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.
Created by Jose de Creeft, the Alice in Wonderland statue was gifted to the children of New York by the wealthy George Delacore. Delacore wanted to honor his wife Margarita who would read Alice in Wonderland to their children.
In this monument, Alice sits on top of a mushroom throne alongside the Cheshire Cat, March Hare, Dormouse, and the Mad Hatter. Viewed as one of the, if not the most, adored statues in Central Park, children often climb onto and sit underneath it.
Location: 75th Street, east side
Artist/Designer: Jose de Creeft, sculptor; Hideo Sasaki and Fernando Texidor, architects
NYC Parks Website
Created in 1939 by Richmond Barthé, who was an integral part of the Harlem Renaissance, is the Arthur Brisbane Memorial. Brisbane was a journalist who helped create yellow journalism; a gossip-filled style that’s known for its banner headlines and excessive exclamation points. The highest paid newspaper editor during his time, Brisbane advocated for the Spanish-American War through the press, emphasizing how the press can alter public opinion.
Location: 101st Street and Fifth Avenue
Artist/Designer: Richmond Barthé, sculptor; Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, architects
Created in 1873, the Bethesda Fountain, also known as The Angel of the Waters, is both a biblical and historical symbol of the arrival of pure drinking water in New York in 1842. This monument ties together the Gospel of St. John (5:2-4): “Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool … whoever then first after the troubling of the waters stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had,” with the feat of the creation of the 42-mile-long Croton Aqueduct system which brought water to New York after it had outgrown its water supply from local wells and springs.
This statue features four cherubs which represent temperance, purity, health, and peace, symbolizing the healing and peace the country so desperately needed at the end of the American Civil War during which time the statue was unveiled.
Location: 73rd Street, mid-Park
Artist/Designer: Emma Stebbins
The two-tiered Bethesda Terrace, considered the heart of Central Park, was installed in 1864. The northern end opens to an upper terrace, home to two square columns carved with scenes of the sun, a rooster, a wheat field, a Bible, an owl, and a witch riding her broom through the sky. Across 72nd street you’ll find two staircases, dressed in the four seasons.
Though the terrace is man-made, its theme greatly portrays nature.
Location: 72nd Street, mid-Park
Artist/Designer: Jacob Wrey Mould and Calvert Vaux
Shutterstock / cpaulfell
A symbol of power and prestige, the Obelisk was created under an Egyptian pharaoh to highlight his dexterity as a king. Around 2000 years later, the Egyptian ruler, in hopes of expanding trade, gave the Obelisk to the U.S. After 40 days on the Atlantic and 112 days spent maneuvering through Manhattan, the Obelisk found its home in Central Park in 1881.
Location: 81st Street, east side
Artist/Designer: Egyptians during the reign of Pharaoh Thutmosis III (c. 1443 BC)
Shutterstock / Holly Vegter
Hans Christian Andersen was an author who wrote more than 150 fairy tales including “The Little Mermaid” and “The Ugly Duckling.” The Danish-American Women’s Association sponsored a radio broadcast and raised $75,000 in order to create this statue, and in 1956 it was created to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Andersen’s birth.
Location: 74th Street, east side
Artist/Designer: George Lober, sculptor; Otto F. Langmann, bench architect
Central Park Conservancy Website
Helping to lead the fight for independence of multiple South American nations, Jose de San Martin’s victory over the Spanish Royalists is said to be one of the most courageous plans by any military leader. Losing a third of his army on his journey over the Andes mountains, Jose de San Martin was memorialized in Central Park after Buenos Aires traded the statue for one of George Washington.
Location: 59th Street and Sixth Avenue
Artist/Designer: Louis-Joseph Daumas
Central Park Conservancy Website
Helping to lead the fight for independence of multiple South American nations, Jose de San Martin’s victory over the Spanish Royalists is said to be one of the most courageous plans by any military leader. Losing a third of his army on his journey over the Andes mountains, Jose de San Martin was memorialized in Central Park after Buenos Aires traded the statue for one of George Washington.
Location: 59th Street and Sixth Avenue
Artist/Designer: Louis-Joseph Daumas
Shutterstock / ness26
First sculpted around 1932 specifically for the Bronx Zoo and then used for subsequent castings, this monument may be familiar to those who have never even stepped foot in Central Park. This is because this monument is also on display at the Met, the Bronx Zoo, and atop the southern gatepost of the Ancient Playground at 84th Street.
