A DAY OF SHOCK, SHAME AND DISGRACE TO OUR COUNTRY AND OUR ELECTION AND SUCCESSION. AN OFFENSIVE ACTION.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2021
The
256th Edition From Our Archives
HARBORS OF THE WORLD
BOSTON, BALTIMORE, SAG HARBOR, NEW YORK AND MANY MORE SCENES OF OUR CITY WATERWAYS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
Charles Manger, Boston Harbor, ca. 1860-1869, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. George Viault, 1970.183 In this painting of Boston Harbor in the 1860s, a ship carrying a passenger sits in the center, while an assortment of seafaring vessels dots the hazy horizon. In the foreground, birds fly low among waves that reflect the colors of the sky. Manger’s use of glowing light and smooth brushstrokes was a popular approach among American landscape painters at the time. This work was completed around the time of the American Civil War when Boston Harbor served as a training camp and coastal defense for the Union army.
Don Resnick, Near Sag Harbor, 1984, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist in memory of Robert and Dorothy Haberstock, 1992.85
William H. Johnson, Harbor, Svolvaer, Lofoten, 1937, oil on burlap, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.893 In 1937, William H. Johnson and his Danish wife, Holcha, made their way north of the Arctic Circle to the settlement of Svolvaer in Norway’s Lofoten Islands. Thickly applied colors capture strong contrasts of light and shadow and animate the rugged terrain and fishing boats in the harbor. In letters to friends, Holcha called the Lofotens “marvelously beautiful” and wrote that her husband climbed the hills every day to capture the scenery in different light and weather. This canvas shows the twin peaks of the “Svolvaer Goat,” a landmark in the islands that remains famous to this day.
Alice Pike Barney, Bar Harbor, ca. 1892, pastel, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Laura Dreyfus Barney and Natalie Clifford Barney in memory of their mother, Alice Pike Barney, 1952.13.10
Werner Drewes, Camden Harbor (no. 166), 1954, color woodcut, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1968.9.20
James McNeill Whistler, Valparaiso Harbor, 1866, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.159
William H. Johnson, Harbor Scene, Kerteminde, ca. 1930-1932, watercolor and pen and ink on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.28
Thomas James Delbridge, Lower Manhattan, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.51
Lower Manhattan’s glorious skyscrapers inspired all New Yorkers, including the city’s artists, through the worst hardships of the Great Depression. Looking from the dock of a harbor island, Thomas Delbridge showed the dark mouths of Manhattan’s ferry terminals; above them ever taller buildings climb out of red shadows into gold and white sunshine. The crisply outlined forms evoke such famous structures as the Woolworth Building to the left and the Singer Building to the right without placing the buildings precisely or describing specific details. The skyscraper at the center suggests the mighty Empire State Building as it had stood incomplete before its triumphant opening on May 1, 1931. Even as the stock market foundered and thousands were thrown out of work, New Yorkers had gathered in excited throngs to watch their tallest tower rise. The Manhattan skyscrapers in the painting appear to be pushing back dark clouds, creating an oasis of brilliant blue around the island.
1934: A New Deal for Artists exhibition label
Herman Maril, Sketch of Old Baltimore Waterfront, 1934, oil on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.187
Herman Maril opened a window onto the history of his native city in this view of Baltimore harbor. Maril was a modernist painter who simplified the forms in the painting to make “the abstract structure . . . dominant,” yet he retained enough details to situate the scene in a past era. A schooner typical of nineteenth-century shipping is tied up in the foreground, its sails furled after a journey that could have brought it from almost anywhere in the world. The domed Merchants and Exchange building visible in the background stood at the corner of Gay and Water streets in Baltimore’s inner harbor from 1815 until it was razed in 1901.
This painting is thus set before Maril’s birth in 1908, in an era cut off from the artist’s life time by the disastrous fire of 1904 that destroyed Baltimore’s inner harbor docks along with much of the city. Maril’s wife recalled that the artist “took pleasure in looking at the architecture and changes in the city over the years,” particularly enjoying “the harbor where he walked with his father.” Baltimore’s vanished past remained key to Maril’s personal conception of the American scene.
1934: A New Deal for Artists exhibition label
Werner Drewes, Southern Harbor, 1964, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Associated American Artists, 1967.9.1
C. K. Chatterton, Monhegan Harbor, ca. 1920-1948, oil on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Olin Dows, 1983.90.215
James Floyd Clymer, Untitled (Harbor in Winter), before 1974, oil on canvas mounted on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, 1974.89.6
A seagull perched on the seawall. NOTE THE TRAM TOWER WITH ORANGE COLOR, FROM THE OLD TRAM REPLACED IN 2009.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM (c)
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Scandals of the Upper West Side Tuesday, January 12, 7 PM RIHS Lecture
The Roosevelt Island Historical Society and the New York Public Library are proud to host Beth Goffe and her presentation “Scandals of the Upper West Side.” Beth Goffe is a licensed New York City tour guide. An Upper West Side resident for over three decades, she is enamored with the city’s history and has amassed quite a few entertaining stories over the years.
It was in a part of Manhattan, at the edge of a poor neighborhood of tenements and groggeries, where no one wanted to end up.
But thousands of city residents did found themselves on Misery Lane, as the short stretch of East 26th Street between First Avenue and the East River was known in the turn-of-the-century city.
This block was a dumping ground for the sick, alcoholic, and mentally ill, who sought treatment at Bellevue Hospital, which bordered East 26th Street (above). Some New Yorkers had a sense of humor about it, as this rhyme from a 1917 medical magazine demonstrates:
T.B., aneurysm, and gin-drinker’s liver; Tabetics, paretics, plain drunk, and insane; First Avenue’s one end, the other’s the river; Twenty-sixth Street between they call Misery Lane!
Criminals showed up on Misery Lane as well.
Men and women convicted of a range of crimes were deposited via police wagon on a dock known as Charities Pier at the end of East 26th Street (below).
From there, they were ferried to the workhouse and penitentiary across the East River to Blackwell’s Island to serve their time.
The poor also stood in line at Charities Pier. Unable to afford rent, food, coal, and other necessities, their last resort was the Blackwell’s Island almshouse.
Misery Lane was the site of the Municipal Lodging House, built in 1909 to house mostly homeless, often derelict men (top and second photos), but also women and children.
With the city morgue on 26th Street as well, Misery Lane was the last place New York’s unknown dead went before being interred in the potter’s field on Hart Island.
And when mass tragedy struck the city, Misery Lane was involved as well.
Bodies found after the General Slocum disaster were brought here to be identified—as were the horribly burned corpses of Triangle Fire victims
Steamer THOMAS S. BRENNAN DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC CHARITIES
Steamer Thomas S. Brennan: Male sickroom. Seated man in coat and hat, back to camera. Long planks along walls of room. The Brennan was used for many years to transport a types of persons to Blackwell’s Island.
Museum of the City of New York 93.1.1.4884 Byron Company (New York, N.Y.) Hospital, Bellevue, Blackwell’s Island (Welfare) Old & New Bldgs. DATE:ca. 1896 photograph gelatin silver print printing-out paper
WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Can you identify this photo and when it was taken?
No one guessed the three ballfields in Queensbridge Park. I must admit that only apartments face east can see the ballfields.
EDITORIAL
East 26th Street still has sites that contribute much to our City history. The Hunter College School of Nursing formerly Bellevue School is located on the far east end of the site with it’s round design overlooking the FDR Drive. Across the street is the new building of the Chief Medical Examiner’s office. It was the site where many remains were stored after 9/11.
It is a street of dreams and sorrows.
