TO WELCOME ALL TO THE ISLAND AND THE RIHS VISITOR CENTER AND INTRODUCE THEM TO OUR ISLAND
TO PRESERVE HISTORIC LANDMARKS ON THE ISLAND
TO ADVOCATE FOR PRESERVATION OF OUR STRUCTURES
TO WORK WITH ARTISTS, WRITERS, AND PROFESSIONALS TO TELL THE STORY OF THE ISLAND AND ITS HISTORY. EDUCATE ALL ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MULTIPLE LAYERS OF ISLAND HISTORY, SUCH AS OUR PROGRAMS WITH THE NYPL.
TO TEACH THE CHILDREN OF THE FAMILIES THAT LIVED HERE BEFORE US
TO WELCOME VISITORS TO THE ISLAND AND GUIDE THEM IMPROVE SIGNAGE TO GUIDE VISTORS TO OUR COMMUNITY, TO SUPPORT OUR BUSINESSES.
TO ESCORT GROUPS TOURING THE ISLAND
TO SUPPORT RESIDENTS BECOMING INVOLVED IN GUIDING VISITORS
SPONSOR OFF ISLAND PROGRAMS TO LEARN ABOUT OTHER COMMUNITIES
TO WORK WITH ARTS GROUPS SUCH AS RIVAA ON PROGRAMS AND EXHIBITS.
TO WORK WITH RIOC TO STRESS THE IMPORTANCE OF MAINTENANCE OF OUR COMMUNITY FABRIC.
TO EDUCATE PERSONS WORKING THE ISLAND OF THE HISTORY AND MAKE THEM AMBASSADORS OF OUR COMMUNITY.
TO WORK WITH SCHOLARS RESEARCHING ISLAND HISTORY
WITHOUT MEMBERSHIPS AND DONATION THE VISITOR CENTER AND SOCIETY CANNOT SERVE THE COMMUNITY.
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JUDITH BERDY ROOSEVELTISLANDER LINK TO ABC NEWS
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Years ago, when visiting Goldwater Hospital I met Dr. Alba. She was a petite woman who with her talents saved many from years in Iron Lungs and struggling with Polio. Even after she retired, she was in contact with her former patients. Unsure of their medical needs, they turned to her for advise.
Goldwater was a leading hospital treating Polio patients and those with respiratory illnesses. Through her work thousands world-wide were saved from suffering.
She is well remembered by those in the obituaries below.
Judith Below
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of a beloved colleague and friend, Dr. Augusta Alba. She passed away on November 5, 2024 (having celebrated her 100th birthday in October 2024).
As the former Chief of Rehabilitation Services at Coler-Goldwater for multiple decades, Dr. Alba’s medical career centered on polio survivors who required breathing assistance. Her dedication to solving the respiratory insufficiency problems of polio patients led her to master every piece of ventilator equipment and technique—the rocking bed, chest cuirass, frog breathing and noninvasive ventilation. Dr. Alba always sought to educate both her colleagues and polio survivors about the importance of appropriate equipment and personal assistance. In addition to co-authoring many seminal medical articles on the respiratory topic, her lectures and publications reflect a life-long body of work focused on assisting the respiratory-disabled patient to live the most independent life possible.
Dr. Alba was a champion of person-centered care to her patients, residents, colleagues, and team members. She was an extraordinary, larger-than-life individual who has had a profound impact on the lives of many.
We extend our heartfelt condolences to Dr. Alba’s family and loved ones.
I wanted to share with you all, a copy of Dr. Alba’s recent obituary in the NY Daily News. She was truly a giant among us, who inspired us all. What she was able to accomplish was simply remarkable and deserves to be honored by us, in a meaningful way, as we all had the privilege of working closely with her for all those years. In retrospect, her humility belied her tremendous accomplishments. Her dedication and determination literally helped make the “iron lung” obsolete, a relic from an age when it, sadly, was all too commonplace among the victims of polio. As a child, I remember this child, who was around my age, attending a basketball game in an iron lung, which was so cumbersome and bulky, such that he could only watch the game using special mirrors. Let’s pursue this further. Perhaps, an article about her in “Caring for the Ages,” the newsletter of PALTmed (The Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medical Association) would be a good starting point.
Dr. Augusta S. Alba Obituary Dr. Augusta (Strongman) Alba, or “Gussie” as her friends and family called her, transitioned from this life to the next on November 5th, 2024. Hers was a life well-lived. She was a woman of deep Roman Catholic faith, and in the course of her 100 years she answered the call of many vocations, not the least of which were daughter, sister, friend, aunt, wife, physician, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and even great-great grandmother. Gussie was born on October 7, 1924, the middle child of Howard and Augusta Ruth Demsky Strongman, who raised 4 daughters and one son on their farm in upstate Highland, New York. Even at a young age, she was intelligent and determined. She graduated as valedictorian of her class at Highland High School at 15 years old, and won a scholarship to college. In 1940, just shy of her 16th birthday, she began studying chemistry at Wagner College in Staten Island, NY.
At Wagner, she excelled academically, but she also expanded her horizons in other ways. It was there that she decided to convert from Lutheran to Roman Catholic, noting that she was inspired by the Catholic devotion to Mary as the Mother of God. On a blind date in 1940, she met Luigi (Louis) Filippo Alba, a fellow Wagner student. According to family records, on that first night, he told her he was going to marry her, and she promptly told him he was crazy. Luigi went on to coach her in fencing, and she won an inter collegiate championship for form in 1944. Apparently, he was not crazy – they were married not once, but twice: a November 25, 1944 secret civil ceremony, followed by a family-filled wedding at St. Martin of Tours Roman Catholic Church in Amityville, NY, on July 5, 1947.
Gussie graduated summa cum laude from Wagner College and pursued a dual biochemistry PhD and medical degree at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. However, she returned to New York City after a year, declaring that she would rather work with people than test tubes. She graduated from Cornell University Medical School in 1951, one of only eight women in a class of 100. She then interned at Brooklyn Hospital, followed by two years serving residencies in both Neurology and Psychiatry at the Veterans’ Administration Hospital, also in Brooklyn. In 1957, she completed her fellowship in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at New York University Medical School, then took a position at Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital and Nursing Facility on Roosevelt Island, in New York City.
As a trail-blazing physician driven by a compassionate heart, a curious mind, and a tireless work ethic, Dr. Alba’s professional accomplishments were numerous. She focused her career on helping polio survivors and other significantly debilitated individuals with breathing problems. Over the course of her 53 year career at Goldwater, she became a world-renowned leader in this field. At the peak of her career, she was Goldwater’s Director of Respiratory Rehabilitation, while also maintaining relationships with several other New York City hospitals, like New York University Medical Center.