Location: 79th Street, east side
Artist/Designer: Paul Howard Manship, sculptor; Bruce Kelly and David Varnell, architects
Shutterstock/ Via Ravenash
The statue of Balto was created in 1925 by Frederick George Richard Roth, famed Brooklyn-born sculptor. The Siberian Husky made national headlines for transporting a much needed medicine from Anchorage, Alaska to Nome, Alaska during a diphtheria outbreak. A group of New York artists then raised money to honor Balto, commissioning Roth to memorialize the canine. Balto has been well loved over the last 90+ years
Location: 67th Street, east side
Artist/Designer: Frederick George Richard Roth
Shutterstock / travelview
Known for inventing the historical novel, Sir Walter Scott was memorialized in 1872 by Sir John Steell, who also sculpted his companion Robert Burns. Before writing historical novels such as Rob Roy, Scott began with translating German ballads into Scottish and then writing ballads celebrating Scottish traditions. Proud of Scott, and wanting to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth, Scottish-Americans raised the funds for the statue as a way to memorialize him.
Location: 66th Street, mid-Park
Artist/Designer: Sir John Steell
Shutterstock / Paul Juser
A Scottish national hero, poet Robert Burns, known as being fluent in “the language of the heart,” was memorialized in 1880 by Sir John Steell. At Burns’ feet you’ll find a poem to Mary Campbell, his lost love.
Location: 66th Street, mid-Park
Artist/Designer: Sir John Steell
Shutterstock / Paul Hakimata Photography
Ludwig van Beethoven is no stranger. In 1884, Henry Baerer sculpted the bust of Beethoven based on the work of European sculptor Hugo Hagen. This memorial is meant to celebrate Beethoven’s presence in the music world and was erected to celebrate The German-American Beethoven Mannerchoir’s 25th anniversary.
Location: 71st Street, mid-Park
Artist/Designer: Henry Baerer
Shutterstock / Dominique James
Standing tall on a ledge in Central Park you’ll find The Falconer, a statue of a fifteenth-century man with a falcon on his left arm. Sculptor George Blackall Simons was commissioned by George Kemp, an Irish New Yorker who saw the statue in 1875 at the Royal Academy exhibition and wanted a larger version of it in Central Park.
Location: 72nd Street, mid-Park
Artist/Designer: George Blackall Simonds
Shutterstock / elisank79
One of the newer statues in Central Park, this monument honors three women who fought for civil rights; Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Prior to this monument, Central Park had 28 men honored with statues, and no historical women. The all-volunteer Monumental Women group formed in 2015 to raise awareness of women’s role in history. They then commissioned Meredith Bergmann to sculpt the monument, which was revealed on the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote.
When the idea for the monument was first thought up, the public review of the proposed design raised concern that women of color were not being recognized, so in 2019 the concept was revised. In this monument you’ll see the three women working with essential texts from the early women’s rights movement beneath the table.
Location: 67th Street, mid-Park (on the Mall)
Artist/Designer: Meredith Bergmann
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Alexander von Humboldt Geographer, Naturalist & Explorer appropriately outside the Museum of Natural History
CREDITS
SECRET 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.
At Tony Pastor’s Opera House, one of the more respectable establishments on The Bowery in 1872, the impresario sang of the gulf separating the city’s Upper Ten Thousand and Lower Ten Thousand. But whether blue-blood on Fifth Avenue or down-and-out in Five Points, everyone in New York City could enjoy a good party.
The Patriarchs, twenty-five gentlemen possessing the snootiest of names and the moldiest of money, held their inaugural ball in mid-winter. Under rules established by the event’s planners, Ward McAllister (1827 – 1895) and Caroline Astor (1830-1908), each was entitled to invite five men and four ladies.
To thwart a patriarch introducing an unworthy guest to the assemblage, his associates threatened to publicly upbraid him for the offense. Heaven forbid that a Astor or Van Rensselaer rub elbows with a nouveau riche like Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt.
The anointed gathered for dinner around an immense oval table. Flowers and fountains covered it in such exquisite arrangement that neither petal nor spray hindered the beautiful from gazing upon one another. The quadrilles and waltzes lasted until dawn, when another magnificent repast fortified the guests for their journey home.
Not to be outdone, the aristocracy of the Fourth Ward assembled at a rat-pit turned saloon for the Beggars’ Banquet, according to The New York Times.
The blind, the crippled, and the maimed packed tables like sardines to celebrate their decidedly artistic profession. Bringing appetites as great as the Bohemian whose dinner hour was always “one o’clock tomorrow,” they feasted on beefsteak and onions.