Judith Berdy
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK (C) Museum of the City of New York Municipal Archives of the City of New York
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
JUST A STEP AWAY FROM YOUR YACHT TO MANHATTAN RESIDENCE
WITH MATERIAL FROM A EPHEMERAL NEW YORK and CITYSCAPES by CHRISTOPHER GRAY, NYTIMES (C) 2005
This luxury building had a private dock for yachts
River House, the majestic Art Deco apartment building at the end of East 52nd Street, offers lots of amenities.
Residents of this tony co-op built in 1931 on the site of a former cigar factory enter and exit through a cobblestone courtyard with a private driveway behind a wrought-iron fence.
Multi-room apartments have panoramic views of the East River, and the 26-story building features the River Club, a members-only club with a gym, pool, and dining room.
Too bad one of the original selling points River House dangled in front of its earliest prospective tenants is no longer there: a private dock on the East River where residents could park their yachts.
It’s hard to believe, but this really did exist. Even though the building opened during the Great Depression, that didn’t stop residents from using the dock to sail back and forth to their Long Island mansions, as one Daily News article from 1940 shows.
1936 NYC Municipal Archives Photo
Close-Up of River House Pier 1936 NYC Municipal Archives
The East River Drive sight looking north NYC Municipal Archives
STREETSCAPES
When the Automobile Replaced the Yacht
By Christopher Gray Feb. 27, 2005 Correction Appended
The streamlined, reinforced-concrete Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive remains one of New York’s most elegant public works. But when it was built in the 1930’s (as the East River Drive), it deprived many well-to-do East Side riparians of their river views and access. Among these, perhaps none sacrificed more than the members of the ultra-discreet River Club, built in 1931 between 52nd and 53rd Streets, which lost its romantic stone quay and yacht landing — and received in exchange a six-lane highway.
In the 1920’s, elite residential development washed the shores of the East River along Beekman Place, Sutton Place and East End Avenue. Part of this new shorefront dream was not just a view of the water but access to it. In 1925, the developer Joseph B. Thomas planned a Venetian-style gondola station for his medieval fantasy of an apartment house at 455 East 51st Street. And the 1927 Campanile, facing 52nd Street but backing up onto Thomas’s structure, had a broad open terrace with a riverside restaurant.
But it was the 26-story-high River House, with its waterside River Club, that set the standard. Designed by Bottomley, Wagner & White, River House replaced a cigar factory and a furniture plant. Its two broad wings create a square courtyard facing the river and rise to a broad tower.
Early descriptions do not mention a club and seem to depict a seamless transition between the building and direct water access. But the developers turned the lower floors into the River Club, a private social organization. It is not clear if all River House tenants were automatically accepted, but an advertisement in The New York Times offered apartments “to acceptable persons,” who presumably would have passed muster with the club’s directors. The club leased the space from River House.
In 1930, The Times observed in a headline that “River Club Interests Society” and reported that the new organization had two tennis courts, three squash courts, a gym and a pool. There was also, “for the convenience of members addicted to their yachts and motor boats, a private boat landing.” The Real Estate Record and Guide noted that “it will be possible to step out of a boat and be whisked immediately by fast elevator to the topmost floor of the building.”
The president of the club was Kermit Roosevelt, a writer, steamship executive and son of President Theodore Roosevelt. It is not clear if the younger Roosevelt was particularly interested in boats, but many other River Club organizers were. One, Harold S. Vanderbilt, was a leading yachtsman. In 1930, his boat the Enterprise defeated the English boat Shamrock V in four straight races to win the America’s Cup.
Another, the department-store heir Marshall Field III, made the trip from Port Washington on Long Island to Manhattan in 35 minutes at 50 miles per hour on his commuting yacht, Corisande. This took 50 gallons of gasoline, according to a 1931 article in The Times, which noted that these swift, highly engineered vessels had become “the acme of the ship-building art.”
Another River House resident and River Club member, Representative Ruth Baker Pratt, a New York City congresswoman, commuted from the Pratt family compound at Glen Cove on Long Island on her boat Tuna. But the volume of such commuting, and whether it justified the cost of a private landing, is hard to determine.
The blocklong landing at River Club consisted of a broad quay with steps leading down to a large float in the form of an “H,” with striped railings. Early photographs show yachts tied up at the floats attended by sailors in uniform, hard by the working pier at the foot of 53rd Street, which was stained with coal, cement and sand. This dichotomy formed the backdrop for Sidney Kingsley’s 1935 play “Dead End,” which dealt with the proximity of rich and poor in the neighborhood, where slums and luxury apartment buildings stood almost side by side.
The design of the club itself followed the rest of River House — a mix of robust classicism and Art Deco, but with a tropical twist of bamboo and wicker furniture. Writing in Town and Country magazine in 1932, Augusta Owen Patterson described its ballroom as “a sapphire with many facets set in platinum,” with blue glass, silver leaf and Chinese screens. The swimming pool was just a few feet inside the door to the landing.
In 1932, the River Club’s tennis balcony was full when the tennis star Helen Moody played Manuel Alonso. The Times said that “fashionable New York society filled every seat.” Alonso was leading, 7-5, 6-3, 6-5, when play was called in the third set for reasons unknown.
That River Club members traveled in the same circles could be handy. In early 1933, The Times reported that Kermit Roosevelt would be a guest on Nourmahal, the yacht of Vincent Astor, another club member, along with Roosevelt’s cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had recently been elected president. The Times described their meeting as an important rapprochement between the two Roosevelt families; they had been estranged for a decade, and Kermit’s mother, Edith, had supported Herbert Hoover in the 1932 election.
From its inception, the River Club was a venue of choice for dinners and debutante parties, as well as a broad variety of other activities. In 1939, a meeting there announced plans to raise $250,000 to erect a pavilion celebrating Germany before the rise of the Nazi Party.
Alfred E. Smith, a former New York governor, spoke to the pavilion’s sponsors, including Field and the theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich, and predicted that “the rank and file some day are going to throw Hitler and all the rest of those fellows with unpronounceable names out the window and give Germany a really decent government.” But the sponsors could not raise the money.
Construction began on the East River Drive in the 1930’s, and the city worked out widely varying compromises with the affected apartment buildings. At the co-op at 1 Sutton Place South, at 57th Street, the city took over most of the co-op’s backyard and, in turn, leased land on a deck over the highway back to the co-op. (The city is planning to take back the deck, now a garden, but the co-op is battling to keep it.)
At the co-op at 10 Gracie Square, at 84th Street, the highway is double-decked, and the co-op’s first three floors were left facing a blank, narrow pit.
At River House, the highway is all at one level, the same level as the original dockside landing. The city built a high wall separating the landing from the highway — leaving plenty of light, if no view — and erected an elevated walkway to a new riverside landing just beyond the highway itself. The new yacht landing apparently saw little use, because the walkway does not appear in aerial photographs of the 1950’s.
The River Club, however, still exists. But on what is now its garden terrace, where the original landing once sat, one cannot hear the water — only the sound of tires.
Streetscapes Correction: March 6, 2005, Sunday A picture caption last Sunday with the Streetscapes column, about the River Club, at the East River between 52nd and 53rd Streets, gave an incorrect date for the photograph and an incorrect credit. The picture was made in 1936, not 1928; it was from the Municipal Archives, not the Museum of the City of New York.
A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 27, 2005
The nautical motifs are evident at the building gate, facade entry to River Club and on street. (EPHERMERAL NEW YORK)
TIME TO SUPPORT THE RIHS WITH A MEMBERSHIP GO TO WWW.RIHS.US JOIN THE SOCIETY ON-LINE CLICK BECOME A MEMBER
EDITORIAL
I had such fun yesterday exploring the new Moynihan Train Hall that today I took a completely different trip. Today we venture down the East River in our yacht to dock at River House at 51st Street. The building opened in 1931, when there were still some millionaires that could come from their estates on Long Island and not mingle with he “rif-raf” on the streets on Manhattan.
