For the decades the Suggogate’s Courthouse was covered in scaffolding on the exterior. Inside the building was a dingy neglected space that was beyond it ‘s glory days. The Municipal Archives are located in the building and every time I visited, I bemoaned the fate of the builing. Recently the restoration of the interior has been completed and the newly restored interior is worth a visit..
Olmsted and Vaux’s original Greensward plan for Central Park. Photo courtesy of NYC Municipal Archives.
On March 31st, 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and English-born designer Calvert Vaux submitted their plans for “The Central Park.” They were a last-minute submission, arriving at the Arsenal Building with their drawings only minutes before the evening deadline. At first, the Greensward Plan didn’t stand out among the 32 other submissions, and the New York City government considered all of its options rather lackluster. Although the City was hoping for grand European designs, they liked the natural beauty of Olmsted and Vaux’s Greensward Plan, and it was accepted in 1859. The hand-drawn maps and sketches have since been preserved and can be found at the Municipal Archives in the basement of another masterwork of the 19th century: the Surrogate’s Courthouse.
The Surrogate’s Courthouse is a stately structure dating from the late-19th century. It was designed by the New York-based architect John Rochester Thomas and constructed between 1899 and 1907 at a cost of more than $7 million. Thomas was extremely prolific for his time, designing over 150 churches, a handful of armories and prisons, and the 1886 New York Stock Exchange. While Thomas would never live to see the completion of his final masterpiece (he died in 1901) the building has lived on largely unchanged. The building’s facade is made of solid granite, mined and transported from Hallowell, Maine, and its interior is clad in yellow-marble. The main entrance is composed of three grand, double-height doorways which lead into a three-story atrium lined with Sienna marble. For the grand staircase in the first floor rotunda, Thomas drew inspiration from the Paris Opera House, which led the building to be called the most Parisian thing in New York at the time it was built. There is a magnificent skylight over the atrium, whose restoration Untapped reported on in 2020.
Modern light bulbs in old-fashioned gas lamp fixtures.
The building that is now called the Surrogate’s Courthouse was originally named the Hall of Records. It was constructed to replace the old Hall of Records building, which was built in 1831. It was always planned that the building would contain more than just the city’s archives and records, and when the new Hall of Records opened in 1907, it housed multiple city departments and courts, one of which was the Surrogate’s Court. By the middle of the 20th century, the building was primarily used by the Surrogate’s Court, which occupied the fifth floor and had offices on many of the lower floors. Thus, the building’s name was changed from Hall of Records to Surrogate’s Courthouse in 1962.
However, the basement has always been used to store archives and records, and now it’s the home of both the New York City Municipal Archives and the Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS). The amount of material in the fire-proof basement collection totals over 200,000 cubic feet, housing more than 285,000 newspapers and 66,000 books. Inside this treasure trove are documents from the original Dutch New Amsterdam government and the initial plans for the Brooklyn Bridge. Some of this material is even publicly accessible through the Municipal Library, which is also located in the basement of the Surrogate’s Courthouse.
Surrogate’s Courthouse main atrium.
Just as Olmsted’s design of Central Park lives on in New York, John Thomas’ Hall of Records building continues to grace New York with its Beaux-Arts beauty. These two classic works of nineteenth century design show the value of adaptive reuse and how buildings can change over time to suit the needs of each generation.
STAIRCASE LEADING TO UNDERGROUND TROLLEY STATION AT FOOT OF Q’BORO BRIDGE.
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) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated:
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A while back we featured the work of Maurice Prendergast. Today, we bring back some favorites and newly discovered works found on Wikimedia Commons.
Maurice Prendergast, Park Scene, ca. 1915-1918, watercolor on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Charles Prendergast, 1968.122A
Born in Newfoundland, studied and lived in Boston and Paris, also visited Venice. Post-Impressionist painter whose oils and watercolors are charming scenes of people enjoying the park, the seashore, and other pleasant places.
Charles Sullivan, ed American Beauties: Women in Art and Literature (New York: Henry N. Abrams, Inc., in association with National Museum of American Art, 1993)
Maurice Prendergast was born in St. Johns, Newfoundland, but with the failure of his father’s subarctic trading post the family moved to Boston. There young Maurice was apprenticed to a commercial artist and at the outset was conditioned to the brightly colored, flat patterning effects that characterized his mature work. For many years thereafter loosely handled watercolor remained his favored medium and gave his work vibrant spontaneity.
A shy and retiring individual, he remained a bachelor throughout his life, closely attached to his artist brother Charles, who was also a successful frame maker. For three years Maurice studied in Paris at the Atelier Colarossi and the Académie Julian. During one of his early stays in Paris he met the Canadian painter James Morrice, who introduced him to English avant-garde artists Walter Sickert and Aubrey Beardsley, all ardent admirers of James McNeill Whistler. Prendergast’s aesthetic course was set. A further acquaintance with Vuillard and Bonnard placed him firmly in the postimpressionist camp. He developed and continued to elaborate a highly personal style, with boldly contrasting, jewel-like colors, and flattened, patternlike forms rhythmically arranged on a canvas. Forms were radically simplified and presented in flat areas of bright, unmodulated color. His paintings have been aptly described as tapestry-like or resembling mosaics. A trip to Venice in 1898 exposed him to the delightful genre scenes of Vittore Carpaccio and encouraged him toward even more complex and rhythmic arrangements. He also became one of the first Americans to espouse the work of Cézanne and to understand and utilize his expressive use of form and color.
In 1907, Prendergast was invited to exhibit with the Eight, colleagues of Robert Henri and exponents of the Ashcan school. Prendergast and the romantic symbolist Arthur B. Davies seem oddly mismatched to these urban realists, but all were united in an effort to stir the American art scene out of its conservative lethargy.
In 1913 he was invited to participate in the famed Armory Show, which was largely arranged by his friend Davies. Not surprisingly, Prendergast’s brilliantly unorthodox offerings were decried as resembling “an explosion in a paint factory.” On the same occasion Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase (1912) was similarly deplored as “an explosion in a shingle factory,” suggesting either a failure of critical imagination or a case of collegial plagiarism. But of the Americans represented there, Prendergast’s works were the most thoroughly modern and postimpressionist.
Who can now pass a playground teeming with brightly dressed children or wander through a public park where the varicolored garb of its occupants does not call to mind the stirring images Maurice Prendergast has left us? As Oscar Wilde once ventured, “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”
Emery Battis Artist Biographies for the exhibition American Impressionism: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2000)
Maurice Prendergast, Holiday in New England, ca. 1910-1911, watercolor, pastel and pencil on paper mounted on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Eugenie Prendergast, 1984.27
WORKS ON WIKIMEDIA COMMONS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN TO SEE MORE WIKIMEDIACOMMONS.ORG
Castle Garden, New York, venue of Lind’s first American concerts M.FRANK, LAURA HUSSEY, ANDY SPARBERG & ARON EISENPREISS GOT IT RIGHT
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
Sources
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
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In the 1850s, while the crisis over the future of slavery and of “these” (not yet “the”) United States deepened, much of the country enjoyed an economic boom – or more precisely, a wealthy class had emerged in major cities supported by a new upwardly mobile middle class. In New York City, this transformation was colored by the beginning of more modern theater and of a culture hunger (recall P.T. Barnum’s American Museum). With cheap newsprint competing for readers, New Yorkers were enthralled by famous and talented (and of course, often scandalous) women. And we were most fascinated by European imports. In this brief piece, I’ll introduce you to two of the most illustrious of these imported flowers – Jennie Lind and Sara Bernhardt – who graced our city’s stages and won New York’s heart.
