THE RIHS VISITOR CENTER KIOSK WILL BE OPEN ON SATURDAY, DEC. 31, JANUARY 1, 2023 FROM 12 NOON TO 5 P.M. FOR YOUR SHOPPING.
NEW BIKE MAPS HAVE ARRIVED. WE ALSO HAVE SUBWAY MAPS AND MANHATTAN STREET MAPS.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
WEEKEND, Dec. 31, Jan. 1,2, 2023
THE 875th EDITION
240 CENTRAL PARK SOUTH
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
Urban Living Enhanced – 240 Central Park South
Brothers Joseph L. B., Charles and Albert Mayer, separately and together, were a force in Manhattan real estate and development. Joseph was an officer in the real estate firm Gruenstein & Mayer Corp; Charles held a master’s degree in engineering and helped found the construction firm J. H. Taylor Construction Co. of which he was chief engineer; and Albert was both a civil engineer and architect. In 1935 Albert partnered with architect Julian H. J. Whittlesey to form Mayer & Whittlesey.
When wealthy brewer George Ehret died in 1927 he owned 181 parcels of Manhattan property, among which was the entire blockfront on the east side of Broadway between 58th and 59th Street. The two-story store and automobile showroom building on the property had sat vacant for years as the Depression years drew to a close in 1939. The Mayers, working as a syndicate called 240 Central Park South, Inc., purchased the property from the Ehret family that spring for $500,000.
On May 18 Albert Mayer released a rendering of the proposed 26-story apartment building. The following day The New York Times remarked “A building operation recalling boom days soon will be under way at Columbus Circle.” Projected to cost $4.5 million (more in the neighborhood of $79.5 million today), the building had no shortage of innovations.
Mayer’s rendering showed the staggered storefronts on Broadway and the unexpected open spaces. The New York Times May 19, 1939The Times reported “Modern accommodations in the 350-family building will include wiring for television, living rooms with open fireplaces, outside exposure and balconies and terraces in nine lines of apartments.” The newspaper was taken with the “open-air dining balconies overlooking Central Park.” For the convenience of residences the Broadway stores had entrances inside the building as well as on the street. In the basement were two steam turbines and a diesel engine which composed the building’s own private electric plant.
Most surprising, perhaps, was that the structure occupied only 48 percent of the plot. A central landscaped courtyard provided open space, light and air to the two buildings which would be connected on the ground floor. The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide pointed out, “By sacrificing ground coverage, the builders have been able to incorporate a maximum number of corner suites.”
Albert Mayer explained “This building will introduce the philosophy of modern architecture, allowing the purpose of the structure and its location to dictate its style.” Indeed, 240 Central Park South, completed in 1940, was a model of modern architecture. It included elements of the waning Art Deco and Art Moderne while venturing into the Modernist style that would gain a firm foothold within the coming decade. Architectural Forum commented on the modernist lack of ornamentation, saying “The architectural character of these buildings stems directly from the plans as developed on different levels, and the fenestration. There is no applied ‘architecture.'”
Architecture critic Lewis Mumford, writing in The New Yorker in December that year, congratulated the design, saying “architectural imagination has not gone stale.”
Mayer & Whittlesey’s modern building was not totally devoid of decoration. Above the entrance was Amedee Ozenfant’s abstract mosaic mural entitled “The Quiet City.”
240 Central Park South was a departure from upscale pre-Depression Era apartment buildings in that its largest suites had only four rooms and none offered servants’ rooms. Instead, maid service was available through building management.
Residents signed leases well before the building was completed. The tenant list filled with a mixture of business leaders–like Louis M. Stern and William Steinway–and well-known figures in the arts. Opera singer Helen Jepson signed a lease in August and sculptress Catherine Barjansky moved in in September.
On December 5, 1940 Le Cafe Arnold opened. Partners Arnold Grass and L. C. Pani had run the Petroleum Roof on top of the Petroleum Industries Building at the 1939 World’s Fair. The men had commissioned Mayer & Whittlesley to design “the decorations and furnishings of the new restaurant,” said The Times on December 1. “The dominant motif will be plants and vines placed behind wainscoting.”
A postcard showed Le Cafe Arnold’s interior, where patrons dined on French cuisine.Arnold Grass would become known as the “host to the discerning” and Le Cafe Arnold would be a popular destination for decades.
French author and aviator Antoine de Saint Exupery moved in in July 1941. Two years later his most memorable book, The Little Prince, was published. Another resident, Samuel Solomon, alias Sam Boston, was equally celebrated, but for more nefarious reasons. For nearly three decades police knew he was the head of an illegal gambling ring, but were unable to get hard evidence.
His wife was involved in a terrifying incident earlier that year. A bungled burglary at the nearby New York Athletic Club on the morning of April 24 resulted in a policeman being shot. The three thugs involved scattered. One of them, San Quentin ex-convict Lyman Finnell, ran towards 59th Street where Mrs. Solomon’s car was stopped at a red light.
Flashing his gun Finnell jumped into the back seat, next to Mrs. Solomon, and ordered her chauffeur, Edward Horton, to drive fast, saying “no one will get hurt if I can get away.” Instead, Horton jumped from the car and ran. Finnell, according to The Times, “got into the driver’s seat” with the terrified Mrs. Solomon as his unwilling passenger.
Her ride would become even more horrific after the car inched through heavy traffic only a few feet. A policeman suddenly hopped on the running board and pointed a pistol at the crook. “At the sight of the patrolman Finnell raised his weapon to his head and killed himself,” reported The Times. “The machine careened on for about fifteen feet, sideswiping two other cars and injuring [pedestrian George] Gambon.”
Better known to newspaper readers by his alias, Sam Boston ran his betting operation with three partners. That organization came to an abrupt end when one of them, Max Fox, shot and killed the other two in August 1942. And yet despite his numerous arrests and Fox’s fingering him, Boston continued to evade conviction.
He quickly took on a new partner, Frank Silinksy. Boston installed four phone lines in what The New York Times described as “his luxuriously furnished thirteenth-floor apartment at 240 Central Park South,” and started taking bets.
Police, however, were one step ahead–they had tapped the apartment’s phone lines as they were installed. On Friday night, January 29, 1943 plainclothes officers arrived at Boston’s door. The New York Times reported “Boston tried to push them out…but they made their way into the apartment and found Silinsky at a long table, equipped with four telephone instruments.” Police found two sheets listing $16,000 in bets on sporting events. The article noted “Boston’s wife and daughter were in the apartment but were not taken into custody.”
Boston was found guilty on November 9, 1943. Newspapers called the 240 Central Park South apartment “central office” for his sports betting operation. On November 19, the day of his sentencing, his lawyer urged leniency, insisting “he always has conducted himself in a businesslike manner. He is a home man, and only mingles with the finest of people.”
The judge was not especially moved, saying in part that “the fact that he was able to enjoy a luxurious home did not mean he never maintained gambling there. He hoped the apartment would not be suspected by the police as a gamble resort.” He sentenced Boston to a year in prison.
Astonishingly, New Yorkers woke up on March 11, 1944 to find that the courts had overturned the conviction. The court of appeals ruled that because guilt was not established beyond a reasonable doubt, the “conviction of defendant Samuel Solomon should be reversed and a new trial ordered.” Sam Boston came home to Central Park South.
The family of Jack Wessel lived on the same floor at the time. In September that year a notice from the police department caught the attention of Mrs. Wessel.
On September 6 six youngsters were seriously injured when a bazooka rocket exploded in a Bronx apartment. Authorities issued a “strong request to holders of dangerous war souvenirs to turn them over immediately to the Police Department, which would ask no questions.” On September 10 The Times reported “It was mid-afternoon when Mrs. Jack Wessel of 240 Central Park South phoned. She had a bazooka rocket that had been occupying a prominent place in her living room…Mrs. Wessel explained that a soldier had given the rocket to her daughter, Gloria Anne, three months ago as a souvenir.”
