New Jersey’s “Merci Train” boxcar, missing for nearly 45 years and feared to have been destroyed, is being returned to New Jersey.
In 1949 France gifted the United States 49 boxcars, the French Gratitude Train (Train de la Reconnaissance française), as a symbolic gesture of gratitude for American aid during and after World War II. The 130-year-old railroad cars, known as “40 and 8” boxcars, had been used to transport troops during the First World War and used again in the Second World War and by occupation forces after the war.
The boxcars arrived in Weehawken, New Jersey on February 2/3, 1949 filled with gifts from ordinary French and Italian citizens. More than six million people contributed, depositing dolls, statues, clothes, ornamental objects, furniture, and even a Legion of Honour medal purported to have belonged to Napoleon. Many of the gifts remain preserved in museum collections around the United States.
he Merci Train boxcars were opened and turned into traveling exhibits before each state committee distributed the entire contents.
New York’s contained, among many smaller gifts, a 500-pound bell cast in Annecy, France and labeled to the attention of Cardinal Francis Spellman. The bell was installed in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. The car was paraded down Broadway and around NYC before some 200,000 people before making a tour of the state.
New Jersey‘s boxcar had been missing since 1958, with unverified claims that it had been scrapped. It was rediscovered in a Tennessee field by the National World War I Museum and Memorial in 1993, accessioned into the museum’s collection and placed in storage in a Kansas City, Missouri warehouse.
To transport the boxcar from Kansas City to New Jersey, URHS is raising $20,000 to cover preparation, stabilization, shrink-wrapping, and transportation of the car via flatbed truck. Any additional funds will support an initial evaluation by a historic architect. You can donate or make a larger sponsorship gift here.
New York’s Forty and Eight
Cramped into narrow gauge boxcars, each stenciled with “40 Hommes/8 Chevaux,” denoting its capacity to hold either 40 men or 8 horses, “40 and 8” cars were a familiar uncomfortable mode of transportation common among the experience of every American who fought in the trenches.
Thereafter, they used “40/8” a lighthearted symbol of the unspoken horrors and shared sacrifice of combat that bound them together.
The Forty & Eight (The Society of Forty Men and Eight Horses, La Société des Quarante Hommes et Huit Chevaux) was founded in 1920 by American veterans returning from France as an “elite” arm of the American Legion.
(It became an independent and separately incorporated veteran’s organization in 1960. Membership is by invitation and open to honorably discharged veterans and honorably serving members of the United States Armed Forces.)
While most of the Merci Trains’ forty-nine 40 and 8 boxcars (there was one for each state and Washington DC/Hawaii Territory) are displayed in museums and parks across the country, five remain lost, including those representing Connecticut; Massachusetts (scrapped in the 1960s); Illinois (believed to have been abandoned and destroyed at the 1948-1949 Chicago Railroad Fair site); Nebraska (partially scrapped in 1951, the remainder converted to a shed and destroyed in 1961); and Colorado.
The Voiture loaned the boxcar to the Rail City Museum, which opened in Sandy Creek, Oswego County, NY on July 4, 1955. To promote the museum it was placed on display in Clinton Square in Syracuse in 1956 before returning to Rail City where it remained on display until that museum closed in 1974.
It then found its way to Oneida County Forty & Eight Voiture 92 at 5163 Judd Road in Whitesboro, NY and was stored outside behind a chain link fence until 2010 when it was restored, repainted and placed under a new pavilion.
Voiture 92 closed its doors in 2022 citing “lack of support” however, and the car remained on site as late as July 2024. According to mercitrain.org “the car will be moved to a location where it will be renovated. Once that is complete, the car should be moved to the Utica Union Station.”
If you have additional information about the status of New York’s Merci Boxcar please leave a comment below, or email John Warren.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Misery Loves Company As we met outside the Chapel, Scot Bobo and I commiserated about trying to maneuver on our brick sidewalks. Scot is the victim of a skiing accident in Montana. We now know personally how terrible our brick sidewalks, crosswalks and pavements are to persons using assistive devices. Time repair and replace our 50 year old pavements, RIOC!!
CREDIT
Illustrations, from above: New Jersey’s Merci Train boxcar in a warehouse in Missouri in ca. 2024 (provided by the United Railroad Historical Society of New Jersey); New York’s Merci Train Boxcar on display in Syracuse Clinton Square in 1956 (photo by Stanley A Gorman); New York’s boxcar in Whitesboro in 1997 (provided by MerciTrain.org); and the restored New York boxcar in its 2010-built shelter in Whitesboro (photo by John and Sue Stevens, provided by MerciTrain.org).
