding of the causes of the American Revolution and the pivotal role foreign news and misinformation played in driving colonists to revolt.
“Fake news” is not new. Just like millions of Americans today, the revolutionaries of the eighteenth century worried that they were entering a “post-truth” era. Their fears, however, were not fixated on social media or clickbait, but rather on peoples’ increasing reliance on reading news gathered from foreign newspapers. In Misinformation Nation, Jordan E. Taylor reveals how foreign news defined the boundaries of American politics and ultimately drove colonists to revolt against Britain and create a new nation.
News was the lifeblood of early American politics, but newspaper printers had few reliable sources to report on events from abroad. Accounts of battles and beheadings, as well as declarations and constitutions, often arrived alongside contradictory intelligence. Though frequently false, the information that Americans encountered in newspapers, letters, and conversations framed their sense of reality, leading them to respond with protests, boycotts, violence, and the creation of new political institutions. Fearing that their enemies were spreading fake news, American colonists fought for control of the news media. As their basic perceptions of reality diverged, Loyalists separated from Patriots and, in the new nation created by the revolution, Republicans inhabited a political reality quite distinct from that of their Federalist rivals.
The American Revolution was not only a political contest for liberty, equality, and independence (for white men, at least); it was also a contest to define certain accounts of reality to be truthful while defining others as false and dangerous. Misinformation Nation argues that we must also conceive of the American Revolution as a series of misperceptions, misunderstandings, and uninformed overreactions. In addition to making a striking and original argument about the founding of the United States, Misinformation Nation will be a valuable prehistory to our current political moment.
The Fulton Fish Market stands out as an iconic New York institution. At first a neighborhood retail market for many different kinds of food, it became the nation’s largest fish and seafood wholesaling center by the late nineteenth century.
Waves of immigrants worked at the Fulton Fish Market and then introduced the rest of the city to their seafood traditions. In popular culture, the market — celebrated by Joseph Mitchell in The New Yorker — conjures up images of the bustling East River waterfront, late-night fishmongering, organized crime, and a vanished working-class New York.
The new book The Fulton Fish Market: A History (Columbia Univ. Press, 2022) by Jonathan H. Rees is a lively and comprehensive history of the Fulton Fish Market, from its founding in 1822 through its move to the Bronx in 2005.
The new book Women Waging War in the American Revolution (University of Virginia Press, 2022) edited by Holly A. Mayer is a collection examining the impact of Revolutionary-era women on the outcomes of the war and its subsequent narrative tradition, from popular perception to academic treatment.
America’s War for Independence dramatically affected the speed and nature of broader social, cultural, and political changes including those shaping the place and roles of women in society. Women fought the American Revolution in many ways, in a literal no less than a figurative sense. Whether Loyalist or Patriot, Indigenous or immigrant, enslaved or slave-owning, going willingly into battle or responding when war came to their doorsteps, women participated in the conflict in complex and varied ways that reveal the critical distinctions and intersections of race, class, and allegiance that defined the era.
The contributors show how women navigated a country at war, directly affected the war’s result, and influenced the foundational historical record left in its wake. Engaging directly with that record, this volume’s authors demonstrate the ways that the Revolution transformed women’s place in America as it offered new opportunities but also imposed new limitations in the brave new world they helped create.
To outsiders or East Siders, Riverside Park and Riverside Drive may not have the star status of Fifth Avenue or Central Park West. But at the city’s westernmost edge, there is a quiet and beauty like few other places in all of New York. There are miles of mansions and monuments, acres of flora, and a breadth of wildlife ranging from Peregrine falcons to goats.
It’s where the Gershwins and Babe Ruth once lived, William Randolph Hearst ensconced his paramour, and Amy Schumer owns a penthouse. Told in the uniquely personal voice of a longtime resident, Heaven on the Hudson features the history, architecture, and personalities of this often overlooked neighborhood, from the eighteenth century through the present day.
Combining history of the area and its people with one-on-one guide to its sights, author Stephanie Azzarone sheds light on the initial development of Riverside Park and Riverside Drive, the challenges encountered ― from massive boulders to “maniacs” ― and the reasons why Riverside Drive never became the “new Fifth Avenue” that promoters anticipated.