She was an expert in breathing techniques and technologies, and an inventor of new solutions. She was committed to developing ways to allow patients to use less invasive mechanical support, which also improved patient survival rates, since highly intrusive methods came with negative, often fatal, side effects.
Her findings and recommendations were published in 72 peer-reviewed publications, and her work improved the quality and duration of life for innumerable patients. For example, in 1957, she removed over 200 people from continuous dependence on iron lungs and other body ventilators. In 1969, she was the first person to successfully remove a tracheostomy tube from a fully paralyzed patient, transitioning him to a less invasive mouth-based breathing device and enabling the man to have nearly 30 more years of life.
She travelled nationally and globally to lecture on these topics and expand the body of knowledge in this field. Her contributions were recognized by dozens of awards, but more importantly, in the heartfelt appreciation of her patients and colleagues. Her work and dedication provided patients around the world with the ability to breathe easier and enjoy healthier, more independent lives.
At the same time that Dr. Alba was forging her career, she was equally busy creating her family. From 1948 through 1961, she bore 8 children, five sons and 3 daughters. Balancing such an active and distinguished career with motherhood was no easy feat. She was grateful for the assistance of her husband, Lou, her in-laws Enrico and Giovanna Mazzone Alba, and of family friends, Al and Stella Repucci and their daughter, Barbara Repucci, amongst other helpers. As a mother, she was most focused on making sure her children had education, faith, health, and family. She always brought them to church on Sundays and sent them all to Catholic schools. She often brought her children to visit family, mostly in upstate NY and Long Island, enabling them to develop strong bonds and innumerable memories with their Strongman, Alba, and Sipala cousins, and cementing her place as a beloved aunt to her many nieces and nephews.
As grandchildren emerged, Gussie flourished as the family’s magnetic matriarch. Despite her busy schedule, she always made Sundays a special family day. Like her children before them, she fostered her grandchildren’s faith by bringing those who lived near her to Mass every Sunday. She fostered their family bonds by staying for bagels after Mass, bringing them swimming, hosting Christmas, and otherwise bringing them to visit each other. Despite her family spreading out of NY, to Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, she endeavored to stay engaged, participating in family vacations, sending birthday cards, and being present for every graduation or other major event.
Dr. Alba retired from Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital in 2010, at the age of 86. Despite her extraordinary life, she always remained somewhat of a farm girl at heart. She was always naturally an optimist who didn’t need much more than good company to be happy, and she spent her remaining years relishing life’s simple joys. She visited with family up and down the east coast many times. She took a memorable trip to New Mexico to spend quality time with her nieces and nephews in celebration of her 91st birthday, and spent a few beach vacations in the Carolinas with several of her children and grandchildren.
Time outdoors was always a favorite respite. Upon moving to Georgia in 2016 to live with her daughter, Norma, she relished trips to local gardens and museums, and enjoyed many an afternoon basking in the fresh air, reading and taking naps with the cat on the front porch.
With her talents and tenacity, Gussie was an inspiration and role model to many, yet is perhaps best remembered for living the Gospel in all she did, exemplifying what it meant to “Love thy Neighbor.” Her curiosity and compassion were ever-employed: whether you were her patient, her friend, her family, or someone she had just met, she was always concerned, caring, and helpful. She would go out of her way to learn about you, your life, and to make you feel special, no matter who you were. She truly knew what it meant to love everyone, unconditionally – to judge not, lest you be judged. Her life was spent caring for the spiritual and physical health of nearly all that she met, applying her gifts to the best of her ability.
Dr. Alba was predeceased by her husband, Louis, in 2015, and by her brother, Cal Strongman (2013), and sisters Frieda Strongman Trainor (2004), Norma Strongman Metelski Mize (2011), and Elaine Strongman Kesner (2018). She is survived by her 8 children, Joan Lemons, Henry (& Janice) Alba, Robert (& Gael) Alba, Elaine (& Michael) Merenda-Metelski, Norma (& George) McGuigan, Louis (& Maureen) Alba, John (& Rebecca) Alba, and Paul (& Greta) Alba, her “foster” son, Joseph (& Katie) Merenda, as well as 19 grandchildren, 16 great grandchildren, and 3 great-great grandchildren.
ROSIE STROLLS ON MAIN STREET TODAY!!!
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STEPHEN CATULLO HOWARD FINGER, MD NY DAILYNEWS
JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
THANKS TO ANTHONY RAYNER AND STAMOS METZIDAKIS FOR PLANTING DAFFODIL BULBS AT THE TRAM PLAZA ON SATURDAY.
NEW LOOK ON FIFTH AVENUE
Louis Vuitton Conceals Under-Renovation NY Store With Luggage Facade
Monday, November 25, 2024
ISSUE #1350
REALTY +
Fashion brand Louis Vuitton has concealed its under-renovation New York flagship store with a luggage facade and relocated to a temporary store that features OMA-designed sculptures.
Louis Vuitton covered its flagship at East 57th Street and 5th Avenue in a facade modelled after the brand’s distinctive trunks, while simultaneously opening a temporary location around the corner, with sculptures developed with OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu that rise through an atrium.
Designed by Louis Vuitton’s in-house team, the luggage facade wraps completely around the construction underway at the New York City flagship. It resembles six, grey trunks of various sizes stacked in descending size.
According to the team, the design pays homage to the brand’s Trianon Grey canvas, a light grey textile which dates back to the 19th century.
Details such as handles, locks, rivets and silver hardware are also represented on the facade, with the team noting the largest of the handles “weighs 5,000 pounds”.
“It is finished with the classic detailing synonymous with Louis Vuitton’s savoir-faire including handles, signature locks, and silver hardware rendered in chrome-plated, laser-cut steel,” said Louis Vuitton.
“3D scans of real Louis Vuitton hard-sided trunks were used to create the locks and latches, and the steel corners have been hand-welded. The stack features 840 rivets, each etched with the moniker ‘Louis Vuitton’.”
Strips of lighting run along each of the trunk’s perimeters, while bands of black and brown represent leather lining. While construction takes place at the flagship, the brand has relocated its retail operations to a five-storey building around the corner at 6 East 57th Street, which contains four floors inhabited by a chocolate shop, men’s and women’s wear, and the debut of the brand’s first cafe in the US.
The building’s exterior architecture and interior floorplan remain unchanged according to the team, although it is now outfitted in a material palette of light woods, creams and shades of brown amongst an exposed concrete structure
Four, towering 16-meter-tall sculptures developed by Shigematsu sit in the lobby atrium, similarly modelled after “iconic” trunks.
