News and Stories about the Waterways of New York and New Jersey
Ann Buttenwieser’s
NYC History in 10 Barges
March 16, 2018
What can we learn about New York City and its waterfront from its boats? Waterwire is inviting those across the maritime world and beyond—historians, planners, artists, business people, scientists—to share their perspectives on NYC History in10 Boats.
Ann Buttenwieser, the driving force behind a giant barge refurbished into a floating pool, is known as the Floating Pool Lady (as is the pool itself). The co-founder of the Council for Parks and Playgrounds (which later merged with what is now New Yorkers for Parks) and the founder of the nonprofit Neptune Foundation,
Ms. Buttenwieser spent more than two decades working to recreate the floating baths of the 19th century, her mission to get recreationally underserved New Yorkers into the water. Ann is currently writing a book about that adventure. Here is her NYC History in 10 Barges.
(For RIHS, with Stephen Blank)
Hopper Barge: Michael Hughes came from Ireland in 1843 and began to build wooden hopper barges in New Brunswick, New Jersey. A hopper barge is a type of ship used primarily in marine construction, dredging, and marine salvage that isn’t mechanical and that cannot self-propel (with exceptions). It is ideal for carrying materials like grain, sand, coal, soil, sugar, timber products, and rocks and for dumping those materials. Hopper barges typically have double-hull construction, which means that the bottoms and sides of their cargo remain separate from the hull with the use of empty spaces. Two common types of hopper barges are box hopper barges and raked hopper barges. A raked hopper barge has a curved bow, often at the head of the tow, which minimizes resistance when the barge is being pushed. This allows a raked hopper barge to move faster on the water than other types. Raked hopper barges can also be double-raked, which further decreases their resistance on the water and increases how fast they can move. Hughes’ early vessels carried coal between Pennsylvania and New York. Today, Hughes Marine is famous for its specialty flat-top metal barges, which provide sets for musical performances, movies, and send up the Macy’s July 4th fireworks.
Floating Baths: In 1880, Boss Tweed opened New York City’s first floating baths. The barge-shaped, wooden structures surrounded a pool—open on top to the air and to the dirty river water on the bottom. In 1915, there were 15 baths berthed around the city, but by 1940 or so they had all closed because of water pollution.
Oil Barge: An award for bravery in the 1916 Black Tom Explosion gave Captain Fredrick Bouchard funds to found the Bouchard Transportation Company. In order to meet federal restrictions on single-hull vessels after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the company constructed 400-foot-long, double-hull, metal barges that can each carry 138,000 barrels of oil in holds under the deck, thus removing an estimated 650 trucks per barge and untold pollution from the roadways.
Floating Island: In 1970, Artist Robert Smithson, famous for his Great Salt Lake work Spiral Jetty, sketched a toy boat pulling a barge that resembled a park. Smithson died three years later. In September 2005, as part of a Whitney Museum retrospective, Smithson’s wife, artist Nancy Holt, created a real floating island on a barge. For eight days, the art work, with a lawn, rocks and trees, circled Manhattan.
Mobro: Unlike the appealing Floating Island, the Mobro carried 3,100 tons of trash, with which contractor Lowell Harrison hoped to start a business producing methane. For two months in 1987, the barge hauled the same load of garbage from Long Island to six states, three countries, and back to Brooklyn, seeking landfill space but continually turned away. The trash was finally incinerated in Brooklyn, and the episode touched off a national discussion about waste disposal.
Bargemusic: At Fulton Landing in Brooklyn, music lovers enjoy concerts while floating on the East River. Bargemusic, an intimate, unique chamber music hall, was the brainchild of violinist Olga Bloom, who in 1976 repurposed a metal barge that 100 years earlier had transported sacks of coffee beans.
The River Café: A year later, across the foot of Old Fulton Street from Olga’s Bargemusic, after a 13-year struggle with federal and state regulations and fire codes that applied only to land-based buildings, restaurateur and Waterfront Alliance board of trustee, Michael O’Keeffe opened the now legendary floating restaurant on another converted coffee barge.
Waterfront Museum: More than a century ago, the wooden Lehigh Valley Barge #79 moved cargo from ships to rail. In the 1950s, containerization took the vessel out of its middleman position. David Sharps rescued the mired-in-mud vessel in 1985 and brought it to Red Hook, Brooklyn. Now on the National Register of Historic Places, the artifact is a museum where visitors can enjoy theater, educational programs and exhibitions about the waterfront
New York New Jersey Rail: Until the mid-20th century, and because the nearest railroad bridge crossing was in Albany, railroad companies saved time and money by operating barges across New York Harbor. Known as car floats, the barges carried rail cars from tracks that ended at the New Jersey waterfront to those that began in Manhattan and Brooklyn. When trucking boomed, railroads soon went bankrupt and the car floats mostly disappeared from the harbor. In 2008, however, The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey took over the last remaining car float operation in New York Harbor—called New York New Jersey Rail—and invested millions of dollars to modernize the service. Each car float can shuttle 18 rail cars, with more than a thousand tons of freight, between the Greenville Yard in Jersey City, and the 65th Street Yard in Brooklyn.
The Floating Pool Lady: In 2004, the Neptune Foundation purchased the C500, one of dozens of single-hull, flat-top, metal barges flooding the market. The vessel, renamed The Floating Pool Lady, was repurposed with a half-Olympic-sized pool, sunk into a cutout in the barge.
HOPPER BARGE
FLOATING BATHS
FLOATING ISLAND
MOBRO
BARGEMUSIC
RIVER CAFE
MUGS FOR ALL YOUR DRINKS
WATERFRONT MUSEUM
NEW YORK NEW JERSEY RAIL
THE FLOATING POOL LADY
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
ARTICLE COURTESY OF THE WATERFRONT ALLIANCE WATERWIRE (C) 2018
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All materials in this publication are copyrighted (c)
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
SHOP THE KIOSK FOR ALL YOUR HOLIDAY GIFTS!!! GREAT MERCHANDISE, GREAT FUN IDEAS, GREAT PRICES OPEN WEEKENDS 11- 4
MONDAY DEC 14, 21 AND FRIDAY DEC. 18 HOURS ARE 1-7 P.M.
