1990’s Carnival that would set-up shop on the vacant lot opposite the Tram, now 405 Main Street. The food concession was by the tram entrance……..no one complained and a great time was had by all. Maybe it is time to bring back some good old fashioned entertainment.
From Gloria Herman: Back in the day when we had fairs near the tram prior to Southtown being built. There were carnival rides on the Southtown side and all the food trucks were on the tram side.
Madame Restelle was supposedly imprisoned on Blackwell’s Island for performing abortions.
Hart Island has been the burial place of the unclaimed in New York for centuries. The island is finally being opened to the public. Please see the Hart Island website to reserve a place on an upcoming tour.
PROGRAM TONIGHT FROM CUNY GRADUATE CENTER
Upcoming Free Book Talks
The Trials of Madame Restelle: Nineteenth-Century America’s Most Infamous Female Physician and the Campaign to Make Abortion a Crime
Thursday, November 16th 6:30–8 PM
In this new biography, Nicholas L. Syrett tells the story of one of the most infamous abortionists of the nineteenth century, a tale with unmistakable parallels to the current war over reproductive rights. “Madame Restell,” the nom de guerre of the most successful female physician in America, sold birth control, delivered children, and performed abortions for decades in a series of clinics run out of her home in New York City. But it was the abortions that made her infamous, “Restellism” becoming a term detractors used to indict her.
Abortion was then largely unregulated in most of the United States, including New York. But a sense of disquiet arose about single women flocking to the city for work and greater sexual freedom, amid changing views of motherhood, with fewer children born to white, married, middle-class women. Restell came to stand for everything threatening the status quo. From 1829 onward, restrictions on abortion began to put her in legal jeopardy. For much of this period she prevailed—until she didn’t. The Trials of Madame Restell: Nineteenth-Century America’s Most Infamous Female Physician and the Campaign to Make Abortion a Crime paints an unforgettable picture of the mid-nineteenth-century New York and brings Restell to the attention of a whole new generation of women in the current fight over reproductive choice.
Mary Ziegler, Professor of Law at UC Davis and the author of numerous books on the modern day struggle, joins in conversation
REGISTRATION LINK IS BELOW
NYC Parks Launches Public Access to Hart Island
Today, NYC Parks announced the start of free public tours of Hart Island, the City’s public cemetery, in an effort to increase access to the island, reduce historical stigmas surrounding its past, and educate the public about its role as an important piece of City infrastructure.
Free public history tours led by the Urban Park Rangers will be held twice a month starting November 21. Registration for first tour is open now through November 16.
Beginning on November 21, 2023, NYC Parks’ Urban Park Rangers will offer free walking tours of the island twice per month. Registration is required through an online form and participants will be selected by lottery. All public history tours are done on foot and last approximately 2.5 hours, with ferry transportation provided to and from Hart Island.
Additional public tours will be held on the following dates:
December 5, 2023 December 19, 2023 January 16, 2024 January 30, 2024 February 13, 2024 February 27, 2024 March 12, 2024 March 26, 2024 April 9, 2024 April 23, 2024 May 14, 2024 May 28, 2024
The tours will encompass the history of the Island including how it became a municipal cemetery, wildlife and natural aspects, the burial process, and island advocacy.
Waterpower was the top priority in the development and location of the abundant textile mills in New York State. In places like Utica or Cohoes, the Mohawk River; in Troy, the Hudson River; and in Waterford, the King Canal (built about 1828 by John Fuller King), provided plenty of rushing water.
The humidity in New York was sufficient for spinning and access to seaports was convenient via the Erie and Champlain Canals and the Hudson River. There was an abundant supply of immigrant labor.
In 1855, Clark Tompkins, from Troy, patented the first fully mechanized knitting machine.
In many ways, this invention foretold the industrial future for the Hudson and Mohawk River Valleys. By 1890, Mohawk Valley had become the number one knit-goods manufacturing center in the country.
New York knit-good manufacturers primarily produced underwear. Two-thirds of all underwear produced in the United States in the late 19th century was made in New York, and of that, a large percentage came from the Mohawk and Hudson Valleys.
In 1909, The Knit Underwear Industry reported that New York State produced 33.5% of all knit goods in the United States.
With the opening of the King Canal in 1830, Waterford successfully harnessed the power available from the Mohawk River. The King Canal neighborhood became heavily industrialized, with more than half of the community’s underwear manufacturing concerns located there.