“The trunks are built at the ateliers to actual product specifications and stacked to erect shifting, counterbalancing, twisting and zigzagging forms showcasing strength and lightness,” said the team.
“Each is further distinguished by using different Louis Vuitton materials – historic stripes, classic Monogram canvas, white Damier, and a metallic Monogram – which have redefined the timeless piece from the past to today.”
Oversized, sculptures of a giraffe and ostrich and a screen with Louis Vuitton motifs cover the building’s facade, which was also lined with bright exterior pendants.
The flagship construction could “potentially” double the size of the store, according to New York Yimby, while the temporary location will shut down after the renovation is complete
THE TEMPORARY LOUIS VUITTON SHOP IS ACROSS 5TH STREET, (IN THE FORMER NIKE STORE, TEMPORARY TIFFANY STORE).
Today, Louis Vuitton unveiled their largest retail space in the United States, located at 6 E. 57th Street NYC. Though the store is a temporary location while the iconic Louis Vuitton flagship on 5th Avenue undergoes a multi-year renovation, you would not know it from a look inside. The location spans five floors and features a chocolate shop, a café, and a capsule collection that pays tribute to the city that never sleeps.
Upon entering the location, one immediately finds themself in an atrium space offering a glimpse of the above four floors. The room is adorned with stacks of the House’s Courrier Lozine trunks spanning from floor to ceiling. Designed by architect Shohei Shigematsu, the trunks highlight different materials the Maison is known for – from classic Monogram canvas to sophisticated white Damier checkerboard. It is a visual spectacle on a scale only Louis Vuitton could execute with such perfection.
OUR FAVORITE ISLAND COLORING BOOK IS BACK
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JUDITH BERDY
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Are Millions in Gold from a British Shipwreck StIll in the East River?
Friday, November 22, 2024
ISSUE #1349
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
The murky waters of Hell Gate, between Queens and Manhattan, hide a mystery that has puzzled historians and treasure hunters for hundreds of years. A British ship, the HMS Hussar, went down in Hell Gate’s perilous waters after colliding with Pot Rock in 1780. The ship was rumored to be carrying a significant British military payroll. Despite these stories, no treasure has ever been recovered. Could remnants of the ship and its gold still lie beneath the waves? Whether or not there is a fortune waiting to be found, there are remnants of the Hussar shipwreck you can see without a diving permit. During the American Revolution, British Admiral George Bridges Rodney ordered the Royal Navy HMS Hussar to set sail for Gardiner’s Bay at the eastern end of Long Island. On November 24, 1780, Captain Charles Pole navigated the HMS Hussar up the East River. He was safeguarding its cargo from French and American troops advancing on New York Harbor.
Captain Pole decided to take a shorter, faster route through the waters of Hell Gate. Unfortunately for him, the strong winds and aggressive currents caused complications for the vessel. Captain Pole pressed on despite the treacherous conditions of Hell Gate, only to meet disaster as the Hussar swept against Pot Rock. The ship and all of its contents sank, but the captain and crew survived the wreck and made it to the mainland on boats.
Plan showing the Inboard profile plan as proposed for Hussar (1763). Image via Wikimedia Commons from Royal Museums Greenwich.
There are conflicting reports on where exactly the ship sank and no official location of the wreck has been determined. The New York Times reported that it sank in the East River in an article from 1985 when a salvage expert believed he had located the wreck off the Bronx shore. A 2002 New York Times piece puts the shipwreck between Port Morris in the Bronx and North Brother Island. There is a belief that the ship, or what is left of it after various 19th-century dynamite blasts in Hell Gate for navigation purposes, may be under landfill in the Bronx. Soon after the disaster, rumors circulated that the Hussar was carrying a significant treasure. While the British denied the presence of valuable cargo, salvage attempts over the years cast doubt on this claim. There was the belief that the British denied the presence of gold on the ship to deter treasure hunters from searching for the cargo. Crew on the ship said they had dropped the precious cargo off before the incident, but the British launched three recovery missions to salvage whatever was on board. These missions stoked suspicion and made treasure hunters even more intrigued. The exact value of the Hussar haul has varied and been distorted by the media. It has been estimated that the frigate was carrying 960,000 British pounds in gold when it sank. According to the Bank of England inflation calculator, that’s almost 143 million pounds (in 2024 currency). According to The New York Times, an international coin dealer estimated the bullion could be worth $576 million. Others believe only two to four million in gold were on board. There were also rumors that the ship held 60 American prisoners; their skeletons sunk in the ocean, still chained.
Early expeditions to explore the Hussar shipwreck involved diving bells—a technology still used today—in which divers would descend into the water inside a small metal chamber. A salvage company partially funded by Thomas Jefferson in 1811 dredged up iron nails and copper, but no gold. Regardless of early failed attempts, the Hussar was the hottest topic of the press in the 1800s. In Baltimore, a man named Samuel Davis began publishing ads in 1819 that aimed to seek funds for finding the vessel.
In 1843, diver George W. Taylor was the first to discover the wreck in a diving suit. However, his illness (and death) stopped his investigation. His protégé, Charles Pratt, took up the mission. Pratt was the most successful of the early Hussar explorers. Over 13 years, Pratt retrieved loads of artifacts from the Hussar shipwreck. His 70-pound submarine diving armor armor, with a hand-cranked pump for air, allowed him to navigate the wreck.
He found cannons, wine bottles, swords, and even human bones still in shackles that were possibly the American prisoners. He also found gold coins that belonged to the crew. The amount of these gold coins was far less than what was believed to be on the ship. Pratt was unable to get to the bottom of the ship where he believed the treasure was stored. His last dive to the Hussar was in 1866.His diving helmet is on display at the Worcester Historical Museum in Massachusetts.
Two cannons found at the wreck were donated to Central Park in 1865. They were originally displayed at a museum inside the former convent of Mount St. Vincent, then installed at Fort Clinton with granite bases. Vandalism caused them to be put in storage in the 1970s. They remerged in 2014 after the overlook at Fort Clinton was rebuilt. You can see them today on the east side of the park near 107th Street. In 2013, restoration workers found that one of the canons was still loaded!
Explosive blasts in Hell Gate performed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began in the 1850s. Their purpose was to clear some of the rocky obstructions, including Pot Rock. The Civil War put a halt to this work but it continued in the 1870s. In 1885, the blasts were reported to have been felt 50 miles away. The blasting of Flood Rock was reported as, “The greatest quantity of explosives ever attempted in a single operation.” These explosions likely destroyed and scattered whatever remnants were left of the wreck.