Soprano Jenny Lind by Eduard Magnus, 1862 Johanna Maria “Jenny” Lind was the first of these European visitors who swept into the City. Born in Stockholm 1820, Lind was an illegitimate child of a bookkeeper and a schoolteacher. She began to sing onstage when she was 10 and became famous throughout the country; at 20, she was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and court singer to the King of Sweden and Norway. Known as the “Swedish Nightingale”, Lind was one of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, performing opera in Sweden and across Europe. Among her early admirers were Robert Schumann, Hector Berlioz and Felix Mendelssohn – and, after a concert in Copenhagen, Hans Christian Anderson. Queen Victoria attended every one of Lind’s sixteen debut performances in London in 1847.
In 1849, when Lind was in the middle of her third triumphant London season, P. T. Barnum learned of the large audiences she attracted. He had toured Europe in 1845 and 1846 with General Tom Thumb, always searching for new attractions. Barnum had never seen Lind (he had no idea what she looked like) or heard her sing, but he believed sponsoring this Swedish musical star – with, moreover, a reputation for philanthropy – would be a hit in New York.
Lind finally accepted Barnum’s offer of $1,000 a night (plus expenses) for up to 150 concerts in the United States. All told, Barnum committed to $187,500 (approximately $5,833,000 today) to bring Lind and her musical troupe to America. Her tour began in September 1850 and continued to May 1852.
Barnum’s publicity blitz didn’t wait for Lind’s arrival. He made her a celebrity before anyone in New York had seen or heard her – what the press called “Lind Mania”. Tickets for her first concerts were in such demand that Barnum sold them by auction. Barnum marketed all sorts of Jenny Lind-branded products, including songs, clothes, chairs and pianos. Soon, others jumped in– Jenny Lind shirts, Jenny Lind cravats, Jenny Lind gloves, Jenny Lind pocket handkerchiefs, Jenny Lind coats, Jenny Lind hats, and even Jenny Lind sausages.
The New York Herald reported on “the spectacle of some thirty or forty thousand persons congregated on all the adjacent piers” when her ship docked. (Ten times more than met the Beatles in 1964.) Lind kissed her hand to the US flag and exclaimed, “There is the beautiful standard of freedom, which is worshipped by the oppressed of all nations.” She further endeared herself to the crowd by stopping Barnum’s coachman from clearing a path through the throng with his whip.
Almost 5000 tickets were sold for the first concert at a total price of $24,500, with the theatre “packed to its utmost capacity”. When Lind realized how much Barnum stood to make, she renegotiated their contract, giving her now the original $1,000 per concert agreed to, plus the remainder of each concert’s profits after Barnum’s $5,500 concert management fee was paid. Her interest in increasing her earnings was, it seems, genuinely motivated by her determination to accumulate as much money as possible for her chosen charities.
Jenny Lind the Swedish Nightingale. Poster from the collection of the University of Sheffield. Wikipedia
After her performances in New York, Lind’s party toured the east coast of America (in the first private rail car), and on to Cuba, the Southern US and Canada. By early 1851, Lind had become uncomfortable with Barnum’s relentless marketing, and she invoked a contractual right to sever her ties with him; they parted amicably. She continued the tour for nearly a year, under her own management, until May 1852. Under Barnum’s management, Lind gave 93 concerts in the US earning about $350,000 ($10.9 million in 2021 $). She donated her profits to various charities, including free schools in Sweden and some US charities.
Lind was the first of the European transplants. Her soprano voice resonated across the country. She was known for her philanthropy and generous spirit; Church leaders praised her. Our second European visitor, Sarah Bernhardt, could not have been more different. Priests gave sermons denouncing her. While Lind devoted herself to good causes, Bernhardt’s scandalous life screamed from the press around the world. Lind married and lived quietly, while Bernhardt reinvented herself as a public icon, allowing the romances and tragedies of her stage heroines to reflect her own life.
Sarah Bernhardt [1844—1923] was the daughter of a Dutch courtesan who catered to a wealthy clientele. In a career spanning over 60 years, she was viewed as one of the greatest actresses of all time and the first international stage star. Bernhardt performed in Europe, the United States, Canada, South America, Australia, and the Middle East. She managed several theaters in Paris. Mark Twain said of her, “There are five kinds of actresses: bad actresses, fair actresses, good actresses, great actresses, and Sarah Bernhardt.” In France, she was viewed as a national institution – “to criticize her is like criticizing the tomb of Napoleon.” Oscar Wilde cast an armful of lilies at her feet and hailed her as the “Divine Sarah.”
As a young woman, she was encouraged by family friend Alexandre Dumas and supported by her mother’s lover, the Duc de Morny, to join the theater and soon found success. Thin, with a boyish figure, she did not meet the voluptuous standards of the era. Other actresses were more beautiful, but Bernhardt’s presence transcended her art.
Sarah Bernhardt poses next to a bust of herself sculpted by Mathieu-Meusnier in 1869. Melandri/Getty Images
“She possessed an aura of power equaled by no other monstre sacré before or since. Her bizarreries, her scandalous entanglements, enhanced the legend. Her motto, embroidered on her linens, printed on her visiting cards, and engraved on her richly embossed revolver, was Quand Même, which means ‘in spite of everything’ and suggests a defiant ‘damn the consequences.’”
She toured around the world for decades, first performing in New York City in 1880. In New York, advance publicity stirred enormous interest in this woman who was said to keep a tiger cub as a household pet and sleep in a satin-lined coffin (one true, the other not). Anonymous pamphlets appeared—one, “The Love Affairs of Sarah Bernhardt”, accused her of bearing four bastards sired by the czar of Russia, Emperor Napoleon III, Pope Pius IX, and a man guillotined for murdering his father. “Absurd,” Bernhardt remarked, “but it would be better than to have four husbands and no children, like some women in this country!” Clergymen denounced this “monster of the Apocalypse” and threatened theatergoers who saw her with eternal damnation. In Orange, New Jersey, mothers convened to mount a campaign “against this European courtisane who is coming over to corrupt our sons.”
With seats priced at the then outrageous rates of ten, fifteen, and twenty-five dollars, lines to the Booth Theater at Sixth Avenue and Twenty-third Street circled the block. Long before curtain time on opening night the house was sold out. Her most famous role was as the tuberculous courtesan Marguerite Gauthier in Alexandre Dumas fils’s La Dame aux Camélias. She portrayed Marguerite first in New York on November 16, and thereafter some three thousand times.
Throughout Europe, Russia, and North and South America, Bernhardt received from the public (if not the clergy) the kind of homage usually reserved for royalty. Today it may seem inconceivable that a stage actor could attain this level of fame, but in the 19th century theater was the only game in town. Rich and poor alike attended live performances several times a week. London, New York, and Paris drew up to 18 million theatergoers a year. Small towns had theaters too, and the biggest stars traveled to them. One of Bernhardt’s tours included a stop in Muskogee, Oklahoma. In March 1906 she performed in a huge tent seating 5000 in Kansas City, Missouri, and in Dallas and Waco, Texas. She performed for the prisoners at San Quentin Prison.
Sarah Bernhardt by photographer Sarony, 1880 – WikiCommons
She did not back down. When J. P. Morgan learned of Bernhardt’s impending visit to his library on New Year’s Day 1911, he growled, “Actresses are not welcome,” and stalked out. Bernhardt was still there when Morgan returned. She seized him by the necktie and declared, “When I speak, men listen.” The old titan melted, and they remained friends until his death two years later.
Other Europeans would follow – Garbo, Dietrich – but none would turn New York upside down like Lind or Bernhardt.
Stephen Blank RIHS April 21, 2022
NEW DATE IS THURSDAY, MAY12 AT 6:30 PM.