Monday, December 14, 2020
Our 235th Edition
THOMAS RAINEY: A MAN AND A BRIDGE
STEPHEN BLANK
Thomas Rainey: A Man and a Bridge
This is about a guy who spent a lot of time and a pile of money on a bridge that wasn’t built, though it was built later.
We’re talking about the Rainey Bridge or the Blackwell’s Island Bridge (not the purple Roosevelt Island Bridge that’s there now, but the one that wasn’t built). And ultimately the Queensboro Bridge – I mean the Ed Koch Bridge. A lot of bridges to cross.
So, meet Thomas Rainey, who worked long and hard to build a bridge from Manhattan to Queens.
Rainey was born in Yanceyville, Caswell County, North Carolina in 1824, oldest of 15 children. His New York Times obit (New York Times, March 30, 1910) is marvelous: “…because of thrashing, he ran away and wandered out West. With only a moderate education he had picked up in local schools and with a pistol and $3.50 in his pocket, he continued his journeyings by working his way until he had crossed West Virginia, Ohio and Missouri.” He studied “phonography, arithmetic by cancelation and medicine” (not a mistake – “arithmetic by cancelation” does exist), “lectured throughout Missouri and Iowa and in 1847 published ‘Rainey’s Improved Abacus’ a treatise on arithmetic and geometry by cancelation.”
Schooled at some point in engineering, he studied steam navigation in Europe and eventually earned the honorific title, Doctor – and he continued to lead a colorful life. Rainey became involved in politics, and at the request of the National Whig Committee, established The Cincinnati Daily Republican as their official organ. In Washington, he became acquainted with Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State. In 1853, Rainey was appointed Consul to Bolivia. He did not take up that position but did find himself in Brazil where, at one time, owned a fleet of sixteen steam ferry boats.
His fortune was made in Brazil, but it was a bridge that became his life’s passion. Rainey lived in Ravenswood, Queens (long before the current Ravenswood power plant, when Ravenswood was a riverside community of fine mansions) and spent 25 years of his life and most of his fortune advancing the construction of a bridge across the East River between Manhattan and Long Island City. What is now Rainey Park was to be the Queens anchor for a bridge which would extend over Blackwell’s Island, a project backed by leading citizens of Long Island City after the American Civil War.
As New York expanded, the need for bridges across the East River, especially between Manhattan and Brooklyn became clear. John A. Roebling, the architect of the Brooklyn Bridge, had talked about a Brooklyn span as early as 1852. In his diaries, William Steinway (yes, the piano guy, who was much involved in all Queens-Manhattan bridge building) says that Roebling himself determined that the East River between Manhattan and Queens could be bridged using Blackwell’s Island as an ideal intermediate point. Steinway writes that in the mid-1850s Roebling was invited by businessmen and financiers to provide such a design and in 1856 he provided a proposal with a cost estimate of $1.2 million. The project, however, did not move forward, and Roebling soon became an advocate for connecting Manhattan and Long Island by constructing a bridge to Brooklyn – rather than Queens
Why Blackwell’s Island? Easy. Using Blackwell’s Island meant that the bridge would have two spans – one span over the west channel of the river between Manhattan Island and Blackwell’s and another over the east channel between Blackwell’s and Queens. This would simplify the engineering by eliminating the need for one long suspension bridge that would need to cross the width of the entire river, requiring cables at both ends to support the roadway. It also meant that the mid-bridge towers could be built on dry land rather than in deep water.
In fact, this wasn’t the first time the idea for a Queens-Manhattan bridge had been bruited about. In 1838, a plan was developed to build a suspension bridge across the East River from somewhere between 65th and 75th Streets in Manhattan, across the northern end of Blackwell’s Island to Queens. Known as the “Graves” Plan for an iron hanging bridge, but it was doomed to disappointment.
In February 1867, the New York State Senate passed a bill that allowed the construction of a suspension bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In the same year, 1867, the New York State Legislature granted a charter to the New York & Long Island Bridge Company. This project was led by a group of business leaders who were concerned that the proposed Brooklyn Bridge would not open up Long Island for development. They formed the New York and Queens County Bridge Company in 1871, chaired by Steinway. The Company was permitted to acquire land, but no provision was made for public funding. The initial stock capitalization was set at $2 million with each share valued at $100. Once built, the owners were authorized to collect tolls to produce a net profit not to exceed 15 percent.
The Panic of 1873 disrupted planning but the process restarted in 1876. Plans resumed and a caisson was sunk into the river on the Queens side, off the outpost of Ravenswood. A newspaper report from the time notes that the bridge is “under contract, and the contractors are now busy on the ironwork of the pier foundations.” Construction cost was estimated at $5 million, with a timeline of three years.
The NY Bridge Co (Brooklyn Bridge) statute was similar to the one for the bridge to Queens with one very significant difference: funding. Unlike the Queens effort — which would have to rely on private investment — the language creating the NY Bridge Co. authorized the “… cities of New York and Brooklyn … to subscribe to the capital stock of said company … and to issue bonds in payment of such subscriptions, payable in not less than thirty years, or may guarantee the payment of the principal and interest of the bonds of the company….” This provision, along with Brooklyn’s vastly greater population and the financial spoils the project provided to Boss Tweed and his cronies who dominated New York politics, were critical differences in the ultimate fates of the two competing bridge projects.
Rainey had been one of the earliest and staunchest supporters of the project, and the burden of organizing and refinancing the Company fell on him, first as treasurer in 1874, then as president in 1877. Ultimately, Rainey resigned from the Company leadership to allow him to spend more time raising funds for the bridge. Money was short, however, and the Company was never financially set.
In any case, the Brooklyn Bridge opened two years later, in 1883. It was a spectacle that caught the attention of New Yorkers and took away any hype surrounding a second bridge to Queens. With less money invested and a waning interest in the project, the Company that was chartered to build Rainey Bridge ended construction. The Company eventually went bankrupt in the 1890s.
Still another effort was made to build that bridge, this time pushed by the LIRR seeking access into Manhattan. After plans for a tunnel came unglued, plans were made for a bridge across the East River from 64th St in Manhattan to Harswell Avenue in Queens. Work seems to have begun on the Manhattan side but the project was abandoned in 1895.
