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You are currently browsing the Roosevelt Island Historical Society blog archives for October, 2023.

Oct

19

Thursday, October 19, 2023 – A BUILDING REIMAGINED FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

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OUR HEARTS GO OUR TO OUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS IN ISRAEL

FROM THE ARCHIVES

THURSDAY , OCTOBER 19,  2023

HEMLINES FROM SKYLINES

601 LEXINGTON AVENUE

(FORMERLY  CITICORP  BUILDING)

ISSUE#  1104

JUDITH BERDY

After visiting the NYU medical offices in the former Citicorp Building, I discovered that the ground level area has been reimagined into 15 restaurants and an exhibit area.  We all remember Conran’s, Barnes and Noble stores in the area starting in 1977.  This busy lunchtime spot seems to attract the new generation of workers and is thriving.

The area is now called THE HUGH, after Hugh Stubbins the architect of the building.

On the balcony is the exhibit of clothing designed with the theme of HEMLINES FROM SKYLINES.  

It is worth a visit to see the creativity of SVA students.  It is difficult to photograph the models  in the glass cases, so stop by to enjoy in person.

Hemlines From Skylines

“Hemlines to Skylines is a tribute, a thank you, to the concrete and steel beauty we experience every day as New Yorkers. It is a reminder to stop looking at our cellphones and look up. It’s much more interesting. Embrace it!”

—SVA’s 3D Design Chair Kevin O’Callaghan (2014 Art Directors Hall of Fame inductee), co-curator. Hemlines From Skylines features designs by students from SVA’s BFA Design and BFA Interior Design: Built Environments programs. The inspiration for the show came from the infamous 1931 Beaux-Arts Ball where architects wore costumes that looked like the buildings they had designed. Some of those iconic buildings, such as the Empire State Building and our very own 601 Lexington, were the references for the designs in this show. Some students were inspired by more recent modern-day buildings or significant New York City institutions.

The sculptures are made of resin, fabric, a variety of metals and welded steel, stones, rope, grouted tiles, spoons, stained glass, and even Cheerios cereal! This installation was co-curated by SVA alumnus and 3D Design Chair Kevin O’Callaghan and BFA Interior Design: Built Environments Chair, Dr. Carol Bentel.

The Dream Hotel and Empire State Building

The Plaza Hotel

Gramercy Park

Guggenheim Museum

The Cloisters

Broadway

Murals adorn the walls

he clock seems to float in the light fixtures

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THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

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WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

ED LITCHER, GLORIA HERMAN, ELLEN JACOBY, AND NINA LUBLIN GOT IT RIGHT
 ABOUT THE FAMOUNS SPOT ON 51ST STREET.

CREDITS

JUDITH BERDY

601 LEXNGTON AVENUE

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

www.tiktok.com/@rooseveltislandhsociety
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THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2022 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
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Oct

18

Wednesday, October 18, 2023 – SOMETIMES YOU MEET GREAT ARTISTS ON THE FERRY

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OUR HEARTS GO OUR TO OUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS IN ISRAEL

FROM THE ARCHIVES

WEDNESDAY , OCTOBER 18,  2023

SHEILA  SCHWID

&

RIFKA MILDER

ISSUE#  1103

JUDITH BERDY

The other day while returning from Brooklyn on the NYC Ferry I met artist Rifka Milder.

We discussed her art and that of her mother Sheila Schwid.  Below are some of  their  works, which are now on view on their  websites. In the past  both have exhibited at the Carter Burden Gallery in Chelsea.

SHEILA SCHWID

These oils are all in the series “Reflections on 14th Street”

“When a Shadow and a Fragment Are Not Enough” diptych, each stretcher 5’x4’ mural is 5’x8’ 2021

“I Can Wait.” 30”x24” oil on linen 2022

“Around We Go” 40”x32” oil on linen 2022 sold

“Best Buy” 30”x24” oil on linen on panel 2018

RIFKA MILDER

Cake Walk
2020
oil on canvas
48 X 60 inches

Penelope
2020
oil on canvas
48 X 60

SET DESIGN

The Ugly Duckling
2014
house paint on the wall
11 X 22 feet
I painted the set for a dance choreographed by Rachael Kosch