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In 2011 architect Tom Fenniman prepared a condition survey for the Lighthouse. Today I walked to the park and there it was…. a beautifully restored lighthouse! Only 11 years later! Thanks for your time and talent Tom and team!
FROM THE ARCHIVES
WEEKEND, APRIL 30-MAY 1, 2022
THE 663rd EDITION
THE LANDMARK
LIGHTHOUSE
INCLUDING:
DESIGNATION REPORT NEW YORK LANDMARKS
PRESERVATION COMMISSION 1975
The Girl Puzzle now has a restored lighthouse watching over them.
The new restored top, as was illustrated year ago.
The lighthouse is now in its’ own round piazza with a dramatic setting.
The new railing is firmly attached and highlights the restored stonework.
The two columns are back in place guarding the doorway,
The boardwalk has been replaced by a paved surface that will tolerate the storm conditions
LIGHTHOUSE DESIGNATION REPORT, 1976
This small Lighthouse stands at the northern tip of Roosevelt Island on a projection of land which was at one time a separate island connected to the main land by a wooden bridge. Local legend maintains that during the 19th century a patient from the nearby Lunatic Asylum was permitted to build a stone fort on this outcropping as he feared an invasion by the British. When plans were formulated to build the Lighthouse, this patient was allegedly persuaded to surrender the fort only after much cajoling and a bribe of bogus money. The tale continues that the patient himself demolished the fort and built the new Lighthouse, carving the inscription:
This is the work Was done by John McCarthy Who built the Light House from he bottom to the Top All ye who do pass by may Pray for his soul when he dies.
While construction of the Lighthouse cannot actually be credited to the diligent Mr. McCarthy, the warden of the Lunatic Asylum did specifically mention in his annual report of 1870 an “industrious but eccentric” patient who had built near the Asylum a large section of seawall, thereby reclaiming a sizable piece of land. The warden further remarked that this patient “is very assiduous, and seems proud of his work, and he has reason to be, for it is a fine structure, strong and well built.” Whether or not this patient was the model for the legend of the fort and Lighthouse builder, a connection of the Lighthouse and the Lunatic Asylum is a historical fact. In May 1872, City official resolved to “effectually light” the Asylum and the tip of the island. The following September, the Lighthouse was completed , with lamps furnished by the U.S. Lighthouse Service. The stone structure was built under the direction of the Board of Governors of the Commission of Charities and Correction, the body which administered the numerous City institutions on the island., At that time. The supervising architect for this Commission was James Renwick, Jr.
James Renwick, Jr. (1818-1895), was son of a highly regarded professor at Columbia College. He began his notable career in 1836 as an engineer supervising the construction of the great Distributing Reservoir at 42nd Street for the Croton water supply system. In 1840, his drawings were selected in a competition for the design of Grace Church, which, at that time, was New York’s wealthiest and most fashionable congregation. Renwick, only twenty-five and entirely self-trained as an architect, achieved instant recognition. During his long and highly successful career he designed many important buildings, including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, the Main building at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, the William E. Dodge Villa (now Greyston Conference Center) and St. Patrick’s Cathedral-both designated landmarks, as is Grace Church. As an art collector and yachtsman, Renwick’s association with the Charities and Corrections Board, in all likelihood, had philanthropic motivations. He designed the Workhouse, City Hospital and Smallpox Hospital on Blackwell’s Island (as Roosevelt Island was then known); the Inebriate and Lunatic Asylum on Ward’s Island; and the main building of the Children’s Hospital on Randall’s Island. He also designed several smaller structures, among them, the Lighthouse on Roosevelt Island.
The Lighthouse is approximately fifty feet tall and is constructed of rock-faced, random gray ashlar. The stone (gray gneiss) was quarried on the island itself, predominately by convict labor from the Penitentiary on the island, and was used for many of the institutional buildings erected there. The Lighthouse is encircled by a small yard paved with flagstone. An entry walk at the south is flanked by stone bollards which have pyramidal tops carved with simple trefoils. The Lighthouse is octagonal in plan and vertically organized according to the tripartite division of the classical column-base, shaft and capital. The base is separated from the superstructure by a series of simple moldings which are interrupted to the south side by a projecting gable above the single entrance doorway. This doorway, which an incised pointed arch above a splayed keystone with flanking corbels, is designed in a rustic version of the Gothic style. The stepped stones of the Lighthouse are pierced above the doorway by two slit windows which light the interior staircase. The top of the shaft is adorned with Gothic foliate ornamentation in high relief, separated by simple moldings from the brackets which support the observation platform. These elements form the crowning feature of the Lighthouse. The octagonal lantern, originally surmounted by a picturesque conical roof is of glass and steel. It is surrounded by a simple metal railing.
The rock-faced stone and the sparing uses of boldly scaled ornamental detail give the Lighthouse the strength and character of a medieval fortification. In its isolated setting, the Lighthouse is a prominent and dramatic feature of Roosevelt Island.
First Avenue Elevator Tower of the Queensboro Bridge. Elevators were removed long ago. Judith Schneider and Ed Litcher got it right!
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)
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PENNIES FOR PRESERVATION returns this Saturday, April 30th We will be collecting at the Farmer’s Market Donations can also be left at 531 #1704 or with door station to the attention of Judith Berdy All donations support the Roosevelt Island Historical Society.
Thanks for your support of the RIHS
Judith Berdy President
FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2022
The 662nd Edition
FREDERICK LAW
OLMSTEAD, SR.
Landscape architect, author,
conservationist and public servant.
OLMSTEAD200.ORG
http://Frederick Law Olmsted (detail) by John Singer Sargent. Used with permission from The Biltmore Company, Asheville, North Carolina
Early Life
Frederick Law Olmsted was born in Hartford, CT, where his family had lived for eight generations. His father, a successful dry-goods merchant, loved scenery and took Olmsted on regular trips through the countryside. Early on, Olmsted developed a great love of travel.
Olmsted showed little love, however, for formal education. He was schooled largely by ministers and briefly attended Yale. But sickness caused him to withdraw after his first semester. For the next 20 years he “gathered experiences,” which helped shape his landscape design: a year-long voyage in the China Trade, farming on Staten Island, reporting for the New York Daily Times, and serving as a partner in a publishing firm and managing editor of a literary and political journal.
The root of all my good work is an early respect for, regard and enjoyment of scenery … and extraordinary opportunities for cultivating susceptibility to the power of scenery.”Frederick Law Olmsted to Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer, 1893
In 1850, Olmsted took a six-month walking tour that was to prove life-changing. He paid a visit to Liverpool’s Birkenhead Park, a rare public park, open to all. There, Olmsted concluded that park access should be a right of all Americans. “I was ready to admit,” he wrote, “that in democratic America there was nothing to be thought of as comparable to this People’s Garden.”
A Voice for Change: Reporting for The New York Daily Times
Olmsted was commissioned by the New York Daily Times in 1852 to visit the South and examine the system of slavery. Most Northerners had little understanding of the slavery system or the South in general. The Times wanted a traveling correspondent who would “confine his statements to matters that he observed personally.”
Traveling under cover, and with the same gusto he had as a child, Olmsted took boats down the Mississippi, rode horseback and walked the countryside, visiting with strangers all the way to west Texas. Between 1856 and 1860, he published three volumes of his accounts and social analyses of these travels. During this period, he used his literary skills to oppose the westward expansion of slavery and to argue for the abolition of slavery by the Southern states.
Bow Bridge in Central Park. The bridge was designed by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould and completed in 1862.