Five months later the population of 240 Central Park South was reduced by one. On February 6, newspapers reported “Samuel Solomon, 58 years old, known among midtown gamblers as Sam Boston, was convicted yesterday.”
In the summer of 1950 240 Central Park South rose like a sculpture above the park. photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New YorkThe Wessels were still in their 13th floor apartment in 1952 when the building was the scene of a tragic incident. Regina Oblatt was 72-years old and an invalid. The widow of jewelry merchant Rudolph Oblatt, she shared her apartment with a nurse-companion, Anneliese Jargstorff.
At around 10:00 on the morning of March 21 Anneliese left the apartment. In her absence the elderly woman opened the five gas jets on the kitchen range. Whether she was confused or not will never be known, but quickly the apartment filled with gas. Then, at 10:40, just before Anneliese returned, it ignited.
The force of the explosion blew out plate glass windows for blocks and tore up wooden flooring in other apartments. The sound was heard as far away as 70th Street to the north and 57th to the south. Both apartments on either side of Regina’s were wrecked.
Nervously aware of Cold War tensions, some New Yorkers thought the city was under attack. Jack Wessel told police he “was sure the city had been bombed” and that he and his wife “grabbed their 12-year-old pet dog and headed for an emergency shelter.” Regina Oblatt, of course, was killed in the blast. Amazingly, while the occupants of the apartments on either side were slightly injured, no one was else was seriously hurt.
William R. Steinway, chairman of the piano firm, died in his apartment on September 22, 1960 at the age of 79. His widow, Marie Kiesler Steinway, survived him.
Another veteran resident at the time was Dr. Jack M. Greenbaum. His four-room apartment contained an impressive collection of modern art which he acquired through a most unusual means. Starting around 1938 he proposed to his artist patients (artists, he said, made up about ten percent of his clientele) that he would trade dental work for paintings.
Greenbaum’s patients were by no means amateurs–they included, for instance, Larry Rivers, Franz Klein, Milton Resnick and Willem de Kooning. By August 6, 1961, when the Museum of Modern Art’s associate curator of painting and sculpture William Seitz dropped in to do an appraisal, the collection numbered 125 paintings. (Although the doctor had insured the collection for $150,000, he found out that his best de Kooning, alone, was worth about $50,000.)
Seitz told a reporter “Certain of the pictures, notably those by Franz Kline, Mark Tobey and Jan Mueller, are major examples of the artists’ work.” Greenbaum recounted the story of doing “extensive work” on Franz Kline, after which the artist told him “you can have any damn thing in this place.” Greenbaum rode home in a taxi to 240 Central Park South with another rolled up canvas. The New York Times noted “An indication of Kline’s generosity is that his paintings can fetch as much as $35,000 each.”
In 1968 actress Sylvia Miles took an apartment on the 19th floor in the building. And interestingly enough, not long afterward Albert Mayer, the building’s designer, moved in with his wife, Clara.
In October 1977 The New York Times architectural critic Paul Goldberger put together his list of “The City’s Top 10 Apartment Buildings.” At the top of the list was 240 Central Park South. He said in part “this often-overlooked building at the edge of Columbus Circle contains not only good apartments, but also some splendid urban lessons.
“The apartment house is thoughtful, intelligent and unpretentious throughout–one of the last pieces of luxury housing in New York about which that can be said.”
In 1978 a news reporter lived at 240 Central Park South. Lois Lane received a celebrated visitor when Superman dropped onto her balcony that year. Well, at least that all happened in the movie, Superman. The building had earlier played an important role in the 1957 A Face in the Crowd. In a climactic scene, Andy Griffith’s character, Lonesome, screams into the night from his apartment near the top after his career as a radio celebrity crashed.
In 2001 State Senator Thomas K. Duane spearheaded efforts to have the building designated a city landmark. His concern, and that of several residents, was that a history of piece-meal repairs was damaging the architectural fabric. Replacement bricks, for instance, did not match the originals. Certain areas showed more than half a century of wear. “The courtyard is filled with shattered tiles and dry fountains,” wrote Kelly Crow in The New York Times on September 2 that year.
Sylvia Miles told Crow, “It’s upsetting to me to see the bricks aren’t the right color, because this is a truly great building. I think it’s one of the flowers of New York architecture, and we shouldn’t let anyone hurt it.”
Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council chimed in saying “As a modern design, it urbanistically tackles the jagged, receding edges of the circle;” and John Jurayj of the Municipal Art Society added, “It has a pedigree that is so important to New York. This building was among the first to have balconies, and it’s one of the best pieces of functional architecture we have.”
Within the year the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated 240 Central Park South a landmark. A subsequent $25 million rehabilitation and upgrade project included brick and terra cotta replacement. It received the 2007 Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award.
JUST ARRIVED!! PERFECT KIDS BOOK ON ROOSEVELT ISLAND $10- AT THE VISITOR CENTER
William Mumfakh, 7 years old enjoyed the book and was surprised with the many things that are on our island. He liked the book.
FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
MOTHER GOOSE STATUE, CENTRAL PARK
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 MANATTAN
NYU PHOTO (C) SUZANNE VLAMIS
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
In 1977, the New York City Council established a new agency, the Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) with three distinct divisions: Records Management, Municipal Archives and the Municipal Reference and Research Center. The agency is responsible for setting records policies, preserving and making publicly available City government’s historical records, and operating a library to provide information about trends in government. Eugene Bockman, who previously headed the Municipal Reference and Research Center, was named commissioner. One item that became very important in preserving and providing access to archival records was a four- volume folio titled Birds of America. Its story is preserved in the collection of Commissioner Eugene Bockman.
Trumpeter Swan, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 406, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.John James Audubon is renowned as an artist who created beautiful, detailed paintings of the birds and creatures of North America. The Double Elephant Folio, so called because the prints were enormous (26” x 40”) consisted of four volumes containing a total of 435 prints of American birds. The Birds of America was self-published in Scotland between 1826 and 1838. During that twelve-year span 87 different parts, consisting of five prints apiece, were published. In total, there were 200 copies produced and sold to subscribers. It was not possible to publish more editions because a fire destroyed the printing plates.
Carolina Parrot, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 26, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
A copy came into the City’s possession via a resolution initiated by the Board of Assistant Aldermen in 1850. Why Assistant Aldermen? That is unclear. At this point, the City of New York consisted solely of Manhattan and its Common Council was bicameral. The Charter placed the legislative power of the City in “a Board of Aldermen and a Board of Assistant Aldermen, which two Boards shall together form the Common Council of the City, and that said two Boards shall have concurrent powers and a negative on each others’ proceedings.” The Assistants had the power of impeachment while the Board of Alderman held confirmation power for certain Mayoral appointees.The President of the Board of Assistant Aldermen proposed that the City purchase, for the recently established City Library, a set of Birds of America from Audubon]s son in order to benefit Audubon who was “in his advanced and honored age, afflicted by the loss of sight—the sense by which his great achievements have been made.”Naming the folio “an American work, written in America, by a native born American, upon American subject,” the resolution stated, “No bird spreads its airy pinions over any part of the American continent, from the grey wing of that national emblem, the American eagle, to the gem-like elegance of that winged flower, the bright humming-bird whose lineaments, in all their peculiar characteristic form, color, expression and attitude, aren’t impressed in glowing life upon these ample leaves.… These lovely tenants of the wood, can only be thus perpetuated, for many of them will disappear with the forests which are falling before our advancing population.”In fact, Audubon was born in Haiti and the folio was published in Scotland.