Their private glory was short lived with the construction of the FDR Drive.
River House is visible from the FDR Park and parts of it seem to be under constant restoration.
Imagine the life, long gone. Soon we will find Greta Garbo. Stay tuned!
The mail sorting floor at Farley Building now the concourse of Moynihan Train Hall. Correctly identified by Clara Bella, Guy Ludwig, Andy Sparberg and great notes from Ron Crawford
FREE COVID-19
TESTING
HOSPITAL WALK IN COVID-19 TESTING NYC HEALTH + HOSPITAL METROPOLITAN 1901 First Avenue, New York, NY 10029 at 97th Street call (844) 692-4692 9AM-3:30PM Daily Free Diagnostic Testing (Third-party Verified) Screening Required No appointment needed
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All materials in this publication are copyrighted (c)
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
CITYSCAPES NYTIMES, CHRISTOPHER GRAY (C) 2005 NYC MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Your first view of the new concourse level as you enter from 8th Avenue.
From the upper level future food and retail area you can watch the comings and goings.
Great graphics hide the yet-to-be opened.
Great images roll across the light and airy concourse. Escalators lead down to tracks, the same way as the original Penn Station.
Look above the 31st Street Mid-block entrance for a skyscraper art piece… Remember to look up.
Look above the 33rd Street Mid-block entrance for an interesting “stained glass” artwork.
In the new baggage claim room is a history of Pennsylvania Station. This reminded me of the fate of the grand clock and Day and Night Sculpture that ended up in Kansas City, Missouri
Eagle Scout Memorial Fountain, 39th Street at Gillham Road,Kansas City, Missouri, featuring the only remaining assembled example of the four “Day” and “Night” statue pairs by Adolph Weinman that once flanked clocks in New York City’s original Penn Station (1910–1963).
THERE ARE NO TRAINS TO BE SEEN ABOVE THE TRACK LEVEL AT MOYNIHAN HALL. ENJOY THESE FROM THE SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM.
Saul Berman, (Study for mural, The Railroads Came to Town), n.d., watercolor, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Internal Revenue Service through the General Services Administration , 1962.8.26
Edward Mitchell Bannister, Train, ca. 1875-1880, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Frederick and Joan Slatsky, 1983.95.107
Edward Bannister’s painting shows a train cutting through a rural landscape, where a railroad trestle interrupts the flow of the stream below. These familiar signs of progress in the nineteenth-century landscape highlight a concern shared by many of Bannister’s fellow painters, who worried that industrialization would soon destroy their nation’s natural beauty.
Hugo Robus, Train in Motion, ca. 1920, oil on canvas mounted on fiberglass, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Hugo Robus, Jr., 1978.153.2
Hugo Robus created Train in Motion toward the end of his painting career, shortly before he devoted all of his time to sculpture. He was fascinated by the futurist painters, who emphasized the speed and power of modern machinery, but claimed not to be “initiated into their plane of intelligence” when he tried to understand the movement’s principles (Tarbell, Hugo Robus, 1885–1964, 1980). The repeated shapes and blurred colors in this painting express a sense of movement, as if we are watching the landscape sweep past the window of a speeding train. The bright colors and fragmented shapes appear like a kaleidoscope, suggesting that this image is just one of an infinite number of possibilities.
“I [am] interested not in what the eye records but in what our sensitivities feel.” Robus, “Sculptor as Self Critic,” reprinted in Tarbell, Hugo Robus, 1885–1964, 1980
Jack Savitsky, Train in Coal Town, 1968, oil on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson, 1986.65.137 Jack Savitsky’s Train in Coal Town depicts a coal-fired passenger train traveling between Pottsville and Silver Creek, two well-known coal towns in Pennsylvania. Behind the smoky plume of the locomotive stand a blue-gray coal breaker and eight mill houses—the very houses that make up the painting’s border. Savitsky conveys the sameness and unending work of the company town through his use of repetitive patterning and decorative elements. However, the lively colors and cheerful rural setting also reflect an energetic spirit within the miner community
Steve Ashby, Train in Landscape, n.d., carved wood with applied wood pieces, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr., 1998.84.4
Doris Rosenthal, Night Train, n.d., lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of the artist, 1976.46.3
Ernest Ralph Norling, Sketch for mural of The Mail Train, n.d., watercolor on paperboard: illustration board, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Internal Revenue Service through the General Services Administration , 1962.8.40
Unidentified, Pennsylvania Railroad Locomotive at Altoona Repair Facility, ca. 1868, albumen silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase from the Charles Isaacs Collection made possible in part by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 1994.91.213
Dox Thrash, Railroad Yard, ca. 1933-1934, aquatint, etching and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1981.11.2
Max Arthur Cohn, Railroad Bridge, opaque watercolor, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1984.63.3
Jack J. Greitzer, Concerning Railroads, n.d., crayon and chalk on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1965.18.21
NO ONE GUESSED THE INTERIOR OF THE CLOSED BLACKWELL’S ISLAND PENITENTIARY
EDITORIAL What a treat today. I had visited the closed area at the Farley Post Office years ago with an engineer. It was empty, bleak and depressing. Little could I imagine that today it is a sparkling re-birth of this building.
The use is complicated for Moynihan Hall. All Amtrak trains load from this station. When an Amtrak train arrives you can depart from 7th Avenue or Moynihan Hall.
New Jersey Transit still uses Track 1-4 in the 7th Avenue Building, so that has not changed.
LIRR uses tracks 17-21 which are only in the 7th Avenue Building. Other tracks for LIRR trains can be accessed through Moynihan Hall.
There is a Starbucks open already. There are areas for ticketed passengers with restrooms. I spotted restrooms by the 31St. Midblock exit.
IF YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT THIS BUILDING LOOKED LIKE 4 YEARS AGO, CHECK OUT UNTAPPED CITIES:
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM ROOSEVELT ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY JUDITH BERDY
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when from out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of…a Wooly Mammoth??
By popular demand, we bring the New York City/Roosevelt Island story up to date, or at least to when the Dutch took over. When we left, around 10,000 years ago, after the retreat of the last great ice sheets, the Paleo-Indians living in the New York region were, perhaps, chasing down megafauna like mammoths, mastodons, giant beavers and giant short-faced bears.
University of New Mexico Archeological Discoveries
Before we move on, who were these folks?
The current view is that all Native Americans – before Europeans and Africans arrived – were cast from the same original stock, from humans who crossed from Siberia to Alaska over what was then land (in glacial periods, seas were much lower) perhaps 40,000 years ago. They – the “founders” – the theory goes, represent a culture that was isolated for thousands of years up in the cold north of our continent, incubating a population that would eventually seed everywhere else in the hemisphere.
An earlier theory, based on projectile points resembling spearheads and other hunting paraphernalia found in an archaeological site near Clovis, New Mexico put the arrivals in North America at around 13,000 years ago. The new theory pushes that date back much further. Eventually, probably because of climate change and population increase, the founders moved out and over many years (12,000?) populated the entire hemisphere. Over time, genetic variation occurred among the various founder subgroups, but au fond all indigenous Americans share the same core genetic heritage.
So, long story short, it took a while, but these people finally found their way to the New York region – our own Paleo-Indians – arriving between 13,000 and 10,000 years ago. Some paleoanthropologists characterize them as nomadic bands of big game hunters, following the herds of mammoths and other ice age animals across the continent. Some feel that the Paleo-Indians – together with a warming climate – were responsible for killing off these local plus-sized mammals.
With the gradual melting of the glaciers, a number of climatic changes began occurring between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago throughout the Northeast. The larger animals migrated north and our intrepid hunters followed. Here, the warming climate encouraged the northward growth of deciduous trees bearing a variety of protein-rich black walnuts, butternuts, and chestnuts. A rich supply of fruits, seeds, and nutritious roots expanded the food base. In thicker forests, smaller animals predominated.