The Birth of Central Park
Thanks to powerful connections made through his literary pursuits, Olmsted secured the position of superintendent of Central Park in 1857. A few months later, Calvert Vaux, a rising young architect from England, asked Olmsted to join him in preparing an entry for the Central Park design competition.
Working against the looming deadline, Olmsted and Vaux created the Greensward Plan and beat 32 competitors. They designed unique transverse roads, sinking them so that travel through the park would not distract from the landscape experience or be dangerous. They also created a path system that subtly directed people’s movements. In so many ways, Central Park proved a testing ground for design principles incorporated into his later work.
In this massive public works project, 3,000 workers moved “nearly 50 million cubic yards of stone, earth and topsoil, built 36 bridges and arches, and constructed 11 overpasses … . They also planted 500,000 trees, shrubs and vines.”
The U.S. Sanitary Commission
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Olmsted left Central Park to take a new position in Washington, D.C., becoming the first Executive Secretary of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, the forerunner of the American Red Cross. Olmsted was tapped to apply the same organizational skills he had honed in the building of Central Park to the Union Army, which was beset with challenges. He was charged with overseeing camp sanitation and creating a national system of medical supplies for the troops.
Assisted by volunteers, Olmsted implemented an array of health practices, including exercise and good nutrition. At the same time, he invented medical ships — retrofitting military boats in record time to serve as floating hospitals. Thanks to the practices Olmsted put in place, thousands of lives were saved, and the experience proved critical in strengthening Olmsted’s understanding of the importance of sanitation and sanitary engineering — essential tenets in his landscape designs, both before and after the war.
Preserving America’s Scenic Spaces
In 1863, Olmsted moved to California to manage the Mariposa Estate and gold mines, just miles from Yosemite Valley. There he experienced a landscape quite different from the Connecticut River Valley of his youth — and one threatened by private commercial interests.
The federal government had just granted Yosemite to California, and Olmsted was asked to head a commission overseeing the Yosemite reservation. In August 1865, he released a Report on Yosemite to members of the Commission.
It is the “main duty of government,” he wrote, to “provide means of protection for all its citizens in the pursuit of happiness” against the obstacles posed by the “selfishness of individuals or combinations of individuals.”
It would be many years before the birth of the national park system, but Olmsted’s report laid the foundation. In 1916, Olmsted’s son helped draft legislation creating the national parks. Olmsted’s thinking in Yosemite also informed his later international campaign to preserve Niagara Falls.
Frederick Law Olmstead, Jr. John Charles Olmstead (L to r): James Frederick Dawson, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and Percival Gallagher
A New Generation of Olmsteds
Olmsted retired in 1895, but his sons, John Charles and Frederick Jr., carried on, and the Olmsted firm was a functioning landscape practice for over 100 years with commissions for about 6,000 landscapes across North America. (Frederick Jr. was christened Henry Perkins and renamed by his father when he was about eight. He often dropped Jr. in his correspondence so it can be difficult to determine the true identity of Olmsted’s writing.)
The firm was almost singlehandedly responsible for developing the profession of landscape architecture and training generations of professionals, many of whom created their own firms, such as Charles Eliot, Warren Manning and William Lyman Phillips.
John Charles was a founding member of the American Society of Landscape Architects and Frederick Jr. established Harvard’s Landscape Design Program. Today, the Landscape Architecture Foundation honors the Olmsted heritage by selecting annual Olmsted Scholars who are budding stars in the field.
Fairsted, which served as both the home and workplace for Frederick Law Olmsted, is now a part of the National Park Service.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated:
Sources
STEPHEN BLANK
Cynthia Brideson and Sara Brideson, Ziegfeld and His Follies (University of Kentucky Press, 2015) James Traub, The Devil’s Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square (New York: Random House, 2004)
Ziegfeld Girls Recalling the Glitter of an Era By Judy Klemesrud, NYT April 25, 1975 Former Ziegfeld Follies Girl Recalls the Glory Days By Douglas Martin, NYT Oct. 18, 1996
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. was the mastermind behind some of New York City’s most important parks and nature spots, as well as some more obscure locations. Olmsted, a Connecticut native who often collaborated with Calvert Vaux, spearheaded projects such as Central Park and Prospect Park, as well as Boston’s Emerald Necklace and the Biltmore in North Carolina, earning him the nickname of “Father of Landscape Architecture.” He was born exactly 200 years ago today, on April 26, 1822.
In honor of his 200-year legacy, we compiled a list of locations designed by Frederick Law Olmsted across the city and surrounding area. Olmsted’s sons kept his passion and talent alive, collaborating on designs for Fort Tryon Park, the New York Botanical Garden, Forest Hills Gardens, and the Frick Collection. Over 300 North American landscapes are listed on the Cultural Landscape Foundation’s new What’s Out There Olmsted digital guide. What’s Out There Olmsted includes a searchable database of North American landscapes and nearly 100 biographical entries about the Olmsted family and firms. NYC Parks is launching Olmsted 200 tapping into his contributions to New York’s elaborate green spaces as well.
“The impact of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., on the nation’s identity and the profession of landscape architecture is inestimable,” said Charles A. Birnbaum, TCLF’s President and CEO. “What’s Out There Olmsted provides easy access to a broad range of landscapes designed by Olmsted, Sr., and his successor firms and opportunities to discover the people associated with them.”
Central Park
In 1857, four years after the idea for the park was approved, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition for Central Park with their “Greensward Plan,” beating out 32 other designs. Then-mayor Fernando Wood appointed Egbert Ludovicus Viele as the park’s chief engineer, yet his plan for the park was quickly disregarded and a competition to decide the winning plan was launched. The plan called for four sunken transverse roadways and distinct sections, unlike most other plans which focused on symmetry. Olmsted cited his inspiration as a trip to Birkenhead Park near Liverpool, England.
Olmsted and Vaux were assisted by board member Andrew Haswell Green, who led the Central Park Commission and directed certain parts of the construction. The park was difficult to construct because of its rocky and swampy landscape, resulting in the use of more gunpowder than during the Battle of Gettysburg. Over 18,500 cubic yards of soil were brought in from Long Island and New Jersey, and the entire construction project called for over 20,000 workers. The plan also led to the displacement of communities who lived in small villages, including residents of Seneca Village and Pigtown. Olmsted often clashed with park commissioners, who tried to cut out sections of the Greensward Plan due to budget concerns. Olmsted resigned as superintendent in 1862, while Vaux resigned the next year due to Green’s growing power. The Sheep Meadow, Belvedere Castle, and McGowan’s Pass were not part of the original plan.
Prospect Park and Grand Army Plaza
Shortly after their design for Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux laid out plans for Prospect Park in Brooklyn, which opened in 1867. Brooklyn, as the world’s first commuter suburb at the time, was believed to have become a resort-like escape from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, and a park was just what Brooklyn needed. Viele, the first chief engineer of Central Park, drew plans for Prospect Park in 1860, but the Civil War paused further activity. Vaux, who reviewed Viele’s plan in 1865, devised a more successful plan with three distinctive regions, including an oval at the northern end of the park that would become Grand Army Plaza.
Vaux’s revisions faced harsh criticism, but he recruited Olmsted and formally presented the plan in 1866. Construction began in June 1866, employing up to 2,000 workers at any one time who removed pits, swamps, and some trees. The first section of the park opened on October 19, 1867, pulling in 100,000 people per month, and by 1871 after some expansion, monthly numbers were up to 250,000. Most of the park was complete in 1873, mostly keeping to Vaux and Olmsted’s original plan, though the Panic of 1873 made it so that Olmsted and Vaux stopped collaborating on the park’s construction. Additionally, Olmsted and Vaux’s design for Grand Army Plaza included only the Fountain of the Golden Spray, as well as surrounding earth embankments. James S. T. Stranahan, then President of the Brooklyn Board of Park Commissioners, was often considered the “Father of Prospect Park.”
