The 1 Wall Street Banking Room interior of the Irving Trust and Bank Company is best known as the Red Room for the glorious and electrifying abstract mosaic decoration, designed by Hildreth Meiere, which defines the space. Meiere, who was recognized by her colleagues at the AIA as a Master of Murals, undertook over 100 such projects throughout her life.
The mosaic design is meant to mimic the curved stone facades of 1 Wall Street, one of the earliest Art Deco skyscrapers in New York City. According to the Landmarks Preservation Commission press release “The room’s walls, ceiling, and columns sparkle with mosaic tile in warm colors that fade from red to orange across the ceiling, and gilded tiles create web-like designs that glitter on the red background and draw the eye up – an elaborate style that presents a dramatic departure from more typical classically-inspired stone banking halls of the era.”
The Red Room, completed in 1931, stands out as one of Meiere’s only abstract designs, and also as her first collaborative project with Ralph Walker. The two would next work together on the ATT Long Distance Building at 32 6th Avenue, which has been both an individual and interior landmark since 1991, though the designation report for that interior does not mention Meiere’s work. We are thrilled that Meiere’s contribution is being recognized here.
After Irving Trust moved out of the building the developer of the condominums in the building had the Red Room restored to it’s original state. After being used as a sales salon for the condos the space was rented to Printemps as part of their store.
Upon entering the Broadway entrance is a petit cafe to enjoy refreshments before or after shopping. On the Main Floor there is a selection of small gift items including home decor, shoes and handbags. All the staff are welcoming and friendly
All the lighting in the store is unique and this salon is furnished all in pink
Even the ladies room was so unique that it was worth a photo.
Step up to the bar for a quick glass of Champagne while shoping, conveniently locate next to the jewelry showcases.
There is a large selection of designer vintage items. Was this Madonnas?
A passage of beauty products lead to an area for your makeover.
The Red Room is now the entrance from Wall Street. You may need a great Wall Street investment for some of these shoes on display. The wonderful floor is new but all the room is the original. Being an interior landmark, nothing is attached to the walls.
I could not tempt Gloria to bring home some new heels!!
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Sometimes the best plans go awry. Eager to see the new Printemps store last Thurday, I was heading across Broadway at Wall Street. Suddendly, I was face down on the pavement. I had tripped over the support for a lane divider. With a bleeding lip two wonderful women came to my aid. They called 911 and waited until the NYU Ambulance arrived. I had a cut lip bruised chin and sore shoulder. Luckily there was no damage to my new hip. Patched up, Gloria Herman and I ventured back to see the landmark Red Room and the new Paris based Printemps department store yesterday.
CREDIT TO
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.
Alley Pond, Queens, June 15, 1927. Borough President Queens Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Staff at the Municipal Archives continue to digitize the historical collections including paper records, books, motion pictures, maps, plans, and photographs. My current assignment is the Queens Borough President photograph collection. The thousands of fascinating pictures includes a series of panoramic images. They were taken mostly during the 1920s and 1930s by the Topographical Bureau in the Borough President’s office, under the direction of the Engineer in Charge, Charles Underhill Powell.
Powell’s tenure coincided with a time of rapid change in Queens. A borough that had long been mostly sparsely populated farmland was quickly becoming a diverse urban landscape. This required a drastic overhaul of the borough’s infrastructure, and engineers like Powell went out to survey, document, design, and plan.
Skaters on Alley Pond, Queens, February 8, 1930. Borough President Queens Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
The photographers generally used standard 8×10 inch sheet film, a format still popular for the high resolution it provides. Sometimes, though, an 8×10 negative just wasn’t good enough. In these situations, the photographers turned to what is known as a banquet camera. Originally intended for photographing large groups of people, the wide negatives (usually either 7×17″ or 12×20″) offered a lot of space to squeeze an entire crowd or banquet hall into one frame. Banquet cameras fell out of favor when medium format and other roll film formats were invented, allowing more flexibility and ease of use in event photography. But landscape and architectural photographers adopted the banquet camera for the precision, resolution, and wide angle of view it offered.