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.
OOPS! Yesterday I wrote that I had my knee replaced. Wrong!!! I had my left hip replaced!! Those opiods really goof with your brain!!!
Women in the dining room of the Clara de Hirsch Home for Working Girls, undated. Photo courtesy of 92NY Archives
The tale of a woman on her own, arriving in New York City to find her fortune, began long before Mary Tyler Moore exuberantly tossed her hat into the air. The city’s history is inseparable from international women’s history, and a handful of residences that offered refuge for young ladies arriving solo is undoubtedly part of this story. With good moral intentions–and rules and regulations–they were gracious in the amenities and camaraderie offered. Introduced here are some of the historic hotels that helped generations of women gain a foothold in the big city–as well as one set to reopen this year as a modern women-only residence.
The Barbizon Hotel for Women
The most famous women-only hotel, the Barbizon Hotel for Women, would still be known as a chic networking hub for women well into the 1970s, but its early days were no less interesting. Far from utilitarian or charity-oriented, the hotel grew into a legendary establishment that attracted a generation of creative and interesting women.
Opening its doors in 1927, the Barbizon Hotel offered a safe–yet sophisticated–space for ambitious young women pursuing careers before marriage. Designed in a distinctive Late Gothic Revival style with pink-toned brick, the 23-story building housed 700 tiny dormitory-style rooms and elite amenities, including a library, solarium, swimming pool, and Turkish bath.
Nicknamed “The Dollhouse,” the Barbizon attracted a mix of creatives, models, and aspiring professionals, counting among its residents literary icons Sylvia Plath and Joan Didion, Hollywood legends Grace Kelly and Liza Minnelli–and a young Nancy Reagan. The hotel was also home to students from the Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School and models from the Powers Agency, earning it a reputation as a launch pad of sorts for ambitious women. Admission was strict: Women were categorized by age and appearance, and diversity was nonexistent until 1956.
For decades, men were barred from the upper floors, though any given evening would find several loitering longingly in the lobby. As social mores loosened by the decade, the Barbizon struggled to maintain its allure, and by the 1970s, the rise of women’s independence made its rules seem outdated. In 1981, the hotel finally opened to male guests, leading to its eventual transformation into luxury condominiums.
Introduced in Paulina Bren’s social history, “The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free,” the Barbizon’s legacy endures in the remarkable form of a handful of original residents. Known as “The Women,” a few residents fought for the right to remain in their rooms, protected by rent control. According to Untapped, as of 2021, five of these women were residing in the building, paying rents that are a fraction of today’s multimillion-dollar condo prices. Their presence is a living testament to an era when the Barbizon symbolized female ambition, worldliness, independence, and change in 20th-century America
Park Avenue Hotel, New York, New York. Between 1900 and 1906. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress
The Stewart Hotel
Among the earliest women’s hotels vying for “first” status, the Stewart Hotel was founded by Alexander Turney Stewart, a wealthy Irish merchant who immigrated to New York City in 1823. Intended as a “working women’s hotel” that would provide a respectable, affordable, and safe refuge for the recent wave of Revolutionary War widows who were flocking to the city in search of a living wage. With profit rather than charity as a motivating factor, Stewart saw vast opportunity in this unusual-for-the-time enterprise.
Stewart commissioned an architect to design a hotel that would occupy an entire block from 32nd Street to 33rd Street along Fourth Avenue, with room for 1,500 women, with common areas for dining and gathering. As Daytonian tells it, when the hotel finally opened its doors in 1877, the New York Times called it “the best constructed, the most elaborately furnished, the best appointed, and with the most perfect culinary department of any hotel in the world. Besides all this the Women’s Hotel is, by almost 200 rooms the largest in the Metropolis, and it is intended to furnish women who earn their livelihood the best possible living for the least possible money.”
For $6 a week, guests got a shared room (a private room could be had for an additional dollar). No food was allowed in the rooms; visitors were not allowed anywhere but the hotel’s reception room; pets were not allowed at all; closing time was 11:30 P.M. sharp; and applicants to the hotel were required to supply written proof that they were employed and over 12 years of age.