Snow Heron, or White Egret, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 242, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.The Aldermen acknowledged that many copies of the folio were in European libraries, and one “to our honor reposes in the state collection at Albany. Let us have the other in the Library of the city of New York…. This is probably the only opportunity we shall ever have, at least in many years to grace the City Library with this celebrated book.”The resolution passed in both chambers and was approved by Mayor Caleb S. Woodhall. The Folio then was deposited at the City Library which was within the Office of the City Clerk.
Weeping Crane, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 261, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archive By 1914, the Municipal Reference Branch of the New York Public Library (NYPL) was created. Located in the Municipal Building, it provided reference services to the public and government officials. The folio was transferred from the City Clerk to the Municipal Library. In 1919 the set was retrieved from a sale of duplicate library items by the sharp-eyed E. H. Anderson, Director of the NYPL, who recognized its value. In a letter to the City College librarian, Anderson explained that the City Clerk who maintained the City Library turned over its collection which contained “a great many things that had no place in such a library, and all such material was deposited here in our Central Building at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street. The most notable thing in the collection which came up here was a not very perfect copy of the elephant folio edition of Audubon’s Birds. Recently in offering for sale a lot of duplicates from our collections here, this work was inadvertently listed in the catalogue.” The NYPL held four sets of Audubon drawings. The founders (John Jacob Astor, James Lennox and former governor Samuel Tilden) each purchased a folio that were later made part of the library collection when the Lennox and Astor libraries combined to become the NYPL, thanks to Tilden’s bequest. Anderson withdrew the City’s folio from the sale, with the intention of offering it to another City institution to hold, in this case, the Library of the City College of New York. In making the offer, Anderson wrote, “It is City property, and we really have no title to it ourselves, and are therefore not in a position to pass title to the College of the City of New York. But if you would like to have it as an addition to your library, we should be very glad to transfer it, where you would hold it on deposit and make good use of it.”
Yellow Crowned Heron, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 336, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.City College accepted the offer, and in 1919 contacted Anderson about making repairs which were estimated to cost $100 to put the folio “in better shape.” He replied, “I suppose that there is very little chance of the City’s ever asking for their return. If under these conditions you are willing to spend $100 in putting them into better shape, I can see no objection to your so doing.”
Catalog Cards, City College Library. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.In 1940, City College finally added the Audubon folio to their catalogue cards. Between 1940 and 1944, City College librarians purchased replacements for six missing plates, making purchases from Charles Scribners’ Sons and the Old Print Shop (just recently moved online from its longtime location in the East 20s). Prices for the replacements ranged from $40 to $550. Somehow, they bought two plates of no.125, the brown-headed nuthatch. The 1969 sale of a first edition of the Birds of America in London fetched the highest price for a printed work up to that time—$216,000, bringing a new interest in the folio. Financially strapped by the City’s fiscal crisis, the City College considered selling the folio in 1975. This triggered a review of ownership. Chief Librarian Virginia N. Cesario wrote the author of a book on Audubon, “the City University is suffering severely from the financial difficulties fo (sic) the City of New York. Partly for this reason and partly because City College does not have suitable facilities for displaying this treasure, the College administration has seriously considered selling our copy of the Birds. In order to do so it was necessary to clarify the question of ownership. To make a long story short, it now appears that the City as personified in Mr Eugene Bockman is very much interested in reclaiming the set.”
American Flamingo, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 431, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.The transfer was made by the City College President to Mayor Abraham Beame in the Blue Room at City Hall on December 13, 1976. The news release for the transfer stated that it was being returned in better shape than when the college received it and cited the Ephebic Oath, taken each year at commencement exercises by City College graduates, which pledges them to “strive to transmit this city not only not less, but greater, better, and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.” The release also said that the College planned to borrow the collection for future displays, as agreed to by the director of the Municipal Research and Reference Center, Eugene Bockman. That was not to be. Bockman arranged to transfer the volumes to safe, archival storage at the New York State Library where they remained until 1985. As it happens, 1985 marked the 200th anniversary of Audubon’s birth. Several events were scheduled, including an exhibit of personal items and paintings at the Museum of Natural History, a musical performance “Choral Music of Birds and Bees and Bugs,” also at the museum, the display of all known watercolors painted for the Birds of America study at the New York Historical Society, lectures and the unveiling of a commemorative stamp honoring him. And, on October 18 and 19, Sotheby’s scheduled the auction of City government’s copy of The Birds of America. The justification for the sale was that five cultural institutions in the City also had sets of the folio and that the folio was not representative of City government’s history.Proceeds from a successful 1984 DORIS auction of ephemera were deposited in the City’s general fund. The agency’s goal of using the auction proceeds to preserve archival records was thwarted. With a goal of holding additional sales, the agency proposed creating a special fund that would receive proceeds of further sales. The City Council established the Municipal Archives Reference and Research Fund (MARRF), in April, 1985. Funds raised from the current sale of “Gifts to the City” will be deposited in the MARRF and will support the work of the Archives.
Roseate Spoonbill, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 321, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.Soon after the MARRF was founded contract negotiations with auction houses began. The folio was retrieved from storage. A professional book binder took the sets apart so the 435 prints could be sold individually. Mayor Ed Koch announced the Sotheby’s sale at a City Hall press conference in August.The proposed sale generated controversy, much of which was spelled out in letters to The New York Times. The president of Lathrop C. Harper, an antiquarian book dealer, wrote that selling the folio was “poor stewardship.” Even more problematic was the plan to sell the prints separately, “The city has been extremely ill advised by Sotheby’s to embark on a course of destruction of historical and bibliographical evidence.” Commissioner Bockman responded in the Times that the merits of selling the folio had “long been discussed.“ Among the primary considerations was that seven other sets were accessible in public institutions in the metropolitan area. Security was another consideration: in recent years, because of the set’s escalating value, it remained unseen and unused in a vault in the New York State Library in Albany.”
Snowy Owl, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 121, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.Bockman wasn’t the only one who championed the sale of the folio. Then-Comptroller Harrison “Jay” Golden wrote to Mayor Koch in 1981 noting the folio “is a very special asset, one with an unusual potential to enrich and beautify our City.” Noting that it was worth $1 million, he suggested that the City seek pro-bono auction services from Sotheby’s Parke-Bernet or Christies. Proceeds would be deposited in a trust fund and the income would finance an annual “world-wide competition for an outstanding sculpture.” In conclusion, he wrote “that all New Yorkers” would “benefit in a special way from the wise $1,000 investment in the folio made back in 1850.”City College Associate Professor Jean L. Benson also took issue. She termed the folio a “showpiece much admired by faculty, students, alumni and visiting scholars” and laid claim to the six prints purchased by the Library. “Francis Goodrich, the college’s scholarly chief librarian and an authority on rare books, bought—with college funds—six prints to fill the gaps in the set. Three skilled City College cataloguers were then assigned to catalog the entire set, an effort that involved extensive research and several hundred hours of work.” She questioned the Department of Records’ authority to sell the set and asserted “the six added prints are the property of the City College Library. They should be excluded from the sale and returned to the library, so that they may continue to be enjoyed by the City College and University community.”Sotheby’s was alarmed and asked the City to “research the issue to be certain as to whether the city has title to these 6 prints.” This triggered a new review. At the behest of the Office of the Corporation Counsel, an attorney for the City University of New York’s wrote that “the University waives any objections it may have to the auction taking place as announced.” Although the letter also indicated that City College and the City would pursue an “equitable adjustment as to the six prints at issue.” A subsequent memo from the Law Department showed that the City College did not allocate funds to purchase the prints.