Nassau Boulevard, looking east from Main Street, Queens, August 20, 1928. Borough President Queens Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
The Queens panoramic negatives (which are all 7×17″) present a digitization challenge. Because of their width, they cannot be captured at high resolution in one shot with an overhead camera and they are too fragile for a flatbed scanner. There is an alternative: stitching. I photographed each negative in three shots, which partially overlap with each other. I then ran a Photoshop script to stitch them together. This has worked surprisingly well, even on the most deteriorated negatives. These advancing technologies and workflows allow us to make these beautiful images, which document an important period in New York City history, available to the pu
Little Neck Parkway, looking north at Union Turnpike, Queens, July 16, 1931. Borough President Queens Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Under the elevated train, 31st Street, looking north at 23rd Avenue, Queens, August 28, 1935. Borough President Queens Collection, NYC Municipal Archive
Grand Central Parkway, looking west, Queens, October 27, 1938. Borough President Queens Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Main Street, looking north at 72nd Avenue, Queens, May 27, 1937. Borough President Queens Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Queens Boulevard, looking west, October 25, 1938. Borough President Queens Collection, NYC Municipal Archives
P-856: Elevated view of Long Island City south of the Queensboro Bridge (visible at right), looking toward Manhattan, November 16, 1929. Borough President Queens Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
P-856-a: Elevated view of Long Island City, November 16, 1929. The Chrysler Building is at the center of the Manhattan skyline. Borough President Queens Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
P-856-b: Elevated view of Long Island City, looking north towards the Queensboro Bridge, November 16, 1929. The school that would later become MoMA PS1 is just beyond the rail yards. Borough President Queens Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
P-856-c: Elevated view of the Sunnyside train yards, November 16, 1929. Borough President Queens Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
P-918-b: Nassau River (Newtown Creek), July 10, 1930. The Chrysler Building is visible in the distant Manhattan skyline. Borough President Queens Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
P-987-c: View of Manhattan skyline from Long Island City, January 1, 1934. Borough President Queens Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Visible buildings include the Vanderbilt Hotel, Empire State, 10 East 40th Street, Daily News, Chanin, Lincoln, Chrysler, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York Central, Grand Central Palace, RCA, Waldorf Astoria, General Electric, River House, Savoy Plaza, Ritz Towers, Sherry Netherlands.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Sitting at lunch on lower Broadway, I was able to see to top of the Municipal Building, with Civic Fame. It is a 25 foot gilded statue of a woman designed by Adolph Alexander Weinman.
CREDIT TO
NEW YORK MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES
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.
In 1867 nineteen-year-old Brooklyn-born painter Edwin Blashfield traveled to Paris to study with Léon Bonnat whose studio attracted French and foreign students (John Singer Sargent was another American attendee).
The young painter enjoyed his apprenticeship and spent a considerable time exploring Europe and the Middle East before returning to the city of New York in 1881.
In 1893, he was commissioned to adorn the enormous Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He then created a set of murals for the dome of the Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress.
One of these, entitled “The Evolution of Civilization,” suggests a special bond between Egypt as the world’s first, and America as the latest, great civilization. The work was created during a period that the Orientalist vogue gripped the nation and belly dancers conquered Manhattan.
Anglo-French Rivalry
Starting in the seventeenth century, a Grand Tour was the aristocratic custom of making an educational trip to Italy with Rome, Venice and Florence as key stopping places. Some tourists continued their trip by visiting Constantinople and Cairo. The British passion for Egypt dated back to the early the eighteenth century.
Clergyman Richard Pococke made two separate trips to Egypt. On his second tour in 1736 he visited Cairo, Rosetta and the tombs of the Kings.
His travel account (published in 1743) was appreciated not just for its drawings of ancient monuments, but also for his discussion of more recent history. In 1740, Jean-Etiènne Liotard’s painted his portrait being dressed in eastern costume.
John Montagu, future Earl of Sandwich, was nineteen when he toured Turkey and Egypt. In 1741, he had his portrait painted by Joseph Highmore complete with turban and dagger. Back in London in December 1741, using the name “Sheikh Pyramidum,” he founded the Egyptian Society.
The zeal to learn about ancient Egypt was initiated in France. Preoccupation with the nation was driven by politics. In a memoir of February 13, 1798, Foreign Minister Talleyrand asserted that “Egypt was a province of the Roman Republic; she must become a province of the French Republic.”
In May that year, the French dispatched a force under command of General Napoleon Bonaparte. Some 35,000 soldiers invaded Egypt, the first incursion of a European power into a Muslim country.
The objective of the campaign was to claim pharaonic civilization for the glory of France. Lasting until 1801, French occupation may have been short-lived, but its impact was considerable. Some hundred and fifty scholars executed a study of the country.
Never before had a single nation inspired such a scientific effort. The monumental Description de l’Égypte (published between 1809 and 1829) captured its civilization from every vantage point. The research results made an impact in art and architecture, inciting a vogue for all things Egyptian.
Troubled by the prospect of Egypt becoming a French colony, the British government sent out an armada commanded by Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson that destroyed Napoleon’s fleet at the Battle of the Nile in August 1798.
In June 1801, a British Expeditionary Force defeated demoralized French troops. The balance of power may have changed, but three years of French presence sparked an unprecedented interest in Egypt.
Forbidden Pleasures
After the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire in 1453 and the foundation of the Ottoman Muslim regime, European diplomats began arriving in Constantinople. These representatives tended to invite artists to join the Embassy and create visual records of the time spent in the Empire’s capital. The public was intrigued, although Orientalism in art did not become fashionable until the nineteenth century.
The inauguration in January 1852 of the “Ligne du Levant” line offering regular departures from Marseille to Constantinople; the completion of the Alexandria to Cairo railway line in 1856; the digging of the Suez Canal; Thomas Cook’s first “tourist” trip along the Nile in 1869; the building of grand hotels together with Anglo-French politico-commercial involvement in Ottoman affairs, intensified fascination with the Orient.