Despite these efforts, the hotel’s doors closed fifty-four days after its launch, citing an inability to cover operating costs. The regular Park Avenue Hotel opened subsequently at the same address. In 1925, the building was leveled to build a 35-story office tower
The Martha Washington
By the 1890s, the city was becoming a magnet for women in search of a veritable bonanza of new jobs, seeking careers as stenographers, clerks, secretaries, and teachers. The rather anonymously titled Women’s Hotel opened in 1903 at 30 East 30th Street, according to Untapped, to provide housing, both temporary and permanent, for professional women in its 416 rooms; male guests were not allowed above the ground floor, and almost all staff were female.
Unlike the Stewart, the hotel was a success from the start, with a long waiting list; subsequently renamed the Martha Washington Hotel, it offered rooms starting at $3 a week. The hotel offered a pharmacy, tailor services, and a manicurist and welcomed a new wave of college-educated women headed for professional careers. It was also the headquarters of a feminist organization called the Interurban Women Suffrage Council.
Suffragists from Oregon visiting New York City before meeting in Washington, D.C. with President Wilson. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress
The Martha Washington Hotel was a novelty–a tourist attraction, even–in that it offered women a level of freedom that was missing from previous women-only establishments, making even more waves when it applied for a liquor license in 1933. Famous guests included poet Sara Teasdale and actresses Louise Brooks and Veronica Lake.
The hotel lasted well past the turn of the 21st century. Its last incarnation was as the women-run Redbury Hotel, which closed in 2023 to become a migrant shelter.
At the end of the century, Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt Shepard (daughter of William Vanderbilt), a major supporter of the YWCA, funded a new building that was to be known as the Margaret Louisa Home for Protestant Women. The six-story building boasted 78 bedrooms, a restaurant, and common areas for socializing and relaxing. As Daytonian tells us, at its opening in June of 1891, the New York Times called it “an inspiring evidence of woman’s interest in women.”
Rooms would be 60 cents; an extra 85 cents covered three meals. Boarders would be limited to a four-week stay. Like the Martha Washington, the new residence was a hit from the moment it opened its doors, welcoming thousands of women in its first year. Their ranks included (daytonian; In 1898 the Times gave a breakdown) teachers, milliners, dressmakers, housekeepers, stenographers, physicians, librarians, lecturers, missionaries, actresses, nurses, photographers, umbrella makers, confectioners, hair curlers, florists, merchants, and “travelers.” At the close of World War I, the Margaret Louisa Home was still charging only 60 cents per night; it remained open through the first half of the 20th century.
The Parkside Evangeline
The Parkside Evangeline Hotel at 18 Gramercy Park–now a luxury condominium–began as a hotel for women in 1927. It continued as a women’s temporary residence owned by the Salvation Army from 1963 to 2008.
An illustration in “The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living” (1909) Caption: “Dining-room in Trowmart Inn, New York City, Said to Be the Best Managed Hotel for Self-supporting Women in America.” Via Wikimedia
Trowmart Inn
Trowmart Inn for Working Girls at 607 Hudson Street was opened in 1906, mainly to provide a home for nurses during World War I. The building was purchased by the YWCA, and a substantial donation to the YWCA from John D. Rockefeller Jr. helped establish a subsequent women’s residence called Laura Spelman Hall; the building later became a nursing home, which was replaced by, of course, condos.
According to The New York Historical, the Trowmart offered “shop, millinery, and factory girls” minimal rooms, plus breakfast and dinner starting at $4.50 a week. Amenities included a dining room and a cafeteria, “beau parlors” for entertaining gentlemen friends, a music parlor, a library, an on-site doctor’s office, a sewing room, and laundry facilities.
The Jeanne D’Arc Home
Founded in 1896, the Jeanne D’Arc Home on West 26th Street began as a refuge for “friendless French girls” separated from their families, according to Ephemeral New York; it remains a safe haven for women, run by the Congregation of Divine Providence, open to women of all faiths and cultures, with a focus on international visitors who have come for study or work.
The Clara de Hirsch Home
The Clara de Hirsch Home for Working Girls was a non-sectarian teenage girls’ home located at 225 East 63rd Street. Founded in 1897, it was supported by an endowment by Belgian businesswoman and philanthropist Clara de Hirsch. In 1960, the building was sold, and the organization that maintained it merged with the 92nd Street Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA).
The Webster Apartments
One (and perhaps the only of its kind) residence offering women-only living is poised to make a 21st-century comeback. The Webster Apartments will be officially opening in May of 2025 at 229 Duffield Street in a rapidly developing section of Downtown Brooklyn. Operating as a nonprofit organization, the residence will provide “women who are working, studying, and interning, with a safe and healthy environment to live, connect, and network with like-minded individuals.”
