Between teaching classes for election workers today, I had plenty of time to roam the neighborhood. After starting at Chrystie Street I was back on 2nd Street, east of where I strolled last week.
On the corner of Avenue A, is the Berlin Bar, situated in a former dry goods strore.
At 113 East Second Street, this grand iron fence shelters a wooden structure. The sign on the lower corner advises to all that a rodent station is inside. Do the rodents seek sanctuary here?
Gringer has been a place for all home appliances for decades and still is going strong on First Avenue.
Up the tree lined street is Marble Cemetery. I have heard about if for years, and there it was in all it’s glory, a sanctuary for all who pass. In summer there are days when the grounds are open.
Right up the street is the Nord Anglia International School. It’s wonderful graphics enliven the facade of the building.
Across the street are the Archives Film Archive. The building was originally the Third Magistrate Courthouse.
Just off the Bowery and First Street is Extra Place. Unfortunately, 2 of the three restaurants there are shuttered. The place leads to a new Avalon apartment house so it is not an alley, just an entrance to a building now.
Back on the Bowery, a few of the restaurant supply dealers remain.
Time to get back to work and just a quick glance at the Liz Christy Garden. It is amazing what you can spot in one hour as you look up from you phone and take in the wonders of the City. I am so glad to work at this site, the Chinatown Settlement/YMCA at East Houston Street. It is only an 18 minute subway ride from Roosevelt Island!!!
Former gas station at the corner of Broadway and West Houston Street
FROM JENNIFER DUNNING And thanks for all the goodies, especially the one about the serendipitous (sp.?) Second Street. I loved wandering, on foot or on my bike. I was in love with the Red Hook waterfront area years ago, before it got tarted up. So comfortably worth, costly utilitarian, even a bit Italian uturistic in spots. I discovered it when I went to an outdoor danceus performance. The warehouses, silver sugar uprooting like some giant happenstance sculpture, the dark little bar, the little row houses. I wanted to buy one and I probably could have then but it occurred to me that since I didn’t drive I’d h0ave to go through that then-dangerous housing project to get to work by public transportation. And I was often assigned to write advance pieces on historic NYC walking tours. The guides were sometimes endearingly nutty, too. One of my favorites, Margot Gayle, kept backing into traffic on a SoHo tour she took me on.
Thanks again, Judy
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.
Swann’s annual Graphic Design auction gets better and better with each passing year. As more people find interest and delight in the material, still others bring us wonderful material to offer. Thisyear’s is one of the strongest auctions we have ever assembled. On offer are standout items from across the globe with a myriad of art movements, including Jugendstil and Secession, Art Deco, Futurism, Mid-Century Modernism and Swiss Realism. Two large archives of ephemeral material lend to the sale an angle that it has seldom had, but one that is of great interest to the market:ephemeral design such as postcards, books, magazines, pamphlets and beyond.
ULIUS KLINGER (1876-1942)
FLUGPLATZ JOHANNISTHAL / FLUGWOCHE. Circa 1910.
26 1/2×17 1/2 inches, 67 1/4×44 1/2 cm. Hollerbaum & Schmidt, Berlin. Condition B: creases and restoration at edges, in image and along vertical fold; repaired tears at edges.
Advertising a National Flying Week event, Klinger has created an unforgettable image of four anachronistic orange men in identical ruffled collars, their heads, and noses, pointing straight up to the sky, watching the (unseen) activity over head. One of several variations used in different years, always advertising a flying exhibition. Klinger 74, Rademacher p. 106 (var), Kunst Kommerce Visionen 253.
GREAT GRAPHIC DESIGN UP FOR AUCTION AT SWANN GALLERIES***
LADISLAV SUTNAR (1897-1976) VYSTAVA MODERNIHO OBCHODU / [MODERN COMMERCE EXHIBITION]. 1929. 18×24 inches, 45 3/4×61 cm. Melantrich, Prague. Condition A-: minor repaired tears and creases in margins; minor restoration in image. Matted. Ladislav Sutnar was both a professor and practitioner of design. In addition to teaching at Prague’s State School of Graphic Art, he was also a pioneer in the fields of informational graphics and corporate identity and was the official designer of the Czechoslovak Government’s exhibitions in foreign countries (winning several awards for his work in this field). His ground-breaking Functionalist work was largely a fusion of Bauhaus ideas and typography, Constructivism, and his own work with photomontage and design. In the mid 1920s he is believed to be the first Czech designer to have incorporated photomontage into poster design (Sutnar p. 305) and by the 1930s, photomontages figured prominently in many of his book jacket designs and were a hallmark of his work. This poster promotes one of three trade fairs occurring in Brno, Czechoslovakia’s second largest city, in the late summer of 1929 (the other two, a Brewery & Malting exhibition and an exhibition on Modern Women are mentioned at the bottom of the poster), The image boasts three of the city’s newest and finest functionalist architecture projects: the Avon Hotel (seen at left), the Commercial and Industrial Palace and the Commercial Tradesmen’s Pavilion. Universally considered to be one of Sutnar’s finest designs, this poster “poetically cumulates current communication symbols [into] something of a Functionalist version of the ‘pictorial poem’ . . . [it reflected] the approaches of Cubist and Constructivist pictorial collages” (Sutnar, p. 305). Writing in 1961 in Visual Design In Action, Sutnar stated: “In our ‘visual civilization,’ words are superseded by images, drawings, graphs and other visual symbols which convey the message faster, more reliably and more convincingly than verbal descriptions.” This is the Czech version. Rare. We have found no other copy at auction in over 20 years. Sutnar 546, Avant Garde p. 142, Weill 460, Czech Functionalism 271, Czech Avant Garde p. 61, Modernism 129, Trade Fair 61, Berman / Juan March p. 142, Clash of Ideologies p. 82, Witkovsky pl. 44. Art Institute of Chicago 2009.297.