White Headed Pigeon, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 177, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.A New York Times column previewing the auction reported on how the drawings were created. “Audubon, who had insisted on reproducing the birds in life-size began his sketches in 1820 when, in order to follow the migrating birds to the Gulf Coast, he became a working passenger on a flatboat traveling down the Ohio and the Mississippi. The Mississippi River Basin had long served as a corridor for birds traveling from the Arctic to Patagonia. On this trip and over the next four years, Audubon came to know, among other specimens, whooping cranes, parakeets, woodpeckers, passenger pigeons, starlings and hermit thrushes and to capture their reality in his extraordinary drawings.”The week before the auction was to begin, councilmembers Herbert Berman and Ruth Messinger sent a telegram to Commissioner Bockman, urging him to reconsider the sale and suggesting that the Council, as the original purchaser, should review the proposed sale.
Western Union Telegram, October 16, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.In response, Bockman expressed surprise because the councilmembers had supported the creation of the MARRF. He attached his testimony from the Council hearing in which he explicitly discussed the possible sale of the Audubon folio “…the Department is holding certain materials which are both non-archival and non-essential for governmental research. Of perhaps greatest value is a complete Double Elephant Folio edition of John James Audubon’s The Birds of America. These materials have substantial potential interest to collectors. In no way would the integrity of the collections in either the Municipal Archives, the Municipal Records Center or in the Municipal Reference and Research Center be marred by the disposal of such materials.” Berman withdrew his objections. Messinger did not. The sale went forward. Three days after the auction concluded, Messinger reiterated her views, contending that the City Council should have been consulted.
John James Audubon, Birds of America, Auction Catalog, Sotheby’s, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.The auction yielded $1.441 million which was deposited in the MARRF. Over the years, the Fund has supported critical work in the Archives including salaries for conservators to preserve delicate records, reference archivists to help the public locate records and several special projects that have preserved significant archival collections.The Bockman collection contains a memo that reveals a new mystery. With his son, Audubon produced a volume containing pictures of the four-footed mammals residing in North America: Quadrupeds of North America. The City of New York purchased two volumes, one as a gift to the City of Paris in 1850 and another in 1855, to be placed in the City Library. “Is it possible,” the memo author queried “that the Quadrupeds, purchased in 1854, is at large?”
High Bridge aqueduct over the Harlem River at 174th Street, between Manhattan (right) and The Bronx. Construction is underway to replace five of the original stone arches in the picture with a single steel arch over the river. This work was completed in 1927.
WILLIAM SCHIMOLAR AND HARA REISER ALSO GOT IT RIGHT
Current bridge looks like this (from Google Street):
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
NEW YORK CITY MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Invitation to the Fourth Annual Excursion of Ivy Lodge No. 65, July 10, 1893. Early Mayors Records, Thomas F. Gilroy. NYC Municipal Archives.
Among the preoccupations of those at the at the apex of the city’s social scene (or those who wished to be) is the world of charitable functions. To be more specific, who was invited to what charity event (and who was not invited) formed the centerpiece of much the conflict between new and old money New York families that is engagingly depicted in the program.
Complimentary Ticket to the Tournament at the New Game of Billiards at Tammany Hall, November 11, 1879. Early Mayors Records, Edward Cooper. NYC Municipal Archives.
The importance of these social events resonated with city archivists who remembered seeing invitations and other artifacts of these functions in the Early Mayors’ Records. This series includes correspondence and documents from New York City mayoral administrations from 1826 through 1897 and totals 157.5 cubic feet. The collection had originally been assembled by Rebecca Rankin during her 32-year tenure as the Director of the Municipal Library between 1920 and 1952. This was a core collection in the Municipal Archives when it opened in 1952 and remains one of the most important series documenting nineteenth-century government and policies. The Early Mayors’ Records finding guide is now available online.
Invitation to the First Annual Summer Festival for the Benefit of the Immigrant Girls Home, August 13, 1891. Early Mayors Records, Hugh J. Grant. NYC Municipal Archives.
The Transcription Project, Early Mayors’ Collection II , discussed how archivists, working remotely in 2020, transcribed descriptive materials that enhances access to the intellectual content of the series. Researchers will be able to more easily identify the invitations and other artifacts of the social scene, such as the samples reproduced here.
Invitation to the Grand Annual Pic-Nic for the Benefit of St. Mary’s Literary Institute, June 7, 1880. Early Mayors Records, Edward Cooper. NYC Municipal Archives.
Invitation to the Family Excursion of the Property Owners Association, July 22, 1897. Early Mayors Records, William L. Strong. NYC Municipal Archives.
Here are a few examples. Today we can appreciate them for their artistry, color, and typography—evocative of the ‘Gilded Age’ in New York City—and as artifacts of a world long-gone.
Invitation to Grand Annual Ball of the Legion of Justice, March 9, 1891. Early Mayors Records, Hugh J. Grant. NYC Municipal Archives.
Program, Metropolitan Opera, January 24, 1891. Early Mayors Records, Hugh J. Grant. NYC Municipal Archives.
Hat Check for the Tough Club, February 21, 1890. Early Mayors Records, Hugh J. Grant. NYC Municipal Archives.
Knights Temperance Invitation, September 16, 1890. Early Mayors Records, Hugh J. Grant. NYC Municipal Archives.
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
NYC MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
RIHS VISITOR CENTER KIOSK OPEN DAILY 12 NOON TO 5 P.M. UNTIL JANUARY 1 SHOP HERE AND SUPPORT THE RIHS!!!
FROM THE ARCHIVES
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2022
ISSUE # 872
ART FROM
NICK’S LUNCHBOX
12.25.22 Lunchtime drawing: Christmas Day soccer playing (and sketching), getting out of the house.
12.24.22 Drawing: It was like 9 degrees out today, so indoor sketch and I’m proud to say in my 42nd year I learned how to solve a Rubik’s Cube. Also, can you see more than three sides at once?
12.23.22 Lunchtime drawing: A very gray day perfect for an ink and brush and wash art studio view, looking out over New Lab and some cranes in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and out to the Williamsburg Bridge.
12.21.22 Lunchtime drawing: The winter solstice! The first day of a new season! My shadow taking this photo and Bulich Mushrooms at the Union Square Farmers Market.
12.19.22 Lunchtime drawing: Patchin Place off of West 10th Street, Greenwich Village’s one-block-wonder that once housed e.e. cummings and Djuna Barnes.
A Central Park bridge spanning one of the several streams that have served over the decades to fill the Great Pond (a/k/a the “Lake”) in the Park. This bridge may be immediately to the South of what used to be called “Eagle Hill”, a popular sleighing hill not far from the 81st Street and CPW entrance to the Park. Regards, Jay Jacobson
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
NICK’S LUNCHBOX SERVICE NICK GOLEBIEWSKI
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
When George Washington became the first president of the United States in 1789, he relocated to a rented four-story mansion at Cherry and Pearl Streets. There, he established his executive office and family living quarters.
New York City was the new nation’s official capital at the time, and Washington was adjusting to the city’s culture and rituals—worshipping at St. Paul’s Chapel, for example, and regularly taking the air along the Battery.
One Gotham tradition he also took part in was inviting New Year’s Day callers to his presidential mansion (below). Established by the colonial Dutch burghers of New Amsterdam more than a century earlier, the annual ritual of “calling” turned the city into one big open house, where residents hosted a succession of neighbors and friends all day with hospitality and good cheer.
It was the biggest holiday of the year. New Yorkers would spend days readying their parlors for guests, donning their finest outfits, and setting up a big table of alcohol-infused punch, cakes, and confectionaries. Callers would stop by, offer good wishes for the coming year, and then move on to the next house to repeat the ritual with full bellies and in lively spirits.