SET DESIGH
Circus Works
2018
oil on canvas
4 paintings 72 X 60 inches each

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WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

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TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

MANHATAN BRIDGE
ANDY SPARBERG, HARA REISER, ELLEN JACOBY, GLORIA HERMAN, ALL GOT IT RIGHT

CREDITS

RIFKA MILDER

All images copyright of Rifka Milder 2012
https://www.rifkamilder.com/

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

www.tiktok.com/@rooseveltislandhsociety
Instagram roosevelt_island_history


THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2022 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com

Oct

17

Tuesday, October 17, 2023 – ENJOY THE WASHNGTON SQUARE ART

By admin

OUR HEARTS GO OUR TO OUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS IN ISRAEL

FROM THE ARCHIVES

TUESDAY , OCTOBER 17,  2023

One Pioneering

Ashcan Painter

Four Views of

Washington Square Park

ISSUE#  1102

JUDITH BERDY

EPHEMERAL NEW YORK

What exactly attracted William Glackens to Washington Square, leading this founding member of the Ashcan School to create more than 20 paintings set in this iconic Greenwich Village park between 1908 and 1914, according to Washington Square Park Blog?

“Washington Square Park,” 1908]

Proximity likely had something to do with it. After Glackens left his home city of Philadelphia and relocated to New York City in 1896, he found a studio on the southern edge of Washington Square, according to the New-York Historical Society. Over the years, he occupied studios at different locations on the Square.

Glackens also moved with his family into a circa-1841 townhouse at 10 West Ninth Street, steps away from Washington Arch. Here, the painter dubbed the “American Renoir” lived and worked from 1910 to his death in 1938, explains Village Preservation in a 2019 Off the Grid blog post.

[“Descending From a Bus,” 1910]

But there might be something more to it than the Square’s convenient location. At the time Glackens established himself in Greenwich Village, Washington Square “represented the demarcation between the old and new communities of New York,” according to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (MFA).

While the descendants of many old New York families still lived in the stately brownstones of Washington Square North, “the less fashionable neighborhoods around Washington Square attracted newly arrived immigrants who worked in the factories and sweatshops nearby and also artists (including Glackens) who were drawn to the bohemian lifestyle of the district,” the MFA states

[“Italo-American Celebration,” 1912]

The presence of this new population mix in Washington Square is evident in Glackens’ 1912 painting of an Italian immigrant parade celebrating Christopher Columbus. Per the MFA: “The juxtaposition of the Old World and the New is further enhanced by the prominence of the Italian and American flags standing side by side in the lower foreground.”

What else may have influenced his decision to paint Washington Square Park, particularly his many full-color depictions of moments of leisure and pleasure?

[“29 Washington Square,” 1911]

Perhaps he was inspired by the simple loveliness of this historic square, as so many ordinary New Yorkers are as well.

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TUESDAY  PHOTO OF THE DAY

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WEEKEND PHOTO

B. ALTMAN AND CO.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION AT 34TH & FIFTH AVENUE

NINA LUBLIN, GLORIA HERMAN AND ANDY SPARBERG ALL GOT IT RIGHT

CREDITS

Tags: Ashcan School William Glackens in New York CityNew York City in 1910sWilliam Glackens Impressionist NYCWilliam Glackens Painting Washington Square ParkWilliam Glackens Washington SquareWilliam Glackens Washington Square Studio
Posted in artLower ManhattanMusic, art, theaterWest Village |

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

www.tiktok.com/@rooseveltislandhsociety
Instagram roosevelt_island_history


THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2022 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com

Oct

16

Monday, October 16, 2023 – A WEEKEND WITH TWO ADVENTURES

By admin

OUR HEARTS GO OUR TO OUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS IN ISRAEL

FROM THE ARCHIVES

MONDAY , OCTOBER 16,  2023

A WEEKEND OF 

ADVENTURES

ISSUE#  1101

JUDITH BERDY

HISTORICAL AMERICAN

RAINY SATURDAY, A PERFECT TIME FOR HAT PAINTING WITH GEORGE KRASSAS, SPONSORED BY I DIG TO LEARN AND COLER LONG TERM CARE.