From grand “country seats” to squatter settlements to multi-million-dollar residences, the book follows the neighborhood’s roller-coaster highs and lows over time. Readers will discover a trove of architectural and recreational highlights and hidden gems, including the Drive’s only freestanding privately owned villa, a tomb that’s not a tomb, and a memorial to an eighteenth-century child.
Azzarone also tells the stories behind Riverside’s notable and forgotten residents, including celebrities, murderers, and a nineteenth-century female MD who launched the country’s first anti-noise campaign.
WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM THE RIHS AND CBN OLDER ADULT CENTER. PHOTO FROM OUR 2018 THANKSGIVING DINNER.
JUDITH BERDY
TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
JOHN F. KENNEDY CAMPAIGNING IN 1960 WITH WIFE JACQUELINE ON LOWER BROADWAY. JFK WAS ASSASSINATED ON NOV. 22, 1963.
ANDY SPARBERG & GLORIA HERMAN GOT IT RIGHT.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Max Arthur Cohn was a prolific 20th century artist of many mediums. But whether a silkscreen print, oil painting, mural, or lithograph, Cohn’s work imbues nuanced scenes of midcentury New York City with bursts of color and Ashcan-inspired realism. (“Rainy Day/Victor Food Shop,” date unknown, seriograph)
His early years echo those of so many early 20th century immigrants. Born in London in 1903 to Russian parents, Cohn and his family settled in America two years later, moving to Cleveland and then Kingston, New York. At 17, he landed his first art-related job in New York City: making commercial silkscreens.
(“New York Street Scene,” 1935, oil)
Silkscreening seemed to become Cohn’s creative focus. At the Art Students League—where he studied under John Sloan—he’s thought to have made his first artistic screenprint, according to the Annex Galleries. In 1940, he founded the National Serigraph Society (a serigraph is another word for a silkscreen print) and exhibited his prints in New York galleries.
During the Depression, Cohn found employment at the Works Progress Administration. The small stipend the WPA paid to artists must have been welcome support during these lean years of national financial uncertainty.
“In 1934, as part of the New Deal, he was selected as one of the artists for the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) and from 1936-1939 the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Easel Project,” states arts agency fineleaf.net.
(“Hooverville Depression Scene,” 1938, oil)
The work featured in this post don’t reflect Cohn’s later artistic style, which became more abstract. Instead, they reveal an artist with a sensitivity to New York City’s rhythms and moods from the 1920s to 1940s.
I’ve read a fair amount about Cohn, and what strikes me most is that he doesn’t seem to belong to any one school. Art historians have described him as a pointillist, modernist, and American scene artist. I see the influence of the post-Impressionists and the Ashcan School, sometimes with a Hopper-esque quality as well.
(“New York City Subway,” 1940s, oil)
FROM THE SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
Max Arthur Cohn, Coal Tower, ca. 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.4
Max Arthur Cohn, Bethlehem Steel Works, 1938, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Max Arthur Cohn, 1978.41.1
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY COACH USED BY GENERAL LAFAYETTE ON HIS RETURN TOUR TO THE UNITED STATES
COACH IS ON EXHIBIT AT THE STUDEBAKER MUSEUM GLORIA HERMAN GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART
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2024 will mark the 200th anniversary of the return of the Marquis de Lafayette (Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette) to America. In 1824, almost 50 years after the start of the American Revolution, the 68-year-old Lafayette was invited by President James Monroe, an old Revolutionary War comrade and lifelong friend, to tour the United States.
Lafayette’s visit was one the major events of the early 19th century. It had the effect of unifying a country sometime fractured by electoral discord and reminding Americans of their hard won democracy.
In 2015, the French government and private groups raised approximately $28 million to build a replica Hermione, the French ship which had carried Lafayette to America in 1780 (his second voyage to here). That 1780 voyage is considered by some to have revived flagging Revolutionary efforts, and ultimately to have been a factor in the ultimate American victory, with French support, at Yorktown.
The replica of the Hermione, which was constructed by the French as a good will effort to highlight the historical ties between France and America, had a triumphant visit in 2015 to cities on the Eastern seaboard. The ship is currently in dry dock in Rochefort, France where it was constructed. You can read about that here.