Fort Greene Park
The Fort Greene Park we know today was built on the land of the former Fort Putnam, named for George Washington’s Chief of Engineers Rufus Putnam, which was later renamed for Nathanael Greene in 1812. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux redesigned the park in 1867, around when the first section of Prospect Park opened to the public. At the top of the central hill was a walkway that approached two flights of steps leading to a circular parade ground. The rest of the hilly site was designed to have quaint walkways looking over grassy spaces.
Additionally, Olmsted and Vaux collaborated on a vault for the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument, commemorating the more than 11,500 American prisoners of war who died in captivity while on British prison ships during the Revolutionary War. Prisoners were kept aboard the HMS Jersey, Falmouth, Hope, and other ships, some of which were maintained in New York Harbor. Unfortunately, many bodies were thrown overboard, and during the construction of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, many of these remains were uncovered and put into boxes and casks. A small number of remains were interred in a crypt beneath the base of the monument. Olmsted and Vaux were originally tasked with designing the entire monument, including the crypt, but the final design was put forward by Stanford White. The monument stands 149 feet high and consists of a granite Doric column.
Morningside Park
The idea for Morningside Park was proposed in 1867 by the Central Park commissioners, and the city later commissioned Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux to design the park in 1873. Andrew Haswell Green, the mastermind behind Central Park, proposed that a park be built in Morningside Heights to avoid expanding the Manhattan street grid across steep terrain. By September 1873, Olmsted was dropped as superintendent of other parks to focus all efforts on Morningside Park, focusing on scenery due to terrain limitations. His design included a lawn at the park’s north end, a retaining wall with staircases, and ornate balconies.The Panic of 1873 essentially halted construction, not just for that year but for the next 14 years. Jacob Wrey Mould, who contributed to the design of Central Park, was appointed the new architect of the park in 1880. Plans for Mould’s design, which featured a retaining wall at Morningside Drive with granite stairs and railings, were approved in August 1881, with additional plans submitted the next year. The next few years of the project were slow, as new plans were submitted by Julius Munckwitz. Stairways were built starting in 1885, and Mould died the following year. In 1887, Olmsted was asked to draft new plans for the park, but he refused unless Vaux also worked on it. After some debate, both were allowed to work on plans, which were modified due to the construction of the nearby elevated railway station. While Olmsted wanted the area to remain naturalistic, Vaux wanted additional paths added. Most construction work was completed by the early 1890s, almost 20 years after Olmsted first submitted plans.
Riverside Park and Drive
Original plans for Riverside Park were devised in the early 1870s, with plans for the park to run in a straight line with a retaining wall. Fearing how to handle the western side of Manhattan’s topography, Manhattan park commissioners selected Frederick Law Olmsted to redesign the park. Olmsted first devised creating a main road that extended from 72nd to 123rd Street, while the park would be designed around existing landscapes, factoring in the park’s views and foliage.
Construction on Riverside Park began around 1874, though Olmsted was removed from his superintendent post in 1877. Inspired by the layout of the Hudson Valley, Olmsted, alongside Vaux, Munckwitz, and Samuel Parsons laid out stretches of the park. Considering the park spanned dozens of blocks, each portion had a different layout and design, with some parts functioning better with the steep terrain. Olmsted’s offer to work with Vaux on a more unified design was denied, so sections of the park were completed years later than others.
ROSA PARKS STATUE ESSEX GOVENMENT CENTER NEWARK, NEW JERSEY
LAURA HUSSEY, ANDY SPARBERG GOT IT RIGHT
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)
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4.24.22 Lunchtime drawing: One World Trade Center and others from downtown, so many blues with the sky and reflection. Over vacation/spring break I find I gravitate more to nature and now it’s back to city.
4.23.22 Lunchtime drawing: This Andean condor at the Bronx Zoo stretched out its wings (so wide!) and glided to the ground right after I sketched it.
4.21.22 Lunchtime drawing: Back in NYC and straight to Washington Square Park, pausing to paint the tulips, before getting in line for Dosa Man dosas.
4.18.22 Lunchtime drawing: A snowy owl on display at the Reinstein Woods education center in Buffalo, NY.
The first thing you see when you click on “visit” on the Grounds For Sculpture website is Looking for the perfect daytrip?. Well actually, yes, we are! And if you are ok with an approximate 90 minute drive from Manhattan, you are in for a treat in the opposite direction from our other recommendations. Be prepared to see world class sculpture among a living library of native and exotic trees and flowers”.
Eolith, Isaac Witkin,1994, Blue Mountain granite. Photo David W. Steele
Founded by sculptor and philanthropist Seward Johnson, Grounds For Sculpture opened in 1992 on the former NJ State Fairgrounds, With 300+ sculptures installed over the 42 acres, the founders’ vision to ““fill people everywhere with the emotional sustenance derived from the powerful and restorative connection between art and nature.”. He even created a bizarre collection of sculptures he called Beyond the Frame, which are lifesize 3D replicas of famous impressionistic paintings and other iconic scenes that viewers can get up close and personal with. Imagine grabbing the table next to the couple in Edouard Manet’s Chez Pere Lathuille. Aside from the whimsey of Beyond the Frame, most of the artwork at Grounds for Sculpture is made by internationally recognized sculptors. With collaborators such as Gloria Vanderbilt, who worked with Johnson on the unique environment Forest of the Subconscious, to sculptures by world renown artists like Kiki Smith, who grew up in NJ, and George Segal, to the charming Rats Restaurant with award winning views, there is so much to see and do among the paths, reflecting pools and meadows that you may want to leave extra early to fit it all in.
Bruce Beasley: Sixty Year Retrospective, 1960-2020. Grounds For Sculpture, East Gallery. Photo: Bruce M. White.
After a year of being closed, the museum’s indoor spaces are opening with the exhibition Bruce Beasley: Sixty Year Retrospective, 1960-2020, which also includes outdoor sculptures. There is also the fine dining restaurant, Rat’s Inn, on the grounds, reservations suggested. Entry to Grounds For Sculpture is by advance timed ticket only and capacity is limited. Both Members and Public are required to reserve timed tickets online to visit. The Garden is open Thursday through Sunday 10AM to 6PM.
NOTICE CHANDIGARH: THE BEAUTIFUL CITY PROGRAM HAS BEEN POSTPONED FROM APRIL 28TH. THE NEW DATE IS THURSDAY, MAY 12TH TO REGISTER:
MOUNT VERNON HOTEL, FORMERLY ABIGAIL ADAMS SMITH MUSEUM (CLOSED NOW)
ED LITCHER, GLORIA HERMAN, VICKI FEINMEL, ALEXIS VILLAFANE & ANDY SPARBERG GOT IT RIGHT!!
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) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated:
NICK GOLEBIEWSKI UNTAPPED NEW YORK
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We drive by these two buildings on East 58th Street. Leftovers from a bygone era when this was a quiet residential neighborhood. Take a quick glance as you enter the Upper Level of the Queensboro Bridge.
Abijah Pell, Jr. was born in New York City on November 8, 1811. His was an important family, tracing its roots in America to the 17th century. John Pell inherited the Pelham estate from his uncle, Thomas Pell, in 1670, and became the first lord of Pelham Manor.
Abijah’s parents, Abijah and Mary Baldwin Pell, owned considerable land in Greenwich Village and when the elder Abijah died in 1826 his seven children–five sons and a daughter–shared equally in the sizable estate.