Residents won’t find 1923 prices, of course–and applicants must meet income criteria. There will be a minimum stay of 31 days. Amenities will include a fitness center, a community room, a rooftop lounge, and free laundry.
According to The Paris Review, the original Webster Apartments were established in 1923 by brothers Charles and Josiah Webster, senior partners at a nearby Macy’s store, to provide a safe residence for unmarried shopgirls, many of whom were recently arrived from small towns across America.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
HAPPINESS IS SEEING THE GRASS TURN GREEN IN QUEENSBRIDGE PARK
I ventured out today to experience walking on the island Z-brick pavers with a walker. What a grinding experience!!! Not pleasant.
Judy Berdy
CREDITS
6SQFT
MICHELLE COHEN
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.
The New York City subway recently celebrated its 120th birthday. With such an impressive life span, it’s realistic to expect that many features of the original stations have been altered, removed, destroyed, or otherwise lost to the ages.
But occasionally you come across a subway station that has been strangely left alone or only slightly renovated over the decades. Case in point is this head house for the Bowling Green 4 and 5 train station at Battery Park.
What’s a head house? Also called a control house, it’s the official term for a subway entrance that’s more of a structure than simply a kiosk with a staircase. Many early subway stations in New York had beautiful decorative kiosks, though sadly none survive today. (That one at Astor Place is a recreation).
New York City’s original head houses were designed to be ornate and decorative; the idea was that taking the subway should be an experience enhanced by artistic beauty wherever possible.
Built in 1905, the Bowling Green head house is the work of the architectural firm of Heins & LaFarge, states the Landmarks Preservation Commission. This storied firm was hired to design all of the IRT stations that opened in the early 1900s.
If you’ve ever seen interior images of the long-closed City Hall station, then you’ve seen the beauty that Heins & LaFarge created for New Yorkers.
A lovely little building of yellow brick, limestone, and granite, this head house with its gables and “bulls-eye” designs on each end remind me of the Flemish-style architecture of the city’s earliest colonial settlers. I imagine Heins & LaFarge designed it this way to pay homage to Gotham’s beginnings.
A few other head houses from the original IRT stations survive as well. One is the head house at West 72nd Street, which dates to 1904, according to another Landmarks Preservation Commission designation report.
The West 72nd Street head house (third photo) looks similar to Bowling Green; it’s described as “Flemish Renaissance style” and was also designed by Heins & LaFarge, per the report.
A third head house sits on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, or at least I remember one there last time I visited. Please don’t tell me it’s been demolished!
PHOTO OF THE DAY
COLER A BUILDING VIEW FIRST FLOOR
For the last 3 weeks I have been off line, first having knee replacement surgery at NYU Orthopedic Hospital and then recovering at Coler. It has been a unique experience. Having known Coler as a Community Board member and Auxiliary member I had never been a patient. The care and attention by nursing, physical therapy and staff was great. As you can see the view from my room was rather dreary.
I will say more about Coler in days to come. I am home, walker and all. ready to start PT and enjoy spring on the island.
Thanks to everyone called, visited and made my days go faster.
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.
I WILL BE OFF DUTY FOR A TIME. HOPE TO BE BACK VERY SOON. Judy Berdy
GREAT MIDCENTURY PHOTOS
Gottscho-Schleisner
SHORPY PHOTO ARCHIVE
THURSDAY, MARCH6, 2025
ISSUE #1411
February 26, 1960. New York. “Incres Line Caribbean cruise ship M.S. Victoria. Dining room. Gustavo Pulitzer-Finali, designer.” Acetate negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.
September 14, 1951. “Tillett residence at 170 E. 80th Street, New York City. Dining table.” The minimalist townhouse kitchen of textile designers D.D. and Leslie Tillett. 4×5 inch acetate negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.
March 20, 1946. “Dollar Savings Bank, Grand Concourse, Bronx, New York. Exterior, from right.” 5×7 inch acetate negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. 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.
October 23, 1959. “Bloomingdale’s, Hackensack, New Jersey. China and glass department. Raymond Loewy, client.” Large-format acetate negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size..
January 25, 1956. “Prudential Insurance Co., Newark, New Jersey. From Public Service roof.” 4×5 inch acetate negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.
April 22, 1932. “Ware Shoals, South Carolina. Cotton cloth printing machine from rear.” 5×7 inch acetate negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.