Now here’s a Roosevelt Island mystery. Eleanor’s Pier, roughly opposite the Subway Station, rests on the foundation for a bridge that would link Manhattan and Queens. However, it is opposite 64th St in Manhattan, not 77th. When was it built, and for what purpose isn’t clear.
The project still wasn’t dead. A group called the Committee of Forty kept the effort alive and Rainey continued to search for funding. Finances, legal challenges from landowners, legislative “fixes,” and concerns about the navigability of the East River if the bridge was built, were the major themes for the 1880s and 1890s. In March 1881 the first contract was awarded for construction and work did at last begin on a pier on the Queens side of the river. It was not completed, however, due to lack of money.
Time, once again, was running out on Rainey and the bridge advocates; and, again, the New York State Legislature stepped in. On May 29, 1885 – just three days before the completion deadline set in 1879 — an amendment was passed to require that construction start by May 30, 1888. This time there was no completion deadline, but there were requirements that certain amounts of money be spent each year of construction, beginning with $100,000 in 1889. The legislature apparently was looking for financial commitment from the bridge promoters to support their scheme.
While the statutory and legal aspects of the process were a tangle, the backers were able to engineer legislative fixes and juggle legal challenges. But the fundamental issue was never resolved: funding. Municipal financial support was never authorized. The bridge seemed to be viewed as a project for the benefit of developers and wealthy commercial interests.
In the end, despite three decades of activity, the Blackwell’s Island Bridge was not built as a private project. Rainey failed to interest capital in the project and, in the words of the Times obit, “retired a broken, weary man, to live the last ten years of his life at the home of his youngest sister.”
Ultimately, it was pressure by the Committee of Forty, the emergence of the consolidated City of New York in 1898, and, now, public funding that led to the construction of a bridge spanning the East River at Blackwell’s Island. This time, the City took responsibility and construction began the bridge in 1901. It was completed in March 1909 and celebrated with eight days of events. Considered “a work of art” the bridge has been designated a national monument, and is, according to the Greater Astoria Historical Society, “an exuberant piece of the urban fabric.”
On opening day in 1909, Dr. Rainey realized his dream as he crossed the new bridge with Governor Charles Evans Hughes. Rainey had remained the lone public voice for the bridge. Although a broken and bankrupt man, he never gave up hope and, in the celebration, he received a gold medal inscribed: “Father of the Bridge.” That day Rainey told the New York Times:
“This is my bridge. At least it is the child of my thought, of my long years of arduous toil and sacrifice. Just over there, are the old towers of my bridge, which I began to build many years ago. I spent all I owned on the project . . . It is a grand bridge, much greater than the one I had in mind. It will be in service to thousands in the years to come, when Dr. Rainey and his bridge projects will long have been gathered into the archives of the past.”
The new structure was named the Queensboro Bridge, but Rainey’s contribution was not forgotten. On April 18, 1904, the City of New York acquired several acres of waterfront property through condemnation procedures. The concrete sea wall, built where the park meets the East River, was completed in 1912, by which time Rainey had passed away. To honor his public spirit, the city named the property Rainey Park. This park is the largest in Ravenswood, once an exclusive neighborhood.
Why this bridge?
Build it and they will come.
A bridge held out the promise of commercial transformation of sparsely populated Queens, home to only 45,000 inhabitants in 1870 compared to 942,000 in Manhattan. Before the bridge opened in 1909, although Newtown creek was fully industrialized and factories were found along the river, Queens was mostly woods and farmland, with small clusters of villages and small towns scattered about this bucolic landscape. Not surprisingly, the prospect of moving people and freight more easily over a bridge, rather than exclusively by ferry and barge, was appealing to business leaders in Queens who had land to develop and products to manufacture and sell. Within 10 years of the bridge’s completion, the population of Queens had nearly doubled, from 275,000 to half a million people. Built it and people came.
DELACORTE THEATRE WITH BELVEDERE CASTLE CENTRAL PARK WE GOT LOTS OF CORRECT ANSWERS, MANY OF YOU WHO MISS SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK EVERY SUMMER CLARA BELLA, LAURA HUSSEY, LISA FERNANDEZ, GLORA HERMAN, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, HARA REISER, BRENDA VAUGHAN, THOM HEYER
FREE COVID-19 TESTING IF YOU MISSED THE ON ISLAND TESTING THIS WEEKEND, METROPOLITAN HOSPTIAL OFFERS FREE TESTING:
HOSPITAL WALK IN COVID-19 TESTING NYC HEALTH + HOSPITAL METROPOLITAN 1901 First Avenue, New York, NY 10029 at 97th Street call (844) 692-4692 9AM-3:30PM Daily Free Diagnostic Testing (Third-party Verified) Screening Required No appointment needed
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All materials in this publication are copyrighted (c)
MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK GOOGLE IMAGES
MATERIAL COPYRIGHT WIKIPEDIA, GOOGLE RIHS ARCHIVES AND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION (C) FUNDING BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDING
DISCRETIONARY FUNDING BY COUNCIL MEMBER BEN KALLOS THRU NYC DYCD
Terminal 3, also known by the trademarked name Worldport, was an airport terminal built by Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) in 1960 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York, United States. It operated from May 24, 1960 to May 24, 2013, and was demolished in 2013–2014.
The distinctive “flying saucer” roof design of the Worldport The terminal was originally known as the “Pan Am Terminal” or Pan Am “Unit Terminal Building (UTB).” It was designed by Ives, Turano & Gardner Associated Architects and Walther Prokosch of Tippets-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton as a showcase for international jet travel and is particularly famous for its 4-acre (1.6 ha) “flying saucer” roof suspended far from the outside columns of the terminal by 32 sets of pre-stressed steel posts and cables. The terminal was designed to allow for aircraft to be parked under the partial overhang; marketing brochures promoted it as the jet-age terminal that brought the plane to the passenger. The overhang sheltered passengers as they boarded the aircraft by stairs or by uncovered bridges. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Guide to New York City called the terminal a “genuine architectural attempt to answer the problem of all-weather connections to the planes” but derided the overall concept as “compromised by an overabundance of distracting detail”.