In the decade before the outbreak of Civil War spotty development was taking place along East 58th Street near the East River; until only recently green farmland. Tax records indicate a house appeared by 1857 at what could be numbered 311 East 58th Street, when title to the property was in name of Charles Shute Pell.
It does not appear that Charles ever lived in the quaint brick-faced house. He and his wife, both educators, were appointed superintendents of the New-York Orphan Asylum by 1857 and as such would have living quarters there.
Instead his brother, Abijah, listed his address as “East 58th near 2nd” in the early 1860s. As a matter of fact, it may have been Abijah who constructed the house. He was described as “a leading builder of his day” by The Memorial Cyclopedia decades later. Pell was married to Eliza Brown Ward. She was the first cousin of New Jersey Governor Marcus Ward. The couple had three sons, Abijah, William and Charles.
Despite their lofty pedigree, the extended Pell family was apparently well in tune with the condition of the less fortunate. Both Charles and Abijah were long-term members of The New York Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor, for instance. Nevertheless, they moved socially among their peers. All the Pell brothers were members of the venerable St. Nicholas Society which included only men descended from New York’s earliest families.
When Abijah’s 48-year old brother, Aaron, died on November 8, 1861 of consumption, his funeral was held in the 58th Street house two days later.
Abijah had joined the Union Army only a month earlier. When a comrade, John R. Hobby, died “of disease contracted in the army,” on October 20, 1865, once again a funeral was held in the Pells’ parlor. The notice instructed mourners it was “second house east of 2d-av.”
In the spring of 1870 the Park Commissioners directed the North and East River Company and the Central Park Railroad Company to lay “double tracks in Fifty-eighth-street.” The intention was to provide a crosstown connection between the First Avenue and Eleventh Avenue streetcars. Local protest was quick and forceful, with Abijah Pell leading the charge.
On May 7 “a large number of property-owners” met at the Terrace Garden, on 58th Street near Third Avenue. The New York Times reported they gathered “for the purpose of protesting against the laying of a track for a horse-car railroad in that street.”
Abijah Pell presided that evening. Among the results of the meeting was the formation of a committee to raise funds for an expected legal battle.
Three years later Abijah Pell died in a bizarre and tragic accident in Newark, New Jersey. On Saturday morning, April 19, 1873, was run over by the “pusher,” or engine used to move train cars. He died the following day.
The 58th Street house was sold to John B. Huse and his wife, Emma. Huse was a printer with a shop on Hudson Street. He also apparently dabbled in real estate. In September 1873 he advertised “A store to let on Seventh Avenue–inquire at 311 East Fifty-eighth street, or in confectionery, No. 9 Seventh avenue.” Huse was adamant that his property would not be used as a saloon. His ad stressed “will not be rented for liquor store.”
On September 1, 1877 Huse sold the “two-story brick dwelling” to Henry S. Cohn for $8,000–just under $190,000 today. Cohn flipped the house for a tidy profit, selling it four weeks later, on October 5, to Mathias Down for $10,000.
Although the Prussian-born Down was listed as a merchant, his main income most likely came from the several tenements he owned throughout the city. In February 1890 he commissioned architect Charles Stagmeyer to add a two-story extension to the rear at a cost of $1,500. The enlargement may have had to do with Down’s grandson, Mathias Herman J. Weiden’s moving in. Both Down and Weiden were listed in the house in the 1890s.
Weiden (who went by the name Herman) and his wife, Margaret, had one child, Josephine, who was born in 1906. He was active in New York’s German community and served on the Executive Committee of the National Federation of German-American Catholics during the World War I years. Despite anti-German sentiments during the war, it often went by the name of the Catholic Central Verein of America. Weiden would remain an active member through the 1950s.
It appears that Margaret had died by 1920 when only Weiden and Josephine were listed as living in the 58th Street house. His marriage on Wednesday, February 15, 1928 was marred by tragedy when Catherine McMurray, his new mother-in-law, died two days later in her Brooklyn home.
In 1928, the year Weiden remarried, the house looked little different than it does today. photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library
On December 30, 1950 The New York Times reported “After seventy-three years in the family of Mathias Weiden, the two story brick dwelling…at 311 East Fifty-eighth Street has been purchased by Charles Jones, music composer, for occupancy.”
The musician moved in with his wife, Sally. Born in Canada in 1910, he had come to the United States at the age of 18 to study violin at the Juilliard School (his father, incidentally, was an American citizen). He became a pupil of, and then assistant to Darius Milhaud at Mills College in Oakland, California. The two worked together at the Aspen Music School where Jones became Director in 1970.
Throughout his career he also taught at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, the Juilliard School and the Mannes College of Music. His compositions included an oratorio on Piers Plowman, four symphonies, and nine string quartets.
Jones was still teaching composition at Mannes and Juilliard when he died from complications of heart surgery in June 1997. The remarkably-surviving little house was sold the following year to The Philip Colleck Gallery for $1.1 million. The gallery, established in the 1930s, deals in 18th century English antiques.
According to the firm’s president, Mark Jacoby, several months after the purchase “Part of the charm of the building is that it has its original doors, mahogany banisters and wide pine floors, all of which we’re keeping. We’re keeping the room configurations as well. There are seven different fireplaces on the three floors, and a large rear garden that we’re going to beautify.”
The new owners hired architect Peter M. Bernholz to design the gallery. At the same time the coat of what Jacoby described as “old blueberry-yogurt paint” was removed from the brickwork.
As if the history of the house were not amazing enough, local lore insists that Tennessee Williams rented a room here in the 1930s. In fact, he lived across the street at No. 316. And that is perfectly fine. The remarkable survivor does not need a celebrity to stand out; its excruciating charm is enough.
313 EAST 58 STREET
In the 18th century the area near the East River around what would become 58th Street was lonely. Travelers using the Eastern Post Road could stop at the inn called The Union Flag (the name of which referred, of course, to the British colors, not the later American union). The tavern sat approximately where the approach to the Queensboro Bridge is today.
But the decade prior to the Civil War saw the beginnings of development as streets were laid out and building plots sold. In 1856 builder and mason Hiram G. Disbrow began construction on his own modest home at what would later be numbered 313 East 58th Street. Simultaneously Charles Shute Pell erected a similar house on the lot next door.
Disbrow’s home was completed in 1857. He had no doubt acted as his own architect and the two-story tall structure made no attempts at ostentation. Described as “vernacular” in style today, it exhibited some elements of the Greek Revival style in the doorway and bracketed cornice, for instance. The parlor openings were, in fact, French doors. They were less practical as access to the wooden porch than for adding ventilation into the house during hot summer months.
Disbrow was a partner with George Whitefield in the building firm of Disbrow & Whitefield. A daughter, Emma, was born to him and his wife, Catherine on February 20, 1860. By the time the toddler tragically died on March 30, 1862, the family had moved to No. 165 East 50th Street.
An interesting side note is that in 1899 the aging Hiram G. Disbrow patented an invention far afield from the building business. His “reversible tie” was described as having “sides of different color or material.” For the price of one tie, the customer would get two.
In the mid-1890s James Jordan, “dealer in window-shades, and carpets, &c.” lived in No. 313. His next door neighbor, at No. 311, was the Prussian-born merchant Mathias Down. Down had owned that house since 1877 and now his grandson, Herman Weiden, lived there as well.
Down died before 1920 and at some point Weiden purchased No. 311 as well. By now not only had apartment buildings closed in around the houses; but the massive Queensboro Bridge had wiped out much of the old neighborhood. Its approach was mere yards from the properties.