The ancient patriarch among them went by “Cully the Codger.” He refused to unwrap the yards of woolen scarf round his throat. “They’d be sure to steal ‘em,” he said, eying his sticky-fingered neighbors.
Awash in whiskey, a fellow named Burkey climbed atop a chair busting to make a speech. He swore he’d visit Boss Tweed in Sing Sing and cared no more for the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher than his grandmother’s aunt’s cat’s tail did. He’d refused a toddy from financier Jim Fisk because he never drank beneath himself.
Dublin Mag usurped his chair to declare that “as long as a woman’s a woman she ought to have a woman’s rights.” While Mag gave a hoot about voting, she claimed her right to drink whatever she pleased.
After hours more oratory, song, and liberal doses of liquor and tobacco, the beggars went straight home to bed. Not a bit of trouble, said the copper on the beat. The great middle whose blood was too impure for the Patriarchs and bodies too washed for the beggars attended the annual bacchanal of the French Ball.
Thousands of the best men and the worst women filled the Academy of Music, Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly proclaimed. Things were not quite that simple. Many married couples joined the masquerade, though frequently not with each other.
For this year’s event, gentlemen commonly disguised their identities as French musketeers, Italian revolutionaries, and Brother Devil. Another’s getup as Aladdin in black velvet and orange satin displayed more imagination, though disappointingly his genie did not emerge from the lamp. The hooded cape known as the domino was de rigueur for a woman.
Its built-in mask might hide her lovely eyes but she should shield no other features beneath anything but tights – black, red, blue or most daringly flesh – or was that bare skin showing on a goodly number of ladies?
Masquerade notwithstanding, the Sunday Mercury named dozens of revelers. Businessmen and politicos who might generally exercise their peccadillos discreetly need fear no embarrassment here. The evening benefited charity. The madams with whom they cavorted could ask for no better advertising.
Fanny Turnbull, who presided over a first-class establishment on Twelfth Street, appeared as Diana, Goddess of the Chase. Kate Wood operated the most exclusive bordello on the most exclusive block, West Twenty-fifth known for its Seven Sisters in the trade. Wood, whose gallery of paintings alone cost $10,000, wore a blue domino befitting a vestal virgin.
At ten, the band struck up a quadrille. At midnight, the tempo turned into a gallop. Gus Thompson banged Jennie Mitch into the buxom Eva King. All went down. Eva shook her striped domino with a frown that said “I’d like to put a head on you.”
Poor May Sherwood guzzled wine provided by her good-natured Charley, while Jo Thompson and Cora Lee of the house on Thirty-First Street hustled around like a pair of lovers.
At one o’clock, eyes turned upward to the boxes. A sweet creature leaned far over the velvet rail clapping her jeweled hands. She revealed so many of her charms that whistles and cat-calls demanded an encore. Hours later Dashing Angola, in a short tunic of purple satin and flesh colored tights, led the Can-Can, joined by Scotch lassie Katie and lank and limber Amelia.
With lights out at 5 am, the Sunday Mercury noted this year’s ball missed only the jolly face of the recently deceased Jim Fisk and the seductive curves of his flame Josie Mansfield.
Illustrations, from above: The parlor at the Salmagundi Club’s Fifth Avenue brownstone; “The French Ball,” a later Patriarch’s Ball illustrated in George W. Walling’s Recollections of a New York Chief of Police (1887); Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt II, nee Alice Claypoole Gwynne, in costume, 1883 (Museum of the City of New York); Ward McAllister caricatured as “Snobbish Society Schoolmaster” in Judge magazine, November 1890.
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.
AFTER A YEAR OF BACK AND FORTH MEETINGS AND CONSUMER COMPLAINTS, THE MTA HAS KEPT THE Q102 ROUTE, THOUGH SHORTENED, IT NOW GOES EAST ON 36 AVENUE, TURNS RIGHT ON 31 AVENUE, TO QUEENS PLAZA AND ENDING AT COURTHOUSE SQUARE. THE ROUTE ENDS AT THE TRAM STATION AND WILL NOT GO SOUTH TO SOUTHPOINT PARK.
About the route
The Q102 will now connect Long Island City and Roosevelt Island with a new, more direct routing. In Queens, the route will start at Court Square, traveling to Roosevelt Island via Jackson Av, 31 St, and 36 Av. On Roosevelt Island, the route will be shortened to terminate at the Roosevelt Island Tramway. The trains will provide service along 31 St, and the Q18 will still serve 30 Av. Service through Queensbridge will still be provided by the Q103.