The building’s facade originally featured zodiac figures made by sculptor Milton Hebald, although these were later removed by the Port Authority.
The terminal featured the Panorama Room, a dining room with a view of the entire concourse, and the Clipper Hall museum of Pan Am history.
In 1971, the terminal was expanded to accommodate the large Boeing 747 and renamed the “Pan Am Worldport”. The Worldport was the world’s largest airline terminal and held the title for several years. A Pan Am Boeing 707-100 at Worldport (1961) I
in 2012 Operation of the Worldport changed hands when Pan Am declared bankruptcy in 1991. Delta Air Lines acquired many of Pan Am’s assets, including the lease on the Worldport, which became known simply as “Terminal 3”, and operated most of its long-haul flights out of JFK to Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America from the building.
In March 2006, Delta COO Jim Whitehurst announced that Delta would spend US$10 million before the end of that year to renovate Terminal 2 and Terminal 3,
A ROOSEVELT ISLAND COINCIDENCE
The same engineering firm worked on the Pan Am Worldport Tippets-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton
MILTON HEBALD
THE ZODIAC SCULPTURES
Milton Elting Hebald (May 24, 1917 – January 5, 2015) was a sculptor who specialized in figurative bronze works. Twenty-three of his works are displayed in public in New York City, including the statues of Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest in front of the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park.
His major work is a 220-foot (67 m), 12-piece “Zodiac Screen”, then the largest sculpture in the world, commissioned by Pan-American Airlines for its terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport, and now owned and stored by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.[
Early life
Hebald was born in New York City. He studied at several New York art schools, starting at the age of ten, including the Art Students League of New York, the National Academy of Design and the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design. In New York City he taught at the Art Students League, The Cooper Union, American Artists School and also privately . He also taught at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Skowhegan School of Art, in Maine, and at the University of Minnesota. He has been a guest lecturer and teacher at many other academic institutions. Hebald had his first one-man show at the age of 20, in New York City. He is currently exclusively represented by the Pushkin Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Hebald was awarded the Prix de Rome Fellowship to the American Academy in Rome in 1955, 1956 and 1957. He stayed in Italy, living in Rome, with his wife, painter, Cecille Rosner Hebald, until 1970 when they moved to Bracciano, 25 miles outside Rome. In 2004, six years after his wife’s death, he returned to the United States. Hebald lived in Los Angeles at the time of his death.near to his daughter, Margo Hebald (aka Margo Hebald-Heymann), Architect, granddaughter Lara Hebald Embry and great-granddaughter Cecille Tuccillo all of whom live in California.
Work Hebald created a series of pieces in 1960 featuring representations of the Zodiac on the exterior of the Pan American World Airways Worldport at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. A 200-foot-long (61 m) and 24-foot-high (7.3 m) windscreen in front of the terminal’s entrance was adorned with bas relief representations of the 12 signs of the zodiac, visible from both outside and inside the terminal building When it was created, it was the largest such work in the world. As part of renovations, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey removed the sculptures, which sit unused in a hangar at the airport
Hebald has created a pair of statues in front of Central Park’s Delacorte Theatre. The bronze unveiled in 1966 features Prospero, the protagonist of William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. The piece was a gift of George T. Delacorte Jr., who also donated the Delacorte Theatre.[6] A 14-foot (4.3 m) bronze of Prospero and Miranda by Hebald was dedicated in Central Park in honor of Joseph Papp, founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival.
Hebald’s sculpture of Romeo and Juliet was dedicated outside the Delacorte Theater in 1977.[8] Hebald created a bust of operatic tenor Richard Tucker for Richard Tucker Park, located in front of Lincoln Center, at the corner of Broadway and Columbus Avenue at 66th Street. Dedicated on April 20, 1980, the statue consists of a larger-than-life size bronze portrait on a 6-foot-high (1.8 m) granite pedestal.
The original 1978 proposal for a seven-foot statue of Tucker, depicted in the role of Des Grieux in the opera Manon Lescaut by Giacomo Puccini, had been opposed by a member of Manhattan Community Board 7, who felt that the piece should have been placed in the Metropolitan Opera Hall of Fame, and not on public property.
In Zurich, Switzerland, Hebald was commissioned to do a life sized, full figure portrait of James Joyce, for Joyce’s tomb. He also made a bust of British novelist Anthony Burgess, to whom he once also sold a house near Rome. Burgess was quoted in 1971 as saying Hebald was “without doubt the most important living figure sculptor.”[1] In Los Angeles, two of his bronze works were commissioned for the Adam’s sculpture garden surrounding the Stuart Ketchum YMCA, the “Olympiad” in tribute to the 1984 Olympics held in Los Angeles, and “Handstand”, depicting an acrobatic young boy which echos the “Y” logo.
RICHARD TUCKER SCULPTURE IN PARK BY LINCOLN CENTER
James Joyce sculpture in Zurich Anthony Burgess sculpture in Rome
Menorah Celebration at the ROOSEVELT ISLAND JEWISH CONGREGATION NINA LUBLIN AND ARLENE BESSENOFF WERE THE WINNERS
References Wikipedia/Wikimedia GOOGLE IMAGES NYC PARKS DEPARTMENT RIHS ARCHIVES
EDITORIAL
As a more frequent traveler than I am now, Pan Am was the airline that took me everywhere. Whether on a DC6, 707, or 747 Pan Am was the carrier of preference. I would go to the ticket office in the Pan Am building to get my ticket. The ticket office was a showplace of midcentury modern design.
At JFK the terminal never functioned well. It was too small and the additional wing that was built was a giant “U: shape. You would always end up in the wrong wing and walks were very long.
JudyB
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
The soon to be unveiled sculptures of FDR and young girl at the Hope Memorial in Southpoit Park Vicki Feinmel & Alexis Villefane 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)
MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK RIHS
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Bulova was founded and incorporated as the J. Bulova Company in 1875 by Bohemian immigrant Joseph Bulova. It was reincorporated under the name Bulova Watch Company in 1923, and became part of the Loews Corporation in 1979[and sold to Citizen at the end of 2007.