Ludwig Hohlwein, Zeiss / Feldstecher, 1912. Estimate $6,000 to $9,000.
Vic, Shell Oil & Petrol / For Quick – Starting, 1930. Estimate $1,500 to $2,000.
Massino Vignelli, Knoll Au Louvre, four-part poster, 1972. Estimate $2,500 to $3,500.Another long-standing design relationship was between Knoll and Massimo Vignelli. Massimo and his wife Lella formed their own design firm, Vignelli Associates, in the 1970s, with such notable clients such as Bloomingdales, IBM, American Airlines, and Knoll. Their designs for Knoll included many projects based on a simple grid concept—from stationery to brochures, to posters. Vignelli Associates even designed the posters and exhibition space for a Knoll retrospective in France. The posters, shown here, were printed in four parts, and in at least two sizes.
Paul Rand, Ford / Signs That Say Safe Driving, circa 1966. Estimate $700 to $1,000.It is impossible to explore the history of corporate branding without thinking of Paul Rand. A modern master of design, Rand is responsible for the visual identities and logos for companies such as ABC, American Express, UPS, and perhaps most famously, IBM. He designed IBM’s logo in 1956, then consulted for the company for over 30 years. His famous Rebus poster was devised in 1981, and has since become one of the most famous and recognizable corporate identity statements of the twentieth century. One of his lesser known posters, but for an equally identifiable company, is that of Ford, shown above.Related Reading:
Edmond Maurus, Chrysler, circa 1930s. Sold May 2019 for $13,750.While very little is known of Edmond Maurus, his graphic legacy is defined by a stylized Art Deco sensibility. This is one of his most dynamic images, a masterwork of perspective and suggestion. It is a fascinating concept to only show the grill of the car and leave the rest to the imagination of the viewer. What is seen is the verdant country route the automobile has taken, and what is implied is the speed of the vehicle via the streaks in the road and the thinly visible dust cloud extending back down the road.
At Auction May 19: Javier Gómez Acebo & Máximo Viejo Santamarta, San Sebastian / XI Circuito Automovilista, 1935. Estimate $10,000 to $15,000.
WEEKENED PHOTO DRAPER HALL – NURSES RESIDENCE AT NORTH END OF THE ISLAND
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
SWANNA AUCTION GALLERIES
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
GIVE MOM A 14″ TRAM PILLOW! SOFT AND COMFY WAY TO ENJOY OUR ISLAND TRAM LIMITED QUANTITIES AVAILABLE AT RIHS VISITOR CENTER KIOSK $48-
GREAT GIFT FOR DAD, NEXT MONTH FOR FATHER’S DAY!
FROM THE ARCHIVES
WEEKEND, MAY 13-14, 2023
ISSUE 989
SECOND STREET,
A GEM OF A BLOCK
WITH GREAT CHARM
JUDITH BERDY
For the last few days, I have been working at East Houston Street training election workers. On my lunch hour I have had time to check out the neighborhood. The Bowery is a conglomeration of a few restaurant supply stores, down and out folk, seniors and hipsters. There is a Whole Foods in the building we are working in, where my morning iced coffee is a mere $5.44!!!
Yesterday I wandered two blocks and discovered Second Street. This tree lined street has restored brownstones, charming shops, a cook book shop record (33 rpm) store along with a wonderful community garden.
IL BUCO VITA at 4 East Second Street specializes in Italian glassware, porcelain and giftware. Image a wonderful Tuscan lunch as you wander thru this small shop.
There are three John Derian shops adjoining each other. Each one is loaded with all kinds of decorative merchandise from a plate at $14- to an automated French Squirrel for $1500-.
One shop has much housewares including bed and table linens.
After BRIDGERTON you may need to purchase an ancestor
Trinkets from long ago safaris to countries beyond.
Midblock is Albert’s Garden, tucked in between buildings. A wonderful oasis.
What a wonderful spot.
The bird mural at Albert’s gate is by Belgian street artist, ROA, who is recognized for his use of wildlife imagery that is usually inspired by the local environment. To read all about the garden go to: https://albertsgarden.org
Still looking for the 1967 Harry Belafonte recording of “Matilda, try this shop.
The shop was closed but I can imagine looking for more recipes.
SUPERINTENDENT’S COTTAGE, METROPOLITAN HOSPITAL IMAGE IS PICTURED IN EDWAR HOPPER’S “BLACKWELL’S ISLAND”
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.
GIVE MOM A 14″ TRAM PILLOW! SOFT AND COMFY WAY TO ENJOY OUR ISLAND TRAM LIMITED QUANTITIES AVAILABLE AT RIHS VISITOR CENTER KIOSK $48-
GREAT GIFT FOR DAD, NEXT MONTH FOR FATHER’S DAY!
FROM THE ARCHIVES
FRIDAY, MAY 12, 2023
ISSUE 988
TOP 10 SECRETS
OF
BELLEVUE HOSPITAL
PART 2
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
BELLEVUE IS THE MAIN PUBLIC HOSPITAL OF NYC HEALTH+HOSPITALS. THIS ALONG WITH ALL THE 11 PUBLIC HOSPITALS TREAT ALL THE NEED CARE WITHOUT REGARD FOR INSURANCE, ORIGINS, AND STATUS.