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.
To many historians, World War I Harlem Hell Fighters Band lead vocalist, composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer and playwright Noble Sissle (1889-1975) is the man most responsible for ushering in the Harlem Renaissance.
In Sullivan County, NY history however, he will be forever remembered as the celebrity name behind Lucky Lake, “America’s first and only inter-racial lake colony community.”
It was Sissle’s 1921 musical revue Shuffle Along, said to be the first all-black musical hit on Broadway,that inspired others in the years that followed, directly or indirectly launching the careers of numerous notable African American performers.
“More than just another show on Broadway, ‘Shuffle Along’ helped to usher in the Harlem Renaissance, showcasing the excellence in Black culture through Black art. Additionally, the production marked the first time the orchestra of an audience was integrated on Broadway,” Marc J. Franklin wrote in a 2021 article for Playbill magazine.
“This revue legitimized the African American musical, proving to producers and managers that audiences would pay to see African American talent on Broadway,” writes Jo Tanner, Ph.D., for the Kennedy Center. “President Harry Truman even picked a ‘Shuffle Along’ song for his 1948 campaign anthem, ‘I’m Just Wild about Harry.’”
Furthermore, Dr. Tanner maintains, the revue, “written by the famous comic duo of Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, with music and lyrics by the vaudeville team of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake… dealt a major blow against racial stereotyping.”
Lucky Lake Estates
Lucky Lake Estates was developed in the 1950s around Luxton Lake, a 2-1/2-mile long section of Ten Mile River in Tusten that had been dammed up, and in the 1900s provided recreation for a few small boarding houses — the Homestead, owned by Robert Huebner was probably the best known — not unlike hundreds of others in Sullivan County at the time.
The lake was named for George Luxton, who had at one time owned most of the property around it. When the boarding houses closed, some developers got the idea to divide up the property and sell small homesites.
Aggressive advertising of the homesites aimed at working class African Americans typically included unabashed name-dropping, and personalities such as New York Giants center fielder Willie Mays, musicians Sissel and Bill Doggett and actress Hilda Simms were often cited as property owners.
For $100 down and 37 cents a day, one could purchase a lot, and many did, some building modest homes suitable for vacation living.
The developers turned one of the old boarding houses into a clubhouse, which became the center of social activity, often hopping to the wee hours of the morning on summer weekends.
But Noble Sissel was more than just a property owner at Lucky Lake Estates.
“Noble Sissle Named Head of $1 Million N.Y. Resort,” read a headline in the March 24, 1955 edition of Jet magazine. “Showman Noble Sissle was named executive vice president of the $1 Million Lucky Lake Catskill Mountains Resort in upstate New York, scheduled to open May 31,” the article continued.
“The 720-acre property, formerly the estate of a wealthy hotel operator, is being developed as a completely equipped mountain resort for Negroes, with a motel, ballroom, casino, outdoor theater, and boating facilities.”
Perhaps one of the most innovative gimmicks used to sell the lots at Lucky Lake was a paid advertisement that ran regularly in the popular African American newspaper New York Age which was designed to look like an entertainment column along the lines of those written by Walter Winchell or Ed Sullivan.
The “column” was called “Shooting the Breeze” and appeared with the byline, Mr. Lucky. The first one appeared in June of 1957, and was entitled, “Introducing Mr. Lucky.”
“Call me Mr. Lucky, because I never believed I could ever own my own little estate in such a place as this,” the column began. “10,000 square feet of high, dry land… and that’s forever, with a free full warranty deed, plus title insurance.”
Mr. Lucky went on to tout the private clubhouse — for members only — the five miles of shore line (which was sometimes advertised as six miles), the great fishing, and the 400 acres of private hunting land. And, of course, he name-dropped, mentioning each of the aforementioned celebrities, and then some.
About 300 of the lots were sold, and a vibrant community existed at Lucky Lake for a number of years, made up mostly of summer residents, with a handful of year-around families.
But heavy truck traffic over the aging dam eventually caused it to crack, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) decided it was unsafe in 1983.
They ordered the dam removed, and the lake immediately disappeared, much to the consternation of the homeowners there.
Without the lake, many homeowners simply abandoned their properties, and without sufficient members to financially support it, the clubhouse was soon closed.
Homeowners banded together to sue the Town of Tusten and the developer for $20 million at one point, but lost. That was the end of Lucky Lake Estates, the self-proclaimed “first and only inter-racial lake colony community.”