During this period, a more sedentary culture developed. Known as the Archaic Period, people made advances that allowed them to exploit the new conditions. Not simply hunting, they developed the technology needed to harvest the fish and shellfish found in New York Harbor as well as acorns and other new plant species.
Approximately 2,000 years ago, things changed again, this time, however, pushed by changes in human technology. During the Eastern Woodland Period, major advances such as pottery, bow and arrows, and agriculture were developed. These allowed for even greater utilization of the land and resources leading to the growth of larger settlements such as villages. We know more about these people. The remains of approximately 8,000 early encampments together with more advanced hunting implements have been found throughout the city. Since then, the New York region has probably remained continually inhabited.
The next several millennia seem pretty foggy. It seems that the first Native Americans (no longer Paleo-Indians) to occupy the New York area spoke the Algonquian language with the last wave of Algonquians arriving just before the year 1000. They were part of a union of tribes known as the Algonquian nation that stretched from what is now Virginia, through New Jersey, and into Canada. The peoples who came here seem to have had no relation to the sophisticated Native American civilizations that built the grand mounds of Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys and across the Southeast. No mounds here.
The Algonquian star would fade: By the time the first Europeans arrived in New York during the late 1500s and early 1600s, the Algonquian power had declined and had shifted to the powerful tribes of the Iroquois.
But the people Europeans met here weren’t Iroquois. They were Lenape. Their language was Algonquian.
The name Lenape has several interpretations, among which are “ordinary people” and “original people.” The settlers eventually renamed these people “Delaware Indians” after the English nobleman Lord De la Warr (Del-a-ware, get it?) for which Delaware and the Delaware River were named.
Lenape territory extended along both sides of the Delaware River from what is now northern Delaware, eastern Pennsylvania, and throughout New Jersey. We’re told that the Lenape were highly regarded by the other eastern woodland tribes of the Algonquian nation. They were respectfully known as the “Grandfathers”—elders of the eastern woodland tribes. Their noble status eventually declined after they were displaced from their homeland. When they became a tribe in exile, their “Iroquois” neighbors ultimately slandered their good name by calling their warriors “women.”
Scholars have estimated that at the time of European settlement, there may have been about 15,000 Lenape in approximately 80 settlement sites around much of the New York City area, alone. In 1524, Lenape in canoes met Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European explorer to enter New York Harbor, who called the area New Angoulême to honor his patron, King Francis I, Count of Angoulême, of France. These are the people who famously signed the Treaty of Shackamaxon with William Penn in 1682, in which both sides agreed that their people would live in a state of perpetual peace
When the Dutch arrived in what’s now New York City, their encounters with Lenape seem to have been amicable. They shared the land and traded guns, beads and wool for beaver furs. We’ve long been told that the Dutch even “purchased” Manahatta island from the Lenape in 1626.
But the story does not end well. This transaction, enforced by the building of walls around New Amsterdam, marked the beginning of the Lenape’s forced mass migration out of their homeland. The wall, which started showing up on maps in the 1660s, was built to keep out Native Americans and British. Facing growing European population pressure and continuing struggles with Iroquois, the Lenape agreed to give up lands they had been promised in treaties. They began a long migration to Pennsylvania, and then settled in Ohio, then Indiana, then St. Louis, and then elsewhere in Missouri before purchasing a reservation in Kansas in 1830 using funds from previous treaties. After the Civil War, the U.S. government forced the Lenape in Kansas to sell their land so railroad companies could build tracks on it. The Lenape then purchased a reservation from the Cherokee in Oklahoma, where they reside today, in Bartlesville and Anadarko. Kin also reside in Ontario, in the Delaware Nation at Moraviantown and the Munsee Delaware Nation. Smaller bands of Lenape still live in New England and the mid-Atlantic, but most are self-recognized, one exception being the Ramapough Lenape Nation, recognized by the state of New Jersey but not the U.S. government. At the end of the day, we actually know little about the Lenape who preceded – and, apparently welcomed – us to New York.
Let me conclude by recommending a wonderful book – Mannhatta, A Natural History of New York City, by Eric W. Sanderson that takes off from this point. Sanderson was able, using the most modern techniques of computational geography and visualization and remarkable old maps, to reconstruct what Manhattan looked like in the hours before Henry Hudson sailed up his river. Lenape figure here as among the earliest of peoples who have transformed the ecosystem of our City.
SWIMMING IN THE EAST RIVER GLORIA HERMAN AND ALEXIS VILLEFANE GOT IT
REMINDER: JANUARY 1st IS THE ANNUAL SWIM BY THE POLAR BAY CLUB IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN IN CONEY ISLAND!!!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff Roosevelt Island Historical Society
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS
CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
You know 12th Avenue in Manhattan, the Far West Side avenue that becomes the West Side Highway. And you may have heard of 13th Avenue, a short-lived thoroughfare built on landfill in the 1830s from 11th Street to about 25th Street that had a dreary, creepy vibe—based on photos and newspaper accounts.
But 14th Avenue in Manhattan? I’d never heard of it until I saw the 1860 Johnson’s Map of New York (above). In the uppermost part of Manhattan, at Tubby Hook and the railroad tracks that hug the Hudson River, there’s a small stretch marked “Fourteenth Avenue.”
Even stranger, 13th Avenue makes an appearance as well, running from about 168th Street to Spuyten Duyvil.
The Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, the map that laid out Manhattan’s street grid, says nothing about 14th Avenue. The last street on that map is 155th Street, and to the north are scattered place names (like Fort George and Kings Bridge) as well as the names of landowners.
There are a few mentions of 14th Avenue in newspaper archives, specifically when it comes to real estate transactions. In 1875, the New York Times noted that a plot from 214th to 215th Streets along 14th Avenue exchanged hands for $80,000.
Some other 19th century maps mark 14th Avenue, like the one above from 1879.
So why did 14th Avenue (and this slice of 13th Avenue) get de-mapped? Did the city decide it was too small to be an avenue, too insignificant at only 10 or so blocks long? Meanwhile, Tubby Hook is still on the map; even Google notes this spit of land jutting into the Hudson (below).
It likely has to do with Inwood Hill Park. Where 14th Avenue is marked on the 1860 map happens to be where Inwood Hill Park Calisthenics Park is today, right alongside the water. I don’t know when the Calisthenics Park opened, but Inwood Hill itself became an official city park in 1926.
A short avenue had no place inside Inwood Hill Park. As a result, 14th Avenue forever bit the dust.
Aerial view of the Bronx Zoo Laura Hussey and Jay Jacobson got it!
EDITORIAL
It has been a challenging year for the RIHS. We have reached many goals and surpassed some:
The visitor center kiosk was open on 248 days. We served over 25,000 visitors. We have had the best December sales ever this month. Ellen, Barbara, Vicki and Gloria make up a great team in the kiosk. We thank Pat, our veteran (10 years) bookkeeper who keeps all the finances in order.
We had two series with our NYPL partners on Zoom and we worked to welcome our new branch with Carlos, Danielle and staff.
We did offer some in-person tours of the island including the staff of the Graduate Hotel, & NYU Urban Planning students.
We welcomed and worked with Amanda Matthews and Prometheus Foundry on the dedication and opening reception of The Girl Puzzle We worked with Andrew at Blackwell House to increase the visitors to the landmark building.
Bobbie Slonevsky edited four great issues of Blackwell’s Almanac.
Deborah Dorff made sure our issues of FROM THE ALMANAC were posted on our website. We thank our readers, Stephen Blank and Andy Sparberg for joining us as writers. There is a special group of readers who daily answer the mystery photo question including Jay Jacobson, Laura Hussey, Alexis Villafane, Aron Eisenpreiss, Nina Lublin, Ed Litcher, Gloria Herman and many others, too numerous to mention.