Bellevue Hospital in Kips Bay, officially NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, is one of the largest hospitals in the United States. The hospital has achieved many breakthroughs throughout its history, from being one of the first to employ ambulance services to having the earliest maternity ward. Bellevue Hospital has contributed massively to the development of modern medicine but also has a dark history. At one point, the name “Bellevue” was often used to refer to psychiatric hospitals in the 1800s. The hospital made important developments in treating epidemics, from yellow fever to AIDS, and saved the lives of people from all walks of life, from the general public to presidents and celebrities. Here, we take a look back at the hospital’s long history and pull out the top 10 secrets of Bellevue Hospital!
6. A German spy feigned paralysis at the hospital for two years
Perhaps one of the hospital’s strangest encounters with a patient was with Fritz Joubert Duquesne. He was a German and South African Boer soldier and journalist, though he was perhaps best known for being a spy. Duquesne would frequently lie about his identity, reinventing his past and asserting he was related to royalty to get into (and out of) high-stakes situations. He gathered human intelligence for the Boers during the Second Boer War and led spy rings in Great Britain, Latin America, and the United States. He was captured by multiple governments. In 1917, federal agents in New York charged him with insurance fraud for insurance claims, after which the agents discovered evidence that he was involved with multiple ship bombings.
Knowing he would potentially be extradited to the U.K. on murder charges, Duquesne pretended to be paralyzed and was subsequently sent to Bellevue Hospital’s prison ward. Until May 1919, Duquesne faked paralysis in his right leg, carrying a cane to play the part. Just days before his extradition, Duquesne disguised himself as a woman, cut the bars of his cell, and climbed over the ward’s walls to escape. He successfully fled to Mexico and then Europe, and it wasn’t until 1926 that he was documented again, this time under yet another identity.
7. The hospital played a major role in combating the AIDS Crisis
Bellevue Hospital was one of the key players in the fight against the AIDS Crisis in the 1980s. In 1981, Bellevue reported one of the first three cases of HIV/AIDS, which at the time was an unexplained immunodeficiency. Over the next few years, the hospital worked to identify the disease and pioneer treatments. In 1985, Bellevue opened the country’s first hospital-based HIV nutrition program. That year, Coler Memorial Hospital led the country in allocating long-term care beds to people with AIDS, while Jacobi opened Kroc Day Care Center for Children with HIV.
The following year, HHC hospitals including Bellevue opened clinics for AZT, the first antiretroviral drug. By 1990, throughout HHC’s 11 hospitals, 1,100 new AIDS patients were admitted daily. In 1997, after years of treating HIV/AIDS patients, Bellevue participated in an NIH clinical trial examining the use of antiretroviral drugs in children and infants with HIV. The hospital further participated in trials for Nevirapine, given to HIV-positive pregnant women, and for combination drug therapies. Bellevue played a key role in developing HAART, or the “Triple Drug Cocktail,” to treat the disease.
8. Mark David Chapman, Norman Mailer, Grover Cleveland, and James Garfield were treated at Bellevue
Bellevue Hospital has treated thousands upon thousands of New Yorkers, from celebrities to those who could barely afford treatment. Among these have been some famous and unfortunate cases involving major historical figures. One of the most famous literary references to Bellevue was in Allen Ginsberg‘s poem “Howl,” inspired by his time at the hospital. One of the most notable patients was Mark David Chapman, who received treatment after murdering John Lennon. Chapman had medical appointments at Bellevue in between his stays on Rikers Island. Another violent patient was Norman Mailer, the American novelist behind The Naked and the Dead who was treated at Bellevue after stabbing his wife. Mailer was convicted of assault for nearly fatally stabbing Adele Morales with a penknife, for which he received three years probation.
On the flip side, however, the hospital treated James Garfield after he was hit by two bullets in 1881. Garfield was shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station by Charles Guiteau, who erroneously believed he should have been rewarded with a consulship for helping Garfield win the election. Bellevue’s Frank Hamilton and his team came down to Washington to treat Garfield’s wounds, though he would die two months later from infection. Garfield was not the only president Bellevue treated; Grover Cleveland came to Bellevue after discovering a cancerous mass in his mouth amid the Panic of 1893. To avoid suspicion, Cleveland was treated on a yacht in the East River by numerous Bellevue medical faculty, which was ultimately successful after nearly two hours.
9. Bellevue treated New York’s first Ebola patient
Bellevue made national headlines in 2014 when it treated the city’s first Ebola patient, which put the city on edge for a few months. The hospital treated Craig Spencer, who treated Ebola patients in Guinea through Doctors Without Borders and contracted the virus himself before heading back to the U.S. He was placed into isolation at Bellevue as investigators tried to piece together everyone he had contact with in the days prior; he had taken the A and L trains the day before, as well as took a taxi. The virus could not be spread until symptoms began to show, though, and it couldn’t be spread through the air, though the bowling alley he had frequented the night prior remained shut for a day.
In 2019, the hospital conducted an emergency exercise to transport a simulated Ebola patient from Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Jersey to Bellevue’s Regional Ebola and Other Special Pathogen Treatment Center. The experiment was performed in the wake of an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, resulting in 1,100 cases and 700 deaths. The experiment, whose results could be shared with African nations, tested the feasibility of safe patient transport, including the use of biocontainment devices and personal protective equipment, as well as appropriate decontamination procedures.