The Marquis de Lafayette
The Marquis de Lafayette was born in 1757, at a time when England had largely defeated the French forces throughout Europe in the Seven Years’ War (the larger conflict that included the French and Indian War in the America). His family (and particularly his wife Adrienne) was one of the wealthiest in the country and was well-connected with the French monarchy. His father, a colonel of grenadiers, had been killed by the British at the Battle of Minden in 1759 (when Lafayette was two).
Like many young aristocratic Frenchmen, he had a desire to avenge the French defeats of earlier generations and a desire for glory in battle. Growing up in Auvergne, he attended private schools with the children of French nobility. When a revolution broke out in the 13 colonies America in 1775 he used his family resources and connections to fund his participation in the battle against the English and their allies.
In 1777, he voyaged to the British colonies to join the revolution then underway. At the time there were many young French adventurers who sought positions with the budding revolutionary army. General George Washington, eager to receive help from the French government, was informed by Silas Deane, the American ambassador in France that Lafayette was exceptionally well-connected with the senior levels of the French government, particularly the King. Washington added him to his personal staff (which also included Alexander Hamilton).
When the British were threatening Philadelphia, Lafayette was permitted to attend a council where the revolutionaries planned resistance to the British attack at Brandywine Creek. Washington was cautioned to take care that Lafayette not be put in danger. His death could provide the British with a great propaganda victory. At the succeeding Battle of Brandywine Lafayette saw the British begin to outflank the revolutionary army’s right under General John Sullivan. In the confusion of the battle, he rode out to the collapsing line and helped to organize an orderly retreat.
Wounded during the battle, Washington instructed his personal physician to treat him as if he were his own son. Thereafter Lafayette became a much more important American commander with whom General Washington would have a close relationship. Among the officers at Brandywine who attended to Lafayette when he was wounded was James Monroe, then a Virginia Militia Captain.
Lafayette then received a battlefield command of Continental soldiers in New Jersey, and was tapped by General Horatio Gates to lead an expedition from Albany into Quebec. It was hoped that French Canadians would rally to the revolutionary movement under Lafayette. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which was political intrigue and the lack of forces and equipment, the attack was never carried out.
Meanwhile his exploits received great acclaim in France where he became something of a national hero, and the pressure grew on him to return to France to see his wife and young child. Always in this period he was extremely active in trying to convince the French government to intervene on the side of the revolution with significant aid to the cause.
In 1780, with the American efforts at a low ebb, the king was finally convinced to send a substantial force under the Marshal Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, along with a French fleet. Lafayette helped lead this effort’s advance guard aboard the Hermione. From the revolutionary point of view, the arrival of Hermione was a ray of hope at an otherwise dark time. When the ship arrived in Boston, a large crowd was there to cheer it. Shortly thereafter, at his arrival in Philadelphia, Lafayette was greeted warmly by the Continental Congress.
The arrival of the French in force proved to be an important factor in the victory at Yorktown. Lafayette, as both an Revolutionary and French military leader, was intimately involved with the planning and execution of that victory.
Lafayette’s Return to France
After the American victory, Lafayette (then just 22) return to France and his young children and wife. Given a hero’s welcome for his role in defeating the British, he grew closer to King Louis XVI (two years older), to whom he often served as a kind of political and psychological adviser. After all, these young men had in effect avenged their country’s humiliation in the Seven Years War and forged an important relationship with the new United States.
The problems of a centuries old archaic and autocratic French society remained and both Lafayette and the king were also the inheritors of that legacy. The American Revolution had occurred in part according to the principles of Thomas Paine, who sought to overthrow monarchical and aristocratic society. The ultimate result would come just ten years later with the execution of the king and a long period of imprisonment and degradation for Lafayette.
During the opening events of the French Revolution Lafayette supported liberal reforms. As a member of the Estates General of 1789 he supported voting by individual delegates, rather than in blocks (known as Estates). In particular, before a critical meeting of May 5, 1789, Lafayette (a member of the “Committee of Thirty” argued for individual votes, which supported the power of the larger Third Estate (the commoners and bourgeois) over the clergy (the First Estate) and nobility (the Second Estate).
Lafayette could not convince the bulk of the nobility to agree with his position, and when the First and Third Estates declared the National Assembly on May 17th and were locked out by the loyalist supporting the Second Estate, Lafayette was among them. This led to the Tennis Court Oath, in which those locked out swore to remain together until there was a constitution. On July 11th Lafayette presented the original draft of the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,” which he had written after consultation with Thomas Jefferson.