In 1910, about 1,700 people worked in the twelve knitting mills making underwear in Waterford. The community’s total population at the time was about 6,130. There were four other knitting mill operations that did not produce underwear; they employed about 220 workers. One-third of Waterford’s population worked in the industry.
From that time into the 1950s, underwear was Waterford’s largest export item.
Two Waterford manufacturers had pressing questions for the underwear-buying public: “Have you been bothered recently by dangerous underwear fads?” and “Do you need to purchase underwear in a larger size because it shrinks?”
The Kavanaugh Knitting Mill, established by Luke Kavanaugh, was the largest factory, with about 600 employees. Their business was built on the following belief:
“Men who demand cool, comfortable garments and who appreciate good health avoid dangerous underwear fads usually wear the famous Kavanaugh Balbriggan. The comfortable underwear. Just loose enough to avoid the pinch, just light and soft enough for cool comfort, just weight enough to protect against sudden cool breezes.”
Balbriggan was noted textile community just north of Dublin, Ireland. Balbriggans, were “Long-Johns.” Queen Victoria and the Czarina of Russia were known to wear Balbriggans.
The Kavanaugh Balbriggan advertisement featuring the above pledge also included caricatures of the Theodore Roosevelt‘s Rough Riders. Luke Kavanaugh’s son was a personal friend of Roosevelt; his brother Frederick was a close friend of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. The Kavanaugh Mill is said to have provided the underwear for the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War. One wonders if Buffalo Bill wasn’t a customer as well.
In 1891, the same year the Kavanaugh Mill opened, John Wheeler Ford established a large textile mill on the Hudson River to the north of the village. The facilities were later purchased by the Robert Reis Company, whose main products were tee shirts and men’s and ladies’ undergarments. Their advertising made the following claim:
“Reis’ Union Suits, we’ll put you wise; you needn’t buy them oversize. The size mark on Reis’ Lavender Label means precisely what it says. All athletic underwear shrinks when first laundered. Instead of pretending that it doesn’t. Reis, frankly, allows for shrinkage. So you needn’t buy a 42 when your size is 38 or a 38 when your size is 34. It’s sized right in the first place. Reis, you see, doesn’t skimp on material. Yet, for all the roominess of a Reis, they are tailored to fit. It doesn’t flop around you like a sail or wrap you up like a bug. They fit, and of course, they don’t chafe. They are made for a man, not a wax figure.”
Reis’ Mill lasted the longest of the community’s textile mills, until 1979. Their main office was in the Empire State Building, but the bulk of their manufacturing was conducted in Waterford. During First and Second World Wars, about 300 workers there delivered on contracts to supply underwear to the United States Army.
During the first half of the 20th century, the Harmony Mills in Cohoes and the Ford and Kavanaugh Mills in Waterford all had military contracts that impacted their ability to produce, distribute, and sell civilian supplies. The others were quick to fill the void.
By the mid-1950s however, they were mostly gone. Of the twelve mills that produced underwear in Waterford, several had majestic brick buildings. Their buildings are now all gone, with the exception of the Laughlin Textile Mill, which is vacant. It was the headquarters for Ursula of Switzerland. The company’s founder Ursula Garreau-Rickenbacher passed away in 2021. That marked the closing of the textile industry in Waterford.
Kavanaugh’s advertisement made mention of “Dangerous Underwear Fads” and the Utica Brand underwear company asked, “tired of underwear fads?”
Among the fads found in newspapers where those for underwear that didn’t need ironing; material fads of fine rayon mesh, nalmook, velvet, silk, and crepe; a black underwear fad during the Great Depression, to cut down on washing; and colored and lightweight underwear.
As far as dangerous? Lightweight underwear was sometimes blamed for hospital admissions. Wearing silk underwear was used successfully as grounds for divorce. Later, underwear made of highly flammable materials was to blame for many burning deaths when their wearers got too close to open flames that were prevalent in households before regulations against open flames were enacted in the later part of the 20th century.
AN IMAGE PROPOSED IN THE EARLY 1990’S BY A DEVELOPER, WHO DID NOT HAVE THE RIGHTS TO USE THE MARRIOTT NAME AND WAS SPECULATING THAT THIS IS JUST WHAT WE WANTED ON THE SOUTH END OF THE ISLAND. HIS NAME WAS STEVE JUMEL AND HIS FAMILY WAS THE OWNERS OF “RAZY EDDIE” STORES. THE LESS SAID THE BETTER!! NINA LUBLIN AND GLORIA HERMAN GOT THIS RIGH
Russ VanDervoort is the Waterford Town Historian, leader of the Waterford Canal and Towpath Society and a Trustee of the Saratoga County History Center. John Warren contributed to this essay.