10. The hospital houses its own sculpture garden which was vandalized in 2014
Amid the sound of ambulances is a surprisingly peaceful sculpture garden near the water called the Bellevue Sobriety Garden. The quarter-acre park between First Avenue and the FDR Drive includes sculptures, mosaics, plants, and other artistic features. The Sobriety Garden, as its name suggests, was begun by Bellevue psychiatrist Dr. Annatina Miescher in 1989 who got recovering addicts from its Chemical Recovery Program to help tend the plants. The park was almost destroyed in 2006 after proposals were put forward for additional parking, though patients and staff objected.
The fairly secret garden includes all sorts of sculptures of human figures and animals, though in 2014, dozens of animal sculptures were vandalized. According to a 2014 New York Times article, “The faces of rams were cracked and crumbling. The neck and beak of a bird sculpture were broken and hanging to the side.” The cement, sand, and chicken wire sculptures, many of which were created by patients, were left scattered across the garden. Since then, Miescher and other staff and patients have worked to restore the garden, which is now in full bloom.
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
CITY HALL WITH WORLD BUILDING DOME HARA REISER AND ANDY SPARBERG 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
NEW YORK CITY MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
BELLEVUE IS THE MAIN PUBLIC HOSPITAL OF NYC HEALTH+HOSPITALS. THIS ALONG WITH ALL THE 11 PUBLIC HOSPITALS TREAT ALL THE NEED CARE WITHOUT REGARD FOR INSURANCE, ORIGINS, AND STATUS.
Bellevue Hospital in Kips Bay, officially NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, is one of the largest hospitals in the United States. The hospital has achieved many breakthroughs throughout its history, from being one of the first to employ ambulance services to having the earliest maternity ward. Bellevue Hospital has contributed massively to the development of modern medicine but also has a dark history. At one point, the name “Bellevue” was often used to refer to psychiatric hospitals in the 1800s. The hospital made important developments in treating epidemics, from yellow fever to AIDS, and saved the lives of people from all walks of life, from the general public to presidents and celebrities. Here, we take a look back at the hospital’s long history and pull out the top 10 secrets of Bellevue Hospital!
1. Bellevue Hospital used to operate floating quarantine boats
Looking SW from East River at houseboat used by Bellevue as Tuberculosis care boats
During the tuberculosis crisis of the 19th century, Bellevue Hospital transformed ferry barges into floating wards. The floating “hospitals” were reserved for those in the early stages of tuberculosis, prioritizing indoor spaces for the many patients suffering from more severe symptoms. Poorer patients who were turned away from the barges would change their names and appearance to try for help at other facilities. It was believed that fresh air could help cure patients of tuberculosis, a disease that many believed at the time was genetic.
2. Bellevue, the nation’s first public hospital, traces its origins to NYC’s first almshouse
Image from the New York Public LibraryBellevue Hospital traces its origins to a two-story brick building that stood in what is now City Hall Park. The building housed the city’s first permanent almshouse, which provided charitable housing to poorer residents. The ailing poor would move to almshouses once it became clear they would wither away from their disease; wealthier New Yorkers could more easily get doctors to come directly to their homes. With the development of more sanitary and advanced medical practices, hospitals, where all patients could go and get treatment, became all the more common. Ultimately, Bellevue became the first public hospital in the nation.Bellevue began to employ faculty and medical students from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons around 1787. Columbia maintained its presence at the hospital until it was restructured in 1968. The present-day Bellevue Hospital was built on the previous Belle Vue Farm along the East River, which had been used to quarantine yellow fever patients as it was a few miles north of most homes. The hospital got its current name in 1824, around the time when it became better known on a national scale.
3. Bellevue Hospital operated the country’s second hospital-based ambulance service
Bellevue Hospital played a significant role in the history of the emergency ambulance, as it operated the nation’s second hospital-based ambulance service. Prior to the system’s creation, those suffering from all sorts of medical emergencies had to get to hospitals however they could manage. Because getting to the hospital was a top priority, there was little emphasis placed on trying to temporarily mitigate symptoms like bleeding. A U.S. Army surgeon named Edward Dalton proposed to the New York Hospital Board that the city should adopt some form of ambulance system similar to military ambulances.The board adopted five horse-drawn ambulances in June 1869, and according to the commissioner’s report, “Each ambulance shall have a box beneath the driver’s seat, containing a quart flask of brandy, two tourniquets, a half-dozen bandages, a half-dozen small sponges, some splint material, pieces of old blankets for padding, strips of various lengths with buckles, and a two-ounce vial of persulphate of iron.” This paved the way for emergency ambulance services at Long Island College Hospital and Eastern District Hospital in 1873.By 1891, the Bellevue Hospital received 4,392 ambulance calls per year. The sheer quantity of calls led the hospital to have “the record for the largest number of telephone calls to any public institution in the country.” Though, the hospital needed a more efficient system that would ensure faster arrival times and less confusion. Calls would first go to Madison Square Central Office, which would then be dispatched to the local police headquarters, which then would have to contact the particular hospital. Nothing changed until 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson recommended that a single number be created for emergencies, thus sparking the birth of 9-1-1.