The next day armed revolutionaries assembled in Paris and two days later the Bastille was stormed. The day after that Lafayette was made commander of the Parisian National Guard (the Garde nationale), which claimed for itself the role of protecting and administering the city. Lafayette chose the Guard’s symbol, the red, white and blue cockade, forerunner of today’s French flag. The king and many loyalists considered him a revolutionary, but many of the Third Estate considered him to be helping to keep the monarchy in power.
In many ways Lafayette played the role of middle-man and tried to serve as a moderating force against the most radical revolutionaries. In early October, after the King rejected the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a crowd of some 20,000, included the National Guard, marched on Versailles. Lafayette only reluctantly led them in hopes of protecting the king and public order. When they arrived, the king accepted the Declaration but when he refused to return to Paris the crowd broke into the palace. Lafayette brought the royal family onto the balcony, and attempting to placate the crowd at one point kissed the hand of Marie Antoinette – the crowd cheered. Eventually the King was forced to return to Paris, changing the power of the monarchy forever.
Later Lafayette launched an investigation into the role of the National Guard in what is now known as the October Days, which was rejected by the National Assembly in protection of the ongoing revolution. The following spring the Marquis helped organize the Fête de la Fédération, on July 14, 1790 (the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille), a large convocation of more than 400,000 people at the Champs de Mars in Paris. At this event, representatives from around France and from all segments of society, including the king and royal family, who swore allegiance to a new liberal constitutional monarchy.
Among those swearing the oath to to “be ever faithful to the nation, to the law, and to the king; to support with our utmost power the constitution decreed by the National Assembly, and accepted by the king.” was the Marquis de Lafayette. During the ceremony the new 13-star American flag was the presented to Lafayette on behalf of the United States by Thomas Paine and John Paul Jones. It symbolized the support of democracy in both France and the United States.
Despite the Marquis’ best efforts, the illusionary unity of the Fete de Federation did not last more than a year. Loyalists thought the event threatened the king’s safety and diminished his power. More radical Jacobins saw the event as proof of Lafayette’s royalist tendencies and as an attempt to help keep the monarchy in power. Lafayette continued to support a moderate position which would protect public order in the coming months, including protecting the revolution in an armed stand-off with nobles known as the Day of Daggers in February 1791.
Lafayette’s National Guard was not always loyal to him, including occasionally disobeying his orders. In June, 1791 the king and queen escaped from the palace in Paris where they were being held under the watch of Lafayette’s National Guard. When he learned of their escape, the Marquis led the effort to recapture them and led the column returning them to the city five days later. The effect was devastating to Layette’s reputation however, as radicals, including Maximilien Robespierre denounced him as the protector of the king and the monarchy.
His reputation was further hurt when he led the National Guard into a riot at the Champ de Mars where the troops fired into the crowd, an event that was used for propaganda purposes by his personal and political enemies. After this incident, rioters attacked Lafayette’s home and tried to seize his wife. When the National Assembly approved the new constitution two months later, Lafayette resigned his position and returned to his home in Auvergne.
His retreat from the chaos of the revolution was only temporary however. When France declared war on Austria in April 1792, he commanded one of three armies. Three days later Robespierre demanded the Marquis resign his leadership position. He refused, and instead sought peace negotiations through the National Assembly. In June he became openly and aggressively critical of the radicals in control of the Assembly and wrote that their parties should be “closed down by force.” They also controlled Paris however, and finding his position increasingly untenable he left the city in haste. A crowd burned his effigy and Robespierre declared him a traitor.
On July 25, 1792 the Duke of Brunswick, Charles William Ferdinand, who commanded of the Allied Army during what is now known as the War of the First Coalition, threatened to destroy Paris, including its civilian population, if King Louis XVI was harmed. This radicalized the French Revolution even more. The king and queen were imprisoned and the monarchy abolished by the National Assembly. On August 14th an arrest warrant was issued for Lafayette.
The Marquis attempted to flee to the United States but was captured by the Austrians near Rochefort (in what was then the Austrian Netherlands, now Belgium). Frederick William II of Prussia (Austria’s ally against the French revolutionaries) had him held as a threat to other monarchies in Europe. For the next five years Lafayette was held a prisoner at various places, for some time with his family. He suffered harsh conditions, especially after a failed attempt to escape. He unsuccessfully attempted to use his American citizenship to argue for his release, although then President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson successfully convinced Congress to pay the Marquis for his service during and after the American Revolution.