October 29, 1954. “Big dining room, Patricia Murphy’s Candlelight Restaurant, Central Avenue, Yonkers, Westchester County, N.Y.” Said to be the largest restaurant in the East. 4×5 negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.
March 2, 1962. “New York City views. Downtown Manhattan skyline from the Al Smith houses.” 4×5 acetate negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.
June 12, 1935. “Newark passenger station, Pennsylvania Railroad. Waiting room, sunlight and passengers. McKim, Mead & White, client.” Waiting for someone to explain the plane. Large format negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.
Jan. 17, 1956. “Raymond Loewy’s Jaguar car. No. 8.” Happy 120th birthday to the famed industrial designer. Gottscho-Schleisner photo. View full size.
March 30, 1955. “Fontainebleau Hotel, Miami Beach. General view. Morris Lapidus, architect.” Photo by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
1966 PHOTO OF ISLAND BUILDING LONG GONE SUZANNE VLAMIS(C)
CREDITS
SHORPY HISTORIC PHOTO ARCHIVE
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.
Some of the world’s greatest cities originated on river banks. In spite of individual histories, there is one common pattern. These were all “hydraulic” communities that developed creative skills to control the elements and open up the access to waterways.
Environmental intervention facilitated their adaptation to the habitat. They engineered techniques to dig canals, drain swamps, reclaim land and build on marshy ground by using mud banks to produce stylish brick. The transition of Venice, Antwerp or Amsterdam from soggy settlements to iconic port cities symbolized man’s ability to master his surroundings. New York City joined that list.
Settlers designed vessels to transport people, cattle and goods. Long before Henry Hudson sailed up the channel that now bears his name in 1609, dozens of Indigenous tribes lived along its banks and used it as a highway.
The means of transporting quantities of cargo however, did not materialize until a ship was crafted that could handle the Hudson River’s navigational challenges of unpredictable currents, capricious winds, powerful tides and shifting sands.
Once that vessel was designed and built, the river became a vast commercial waterway. Cargoes of agricultural products and building materials were transported from the Hudson Valley to the emerging and all-consuming metropolis.
Hudson River Sloops
The Dutch sloep (sloop – same pronunciation) was developed during the seventeenth century and designed for practical purposes. As these vessels were primarily used for transporting goods and passengers on inland rivers and canals (during their earliest period), sloops were fitted with a low bowsprit and a single headsail suited the navigation of shallow waterways.
The first ships sailing in New Netherland had been deep-draft keelboats with high sides that could also be used for crossing the Atlantic, but they were almost impossible to handle on the Hudson River. Early settlers were forced to modify these cumbersome vessels.
The Hudson River sloop that evolved was an adaptation from the Dutch sloep. A flat-bottomed (for passing over shoals and sand bars) and low-sided wide vessel, it featured a single mast located near the front of the craft (allowing sails to be lowered quickly if needed) from which up to three sails could be hoisted.
Some twenty-five meters long, the sloops were constructed of Hudson Valley woods, typically rot-resistant cedar, for the sides and harder oak for the bottom. They were built virtually everywhere along the river. Among the vessels registered between 1789 and 1867, Nyack built 170, followed by Marlboro (in Marlborough, Ulster County) with 112, and Albany with 106. Settlers from the Low Countries were involved in almost all of these ventures.
The Hudson River sloop would become the mainstay of the Valley’s maritime transportation from the early days of Dutch settlement until the advent of the steamboat. At the peak of its popularity around 1830, every town and village along the river had its own fleet of brightly painted sloops, ranging from a half dozen to as many as fifty or sixty. Large anchorages resembled a forest of masts and provided a festive and colorful spectacle. The Hudson scenery seemed a celebration of sloops, an “impressionistic” painting.
From 1807 onward, the Hudson River Steam Boat (later Clermont) – designed by Robert Fulton – started steamboat operations on the Hudson River. Although steam offered growing competition, sloops remained an important means of transport. Regular breakdowns made steam seem an unreliable mode of travel. Passenger sloops also offered services to and from smaller river towns and across seasonal shallow areas that steamers could not reach.
Eventually, the introduction of barge traffic (towboats and tugs pulling as many as forty barges carrying various types of cargoes) doomed the sloop’s status as “Queen of the Hudson.”
Competition from the railroads (especially the Hudson River Railroad which opened in 1851 from New York to Albany) meant that the transport of freight and passengers would increasingly take place over land rather than on water. The last chorus of the “Song of Sloops” had finally been sung.