4. Bellevue Hospital opened NYC’s first morgue, among many other firsts
In addition to being the first public hospital in the U.S., Bellevue Hospital achieved a significant number of medical firsts that have paved the way for major developments in medicine and other treatments.Bellevue opened the nation’s first maternity ward in 1799.In 1808, the hospital conducted the world’s first ligation of the femoral artery, located in the thigh, for an aneurysm. Ten years later, the hospital also performed the world’s first ligation of the brachiocephalic artery supplying blood to the right arm, neck, and head.New York’s first medical college with connections to a hospital was Bellevue Hospital Medical College, which opened in 1861.In 1862, Bellevue cardiologist Austin Flint gave his name to a low-pitched heart murmur he identified, which is associated with a condition called aortic regurgitation.The hospital played a major role in helping draft what is likely the nation’s first sanitary code for New York City in 1867. Later that year, the hospital established one of the country’s first outpatient departments.In 1873, Bellevue opened the country’s first nursing school using Florence Nightingale’s teachings. The nation’s first men’s nursing school opened 15 years later at Bellevue.The hospital opened the nation’s first children’s clinic in 1874.The nation’s first emergency pavilion was opened at Bellevue in 1876.The hospital’s Carnegie Laboratory, which opened in 1884, was the country’s first pathology and bacteriology laboratory.Physicians at Bellevue were the first to identify tuberculosis as a preventable disease in 1889.The nation’s first ambulatory cardiac clinic opened in 1911 at Bellevue, which paved the way for the world’s first cardiopulmonary laboratory that opened in 1942 and the nation’s first heart failure clinic.Physician William Tillett discovered streptokinase at Bellevue in 1933, which was used to treat heart attacks.The nation’s first mitral valve replacement took place at Bellevue in 1960.In 1962, the hospital established the first intensive care unit at a municipal hospital.In 1971, Bellevue physicians developed the first active immunization for hepatitis B.
5. Barnum and Bailey’s Circus would pay annual visits to patients
In 2013, Barnum and Bailey’s Circus revived a decades-old tradition at Brooklyn Hospital Center: performing for patients and staff. The tradition was started at Bellevue Hospital, and some performances would feature everything from acrobatic stunts to elephants. These performances would often attract thousands of people, many of whom were children and members of the community. The tradition began in 1901 and would continue each year for decades, with patients often watching from the hospital’s iron balconies.“Dr. Ringling’s medicine is of the finest quality, easy to take, good for almost any ailment; children love it and adults enjoy it,” Dr. William F. Jacobs, Bellevue’s medical superintendent, told The New York Times in 1946. “I’ll prescribe it any time in same dosage for young and old alike.” More than 4,000 patients at Bellevue, some on stretchers and in wheelchairs, applauded clowns, six adult elephants, a baby elephant, a zebra, and a llama, according to a 1964 Times article. The tradition ended in the 1960s when the iron balconies were removed.
WEDNESDAY PHOTO CHANNEL GARDENS ROCKEFELLER CENTER
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
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
GIANT TIMBER BRIDGE OF THE MOYNIHAN CONNECTOR IS INSTALLED AT THE HIGH LINE
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
NICOLE SARANIERO A massive timber bridge measuring nearly 300 feet long, the length of a city block, was installed at the High Lineover the weekend. Called the Moynihan Connector, this new connection to the elevated park will link the High Line’s current terminus at West 30th Street and 10th Avenue to a public plaza within the Manhattan West development, creating a seamless pedestrian path from the transit hubs of Penn Station and Moynihan Train Hall in Midtown to the West Village.
Andrew Frasz, courtesy of the High LineAfter the bridge was assembled on the ground, construction crews used two cranes to lift it into place 25 feet above Dyer Avenue. The wooden truss bridge, which weighs 128 tons, is made up of 163 Alaskan Yellow Cedar beams. After the sections of the bridge were hoisted into the air, they were lowered down onto steel columns.The Moynihan Connector runs along West 30th toward West 31st Street, and takes a 90-degree turn at Dyer Avenue, at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. This is where the bridge can be found, running north into the public plaza at Manhattan West.
Andrew Frasz, courtesy of the High LineRunning along 30th Street is the Woodland Bridge, another part of the Moynihan Connector. This bridge will contain 5-foot deep soil containers for lush plantings to grow from along the path. The two bridges will be visually connected by Corten steel decking and bronze handrails. The connector design is a collaboration between James Corner Field Operations, who was a part of the High Line’s original design team, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
TUESDAY PHOTO RIHS OFFICE ON THE 4TH FLOOR OF THE OCTAGON JANET SPENCER KING GOT IT RIGHT PARDON OUR TYPO… WE HAVE CORRECTED IT.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
WEEKEND PHOTO SOHMER PIANO FACTORY ON VERNON BLVD. ED LITCHER GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
JUDITH BERDY
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The 1920s was a decade of change and upheaval. While Europe was recovering from the First World War, the United States saw a period of economic growth and prosperity in which the country’s focus shifted from rural areas to the cities. It was also a time of great creativity in art and entertainment. New York City set the pace.
The focus of excitement was the theater with an unprecedented public demand for plays and performances. The era saw a burst of theatrical construction with more than thirty new venues appearing in the city. These were Broadway’s prime years. During the 1927/8 season, over 260 productions debuted there.
Times Square’s accessibility began to flourish during the 1920s when all forms of public transportation stopped at 42nd Street. Compared to other major crosstown thoroughfares, the street was developed relatively late. The first theater opened its doors in 1899 and was followed by a range of other entertainment venues alongside the development of top-end office space around Grand Central Terminal.
With the building boom taking place, the call for advertising space around Times Square increased sharply. During the night the district became covered in a sea of light, producing a huge splash of color. The dazzling illuminations were a public attraction in their own right. Leisure became a booming business. Broadway offered its audiences a rich choice of plays, musical comedies, revues, operettas and other forms of fun and entertainment. A key player in these developments was a Jewish immigrant from Hungary.