Though he was the commander-in-chief of the United States, Washington was also a New Yorker—for the time being, at least. (He departed to Philadelphia later that year after the city of brotherly love was named America’s capital.)
So on January 1, 1790, he “was determined to add the power of his name as an example of the observance of this time-honored custom,” according to The Old Merchants of New York City, published in 1885.
“It was a mild, moonlit night of the first of January, 1790, when George Washington and ‘Lady’ Washington stood together in their New York house to receive the visitors who made the first New Year’s calls with which a President of the United States was honored,” recounted the Saturday Evening Post in 1899.
Who were the callers, specifically? Washington described them in his own diary as “The Vice-President, the Governor, the Senators, Members of the House of Representatives in town, foreign public characters, and all the respectable citizens.”
These callers “came between the hours of 12 and 3 o’clock, to pay the compliments of the season to me—and in the afternoon a great number of gentlemen and ladies visited Mrs. Washington on the same occasion.”
“Tea and coffee, and plum and plain cake were served by the mistress of the mansion, while her stately husband, whose fine figure was set off in the costume of the drawing room to even better advantage than in his military garb, greeted his visitors with friendly formality,” continued the Post.
By nine p.m., the Washingtons were ready to retire for the night. According to the Post, he asked his guests “if the custom of New Year visiting in New York had always been kept up there, and he was assured that it had been, from the early days of the Dutch. He paused, and then said pleasantly, but gravely:
“‘The highly favored situation of New York will, in the progress of years, attract numerous immigrants, who will gradually change its customs and manners; but whatever changes take place, never forget the cordial and cheerful observance of the New Year’s Day,'” stated the Post article.
Washington’s words that night were certainly prophetic. Though the tradition of New Year’s calling continued into the 19th century, it gradually began to die out, coming to an end during the Gilded Age. In 1888, the New York Times, lamented “the almost complete death of the ancient custom of call-making” every January 1.
BLOCKS OF STONE TO BE USED ON THE QUEENSBORO BRIDGE BEING PREPARED IN QUEENS. Stone trimming machine, on top of Pier #2
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
[Top image: “Lady Washington’s Reception Day,” painted by Daniel Huntington, 1861, Wikipedia; second image: Washington’s Cherry Street mansion, Wikipedia; third image: Washington’s 1789 inauguration at Federal Hall on Wall Street; fourth image: plaque put up to mark the former site of Washington’s Cherry Street mansion, LOC; fifth image: Washington in 1790, painted by John Trumbull, Wikipedia]
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Our coloring book is available at the kiosk for $5-
It is Christmas day and a good day to be in the kiosk and meet our visitors. I do not know what to expect since the temperature is about 20 degrees out.
Just as I approach the kiosk a couple is looking at the RIOC map sign and I invite tme into the kiosk to defrost. The woman, Alette is almost 90 years old with her 19 year old grandson, Jonathan. They are from Montreaux, Switzerland and are here for a week’s vacation. They sit down to warm up, though the kiosk has not warmed up yet to a frosty 50 degrees. We chat and discover Jonathan is studying and working at the Montreaux Jazz Festival working rigging and lighting every summer. His English is great and Alette is used to walking the mountain trails of Switzerland.
They are lots of fun and after a half hour decide to ride the red bus around the island.
Marie, a young woman from College Park, Maryland joins me and we chat about restaurants and customer service, since she works in a Japanese Restaurant. Her friends soon arrive, three grad students from Maryland and they are off to explore the island.
A young couple come in and we chat. They are Greek and seek instructions to Astoria for some good “home” cooking. She is a nursery school teacher and he a tech teacher in London. We have a few laughs of British cooking and they are definitely ready for Astoria.
A family from Dubai come into the kiosk, yes Dubai. Mom, dad and 3 kids. The are nearly frozen and we chat so they can warm up. One son is definitely under the weather and the family has already visited Duane Read. He is completely bundled and masked up. I am sure he really wanted to be under the covers. The family is from Pakistan and have lived over 20 years in the Middle East. The teen age daughter has been directing her family’s itinerary including the Met and MOMA. She wants to go into design and has a list of must-sees for her family. One the way out we present a I Love NY baseball for the son, though it is not a cricket ball. it will be a great New York souvenir. The family has decided that this is the last trip to New York in winter.
Other families enter the kiosk, many asking for a restroom. We do not have the coffee maker on today since using it will probably blow out our fragile electrical system.
We sell some pairs of gloves and not much else. We notice that the majority of our visitors are from tropical climates, such as Malaga,Spain, California, Florida and warmer places. Most wanted a little less of the freeze they had been experiencing here.
At 4 p.m. my feet are frozen and time to head to Granny Annies for a bowl of hot French Onion Soup!
New York and Queens County Railway trolley car barn and headquarters, Northern Blvd. and 51st Street in Woodside. The building later became a garage for Queens Transit and Steinway Transit buses after the trolleys were replaced in 1939. Now it’s the site of the Tower Square shopping mall, with the two towers preserved as an entrance.
Andy Sparberg
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)
RIHS COLORING BOOK (C) RIHS 2016 ART- AUTUMN ASHLEY TEXT – BOBBIE SLONEVSKY CREATIVE- JUDITH BERDY
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Grandma Moses painted many winter scenes of farm life in which adults and children happily do their chores and play in the snow. She painted only cheerful images that were based on her memories of growing up on a farm and of being a farmwife herself. In this painting the people talking and laughing together evoke a nostalgic ideal of community life, which the artist emphasized through small stylized buildings and bright colors. The buildings and looping fences create a two-dimensional pattern on the pure white snow that underscores the picturesque, storybook scene.
Edward B. Webster, The Nativity, 1956, oil on canvas mounted on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1971.91
The Nativity is one of twenty-two paintings depicting the life of Christ done by Edward Webster over a span of twenty years (Hall, “Postman to Painter,” Sepia, Dec. 1971). The infant is the focal point of the scene, as the light from the star spotlights him through the wooden roof. The three Magi, freshly arrived from the East, leave their camels and rush toward the stable to share in this moment. The animals bow their heads and focus on the child as if they, too, recognize the solemnity of the event. The painting’s composition mimics that of a stage performance: the artist left a space between Joseph and the Magi for the viewer to participate in the scene; our view of the stable’s interior and the goings-on outside are completely unobstructed. The expressive figures and dramatic lighting enhance this theatrical effect.
Edward Penfield, Harper’s Christmas, ca.1898, color lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1974.6
Harry Cimino, Christmas Card, n.d., woodcut, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Charlotte Manzari, 1969.31.32
Werner Drewes, The Christmas Letter, 1962, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Wolfram U. Drewes, Harald Drewes and Bernard W. Drewes, 1990.105.16
Juan González, The Nativity, 1662, oil on wood inlaid with mother of pearl, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.48
Ernest W. Watson, Christmas Morning, 1947, color linoleum cut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1970.193
Abraham Rattner, Window Cleaner, watercolor, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Abraham Rattner, 1981.153.24
The Hanukkah Menorah has eight branches of equal height and a ninth, taller branch for the shamash, or “servant light,” used to light the others. The Hanukkah holiday commemorates the rededication of the Hebrew Temple of Jerusalem after it was destroyed by the Syrians in 165 BC. Abrasha’s menorah conforms to Jewish law by burning wicks in olive oil instead of candles. Hinges allow the piece to be arranged in different ways, and the gold, silver, and stainless steel provide a play of different colors under the light of the wicks.
“My work now is contemporary, geometric, and simple in style and feeling … I usually combine two or three different materials to create tension between them and their colors in my designs.” Artist quoted in American Craft Museum Catalogue, 1992
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
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
For over eight decades, the iconic neon Domino Sugar sign shone like a beacon over the Brooklyn waterfront. This week, a new replica of the sign was installed and turned on for the first time atop the Domino Sugar Refinery building. Untapped New York spoke with Domino Sugar Factory historian and Brooklyn native Ward Dennis to discuss the significance of the historic sign and the impact of the Domino Sugar Factory on the local community.