The end of the line for the quaint anachronisms seemed near in April 1928. On April 28 real estate operator and builder Milton Barkin, of Samuel Barkin & Sons, purchased Nos. 311 and 313 “from the Weiden estate,” as reported in the newspapers (Herman Weiden was, incidentally, very much alive). The New York Times reported on September 13 the firm’s intention to build “a nine-story apartment house at 311-313 East Fifty-eighth Street.”
The two 1857 houses as they appeared in March 1928. from the collection of the New York Public Library.
But something happened with the ambitious project. The Weidens never relinquished title to No. 311 and No. 313 was purchased as the headquarters for the Humane Society of New York. Mae Colbert Liotta, executive secretary and assistant to the president of the Society, lived in the upper portion of the house with her widowed mother, Margaret Colbert.
Large fund raising events for the Humane Society of New York rarely took place from the house (the benefit dinner and dance at the Waldorf-Astoria in 1935, for instance, lured patrons with names like Morgan, Dodge, Armour, and Roosevelt). But it was the scene of one especially anticipated annual event–the Christmas party for children and their pets.
The event was no small affair, especially for pets and children. On December 25, 1935 The New York Times reported “The party, which lasted an hour and a half, got underway with the playing of marches by members of the Kips Bay Boy Scouts, Troop 472, whose bugles and drums attracted a crowd to the Christmas tree erected at the front door of the society’s building.
“Pets were brought in their best regalia, some with yellow ribbons and furbished leather harness. One woman carried her cat in a crate usually used to ship oranges.”
One man that year even brought his two white mice. The Santa Claus was ready for more expected pets like dogs and cats, and his sack was filled with gifts of collars, blankets, leashes and food. The mice sent workers scurrying. “They received pieces of cheese and crackers,” said the article.
A second Santa suit, right down to the long white beard, was worn by Paddy Reilly who made a special appearance. He was the mascot terrier of the Society and lived in the house. He received two loving cups during that event. One was for saving the life of a woman in Jamaica Bay. He barked until a passing boater heard him and plucked her from the water. The other was from “an admirer” who was impressed with Paddy’s help in raising $3,600 that year. He routinely strolled the city streets with a money cup on his back “seeking aid for dumb animals,” as described by The Times.
Two years later Paddy Reilly would add a special honor to his growing collection of medals “for his bravery and devotion.” Artist Helen Stotesbury visited the 58th Street headquarters where the terrier sat for his oil portrait. Stotesbury was the daughter of Brigadier General Louis W. Stotesbury, president of the Humane Society. She proclaimed Paddy “the best subject she ever had.” The portrait was sold to benefit the organization at the dog’s 17th birthday party the following week.
A woman approaches the porch with her dog. Those who could not afford to pay a veterinarian were welcome at the Society’s free clinic. photo via http://www.humanesocietyny.org
Margaret Colbert died on October 22, 1938. As had been the practice in the house in the 19th century, her funeral was held here several days later.
Mae Colbert Liotta continued to live on the second floor. She threw herself into the Society’s work, organizing and heading its street displays, free clinic, courses in animal care and other activities. On December 13, 1943, for instance, she announced through the newspapers that anyone who called at the 58th Street house that day with a horse and wagon would be given a free horse blanket.
Exactly one week later Mae was working on the upcoming Christmas Party at her desk when she was seized with a heart attack. She died later that afternoon at Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital at the age of 53.
The Humane Society of New York continued to operate from the house for three more decades. In 1952 when the State passed the Metcalf-Hatch Animal Research Bill, authorizing the “turning over of stray dogs and cats to laboratories and institutions for experiments,” it was the scene of dissent. The New York Times reported on February 13 “The 100-year old green-and-white clapboard cottage at 313 East Fifty-eighth Street, housing the Humane Society of New York was the scene of a protest meeting yesterday.”
The Humane Society of New York moved to its new headquarters in 1974. The East 58th Street building was purchased by Paul Steindler and his wife, Aja. Steindler had fled his native Czechoslovakia during the 1945 Communist takeover. He was at that time an Olympic wrestler and Aja was the world ice skating champion. By now the couple had given up athletics to become restaurateurs.
Thankfully, No. 313 had been named a New York City landmark in 1970. While designation did not protect the interior details, it safeguarded the exterior.
The New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne explained on September 8, 1976 “[Steindler] has gutted the building and excavated a basement. When it is transformed into a restaurant, tentatively named Paul’s Landmark, it will have an inner dining room with a seating capacity of 85, plus a patio.”
Considering using the word “landmark” in the name was ironic since Steindler wiped out the interior architectural history of the structure. Instead, the restaurant was named The Czech Pavillion. A 1979 advertisement touted “Classic Czech cooking…Charming…Townhouse Atmosphere” and offered “Enjoy piano music of the Old World nightly in the Skylight Room.”
Although the building was still owned by the Steindlers, in 1981 The Czech Pavillion became Le Club, described by a newspaper as “the disco for New York’s power elite.” In 1989 the club’s director, Patrick Shield reminded a New York Magazine reporter that “party animals like F. Ross Johnson, Donald Trump, Ronald O. Perelman, Henry Kravis, and Saul Steinberg” haunted Le Club “three and four nights a week, with the most magnificent girls. They were swinging.”
When Le Club moved out late in 1996, Aja Steindler (Paul had died in 1983) leased the house to Rocco Ancarola, owner of Cafe Boom in Soho. He announced plans to open a new restaurant, Two Rooms, with a formal dining room on the ground floor and cafe and lounge on the second. That project lasted only until spring of 1999.
Now it became The Landmark Club, “a restaurant, not a club.” The owner, Shamsher Wadud who also operated the restaurant Nirvana, was quick to point out to food critic Florence Fabricant “Only the exterior of the building, built in the 1850s as a residence, is a city landmark.”
Finally, in 2010 artist John Ransom Phillips purchased the 154-year old house as his residence and studio for around $4.7 million. Ironically it was the absence of the 19th century interior elements that attracted him. Joyce Cohen, writing in The New York Times on November 19, 2010 explained “When Mr. Phillips saw the former dance floor, with two skylights–one of them with 16 glass panels in a vaulted ceiling–he began to see possibilities.”
In 1970 Adolf K. Placzek of the Columbia University’s Avery Arrchitectural Library perfectly described Hiram G. Disbrow’s charming residence as “a little gem of human proportion.” Against all odds it, along with the Pell house next door, survives on the busy street, mostly ignored by the motorists intent on accessing the Queensboro Bridge.
NOTICE
CHANDIGARH: THE BEAUTIFUL CITY PROGRAM HAS BEEN POSTPONED FROM APRIL 28TH. THE NEW DATE IS THURSDAY, MAY 12TH WATCH FOR RESERVATION INFORMATION
1970’S RENTAL MATERIALS FOR EASTWOOD SHOWING 546 MAIN STREET AND SENIOR CENTER. GLORIA HERMAN AND ALEXIS VILLAFANE GOT IT RIGHT!
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) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources#
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
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Conversation at the General Store, near Jeanerette, Louisiana, 1938
The son of Burton Lee and his wife Adeline Werner, Lee grew up in Ottawa, Illinois. He attended Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana for high school. He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.[3]
Lee started working as a chemist, but gave up the position to become a painter. Originally he used photography as a precursor to his painting, but soon became interested in photography for its own sake. He recorded the people and places around him. Among his earliest subjects were Pennsylvanian bootleg mining and the Father Divine cult.[4]
In the fall of 1936, during the Great Depression, Lee was hired for the federally sponsored Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographic documentation project of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. He joined a team assembled under Roy Stryker, along with Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, and Walker Evans. Stryker provided direction and bureaucratic protection to the group, leaving the photographers free to compile what in 1973 was described as “the greatest documentary collection which has ever been assembled.”[3] Lee created some of the iconic images produced by the FSA, including photographic studies of San Augustine, Texas in 1939, and Pie Town, New Mexico in 1940.