After his eventual release, Lafayette was allowed to return to France under Napoleon Bonaparte, on the condition he would not engage in political activity. He remained personally loyal to the democratic principles of the American and French Revolutions, but remained largely out of public life. He quietly opposed the centralized power of Napoleon, and publicly called on him to step down after the Battle of Waterloo. When the Bourbon Monarchy was restored he worked more actively in various European quarters to oppose absolute monarchy, including during the Greek Revolution of 1821.
1824 A Triumphant Return Visit to the United States
In 1820, James Monroe, his old comrade from the Battle of Brandywine, was elected President of the United States, with his Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, Monroe promulgated the Monroe Doctrine warning European powers not to interfere with matters in the Americas. In 1824, he invited Lafayette to return to the United States for a tour of the country as a national guest in honor of the upcoming 50th anniversary of the nation’s independence.
The purpose of the visit, among other things, would be to highlight the country’s unity. Electoral politics had been somewhat fractured in the United States in the previous two decades, including during the War of 1812 against France old nemesis, England. The visit would also indicate American support for democratic movements throughout Europe.
The King Louis XVIII found the American invitation to Lafayette insulting and caused troops to disperse the crowds that had gathered at Le Havre to see him off. His arrival in New York Harbor was met by dozens of ships and the tolling of bells. Its said that more than 50,000 well-wishers witnessed his arrival at Fort Clinton on the battery (later Castle Garden).
The procession up Broadway to City Hall, which would normally take about 20 minutes, took two hours. That evening a ball was held in his honor, at which veterans of the American Revolution moved him to tears.
“New York celebrated Lafayette’s presence for four days and nights almost continuously. Americans had never seen anything like it… He spent two hours each afternoon greeting the public at City Hall — trying to shake every hand in the endless line. Some waited all night to see him…. Women brought their babies for him to bless; fathers led their sons into the past, into American history, to touch the hand of a Founding Father. It was a mystical experience they would relate to their heirs through generations to come. Lafayette had materialized from a distant age, the last leader and hero of the nation’s defining moment. They knew they and the world would never see his kind again.”
In Boston Lafayette said: “My obligations to the United States, ladies and gentlemen, far surpass the services I was able to render.…The approbation of the American people…is the greatest reward I can receive. I have stood strong and held my head high whenever in their name I have proclaimed the American principles of liberty, equality and social order. I have devoted myself to these principles since I was a boy and they will remain a sacred obligation to me until I take my final breath…. The greatness and prosperity of the United States are spreading the light of civilization across the world—a civilization based on liberty and resistance to oppression with political institutions and the rights of man and republican principles of government by the people.”
The Marquis de Lafayette then visited towns and cities throughout the United States. His initially intended three to four month tour was extended to thirteen. A triumphal procession lasting more than 6,000 miles. In recognition of his service in the propagation of democracy in the United States, France, and Europe, Congress awarded him $200,000.
In 1917, when the Americans arrived to help defend France during the First World War, Colonel John E. Stanton declared “Lafayette, we are here!”
The top of one the eastern tower of the Blackwell’s Island, Queensboro, 59th Street, Ed Koch Bridge. The towers originally held flagpoies. Andy Sparberg, Ed Litcher, & Alexis Villafane 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 Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
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illustrations, from above: George Washington and Lafayette at Mount Vernon, 1784 by Rossiter and Mignot, 1859; Lafayette in the uniform of a major general of the Continental Army, by Charles Willson Peale, between 1779–1780; Lafayette wounded at the battle of Brandywine by Charles Henry Jeans; Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen proposed to the Estates-General by Lafayette; Lafayette kisses Marie Antoinette’s hand on the balcony of the royal palace during a riot there in October 6, 1789; The Oath of LaFayette at the Fête de la Fédération on July 14, 1790; Lafayette as a lieutenant general in 1791, by Joseph-Désiré Court (1834); Marquis de Lafayette in prison, by an unknown artist; 1823 portrait of Lafayette, now hanging the House of Representatives chamber by Arey Scheffer.
