What That Quilt Knows About Me explores the deeply personal and emotional power associated with the experience of making and living with quilts. The exhibition’s title conveys the idea that quilts have the capacity for “knowing” or containing information about the human experience. Reflecting on this sentiment, the exhibition presents quilts as collections of intimate stories.
Spanning from the 19th through 21st centuries, the works on view will reveal a range of poignant and sometimes unexpected biographies. From a pair of enslaved sisters in antebellum Kentucky to a convalescent British soldier during the Crimean War, the exhibition explores stories associated with both the makers and recipients of the works. On a quilt top from the 1890s, we find a surface bursting with narratives; in an example by Hystercine Rankin, a grid of small vignettes depicts scenes of family life defined by faith and toil.
The exhibition also explores how artists have continually drawn inspiration from and pushed the boundaries of quilt-making to incorporate surprising materials and ideas, inviting audiences to consider these objects as archives of personal human experiences. Dindga McCannon’s Mary Lou Williams, a quilt-like work, is created with paint, photographs, and fibers, as a tribute to the jazz musician and cultural environment of Harlem. Jessie Dunahoo uses plastic bags and yarn to evoke quilt-like coverings that swath the interior surfaces of his home.
KALEIDOSCOPE XVI MORE IS MORE PAULA NADELSON
UNTITLED FAMILY HISTORY QUILT HYSTERCINE RANKIN
SOLDIERS QUITLT SQUARE WITHIN A SQUARE ARTIST UNIDENTIFIED
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
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In conjunction with the exhibition, listen to recordings from the Museum’s Oral History project featuring:
Dr. Diana Baird N’Diaye, artist and Senior Folklife Curator, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
The exhibition is curated by Emelie Gevalt, Curatorial Chair for Collections and Curator of Folk Art at the American Folk Art Museum (AFAM) and Sadé Ayorinde, Warren Family Assistant Curator.
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Born on April 18, 1889, in Remagen am Rhein into a Catholic family, Karl Nierendorf was educated in Cologne. He worked as a banker before World War I, but his career was disrupted in 1913 by the social upheaval in the Weimar Republic. One of his acquaintances, an art collector, introduced him to the Swiss-born German painter Paul Klee who persuaded him to attempt a career as an art dealer. The two would remain close. When Klee died in June 1940, Nierendorf published Paul Klee Paintings Watercolors 1913 to 1939 (New York: Oxford UP, 1941) as a tribute and an act of friendship.
In 1920 Karl and his younger brother Josef began a career in the art trade and they established a pre-war reputation for championing work of the Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider). The brothers organized modernist exhibitions, lectures, concerts and film screenings.
Described as both a faithful patron of artists and an astute businessman, Karl Nierendorf remained indefatigable in promoting the avant-garde throughout his nearly thirty-year career as a dealer, first in Berlin and later in Manhattan. He played a significant role in the migration of European modern art to New York.
From Cologne to Berlin
Karl and Josef Nierendorf opened their first gallery in Cologne in 1920. The brothers specialized in Expressionist watercolors and drawings. In 1923 they moved their exhibition space briefly to Düsseldorf, before settling in Berlin.
Having taken over J.B. Neumann’s Graphisches Kabinett following the latter’s departure for New York, the brothers renamed the establishment Galerie Neumann-Nierendorf. Located at 32 Lützowstrasse in the vicinity of prominent dealers such as Alfred Flechtheim and Paul Cassirer, their firm presented itself as the main promoter of modernist art.
In 1933 Neumann and Nierendorf dissolved their association and the gallery was renamed Galerie Nierendorf. The onset of the Great Depression combined with the rise of fascism badly affected all those promoting contemporary art in Germany. Nazi hatred of Modernism made it increasingly difficult to organize exhibitions or even display paintings.
The tense atmosphere took its toll on Karl Nierendorf who, in 1934, was struck by a heart attack. In the spring of 1936 he took a long break in the United States, making stops in New York and Los Angeles. His doctors had advised him that the sea voyage might improve his health, but the journey also offered him a chance to explore the American art market. Josef remained in Germany to maintain the operations of the Berlin gallery until it was forced to close in 1939.
Banned Art
Karl sailed from Hamburg to New York on the “Blue Riband” liner SS Europa of the Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL). On board he met Elfriede Fischinger, wife of avant-garde filmmaker and painter Oskar Fischinger who had won fame for creating the extra-terrestrial special effects in Fritz Lang’s Frau im Mond (Woman in the Moon), one of the first science fiction films to hit the screen in 1929.