COLER’S ANNUAL LEGISLATIVE BRUNCH WAS HELD FRIDAY BRINGING TOGETHER ADMINSTRATION, STAFF, RESIDENTS, POLITICAL REPRESENTATIVES, COMMUNITY AND AUXILIARY MEMBERS,
CREDITS
Illustrations, from above: Noble Sissle in 1951 (by Carl Van Vechten); Sheet music cover for I’m Just Wild About Harry from the musical Shuffle Along by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, 1921; Lucky Lake Advertisement, Daily Mirror, May 13, 1955; and swimmers at Lucky Lake (courtesy the Roach family).
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 Orchid Show: Mexican Modernism.” All photos courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden
The New York Botanical Garden’s beloved Orchid Show officially opened this weekend, bringing the bold colors of Mexican modernism to the Bronx. Inspired by the work of Mexican modernist architect Luis Barragán, “The Orchid Show: Mexican Modernism” turns the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory into a vibrant landscape of thousands of orchids, tropical plants, and succulents like cacti and agave. The breathtaking display is on view through April 27.
On select evenings during “The Orchid Show,” visitors ages 21 and up can experience Orchid Nights—a vibrant evening of music, dancing, cash bars, and food for purchase at the “lushest bar in town.” The events are led by a DJ and professional dancers, bringing the bold colors and style of the exhibition to life.
In addition to the vibrant orchids, this year’s show will feature succulents like cacti and agave. Visitors will also learn about orchids in the wild and NYBG’s ongoing global research and conservation efforts from the garden’s horticulture staff.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
COLER’S ANNUAL LEGISLATIVE BRUNCH WAS HELD FRIDAY BRINGING TOGETHER ADMINSTRATION, STAFF, RESIDENTS, POLITICAL REPRESENTATIVES, COMMUNITY AND AUXILIARY MEMBERS,
CREDITS
6sqft NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN 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.
The Bayonne Peninsula, to the north of Staten Island at the junction of Newark Bay, Kill Van Kull, and Arthur Kill, experienced a restricted amount of large scale waterfront development due to shallow water surrounding the area.
Development was concentrated on the Kill Van Kull until navigation improvements in the early twentieth century opened Newark Bay to larger vessels.
Due to its central location, the Bayonne peninsula benefited from increasing maritime traffic and was eventually transformed from a rural destination of wealthy New Yorkers in the nineteenth century to an urban industrial center in the twentieth century.
Inland navigation improvements in 1825-1835, along with rail connections, including the Elizabeth-Somerville (later the Central Railroad of New Jersey), were responsible for an increase in vessel traffic in the early nineteenth century.
Such traffic carried coal from Pennsylvania, clay products from New Jersey, and manufactured goods from the surrounding area, and soon made cities like Jersey City and Elizabethtown into new industrial centers.
In 1864, the Central Railroad of New Jersey opened the railroad bridge across Newark Bay and enabled coal to reach Jersey City via Bayonne.
Rail links through Bayonne resulted in its incorporation as a town in 1861 and as a city in 1864. The Port Johnson terminal, at which was transshipped large amounts of coal, was the first sizeable industrial development and set the stage for Bayonne’s rapid growth as a center of industry.
By 1875, the population growth of New York had increased the demand for kerosene used for lighting. Petroleum companies, seeking more inexpensive and larger areas than could be had in Brooklyn and Queens, soon relocated to the peninsula.
Standard Oil completed the first long distance pipeline to Bayonne from oil fields in Texas, and Bayonne became a national center of petroleum refining. By the end of the nineteenth century, industrial activity had filled most of the Bayonne peninsula to somewhere east of Port Johnson.
Concurrent with the rise in demand for gasoline to power automobiles and generate electricity, production switched from kerosene to gasoline. This increasing demand resulted in the construction of new and bigger plants.
This second wave of industrial expansion extended to 1917. By this time, most of the marsh lands had been filled in.
Maritime traffic began to diminish after World War One, and many waterfront industries disappeared during the Great Depression.
Today, petroleum refining continues to form a large sector of the local economy, but not to the extent of the early twentieth century.
Illustrations, from above; Aerial view of industrial waterfront, Bayonne, New Jersey; View of Bayonne, 1974 with decaying remains of a dock at Port Johnston Terminal visible in the left foreground (by Hope Alexander, National Archives); and a view of Manhattan from Bayonne, 1974, by Hope Alexander (National ArchivesGOTTSCHO PHOTO ARCHIVE 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.