The 1867 Universal Exhibition in Paris determined the orientation of Orientalism. On display were precious objects retrieved in 1859 by the Egyptologist Auguste Mariette from Queen Aahotep’s tomb that captured the public’s imagination. By the end of the century pharaonic-inspired designs were the height of a vogue driven by sophisticated jewelers such as René Lalique and others.
Just as intriguing were the displays of Ottoman living quarters. Even though major efforts had been undertaken during the 1860s to regularize the network of streets, to create squares and public places, exhibition planners turned to outdated urban images of a “colorful” past which were presented as an actual external reality. In the Western mind, the Orient was conceived of as a cohesive, but unchanging whole. It was an “anachronistic space.”
Artists who traveled to the Orient were struck by the discrepancy between real experiences and the stock images of the “world-as-exhibition.” They nevertheless persisted in producing postcard pictures in the by then familiar manner, painting women in traditional robes or poor peasants posed with water jugs along the Nile as if they were frozen in time.
Other painters cherished a more sensual projection, perceiving of the East as a region of forbidden pleasures. As a geographical expanse the Orient was described in terms of femininity. A metaphor for her region, she passively accepted the dynamic authority of the colonial West and succumbed to her male counterpart.
The American Gérôme
France was the birthplace of Orientalist painting. The genre did not present itself as an artistic school, but it figured as a theme in existing academic styles and was integrated in Romanticism and subsequent movements. The revolt against the stifling dominance of the “Académie Royale” had shifted the attention from Rome towards Constantinople and Cairo.
What was the lure of these cities? Painters and poets were obsessed with an unhurried serenity that contrasted with the disquiet of Western society. Their impressions tended to suggest that sexual encounters were less guilt-ridden there than in “puritanical” Europe. The Orient was an oasis of lassitude and lowered inhibition, an alluring place where young women (and men) were open to a plethora of sexual experiences.
Jean-Léon Gérôme visited Constantinople in 1856, the first of many trips he would make throughout the Middle East. Mesmerized by its settings, he exhibited “La danse de l’almée” (The Dance of the Almeh) at the 1864 Salon, portraying a dancer accompanied by three musicians before a small audience of soldiers. The term almée (learned woman) originally applied to a singer engaged to teach dance and music to the women of a household harem.
As the harem was a domestic space restricted to women, no strangers (let alone foreign artists) would ever be allowed to enter the domain. The dancer’s nudity caused controversy. The outcry did the artist’s career no harm: notoriety guaranteed success. In the French press, the expression danse du ventre (literally: dance of the stomach or belly), was popularized as an alternate title for the painting.
The theme became popular. Painters depicted Oriental dancers in flowing fabrics barely covering their bodies. Although public performances were a small part of dance practices in Ottoman society, they were interpreted as representative of the whole, thus creating a spectrum of heated perceptions.
The “Orientalist female” was a fabrication. By placing her in an “exotic” setting, the Western artist escaped sanctions for exposing her nudity and seductive appearance. Orientalism was an escape, an erotic fantasy.
Alabama-born Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847-1928) had studied in New York before settling in Paris in 1866. A year later he entered the studio of Jean-Léon Gérôme, an artist he admired for his skills and choice of exotic themes.
Having made Paris his headquarters, Bridgman first explored Northern Africa between 1872 and 1874, dividing his time between Algeria and Egypt. There he executed approximately three hundred sketches as source material for future work and amassed a collection of costumes and curiosities that often would appear in his paintings.
A prolific artist, Bridgman was known as the “American Gérôme.” Although living in France (five of his paintings were exhibited at the 1889 Exposition in Paris), his work was popular in America.
At his 1890 one-man show at Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue Art Galleries over four hundred pictures were on display, many of which were sold on the spot. Orientalism took hold of Manhattan.
By that time however the genre was tried and tired. Even dance or harem scenes had become domesticated and harmless. The theme had lost its steam.
Belly Dance of Politics
The fourth World Exhibition in 1889 was a prestigious one. Gustave Eiffel built his landmark tower in Paris for the occasion and there was ample room for “exotic cultures.” The creation of a Rue du Caire (Cairo Street) was popular with visitors for its camel rides and snake charmers.
The Fair was visited by an energetic and enterprising young American. Born in Pekin, Illinois, into a Jewish family of Polish immigrants, Sol Bloom had settled in San Francisco where he staged spectacular shows and boxing matches. The Exhibition in Paris was a defining moment in his career. He enjoyed the entertainment offered by a stage group introduced to the audience as the “Algerian Village,” a cast consisting of jugglers, sword dancers and danse du ventre performers.
Before leaving Paris, he contracted the group to perform in the United States. By the time his ship docked in New York Harbor, Bloom learned that Chicago had been chosen to stage the 1893 World Fair. The city was also preparing to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the New World. He was determined to become involved.
At the Fair, Bloom created a mile-long Midway Plaisance that offered not just amusement halls, but also the “street in Cairo” where American visitors first witnessed the danse du ventre. Performed by members of the Village group, the initial appeal was negative until Sol began using the term “Belly Dance” to promote the spectacle.