Built in 1882, the Domino Sugar Refinery in Williamsburg occupied an 11-acre site along the East River. As the American Sugar Refining Company’s largest plant, it was one of several factories forming northern Brooklyn’s lucrative sugar production industry. In its heyday, sugar refineries and barrel manufacturers stretched along the river to Newtown Creek, employing thousands of local residents. At the end of the 19th century, the refinery produced 5,000 barrels of sugar a day and employed over 4,500 workers during its peak between World War I and World War II. After the 1940s, however, operations declined as alternative sweeteners such as corn syrup gained popularity and production moved up to Yonkers. Only liquid sugar was refined there by the 1990s.
After the plant’s closure in 2003, the site was cleared to make way for new development. The factory’s ancillary structures were demolished, despite their historical significance. Filter, Pan, and Finishing House was preserved. Ward Dennis, who chaired a land use committee reviewing proposals for a community board, thought the redevelopment of the site as a public park would be significant for the local community. He pointed out that when the six-acre waterside Domino Park was proposed, much of the Williamsburg and Greenpoint industrial waterfront had not been publicly accessible until 20 years prior.
Since its closure, the refinery building has been off-limits to the public while undergoing renovation. Dennis described it as a perfectly preserved marvel of historic engineering, with the shell of the building holding together filters and ovens three to four stories tall. The last time the refinery was open to the public was during the 2014 exhibition of Kara Walker’s A Subtlety, a site-specific installation underwritten by the real estate developer Two Trees and using sugar donated by Domino. Responding to the plant’s historic interior, Walker’s 35-foot tall sugar sphinx interrogated the legacy of sugarcane production in transatlantic slavery.
Today, construction is still ongoing on the Refinery, which is being transformed into a 460,000 square-foot Class A office space to house a new age of workers. The building will stand 235 feet tall and feature a new barrel-vaulted glass dome, fully rebuilt interiors, and landscaping. A key feature of the renovated building will be the reworked Domino signage on the roofline. When the redevelopment plan was proposed in 2009, the commissioners asked developers to include a place for the Domino sign, which was moved to a nearby building when its original location was demolished.
Although the main refinery is protected by its landmark status, the sign was not included in that designation, placing it at possible risk. Since the original sign was not able to be restored in a safe and sustainable way, Two Trees decided to create a replica, working with signage specialists to get it as close as possible to the original design. Two Trees is currently working with Domino Sugar to find an appropriate permanent home for the original sign. The new sign that shines today is an LED replica installed atop the building’s new glass addition, with the name “Domino Sugar” spelled out in yellow letters 43 feet 6.5 inches tall and 65 feet 8 inches wide. The replica was designed to be brighter, more energy efficient, and long-lasting, while the new aluminum letters will reduce the weight placed on the new glass structure. The bottom part of the sign, which spells out “sugar,” was installed in November 2022.
Friday Photo of the Day
HOLIDAY GREETINGS FROM THE COLER AUXILIARY TO MAKE A DONATION CONTACT: BERDYJ@NYCHHC.ORG
JUDITH BERDY-PRESIDENT
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
THANKS FOR YOUR FRESH DIRECT BAGS
GIFTS FOR OVER 500 RESIDENTS HAVE BEEN PROVIDED BY THE COLER AUXILIARY
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.
RIHS VISITOR CENTER KIOSK OPEN DAILY 12 NOON TO 5 P.M. UNTIL CHRISTMAS SHOP HERE AND SUPPORT THE RIHS!!!
FROM THE ARCHIVES
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2022
ISSUE # 867
PENNSYLVANIA STATION
1942
SCENES FROM THE
DEPARTURE POINT FOR THOSE
GOING OFF TO WAR
(AND A QUICK SHOPPING TRIP TO MACY’S)
MARJORY COLLINS, OWI PHOTOGRAPHER
Marjory Collins (1912-1985)
Biographical Essay
Marjory Collins1 described herself as a “rebel looking for a cause.”2 She began her photojournalism career in New York City in the 1930s by working for such magazines as PM and U.S. Camera. At a time when relatively few women were full-time magazine photographers, such major photo agencies as Black Star, Associated Press, PIX, and Time, Inc., all represented her work.
In 1941, Collins joined Roy Stryker’s team of photographers at the U.S. Office of War Information to document home front activities during World War II. She created remarkable visual stories of small town life, ethnic communities, and women war workers. The more than 3,000 images she took in 1942-43 are preserved in the Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information Collection at the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
After World War II, Collins combined three careers–photographer, editor, and writer. She traveled internationally as a freelance photographer for both the U.S. government and the commercial press. She also participated in social and political causes and was an active feminist who founded the journal Prime Time (1971-76) “for and by older women.” Her study of the role of older women in society resulted in an M.A. degree in American Studies from Antioch College West in 1984, shortly before her death from cancer in 1985 in San Francisco.
Collins’ work and life merit further study. The upbeat nature of her photographs at the Library of Congress and the success of her writing career contrast strongly with the years of struggle and alienation emphasized in the different versions of her autobiography in her personal papers at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
Early Life
Marjory Collins was born in New York City on March 15, 1912,3 to the socially prominent Frederick Lewis Collins and Elizabeth Everts Paine. Her father wrote for popular magazines and was also an editor–occupations that Collins would pursue as well. She grew up in Scarsdale, New York, and graduated from the elite Brearley School. Shortly after starting at Sweet Briar College and making her social debut, Collins married Yale student John “Jack” I. H. Baur (1909-1987) in 1933. The couple continued their education at the University of Munich during a year in Europe, before divorcing in 1935.
Determined to reject her patrician roots, Collins moved to Greenwich Village and a Bohemian life style. Between 1935 and 1940, she studied informally with avant-garde photographer Ralph Steiner and attended lectures and exhibitions sponsored by the Photo League. She sold her wedding silver to purchase a camera and became a documentary photographer.4 Major photo agencies soon represented her work, and her name appeared on the masthead of PM magazine, where Ralph Steiner was the photo editor. At the same time, she worked at US Camera, and an August 1941 story about Hoboken, New Jersey, helped her get a job at the New York office of the Foreign Service, US Office of War Information (OWI).
OWI Photographs
By January 1942, Collins had transferred to Washington, DC, to join Roy Stryker’s famous team of documentary photographers.5 Over the next eighteen months, Collins completed approximately fifty different assignments consisting of three thousand photographs. Her upbeat, harmonious images reflected the OWI editorial requests for visual stories about the ideal American way of life and stories that showed the commitment of ordinary citizens in supporting the war effort. Many years later, Collins remembered, “Documenting the lives of Americans, discovering my own country for the first time, I was freed of the whims of publicity men wanting posed leg art.”6
During World War II, race and ethnicity consciousness heightened around the globe. United States President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941, to reaffirm a policy of full participation of people of every race, creed, color, and national origin in the national defense program. Multiculturalism became a topic of major importance for government agencies as the United States geared up for war. Collins worked closely with OWI colleagues John Vachon and Gordon Parks and contributed to a substantial photographic study of African Americans.
Many of her assignments involved photographing “hyphenated Americans,” including Chinese-, Czech-, German-, Irish-, Italian-, Jewish-, and Turkish-Americans. The photographs were used to illustrate publications dropped behind enemy lines to reassure people in Axis-power countries that the United States was sympathetic to their needs. For example, using the popular “day-in-the-life” format favored by picture magazines, Collins portrayed the Winn family at work, at play, and at home. The Winns had arrived in New York from the Czech Republic about 1939 and appeared to be thriving in October 1942.