As the Nazis condemned his work, Oskar had accepted a contract from Paramount Studios and preceded his family to Hollywood. Forty-two paintings by artists deemed “degenerate” by the Nazis also arrived in the United States ahead of Nierendorf, hidden in Fischinger’s household effects that Paramount had shipped from Germany. Modern art was exiled to the United States.
Sensing new opportunities in a politically open environment, Karl did not return to Berlin and decided to settle in Manhattan. In January 1937 he opened the Nierendorf Gallery at 20 West 53rd Street. Later that year, he found new premises amid the bustling gallery scene on East 57th Street. His ambition was to introduce German experimental art to an American audience.
In Manhattan, Nierendorf joined a growing community of émigré artists and art dealers, including J.B. Neumann and Curt Valentin. He was reunited with several artists he had promoted in Germany who had moved to New York following the Nazi attack on modernist artists. Josef Scharl exhibited regularly at his gallery as did Lyonel Feininger, one of the pioneers of Bauhaus.
Nierendorf felt strongly that the migration of artists and dealers from Europe provided a unique opportunity for the re-creation of modernist art under new conditions. We can develop a very special atmosphere here, he suggested in the autumn of 1937 to Katherine Sophie Dreier, co-founder of the Société Anonyme (America’s first “museum of modern art” at 19 East 47th Street), the “future of culture and intellectual development lies in America.”
Group exhibitions like “Unity in Diversity” (November 1942) and “Gestation-Formation” (March 1944), emphasized that Nierendorf was keen to blend works of the European and American avant-garde. He applied artistic standards only. Considerations of nationality, gender or creed never played a part in his promotion of artists. Karl was one of those exiled dealers who put New York at the center of the art world away from Paris and Berlin. Manhattan’s 57th Street replaced Montmartre.
In the autumn of 1945 his gallery launched the landmark exhibition “Forbidden Art in the Third Reich.” It featured the work of artists who had been persecuted in Nazi Germany leading to the closure of avant-garde art galleries in Berlin, Munich and elsewhere. The show created shock and excitement. Many art critics shared the observation that “what Germany has lost, the United States and the world have gained.”
Rebay & Guggenheim
Hilla Rebay (von Ehrenwiesen) was born into a minor aristocratic family in Strasbourg, Alsace, then part of Imperial Germany. In 1908 she began formal art studies in Cologne and a year later enrolled at the Académie Julian in Paris, a private and female friendly school for art students. The institution was also open to foreign (mainly American) students.
In 1910 she traveled to Munich to study at the progressive Debschitz-Schule which maintained links with the city’s emerging modernist movement (Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was a former pupil; Paul Klee had been a member of staff, although briefly).
Back in Cologne in 1912, she visited a traveling exhibition of Futurist artists which made a deep impact. The experience would influence her own creative work and her acquisition policies in a later capacity as a collector and curator. In 1915, with World War I raging, she traveled to Zurich, a hub of cosmopolitan creative activity. Due to Switzerland’s neutrality many artists and intellectuals had sought refuge in the city.
In Zurich she met fellow Alsatian artist Jean (Hans) Arp, the dynamic co-founder of the Dada movement. Arp gave her a copy of Vassily Kandinsky’s Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art), published in 1911. Three decades later, she would translate and publish Kandinsky’s essay on behalf of the Guggenheim Foundation.
Her relationship with Arp ended in the spring of 1917, but not before he had introduced her to Rudolf Bauer, a Prussian-born abstract painter who was deeply involved with Berlin’s avant-garde. Sharing similar ideas about the future direction of art, the two embarked upon a long but difficult relationship and collaboration. In the end his jealousy and misogyny became too much to bear for this talented woman.
In 1927 Hilla moved to New York, settled in an apartment of the Studio Towers atop Carnegie Hall on Seventh Avenue, and began exhibiting her work. She had brought a number of Rudolf Bauer’s paintings with her. When in 1928 she was commissioned to paint a portrait of the businessman and art collector Solomon Guggenheim, the Bauer paintings on her studio wall sparked his interest. This encounter led to a meaningful discussion on contemporary art and initiated a lifelong personal and professional relationship.
Solomon Robert Guggenheim, a mining magnate of Swiss Ashkenazi descent, began amassing a collection of non-objective art. In his obsessional pursuit of paintings, Hilla Rebay became his advisor and driving force. Using her range of contacts in Europe, Guggenheim purchased works by artists such as Marc Chagall, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Guggenheim and Rebay were driven by a single shared ambition: to create a “temple of non-objectivity.”