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As the 19th century drew to a close, collectors had begun to take American art seriously. Millionaires, who had for decades scoured Europe for paintings and sculptures to adorn their mansions, took a new pride in home-grown artists. Another movement was taking hold as well. The world of professional art had been one almost exclusively of men. Now female artists sought equality. On May 31, 1892 socialite, painter and philanthropist Mrs. Ellen Dunlap Hopkins founded the New York School of Applied Design for Women. Ellen came from the old and respected Pond family of Massachusetts. Initially the school was only a step removed from a trade school, its goals were “…affording to women instruction which may enable them to earn a livelihood by the employment of their taste and manual dexterity in the application of ornamental design to manufacture and the arts.” The New York Times explained “Mrs. Hopkins’s theory in starting the school…was that with the increasing demand for original and artistic designs for carpets, oil cloths, wall papers, silks, book covers, &c., there was a field for the employment of women of natural art taste and ability, could they obtain practical training at a low cost.” At the school’s opening, Ellen Dunlap Hopkins described her initial 45 students as “women who were determined to study in order to compete with men in the arts, and whose endeavor it was to make places for themselves in the branches of their choice, not by asking sympathy and not by taking less pay than men, but by the excellence of their work.” Ellen Dunlap Hopkins rented several floors in a building at Seventh Avenue and 23rd Street in what had become an artistic center. The Artist-Artisan Institute Building sat nearby at Nos. 136-140 West 23rd Street. The building was shared with the School for Industrial Art and Technical Design for Women. The Associated Artists was at No. 115 East 23rd Street; and an artists’ studio building had opened at No. 44 West 22nd Street. Only three months after the school opened, it created waves across the nation. The New-York Tribune reported that a collection of “designs of wallpaper, carpets, silks, rugs, book-covers, architectural plans and designs and water colors, all the work of the new students,” was exhibited in New York before being sent to the World’s Fair in Chicago. “From there it was forwarded by request to the Midwinter Fair in San Francisco, and has already been spoken for by the Countess of Aberdeen, to be exhibited at the coming Canadian exhibition.” The fledgling school earned four gold medals in Chicago and three in San Francisco.
An exhibition in the rented space in 1903 included these designs based on floral forms. photograph by Byron Company from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
Students paid a $50 tuition fee per year. After passing through the elementary department “where the student is taught the first steps,” according to the Tribune on September 30, 1894, she moved to the “advanced” class where “she is left to work out her own artistic salvation.” The concept and success of the school was quickly noticed overseas. Just two years after its founding, Ellen Dunlap Hopkins was invited by the British royal family to establish a branch school in London. That school was opened under the patronage of “Princess Christian, the Princess of Wales, and other members of the English royal family and the nobility,” reported The New York Times. Meanwhile the student body of 45 had grown to nearly 400 by now. On September 30, 1894 the New-York Tribune noted that the school “is self-supporting, and the work of its students is so constantly in demand that the supply is inadequate.” The rented space on West 23rd Street could not accommodate the growing school for many more years. On January 30, 1906 The New York Times reported that “The property at the northwest corner of Lexington Avenue and Thirtieth Street is to be made the site of a new six-story building, which will be occupied by an art school.” The art school was, of course, the School for Applied Design for Women, and the two houses sat at Nos. 160 and 162 Lexington Avenue. Plans for the new building were filed by the architectural firm of Pell & Corbett and construction did not begin until 1908. It was partner Harvey Wiley Corbett who designed the building. The choice of architects was doubtlessly influenced by Corbett’s position as an instructor at the school. The structure was completed late in 1908 and the school officially moved in on January 18, 1909. The total cost was $215,000—approximately $5.75 million in 2015—paid for by private donations. The New-York Tribune noted “the largest contributors being J. Pierpont Morgan and Mrs. Collis P. Huntington, who gave $15,000 and $10,000 respectively.”
Vintage brownstone homes surround the completed structure. photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
The costs were also offset by fund-raising events like the “large bridge tournament” at the Hotel Gotham ballroom on January 29, 1909. Socialites played for prizes donated by some of the most recognized names in art and literature. The New York Times listed “autograph sketches and books from artists and authors, including Ernest Thompson Seton, Arnest Peixotto, Alphonse Mucha, Brander Matthews, Richard Watson Gilder, and Mark Twain.” Corbett had produced a seven story beauty of brick and stone with an impressive bas relief frieze above the second floor highly reminiscent of the Elgin Marbles. Two-story polished gray engaged columns supported a cornice which somewhat playfully zig-zagged in and out following their contours. Corbett included a good-humored single column on the Lexington Avenue elevation.