On the job, Collins gave rein to her curiosity about how the other half lived. Roy Stryker wrote in his April 13, 1943 “Gossip Sheet” for OWI staff, “Marjory is in Buffalo, working on women in industry. This is a special story on women workers for the London Overseas Office.” “These photographs should … portray representative types actually at work rather than posed ‘cuties,'” and should show “the very important contribution made towards final victory and how they have adapted themselves to wartime conditions.”7 For one of her topics, Collins covered a young widow (possibly giving her a fictitious name) and her six children, all less than twelve years of age. “Mrs. Grimm’s” work outside the home as a crane operator forced heavy responsibility on her older children and required that her younger daughters stay in a foster home Monday through Friday. Some images reveal the family’s poverty and their struggle to maintain nutrition and housekeeping ideals. With her social reform interests, Collins felt that this assignment was consistent with Stryker’s encouragement to make “pictures of life as it is.”8 She considered the Grimm Family images among her very best, but they also clashed with the glamorized Rosie-the-Riveter concept called for by the OWI.
Fellow OWI photographer Alfred Palmer complained that Collins’ photographs sometimes showed “the seamy side of life.”9 Palmer and others believed that the OWI had two roles–straight news for publication in the United States and propaganda for overseas audiences. Palmer’s news group wanted to clean up photographs, while Stryker’s photographers wanted to show how deeply Americans sacrificed to support the war. The Grimm Family photographs are among the last images by Collins that survive in the FSA/OWI Collection. A set of almost fifty photos taken in Tunisia in May and June 1942 are credited to Collins, but no textual records have been found that explain this trip.
Later Life
In 1944, Collins went to Alaska as a freelance photographer for a construction company. By 1945, she had married and divorced again. After World War II, she worked as a freelance photographer in Egypt, Ireland, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Italy for U.S. government agencies and the commercial press. Sometime between 1948 and 1950, another marriage failed, and her husband destroyed the bulk of her prints and negatives. Her entry in Photo-Graphic 1949: The Annual of America’s Leading Photographers was a New Year’s Eve party scene that she had taken several years earlier while working for the OWI.
For the next thirty years, Collins worked as an editor and writer as well as a photographer. From her home in Vermont, she participated in social and political causes including the civil rights, Vietnam War protest, and women’s movements. She founded and edited the vanguard publication Peace Concerns (began 1962) and was associated with the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. During the late 1960s, she worked for the American Public Health Association and was an editor for the Journal of Public Health.
In 1971, Collins founded the first magazine to address the needs of the mature women, called Prime Time, “for the liberation of women in the prime of life.” This national monthly magazine was published in New York from 1971-76 and reached a print run of 3,000. As Collins recalled, “Ageism and sexism hit me hard four years ago when I found myself out of a job and forced to go on welfare to have an operation. I became so angry I started PRIMETIME, a journal for and by older women.”10 During the 1980s, Collins lived in San Francisco and obtained an M.A. in American Studies at Antioch College West, where she studied the role of older women in society. She was researching a pictorial exhibition on women’s history when she died of cancer in 1985 at the age of seventy-three.
New York, New York. Toy department display at R. H. Macy and Company department store during the week before Christmas. The hobby horse above costs almost one hundred dollars
New York, New York. Book department at R. H. Macy and Company department store during the week before Christmas
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
THANKS FOR YOUR FRESH DIRECT BAGS.
Gloria Swaby, Judith Berdy, and Jackie Kwedy, members of the Coler Auxiliary getting gift bags of holiday gifts ready for the Coler residents.
WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Part of the massive Con Ed power complex built along the East River where Manhattan Island juts eastward out into the River. ALEXIS VILLAFANE AND JAY JACOBSON 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
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
NOON TO 5 P.M. UNTIL CHRISTMAS SHOP HERE AND SUPPORT THE RIHS!!!
FROM THE ARCHIVES
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2022
ISSUE # 866
THE ARDSLEY
ANOTHER CENTRAL PARK WEST LANDMARK
320 CENTRAL PARK WEST
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
On October 15, 1900 the newest apartment house on Central Park West was ready for occupancy. Designed by architect George W. Keister it rose ten stories on the southwest corner of 92nd Street. The Central Park West facade was a cluster of rounded bays, affording each apartment expanded views of the park and increased cross-ventilation inside.
New-York Tribune, September 30, 1900 (copyright expired)
The upscale Ardsley Hall contained 43 suites of from six to 12 rooms, not including bathrooms or pantries. The largest suites boasted three bathrooms. The up-to-the-minute amenities included private telephones, electric lighting and individual “refrigeration plants.” An attractive feature was the “special entertainment rooms” available to the tenants for large entertainments or balls.
The lobby included Oriental carpets, gilded capitals and a coffered ceiling. New-York Tribune, November 3, 1901 (copyright expired
Tenants paid from $1,500 to $3,800 a year for the apartments. The most expensive rent would equal about $9,250 per month today.
But Edwardian fuss quickly fell from favor as the Jazz Age took over Manhattan in the 1920s. Central Park West would be transformed by the construction of sleek Art Deco apartment houses which replaced the older buildings. Among the first to go was Ardsley Hall.
On August 8, 1928 the announcement was made that within the past six months Samuel Barkin & Sons had acquired Ardsley Hall, along with Nos. 4, 8 and 12 West 92nd Street. The builders planned to erect a 20-story apartment house on the plot. “This will be the largest housekeeping apartment building on Central Park West,” Samuel Barkins said. The entire project was estimated to cost about $4.5 million–more in the neighborhood of $62.5 million in 2016.
The New York Times noted “This project will necessitate the demolition of the ten-story Ardsley Hall apartment, one of the first of a group of tall apartments erected opposite the park, and three five-story flats.”
The newly-formed Central Park West & 92nd St. Corp. was, no doubt, staggered by the onset of the Great Depression a year later. Nevertheless, the massive project went ahead, with ground broken in 1930. A year later, in the fall of 1931, the Ardsley was ready for occupancy.
The developers had chosen architect Emery Roth to design the 22-story structure. Separately, he and Rosario Candela were perhaps most responsible for changing the streetscapes along Central Park in the 1920s.
Even during the Depression years Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens spent lavishly. On April 5, 1931 The New York Times reported that a “good rental season [is] indicated for new apartments.” The article focused on six new luxury buildings, including the Ardsley.
In 1916 New York City had imposed the Zoning Resolution which required buildings to include setbacks in order to allow light and air to the streets. The resulting stepped high rise buildings drew comparison to ancient ziggurats. Emery Roth took the concept a step further by decorating the Ardsley with Mayan decorations executed in black brick within the beige facade. The result was a masterpiece of Art Deco design. Horizonal balconies and banding were contrasted and balanced by vertical lines, some which suddenly jutted off at right angles.
The cover of “The Ardsley” brochure featured a photograph of the newly-completed structure. From the collection of the Columbia University Library
Saying that The Ardsley was ideal “for those wishing an atmosphere of country life with convenience of the City,” agents boasted “included in the appointment are over-sized rooms, wide windows, venetian blinds, exceptional closet space well equipped kitchens, glass enclosed showers, and trained employees to maintain the finest…standard of service.”
The Mayan motif was carried on in the entrance lobby. “The Ardsley” brochure, from the collection of the Columbia University Library
The Ardsley was designed with tenants of varying incomes in mind. While some of the apartments had commodious bedrooms, living rooms and “galleries,” they had no servants’ rooms. In contrast were the sprawling multi-level apartments of the topmost floors. The 11-room triplex on the 21st through 23rd floors had a wrap-around terrace on the 21st floor, and two terraces on the 22nd floor. There were 15-foot ceilings and a wood-burning fireplace in every room. The 23rd floor was “completely separated from the master section” and included three maids’ rooms and a bath.