In 1930, Hilla accompanied Guggenheim and his wife Irene on a visit to Germany. The trio used the opportunity to arrange a meeting with Vassily Kandinsky who, at the time, was teaching at the Dessau Bauhaus. On that occasion Guggenheim purchased “Komposition 8” from him, the first of more than 150 works by the artist that would enter the Guggenheim Museum holdings over the years.
By 1930/1 the entire collection was housed at Solomon’s suite in New York’s Plaza Hotel and open to the public by appointment.
Guggenheim Foundation
Karl Nierendorf’s prominence as an art dealer led to collaboration with a number of museum directors who were eager to add modernist works of art to their collections. It was inevitable that he and Hilla would cross paths in Manhattan. Nierendorf was to become a vital source for Guggenheim’s acquisitions.
The Guggenheim Foundation was created in 1937 for the “promotion and encouragement of art and education in art and the enlightenment of the public.” Its main aim was the establishment of a museum, the nucleus of which would be Guggenheim’s collection of modernist art.
For the next two decades, Hilla zealously promoted non-objective painting, organizing exhibitions, loans and lectures on the subject. The Museum of Non-Objective Painting was opened in 1939 in temporary quarters on East 54th Street with Hilla Rebay as its first director.
In 1943, Hilla began to make plans for a permanent home for the collection and asked Frank Lloyd Wright to design a monument celebrating the spirit of modernist art. Although the site at the corner of 89th Street & Fifth Avenue was chosen as early as 1944, it took another fifteen years before the museum was finally completed.
The end of war allowed for the reopening of foreign art markets. With the freedom to travel again, Nierendorf returned to Europe in the spring of 1946. He visited family and friends and made a courtesy visit to Hilla Rebay’s relatives. He returned to New York in September 1947 in possession of more than one hundred works from the Klee estate and a large purchase from the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner holdings, partly acquired on behalf of the Guggenheim Foundation.
Shortly after his return from Europe, Karl suffered a fatal heart attack. As he had not executed a will and his recent acquisitions for the Foundation had not yet been delivered, it was decided in early 1948 that Guggenheim would purchase his entire estate from the State of New York. At a stroke, the Museum became a prominent center of European Expressionism and Surrealism.
Karl Nierendorf was a pioneering gallerist. He brought to Manhattan an unwavering dedication to modern art and succeeded in building a bridge between European artists and emerging American talent. He enabled the gradual transfer of the avant-garde from Paris and Berlin to Manhattan.
ICE-T AT RIHS KIOSK DURING SHOOT OF LAW AND ORDER SVU, IN 2014
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
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
NEW YORK ALMANACK
Illustrations, from above: SS Europa prior to her maiden voyage in March 1930 (Norddeutscher Lloyd); portrait of Karl Nierendorf, 1923 by Otto Dix (Unknown location; Artists Rights Society, New York); catalogue of Nierendorf’s Forbidden Art exhibition (Guggenheim Archives, New York); Hilla Rebay at work in her studio; Guggenheim’s suite in New York’s Plaza Hotel; and Komposition 8, 1923 by Vassily Kandinsky (Guggenheim Museum, New York).
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Some long-established New York City neighborhoods got their names from nearby natural landmarks; others took the moniker of an early landowner or the landowner’s hometown in England or Holland.
But the story behind the name Astoria, in Queens, is a little more about wheeling and dealing. It focuses on an ambitious 19th century developer who was hoping that New York’s richest man, John Jacob Astor, would invest thousands of dollars to help build the neighborhood if it carried Astor’s name.
First, a brief history of the East River enclave that would become Astoria. Colonized by the Dutch in the early 17th century, the area was occupied by William Hallett’s vast farm. Hallett lent his name to what was then called Hallett’s (also spelled Hallet’s or Halletts) Cove, which is marked on the 1873 map below.
“Over the next 100 years, Hallett and his descendants developed the area into a thriving farming community,” wrote Ilana Teitel in a piece on the website of the Old Astoria Neighborhood Association. “Early settlers transported grains, livestock, timber, and firewood across the river from Hallets Cove to the growing city of New Amsterdam.”
By the early 19th century, the Hallett family sold off much of their farmland. Wealthy Manhattanites replaced the farm fields with summer villas, turning Hallet’s Cove into a placid resort area for boating and breezy river strolls.
The slow pace of the area began to change with the arrival of Stephen Halsey in 1835. A fur trader, Halsey had big plans for Hallett’s Cove. His idea was to develop it into a modern town with houses, businesses, churches, and factories. But he needed money to get things going.