The show was soon swamped with curious visitors. Sol Bloom (1870-1949) composed a tune for his dancers as well: “The Snake Charmer Song,” also known as “The Streets of Cairo,” was emblematic of the dance.
Belly dancing became a craze and “Oriental theaters” were opened in various cities. Dancers dressed in loose-fitting costumes that were marketed to titillate audiences. Corseted Victorian ladies were alarmed.
It motivated US Postal Inspector Anthony Comstock to get involved. Author of an anti-smut law passed by Congress in March 1873 (the Comstock Act) and Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, he condemned the Belly Dance as immoral.
Comstock’s anger was aimed at Ida Craddock. At the Chicago Fair, the feminist had been charmed by the danse du ventre. She published a pamphlet promoting the “Dance of the Abdomen” as a means to increase sexual pleasure. In response, Comstock vowed to destroy her (which indeed he did: Craddock took her own life in October 1902 after relentless persecution by the Comstock lobby).
By the end of 1893 belly dancing had reached Manhattan. After a show at the newly built Grand Central Palace between 43rd and 44th Street, three Algerian performers were arrested for “barbarian indecency.” The trial was widely reported and publicity strengthened the vogue.
Thomas Edison shot numerous short dance films for his peep shows. New York City also produced the first celebrity practitioner of the danse du ventre. Known as Omene, she was a highly popular and publicized figure. Larger than life, her true identity and life story remain shrouded in mystery.Sol Bloom settled in New York City in 1903, a rich man who dabbled in real estate. Having entered the political arena, he allied with Tammany Hall and was selected as a candidate for Congress. From 1923 onward, he represented a Manhattan district of mainly Jewish immigrants until his death in 1949. Bloom was an outspoken critic of Nazism well before America entered the Second World War.In July 1939 he was chosen as Chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee in spite of isolationist opposition. Bloom was a member of the American delegation which, in June 1945, signed the Charter of the United Nations.In 1948, he supported the Zionist case by requesting the British government to allow Jewish refugees to settle in Mandatory Palestine. The former “Baron of Belly Dancers” turned into a mission-driven politician, lobbying President Harry Truman for recognition of the state of Israel.
The Coler Art Show celebrates the talents of many residents from professional artists, residents seeking new recreation to those in memory care whose work with Therapeutic Recreation staff bring out their talents.
HANDPAINTED CAPS GEORGE KRASSAS
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Jan and Eugenie Van Looh from the Netherlands visted the kiosk while on vacation and celebrating Eugenie’s birthday.
CREDITS
NEW YORK ALMANACK Illustrations, from above: Detail from Jean-Léon Gérôme’s “La danse de l’almée,” 1863 (Dayton Art Institute); Library of Congress Jefferson Building Main Reading Room, detail of Blashfield’s “Evolution of Civilization” mural (Library of Congress); Jean-Etiénne Liotard’s “Portrait of Richard Pococke,” 1740 (Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Genève); Joseph Highwood’s “Portrait of Joseph Montagu,” 1741 (National Portrait Gallery, London); Pavilion of Tunisia and Morocco at the 1867 World’s Fair in Paris; Frederick Arthur Bridgman’s “The Harem,” 1894; Neurdein Frères, “Exposition Universelle de 1889 – Rue du Caire,” 1889 (Musée Carnavalet); and sheet music for “Omene Turkish Waltz” composed by Theo A. Metz, and featuring celebrity belly dancer Omene.
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 Coler Art Show celebrates the talents of many residents from professional artists, residents seeking new recreation to those in memory care whose work with Therapeutic Recreation staff bring out their talents.
Enter the wonderful world of Coler Resident Art
The canteen was turned into a sun-filled gallery
A portait of MOMO, Coler’s s Healiong Hound is centerpiece of the exhibit. For 5 years MOMO brought smiles and friendship to all. She passed away recently after a long illness.
A cute pooch makes a great companion to MOMO’s painting
The multi-national population is represented by handprints of residents from 2 units.
Many residents discover their talents in one of the two art studios where they are guided by the Therapeutic Recreation staff.
Acrylic by Ramon Medina
Beaded Figures
FUN WITH FLOWERS Beauty Starts with You
Three Lighthouses
PEPPER POT TAKES ME BACK HOME Francine Benjamin
DIGITAL ART
MY WORLD IS COLORED
ANATOLY GAGLOEV
RAMON MEDINA
HANDPAINTED CAPS GEORGE KRASSAS
PHOTO OF THE DAY
SILVERCUP CELEBRATES PRIDE
CREDIT TO
THE STAFF OF COLER’S THERAPEUTIC RECREATION DEPARTMENT DIRECTOR: JOVEMAY SANTOS ANGELICA PATIENT ASSISTANCE PROGRAM 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.
May means the bright-hued tulips are in full bloom on Manhattan’s Park Avenue. This year, however, New Yorkers will now find the colorful flowers accompanied by ten of Alma Allen’s sculptures, dotting the avenue’s lush malls between 53rd and 70th streets. Either in bronze or onyx, the sculptures, which are each titled Not Yet Titled, portray both humans—like a resting body with tightened limbs—or nature—tulips preparing to bloom.