Flash forward to the 1930s, submarine pioneer Simon Lake spent years searching for the Hussar wreck but to no avail. He ventured out in a “baby submarine” that he crafted and a year later informed journalists that he had found the Hussar. It was never proven that he had. In 1985, as reported in The New York Times, salvage expert Barry L. Clifford also claimed to have found the Hussar after a two-year, $1 million search. Clifford claimed he had “found it on the first pass” using the same scanning equipment used to find the Titanic earlier that month. His find also wasn’t the Hussar.
Bronx native Joey “Treasures” Governali also spent a significant amount of time and resources searching for the wreck, which he claims to have located on a misfiled map in the archives of the New York Public Library. When Hurricane Sandy hit in 2013, New Yorker Steven Smith believed he found remnants of the Hussar’s wooden planks washed ashore, “hidden under layers of concrete blocks and building scrap,” according to The New York Times. The ship even makes an appearance in Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2017 novel New York 2140, as the center of the book’s subplot.
Today, the vessel’s possible fortune still stirs the imagination. According to Robert Apuzzo, author of The Endless Search For The HMS Hussar: New York’s Legendary Treasure Shipwreck, “prior to the sinking of the Titanic, there were more newspaper articles pertaining to the HMS Hussar than any other shipwreck in our maritime history. The mystery concerning the HMS Hussar, has baffled, scholars, historians, and treasure hunters for over 244 years, with no signs of going away.” While previous attempts at finding the gold and historical records suggest there was no treasure onboard, the legend of the Hussar persists, calling treasure hunters to the shores of Hell Gate like a siren’s song, fueling hopes that future storms might reveal its hidden riches.
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JUDITH BERDY
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THE KIOSK IS READY
FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Thursday, November 21, 2024
ISSUE #1348
OUR FAVORITE ISLAND COLORING BOOK IS BACK
OUR TAPESTRY THROW IS BACK
GREAT GIFT FAVORITES AND LOTS OF NEW GREAT STUFF
GREAT GIFTS AND BOOKS
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JUDITH BERDY
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Twenty-five miles north of New York City on the eastern shore of the Hudson River lies Tarrytown in an area called Tappan Zee (Tappan for the local people of the Lenape; zee is Dutch for sea) in Westchester County, NY. It was home to the Weckquaesgeek who cultivated the land, fished and hunted there.
The European earliest residence in what would become Tarrytown was built in about 1645. Its first white pioneers were farmers, fur trappers and fishermen from the Low Countries. The local soil was light and loamy and suitable for growing wheat. It has been argued that the village’s name was derived from the Dutch word for wheat (tarwe); others maintain that it was named for John Tarry, an early settler from Long Island.
Lords of the Manor
Tarrytown’s history started with the activities of the Dutch merchant and slave trader Frederick Philipse (born Frederik Flypsen in 1626 in Bolsward, Friesland) who had arrived in New Netherland in about 1653 and began buying land. He acquired 90,000 acres and built his estate and gristmill in the nearby town of Sleepy Hollow from where, using an enslaved African labor force, he distributed grain along the Hudson. Philipse was also responsible for erecting the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow in 1685.
When the English took over the colony, Frederick pledged allegiance to the Crown for which he was granted a Royal Charter in 1693, creating the Manor of Philipsburg. Upon his death in 1702 he was one of the area’s largest landowners. His son Adolph succeeded him as Lord of the Manor, further expanding the family holdings.
By the late nineteenth century Tarrytown had become a favorite residence of many affluent New Yorkers. It was home to a number of industrial giants, representing a very American story of commercial success and cultural investment which resulted in the foundation of some great museums, libraries and institutions of learning.
John D. Rockefeller settled in the town in 1893. His grand mansion Kykuit, located on the highest point in Pocantico Hills and surrounded by fine gardens overlooking the Hudson River, was completed in 1906. The name (meaning “look-out”) is a reminder of Tarrytown’s Dutch heritage. By the mid-1910s the estate symbolized the excesses of unrestrained capitalism.
In 1914, Kykuit and other local residences became the site of numerous anarchist demonstrations and the intended target of several dynamite bombing attacks.
Rockefeller had been preceded by another industrialist. Born in October 1784 in the village of Hose, Leicestershire, Robert Hoe sailed from Liverpool to the city of New York in 1803 after finishing his apprenticeship as a carpenter and joiner.
Having married Rachel Smith in Salem in January 1805, he joined his brothers-in-law Peter and Matthew Smith to establish a workshop Smith, Hoe & Co. at Cedar Street, Manhattan, manufacturing a hand printing press. In 1811, they moved the firm to Pearl Street.
After the death of his partners Robert took charge of the business in 1823, changed the name to Robert Hoe & Co.: Machinists, and moved to the firm to Gold Street. Aware of the growing demand for printing tools, he manufactured what is believed to have been the first cylinder press in America in 1827. Robert introduced the Hoe press and was (probably) the first American machinist to employ steam as a motor for his machinery.
Washington Irving’s Sunnyside
Failing health compelled Robert’s retirement from business in 1832 and he died the following year in Tarrytown. Two years later Washington Irving settled in the area, acquiring a property that was part of the Manor of Philipsburg.
Known as Wolfert’s Roost, the history of the farmhouse dated back to 1650 and had been built by Dutch-born Wolfert Acker, a one-time privy council to Peter Stuyvesant and the second deacon of Sleepy Hollow’s Old Dutch Church (having succeeded his brother Jan Acker in that role). Wolfert acted later as an official of the English colonial government. He featured in Washington Irving’s short story collection Wolfert’s Roost and Miscellanies (1855).
Having renamed the estate Sunnyside, Irving wrote what he considered his “crowning effort” there, the five-volume biography of George Washington, completing the work only weeks before his death in November 1859.
In the meantime, Robert II and Richard March continued the Hoe business. Robert was both an effective manager of the firm and a man of culture who acted as patron of numerous young artists (he died in Tarrytown in September 1884 and is buried in Sleepy Hollow).
Richard by contrast had inherited his father’s inventive mechanical skills. He was a pioneer in developing improved presses that used the novelty of continuous paper rolls. His rotary press (patented in 1847) became known in the trade as Hoe’s “lightning press” as it enabled the printing of newspapers in volume and at speed.
The press gained a world-wide reputation. A later improved version named Hoe’s web perfecting press was first used by the New York Tribune, producing 18,000 sheets an hour, printed on both sides. By 1855 the company employed four hundred people.