We worked with RIOC on obtaining and use of our Public Purpose Funds. We worked with Ben Kallos, our City Council member on discretionary funding for the RIHS and supporting our publications.
We accepted the donation of the plaque from the Welfare Island Storehouse. We are the guardians of the T. Burns engraved stones from the Southpoint Park shoreline.
Many times your see other publications whose material we feature. Some of these are Daytonian in Manhattan, Untapped NYC, Ephemeral New York, Smithsonian American Art Museum and recently New York Almanack. We thank them for letting us share these wonderful features.
We thank the support of our vendors and suppliers. We place small orders and still get wonderful service and great products. We thank Maple Landmark whose bridge models are in the windows at our medical office.
We miss the in-person meetings, the parties, the seminars, traveling to other historical sited and events.
We will sit at the window watching the ferries go by, the trees turn in Queensbridge Park and the growing skyline Queens.
Have a safe and healthy new year.
Judith Berdy
p.s. Please feel free to join the RIHS or make a donation at RIHS.US
FROM A READER
Hi Judy– Thx for the homage to Wayne Thiebaud.
I had no idea he was 101!
I’ve loved his beautiful straight-forward painting since my days in art school. His love of thick paint, composition & vibrant color outlines were always inspiring to me. I’ll have to thumb through my coffee table book of Mr Thiebaud this week…..;^) Many thanks & Happy New Year– Thom Heyer
SOURCES
Ephemeral New York
[Third image: NYPL; fourth image: Google Maps]
Funding Provided by: Roosevelt Island Corporation Public Purpose Funds Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD Text by Judith Berdy
Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
Did you ever see any of the fisherpeople on Roosevelt Island (I presume there are women as well as men fishing here) actually catch a fish? But they’re here, around the island, casting, watching, casting, watching, watching. Some have just one rod, others have two or three. Some work alone, some in groups. But every day, morning till evening, people are fishing in the East River, warm days, cold days.
I admit that when I moved here in 1977, I thought this was a pretty hopeless mission. But the reality has changed profoundly. Then, the East River was dirty – really dirty – and while we were told fish skulked at the bottom, that was hard to believe. Today, natural life has re-emerged.
The Audubon Society says that more than a dozen species of water birds have returned to the area since the 1970’s, including eight species of heron and egret alone. There’s much more life in the water. Hard to believe: Whale sightings in New York City waters (out to sea, not in the harbor!) have jumped from 5 to 272 since 2010. This is not due solely to cleaner water. Climate change is important, too, as are longer-term efforts to restore several strains of bird life. But the NYC Department of Environmental Protection reports that NY harbor is cleaner today than it’s been in nearly 110 years. If not quite drinkable, the East River is much cleaner, enough so that kayakers and jet skiers no longer draw a startled look. Our island’s setting has been transformed over the past few decades, and our river setting is more in touch with the natural world than has been the case in decades – or more.
So fishing may now be more hopeful. And, surprise to me, there’s a lot of fish life down there.
Our friends at the Gothamist have provided a useful guide to Fish of the East River.
Scup or porgies, are small, fairly flat fish. They have a continuous dorsal fin with long sharp spines and a deeply concave tail with sharp corners. Porgies are somewhat migratory, moving inshore and north in the spring and reversing that pattern in the fall. They are bottom feeders, eating a variety of invertebrates during daylight hours. Porgies seldom exceed four pounds. The average size you’ll see is less than one pound.
As the name implies, striped bass are characterized by the presence of black stripes along the length of the fish. Stripers are seasonal migrants, though some fish are found in city waters year-round. Their preferred habitat is inshore near structures such as rocks and pilings, but these fish can also be found in open water. Although striped bass can grow in excess of 40 pounds, most of the ones you’ll see range from three to 30 pounds.
Bluefish are long, moderately stout fish, with distinctly forked tails. They are known for being fierce fighters on fishing lines. Bluefish are coastal migrants that travel in schools into local waters in the spring, following mackerel and bunker. They range in length from nine to 24 inches and weigh 12 to 15 pounds.
Eels are elongate, snake-like fish with small scales deeply embedded in the skin. Eels are born in saltwater, grow and mature in freshwater, and return to the sea to spawn. “Eel have an amazing life history, they actually spend most of their lives in freshwater then swim out to the Sargasso Sea in the Northern Atlantic Ocean,” Cohen said. “When they reproduce, their young actually travel all the way back to our freshwaters, which is pretty amazing.” Eels feed on living and dead material while trying to avoid being eaten by a number of other fish, including striped bass. Adult females are generally larger than males with an average length of two to three feet. They prefer quiet waters with muddy or sandy bottoms. Sadly, the population of American Eels has decreased due to blocked waterways and overfishing.
New York’s hottest fish is the Oyster Toadfish. Ok, maybe not. While some people do consume Oyster Toadfish (again, don’t), they are usually discarded because of their appearance.
“They call them bait stealers,” Cohen said.
“I’ve actually seen their dead carcasses on the side of the East River because people consider them not worthy of keeping and eating. It’s really kind of sad because they just kill this fish because it decided to eat their clam [bait].”
Oyster toadfish can grow to about a foot long and are found in salt and brackish waters, preferring areas with sandy, muddy bottoms, oyster reefs, shoal water, eelgrass beds or in hollows and dens. They are quite capable of living in polluted waters and have been known to find shelter in submerged tires and cans.
Oyster toadfish rely on camouflage to catch their food, usually preying on crustaceans, mollusks, amphipods, squid, and other smaller fish. Males make a distinctive foghorn sound to attract females in the April to October mating season
Summer flounder, or fluke, are left-eyed flatfish. (The winter flounder is right-eyed.) You’ll know this by the direction the head points when laid flat with the eyes on top. Fluke can alter their coloring, from white sand to black mud, to match the substrate. Fluke move inshore in the spring, reversing this pattern in the fall. They are active predators, spending most of their time hiding in sand on the river bottom, waiting to attack smaller fish that swim by. While they seem to prefer sand or mud, they often gather near structures. Fluke can exceed 20 pounds, but most specimens are only one to three pounds.
Blackfish are somewhat flattened, stout-bodied fish with blunt heads. They are characterized by their dark color, thick rubbery lips and continuous dorsal fin. Their small jaws are lined with conical teeth which are used to crush hard-shelled prey like mollusks and crustaceans.
Blackfish move into local waters in spring to spawn over rocks and artificial reefs. Afterwards, they spread out over rocky areas and grass or shellfish beds to feed. While blackfish can reach nearly 25 pounds, the average specimen ranges from one to four pounds.
Before we go, consider the humble goldfish. Yes, New York waters contain goldfish, otherwise known as carp. How did they get in the East River, you might be asking? Possibly you! Or someone you know.
To be fair, many folks who release unwanted pet fish or dump aquarium plants in the river think they’re doing the right thing. It’s better than flushing them, right? Not exactly, as they can still spread diseases and parasites in the water. Feral goldfish are an invasive species, wreaking havoc when unleashed.
“The consequences can be pretty drastic if people release something that’s an invasive species with the potential to disrupt the ecosystem,” Cohen said.
“It might have diseases that can be passed to native organisms or outcompete native organisms for food sources in the water.”
Feral goldfish can grow quite large in the wild. Same goes for aquarium plants that can take over native species.
We know this sounds fanciful, but feral goldfish invasions in waterways are an absolutely for-real problem all over the world. “Monster Goldfish” have been caught weighing up to four pounds – the size of a football!
feral goldfish weighing 4 pounds (Courtesy Dr. Stephen Beatty, Centre for Sustainable Aquatic Ecosystems, Murdoch University)
So check if you can give them back to the pet store, give them to a friend, or keep them. Anything but releasing them into any kind of body of water. Watch this video for more on pets that should never be released into the wild.