“I am trying to see my own subconsciousness, because I am looking around the corners of reality,” Allen tells ELLE Decor.
Charlie Rubin, Courtesy of Kasmin, New York
The Utah-born artist drafts a smaller version of each sculpture in clay at his Tepoztlan studio, south of Mexico City. Each clay figurine—occasionally so fragile that Allen keeps it in the fridge—then goes through a 3D scanning process to render a template for its blown-up version. Allen then often wanders to his in-house bronze foundry to create the massive shiny replica of his miniatures. Occasionally, though, he leaves the task to a large robot which he programmed to precisely carve onyx while still maintaining the traits of his intimate hand gestures.
The Park Avenue sculptures, like much of Allen’s work, features ambitiously-scaled forms in allusive silhouettes and disarming colorations. The Fund for Park Avenue—the organization in charge of the street’s flowers every season—enlisted their Sculpture Committee to oversee the project in celebration of the organization’s 45th anniversary.
Charlie Rubin, Courtesy of Kasmin, New York
For The Fund’s President Emerita Barbara McLaughlin, the collaboration “emphasizes the power of contrast,” and, she tells ELLE Decor, “the boldness of sculpture and the delicate beauty of tulips.”
Allen’s other works have been exhibited in Kasmin Gallery’s roofgarden on the High Line and in the 2014 Whitney Biennial. From Brancusi to the Bronze Age, the self-taught artist looks beyond any time period to see the soul beneath. “I’ve never understood seeing a separation between the ancient and the modern,” he says. “The flow and the continuum in my work is about all of it being a sculpture.”
Charlie Rubin, Courtesy of Kasmin, New York
The presentation’s largest statement is a bronze uneven circle which comes together at its peak. There, a shiny sphere reflects the surrounding high-rise-dominated panorama, including the Seagram Building, as well as the flowers beneath it. At 119 inches high, the work traveled in its own flatbed truck from Mexico to New York. A trio of modest size onyx sculptures bookends the vertical lineup on 70th street—their spiraling pink-colored forms recall industrial tools and young buds.
Kasmin, New York The installation at night on Park Avenue.
He notices the nod to flowers in his sculptures. “Some of the works seem to be growing to reach for something… like the tulips.”
Alma Allen on Park Avenue is on view through September.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
THE MORGAN CHASE BUILDING NEARING COMPLETION ON PARK AVENUE
CREDITS
JUDITH BERDY ELLE DECOR OSMAN CAN YEREBAKAN
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.
On Thursday, July 26th a retirement party was held for Armando Cordova, the Poma Leitner Tram Manager of the Tram since 2010.
Cordova was the technical engineer and specialist who was the boss at the tram for 15 years. Always ready to solve problems, assist riders, he handled all the events and crisis’ with professionalism.
The Tram staff and kiosk staff are great neighbors looking out for each others. Cordova was the go to person when the electric would fail the visitor center or one of our heaters failed in midwinter. The tram staff has always been here to keep with a helping hand. Armando and his successor have made live on the plaza easier when the unexpected occur.
Plaque presented representing a portion of tram cable and the technical drawing of the cable car system
This plaque will be at the Tram and at Leitner Poma Headquarters
Mary Cunneen, Armando Cordova and Daren Cole, President/CEO of Leitner Poma
John, Greg and Armando at the reunion of co-workers. Greg soon celebrates 50 years at the Tram.
Speaking to the group, and telling of the safety always in forefront of the Tram staff.
The Cordova family together. After a year of illness and tragedy they were together to celebrate Armando’s retirement.
Minnie, the long time staffer joined me on the Panorama Room terrace for a great reunion.
Tram staff, RIOC management, and family were celebrating the event.
CREDITS
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.
When Washington Square Park Fountain Was Turned Into a Pool
Untapped New York
Thursday, June 25, 2025
Issue # 1473
Instead of a leisurely day around a cool swimming pool, I spent my day yesterday in the cafeteria of PS/IS 217. It was Primary Election Day and along with 23 other poll workers we were there to assist 591 residents to vote. Thanks to my great team, the PS 217 Principal Mandana we had a great day while the school was in session.
Aside from the voters, friends and families were there for the 8th grade graduation and th 5th grade moving up. It was quite a day at our neighborhood public school. As part of an earlier research, we worked with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation Archive to locate these photos from 1935, when the Washington Square Park fountain (in its earlier form and location) was converted into a wading pool!
Renovation of the fountain took place in 1934, on the initiative of Robert Moses, who is otherwise reviled for his plan to put a highway through Greenwich Village. Moses had steps installed around the inside of the stone rim to assist people in accessing the water.
Photo from NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. Photo taken July 17, 1935
The original Washington Square fountain was a circular bluestone fountain completed in 1852. Its designer is unknown. That first fountain was replaced in 1870 by a water fixture recycled from Central Park. Architect Jacob Wrey Mould is credited with the design. Mould, who was Architect-in-Chief for the Department of Public Works at the time, also designed the fountain in City Hall Park, the wooden loggia at Belvedere Castle, and the Bethesda Terrace carvings and fountain base in Central Park among other sites.