Sloops of Freedom
Called “freight sloops” or “market boats,” these vessels had no regular time of departure or fixed destination, but they played a crucial role in the commercial network. Sloops could carry as much as 125 tons of commodities.
Food produced in the Hudson Valley was important to the city of New York’s exploding population. Cargoes varied. Flour, grain, hay, lumber, live animals and furs were brought downriver to Manhattan; manufactured goods and imports such as earthenware, fabrics, hardware, whale oil, rum, salt, sugar and tobacco went upriver.
Passenger sloops carried twenty-five or thirty travelers from New York to Albany or stops in between. The full trip could take from twenty-four hours (a fast trip) to several days as speed was dependent on wind and weather conditions. Passengers carried food and drink with them to supplement what was offered on board and brought books or needle work with them to pass the time in relative comfort.
Without a fixed schedule, sloops set sail when the hold was full and the travel conditions were favorable. Often in the course of the voyage the crew were forced to anchor when either strong currents or strong or lack of wind made a smooth passage impossible.
Given an opportunity, passengers would be helped to go ashore for a picnic or a stroll, patiently waiting for conditions to improve. They were prepared for the “travail of travel.” (New York Almanack has published descriptions of such trips from 1800 and 1801.)
In its heyday some 1,200 sloops sailed the Hudson River. The average vessel on the river carried a captain, three or four sailors and a cabin boy. The crew often included enslaved Black men who, over time, gained crucial experience on the waterway.
When in September 1850 the Fugitive Slave Act was passed by Congress, requiring the return of runaway slaves with severe penalties for those who refused to cooperate, the Hudson River became a favored route for escapees. Sloops offered a promise of freedom.
Captain Abraham Johnson was a freed African-American who, along with his wife and five children, owned and operated two sloops on the Hudson River dubbed The Miriam and The Jane of Albany.
He put his son John in charge of the Miriam to deal with trade and cargoes. A skilled navigator, the latter broke all records on March 17, 1849, when he completed the 150-mile trip from New York to Albany in a mere seventeen hours.
John Johnson built a house that was occupied by his sister Harriet and her husband Stephen Myers, a former slave and articulate abolitionist. In the mid-1850s the property became headquarters of Albany’s Vigilance Committee, a group that was active in organizing the Underground Railroad from the early 1840s up into the Civil War and assisted hundreds of men and women in their pursuit of liberty in the northern United States and Canada.
Brick City
Bulk cargoes of lumber, stone and bricks to the city of New York’s building sites were transported over the Hudson River. As late as the 1890s, sloops were being used to ship heavy materials as the vessel was the most economical means of transfer when speed of delivery was not essential.
New York’s rectangular street grid was codified by the Common Council in 1811. Before the system was implemented, streets were laid down unplanned and haphazardly, following the natural contours of the hilly terrain. Most of New Amsterdam’s earliest buildings were timber constructions. Recurrent fires (and arson attacks) forced the use of alternative materials.
Civic pride in Flemish and Dutch cities had been expressed in iconic brick buildings. Citizens of New Amsterdam were driven by a similar passion. From the early 1630s onwards, bricks were imported from the Low Countries.
Washington Irving’s fictional narrator Dietrich Knickerbocker described the houses of Rip Van Winkle’s village at the foot of the Catskill Mountains as built of “yellow bricks brought from Holland.”
In 1642, the West India Company (WIC) commissioned the construction of the Stadt Herbergh at Broad Street. A decade later, the tavern was converted into a City Hall (“Stadt Huys”). Excavations have shown that its builders used Dutch-made bricks.
The desire to create a home from home was manifest in the city’s planning. In 1646, the colonial government decided to dig a network of canals wide enough for small boats to navigate through New Amsterdam’s mercantile center.
The largest canal was the Heere Gracht (Gentleman’s Canal), running from Broad Street to Beaver Street. Its continuation was called Prinzen Gracht. Both were named after the mother city’s elegant canals. Soon after the handover in 1664, they deteriorated into open sewers and were drained by the English authorities three years later.
The exploitation of large deposits of yellow and blue clay along the banks of the Hudson River made it unnecessary to transport building materials across the Atlantic. In 1771 Dutch settler Jacob van Dyke began producing bricks in a rapidly expanding business.
A breakthrough in production occurred in June 1852, when another Dutch immigrant by the name of Richard VerValen invented and patented a machine for molding bricks. Local industry exploded.