What about eating fish caught in the East River? The “river” is dangerously polluted with chemicals. Despite this wonderful variety of fish in the River, the New York State Department of Health warns that many of the fish you may reel in are not safe to eat. Still, fishing can be a peaceful endeavor in an otherwise hectic city.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation produces fact sheets that note all of these pollutants, including floating debris, oil, and grease. Some sources of the pollution are urban and storm runoff, combined sewer overflow (CSO), industrial use of the waterway, and littering.
The New York State Department of Health issues fish advisories, many of which include fish containing PCBs, Dioxin and Cadmium. “DON’T EAT” in all caps is advised for most fish for women under 50 and children 15 and under. If you still want to eat these fish, or fish found anywhere in New York waters for that matter, consult the advisories.
Happy fishing!
Meet The Fish Of The East River by Clarisa Diaz, April 3, 2019 Clarisa Diaz is a designer and reporter for WNYC/Gothamist.
Stephen Blank
RIHS
December 6, 2020
Careless fishermen have been leaving lines and gear abandoned on the island. Our birds and geese are getting caught up in the dangerous lines. If you spot any contact PSD and WILDLIFE FREEDOM FOUNDATION at wildlifefreedomfoundation.org
LOBBY OF ISLAND HOUSE VICKIE FEINMEL AND ALEXIS VILLEFANE GOT IT FIRST
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
GOTHAMIST (c)
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
THURSDAY IS OUR 250th ISSUE. SEND US YOUR COMMENTS, QUESTIONS, INQUIRIES, SUGGESTIONS, FUN-FACTS AND IDEAS FOR THE UPCOMING ISSUES AND YOUR THOUGHTS. SEND TO: ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM
THOMAS HUNTER HALL
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2020
OUR 249th ISSUE OF FROM OUR ARCHIVES
A FESTIVAL OF GARGOYLES AND INTERESTING FEATURES
FROM EPHEMERAL NEW YORK (C) & NY TIMES / CHRISTOPHER GRAY (C)
Thomas Hunter (18 October 1831 – 14 October 1915) was the founder of the Female Normal and High School in New York City, United States, now known as Hunter College High School. The school is today considered one of the most valuable assets of the City University of New York, one of the world’s largest urban university systems.
Illustration of The New York City Normal College which is now known as Hunter College of the City University of new York which is a senior college of the City University of New York. The college was founded in 1870 by Irish immigrant and social reformer Thomas Hunter as a teacher-training school for young woman. The school, which was housed in an armory and saddle store at Broadway and East Fourth Street in Manhattan, was open to all qualified women, irrespective of race, religion or ethnic background, which was incongruent to the prevailing admission practices of other schools during this era. Created by the New York State Legislature, Hunter was deemed the only approved institution for those seeking to teach in New York City during this time. The school incorporated an elementary and high school for gifted children, where students practiced teaching.
He was a migrant from Ardglass in Ireland to the United States. Hunter was president of the Female Normal and High School for 37 years. He died in 1915.
During his tenure as president of the school, the school became known for its impartiality regarding race, religion, ethnicity, financial or political favoritism; its pursuit of higher education for women; its high entry requirements; and its rigorous academics. The college’s student population quickly expanded, and the college subsequently moved uptown, into a new Gothic structure on Lexington Avenue between 68th and 69th Streets. (Now named Thomas Hunter Hall at the 68th Street campus.) Today, the college is particularly noted for its professional schools in the social sciences, education, health sciences, nursing, and social work.
The campus of Hunter College doesn’t look very collegiate, with its skywalks and square modernist buildings. But there’s a wonderful exception to all those concrete boxes: Thomas Hunter Hall at 934 Lexington Avenue. (Thomas Hunter was the first president of this former all-female teachers college founded in 1869, when it was known as Normal College.) Designed in 1912 by Charles B.J. Snyder, the architect of so many of New York’s elementary and high schools at the turn of the century, this English Gothic castle of a college building features cathedral windows and rooftop turrets that give the impression of a Medieval fortress.
And if you look closely, you’ll see plenty of Gothic-style faces staring back at you. The facade and twin spires flanking the entrance are packed with grotesques—some scary, some goofy with a sense of humor (like the guy in the glasses above, who has a pencil behind his ear).
THE VESTIGE OF WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
By Christopher Gray*
April 20, 2008
Almost swamped by the boxy modernism of Hunter College, the 1913 Tudor-style wing on Lexington Avenue from 68th to 69th Street known as Thomas Hunter Hall is easy to miss. When built, it was one of a dozen hospitals, homes, orphanages and other institutions devoted to the civic good at the crown of Lenox Hill, and was meant as part of a larger design that would have given the college a quite different face.
In the 1860s, the city began giving or leasing land on blocks it owned from 66th to 69th, between Park and Third Avenues, to institutions serving a public purpose. The earliest beneficiary was Mount Sinai Hospital, on the east side of Lexington between 66th and 67th Street. It was followed soon afterward by Normal College, established in 1869 to train female high school graduates for teaching positions, and so named because its goal was to establish norms for the profession.
In 1873, the college opened a great red brick churchlike building in the Gothic style, facing Park Avenue. The curriculum expanded beyond teacher training to include traditional liberal arts, and in the early 1910s an ambitious plan was floated to tear down the Gothic building and incorporate the entire block in a giant new structure for the college’s use. A magnificent towered Tudor-style building was to occupy most of the block on the Park Avenue side, with a similar but simpler structure on Lexington, all designed by Charles B. J. Snyder, the architect for city schools
As it happened, only the Lexington Avenue front went ahead, starting in 1911; the Gothic-style complex on the balance of the lot remained.
Mr. Snyder’s legacy for the school system was to replace its dark, cramped boxes with high light-filled structures, often in an H-plan and often in Northern European Renaissance styles. For the Lexington Avenue structure designed to accommodate the elementary and high schools associated with the teaching college he must have been given a larger than usual budget, as it is completely clad in limestone.
The building opened in 1913, and the next year Normal College was renamed Hunter College, after its founding president, Thomas Hunter. (Later the building became Thomas Hunter Hall.)
Mr. Snyder’s work bears some of his trademarks: the rooms are high and light with large banks of windows. Three large cathedral windows at the top levels are visible from the street. The rooms that they illuminate, originally gymnasiums and a lunch room, are now spectacular dance studios.
In 1946, Hunter began to admit some men, and in 1964 it went completely coed. In the 1980s, modern towers were built on the south corners of 68th Street and Lexington, connected by skywalks, which have provided some of the character of a college campus.
They replaced a grammar school, on the southeast corner, and what had begun as the Institution for the Improved Instruction of Deaf-Mutes on the southwest corner.
In 1927, the college considered relocating to the Bronx (where an additional campus soon went up), but it remained in place. In 1936, the Gothic-style building on the Park Avenue side was gutted by fire; four years later, that was replaced by the present modernist structure, designed by Harrison & Fouilhoux along with Shreve, Lamb & Harmon. The magazine Architectural Forum noted “the more sentimental section of the public and profession decrying the omission of the customary collegiate trimmings.”
THE OVERPASS BETWEEN HUNTER COLLEGE BUILDINGS JAY JACOBSON, HARA REISER, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, ANDY SPARBERG, THOM HEYER, NINA LUBLIN, GLORIA HERMAN ALL GOT IT RIGHT.
CHRISTOPHER GRAY*
Gray wrote about City streetscapes for the New York Times every weekend. His works were wonderful and a start to me discovering the City and it’s many unique structures. He passed away suddenly and much too soon.
Judith Berdy
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK (C) NY TIMES WIKIPEDIA GOOGLE IMAGES
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
There’s nothing like walking through Manhattan during Christmastime and coming upon a row of elfin former carriage houses that look like they were made out of gingerbread and belong in a holiday fairytale.