Illustrations, from above: Waterford’s Kavanaugh Knitting Mill advertising card; a Tompkins Upright Circular Knitting Machine (1891); and a Utica Knitting Company underwear advertisement.
JUDITH BERDY
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
A burial ground and parking lot in Central Park, an airport spanning dozens of blocks on Manhattan’s West Side, filling in the East River to create more land—the list of ideas for “improving” the city’s infrastructure and transit system includes some truly weird proposals.
But as this 1911 map shows, some of the most ambitious plans focused on bridge and tunnel building. The image comes from the New-York Tribune, which ran a front page article On January 1 of that year outlining all of the bridges and tunnels the city should build to make it easier to traverse the boroughs.
Of course, some of these bridges and tunnels already existed: the Queensboro, Manhattan, and Brooklyn Bridges across the East River, for example. And others made the jump from proposal to reality in the ensuing years, like the Hell Gate Bridge (completed in 1916) and the 179th Street bridge across the Hudson—opened in 1931 as the George Washington Bridge.
But others were merely wishful thinking—like the 57th Street and 110th Street bridges to New Jersey, and a fourth East River crossing between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. The Tribune noted that “borings have been made for this proposed bridge” and it was to be named after Brooklyn Democratic leader and politician Pat McCarren. (His name ended up gracing a park instead.)
The Tribune predicted all kinds of chaos if these bridges and tunnels weren’t built to accommodate the “tide of humanity” that needed them. But the reality of raising funds for construction likely sounded the death knell, if they were ever taken seriously in the first place.
And what would we do with all these crossings in the age of remote work? That’s one development the Tribune of more than a century ago could not possibly have predicted.
Renovation work is complete on 604 Fifth Avenue, a six-story commercial building in Midtown, Manhattan. Designed by William Van Alen, architect of the Chrysler Building, the 65-foot-tall structure opened as the Childs Building in 1924 and most recently housed an 18,000-square-foot TGI Fridays. Japanese confectioner Minamoto Kitchoan purchased the property from The Riese Organization for $45 million in April 2021 for its new flagship store. Andrew Pettit Architect was the designer and Cross Management Corp. was the general contractor for the interior and exterior renovation project, which is located between East 48th and 49th Streets.
Recent photos show the new façade composed of light-hued stone with a symmetrical grid of windows replete with red awnings and decorative black metal railings. The exterior features numerous ornamental flourishes, including thick banding between the floors and a half-moon motif below the trapezoidal cornice. Three flag poles extend from the third story, and two pairs of up-firing spotlights will illuminate the edges of the exterior at night. Some plastic barriers remain in front of the property as interior work wraps up on the ground-floor frontage, but should be removed in the coming weeks.
The Most Ugly Building on Fifth Avenue was an appropriate title for this building, luckily now reborn
604 Fifth Avenue. Photo via Google Maps
604 Fifth Avenue has remained standing for nearly a century as many surrounding properties were torn down to make way for taller developments, including the Rockefeller Center complex to the north, and skyscrapers like 520, 570, and 665 Fifth Avenue. 604 Fifth Avenue was never designated as a historical landmark, allowing for the redesign to proceed without intervention from the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Nevertheless, the outcome features a classic aesthetic evocative of prewar New York architecture.
The original design of 604 Fifth Avenue
For years the Friday’s facade was an eyesore on Fifth Avenue and we are glad that the appropriate renovation of the building will be a vast improvement.
When the actors strike was settled, the Silvercup sign has been lit up nightly Silvercup Studios building in Long Island City, Queens, adjacent to the Queensboro Bridge. Was formerly the bakery for Silvercup bread, which I remember from the 1950s and 1960s, Andy Sparberg David Jacoby also got it right
JULIA GASH TAPESTRY THROWS TO KEEP YOU WARM AND COZY. TRAM PILLOWS, JULIA GASH DESIGN LANYARDS,ORNAMENTS, KEY CHAINS, MAGNETS AND MORE.
FRIDAY, SATURDAY AND SUNDAY 12 NOON TO 5 P.M. AT THE RIHS KIOSK, TRAM PLAZA
SATURDAY AT THE MAIN STREET FLEA MARKET
FROM THE ARCHIVES
FRIDAY-SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10-12, 2023
VETERAN’S DAY MEMORIES
ISSUE #1122
SHORPY HISTORIC PHOTO ARCHIVE
Washington, D.C., circa 1916. “Mrs. George Barnett and son.” Lelia Gordon Barnett, wife of the Marine Corps commandant, and her son Basil Gordon, who in 1923 became the first person to crash an airplane in the District of Columbia. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative.