PHOTOS BY GHILA KRATZMAN AND JUDITH BERDY

George encouraged the kids (and adults) to use the paints and enjoy the fun of free flow art.

Nina and Oona with a freshly painted masterpiece

George has made cap art for years and is eager to share with others

It took two artists to work with all the kids and families

George Krassas, Chrisina Delfico and Judith Berdy enoying the activity.

The joy of free flow art!!!

It takes concentration!!!

SUNDAY, IN SEARCH OF THE ILLUSIVE 
TAGUA JEWELRY STORE.

It took me a while to find 145 Front Street in Brooklyn,  Today the BQE was closed and the streets around DUMBO were jamned with impatient drivers, lots of cops and someone who has no talents with a Google map, me.

After wandering thru the hip and crowded street near York Street I finally located the small arcade where The Tagua is located.  GREAT!!  Wonderful displays of jewelry and creations on exhibit in this closed shop.  The sign on the door said the shop would reopen October 24th.(Please change your listing on Google)

What is a Tagua nut?  From Wikipedia:

Vegetable ivory or tagua nut is a product made from the very hard white endosperm of the seeds of certain palm trees. Vegetable ivory is named for its resemblance to animal ivory. Species in the genus Phytelephas (literally “elephant plant”), native to South America, are the most important sources of vegetable ivory. The seeds of the Caroline ivory-nut palm from the Caroline Islandsnatangura palm from Solomon Islands and Vanuatu,[1] and the real fan palm, from Sub-Saharan Africa, are also used to produce vegetable ivory.[2] A tagua palm can take up to 15 years to mature. But once it gets to this stage it can go on producing vegetable ivory for up to 100 years. In any given year a tagua palm can produce up to 20 pounds of vegetable ivory.[3]

The material is called corozo or corosso when used in buttons.

 

An early use of vegetable ivory, attested from the 1880s, was the manufacture of buttonsRochester, New York was a center of manufacturing where the buttons were “subjected to a treatment which is secret among the Rochester manufacturers”, presumably improving their “beauty and wearing qualities”.[5] Before plastic became common in button production, about 20% of all buttons produced in the US were made of vegetable ivory.[6]

Vegetable ivory has been used extensively to make diceknife handles, and chess pieces. It is a very hard and dense material. Similar to stone, it is too hard to carve with a knife but instead requires hacksaws and files.[1]

Vegetable ivory is naturally white with a fine marbled grain structure. It can be dyed; dyeing often brings out the grain. It is still commonly used in buttons, jewelry, and artistic carving. Many vegetable ivory buttons were decorated in a way that used the natural tagua nut colour as a contrast to the dyed surface, because the dye did not penetrate deeper than the very first layer.[1][7] This also helps identify the material.

The display of jewelry in the closed shop.

My interest was peaked by purchase of a ring.

OUR JULIA GASH TAPESTRY THROWS HAVE ARRIVED.

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EACH THROW IS NEATLY PACKAGED READY TO BE GIVEN AS A GREAT HOLIDAY PRESENT

MONDAY PHOTO

MY HAT

CREDITS

JUDITH BERDY

GHILA KRATZMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

www.tiktok.com/@rooseveltislandhsociety
Instagram roosevelt_island_history


THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2022 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com

Oct

14

Weekend, October 14-15, 2023 – A DAY OF SHOPPING WITH LUNCH AT SCHRAFFT’S

By admin

OUR HEARTS GO OUR TO OUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS IN ISRAEL

FROM THE ARCHIVES

WEEKEND, OCTOBER 14-15,  2023

SHOPPING IN MANHATTAN

A WHILE BACK

ISSUE#  1100

SHORPY

HISTORICAL AMERICAN


PHOTO ARCHIVE

Enjoy this walk thru city shopping from years past.

New York circa 1931. “R.H. Macy & Co. Building, Broadway & 34th Street.” The original “big box” retailer. Irving Underhill photo. View full size.

Circa 1903. “Shoppers on Sixth Avenue, New York City.” 8×10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

June 9, 1948. New York. “Schrafft’s, Esso Building, Rockefeller Center. 51st Street exterior. Carson & Lundin architects.” Ubiquitous in urban areas, slightly upscale, tastefully decorated — Schrafft’s was something like the mid-century restaurant version of Starbucks. Gottscho-Schleisner photo. View full size.