WALK FROM LEXINGTON TO PARK AVENUE ON EAST 69TH STREET, A VISION FROM THE PAST.
The north side of the street is home to several conjoined carriage houses of different architectural styles and sizes—but all with the traditional arched entryway to fit not just horses but the tall carriages they pulled.
It’s not Lenox Hill’s only row of carriage houses. As Upper Fifth Avenue became the city’s new millionaire mile during the Gilded Age, these new rich New Yorkers built not only resplendent mansions for themselves but decorative stables for their equipage and the workers who took care of them. These wealthy owners wanted their stables nearby—but not so near that they had to smell and hear their horses.
Other stable rows are on East 73rd Street and East 66th Street, and they tend to be east of Lexington Avenue (and thus closer to the tenements and elevated trains, not to mention on the other side of Park Avenue, where the New York Central Railroad had its tracks).
Number 147, the first in the row closest to Lexington, was built by a banker named Herbert Bishop in 1880, according to Christopher Gray a 2014 New York Times article, which delves into the backstories of some of the carriage houses on the block. Bishop lived on Fifth Avenue and 70th Street
A dye company owner, Adolph Kuttroff, built numbers 153-157 a few years later, according to Gray. John Sloane, of the department family Sloanes (owners of the W.J. Sloane rug and furnishings store on Broadway and 19th Street), parked his vehicle and horses at 159.
“In 1896 came the most remarkable stable on the Upper East Side, when the streetcar millionaire Charles T. Yerkes, whose large house was at 69th and Fifth, had the otherwise little-known Frank Drischler design a three-story-high stable with a broad, double-height arch, gabled front at No. 149,” wrote Gray. Number 161 has the initials “BB” in the keystone, notes the AIA Guide to New York City. Those initials are for William Bruce-Brown, brother of wealthy sportsman David Loney Bruce-Brown. His obituary says Bruce-Brown resided at 13 East 70th Street, but the Upper East Side Historical District Designation Report from 1981 says he lived in the upper floors of the stable.
George G. Heye, collector and founder of the Museum of the American Indian, owned number 167 (described as “plodding eclectic” by the AIA). Horses and carriages (and their grooms and drivers) didn’t occupy these stables for much longer. By the teens, they started getting converted into garages for automobiles, then remade into living quarters for people—including Mark Rothko, who lived and had his studio in 157 until his death by suicide in 1970.
Lately, these Victorian, Georgian, and Romanesque stables have changed hands for big money. Art dealer Larry Gagosian sold number 147 for $18 million, according to 6sqfeet.
They’re remodeled, restored, and really, really pricey. But from the street you can imagine them as part of a fairy tale village, or the kind of delightful structures you find in a snow globe—very appropriate for the holiday season.
[Fourth photo: MCNY 1976 2013.3.2.716]
Across the street from the former stables is Imperial House, a 1960’s cooperative apartment building. With its setback and gracious driveway, the street is a sanctuary around the corner from the bustle of Hunter College at Lexington Avenue.
The back of the closed Goldwater Steam Plant next to the Tram Station ALEXIS VILLEFANE GOT IT TODAY!!
EDITORIAL
For years my family lived a few blocks from East 69th Street, The stables on 69th Street are delightful, along with the ones on 66th Street and 70th Street. Wander down many of the streets on the Upper East Side and discover the grand homes the livery had.
There are many that were carriage houses and one set of buildings on East 73rd Street. On east 75th Street a row of buildings that were automobile garages are now private homes.
Time to get off the island and wander thru NYC history. Judith Berdy
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK (thanks for their wonderful postings)
IMPERIAL HOUSE WIKIPEDIA GOOGLE IMAGES
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM PHOTOS BY JUDITH BERDY / RIHS (C)
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
The riverfront neighborhood of Water Street and Gouveneur’s Slip was among the seediest in New York City in the 1870s and ’80s. Brothels, saloons and gambling dens lured sailors and miscreants. Stabbings, shootings, and beatings were common. So Charity Commissioner Thomas S. Brennan’s proposal of an “emergency hospital”–a branch of Bellevue Hospital–at Gouveneur’s Slip made sense.
The free-standing, three-story brick building was completed in October 1885 at a cost of $14,000. Because, as the New-York Tribune pointed out it was “simply a reception hospital” intended only for emergency treatment before patients were transferred to Bellevue, there were just 30 beds. On October 3, 1885, about two weeks before the hospital opened, The New York Times reminded readers of the character of the neighborhood.
“The site occupied was formerly a police station, then a market place, and afterward a resort for thieves and low characters. Its regeneration into a hospital grieves the river border gang, but is hailed as a great improvement by respectable neighbors.”
Before long the hospital took on the name of the nearby slip. And a decade after its opening, it was clear that Gouveneur Hospital could not adequately meet the needs of the gritty neighborhood. A full-service institution was needed.
In April 1897 The Sinking Fund Commission took bids for constructing a new hospital. The lowest bid, of $116,000 from the Mapes-Reeve Construction Company, was rejected because of “a technical error.” The next lowest bit was from Mahoney Bros. at $129,400. The total cost, including furnishings and equipment, would eventually rise to $200,000; around $5.75 million today.
Designed by John R. Thomas, the building was completed late in October 1900; but a public spat between Charities Commissioner John W. Keller and Public Buildings Commissioner Henry S. Kearny delayed opening until January 5, 1901. In reporting the opening, The New York Times took a jab at the men, saying “Mr. Keller and Public Buildings Commissioner Kearny have been at odds for some months.”
Four stories of red brick trimmed in terra cotta, the new facility could accommodate 104 patients. The Times deemed it “the most perfectly equipped in the Charities Department.” The intention was always that two wings would stretch back from the main administration building; but only the north wing was included in the first stage of construction.
The waiting room, in 1907, provided a crowded and piteous scene. photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
Running alongside the old hospital, the end of the wing was rounded, thereby doing away with interior corners where dirt and germs could accumulate.
The Times reported “The doctors’ and nurses’ quarters and the dining rooms are all that could be desired. The laboratory and operating room are filled with up-to-date apparatus, including an X-ray machine, the only one in the Charities Department.”
The case of one of the hospital’s first patients, 24-year old John Bellinette, reflected not only the type of injuries the facility would receive, but the character of the neighborhood. Bellinette lived at No. 44 Oliver Street; but he was found just before midnight on Saturday, January 12, 1901 in the yard of No. 22 Hamilton Street. He had been thrown from the fourth floor window.
Two neighbors informed Patrolman Edward J. O’Rourke that they had seen the crime from their rooms. “While they were still at the window they saw a man stoop over the body of the injured man and take his overcoat and hat,” reported The Times.
O’Rourke went to the apartment and arrested Salvatore Adriate, his wife, Theresa, and another woman, Philamina Perchaine. Bellinette’s overcoat and hat were on the bed. The three “denied that there was any quarrel in their rooms, and said they did not know who the injured man was.”
An investigation, however, revealed that Raphael Cresanzo and Francisco Rimardo had also been in the room at the time of the “accident.” Bellinette, it was revealed, was accused by Cresanzo of cheating him out of money. Fearing for his life, Bellinette tried to escape onto the fire escape and was pushed to the ground. Two days later he was still in critical condition in Gouverneur Hospital with a fractured skull.
By spring 1903 the City was ready to erect the southern wing. The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported on April 18 “Probabilities point to the speedy completion of Gouverneur Hospital…The new administration building with one wing was opened in 1901, and now it is desired that the other wing be built.” Architect Raymond Almirall was give the commission; but he closely followed Thomas’s design, resulting in a visually-balanced structure.