Mould’s fountain, relocated from the Fifty-Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue entrance of Central Park to the center of Washington Square, sat in the same spot for over 130 years.
In 2009, the fountain was restored, combining elements from all time periods of its existence. It was also shifted east more than twenty feet, ostensibly to align with the Washington Square Park arch, but this reason—and if the fountain is actually aligned with the arch—has been hotly debated.
To this day, it’s not technically illegal to jump into a New York City park fountain, but you aren’t allowed to use it to take a bath or for personal hygiene. The 32,000 gallons of water that flow through this fountain are filtered, like the roughly 50 other fountains in New York City parks. Would you take a dip?
CREDITS
Untapped 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.
These photos from the 1890s – 1930s show Chatham Square’s elevated train lines. Just south of the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge, the tracks soared over the intersections of eight streets (Bowery, Doyers Street, East Broadway, St. James Place, Mott Street, Oliver Street, Worth Street, and Centre). The station connected the Second and Third Avenue lines on two levels, which would eventually be torn down in 1942 and 1955, with the anticipation of the Second Avenue Subway.
VACATION TIME
My own Cafe Aviva on the NCL Getaway. One advantage of being a solo traveler, great single cabins and a wonderful lounge with this great Espesso/Cappucino machine.
CREDITS
NYC URBANISM
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.
Attached to a brick wall of a restaurant/brewery called Death Avenue at 10th Avenue, almost hidden out of sight, a curious little plaque features a period photograph (ca. 1898) of steam locomotive running at street level surrounded by tenements, horses, pedestrians and children.
It commemorates hundreds of people who had lost their lives to the train. One of the victims was Seth Low Hascamp, a young boy (most likely) born into a family of German immigrants.* His death would help transform the area and its safety, a changeover that was recorded by a local Union Square artist.
Urban Cowboys
In 1846, the City of New York made what turned about to be a poor decision to authorize the construction of railroad tracks without barriers down the middle of 10th and 11th Avenues.
For nearly a century, giant steam locomotives operated by the New York Central Railroad pulled freight cars, sometimes several blocks long, through Manhattan’s congested streets, shipping commodities such as coal, dairy products and beef. Running along meat warehouses and grocery outlets, the railroad was responsible for much of the city’s food supplies.
The locomotives were equipped with hand brakes operated by a single person from the top of the car, but stopping the train quickly proved impossible. When mixed with an ever-growing crush of hansom cabs, motor cars and trucks, accidents happened regularly.
Hundreds of people were either killed or mutilated, many of them pedestrians and schoolchildren. For its large share of fatalities, 10th and 11th Avenues earned the moniker “Death Avenue.” The phrase was coined in 1892 by the New York World lamenting that so many lives had been sacrificed to a menacing “monster.”
The authorities had taken certain precautions. In the 1850s an ordinance was passed that permitted freight trains to share the streets with pedestrians, horse-drawn vehicles, carriages, streetcars and wagons, on condition that they would observe a speed limit of six miles per hour and that a person on horseback precede the trains to give ample warning of the train’s approach.
Known as West Side Cowboys, these legendary figures waved red flags by day and red lanterns after sundown to alert those moving on street level.
Safety issues on Death Avenue were finally addressed in 1929 when city officials and company operators reached an agreement to move the rail above street level.
On March 24, 1941, twenty-one year old George Hayde led the final West Side Cowboy ride up 10th Avenue. He and his bay horse Cyclone escorted a line of fourteen rail cars loaded with oranges (afterwards Cyclone got a new job at a riding academy). George was the last of the urban cowboys.
That same year the New York Times reported that during the preceding decade nearly two hundred people from nearby tenements had died, mostly children. The gruesome death of a seven-year-old school boy prompted protests.
On September 25, 1908, Seth Low Hascamp and a group of friends were playing games, climbing on and over the cars of a freight train that had stopped in the middle of 35th Street and 11th Avenue. Neither the conductor nor the brakemen were in their proper places when the train suddenly started forward.
Seth was thrown beneath the wheels and crushed. Although it was illegal for trains to stop at the location in order to avoid such accidents, the city coroner exonerated the crew and blamed the accident on the child’s own negligence.
The decision ignited a wave of anger resulting in a protest march held on the Saturday night of March 24th with five hundred children parading in silence up 11th Avenue carrying placards demanding that freight trains be removed from the city streets. Henry Shroeder, secretary of the newly formed “Track Removal Association,” reported that on dark winter afternoons an average of three school children were killed every month.
As the opposition of residents against train operators intensified, the Association changed its name to the “League to End Death Avenue.” In 1910 it claimed that over the years 548 people had been killed and 1,574 injured on 11th Avenue.
In spite of continuing protests, it was not until 1929 that the West Side Improvement Project was initiated. Conceived by urban planner Robert Moses, work started on building an elevated track that eliminated the deadly street-level crossings (the last stretch of track on 11th Avenue was removed in 1941).