The Woods Factor
Albert Herman Woods was born Aladore Herman in January 1870 in Budapest, but his family moved to the city of New York when he was a child. Growing up in the immigrant district of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, he would roam the streets and skip school. Away from the gloomy tenements of his youth, he was lured by the gleaming lights of the theater.
Woods would become one of New York’s most prolific theatrical producers, staging over 140 plays on Broadway including a number of blockbusters. Having been involved in managing tour companies of popular melodrama at the start of his career, he soon turned his attention to Time Square.
In August 1903 he opened his first show with Theodore Kremer’s melodrama The Evil Men Do at the American Theatre in West 42nd Street (built in 1893; closed in 1930 and demolished two years later). Sensing that melodrama was losing its appeal, Woods was attracted towards an alternative genre that had previously taken Paris by storm.
Georges Feydeau was a wildly popular French playwright of the so-called “Belle Époque.” He is remembered for plays that delighted audiences from the 1890s to the pre-World War I era. His farces were marked by closely observed characters with whom his (urban) audiences could identify.
The dramatist created a new type of comedy consisting of slamming doors, mistaken identity, hidden onlookers, ridiculous dialogue, sexual innuendo, adultery and improbable plots that, once it had reached London and New York City, became known as the “bedroom farce.” Woods introduced the genre to Broadway.
Loved by the public at large, the emerging American passion for farce was closely scrutinized by anxious local authorities and angry morality crusaders. One of the attractions of the plays produced by Woods and his collaborators was pushing the boundaries of propriety and correctness beyond accepted norms. He encountered and almost encouraged legal intervention – it all added to publicity and promoted a scramble for tickets.
Let the Good Times Roll
Paul Meredith Potter, a playwright and journalist for the New York Herald, established a reputation for having turned George du Maurier’s best-selling novel Trilby – set in bohemian Paris – into a stage play in 1895. Woods took note of his success.
Having read the original version of the play Loute (1902) by the prolific Parisian farceur Pierre Vebler, he was quick to purchase its production rights. Woods commissioned Potter to adapt the play, the plot of which portrays several couples in a tangle of adulterous affairs.
Prior to opening at Weber’s Theatre on Broadway in February 1909, preview performances of The Girl from Rector’s were scheduled in Trenton, New Jersey. The opening matinee left some of the audience in shock. A group of local clergymen issued an official complaint about the play’s immoral contents upon which the police banned any further staging. The fall-out over the farce almost guaranteed its success. Once at Broadway, the show ran for 184 performances until July 1909.
Encouraged by public interest in the genre, Woods started preparation for the next salacious bedroom farce. In April 1910, he produced The Girl with the Whooping Cough, an adaptation by Stanislaus Stange of a French play. The story follows the misbehaviors of Regina as she passes whooping cough to numerous lovers. The leading role was played by Valeska Suratt, a young vaudeville actress who was billed as “The Biggest Drawing Card in New York.”
The City’s 94th Mayor William Jay Gaynor was not amused. He attacked the play as obscene and demanded its immediate closure because of sexually suggestive themes. The Police Commissioner threatened the management of the house that if the play was not taken off the repertoire, he would refuse to renew the theater’s operating license.
Woods got an injunction from the New York Supreme Court that prevented the authorities from interfering with the show, but it did not compel them to renew his license. Left without a home for his show, Woods admitted defeat and was forced to shut it down. In response he built his own venue on 42nd Street. The Eltinge Theatre was named after one of his star performers.
Julian Eltinge (real name: William Julian Dalton) had started his acting career at a young age in Boston. Vaudeville authors at the time introduced cross dressing in their acts to create exaggerated sexual stereotypes. In doing so, they broke the (theatrical) norms of the time.
Julian would become the most celebrated of female impersonators. Simply known as “Eltinge,” his skillful performances turned him into a star. In 1906 he made his London debut at the Palace Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue to such acclaim that he was invited to give a performance at Windsor Castle in front of King Edward VII (who presented the actor with a white bulldog).
In 1911 Eltinge featured in The Fascinating Widow at the Liberty Theatre, West 42nd Street. A year to the day that the play was first staged, Woods opened his Eltinge Theatre. At the time of the occasion, Julian was America’s highest paid actor and he went on to appear in a string of musical comedies on Broadway (including The Crinoline Girl and Cousin Lucy) written to showcase his skills, although he never performed in the playhouse that carried his name.
The Demi-Virgin
The theatrical empire Woods built was at its peak in the 1920s, producing a series of hit plays that drew large audiences to Time Square.
Dramatist Avery Hopwood made his debut in 1906 when his play Clothes (1906) was produced on Broadway. Specializing in risqué comedies, he became known as “The Playboy Playwright.” His 1921 three-act bedroom farce The Demi-Virgin was inspired by an earlier and popular theatrical adaptation of Marcel Prévost’s 1894 novel Les Demi-Vierges. Woods brought Hopwood’s play to Broadway.
Prior to its debut, several preview performances were staged outside New York City, beginning a one-week run in Pittsburgh in September 1921. The play was closed by the city’s Director of Public Safety who objected to its “vulgar” dialogue. Woods gained valuable free publicity from coverage of the closure. The play eventually opened at Time Square Theatre on October 18, 1921, before being transferred to the Eltinge Theatre three weeks later.