New York circa 1910-1915. “N.Y. Drug Store, Pennsylvania Station.” 8×10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

New York circa 1906. “14th Street Store.” Several subplots here, involving roofs, windows and hair. Detroit Publishing glass negative. View full size.

June 20, 1952. “Scarves by Vera, 417 Fifth Avenue, New York. Vera at door. Marcel Breuer, architect.” If you hope to see some actual scarves here, you are hopelessly unsophisticated. Gottscho-Schleisner photo. View full size.

April 28, 1949. “Barton’s, business at 790 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, New York. Exterior.” 4×5 inch acetate negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.

Jan. 17, 1953. New York. “Schrafft’s, New Chrysler Building. Interior IV.” Highly developed example of a genre of eatery once known as “quick service lunch,” now more generally called “fast food.” Gottscho-Schleisner photo. View full size.

September 24, 1944. “Jay Thorpe Inc., West 57th Street, New York City. General view to entrance from rear.” A retail fairyland of fire sprinklers and cove lights. Large-format acetate negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.

December 1942. “New York. Corset display at R.H. Macy & Co. department store during the week before Christmas.” Behold the $12.29 “average figure” corselette. Photo by Marjory Collins for the Office of War Information. View full size.

OUR JULIA GASH TAPESTRY THROWS HAVE ARRIVED.

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WEEKEND PHOTO OF THE DAY

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CREDITS

JUDITH BERDY

SHORPY HISTORICAL PHOTO ARCHIVE

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

www.tiktok.com/@rooseveltislandhsociety
Instagram roosevelt_island_history


THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2022 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com

Oct

13

Friday, October 13, 2023 – A RELIC OF THE PAST AND A GREAT PLACE TO HAVE A BEER

By admin

OUR HEARTS GO OUR TO OUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS IN ISRAEL

FROM THE ARCHIVES

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13,  2023

What the 1910s Stained Glass

Windows

Say About a 19th century

Brooklyn Tavern

ISSUE#  1099

EPHEMERAL NEW YORK

What the 1910s stained glass windows say about a 19th century Brooklyn tavern

With its tin ceiling, mosaic tile floor, and handsome mahogany bar, Teddy’s Bar and Grill is like stepping into a late 19th century time machine.

This corner tavern on Berry and North Eighth Streets in Williamsburg opened in 1887 as a family-run Irish tavern, according to Teddy’s website. At the time, Brooklyn was a separate city and Williamsburg was a working-class district of Irish and German immigrants, many of whom worked along the waterfront a few blocks away in sugar refineries and other industrial plants.

Take a seat at the bar inside, and you can almost imagine the flickering gas lamps softly illuminating the barroom, and men—only men, as women were not welcome in taverns at the time—coming by for growlers of beer and community.

Outside the bar, there’s one aspect of Teddy’s that I couldn’t take my eyes off: the multicolor stained-glass windows above the entrance. It’s not unusual to see stained glass like this in an old-school New York bar—delicately wrought with gorgeous colors and design motifs.

But the words emblazoned across the front intrigued me: “Peter Doelger’s Extra Beer.” Who is Peter Doelger? The answer lies in the next chapter of Teddy’s, after it traded hands in 1911.

“The place was purchased by a Bavarian German immigrant named Peter Doelger who was one of New York’s most successful brewers,” explains a 2018 post from the Greenpointers website.

“Doelger, who had started a brewery on the Lower East Side in 1859, is largely responsible for introducing lager beer into New York. The New York Sun wrote that before Doelger opened his Lower East Side brewery, lager beer, in the brewing of which he was to make a fortune, was an exotic and unappreciated drink…a mysterious German drink, as remote from most of the community as pulque or vodka is today.’”

By the 1910s, Doelger’s brewery operated on East 55th Street near the East River. He “was looking to purchase New York bars as an outlet his beers, so his establishment exclusively served Doelger’s brews,” states Greenpointers.

The stained-glass windows are over a century old, but they’re a good 30 years younger than the bar’s other anachronisms, like the tin ceiling and interior woodwork.