In 1912, Joseph Bulova launched his first plant dedicated entirely to the production of watches. Manufacturing watches at their factory in Biel (Switzerland), he began a standardized mass production new to watchmaking. In 1919, Bulova offered the first complete range of watches for women and men in 1924. The visual style of his first popular advertising made its watches popular with the American public. But beyond the original style, precision and technological research also became imperative for Bulova. In 1927, he set up an observatory on the roof of a skyscraper located at 580 5th Avenue to determine universal time precisely.
Bulova established its operations in Woodside, New York, and Flushing, New York, where it made innovations in watchmaking, and developed a number of watchmaking tools. Its horological innovations included the Accutron watch, which used a resonating tuning fork as a means of regulating the time-keeping function.
Bulova became a renowned watch company in 1923. Bulova produced the first advertisement broadcast on radio in 1926, announcing the first beep of history: ‘At the tone, it’s eight o’clock, Bulova Watch Time’, an announcement heard by millions of Americans. In 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh became the first solo pilot to cross the Atlantic nonstop. His crossing earned him a Bulova Watch and a check for $1000, and it became an emblem for the brand that created the model “Lone Eagle” in his likeness. Bulova claims to have been the first manufacturer to offer electric clocks beginning in 1931, but the Warren Telechron Company began selling electric clocks in 1912, 19 years prior to Bulova. In the 1930s and 1940s, the brand was a huge success with its rectangular plated watches whose case was strongly curved to better fit the curve of the wrist.
Women working in the pinion department of Bulova Watch circa 1937.
Bulova produced the world’s first television advertisement, on July 1, 1941 (the first day that commercial advertising was permitted on television), before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies over New York station WNBT (now WNBC). The announcement, for which the company paid anywhere from $4.00 (equivalent to $70 in 2019)[citation needed] to $9.00 (equivalent to $156 in 2019),[citation needed] displayed a WNBT test card modified to look like a clock with the hands showing the time. The Bulova logo, with the phrase “Bulova Time”, was shown in the lower right-hand quadrant of the test pattern while the second hand swept around the dial for one minute.[6][7]
In the 1940s, Bulova made a few examples of their complex four sided, five-dial per side “sports timer” analog game clock[8] for use in NHL pro ice hockey games and for the nascent NBA pro basketball league of that time. They were put in indoor sports arenas such as Boston Garden, Chicago Stadium and the Detroit Olympia. The last example was taken out of service in Chicago in 1976, all replaced by digital-display game timepieces.[9]
In 1945, Arde Bulova, Chairman of the Board, founded the Joseph Bulova School of Watchmaking to provide training for disabled veterans after the Second World War. The school later became a full-fledged rehabilitation facility, an advocate for disabled people nationwide, and one of the founders of wheelchair sports in the United States. The school closed in 1993.
In 1967, Bulova bought the Manufacture des Montres Universal Perret Frères SA at Geneva and sold it in December 1977. The factory in Biel was closed in 1983.
Address: 40-24 62nd Street Neighborhood: Woodside Architect: Perry, Shaw and Hepburn with C. M. Lobejager and William F. Leppin Year: 1948 Current Status: Extant Award: Bronze Plaque for Public Buildings Typology: Commercial Building
The J. Bulova Company was founded in 1875 in New York City as a maker of watches and clocks, becoming the largest watchmaker in the world. Subsequently, the Joseph Bulova School of Watchmaking was started in 1945 as a non-profit institution to provide training and rehabilitation for disabled World War II veterans, building a physical school just a few years later. The complex still exists on a narrow side street in Woodside. Design-wise the building uses elements of high style Georgian architecture and may have been an effort to associate the company to America’s past. The building incorporates an early use of a wheelchair ramp, which was an integral part of the design in order to allow disabled veterans to enter the building easily.
According to the history of Bulova, the school evolved into a full-fledged advocate for disabled people nationwide, and acted as one of the founders of wheelchair sports in America.
The school closed in 1993. Today the building houses the Church of Latter Day Saints.
Sources: Savitz, Harriett May. Wheelchair Champions: A History of Wheelchair Sports. iUniverse, 2006. Google books. 12 December 2014. books.google.com
Accutron Accutron Movement. The tuning fork prongs are around the two electromagnetic coils at the top of the watch, which drive it. Bulova’s “Accutron” watches, first sold in October 1960, use a 360 Hz tuning fork instead of a balance wheel as the timekeeping element.
The inventor, Max Hetzel, was born in Basel, Switzerland, and joined the Bulova Watch Company in 1948.[11] The tuning fork was powered by a one-transistor electronic oscillator circuit, so the Accutron qualifies as the second “electronic watch”, following the Hamilton Electric released in 1957. Instead of the ticking sound made by mechanical watches, the Accutron had a faint, high-pitched hum which came from the vibrating tuning fork. A forerunner of modern quartz watches which also keep time with a vibrating resonator, the Accutron was guaranteed to be accurate to one minute per month, or two seconds per day, considerably better than mechanical watches of the time. In 2020, Bulova relaunched the Accutron brand.
HALL OF BLACKWELL HOUSE JOAN BROOKS, NINA LUBLIN, JOAN BROOKS, VICKI FEINMEL WERE THE FIRST TO GET IT.
REMINDER: THE HOUSE IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
WEDNESDAY TO SUNDAY 11 A.M. TO 5 P.M. WATCH FOR DATES OF TOURS OF THE HOUSE WITH JUDY BERDY
BACK IN STOCK!! SHOP THE KIOSK WEEKENDS
Driving past the Bulova Building reminds me that buildings can be re-purposed and still be a lovely addition to the neighborhood. JudyB
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
WIKIPEDIA
GOOGLE IMAGES
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
From: EPHEMERAL NEW YORK /CHRONICLING AN EVER CHANGING CITY (C)
HOW NEW YORK BECAME A METROPOLIS OF STOOPS
December 7, 2020
New Yorkers can thank the Dutch settlers of the 17th century for the stoop (like this one near Columbus Avenue), arguably the city’s most iconic and beloved architectural feature.