A lonely column on the Lexington Avenue elevation was a tongue-in-cheek touch.
The increased floor space included an exhibition room and even before the formal dedication, a permanent exhibition of work done by the advanced students was opened. “This is something that the management has long desired to have, but in the old, limited quarters, in West 23d street, it was impossible,” reported the New-York Tribune on March 2, 1909. Although Ellen Dunlap Hopkins lived in style in a mansion at No 31 East 30th Street; the new building included apartments for her. They would prove effective for holding receptions, luncheons and other entertainments for the benefit of the school. Among guests received here were the Countess of Aberdeen and Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, who visited on January 17, 1913 and “spent several hours there,” according to The New York Times the following day. The newspaper noted “The school, which is the only one of its kind in the country, has 560 students.”
A Roman inspired frieze wrapped the structure.
As the student body increased, so did the curriculum. The exhibit of student work, occupying four full floors of the building on May 16, 1922 reflected the expanded courses. The New-York Tribune said it “included work in illustration, fashion design, commercial art, composition work, textile design, historic ornament, flower painting, architecture and interior decoration, antique drawing and sketching.” The socially powerful with whom Mrs. Ellen Dunlap Hopkins rubbed shoulders was reflected in the guest list of a reception and musicale she held in her apartments here on January 15, 1928. The guest of honor was around-the-world aviator Lt. Leigh Wade of the U.S. Navy. In the room that night were Manhattan’s socially prominent, including Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, Mr. and Mrs. George F. Baker, Jr., Mrs. Charles A. Van Rensselaer, Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, Mrs. Benjamin Harrison, Mrs. John Henry Hammond, Mrs. John W. Alexander, and Mr. and Mrs. Elihu Root among others. The students enjoyed a social life as well. On May 13, 1929 The Times noted that “The annual student dance of the New York School of Applied Design for Women…will be held on Friday evening in the library of the school.” The indefatigable work of Ellen Dunlap Hopkins was recognized in December 1938 when she was conferred the decoration of Les Palmes d’Officier d’Academie by Minister of Education of the French Government. The award had been established by Napoleon I in 1806. Two months later, nearly half a century after she established the School of Applied Design for Women, Ellen Dunlap Hopkins died at the age of 81. Her funeral was held on February 6, 1939 in the school. Among the distinguished mourners was the architect of the building, Harvey Wiley Corbett, who was now President of the school. He would hold the position until his death in 1954. The School of Applied Design for Women continued to respond to the changing professional needs of its students and the community. On July 14, 1940 the school announced a new department for teaching costume design. But the school’s most radical change came about in 1944, when it merged with Lauros M. Phoenix’s art institute. The merger meant that men were now included in the student body. In the early 1970’s the New York-Phoenix School of Design added photography to the curriculum; an area that gained popularity and importance. In 1974 the school merged again—this time with the Pratt Institute. Renamed the Pratt-Phoenix School of Design it continued in the building still unaltered after seven decades. The exterior of structure was given landmark status in 1977. When Touro College took over the edifice it initiated an interior renovation, completed in 1990. The $750,000 renovation converted the interior spaces to modern classrooms. But Touro’s ownership would not be especially long. On May 29, 2007 the building was put on the market; the announcement saying “The property is currently vacant awaiting the next user to enjoy its voluminous interior, high ceilings, abundant light and air and architectural grandeur.” Touro College sold the building to Lexington Landmark Properties for $8.2 million. In 2012 Dover Street Market, a luxury retail fashion store, signed a 15-year lease on the entire building. Despite the ongoing lease, in March 2015 real estate firm Walter & Samuels purchased the building for $24.5 million.
Because of landmark designation the exterior of the astonishingly-unaltered School of Applied Design for Women building looks exactly today as it did in January 1909 when it opened.
National Academy of Design, one of many Gothic Revival buildings modeled on the Doge’s Palace in Venice, seen c. 1863–1865. This building was demolished in 1901.
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
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