In 1873, the Hoe brothers moved the firm to Grant Street, in between Sherrif and Columbia Streets. The business flourished. The era of press barons had arrived.
The mechanical printing press was one of the most significant inventions of the Industrial Revolution. It allowed copies of texts and images to be printed rapidly and cheaply. Newspapers, pamphlets and books were mass produced and distributed, spreading news and propaganda, socio-political campaigns as well as novels and poetry.
Whilst the mass availability of printed materials was celebrated as an step forwards, bibliophiles looked back to the past, lamenting the decline in quality caused by industrial book production.
In 1891, William Morris founded the Kelmscott Press. With carefully crafted publications, he set out to re-awaken the lost ideals of book design and inspire higher standards of production at a time that the printed page was at its poorest. In seven years of operation, Morris’s hand-operated press published fifty-three books in 18,000 copies. William Morris initiated an era of private press experiments which intensified the appreciation for fine printing and revived the skills of design and bookbinding in Europe and America.
Although Robert III (born in March 1839, the eldest son of Robert II) followed in the family tradition of printing press manufacturers, his ambition as a man “infected by book collecting” was to preserve the great history of traditional printing.
As early as 1873, he had reserved nine rooms of his house at 11 East 36th Street (destroyed in 1911) for his collection. Hoe would become one of America’s foremost bibliophiles, assembling a rich variety of illuminated manuscripts, samples of early printing, illustrated books and fine bindings. Catalogues of his library were unique from both a typographical and bibliographical standpoint.
The Grolier Club
The nineteenth century was the age in which reason freed itself from religious restraints by establishing academic institutions. Yet, until late in the century, knowledge formation was not driven by universities, but by an array of learned societies that flourished in both cities and province.
Knowledge was diffused in a context of “club” sociability, creating the charismatic persona of the scholar. These societies were characterized by a cross-disciplinary approach to research rather than by an attempt to divide the domain of knowledge into a set of specialist disciplines.
The trend was set by the founding of London’s Royal Society in 1660 and the Academy of Sciences in Paris six years later. By the turn of the century, learned societies covering a range of subject areas had proliferated.
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin, was the nation’s first learned group aimed at promoting knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, publishing and the provision of library resources.
On the evening of January 23, 1884, Robert III invited to his home eight fellow bibliophiles to discuss the formation of a club devoted to the creation of books. Although the nine men differed in age and occupation, they shared the opinion that the arts of printing and typography in late nineteenth-century America were in need of reform. Amongst those present were Manhattan-born William Loring Andrews, book collector and first librarian of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
That same evening a resolution was adopted specifying the purpose of the organization, a committee appointed to select a name and another to draft a constitution. Within two weeks the club was named after the French bibliophile Jean Grolier and a constitution drawn up. The Grolier Club of the City of New York was founded “to foster the study, collecting and appreciation of books and works on paper, their art, history, production and commerce.” Its mission was (and remains) to promote the book and graphic arts through exhibitions and educational programs.
In March 1884, the Club opened its doors at 64 Madison Avenue. Six years later, Robert III provided the land for Grolier’s first building at 29 East 32nd Street. He acted as the Club’s first President from 1884 to 1888 (and was succeeded by William Loring Andrews).
In fall 1895 a surprise addition was unveiled to the Club’s headquarters. Its unattractive grill room had been transformed into a Dutch-style tapperij (taproom) with an impressive oven, Delft tiles, blue-and-cream dishware, clay pipe racks and smoke-seasoned rafters. Beer was flowing from a cask, whilst small knobbed glass windows reflected the gleam of pewter and brass. Sand was strewn on the floor and some members suggested wearing wooden clogs in the room.
Physician and Club member Frederick A Castle came up with the design of the taproom (on the assumption that bibliophiles love books and beer in equal measure) which was realized by German-American William Shannon Miller. It was as if Washington Irving had made a return visit. Widely reported in the press, the opening of the room rekindled interest in the New Amsterdam era.
During the Club’s move in 1917 to its current home at 47 East 60th Street (designed by Grolier member Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue), the tapperij was dismantled and moved along to the fourth floor of the new base.
Robert III was married to Liverpool-born Olivia James and he spent a good deal of time in Europe to attend some of the major book sales in London, Paris and elsewhere (he actually died in London in September 1909 at his residence at 38 Brunswick Square; by 1911 that property was occupied by members of the Bloomsbury Group).
On April 24, 1911, Anderson Auction Company began The First Sale of the Robert Hoe Library at their (new) premises on Madison Avenue and 40th Street. Elaborate arrangements had been made leading up to the auction. Annotated catalogues were produced by the outstanding bibliographer Arthur Swann which carried a foreword by Beverly Chew, himself a notable bibliophile, who called the collection the “finest the country has ever produced.”
Never before had an American book sale attracted similar public interest. Record-breaking prices paid by intriguing local and foreign bidders were reported as news events in the daily press. Among the treasures were a Gutenberg Bible on vellum (sold for $50,000, then the highest price ever paid for a book), a Shakespeare First Folio, the Book of St Albans (all bought on behalf of the railway magnet Henry Edwards Huntington), a Gutenberg Bible on paper (bought by the London dealer Bernard Quaritch; now at Harvard) and a Morte d’Arthur (acquired by J.P. Morgan).
The sale of some 15,000 lots realized almost $2 million, an auction result that at the time was unprecedented. Some outstanding items made their way back to Europe, but most of the collection remained in America and found its way to various illustrious institutions.
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Illustrations, from above: “The Mill-Dam at Sleepy Hollow” by Currier & Ives, ca. 1857; A map of Philipsburg Manor with current borders overlaid on the property; Christian Schussele’s “Washington Irving and his Literary Friends at Sunnyside,” 1864 (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian); Hoe & Co.’s powerful presence in Grant Street, 1884 (NYPL); François Flameng’s “Jean Grolier in the House of Aldus Manutius,” 1889 (Grolier Club); The Dutch ‘tapperij’ at the Grolier Club (photo by Nicole Neenan); and Vol. 1 of Robert Hoe’s book sale catalogue, 1911.
JUDITH BERDY
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Roughly seven miles long and running from Greenwich Village to Harlem, Fifth Avenue is arguably New York’s best-known avenue.
It begins at the triumphant arch at Washington Square Park, passes through elegant residential and museum districts as well as pricey retail blocks (and some traffic-choked ones as well), then dead ends at 143rd Street and the Harlem River.