Doelger died in 1912, and his brewery, run by his sons, shut down for good in 1947. Teddy’s (above in 1940) entered a new era after it was bought by Teddy and Mary Prusik, who renamed the bar in the 1950s, per Teddy’s website.

The Prusicks were Polish immigrants, and at the time they purchased the bar, the north side of Williamsburg had become a Polish enclave, according to Greenpointers.

The couple operated the tavern until 1987, when it was sold to new owners who added a kitchen and a dining room in an old carriage house next door, states Teddy’s.

In 2015, Teddy’s landed its current owners, and the clientele tends to reflect the demographics of Williamsburg in the 21st century. It’s a bar with a wonderful old-school vibe, but I wonder if the name of a 19th century beer baron in glass above the entrance holds any weight.

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THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

Rough sketches of Roosevelt Island by Edward Hopper
I saw them at the Whitney exhibit –which was gorgeous!
I actually went back to the exhibit several times….;^)
(I know you saw & enjoyed that exhibit as well)
THOM HEYER

CREDITS

Judith Berdy

EPHEMERAL NEW YORK

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

www.tiktok.com/@rooseveltislandhsociety
Instagram roosevelt_island_history


THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2022 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com

Oct

12

Thursday, October 12, 2023 – MTS ARTS & DESIGN HITS A HOMER WITH NEW ATLANTIC AVENUE INSTALL

By admin

OUR HEARTS GO OUR TO OUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS IN ISRAEL

FROM THE ARCHIVES

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12,  2023

THE FLOATING BOAT

AT AN

ORIGINAL BROOKLYN

IRT SUBWAY ENTRANCE

ISSUE#  1098
UNTAPPED NEW YORK

The subway entrance above Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center station has a secret wellspring of life inside: a three-piece art installation called Hook (Archean Reach), Line (Sea House), and Sinker (Mined Swell) by the artist George Trakas. Commissioned by MTA Arts & Design and created in collaboration with di Domenico and Partners, the pieces take up the entire original Beaux-arts fare control center and calls on the history of the area for inspiration. The centerpiece of the installation is a giant steel boat figure that floats above the sea of commuters.

The preexisting configuration of subways and rails at the Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center station, in conjunction with its location at the lip of the LIRR’s Terminal, presented the perfect challenge for a joint effort that incorporated both art and architecture. The space below the original kiosk, which was designed by Heins & LaFarge and constructed in 1908, is far taller and more spacious than it appears from the outside. Trakas and the architects collaborated on a redesign of the station in 2004 and made the spaces airier, with the installation of a skylight in the ceiling, and aesthetically cohesive with Trakas’ art

From outside the above-ground kiosk, visitors can look through a peephole equipped with a lens to see the boat-shaped contraption made of stainless steel hanging just underneath the glass. This part of the installation is called Line (Sea House). The shape is both symbolic and practical as the steel structure serves as a rolling gantry that maintenance workers can access through a locked door and step onto in order to reach the lights floating high in the empty space above the station floor.

The art piece continues down from the lighthouse-like space into the subway station below as large panels of granite cover the walls. The panels are broken by a stair-shaped cut-out which serves to mark where the original staircase once stood in the 1908 structure. The granite stonework continues into Hook (Archean Reach), an undulating band that rolls like waves from the Pacific Street entrance to the tracks. The wave “crests” at the meeting place between the passageways that link Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street. Sinker (Mined Swell) is a wide, rough-faced strip of granite that appears between the staircases connecting the main station exits and train tracks.

The project’s aquatic-inspired name recognizes the convergence of the two streets named after the two major oceans. In some ways, subway stations are like oceans, constantly moving and churning out tides on a regular schedule, and Brooklyn is at its heart a waterfront town. Hook, Line, and Sinker (the name for the entire work)takes note of these roots as well as its location’s contemporary needs to create a place that is at once a hub of travel and a still place in the midst of the rushing sea.

Trakas drew inspiration from sources as varied as the piazzas of Italian hill towns. A self-described environmental sculptor, Trakas was born in Quebec but has lived in New York City since 1963. He often uses recycled materials in his work and has designed a waterfront nature walk at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn, among other installations.