In 1933, the first train ran on the “West Side Elevated Line” (later renamed High Line). Fully operational by 1934, the line was used to transport millions of tons of meat, dairy and produce. The last train ran along these tracks in 1980 (today, the High Line serves as a mile-and-a-half-long “greenway” with a variety of plants and trees built on the old elevated freight lines).
South of Union Square
In the early twentieth century, inexpensive property in the area south of Union Square attracted painters, writers, small publishers and political organizations that challenged conventional socio-cultural ideals.
Its central area was 14th Street, a vibrant hub of vendors, hawkers and a mass of diverse people navigating the district. Despite the hardships of the Great Depression, the street remained a focal point for urban life throughout the 1930s.
It was here that painters of the Fourteenth Street Group manifested itself. Not so much a “school” as each of the artists developed an individual approach, all were determined to depict the fabric of New York City’s daily life. They came to redefine realist painting by focusing on the surroundings of their namesake street.
Inspired by the Ashcan School, they shared an interest in urban subjects and sought to capture the energy of metropolitan life. Disavowing “elitist” calls for avant-garde experimentation, they persisted with figurative painting, using canvas and brush to call attention to the plight of ordinary people. One of the group’s key figures was Reginald Marsh (1898-1954).
Born in an apartment above the Café du Dôme at 108 Boulevard Montparnasse in Paris, both his American parents were artists. Frederick Dana Marsh was a muralist and Alice Randall Marsh a painter of miniatures (both exhibited work in Paris Salons in the years 1895 to 1899). The paternal grandson of a wealthy Chicago meat packer, Reginald grew up in a privileged environment.
The Dôme had opened in that same year 1898 and in the early decades of the twentieth century it was Paris’s premier gathering place for intellectuals and artists residing in Paris’s Left Bank.
The term “Dômiers” was coined to refer to the cosmopolitan group of creative individuals that gathered there. It was also a meeting place for the growing American literary colony in the capital.
The Marsh family returned to America in 1900, settling in Nutley, New Jersey, and working from a studio at 16 The Enclosure, a property formerly owned by the painter Frank Fowler who had established an artists’ colony there. It nurtured Reginald’s ambition to become an artist. After graduating from high school, he enrolled at Yale University’s School of Art.
Urban Underbelly
After graduation from Yale in 1920, Marsh moved to Manhattan where he was employed as a freelance illustrator for the New York Daily News with the specific task of producing (“raunchy”) sketches of vaudeville performers. The commission gave him an opportunity to hang around the Bowery‘s side-shows, to enter the dance halls of 14th Street, and stroll the beaches of Coney Island.
Marsh was fascinated by the city’s seedier locations. Like a Parisian “flâneur,” he strolled the streets with sketchbook and camera at hand discretely looking for iconic characters – down and out people on Skid Row, burlesque queens, macho men, streetwalkers – that served as source material for the urban panoramas he created at his studio whilst developing a mixed but distinct idiom of fine art, cartoon and caricature.
In 1921, he attended classes at the Art Students League where he studied with other members of what would become the Fourteenth Street Group (John Sloan was one of his teachers). Marsh admired the Ashcan painters for their urban vitality.
In 1925, he joined the staff of the newly founded weekly magazine The New Yorker. As one of its first cartoonists, he helped establish the magazine’s distinctive graphic style.
Several of his illustrations refer to Death Avenue, including one in the issue of November 5, 1927, which dramatically depicts the train cutting through the street with a group of jobless men hanging outside a cafeteria. An urban cowboy leads in front of the locomotive.
Marsh would return to Paris on several occasions. In 1928 he revisited the location of his birthplace, dedicating a lithograph to the Café du Dôme’s interior (with the legendary Pernod drinker Homer Bevans as its central figure). On return, he joined his friends working at a studio at 21 East 14th Street (since demolished).
He rejected the modernist movements gaining strength at the time. Instead he focused on depictions of everyday life close to his studio in Lower Manhattan with its theaters and low-cost shopping palaces such as Ohrbach’s or Samuel Klein on Union Square, creating images of jobless men on Manhattan’s heartless streets.
The term Social Realism was used to refer to painters who drew attention to the everyday conditions of working people and the poor and, by implication, who were critical of the social structures that maintained these conditions. Image, content and socio-cultural critique were linked.
Living at 11 East 12th Street during the 1930s, Marsh produced some of his best work having adopted traditional “egg tempera” (employed in early icon painting) as a means to express his creative vision.
Railroad yards and locomotives had preoccupied him throughout his career. Fascinated both by the aesthetics of machines and the menace of their power, locomotives appear time and again in his paintings and prints. He witnessed and recorded the demise of Death Avenue’s crosstown railway line.
In 1937 Marsh created a painting entitled “End of 14th Street Crosstown Line” that juxtaposes two contrasting scenes.
At the forefront a group of demolition workers are tearing up the old railway tracks (the artist must have witnessed the project from close by); in the background picketers have gathered outside Ohrbach’s store demonstrating against its owner who had denied its workers the right to unionize.