Contemporary reviews were negative. Critics condemned the play as immoral due to its sexual situations, revealing clothes and suggestive dialogue. The farce featured a strip poker scene (a game of cards called “Stripping Cupid”). The script also alluded to a sensational rape and murder case that was unraveling in court at the time and involved the silent movie star Roscoe Conkling “Fatty” Arbuckle.
On November 3, 1921, Woods and Hopwood were summoned to the chambers of William McAdoo, New York City’s Chief Magistrate, who had received a number of complaints about the play. The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and the Committee of Fourteen (fighting prostitution in the city) were prominent voices amongst those who opposed the show.
As Woods flatly refused to address any of the objections, McAdoo ruled that the play was obscene, describing it as “coarsely indecent, flagrantly and suggestively immoral.” The producer was accused of violating section 1140a of the New York State Penal Law which prohibited involvement in “any obscene, indecent, immoral or impure drama, play, exhibition, show or entertainment.” Having gathered on December 23, 1921, the Grand Jury dismissed the case that same day. An attempt to revoke the theater’s license also failed.
News coverage of legal actions provided ample publicity. It was reported that lengthy queues for tickets stretched outside the Eltinge Theatre after the case had opened in the magistrates’ court. Once triumphant, the production team milked the controversy to boost ticket sales (so much so, that irritated editors of TheNew York Times barred Woods name from any notices placed in its pages).
After the Broadway production ended on June 3, 1922, it had been one of the most successful plays of the season, having sold over 200,000 tickets across 268 performances. Woods then launched four road companies to present the play in other cities. The tour continued through 1923 with productions in cities such as Albany, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington.
Bust
Woods lost most of his fortune in the early 1930s and never recovered from the blow. Julian Eltinge’s career came to an end as a crackdown on homosexuality and cross-dressing prevented him from performing in costume.
The legal battle over The Demi-Virgin had reopened the discussion about strengthening the role of the censor. The call for new anti-obscenity legislation could be heard loud and clear. The economic slump of the 1930s encouraged those who were concerned about loose or lost moral values to tighten their grip and preach (and enforce) a return to more rigid standards.
Broadway’s building boom that took place in the 1920s was reversed during the Great Depression. Restaurants and theaters in Time Square were replaced by cheap eats and coarse entertainment venues. The turn-down was epitomized by the tumbling reputation of the Eltinge Theatre. It was degraded to an infamous burlesque house that, in the end, was shut down during a “public morality” campaign in 1943.
During the dark days of depression, the lights dimmed and the music died in the entertainment district. Theaters closed in rapid succession, some were demolished and others converted to cinemas. Residents who were accustomed to the “good times” of the 1920s were forced to move from the area and find more affordable properties. It would take some seven decades for Times Square to restore its reputation.
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 ALMANACK
Illustrations, from above: The Girl with the Whooping Cough; colored postcard of Julian Eltinge, ca. 1907 (Wellcome Collection); sheet music cover for a song from The Fascinating Widow, 1911 (Public domain); and inside page from the December 12, 1921, program for The Demi-Virgin.
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Auxiliary cruiser USS Prairie at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, in 1898 (NH 44056).jpgThe U.S. Navy auxiliary cruiser USS Prairie at the New York Naval Shipyard (USA) soon after commissioning in April 1898. Several of her 6-inch guns are visible. Note also the excellent view of the large Navy Yard crane. From 1917-1922, Prairie served as destroyer tender “AD-7”.
USS New York (BB-34) launching on October 30, 1912, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard (25586501151).jpgLot 3000-S-10: USS New York (BB 34) going down the ways on October 30, 1912, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York City, New York. The ship’s sponsor was Elsie Calder, the daughter of New York politician William M. Calder. Detroit Photographic Company. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. (2016/03/10).
USS Essex (CVS-9) in drydock at Brooklyn Navy Yard 1960.jpgThe U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Essex (CVS-9) in dry dock at the New York Naval Shipyard, in 1960. Essex had returned from her last deployment as an attack carrier (CVA) to Mayport, Florida (USA), on 26 February 1960 and was redesignated as an anti-submarine carrier on 3 March.
New York Naval Shipyard aerial photo 01 in December 1944.jpg The U.S. Navy New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, New York (USA), photographed on 2 December 1944. The aircraft carriers under construction in dry docks (right center) are USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB-42) and probably USS Reprisal (CV-35). USS Bon Homme Richard (CV-31) is fitting out (üpper right).
USS Fechteler (DE-157) with sister ships at the New York Naval Shipyard (USA), on 31 March 1944 (BS 65722).jpgThe U.S. Navy destroyer escort USS Fechteler (DE-157), center, lies nested with two sister ships, New York Naval Shipyard (USA), on 31 March 1944. Looking aft from the foc’sle one sees the forward 3-inch/50 caliber dual-purpose guns (Mt. 31 and Mt. 32), with the Mk. 10 depth projector sited out of sight on the main deck aft of Mt. 31. Note the guard rails to prevent gunners from firing into the ship forward of both main battery mounts, and the floater net baskets. Twenty-millimeter Oerlikon machine guns are visible on the same level as Mt. 32 and the next deck above. Fechteler had just completed a convoy escort deployment from Londonberry, North Ireland. After initially arriving in Londonberry on 6 March 1944, she joined the escort of a New York-bound convoy, reaching the United States 22 March 1944.
New York Naval Shipyard aerial photo 01 in April 1945.jpg The U.S. Navy New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, New York (USA), photographed from 300 m altitude, looking west, 15 April 1945. The ships in the large dry docks in center are (left to right): USS Houston (CL-81) and the aircraft carriers USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB-42) and USS Reprisal (CV-35).