That’s where Astor (above) came in. “Halsey had connections to the biggest fur trader of the time, John Jacob Astor,” explained Teitel. “He proposed that Astor donate $2,000 towards the construction of a new Episcopal female seminary in exchange for naming the village after him.”
An 1896 article in the New York Times recalls a slightly different story, with Halsey proposing to Astor that he contribute $10,000 to $15,000. In return, Hallett’s Cove would bear his name.
What was Astor’s response to this idea, which he may have pondered across the East River in his Manhattan country estate house (appropriately named Hellgate, above) off today’s East 87th Street? Teitel wrote that Astor ponied up just $500.
Most sources point out that Astor never visited the enclave that would take his name. But the Times has it that Halsey brought Astor to Hallett’s Cove and showed him around.
“Shrewd old Astor looked about and found that the first church in Astoria was just struggling into existence—St. George’s Episcopal—so he contributed just $50 toward its erection,” stated the Times. “He got the honor of having the village named after him, the church got the $50, and the only unhappy people recorded were Mr. Halsey and his fellow village trustees.”
Even with so little of Astor’s cash, however, Astoria thrived—becoming a diverse residential suburb and manufacturing hub in the consolidated New York City on the 20th century (above, in 1915).
Halsey is also remembered; his name graces a junior high school across the borough in Rego Park. And Hallett’s Cove survives as Hallett’s Point, a luxury high rise.
Years ago I was visiting the Dutch Reformed Church near St. Georges Church (where many Blackwell’s are buried). In the back of the reformed church was an obelisk that was laid on the ground with the name Halsey on it. Here is a story about that monument.
Most historians believe the grave of Astoria’s founding father Stephen Halsey is somewhere in Astoria; but finding where is the difficulty.
The general consensus is that he and possibly his family members’ graves are buried in the overgrown backyard of the First Reform Church of Astoria on the historical manor-house-lined 12th Street. That entire area was built up thanks to Halsey’s efforts, and he donated money to the Reform Church’s congregation to build their first chapel at the site in the 1830s.
“I find this very intriguing,” said the church’s pastor, Reverend Dwayne Jackson. “If the founding father is in our backyard then we’re, in a way, the center of the community.”
Over the last few decades, the backyard of the church has become overgrown, due to declining membership and an aging, busy congregation. If the Halsey’s are there, it’s unclear where.
But a couple of months ago, while some congregation members were clearing away some of the vines and dead branches to make a little garden, they discovered a long, triangular monument that had apparently fallen over sideways at some point and buried deep in the ground.
It turned out to be a cemetery marker. No engraving is visible on the part of the obelisk that is above ground, but many historians believe it might be another key to Halsey.
In his book “300 Years of Long Island City, 1630-1930,” Queens historian Vincent Seyfried shows a photograph of a square object that still remains in the churchyard and identifies it as the stone covering of the Halsey family vault.
But in the photograph, the writing on the stone is arguably legible and today the only word clearly visible is “vault.”
Rumors have it that the Halsey’s remains were moved from the churchyard at some point. Other researchers, including Jim Driscoll of the Queens Historical Society, say they’ve seen some references inferring that Stephen Halsey was first buried elsewhere and then moved to the church.
Halsey was born in 1798 and made a fortune as a fur trader. In the 1830s he had a vision for what is now the Western Queens waterfront and convinced investors and developers to move to the area to set up a town.
Halsey had the idea of naming the place after John Jacob Astor, the famed millionaire, believing that doing so would convince Astor to invest in the new village.
Astor, though, was only mildly interested, and donated only $500 to the Young Women’s Seminary of Newtown.
Records show that there may have been some controversy over the naming of the new town, but in the end, Halsey won and Astoria Village was incorporated by the state Legislature in 1839.
It was also in 1839 when the First Reform Church of Astoria was given money by Halsey for its new chapel on 12th Street. That building stood until 1888, when a fire destroyed it. The present chapel was built in 1888.
Halsey is credited by many historians for initiating the ferry service from Astoria to Manhattan that ran until Robert Moses stopped it in the 1930s.
Halsey died in 1875, an honored man.
Lula Thomas has been a member of the church’s congregation for 40 years. She said a former pastor told her in the 1970s that there was someone very famous buried behind the church somewhere.
When the obelisk was found two months ago, church members were excited, though they don’t know how to proceed.
Seyfried was very surprised to hear about the obelisk, saying that it was either not there or buried and so not visible when he visited the churchyard in the 1970s.
Historians like Bob Singleton and Debbie Van Cura of the Greater Astoria Historical Society believe that the monument could possibly be excavated as part of a movement already underway to historically revitalize the neighborhood.