Trakas’s innovative subway station design has opened a portal to the world above, serving as a way for passengers to orient themselves after being spun around several times by the frequently disorienting train rides. This portal allows for something especially rare to happen: on sunny days, the subway station fills with light from the skylight above, reminding travelers on the often stormy sea of New York City’s transit maze that there is a world outside the underground.

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THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

SEND YOUR RESPONSE TO:
ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM

WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

HARA REISER GOT IT RIGHT AGAIN!!!

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS

JUDITH BERDY

UNTAPPED NEW YORK

MTA  ARTS & DESIGN

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

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THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2022 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
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Oct

11

Wednesday, October 11, 2023 – BEFORE GRAND MANSIONS, SHANTY SHACKS

By admin

FROM THE ARCHIVES

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11,  2023

Gilded Age Manhattan’s

primitive shack houses,

as painted by landscape artists

ISSUE#  1097

Gilded Age Manhattan’s primitive shack houses, as painted by landscape artists

October 2, 2023

In the decades after the Civil War, New Yorkers with money had several options for housing.

For the really loaded, there were stand-alone mansions and the new luxury residential hotels; upper middle class residents could go with a brownstone row house or one of the early “French flats” apartment buildings.

If you were working class or poor, however, a tenement awaited you. And if you were so broke you couldn’t afford (or were excluded from) a tenement, you could cobble together a shack—housing so primitive that it’s hard to believe existed across Manhattan.

Photos of some of these ramshackle houses exist, like these images of wood shanties on a pre-luxury Riverside Drive. But most of the photos only date back to the 1890s.

Yet thanks to some talented but unheralded landscape painters, viewers can get a visceral sense of the substandard wood shacks some residents called home in the 1860s and 1870s.

Ralph Blakelock is one of these landscape painters. Born on Christopher Street in 1847 and the son of a doctor, Blakelock dropped out of the precursor to today’s City College in the 1860s and devoted his life to painting romantic, sometimes darkly evocative moonlit landscapes of New England and the American West, explains Artsy.

Back in Manhattan in 1874—where he tried to support a wife and nine children with the meager proceeds from his art while slipping into the throes of mental illness—Blakelock depicted these wood shacks (top image) in a painting he titled simply “Shanties in Harlem.”

Harlem at the time was transforming from a rural district into a place for the middle class, but the hardscrabble shacks in Blakelock’s painting are startling.

Blakelock also painted “Shanties, Seventh Avenue and 55th Street” (second image). These shacks would have stood four blocks below the new Central Park, and area fast becoming a wealthy enclave of mansions and early apartment houses.

An earlier work from 1868 shows a lonely small wood house with a sloping roof at Fifth Avenue and 89th Street, today the site of the Guggenheim Museum (third image).

Another landscape painter, Howard Nesmith, born in 1859, captured the shacks that once stood on today’s Second Avenue and East 72nd Street. Nesmith painted this image (fourth from top) in 1879, showing hilly terrain and rough-hewn homes.

Nesmith’s “East Foot of 72nd Street,” from 1876, is something of an impressionist view of a wood house perched precariously on the side of a hill by the East River (fifth image).

What became of these shacks and shanties? By the early 1900s, they had all likely disappeared, replaced by brick and mortar residences and office buildings. I wish I knew what drew Blakelock and Nesmith to them.

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WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
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TUESDAY  PHOTO OF THE DAY

MARBLE COLLEGIATE CHURCH
HARA REISER GOT IT RGHT

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS

JUDITH BERDY

[Top image: MuturalArt; second image: Sotheby’s; fourth image: MCNY, MNY33853; fifth image: MutualArt]

Tags: Howard Nesmith Painter New York CityPoor Shacks in Old New York CityRalph Blakelock Painter New York CityShacks and Shantytowns in New York CityShacks of 1870s New York CityShacks of Gilded Age New York CityWood Shacks of Manhattan 19th Century
Posted in artcentral parkMidtownUpper East SideUpper Manhattan | 

 

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

www.tiktok.com/@rooseveltislandhsociety
Instagram roosevelt_island_history


THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2022 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
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Oct

10

Tuesday, October 10, 2023 – ART IS BEING MADE ON THE RIVERCROSS LAWN – PART TWO

By admin

FROM THE ARCHIVES

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10,  2023

ART BLOOMS ON THE 

PART 2

RIVERCROSS LAWN

ISSUE#  1096

WE WILL BE OPEN ON WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11th

FROM 12 NOON TO 5 P.M.