But before Fifth Avenue became synonymous with luxury, style, and architectural beauty, it was just another sparsely populated country road flanked by unspoiled countryside miles from the main city. (Below, the Spingler farmhouse at Fifth Avenue and 14th Street)
This month marks the official opening of the Avenue in 1824, when its first seven blocks went from being a line on the 1811 city street grid originally called Middle Road to an actual (though unpaved) street.
Fifth Avenue’s birthday serves as an appropriate time to look back on its modest beginning. The avenue’s development coincided with Washington Square’s transformation from a potters field to a parade ground (fourth image). The mansions, monuments, and elite shops Fifth Avenue became known for were decades away.
So what was Fifth Avenue like just before the street was laid out? A passage from a 1918 book about Fifth Avenue by newspaper writer and editor Arthur Bartlett Maurice creates a picture of sandy hills, trout-filled waters, and farmland.
“Beginning at the Potter’s Field, the line of what is now Fifth Avenue left the ‘Road Over the Sandhills” or ‘Zantberg’ of the Dutch, later known as Art Street, long since gone from the map, and crossed the Robert Richard Randall Estate.”
For reference, Art Street was the former name of Waverly Place. Robert Richard Randall was a sea captain who owned a 24-acre tract of land north and east of today’s Washington Square. He died in 1801, and his will stipulated that a “sailors’ snug harbor” for aged seamen be built on his property—but ultimately Snug Harbor ended up on Staten Island.
“Thence it ran through the Henry Brevoort Farm, which originally extended from Ninth to 18th Streets. . . .Crossing the tributary stream at 12th Street, it passed a small pond between 13th and 14th Streets, and then ran on, over low and level ground, to 21st Street, then called ‘Love’s Lane.’ To the right was the swamp and marsh that afterwards became Union Square.”
(The map image above notes the Brevoort Farm at about 10th Street, as well as Minetta brook crossing the avenue.)
“Following the trail further, the hardy voyager wandered over ‘hills and valleys, dales and fields’ through a countryside where trout, mink, otter, and muskrat swam in the brooks and pools; brant, black duck, and yellow-leg splashed in the marshes and fox, rabbit, woodcock, and partridge found covert in the thicket.”
Admittedly, Maurice makes the area sound like a paradise of animal life. Yet other early accounts paint an image of colonial Manhattan as rich with all kinds of creatures normally found in woodland regions.
“Here and there was a farm, but the city, then numbered 100,000 persons, was far away,” continues Maurice. “Then, in 1824, the first stretch of the Avenue, from Waverly Place to 13th Street, was opened, and the northward march of the great thoroughfare began.”
That northward march helped turn Washington Square into a park and brought Fifth Avenue its earliest residences. One of the first was a stately Greek Revival home (above image) at the corner of Ninth Street, the site of balls and dinners with well-heeled guests.
This lovely home was occupied by Henry Brevoort, the son of the the farmer whose 84-acre farm was bisected by the new avenue.
“The Brevoorts and other farm owners began building houses that would serve as anchors for other houses to be built and sold on the vacant lots laid out along the avenue and radiating down the adjoining side streets,” wrote Charles V. Bagli in recent New York Times piece on Fifth Avenue’s anniversary.
In the 1840s and 1850s, elite New Yorkers relocated to Fifth Avenue from the posh enclaves of Bond Street and Stuyvesant Square, moving into new and fashionable brownstones. One still extant is the brownstone at Number 47 owned by the Salmagundi Club (above photo), built in 1853 and home to this arts club since 1917.
As more stretches of Fifth Avenue were laid out, more houses were built. Churches came too, including the Church of the Ascension on Tenth Street and Marble Collegiate Church on 29th Street. Farmhouses held out; the above sketch shows one in the 1830s at 23rd Street.
Empty parcels remained as well. One New Yorker who recalled them was Edith Wharton.
Born in Manhattan in 1862, Wharton charted the manners and morals of Gilded Age New Yorkers in fiction and then published her autobiography, A Backward Glance, in 1934.
In her autobiography, she remembers walking up Fifth Avenue as a young child with her father in the 1860s. Possibly she was departing from her family’s home, then on 23rd Street just off Fifth Avenue. Her walk ended at the distributing reservoir (above, in 1845) at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, where the New York Public Library stands today.
“The little girl and her father walked up Fifth Avenue: the old Fifth Avenue with its double line of low brown-stone houses, of a desperate uniformity of style, broken only—and surprisingly—by two equally unexpected features: the fenced-in plot of ground where the old Miss Kennedy’s cows were pastured, and the truncated Egyptian pyramid which so strangely served as a reservoir for New York’s water supply.”
“The Fifth Avenue of that day was a placid and uneventful thoroughfare, along which genteel landaus, broughams, and victorias, and more countrified vehicles of the “carry-all” and “surrey” type moved up and down at decent intervals and a decorous pace.”
Once the Gilded Age began, however, Fifth Avenue’s days as a small town, slow-poke road came to an end. From now on, it would be Gotham’s millionaire mile. (Above photo, Fifth Avenue looking north from 21st or 22nd Street in 1855)
“The directory of 1851 includes a large number of vacant lots between Washington and Madison Squares,” noted Henry Collins Brown, president of the Fifth Avenue Association in 1924 and author of a book honoring the avenue’s centennial, Fifth Avenue Then and Now.
“But after the Civil War, progress was immediate and on a scale of elaborate grandeur never before witnessed in this city, or in the country at large.”
By the early 1900s, you know the rest of the story. This avenue once surrounded by woods, streams, and the occasional farmhouse cemented its place as an iconic New York City address.
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By 1906, New York City had six free municipal-run public bathhouses operating throughout Manhattan. The seventh, at 232 West 60th Street—in a rough tenement enclave between 10th and 11th Avenues—formally opened its doors in June of that year.
A ceremony led by William H. Walker, superintendent of buildings, included a number of speeches. But “before the last orator had said his last word, a young army of West Side youth rushed for the plunges,” according to aNew York Times article that covered opening day.
When the word was finally given to admit the 50 or so waiting boys, “there was a great rush, and in less than a minute the boys had undressed, donned their trunks, and were splashing about in the tank,” wrote the New-York Tribune.
Of course the kids wanted to get inside on that June afternoon. Behind the Beaux Arts-style limestone and brick exterior—featuring two terra cotta sea creatures with their tails entwined—was an upstairs bathhouse offering 80 showers (aka, “rain baths”) as well as something new and special: a ground-floor 35 by 60-foot “plunge,” or swimming pool.
Now, at the dawn of the Progressive Era, people residing on either side of West 60th Street—the mostly Irish Hell’s Kitchen to the south, and the now-defunct African-American San Juan Hill neighborhood to the north—had a place not just to cool down in hot weather, but to bathe all year round.