The industry furnished the materials that would transform the city. A staggering number of bricks was transported to Manhattan (at its heyday over a billion bricks annually), mainly by Hudson River sloops known as “brickers.”
The brick business was booming, but the unprecedented demand created an unregulated rush of delivery that was not without risks. On September 5, 1857, the Rockland County Journal reported on one of the many serious sloop accidents when on a dark and stormy night the Hoboken ferry boat Paterson ran into the sloop Aurora.
The sloop was sailing at “reckless” speed in a fast running tide. Having no lights up, its presence was observed at the very last moment by pilot Cornelius Van Riper who was unable to take evading action.
In the collision the ferry ripped off the sloop’s entire stern. She keeled over and sank within two minutes. Its crew members were saved. Owned by the Haverstraw firm of Lot Onderdonk (another Dutch-sounding name), the Aurora carried thirty thousand fine faced bricks.
Haverstraw turned the metropolis into a haven of bricks. New Amsterdam was built on an irregular pattern of yellow brick roads lined with houses that showed a variety of stepped gables and stylish stoops.
It became a feature of New York’s cityscape as Dutch architecture continued to persevere until the mid-eighteenth century. It was only then that wealthy residents began opting for the fashionable Georgian style.
SOME HAPPY FLAMINGOS ON A RECENT TRIP TO THE BAHAMAS
CREDITS
NEW YORK ALMANACK
Illustrations, from above: James Edward Buttersworth, “Hudson River Sloop Phillip R. Paulding”, ca. 1885 (Private Collection); Claes Jansz. Visscher II’s “Sloops near a Dutch Estate,” undated; Sidewheel steamer tow boat pulling canal boats, barges and sloops (Donald C Ringwald collection, Hudson River Maritime Museum); “Sail and Steam At Anthony’s Nose” by Ray Crane showing two sloops on the Hudson River; “Sloops on the Hudson at Tappan Zee” by Francis Silva; New Amsterdam’s brick built city hall, once one of Manhattan’s first taverns; and HUTTON brick fragments on Kingston Point Beach (courtesy BrickCollecting.com).
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.
Imagine if a plane took off from LaGuardia Airport on a stormy night and crashed in a snow-covered stretch of Rikers Island. Considering this island jail complex’s reputation for violence and chaos, it’s doubtful that inmates would be allowed to aid survivors.
But that’s exactly what happened when a passenger jet carrying 101 people departed LaGuardia in February 1957. It’s an incredible story of tragedy and heroism that’s hard to imagine in the New York City of today.
Before the details of the crash, here’s a primer on the backstory of Rikers Island. For its first century and a half after Dutch colonization, this spit of land in the East River was owned by the Rycken family, who lived on a farm in modern-day Astoria.
What did the Rikers, as they eventually renamed themselves, do with this 87-acre island? Aside from farming the land early on, not much. (Above, the East River from Rikers Island, date unknown)
During the 19th century, sleigh riding parties from Flushing crossed the ice on the frozen river to the island, and ships coming in from New England dropped anchor there. With the Civil War raging in the early 1860s, Rikers was used as a training ground for Union soldiers.
In 1884, the city bought Rikers for $180,000. The plan was to build a new jail that would relieve crowding in the penitentiary on nearby Blackwell’s Island. The Commission of Charities and Corrections, tasked with handling jails and public asylums, also wanted to separate “the institutions of the distressed and those for punishment of the guilty,” stated a 1886 New York Times article.
That new jail wasn’t completed until the early 1930s (above), following years of city officials using Rikers Island as a dumping ground of ash and street sweepings that eventually enlarged it to more than 400 acres.
Finally, “construction of 26 buildings consisting of seven cellblocks for 2,600 inmates, an administration building, receiving center, mess hall, shops, a chapel and homes for the warden and deputy warden” were opened to men only, according to the NYC Department of Records & Information Services.
Construction issues and scandal plagued the jail complex almost as soon as it opened. By 1954, Rikers was home to 7,900 inmates in space designed for 4,200, per the NYC Department of Records & Information Services.
Then came the crash. Northeast Airlines Flight 823 took off from LaGuardia Airport on February 1, 1957 in the middle of a storm on a freezing night.
The DC-6A with 95 passengers and six crew members failed to climb, and “the Miami-bound plane crashed into a patch of trees on Rikers Island, ripping off its wings and bursting into flames less than a minute after take-off,” wrote the New York Post in 2017.
A deputy warden made the decision to send 69 inmates, who were already on snow-removal duty, to the crash site to help pull survivors from the burned and broken aircraft.
“The first inmate to arrive at the scene worked as a housekeeper for the jail’s Protestant minister,” reported the New York Post. “He helped pull desperate passengers through the fuselage and doused their smoldering clothes with wet snow.”
The Staten Island Advance covered the story the day after the disaster, stating that 60 inmates were working in a poultry house that evening. They realized a plane had crashed when they saw an orange glow through the snow.
You tell about the inmates,” the Advance quoted a police officer on the scene. “What they did! Without them, many would have died out there. They went right in there…they took [passengers] out in their arms.”
Besides pulling out the survivors, the incarcerated men brought them to the jail infirmary (above photo) and assisted in providing first aid. As emergency crews arrived on the island, rumors circulated that inmates were trying to escape. But per the Post, everyone was accounted for.
In total, 20 passengers were killed in the crash and subsequent fire. An investigation deemed the tragedy to be the result of pilot error.
As for the heroic inmates, nearly 60 “eventually had their sentences reduced or commuted because of their heroic efforts, wrote the Post.
Most of these former inmates remain unknown, as their names were not released publicly. In an era of daily newspapers and a handful of TV networks, not every individual who acted heroically made it into the media cycle. Presumably, most went on with their lives in anonymity.
ARTIST ALICE BOH AND HER DESIGNS AT THE RIVAA GALLERY
CREDITS
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
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.
Herrin-Ferri started documenting the houses of his borough back in 2013. His block-by-block survey was completed in 2020. Walking and biking through the borough, he captured portraits of houses that some might deem “distasteful, kitschy, ill-proportioned, misshapen, or just plain ugly.” To Herrin-Ferri however, these houses “reflect the evolving every day, incrementalist spirit of the borough.”
One of the bold ways Queens residents personalize their homes is by painting them vibrant colors. It’s not uncommon to see a pop of blue, green, yellow, or pink among a row of otherwise dull-toned buildings. Sometimes, the paint color even extends to the fence, stoop, driveway, and sidewalk. In researching some of the houses he photographed, Herrin-Ferri came to learn that the colors often have cultural significance.
2. Decorative Fences
Photo by Rafael Herrin-Ferri
In the book, Herrin-Ferri gives each house photographed a descriptive name such as “Holy Zebra House,” “Green Elf House,” or “Dutch Vinyl Makeover.” The names point out the most striking features of the homes. Interpretive texts that accompany the images in the book reveal “a colorful history of alterations and architectural references.”
Another architectural feature Queens residents use to make a statement is fencing. Fences throughout Queens come in a variety of materials, but most are wrought iron or stainless steel. These metals can be formed into ornate patterns, symbols, and characters that are purely ornamental or that have a cultural significance. As the New York Times noted in its 2022 article about the proliferation of stainless fences in the borough, they also can serve as a status symbol. Brightly colored lions that top masonry fence posts are another feature Herrin-Ferri often observed.
3. Mixed Facade Materials
Photo by Rafael Herrin-Ferri
It’s not uncommon in Queens to see two neighboring homes with two completely different facades. One may be brick while its neighbor is covered in vinyl siding. One half might be a solid-colored stucco while the other is stone, or there might be a little bit of everything as in the photo above!
In addition to the frontal, New-objective style images of individual homes that Herrin-Ferri shows in the book, there are also full-page detail shots and street perspectives that offer a “more personal and pedestrian point of view.” These broader views show how individual homes co-exist within diverse streetscapes.
4. Ornate Doors and Stoops
Photo by Rafael Herrin-Ferri
Like fences and facades, doorways and stoops come in as many colors and shapes as you can imagine. In the first photo above, you can see three completely different styles all right next to each other. Stoops likewise vary widely, from classic brick to painted colors.
The color and character shown in these different architectural elements are traits that Herrin-Ferri notes “seem to be ignored by most present-day developers as they cater to the appetite for ‘affordable-luxury’ apartment buildings that hide all of their attractive amenities on the inside and offer very little to the public at street level.”
5. Lawns and Gardens
Photo by Rafael Herrin-Ferri
Front and back lawns and gardens are another area where Queens residents get to express themselves. While some go for simple suburban-like manicured green lawns with some flowers and shrubs, others adorn their yards with sculptures, water features, and elaborate gardening.
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.