OUR JULIA GASH TAPESTRY THROWS HAVE ARRIVED.

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ORDER YOURS TODAY OR AVAILABLE AT RIHS KIOSK STARTING ON SUNDAY

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EACH THROW IS NEATLY PACKAGED READY TO BE GIVEN AS A GREAT HOLIDAY PRESENT

THE ANNUAL FALL FOR ARTS FESTIVAL BRINGS OUT THE WONDERFUL ART. THE THEMES WERE MYTHICAL AND RIVERSDE RYHTHMS.  TODAY ARTISTS WORKED TO COMPLETE THEIR WORKS AND THE DEPTH AND QUALITY ARE AMAZING.  TAKE A STROLL THROUGH THE RIVERCROSS LAWN DURING THE COMING WEEKS.

LA _GALERIA _DEL_LEON ON INSTAGRAM

RAJ    THE MIRRORS GLITTER IN THE SUNSHINE

DAN MINER’S WONDERFUL ABSTRACT PAINTING AFTER BEING DETAILED AND

COMPLETED THIS MORNING

HONESTY, BRAVERY, KINDNESS, CALM, RESPECT

AU YU WONG
BAMBOO IN THE SHADE OF OUR TREES

DEMING LIAO RECENTLY EMIGRATED FROM CHINA . HE AND ASSOCIATE METICULOUSLY DETAILED THIS PAINTING,  IT IS THE FIRST ONE YOU SEE WHEN WALKING NORTH FROM THE SUBWAY.

SOPHIA .VITKO  ON INSTAGRAM

ISLA ROCINE

TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

SEND YOUR RESPONSE TO:
ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS

JUDITH BERDY


Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

www.tiktok.com/@rooseveltislandhsociety
Instagram roosevelt_island_history


THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2022 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com

Oct

9

Monday, October 9, 2023 – ART IS BEING MADE ON THE RIVERCROSS LAWN

By admin

FROM THE ARCHIVES

MONDAY, OCTOBER 9,  2023

ART BLOOMS ON THE 

RIVERCROSS LAWN

ISSUE#  1095

WE WILL BE OPEN ON MONDAY OCTOBER 9
FROM 12 NOON TO 5 P.M.

OUR JULIA GASH TAPESTRY THROWS HAVE ARRIVED.

100 % COTTON
48″  x  60″
MADE IN USA
$75-
CHARGE CARDS ACCEPTED
ORDER YOURS TODAY OR AVAILABLE AT RIHS KIOSK STARTING ON SUNDAY

EACH THROW IS NEATLY PACKAGED READY TO BE GIVEN AS A GREAT HOLIDAY PRESENT

ANNUAL FALL FOR ARTS FESTIVAL BRINGS OUT THE WODNERFUL ART. THE THEMES WERE MYTHICAL AND RIVERSDE RYHTHMS.

NOT ALL THE ART WAS FINISHED TODAY WITH  BLUSTERY AUTUMN WEATHER.

YING AND YANG WAS THE TITLE, DONE WITH SPRAY PAINT.

ART,MEDITATION AND NATURE BY THOM HEYER

DAN MINER’S WONDERFUL ABSTRACT PAINTING

RIOC STAFF TOM IMPERATI, AMANDA DOMINGUEZ, BRYANT DANIELS AND KEVIN BROWN SPENT A LONG COLD DAY MAKING SURE ALL WENT WELL TODAY.  THANKS TO THE RIOC STAFF WHO MADE THE DAY SO SUCCESSFUL.

WE WILL HAVE MORE IMAGES TOMORROW. SOME ARTISTS WILL BE BACK TO FINISH ON MONDAY.

MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

A MAN WALKING WITH SOME TYPE OF GOOGLE CAMERA BY TRAM ON THURSDAY

WEEKEND PHOTO

CITY CENTER THEATER ON WEST 55TH STREET.

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS

JUDITH BERDY

MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

www.tiktok.com/@rooseveltislandhsociety
Instagram roosevelt_island_history


THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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Copyright © 2022 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com