View of crane at Brooklyn Navy Yard in May 1952.jpg The bow of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-12) ist transprted from the New York Naval Shipyard to be fitted to USS Wasp (CV-18) in drydock at Bayonne, New Jersey (USA), in May 1952. Wasp collided with USS Hobson (DMS-26) on 26 April 1952 while conducting night flying operations in the Atlantic, en route to Gibraltar. Hobson was cut in two and sank, 61 men of her crew could be rescued, but 176 were lost. Wasp sustained no personnel casualties but her bow was severely damaged. As the carrier was urgently needed for duty in the Mediterranean, Wasp entered drydock at Bayonne, New Jersey (USA), on 8 May. Her damaged bow was immediately cleared out with blow torches and the following day she received the bow of USS Hornet (CV-12) which was undergoing conversion at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York. Her repair was completed in only 10 days, enabling the carrier to get underway on 21 May and resume her deployment just three days later.Note the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) in the right background which began her SCB-27C modernization at the New York Navy Yard on 1 April 1952.
USS Fiske (DD-842) at the New York Naval Shipyard c1965.jpgThe U.S. Navy destroyer USS Fiske (DD-842) at the New York Naval Shipyard (USA), following her FRAM I modernization, in late 1964 or early 1965. Thje destroyer escort USS Albert T. Harris (DE-447) is visble in the background.
FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY COMMEMORATIVE PLAQUE IN RIHS KIOSK PLACED BY SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS
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
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Posted Wed, May 3, 2023 at 2:41 pm ET|Updated Wed, May 3, 2023 at 3:52 pm ET Replies (3)
The East Midtown Greenway, as viewed from Andrew Haswell Green Park in February, 2023. (Peter Senzamici/Patch)
UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — To the untrained eye, the new East Midtown Greenway, an expansion of the East River Esplanade alongside the Upper East Side and Sutton Place, seems like it could be ready for summer fun.
But all that seems is not so.
Despite the extensive landscaping and near completion of a totally new pedestrian footbridge in Sutton Place near Clara Coffey Park at East 54th Street, the project won’t be ready for bikes, strolls and sitting until the best time of year for waterfront fun: December 2023.
The same view as above, from April. (Peter Senzamici/Patch)
As recently as a year ago, the New York City Economic Development Corporation claimed a Fall 2023 completion date.
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The work around Andrew Haswell Green Park and the Alice Aycock Pavilion. (Peter Senzamici/Patch)
But according to the two most recent EDC presentations to Community Boards 6 and 8, this past October and Febuary, that while the rest of the greenway esplanade might be completed, continued work at Andrew Haswell Green Park and the Alice Aycock Pavilion will prevent them from opening the much anticipated — and needed — green space.
A worker washes down the greenway, as viewed from Sutton Place Park. (Peter Senzamici/Patch)
“We won’t be able to open just this part of the part because then it will create dead end public space, which could cause safety concerns,” said NYC EDC project director Ankita Nalavade at the February Community Board 6 meeting. “This is one of the reason why the completion of the entire project will be extend until December 2023.”
The new footbridge at East 54th Street, viewed from Clara Coffey Park in early April. (Peter Senzamici/Patch)
When asked for any additional details or updates about the construction, NYC EDC only told Patch that the work would be completed by the end of the year.
The southern terminus of the park, viewed from the 51st Street Esplanade section, which will not connect at all to the Greenway for the time being. (Peter Senzamici/Patch)
While neighbors find the new completion date “a little disappointing,” as one CB6 board member put it, residents are still thrilled to have another way to engage with the neighborhood’s waterfront.
Jennifer Ratner, founder of the group Friends of the East River Esplanade, called the project “a great leap forward” when it comes to creating a greenway around Manhattan.
Work as viewed from Andrew Haswell Green Park in mid-April. (Peter Senzamici/Patch)
“We are very excited about the opening of the East Midtown Greenway. We can’t wait to have even more mileage on a contiguous waterfront for runners, walkers, bikers, and people just strolling with kids and their families,” she said.
Looking north from Sutton Place Park in early April. (Peter Senzamici/Patch)
Even when the current construction finishes, more work will be on the way — once the project can find about $38 million.
That’s how much it’s gonna cost to enact any of the ideas Community Board 8 had for the space under Andrew Haswell Green Park, a former heliport and Sanitation waste transfer station, according to Michael Bradley, a Parks Department project administrator.
The southern terminus of the park, viewed from the 51st Street footbridge, which will not connect at all to the Greenway for the time being. (Peter Senzamici/Patch)
Those ideas pitched in 2018 included a bathroom or a cafe as well as a new ADA compliant ramp.
While the concrete curtain walls are mostly demolished at the structure, until the funds are secured, half of the space will be fenced off and will act as temporary Parks Department maintenance space.
One day the work will end — and then it will start up again. (Peter Senzamici/Patch)
The next stage of the East River Greenway — the United Nations headquarters gap — is currently in the design stage and should be ready for strolls, bikes and sits in about four years, according to NYC EDC.
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY IONIC TOP FROM ORIGINAL OCTAGON COLUMN
JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED THESE PHOTOS
LOUNGE IN NEW YORK TRAINING SCHOOL FOR NURSES NOW THE ABANDONED SMALLPOX HOSPITAL.
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
PATCH UPPER EAST SIDE
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Andrew Frasz, courtesy of the High Line