Houses in Holland were built with a front stoop to keep parlor floors from flooding. When the early inhabitants of New Amsterdam built their dwellings, they kept the stoop—though they probably weren’t the grand and ornate staircases built two centuries later. (Below, Lower Manhattan stoops as they reportedly looked in the 1820s)
The stoop could have gone the way of wood-frame houses and corner tea water pumps in the developing metropolis. But stoops served another purpose after the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811—aka, the city street grid—went into effect.
The grid plan didn’t leave any space for alleys. Without a back door to a rowhouse accessed through an alley, servants and workers would enter and exit a residence using the same front stoop the owners used—which wasn’t too popular, at least with the owners.
But a tall stoop set back from the sidewalk allowed for a side door that led to the lower level of the house. While the owners continued to go up and down the stoop to get to the parlor floor (and see and be seen by their neighbors), everyone else was relegated to the side, according to Street Design: The Secrets to Great Cities and Towns. (This Turtle Bay brownstone, above, exemplifies the two-entrance distinction.)
And of course, as New York entered the Gilded Age of busy streets filled with dust, ash, refuse, and enormous piles of horse manure, a very high stoop helped keep all the filth from getting into the house. (See the two above and below, both on the Upper West Side, each with 11 stairs to the front door.)
As architectural styles changed, the New York City stoop changed as well. The short stoops on Federal Style houses from the early 19th century fell out of favor as brownstones, with their high, straight, ornate stoops—took over the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
In the late 19th century, with brownstones derided for their cookie-cutter design (and chocolate sludge appearance), Romanesque Revival styles gained favor. Architects created playful takeoffs of the typical stoop. The “dog-leg” stoop, which turns to the left or right halfway down the steps, was popular on the Upper West Side and in parts of Brooklyn (see the photo above and also at the top of the page).
On East End Avenue is a stoop that I’m calling a double stoop, which appears to serve two halves of a wide brick townhouse.
By the beginning of the 20th century, stoops were getting lopped off altogether in favor of a lower-level entrance requiring just a few steps up or down. A stoop was seen as old-fashioned, for starters. Also, it was easier for a landlord to carve up a brownstone into separate apartments without one, according to Andrew S. Dolkart, the director of the historic preservation program at Columbia University, via a 2012 New York Times article.
Stoops are back in style again, the Times article says. And why wouldn’t they be? Elegant or functional, original or rebuilt (as the stoop above probably was), with ironwork on the railings or without, stoops are the front seats in a neighborhood—sharable space where people gather, kids play, and communities grow. They’re symbols of New York, past and present.
[Second image: NYPL; third image: painting by William Chappel]
A WONDERFUL HAWK WHO SPENT AN HOUR ON MY NEIGHBOR’S TERRACE ON SATURDAY ED LICHTER CLARA BELLA ALEXIS VILLEFANE GUESSED HAWK
ANOTHER VIEW OF THE BACK OF OUR TERRACE HAWK. THE SAME AFTERNOON A FRIEND SPOTTED THIS HAWK ON THE HOOD OF A CAR AT COSTCO
CLARIFICATION WE ARE HAPPY TO GIVE WINNERS OF OUR DAILY PHOTO IDENTIFICATION A TRINKET FROM THE VISITOR CENTER. ONLY THE PERSON IDENTIFYING THE PHOTO FIRST WILL GET A PRIZE. WE HAVE A SPECIAL GROUP OF ITEMS TO CHOOSE FROM. WE CANNOT GIVE AWAY ALL OUR ITEMS,. PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMES, WE MUST LIMIT GIVE-AWAYS. THANK YOU
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 IMAGES COURTESY OF EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM PHOTOS BY JUDITH BERDY / RIHS (C) FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Joseph Rugolo, Mural of Sports, ca. 1937-1938, oil on linen, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Newark Museum, 1966.31.16
(Joseph Rugolo was one of the artists who painted murals at Goldwater Hospital)
Moses Soyer, Children at Play and Sport I, ca. 1938, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, 1974.89.2
Henry Chawner Shenton, Abraham Cooper, A Day’s Sport in the Highlands, 1845, engraving, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Nigel Cholmeley-Jones, 1967.54.28
Morris Kantor, Baseball at Night, 1934, oil on linen, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Morris Kantor, 1976.146.18
W. H. Martin, Great Sport Fishing Here, ca. 1910s, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Charles Isaacs and Carol Nigro, 2002.79.8
Mahonri Young, Right to the Jaw, 1926-1927, bronze, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mahonri Sharp Young, 1976.122.2 Mahonri Young was enthusiastic about sports throughout his childhood and often attended boxing matches with his younger brother, Wally. On a trip to Paris in 1926, Young began his popular Prizefighter series, which included Right to the Jaw. Sporting events and sports heroes were very popular in the American market during the 1920s, and Young’s prizefighters, which emphasized the excitement and glamour of boxing, brought him widespread recognition. “To me the problem has always been to animate the inert and lifeless material, whether bronze, stone, or wood, and to make it function like one of nature’s own creations.” Artist quoted in Thomas E. Toone, Mahonri Young: His Life and Art, 199.
Unidentified Photographer, Untitled (historical photograph, baseball team) from the Buffalo, New York Documentary Survey Project
Carl Newman, Abstract–Two Women with Tennis Racquets, drawing, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1967.63.134
Home Eye Level Pitch Perfect: On David Levinthal, Roberto Clemente, and Baseball An image of the author’s favorite player, Roberto Clemente, is currently featured in the David Levinthal exhibition at SAAM Anne on July 9, 2019 Blog author in front of the David Levinthal image of Roberto Clemente The author “fangirling” in front of David Levinthal’s photograph of legendary baseball player Roberto Clemente.