It was not until July 1909, however, that the City contracted for what would become perhaps the hospital’s iconic feature. Bids were taken for “railings, supports and all other work for inclosing the balconies and balcony stairways.” The wonderful iron, rounded balconies were outfitted with curtains for privacy and protection from direct midday heat.
The treatment for some diseases, notably tuberculosis, included fresh and and sunshine. Beds and wheelchairs could be rolled out onto the balconies to provide both.
By now the Lower East Side was filled with filthy tenements crammed with indigent immigrant families. At the turn of the century there were 330,000 residents per square mile, tasking the staff at Gouveneur Hospital with another type of patient–children. Infants and toddlers in poor families suffered from malnutrition, measles, whooping-cough, heat prostration and pneumonia. Infectious diseases spread within the hospital, since there was no “detention room.” Three times during the winter of 1913 the children’s ward had to be quarantined.
In 1917 the Department of Health recommended “that a salary sufficient to retain a nurse specifically trained in the care of children be provided.” The investigating committee deemed $600 a year appropriate.
In the meantime rampant crime and gang activity continued. A peculiar case was that of Mrs. Branaslaw Kucharsky, a 41-year old washwoman. Around 9:00 on the morning of July 14, 1919 two strangers were seen entering the tenement building where she lived at No. 113 Stanton Street. About an hour later a neighbor entered her flat and found her on the floor.
An ambulance from Gouveneur Hospital arrived, but found her already dead. The New-York Tribune reported that she “was either murdered or died of fright when attacked during the robbery of her home.”
Gangster violence repeatedly resulted in injuries, often fatal. On the night of June 13, 1920 Angelo De Rocco waited in ambush outside a Rivington Street movie theater. When Rosario Demario exited, the “bushwacker,” as described by the Tribune, opened fire. Demario was struck in the back and the panicked crowd scattered.
Two policemen nearby chased De Rocco, who fired his revolver at them as he fled. Detective Anthony J. Fater returned fire, hitting the fugitive once in the back, and then in the leg. Both men were taken to Gouveneur Hospital. But the night was not over yet.
Half an hour later Salvatore Campo was found unconscious in his room on the second floor of No. 217 Bowery with five knife wounds in his body and scalp. The Tribune reported “One of the wounds had nearly severed his right ear.” He, too, was taken to Gouveneur Hospital. Police later discovered that all three lived in the building–De Rocco on the first floor, Campo on the second, and Demario on the third. Neighbors said that there had been “a long standing quarrel among the boarders.”
On the night of March 1, 1921, Patrolman Shoemaker was passing No. 46 Pitt Street, just after 11:00, when a man holding a “smoking pistol” staggered backwards out of the doorway and collided with a lamppost. Rocco Franko was holding his bloodied right hand to his chest. Shoemaker called an ambulance for the 27-year old, then entered the building.
On the first landing he found Charles Vito, who also held a pistol. The New-York Tribune reported that he “had his right eye shot away. Again an ambulance was called from Gouverneur Hospital.” Both men were arrested in the hospital, but refused to give any information.
Street violence and gangster activity continued to result in emergency cases. In spring 1922 17-year old Samuel Licht had only recently been released from the State Reformatory. On March 26 he stopped a young woman outside a store on Madison Street. Whatever he said to the girl, she apparently took offense. She walked away and Licht loitered around in front of the store.
The Tribune reported “Children who were playing in the street nearby saw a taxicab draw up to the curb and stop. Two men got out, stood side by side while they leveled revolvers, and fired simultaneously.” One of the bullets lodged in the door of the store, but the other struck Licht in the back of the head. “The two men re-entered the taxicab and were driven off.
” A patrolman who heard the shots called an ambulance from Gouveneur Hospital, but Liche died on the way.
During the Great Depression the Works Progress Administration provided work to artists who, among other projects, decorated civic buildings with murals. In 1936 artist Abram Champanier began a ambitious series of 15 “Alice in New York Wonderland” murals for the children’s ward of Gouveneur Hospital. The oil-on-canvas works colorfully depicted a very modern Alice in settings like the Central Park Zoo, at the Coney Island Playground, at the New York Public Library and flying over the East River bridges.
Gouveneur Hospital could boast a few firsts. Dr. Emily Dunning Barringer graduated from the Cornell Medical School in 1897 and was accepted on the Gouveneur Hospital Staff. The Cornell Alumni News later pointed out she was the first female doctor in a New York City hospital, “thereby establishing the precedent of admitting women physicians to general hospital service.” Even more shocking at the time, Dr. Barringer was the first female ambulance driver in the world.
And in 1940 Dr. George A. Baehr organized a prepaid medical plan for tenants of the nearby housing projects, the Vladeck Houses. Residents paid 25 cents per person per month. The plan evolved into what we know today as HIP.
By mid-century the old facility was decidedly out-of-date. The hospital lost its accreditation in 1957, and on November 21, 1960 locals held a nighttime protest around the building. The Times reported “About fifty residents of the area used flashlights to accent their demand for ‘a ray of hope’ for getting a new hospital to serve the section. Placards complained about service and facilities in the 200-bed hospital.”
The building was abandoned in 1961 and in June 1963 Mayor Robert F. Wagner announced plans for a new $14 million Gouveneur Hospital. The new facility was opened at No. 227 Madison Street on September 21, 1972. In the meantime the old building sat empty and neglected.
Broken windows allowed weather into the wards, including those where Champanier’s wonderful 7-foot tall murals once brightened the mood of sick children. In 1980 the City offered the property for sale, and demolition was threatened. Hearing of the W.P.A. murals, Andrew Scott Dolkart and Eddie Friedman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission alerted art conservator Allan Farancz in hopes of saving the artworks. According to Dolkart later, “we were unable to interest any city, state or Federal agency in either paying for their removal and restoration or agreeing to hang the murals once they were removed. “On the night before the bulldozers were to destroy the children’s ward, with its murals, Mr. Farancz heroically went in and removed the artwork at his own expense.”
Farancz stored the murals, which one-by-one were eventually conserved. One of them, appropriately, was installed in the new Gouveneur Hospital.
In 1992 a nonprofit group, Community Access, Inc., began renovations of what was now essentially a gutted shell. Under direction of architect Peter L. Woll the venerable building was renovated for housing for the elderly, mentally ill and AIDS sufferers.
MURAL AT GOUVENEUR HOSPITAL, NOW RESTORED AT CONEY ISLAND HOSPITAL
Known today as Gouveneur Court, the building provides assisted living housing for low income and special needs residents.
TIME TO SUPPORT THE RIHS WITH A MEMBERSHIP GO TO WWW.RIHS.US JOIN THE SOCIETY ON-LINE
EDITORIAL
Today, Gouveneur is a hospital, nursing home, rehabilitation center and community clinic for the Lower East Side neighborhood of Chinatown and the Jewish Lower East Side amongst is varied clientele. Having visited Gouveneur once for a meeting, I ended up visiting a neighbor there who was in for fracture rehabilitation. The skilled nursing facility is very new, welcoming and a great staff. It is easily located a few blocks from the East Broadway F train station. This is a municipal facility owed and operated by the NYC Health+Hospitals.
STONES FROM THE SMALLPOX HOSPITAL THAT HAVE BEEN PRESERVED FOR FUTURE RESTORATION.
FREE COVID-19
TESTING
HOSPITAL WALK IN COVID-19 TESTING NYC HEALTH + HOSPITAL METROPOLITAN 1901 First Avenue, New York, NY 10029 at 97th Street call (844) 692-4692 9AM-3:30PM Daily Free Diagnostic Testing (Third-party Verified) Screening Required No appointment needed
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All materials in this publication are copyrighted (c)
MATERIAL COPYRIGHT WIKIPEDIA, GOOGLE RIHS ARCHIVES AND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION (C)
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