(During mass New York City strikes that year workers of over a hundred department stores participated in collective action against their employers).
Marsh’s use of signs, placards and other graphics enhanced meaning and message, making this work a perfect example of what Social Realists intended to achieve in their work.
Reginald Marsh established himself as one of the outstanding chroniclers of pre-war Manhattan. He was to New York City what William Hogarth had been to London and – combined in one – what Honoré Daumier, Gustave Doré and Toulouse Lautrec were to Paris.
His paintings, drawings and prints captured the spirit and ambience of the ever-changing metropolis at a deeply troubling yet exciting time in its history.
* The name Hascamp (Haskamp) may be of Dutch or German origin. The boy was named for Seth Low who, from 1881 to 1885, served as Mayor of Brooklyn with the reputation of a municipal reformer. During his time in office he allowed local German beer gardens to stay open in spite of strong opposition of the local puritanical clergy.
VACATION TIME
DOCKYARDS, BERMUDA
CREDITS
New York Almanack Illustrations, from above: West Side Cowboy riding on 10th Avenue (Kalmbach Publishing Co.); the plaque on 10th Avenue commemorating railroads accidents victims; Death Avenue before the High Line was built (Kalmbach); Reginald Marsh’s “Café du Dôme,” signed lithograph, 1928; Marsh’s “Death Avenue,” cartoon with urban cowboy in The New Yorker, November 5, 1927; Marsh’s, “Death Avenue,” 1928. (Whitney Museum of American Art); Marsh’s, “End of 14th Street Crosstown Line,” 1936 (Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts); and Reginald Marsh plein air sketching on 14th Street, Manhattan, 1941
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.
With its signature two-toned design and illustrations, the mock newspaper encouraged polite passenger etiquette and promoted local attractions.
Fred Cooper, “10th Biennial International Water Color Exhibition/Brooklyn Museum” (1939) (all images courtesy Poster House unless noted otherwise)
Decades before the New York City subway cars were lined with advertisements for niche dating apps, personal injury lawyers, prescription weight loss medicines, and alternative internet browsers, the interiors of many of the city’s trains were adorned with editions of the two-toned mock newspaper known as The Subway Sun.
Primarily produced between 1936 and 1965 under the artistic direction of late cartoonists Fred Cooper and Amelia Opdyke Jones, the imitation periodical campaign by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) fulfilled a variety of purposes in the subway system for over five decades. It encouraged polite passenger etiquette, but also promoted local attractions as a way to entice New Yorkers to use public transit — from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
Fred Cooper, “The Cloisters” (1938)
Now, Manhattan’s Poster House is shining a light on the series for the first time in the new exhibition From the Bronx to the Battery: The Subway Sun, on view in the museum’s entry foyer through November 2. Curated by Es-pranza Humphrey, the show features 17 original in-car posters from the museum’s permanent collection, produced between 1937 and 1939. They showcase Cooper’s unique type design and signature illustration style that would eventually became the series’s defining aesthetic.
When The Subway Sun initially appeared in 1918 as a weekly promotional campaign for the IRT, the posters mainly focused on service announcements, operating expenses, and rules of conduct. They imitated the appearance of genuine newspapers, heavily laden with text and scarcely featuring illustrations. This design, however, shifted within a few years after the campaign began to incorporate advertisements for local sights and activities as a means to increase ridership.
Fred Cooper, “Rose Display/Brooklyn Botanic Garden” (1937)
Cooper was an established graphic artist and political cartoonist when his designs for The Subway Sun first launched in the 1930s. His illustrations, which consisted of balloon-headed caricatures and one-of-a-kind lettering, often plugged public sights and events by blending helpful information with amusing characters. “His design adds a level of humor and familiarity, as these are posters that people would interact with during their rides on the IRT,” Humphrey, the museum’s assistant curator of collections, told Hyperallergic.
Fred Cooper, “Free Concerts/Metropolitan Museum of Art” (1938)
In a half-page ad for free weekend concerts at The Met, audience members are depicted together with massive Neo-Assyrian antiquities. Another bright-red poster promoting a rock garden display at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx revisits people of the Stone Age, depicting a child complaining to their mother about a dinosaur calf that is seen ravaging a bed of campanula cochlearifolia (fairy thimble) in the background. A 1939 ad promoting the 10th Biennial International Water Color Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum gives a literal interpretation of the arts medium through an illustration of artist at an easel while half submerged in a lily pond.
Fred Cooper, “N.Y. Botanical Garden/Rock Garden Display” (1938)
In the 1940s, Cooper was succeeded by Jones, who also gave the publication a distinct voice. Many of her ads reminded riders how to be courteous to their fellow subway passengers by advising against inconsiderate behaviors like blocking train doors and manspreading — issues that continue to plague the transit system today.
VACATION TIME
After the last few months and a hip replacement, it is time for a week off the island. I will return soon and looking forward to seeing you. Judith Berdy
CREDITS
HYPERALLERGIC 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.