Baseball fans looking to see some of the sport’s all-time greats in action this All-Star Week don’t need to look any further than the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The exhibition American Myth & Memory: David Levinthal Photographs includes ten works from the artist’s Baseball series. In true Levinthal fashion, his subjects are not the fabled players themselves but rather their action figure doppelgangers. It is as if the artist has brought a Who’s Who of Starting Lineup figures to life. Levinthal’s signature approach is to photograph toys and figurines in such a way that they often appear to be the real thing. Obscuring their “toyness” is his use of selective and soft focus: one small area of the photograph is crystal clear while the rest of the image is intentionally blurred. Some of the photographs in the Baseball series replicate a player’s most iconic moment. There’s Babe Ruth’s called shot. Jackie Robinson stealing home. Hank Aaron hitting 715. In other instances, the image deftly captures a player’s essence. There’s Rickey Henderson, forearms resting on bent knees, about to steal another base. There’s Satchel Paige, posed and poised on the mound, about to deliver a pitch. And there’s Roberto Clemente, his legendary rocket arm propelled forward in mid-throw. I look at my work as a narrative that taps into each individual’s own memory. — David Levinthal In Clemente’s photograph, it is the glove on his left hand and the letters across the front of his jersey that have found the camera’s focus—a fitting choice for a twelve-time Gold Glove Award winner who played all eighteen of his major league seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates. When I look at this image of Clemente, I see much more than what can be found within the frame. A highlight reel of my childhood flashes through my mind. Levinthal’s work—its nostalgic subjects, its intentional blurriness—encourages the viewer to draw upon their own experiences and associations:
“I look at my work as a narrative that taps into each individual’s own memory,” the artist says. I grew up in a tiny town in western Pennsylvania during the 1980s. Baseball was my sport, the Pittsburgh Pirates was my team, and Roberto Clemente was my hero. For a kid whose parents encouraged her to always do her best, to stand up for what is right, and to help other people, Roberto was the embodiment of all that I hoped to be when I grew up. A fifteen-time All-Star, Clemente’s formidable skill in the outfield and the batter’s box was a perennial force in the league, yet his impressive stats don’t capture the unquantifiable talent and grace that he possessed as a ballplayer. Black and Puerto Rican, Clemente proudly embraced his cultural heritage and spoke out against the discrimination and xenophobia that he and his fellow players of color faced. Deeply committed to humanitarian efforts, he died at the age of thirty-eight in a plane crash on December 31, 1972, while delivering aid to victims of a massive earthquake in Nicaragua. Like other public figures who have departed long before their time, Roberto Clemente is timeless.
The other-worldly aura that infuses his legendary life adds an additional layer of meaning to the haziness that surrounds him in Levinthal’s image. I’m reminded of a line uttered by a mythological Babe Ruth to the young Benny “the Jet” Rodriguez in the 1993 classic baseball film The Sandlot: “Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.”
Paul Faulkner, Winter Sports (mural study, Kewaunee, Wisconsin Post Office), 1939, tempera on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, 1974.28.346
Thomas Höpker, Muhammad Ali, ca. 1970, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Kenneth B. Pearl, 1997.118.26
Next time you are in D.C. stop by the NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY and see the wonderful permanent exhibit “Champions.”
MANUFACTURER’ SIGNS FROM ORIGINAL TRAMS CLARA BELLA GLORIA HERMAN ALEXIS VILLEFANE HARA REISER ED LEICHTER ALL GOT IT EARLY
FREE COVID-19
TESTING
HOSPITAL WALK IN COVID-19 TESTING NYC HEALTH + HOSPITAL METROPOLITAN 1901 First Avenue, New York, NY 10029 at 97th Street call (844) 692-4692 9AM-3:30PM Daily Free Diagnostic Testing (Third-party Verified) Screening Required No appointment needed
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All materials in this publication are copyrighted (c)
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM (C) NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY (C)
MATERIAL COPYRIGHT WIKIPEDIA, GOOGLE RIHS ARCHIVES AND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION (C)
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Another famous architect on Roosevelt Island! Alexander Jackson Davis (1803–1892) is widely considered America’s greatest architect of the mid-nineteenth century. “Imaginative, innovative and influential, Alexander J. Davis was an extraordinary figure in American architecture…He introduced and developed new ideas and new forms while producing some of the finest buildings of his time,” writes Jane Davis in the introduction to the splendid volume, Alexander Jackson Davis, American Architect 1803-1892.
Davis’ work covers a broad range of fields – public buildings, universities, grand mansions, interiors and, perhaps his greatest love, gardens. And, back to our island, he and his partner, Ithiel Town, designed our Lunatic Asylum – our Octagon.
Born in New York City on July 24, 1803, the son of a bookseller and publisher of religious tracts who moved around the Northeast in search of a market for his works, Davis grew up in Newark and then the rapidly growing towns of Utica and Auburn in central New York State.
In these years, the US was booming. The purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 doubled the size of the new nation, and from 1800 to 1860, 17 new states joined the Union. In these years, millions of immigrants came from other countries. US population more than tripled from 1800 to 1850, from 7 million to 24 million. Our fiscal system remained chaotic and bank failures were not uncommon (in 1837, the country suffered a huge fiscal crisis). Issues of the future of slavery roiled politics, but there was a lot of money about and a new class of wealthy drove the emergence of a new American cultural life
Grace Hill for Edwin C. Litchfield, Brooklyn, New York (front elevation)1854
Alexander Jackson Davis American
Davis’ greatest Italianate villa, Grace Hill, is now the headquarters of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. The original stucco has been removed from the house, and many of the interior details, including the elaborately painted ceiling murals, have been lost. Davis also designed a coach house, greenhouse, and chicken house for the property, none of which are extant.
Proposal for Astor House (Park Hotel), New York (perspective)ca. 1830–34
Designed by Ithiel Town American
This drawing shows a design produced by A.J. Davis and Ithiel Town (as Town & Davis, 1829-1835) for the Astor House, the first luxury hotel in New York City envisioned by John Jacob Astor. Although Town & Davis’ imaginative study was very modern and quite spectacular, the actual commission went to Isaiah Rogers in 1834 and the hotel opened in 1836 as the Park Hotel. The south side of the building was demolished in 1913 to make way for the subway constructions, and the rest of the building was torn down in 1926.
Davis at 14 was sent to Alexandria, Virginia, to learn the printing trade in a half-brother’s newspaper office. When his apprenticeship was completed in 1823, he returned to New York City where he studied at the American Academy of the Fine Arts and other top art schools.
New York City was growing rapidly, with an 1820 population of 122,000, but it was still a pretty small community for artists. Young Davis knew many, including John Trumbull, Samuel F. B. Morse, and Rembrandt Peale. His friends advised him to concentrate on architectural drawing – and he went to work as a draftsman in 1826 for Josiah R. Brady, a New York architect who was an early exponent of the Gothic revival.