Even though the Tenement Act of 1901 mandated that all tenement apartment units have bathing facilities, many people occupying older tenements still lived without a bathtub. In the early 1900s around West 60th Street, “a majority of homes lacked indoor plumbing,” states NYC Parks.
The 60th Street public bath was one of 20 public bathhouses across four boroughs constructed in the early 20th century. This bathhouse-building on the part of Progressive reformers capped a series of initiatives dating back to the late 19th century that called for improved hygiene and sanitation: on city streets, in public buildings, and of people themselves.
“Government acceptance of its duty to provide for the cleanliness of citizens was what the reformers had been hoping for; they believed, as Jacob Riis wrote in his 1902 book Battle With the Slum, that soap and water were ‘moral agents of the first value in the slum,’” wrote Christopher Gray in a 2014 New York Times column.
The showers were not unpopular, but the pool may have been the main attraction. It could hold 250 people, featured a supply of continuously filtered water, and offered women-only swimming three days a week, per the New-York Tribune. (The sexes were rigidly separated, with distinct doors for males and females even at the main entrance, as the second image shows.)
While the place was packed in the summer, wintertime use wasn’t very high. “Robert E. Todd of the Bureau of Municipal Research found in 1907 that bathhouse patronage in the winter months fell to as little as 4 percent of capacity,” wrote Gray.
The showers were not unpopular, but the pool may have been the main attraction. It could hold 250 people, featured a supply of continuously filtered water, and offered women-only swimming three days a week, per the New-York Tribune. (The sexes were rigidly separated, with distinct doors for males and females even at the main entrance, as the second image shows.)
While the place was packed in the summer, wintertime use wasn’t very high. “Robert E. Todd of the Bureau of Municipal Research found in 1907 that bathhouse patronage in the winter months fell to as little as 4 percent of capacity,” wrote Gray.
By the 1940s, its days as a public bathhouse were over. At some point one of the entrances was renovated into a window; the tenement next door fell to the wrecking ball.
In 2016, the bathhouse reopened as part of the Gertrude Ederle Recreation Center, which features not just swimming facilities but state-of-the-art fitness rooms and a new building addition.
Who was Gertrude Ederle? This West Side daughter of a butcher became the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1926. Ederle was born in 1906—the same year the bathhouse that now bears her name opened its doors to kids like her.
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Elected in 1880 as the City’s 54th holder of the office, he had made a splendid career as an entrepreneur, but his candidacy was criticized in the editorials of the New York Times and lambasted by opponents who claimed that the new Mayor would hand the metropolis to the “Holy Father of Rome.” But attitudes towards “Popery” were changing as the number of Catholic Americans grew and their influence increased.
During his second term (as 56th Mayor), Grace gratefully accepted the Statue of Liberty as a gift from French citizens to the people of the United States. Towering over the entrance to New York Harbor, the monument would become the world’s iconic tribute to freedom and a beacon of hope for immigrants.
The history of its erection on Bedloe Island (renamed Liberty Island in 1956) highlights the diverse backgrounds and intentions of the project’s advocates.
Meeting of Minds
In June 1865 Édouard de Laboulaye invited a number of friends to dinner. A Professor of Comparative Law at the Collège de France in Paris, he was the author of a three-volume Histoire des États Unis (History of the United States) and translator of Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography. He supported the United States and acted as President of the French Association for the Abolition of Slavery during the American Civil War. He proved that Catholicism was not antithetical to liberal thinking.
The reason for this get together was to rejoice at the crushing of the rebellion against the United States. In his word of welcome, the host talked about an enduring friendship between the two nations and proposed that the French people should present the U.S. with a monument to celebrate its ideals of liberty and democracy.
Having just returned from a trip to Egypt, he was fascinated by the monumental structures of Antiquity and had started designing a lighthouse named “Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia” to be located at the southern entrance to the Suez Canal, then under construction (it opened under French control in November 1869).
In the end, his grand statue of a woman holding a torch was rejected as too costly. Bartholdi embraced Laboulaye’s proposal instead. They called their projected statue “Liberty Enlightening the World.”
The 1870 Franco-Prussian War intervened. Serving as a squadron leader of the French National Guard, Bartholdi took part in the unsuccessful battle for control of Alsace. Outraged by the German takeover, he became an ardent advocate of political self-determination.
The deposition of Emperor Napoleon III was a positive outcome of the conflict. Elected to the National Assembly, Laboulaye participated in founding the Third Republic. The new political conditions were more conducive to generate support for his statue project.
Bartholdi envisaged creating a giant statue that would represent the democratic spirit of America. Armed with letters of introduction, he crossed the Atlantic in the summer of 1871 to gather support for the plan. During the journey he reworked his original Suez sketches and replaced the large figure of an Egyptian woman with “Libertas,” the Roman Goddess of Freedom.
As Bartholdi’s ship sailed into New York Harbor, he decided that Bedloe Island would be the perfect location for the monument. During that visit, President Ulysses S. Grant – the commanding General who had led the United States Army to victory against the Confederate States of America – promised him that using the site would be a possibility.
The Year 1876: Immigration Issues
In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as an industrial giant with a railroad system that connected all parts of the country into a national market economy. Millions of people migrated from rural districts to cities that struggled to keep up with the pace of expansion.
Various crises in Europe saw the number of immigrants surge as America maintained open borders to settle its empty lands. By the mid-nineteenth century, streams of Chinese workers attracted by the California Gold Rush, entered the country. The influx of newcomers was seen as a necessity, but there were growing concerns about disunity and disharmony. Immigration became an issue.
Some states enacted statutes to limit the entrance of “unwanted” incomers, but these controls were challenged by stakeholders. The flow of destitute migrants from Europe and China to the United States offered lucrative opportunities for shipping lines. The interference of authorities impacted negatively on their economic prospects.
The case of Henderson v. Mayor of City of New York took place during the Supreme Court’s 1875/6 session. The Scottish Henderson brothers ran the Anchor Line, a merchant shipping company.
When SS Ethiopia arrived from Glasgow at New York Harbor, they challenged the statutes of New York and Louisiana that required ship owners to post a “bond” for landing immigrants that would cover indemnities in case any of them needed state support. The Court agreed with the plaintiffs, arguing that the responsibility for immigration policy rested exclusively with the federal government.
That same year, California’s Supreme Court came to a similar verdict in the case of twenty-two women (including a lady named Chy Lung) who had arrived from China in San Francisco on board SS Japan.