These are members of G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic) Conyngham Post 97 located in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. I researched it to try and find out exactly when the picture may have been taken and found two possibilities in the Wilkes-Barre Record Almanacs: “April 21, 1923 – Conyngham Post, G. A. R., observes its fifty-sixth anniversary; about forty veterans of the Civil War, together with many friends, present.”
New York, June 6, 1944. ALLIED ARMIES LAND ON COAST OF FRANCE. GREAT INVASION OF CONTINENT BEGINS. “D-Day. Crowd watching the news line on the New York Times building at Times Square.” Photo by Howard Hollem or Edward Meyer for the Office of War Information
Washington, D.C., circa 1918. “Pension Office interior.” This former repository of Civil War veterans’ pension records is now the National Building Museum. National Photo Company Collection glass negative
The place and provenance of this photo are unknown to me. Scanned from a large print. Perhaps someone can identify the uniforms?
Above 50 W 50th Street entrance of 30 Rockefeller Plaza
Soaring above the entrance to 50 Rockefeller Plaza, this dynamic plaque symbolizes the business of the building’s former tenant, the Associated Press. One of the major Art Deco works in the Center, it depicts five journalists focused on getting a scoop. AP’s worldwide network is symbolized by diagonal radiating lines extending across the plaque. Intense angles and smooth planes create the fast-paced rhythm and energy of a newsroom. News is the first heroic-sized sculpture ever cast in stainless steel and the only time Noguchi employed stainless steel as an artistic medium.
I love walking around Rockefeller Center and see this vital thriving neighborhood, Sometimes it is great to be a tourist in ones own city.
THANKS TO OUR POLL WORKERS
Our edition today is brief since we spent many, many hours at PS 217 yesterday working our pollsite.
Thanks to our wonderful team, all went well and we served about 450 voters yesterday. Last week we served 417 voters in the RIVAA Gallery for early voting.
All our staff yesterday live on the island and many have been poll workers for years. Election day is always a day to reconnect with neighbors and friends.
We will be back in late March for the Presidential Primary….stay tuned for details.
We need inspectors, interpreters, information clerks and line monitors for the Presidential election next year so apply today and be ready for 2024. https://vote.nyc/page/poll-worker-positions
After closing, the paperwork begins. Thanks team!!!!
He’s a slight soldier, with the strap of his rifle slung over his shoulder and a contemplative expression meant to engage us. And unlike most statues depicting military men, he’s offering flowers. In this case, he’s holding poppies—a flower that signifies loss and remembrance.
The doughboy of De Witt Clinton Park has stood inside the Eleventh Avenue and 52nd Street entrance to this Hell’s Kitchen green space since 1930. Officially the monument is known as “Clinton War Memorial,” per NYC Parks.
It’s one of nine doughboy statue erected in city parks after World War I, when neighborhoods across New York sought to honor local residents who lost their lives on the battlefields of Europe. I’ve seen the doughboy statues in Chelsea, the West Village, Red Hook, and Washington Heights.
But what distinguishes this doughboy is that he’s standing on a granite pedestal inscribed with verse from “In Flanders Field”—the poem written by Canadian physician and lieutenant colonel John McCrae, who penned it after a fellow soldier perished during battle in 1915 in Belgium.
On the other side of the pedestal is an inscription from “comrades and friends” explaining that the monument is a memorial “to the young folk of the neighborhood/who gave their all in the World War.”
Though I couldn’t find an account of it, this statue was likely dedicated in a ceremony attended by thousands. “The doughboys were erected when parks and monuments were more important in the life of a neighborhood,” stated Jonathan Kuhn, curator of monuments for the Parks Department, in a New York Daily News article on the doughboys from 1993. “Also, there was a feeling that this was the last war, and Americans wanted to honor the ordinary heroes who fought the war that would end all wars.”
I can’t help but wonder if the De Witt Clinton Park doughboy was modeled on an actual local kid who went to war and never came back. If so, his identity is likely lost to the ages—and he speaks to us only through bronze and granite.
GUY LUDWIG, JAMES MORSE GOT IT RIGHT FROM JAY JACOBSON
Is this Monday photo a picture of the upscale restaurant that was part of the TWA building at Idlewild Airport? I have no recollection of ever being in that restaurant, but my guess is based on the shape of the room as shown in the Shorpy shot! Glad we got back to NYC in time to vote early!