The floorplans of the 11-room triplex revealed spacious rooms and extraordinary outdoor space. “The Ardsley” brochure, from the collection of the Columbia University Library
The Ardsley filled with well-heeled residents, not all of whom were on the up-and-up. Corporate attorney Aaron Sapiro moved here from Chicago after things got a little heated there. Sapiro was counsel for several Chicago labor groups run by underworld thugs.
On July 27, 1933 he was arrested in his 20th floor office at No. 521 Fifth Avenue. Police had received a telegram from the Illinois State Attorney’s office saying Sapiro was a fugitive and was under indictment on a charge of “causing the explosions of bombs in buildings in Chicago and also causing bodily harm to different people.”
The attorney was met with a crowd of press photographers at Police Headquarters. As their flashbulbs snapped, Sapiro reacted with sarcastic coolness. “I’ll pose,” he said.
His smug attitude was relatively short-lived. The bad press was apparently not good for business and on June 7 the following year he filed for bankruptcy, listing liabilities of $181,000 and assets of $14,425. Court papers showed he placed a value of $300 on his “wearing apparel and books.”
In the meantime, things were not going so well for the Ardley’s owners, either. On September 11, 1933 the building was sold in foreclosure actions. The Manufacturers Trust Company took over the property with the only bid–$2.575 million.
The memories of the terrifying Lindbergh baby kidnapping two years earlier were vivid in the minds of all wealthy parents in 1934. So Benjamin Feldman was understandably shaken when he opened a letter on May 17 that year.
In it the writer said that unless Feldman paid $500 his wife would be kidnapped. Exactly one week later a second letter arrived, this one saying that both his wife and seven-year old son would be taken and both murdered.
Detectives were put on the case and arrangements were made to hand off a package containing the ransom in the Times Square subway stop. When 23-year old Nicholas Garafola took the package from the undercover detective on May 25, he was immediately arrested. Garafola had been a shipping clerk in Feldman’s employ.
The New York Times reported “Garafola said he needed the money to pay off debts and insisted that he had no intention of carrying out his threats.”
Among the residents at the time were retired Deputy Chief Inspector Dominick Henry of the New York City Police Department, and his wife, the former Mary Gertrude Crittenden. Henry had changed the entire complexion of Manhattan traffic by instituting the one-way street system, and by installing the first traffic lights. He also implemented parking restrictions. The Times would later credit him with unsnarling “the tangle of vehicles that clogged the streets in the early Nineteen Twenties.”
Mary Henry was highly educated, having attended the College of New Rochelle and Columbia University. Her health began failing around 1937, and she died in the couple’s Ardsley apartment at the age of 59 on February 24, 1938. Dominick Henry lived on here for another four years, dying after an illness of several weeks on Saturday, February 1, 1942.
The funeral for the 74-year old former Inspector was impressive. On Saturday morning of February 3, 117 foot patrolmen assembled in front of the Ardsley. They, along with the Police Department band and Color Guard, escorted the body to the Catholic Church of St. Gregory the Great on West 90th Street.
The Ardley’s most celebrated resident at the time was lyricist Lorenz Hart, who had signed a lease on a massive 17-room penthouse on August 4, 1939. Half of the Broadway songwriting team of Rodgers and Hart, his lyrics to standards like “Blue Moon,” “The Lady is a Tramp,” and “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” were famous.
Hart shared the apartment with his widowed mother, Frieda. Tortured in his personal life, he suffered from alcoholism and depression and was anguished by his secret homosexuality. His mother took the upper floor of the duplex while he lived below with an expansive terrace. His biographer, Frederick Nolan points out in his 1994 Lorenz Hart: A Poet on Broadway, “Immediately after moving in, Larry had a huge, heavy, soundproofed door installed between the two floors, so that Frieda should not be disturbed by any late-night revelries below.”
On Easter Sunday 1943 Frieda Hart died. Shortly afterward Lorenz Hart left the Ardsley and moved into a small penthouse on Park Avenue. He died there on November 22 that same year.
A service door reflects Roth’s attention to detail.
World War II affected everyone in the Arsdley, as it did all Americans. On September 18, 1943 Jerome C. Simpson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in Washington DC. A much different sort of notoriety came to 32-year old dress manufacturer Martin Asnin two months later when he was imprisoned for draft evasion.
And 51-year old William S. Orkin was disgraced when he and seven cohorts were found guilty of a racket “in the guise of aiding wounded war veterans” at a hearing on February 18, 1946. The gang sold subscriptions to a fictitious magazine, the Army and Navy Hospital Visitors. The District Attorney was clear in his disgust, saying “This is a particularly despicable species of fraud–exploitation of the public sympathy and admiration for wounded veterans of war.”
The two-story penthouse that had been home to Frieda and Lorenz Hart was taken by Elliott Gould and his new bride, Barbra Streisand in 1963. In her My Passion for Design the entertainer wrote that the apartment had “an elegant staircase, two fireplaces and a terrace–quite a change from a railroad flat.” In fact there were five fireplaces and seven and a half baths.
The couple had one son, Jason, while living here. The Gould-Streisand divorce was finalized in 1971; but Streisand had already looking for a new home. On May 3, 1970 The Times noted “Barbra Streisand is back in the market for a place to live.”
The article said “Miss Streisand, who was unavailable last week for comment on her housing problem, is said to be looking for a cooperative on the East Side. She now lives at 320 Central Park West with her son, Jason. She and her husband, Elliott Gould, are separated.”
Part of the star’s difficulty in finding a new residence was her reputation–not for noisy entertainments, but for being difficult. Steven Gaines explained in his The Sky’s the Limit: Passion and Property in Manhattan, “she never gave parties and hardly ever entertained. In fact, she would have been a model tenant at the Ardsley had she not earned a reputation as the building’s chief kvetch and critic, for whom nothing was quite good enough, including the way the lobby was decorated.”
In July 1998, 28 years after Barbra Streisand began looking for a new house or apartment, she married 57-year old actor James Brolin at her Malibu, California home. She immediately listed the Ardsley penthouse at $10 million. The New York Times Home & Garden journalist Tracie Rozhon noted it included “a media room and an unpretentious hairdressing salon.”
It seemed to be sold when 29-year old pop singer Mariah Carey offered $8 million cash and Streisand accepted. But the co-op board was less eager to close the deal and rejected Carey as a tenant. Reportedly Streisand was irate, telling the press “If an artist can’t live on the Upper West Side, where can they live?”
She finally settled for a $4 million offer, precisely half the amount Carey was prepared to spend, from a single woman who was approved by the Board.
In 2010 a two-year restoration of the Art Deco lobby was completed by designer Scott Salvator. Although he rarely accepted lobby designs, telling Fred A. Bernstein of The Times he “disliked working for committees;” he jumped at the Ardsley project because it was an Emery Roth work, and “it is pure Art Deco.”
Salvator said he found the style uplifting. During tough times, he said, “If you’re going to have something awful, like a war, you at least want someone dancing down a stairway in a tux.”
Repairs made with non-matching brick disturbs Roth’s the black-and-beige scheme. The Art Deco motifs, nevertheless, spectacular.
The magnificent Mayan-Art Deco Ardsley continues to house wealthy businessmen and celebrities. In 2012 actor David Duchovny entered into contract for a $6.25 million three-bedroom apartment on the 19th floor. Among the several massive Art Deco apartment buildings along Central Park West that compose its famous streetscape, the Ardsley is a masterpiece.
THE MASSIVE CEILING AT WASHINGTON D.C.’S UNION STATION!
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
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