The Greater Astoria Historical Society has been one of several citywide historical groups that are supporting a drive to landmark the historic 12th Street area, which is lined with impressive 19th century wooden homes and known as Old Astoria Village.
Owners of the old houses, distressed by recent sales to developers and demolitions in their once-quiet neighborhoods, have become active in the landmarking efforts.
“The real story is that Halsey moved to Astoria because he thought it was the greatest place to be,” Van Cura said. “We still think it is.”
North of Main Street showing AVAC being built with one building from the FDNY Training Center still standing. On the west side is the future site of Manhattan Park. In the distance is the elevator tower to the water tunnel construction site.
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
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
6 Responses to “The scheme behind the way Astoria got its name”
Mykola Mick Dementiuk Says: May 1, 2023 at 5:36 am | ReplyIn the 1960-70s many Ukrainian people were fleeing from the Lower East Side due to the economic decline of the area and relocating to Astoria, Queens, which offered them better housing and living conditions. I suppose that’s true, but I stayed on the Lower East Side from the 1950s to the late 1990s; no regrets there.
ephemeralnewyork Says: May 1, 2023 at 1:50 pm | ReplyIt’s a true diverse neighborhood, but of course known for its Greek community. People I know who live there consider it the perfect New York City nabe, though it’s getting pricey, I hear…
Louis DeMonte Says: May 1, 2023 at 9:09 am | ReplyThe female seminary eventually became the rectory of St. George’s church. Eventually the parish chose to demolish it in favor or erecting senior housing on the site. The ensuing construction displaced several graves and the building wrapped around the church to cover the stained glass windows behind the altar. We can thank the foot dragging of Queens preservation and the short sightedness of Gloria d’Amico for the destruction of the building that Astoria was named for. Very sad…
Bob Singleton Says: May 1, 2023 at 10:32 am | ReplyGreater Astoria Historical Society:This was a nice article that also includes the various details that pop up with each retelling of the story.Halsey, who used to live in Flushing, took the boat home each day he admired the peninsula and thought it would make a great investment. His older brother, John Cook Halsey, also worked for Astor and had founded a trading post in Oregon which he named ‘Astoria.’ (told by a family member but is not mentioned in the wiki entry for Astoria OR)When Stephen told Astor his idea of naming the community, Astor was alledged to have said that he had no intention on “crossing the river to see the place” (perhaps because he could already see it from his front porch at Hell Gate!) but he contributed money for a ‘Female Academy’. Currier and Ives did a print of it – it later became the rectory for St George’s Church. (link below)https://www.prints-online.com/astoria-institute-education-young-ladies-7254659.htmlAttempts to save the buidling or at least get inside to document it were brushed aside and it was torn down a few years ago.
ephemeralnewyork Says: May 1, 2023 at 1:54 pm | ReplyWhat a shame about the rectory. But thanks so much for filling out the story and sharing your Astoria knowledge.
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Before its burial, Sunswick Creek’s source was located close to 21st Street north of what is now the Queensboro Bridge and Queens Plaza. The creek’s name may have originated from the Algonquin word “Sunkisq,” which translated to “Woman Chief” or “Sachem’s Wife.” In 1664, the land on the northern shore of the creek was purchased by British settler William Hallet from two native chiefs named Shawestcont and Erramorhar, and the peninsula was renamed Hallets Cove. Due to increased industrialization, the lack of a proper sewage system, and the high population density of Long Island City and nearby Astoria, Sunswick Creek became heavily polluted by the 1860s and 1870s. After the outbreak of diseases in 1871 and 1875, the marshes surrounding the creek were drained in 1879. By 1893, the creek had been diverted into one of the new sewage system’s brick tunnels.
In 1915, protest arose among the residents of Ravenswood over the infestation of the creek’s tide gates by mosquitos, arguing to the New York City Board of Health that the tide gates should be opened as they were actually making the water stagnant and trapping the mosquitoes inside the creek. One year later in April 1916, residents broke down the tide gates themselves using axes, which prompted the New York City health commissioner to remark that the residents preferred “to live like hogs.” By the end of 1916, New York City’s government proposed closing the creek and mandated households to divert their sewage elsewhere. Today, the creek exists underground as part of a sewage tunnel, with Socrates Sculpture Park occupying what was once the creek’s mouth.
WEEKEND PHOTO UNION STATION, WASHINGTON, DC
ANDY SPARBERG, GLORIA HERMAN AND NINA LUBLIN 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
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
ephemeralnewyork Says:
Louis DeMonte Says:
