VISIT THE RIHS TABLE AT THE RI DAY CELEBRATION THIS SUNDAY, JUNE 8th AT FIREFIGHTERS FIELD.
THE RIHS WILL BE DISPLAYING 50 YEARS OF ISLAND PHOTOS FROM RESIDENT AND FAMILIES.
WE WILL ALSO BE DISTRIBUTING BOOKS FROM THE NYPL. STOP BY OUR TABLE AND JOIN THE FUN!
JP MORGAN
23 WALL STREET
Thursday, June 5, 2025 NYCUrbanism Issue #1463
In 1869 J. Pierepont Morgan co-founded Drexel, Morgan & Co. with businessman Anthony Drexel, setting their vision on the southeast corner of Wall and Broad Street between Federal Hall and the New York Stock Exchange for their new headquarters. Three years later the bank paid $250,000 in gold for the site, setting records as the most expensive lot of that size in the world. Drexel, Morgan & Co. would hire architect Arthur D. Gilman to design a six-story French Second Empire style building clad in Vermont marble with a mansard roof and a prominent entrance on the chamfered corner topped with a sculpted pediment and two statues depicting Europe and America.
The entrance of the Drexel Building (left) with the original (top) and current Stock Exchangeb (bottom) across the street.
Current Stock Exchange
The building opened in 1873 with the bank designating the first floor as a banking hall with offices above. In 1882 the building was the center of attention when Thomas Edison flipped a switch, illuminating the structure with 600 electric lights. By the 1890s the renamed J.P. Morgan & Co. was the country’s most powerful investment bank, helping to transform the U.S. economy and financing some of the country’s strongest financial players including the U.S. Steel Corporation; the world’s first billion-dollar corporation and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, which dominated northeast regional rail traffic during the first half of the 20th century.
The building would temporarily close on April 1, 1913, the day J.P. Morgan died, and less than a year later the Drexel Building would be demolished, with a new building rising on what had become the most valuable lot in the country, completed a year later. Designed by Towbridge & Livingston (architect of the 1912 Bankers Trust Building diagonally across the Street), the new unadorned limestone building that would replace Drexel was drastically smaller, only four stories tall, contradicting the cardinal rule of Wall Street development where taller buildings have always replaced shorter ones over time. Today JPMorgan Chase & Co. is one of the largest banks in the world.
VISITORS TO THE RIHS KIOSK TODAY
CREDITS
NYCURBANISM
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 309-foot New York World Building (officially known as the Pulitzer Building) was the tallest skyscraper in the world when it opened in 1890. Located on Newspaper Row (today’s Park Row) across from City Hall and next to the Tribune, Times, Herald, and Sun newspaper buildings, it served as an office building and vertical factory, with newspaper production starting in the tower’s dome – under the publisher Joseph Pulitzer’s direction – with photoengraving, editorial and reportorial staff meeting and compiling photographs and news stories in the sun-light upper floors. Production then traveled down to the linotype composing room, then to the giant presses in the cellar, where newsprint paper making machines printed 48,000 8-page papers per hour. Paperboys waited outside on the curb for the cut, pasted and folded papers to be distributed.
Designed by architect George B. Post (NY Stock Exchange) the skyscraper featured an ornate red sandstone facade. The dome at the top of the world housed a public observation deck where visitors could ascend a flight of stairs to a cupola where they would be greeted with a 360-degree view of the city.By the mid-19th Century, the newspaper buildings had moved from Park Row, with the Herald going to 34th Street (Herald Sq) and the Times going to 42nd Street (Times Sq). But in January of 1953, the New York Times reported the fateful news for the World Building, which neighbored the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge: “The doom of the historic World Building at 63 Park Row was forecast yesterday as the City Planning Commission approved a $5,266,000 plan drafted by Manhattan Borough President Robert F. Wagner Jr. for rearrangement and reconstruction of the street system at the Manhattan plaza of the Brooklyn Bridge.”
In 1955 the building was demolished to make way for an on-ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge. The iconic Tribune Building next door would also be demolished to make way for the Brutalist Pace University
World Building elevation drawing
World Building demolition, 1955. Tribune Building on the right before demolition.
THE BIRDS ARE LONG GONE
TIME TO CLEAN OFF THE BLACKWELL HOUSE NEST AND BIRD DROPPINGS!
CREDITS
NYCURBANISM
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.
Defining a New Era for American Women: The New York Woman Magazine
Tuesday, June 3, 2025 New-York Historical Blog Issue #1461
The 1930s was a time of immense change for American women. This was especially true for women working in New York City, who saw their professional, economic, and social opportunities rapidly expand during this decade.
Historians predominantly characterize the 1930s in the United States as an era of economic turmoil due to the Great Depression. Nevertheless, women joined the urban workforce in unprecedented numbers. The rate of working women rose to 24%, with nearly 50% of single women in employment. In New York alone, there were 13 million women employed by the end of the decade, compared to 10.5 million in 1930. The majority of these women worked in clerical jobs in the rapidly expanding American corporate sector or in teaching and nursing. Some trailblazing women also achieved careers in law, finance, publishing, and politics.
American cities thus became hubs of opportunity for ambitious—mostly single—women. Indeed, 1930s New York embodied the exciting, liberating possibilities that the modern metropolis could hold for American women, as the epicenter of commercial, technological, cultural, and social innovation in the United States.
The New York Woman captured the emergence of the urban career woman as a defining figure of modern New York. The magazine became one of the best-selling publications of the 1930s. Written and “edited for the women of metropolitan New York,” the magazine sold out within 24 hours when the first issue hit the shelves on September 9, 1936.
Published weekly on Wednesdays, The New York Woman catered to the urban career woman’s interests in:
“LOVE – MARRIAGE – POLITICS – PERSONALITIES – SOCIETY – MOVIES – THEATRE – DANCING – FASHION – BEAUTY – COOKING – DECORATING – WHERE TO BUY – WHAT TO DO – HOW TO HAVE FUN!”
Copy from the inaugural issue of The New York Woman, September 9th, 1936. The New York Historical.
While attending to conventionally ‘feminine’ topics of fashion, dating, and beauty—topics that still dominate contemporary women’s magazines—The New York Woman’sinclusion of detailed articles on politics, career advice, and financial management underline how women’s lives were being reshaped during the 1930s. Rather than presenting a principal concentration on housekeeping and domestic affairs, as women were gaining access to professional institutions and the public sphere of the modern metropolis, The New York Woman reflects how magazines began to offer more diverse content to women readers, which better reflected the new realities of their urban lives.
The magazine’s weekly column, “Soundings: Opinions of the New York Woman,” printed select readers’ correspondence with the magazine editors, covering topics ranging from whether America should join the Second World War to whether it was ‘proper’ for single women to drink alcohol at bars in the city. The publication also offered profiles of prominent career women in New York, many of whom worked in traditionally male-dominated industries. These ranged from Judge Justine Wise Tulin, the first New York woman to hold a judicial post higher than a magistrate, to women working as political advisors on the 1936 Presidential election campaigns
“9 to 5…five to nine.” Profile of Barbara Schaffa, a woman “typical of the girl all busy men desire; the smart, self-sufficient secretary,” in the October 7, 2025 issue of The New York Woman. The New York Historical.
While detailing the latest fashion trends through exquisite watercolor illustrations in its weekly feature, “Today Along Fifth Avenue,” TheNew York Woman challenged many reductive myths around style and beauty. Its writers questioned the youth-centered ideas of beauty and glamour that had defined the 1920s flapper era. Instead, in such articles as Inez Calloway Robb’s “40 Becomes ‘The Fashionable Age,’” The New York Woman profiled Wallis Simpson, arguing that women of all ages could embody the glamour and excitement of modern America.
The “Today Along Fifth” feature, in the October 7, 1936 issue of The New York Woman. The New York Historical.
“40 Becomes ‘The Fashionable Age,’” featuring a profile of the American socialite Wallis Simpson, in the October 7, 1936 issue of The New York Woman. The New York Historical.
The magazine also ran features on a range of topics relating to life in the Big Apple. These included articles designed to improve domestic life. Readers could browse reviews for appliances tailored to cooking in a small apartment kitchen, guides to New York nursery schools, fashionable color schemes for decorating an apartment, and advertisements for new apartment buildings in the city (from the Savoy Plaza to the El Dorado). New York nightlife was another prominent topic. Notable features surveyed fun things to do in New York for less than $5, lists of the best restaurants and bars to visit on a Saturday night, reviews of new Broadway shows and movies, and ideas for quick but tasty dinners to cook for guests.
“She knew what she wanted!” Making the case for the new woman in the October 7, 1936 issue of The New York Woman. The New York Historical.