The immigration commissioner identified them as “lewd and debauched.” The ship’s captain refused to pay a (substantial) bond for their admittance, while Chy Lung resisted deportation. The Court decided in her favor, insisting that the federal government was in charge of immigration policy and diplomatic relations. It was not up to California to impose restrictions.
Having assumed command as a result of these verdicts, the federal government commissioned a study to determine the best place for a reception station in New York Harbor. By 1892, officers on Ellis Island began the inspection and processing of immigrants.
There were few options. Workers could either work in the “satanic” cotton mills, join the army or emigrate. Considering their lineage, it is not surprising that the majority sailed towards New England.
Edward Moran was born in 1829 in Bolton-le-Moor, Lancashire, to a struggling family of handloom weavers. Set to work as a child, he found solace in sketching. In 1844, his parents moved the family to Maryland and settled in Philadelphia a year later. The youngster was employed in a textile factory. His supervisor recognized Edward’s artistic talent and encouraged him to pursue his interest.
Around 1845, Moran was apprenticed under Belfast-born James Hamilton who taught him the skills of marine painting. He was also instructed by Paul Weber, a German landscape artist – one of the “Forty-Eighters” – then living in Philadelphia.
In March 1871 Moran showed seventy-five paintings at James S. Earle & Sons gallery at Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, in an exhibition called “Land & Sea.” The show’s catalogue contained over seventy lithographs after the paintings. He donated proceeds from the exhibit to support the victims of the Franco-Prussian War.
The painter moved to Manhattan in 1872 where he lived until his death in 1901. An associate member of the National Academy of Design, he focused on New York Harbor scenes which were widely acclaimed.
Having met Bartholdi in 1876, he learned about the project. The idea inspired him. That same year he created an imagined spectacle of “The Commerce of Nations Paying Homage to Liberty,” which was then displayed at various fundraising events for the statue’s construction.
In the painting, “Lady Liberty” stands as a towering figure with a torch raised to the sky. In her other hand, she holds a tablet with the date of the Declaration of Independence. Surrounding her, a ceremonial scene shows a multitude of wooden boats with onlookers flying flags that represent different countries and communities. Moran’s image was a celebration of inclusiveness.
Franco-American Union
The response to Bartholdi’s first promotional trip to America had been disappointing. Undeterred, Laboulaye founded the Franco-American Union to raise funds. The statue would be constructed in Paris, whilst American participants were requested to finance the pedestal. The fact that French monarchists opposed the initiative was an additional motivation for him to press on with the plan.
Money was collected from all sections of society. A gathering at the Paris Opera on April 25, 1876, featured a newly composed cantata by Charles Gounod titled “La Liberté éclairant le monde.”
Industrialist Pierre-Eugène Secrétan donated 60,000 thousand kilos of copper to the project. The foundry of Gaget, Gauthier & Cie, located at Rue de Chazelles, was given the task of assembling the monument. Work started with the construction of head, arm and torch. Lady Liberty was born in bits.
In May 1876, Bartholdi attended Philadelphia’s Centennial Exhibition. The completed arm and torch arrived too late for them to be recorded in the catalogue, but the exhibits became popular as the torch’s balcony offered a fine view of the fairgrounds.
These parts were then displayed at Manhattan’s Madison Square Park before being transported back to Paris. The head and shoulders were completed in 1878 and put on show at the Universal Exposition in Paris. The world started to take notice.
Viollet-le-Duc was invited to design the statue’s internal structure. The latter died suddenly in 1879 and Gustave Eiffel, then a promising engineer who specialized in metal construction, was employed to finish the job. The statue was assembled between 1881 and 1884. Parisians were astonished to see a colossal figure growing above the roof of buildings that surrounded the workshop.
Laboulaye encouraged his friends at the Union League Club to take responsibility for the pedestal. William Maxwell Evarts, President of the New York City Bar Association, took charge of the American Committee for the Statue (which included nineteen-year old Theodore Roosevelt).
Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian Jewish immigrant and publisher of the New York World, used his newspaper to promote the project. Richard Morris Hunt (architect of the Tribune Building at Printing House Square) was commissioned to design the pedestal. Construction started in 1884.
On July 4, 1884, the statue was formally handed over in Paris to Levi P. Morton, the American Minister to France (he was later U.S. Vice President and Governor of New York). Disassembled into 350 pieces, packed in 214 crates (thirty-six just for the rivets and bolts), it was transported by train to Rouen and shipped to New York aboard the Navy frigate Isère.
The French government borne the cost of the crossing, its only financial contribution to the scheme. Laboulaye would not see the final result of his determined efforts. He had died in May 1883.
On October 26, 1886, more than a million people attended the unveiling ceremony led by Grover Cleveland, former New York State Governor and the first Democrat President after the Civil War. In the presence of Edward Moran, Bartholdi revealed Lady Liberty’s face by removing the French flag that covered it.
The moment was greeted by cannon shots and ship sirens. Manhattan’s bells rang in the distance, while suffragists ridiculed the use of a female figure symbolizing freedom when women were denied the right to vote.
Chemistry & Psychology
The copper statue took four months to assemble and twenty years to transform from the original shiny reddish color into its iconic green through the natural chemical process of “patination” which prevented corrosion of the copper beneath.
Despite the statue’s age and exposure to the elements, the underlying structure remains unscathed. The change in color had a psychological effect too.
Laboulaye was a figure with lofty liberal ideals. His concept of a Statue of Liberty was intended as a tribute to freedom and equality (and the abolishment of slavery). From the outset he had his own agenda.
As Napoleon III’s Second Empire was a repressive regime, the proposed gift to the American people was an attempt to infuse the ideals of Republican democracy into the consciousness of fellow French citizens. At the early stage of instigation, the plan was an act of political rebellion.
The son of a Protestant counselor to the prefecture, Bartholdi received a liberal education. Having experienced the loss of Alsace to German troops, his stance took a sharper political edge. Witnessing deep divisions within Europe, his interpretation of the project was as much an alarm call as it was a salute. His message had an undertone of gloom.
Edward Moran on the other hand was an immigrant whose family members had escaped grinding poverty in Lancashire. He proceeded to become a celebrated artist. He joined the Liberty project to honor the country that had freed him from the shackles of deprivation.
To all these participants, the copper color of Lady Liberty was a metaphorical red warning light: if democracy and peaceful co-existence were not established in the “Old Continent,” then America would become an alternative to disillusioned Europeans.
That perception modified over time. As the Statue of Liberty was visible from every ship approaching New York Harbor, it provided a first glimpse of the new “promised” land to countless immigrants. She emerged as the “Mother of Exiles,” giving a green light of hope and expectancy to millions of newcomers.
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