Over the spring and summer of 1942, Lee was one of several government photographers to document the forced relocation of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. He produced more than 600 images of families waiting to be removed and their later lives in various detention facilities, most located in isolated areas of the interior of the country.
After the FSA was defunded in 1943, Lee served in the Air Transport Command (ATC). During this period, he took photographs of all the airfield approaches used by the ATC to supply the Armed Forces in World War II. In 1946 and 1947, he worked for the United States Department of the Interior (DOI), helping the agency compile a medical survey in communities involved in mining bituminous coal. He created over 4,000 photographs of miners and their working conditions in coal mines.[6] In 1946, Lee completed a series of photos focused on a Pentecostal Church of God in a Kentucky coal camp.
While completing the DOI work, Lee also continued to work under Stryker. He produced public relations photographs for Standard Oil of New Jersey . In 1947 Lee moved to Austin, Texas and continued photography. In 1965 he became the first instructor of photography at the University of Texas there.
Los Angeles (vicinity), California. Baggage of Japanese-Americans evacuated from certain West coast areas under United States Army war emergency order, who have arrived at a reception center at a racetrack.
Nyssa, Oregon. FSA (Farm Security Administration) mobile camp. Japanese mother and father with their American-born children in tent-home. One of the sons of this family is in the United States Army. Two of the sons were studying engineering at an American university before the evacuation and are now greatly worried about possibilities of continuing their education
Summit Hotel on Lexington Avenue CENTRAL NURSES RESIDENCE WAS ON SITE OF NOW 475-455 MAIN STREET NANCY BROWN AND ARON EISENPRISS GOT IT RIGHT!!
Sources
Wikipedia Wikimedia Commons
Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2022 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
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Our concrete jungle is a city built on water. If one searches carefully, one can hear sounds of secret streams churning beneath manholes and see traces of them in street names that recall a watery past.
An illustration of Broad Street, New York City in the 17th Century.Broad Street (Heere Gracht)Near the southern tip of Manhattan, Broad Street is situated atop a buried inlet of the East River.The first Dutch settlers arrived in Lower Manhattan in 1625 and quickly set about building a colonial outpost reminiscent of their home country. Broad Street’s name is a reminder of the navigable canal, Heere Gracht, named after a canal in Amsterdam.The canals were accessible only to small watercraft and quickly took on a less romantic role as a dumping ground for refuse. In 1664, New Amsterdam was acquired by England and renamed New York. The new masters of the colony did not care for restoring the city’s canals and had all of them buried in 1676.On today’s maps, the only physical reminder of the Heere Gracht is Bridge Street, a two-block road that intersects with Broad Street. Prior to 1676, the intersection was a bridge spanning the canal.
Maiden LaneLess than a half-mile north of Broad Street, a brook flowed into the East River, its path marked today by Maiden Lane. The stream had its origins at Nassau Street and its mouth at Pearl Street. In colonial times, it was known as Maagde Paatje, Dutch for “a footpath used by lovers along a rippling brook,” according to “The WPA Guide to New York City.” Other historians have a less romantic theory for Maiden Lane’s name: that the river that ran there was used for washing sheets. As the city crept north, the stream was buried and covered with a paved road in 1698.
Collect Pond near new York City. Wikimedia Commons
Collect Pond
The best-documented hidden waterway in Lower Manhattan is Collect Pond, which supplied drinking water to colonial settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Its center and deepest point — 70 feet — was at the present-day intersection of Leonard and Centre streets. The pond occupied 48 acres in an outline that includes present-day Foley Square, Manhattan Criminal Court, the city Department of Health and the Manhattan Supreme Court. At Worth Street, a neck of land jutted into the pond, separating Little Collect from the larger section of the pond.
When the Dutch colonists arrived in 1625, they noted shells lining the shore and named the pond Kalck Hoek, or “lime point,” as the shells resembled lime. Some say this name was later corrupted into the pond’s English name, Collect Pond, though this theory is far from definitive.
To the east of the pond, at the present-day intersection of Baxter and Mulberry streets, the Tea Water Pump supplied water used for brewing tea. This pump was popular enough to be used as a reference marker on 18th-century maps, and carts delivered the pump’s water in barrels to eager customers. There were so many of these vendors that in 1757, the Common Council passed a law limiting their number. The same legislative body declared the pump a nuisance in 1797 and ordered it closed.
In 1788, Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the future designer of Washington, DC, proposed a park that would follow a canal from the Hudson to East rivers through the Collect Pond.
But New York leaders had other plans for the pond. As the water became more polluted from nearby tanneries, they decided to bury the pond. By 1819, the work was done, and a new neighborhood would rise atop the former pond, optimistically named Paradise Square.
Inside, it would become a notorious slum — Five Points.
In recent years, the pond has enjoyed a revival in the city’s consciousness, with a reflecting pool as the centerpiece of a redesigned city park that opened in 2014.
Canal StreetThe canal that Canal Street was named after existed only for a short time. It was built in 1807 to drain the Collect Pond into the Hudson River. The pond and the canal were both buried by 1819, but Canal Street kept its name for eternity.
Old Wreck BrookThis creek drained from the Collect Pond into the East River, winding through Wolfert’s Marsh, where the Brooklyn Bridge was later constructed. It dried up after the pond was emptied.
Minetta Brook
Greenwich Village is perhaps the most storied of all the residential neighborhoods in Lower Manhattan. Through the heart of this urban village flows an underground street — one that occasionally reappears in flooded basements, flowing beneath alleys that carry its name.
Minetta Brook originated from two tributaries, the main one having its source near what is now Fifth Avenue and 21st Street, and a secondary one at Sixth Avenue and 16th Street. The streams merged at a point just west of the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 11th Street.
The stream continued into what became Washington Square Park, turning southwest toward the Hudson River. One of the curves of the stream was immortalized in the form of Minetta Street, a one-block alley in the heart of Greenwich Village. At its northern end, this street intersects with Minetta Lane.
The stream’s name is a variation of a commonly used Algonquin term: manitou or “spirit.” Local historians believe Minetta translated as “evil spirit” or “snake water.”
The land that would become Washington Square Park was used to grow tobacco until 1797, when the farms were repurposed as cemeteries. The number of dead increased dramatically in the series of yellow fever epidemics that swept across the city between 1797 and 1803. The graveyard filled up, and the city purchased land for a second cemetery on the site of the future Bryant Park.
When the potter’s field was rezoned as parkland in 1826, most of the bodies were removed; but on occasion, during construction in Washington Square Park, coffins may still be found. This happened most recently in 2009 — a tombstone dating to 1799 and attributed to 28-year-old Irish immigrant James Jackson, victim of yellow fever.
In the 1820s, what remained of Minetta Brook on the surface was buried by leveling the Sand Hills to its east.
Residents still see glimpses of Minetta Brook in their damp basements. Across the street from Washington Square’s Roman-style triumphal arch is Two Fifth Avenue, a massive apartment building that, in its lobby, has a glass cylinder pipe sticking out of the floor. A plaque on the wall says that, occasionally, silted water from Minetta Brook can be seen rising up inside the pipe.
The vent shaft structure fence is receiving a mosaic artpiece. The mosaic has been installed and now covered “temporarily” until the project is finished later this year. Stay tuned for details. Aron Eisenpreiss, Andy Sparberg, Ed Litcher all got it right.
SOURCES
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS NEW YORK POST
Funding Provided by: Roosevelt Island Corporation Public Purpose Funds Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD Text by Judith Berd
Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2022 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