The New York Historical’s collection of The New York Woman magazine offers fascinating insight into New York women’s aspirations, ideas, concerns, and daily lives in the 1930s, and illuminates how American women’s lives were changing rapidly during this decade. Whereas magazine readership is waning in the twenty-first century, this collection underlines the centrality of magazines to early-20th-century American culture. As The New York Woman declared to its readers: “To live successfully in New York, read The New York Woman.”
PRIDE FLAG RAISED OVER MAIN STREET
CREDITS
Written byDr. Angelica De Vido. De Vido is the 2024-2025 Mellon Foundation-Robert David Lion Gardiner Fellow at The New York Historical.
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.
Monday, June 2, 20-25 Untapped New York Nicole Saraniero Issue #1460
One of the best ways to enjoy the warmer weather in New York City is to get outside and see some art and attend art-related events! This June, you’ll find larger-than-life flowers, a museum on wheels, a celebration of pigeons, and more:
“Irises on Yellow Columns” by Graphic Rewinding at Van Gogh’s Flowers, Courtesy of New York Botanical Garden
The iconic van Gogh paintings of irises and sunflowers come to life in this year’s summer exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden.Flourishing floral displays and large-scale interactive artworks fully immerse you in van Gogh’s timeless masterpieces. Learn more about the exhibit from one of the artists who worked on it, here!
The city’s biggest pop-up photography event will hit all five boroughs this June! Photoville returns for its 14th year with over 80 international exhibits that highlight the work of photographers from right here in New York City and nations across the globe. The photo festival’s signature shipping container galleries will be on view at Brooklyn Bridge Park while satellite exhibits can be seen at Barretto Point Park, Bella Abzug Park, the Seaport, Alice Austen House, and many other locations. One special exhibit to look out for is Early Distant Warning. It features large photographs frozen in large ice blocks that will gradually melt throughout the day to reveal Louie Palu’s photographs of the Arctic. See it at Brooklyn Bridge Park on June 7th from 1:30-7pm!
Did you know there is a National Pigeon Appreciation Day?! Well, the High Line is celebrating with Pigeon Fest, in honor of Iván Argote’s 17-foot-tall aluminum pigeon sculpture Dinosaur currently on view at the Spur. This full-day festival will feature free public programming including pigeon-themed carnival games, family-friendly art workshops, a Pigeon Impersonation Pageant, panel discussions, and a concert presented in collaboration with the Birdsong Project
Gardens of Renewal by Lily Kwong, Photo Courtesy of Madison Square Park
The winding pathway of this living installation provides opportunities for play, learning, self-reflection, and ecological awakening. Created by artist Lily Kwong in collaboration with the Madison Square Park Conservancy,Gardens of Renewal “explores the ecological potential of the built environment while underscoring the political urgency of the climate crisis.” In the Meditation Garden, visitors follow a spiral path surrounded by gorgeous flowers, herbs, and other native plants, with endangered and rare specimens at the center. On Sparrow Lawn, the Children’s Garden offers a library, stage, and play structures that promote adventure, creativity, and ecological awareness.
The installation is accompanied by a series of conversations, performances, and educational programming for children of all ages. QR codes scattered throughout the gardens offer supplemental digital materials, including an illustrated field guide plant list, a meditation, and a customized playlist.
14th Street Busway, between Broadway and University Place, Union Square
New York-based visual artist Yuke Li has transformed a bland busway into a vibrant 7,500-square-foot mural. Union Square Partnership’s fifth annual street mural was completed with the help of volunteers who spent five days bringing Li’s vision to life. Turning Point “honors Union Square’s role as a place that facilitates the movement of people, whether gathering, dispersing, or embarking on new journeys.” This movement and flow are represented by retro-inspired abstract shapes painted in bright colors.
Monumental 20-foot screens have taken over six acres of land on Manhattan’s east side next to the United Nations. This photography and video project takes an optimistic approach to the future of America on the occasion of our nation’s 250th anniversary. Spread out along a winding path, viewers will uncover the stories of over fifty everyday Americans captured on film by award-winning local filmmaker and photographer Daniella Vale. Each subject shares their thoughts on liberty, democracy, and what it means to be American.
PRIDE EXHIBIT OPENS AT RIVAA
FEATURING WORKS BY 23 ARTISTS OPEN THRU THE MONTH (CHECK FOR DATES)
THOM HEYER INTRODUCES THE PARTICIPATING ARTISTS AT OPENING ON SUNDAY.
CREDITS
UNTAPPED NEW YORK NICOLE SARANIERO 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.
14th Street Busway, between Broadway and University Place, Union Square
Open through July 31st