He was successful as an architectural illustrator and his drawings were widely published, but he soon moved on from drawing buildings (though his drafting skills remained central to his identity) to designing them. Davis set up a practice and his first executed design was a country house outside of New Haven, Connecticut for the poet James A. Hillhouse. His Greek Revival design piqued the interest of Ithiel Town, one of the premier architects of the time and the leading designer of Greek Revival style buildings. Davis joined the firm of Town and Martin E. Thompson and, in 1829, became a partner. Working with Town gave Davis, just 26, extraordinary opportunities. It brought him to the cutting edge of American architecture—Town was not only a leader in the Greek Revival style, he was also a respected engineer and enjoyed wide social contacts.
ABOVE: INDIANA CAPITOL BELOW: lLYNDHURST
BLACKWELL’S ISLAND ASYLUM PLAN AND RENDERING
In the six years he spent with Town, in what became the first recognizably modern architectural office, Davis developed into a brilliantly original designer. He designed many late Classical structures, including several well-known buildings in Washington DC. We recognize him because he and Pool were the architects of the Custom House of New York City (now known as Federal Hall, where in an earlier iteration George Washington was sworn in as our first president). Federal Hall is one of the best surviving examples of Greek Revival architecture in New York, and was the first purpose-built U.S. Custom House for the Port of New York.
After the Town-Davis firm submitted the winning design for the State of Indiana capitol building (modeled on the Parthenon except for a large central dome) and then completed it ahead of schedule, the firm was consulted on the design of several other state capitols –- North Carolina, Illinois and Ohio. Back in New York City, they designed the Greek Revival “Colonnade Row” on Lafayette Street, the first apartments designed for the prosperous American middle class, and built several iimportant New York churches and several impressive residences: Samuel Ward’s New York City house (1831-33) included an art gallery, pilasters and introduced columns in the townhouse doorways. “Glen Ellen,” a large country estate built for Robert Gilmor outside of Baltimore, Maryland, was an early indicator of Davis’ future career. Davis designed buildings for the University of Michigan in 1838, and in the 1840s he designed buildings for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At Virginia Military Institute, Davis’s designs from 1848 through the 1850s created the first entirely Gothic revival college campus.
Davis and Town also designed the Blackwell Island Lunatic asylum, though only some of which was ever built. More on this will come.
The partnership with Town was dissolved in 1835, and Davis worked without an architectural partner for the remainder of his career. In 1836, he began writing Rural Residences, the first American book about the design of country houses, illustrated with hand-colored lithographs that helped introduce the concepts of picturesque architecture to the United States. His many drawings and watercolors provide idealized documents of mid-nineteenth-century designed landscapes as they were built and imagined.
Because of the 1837 financial panic, only two of the proposed six parts of the book were issued. But in 1839, he joined with the influential landscape and architectural theorist A. J. Downing in a most important collaboration. Davis designed and drew illustrations for Downing’s widely read books, such as The Architecture of Country Houses (1850) and his journal, The Horticulturist. Together, they popularized the ideas and styles of the picturesque.
Yes, the same Downing who invited Frederick Chase Withers to come to the United States and became his partner (and brother-in-law), a partnership which included Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmstead. Talk about small worlds!
In the 1840s and ‘50s, Davis shone brightly as a designer for country houses. Over 100 of his designs for villas and cottages were built among which “Lyndhurst” at Tarrytown is the most famous. Davis developed two main types of residential structures: large, asymmetrical villas for wealthy clients and smaller rectangular cottages intended for clients of more modest means. Both types featured a veranda or porch wrapped around the building, which connected the house to its immediate surroundings, while his villas often incorporated “prospect towers” or “prospect rooms” that provided sweeping views of the landscapeFor some houses he drew interior details, and occasionally designed furniture. Many of his villas were built in the Hudson River Valley— and his style called Hudson River Bracketed gave Edith Wharton a title for her last novel — but Davis also sent plans and specifications to clients far away from New York. He was crucial in transforming the English idea of picturesque into an American Romanticism. Davis felt the English house style was too grand for the new republican nation, and insisted on the individualism of Americans by varying each house design to it landscape as well as owner’s tastes. His designs were instrumental in opening up the boxy American house form, and moved toward open floor plans. (Are we thinking Frank Lloyd Wright?) All of this was carried out as the Hudson River setting was being popularized and romanticized by the Hudson River School of artists – again the close connections in style and setting among these new America-focused artists and designers.
Dutch Reformed Church, Newburgh, NY
With the onset of Civil War in 1861, patronage in house building dried up, and after the war, new popular styles were unsympathetic to Davis’s work. He closed his office in 1878 and built little in the last thirty years of his life. Rather he spent his easy retirement in West Orange drawing plans for grandiose schemes that he never expected to build, and selecting and ordering his designs and papers
So what about the Lunatic Asylum?
This section is taken largely from the fine materials prepared by the RIHS (think Jude Berdy.) The Blackwell’s island Asylum was the first lunatic asylum for the city of New York and the first municipal mental hospital in the country as well as the first in what later became a larger system of New York City Asylums comprised of hospitals on Blackwell’s, Ward’s, and more briefly Hart’s and Randall’s Islands. Up to 1825, the city’s insane were either kept in the city almshouse or at the Bloomingdale Asylum. In 1825 the insane of the city were moved to the basement and first floor of a building built as a General Hospital on Blackwell’s Island. Here the mentally ill remained in conditions described by the very commissioners in charge of the hospital as “a miserable refuge for their trial, undeserving of the name Asylum, in these enlightened days”.
Only in 1834 did the city approve the construction of a separate institution for the insane on the island. Designs for the Asylum were prepared by Davis and Town in 1834-35, and the building was opened in 1839. Their plans called for a much more elaborate scheme than was actually built; the Octagon was to have been one of a pair within a great U-shaped complex, ordered around a central rectangular pavilion. As built, the single Octagon, from which two long wings extended, became the focal point of the building.
North Carolina Hospital for the Insane
The architectural historian, Talbot Hamlin, has praised Davis’ “consistent feeling for logical planning.” The original symmetrical plan for the Asylum took into account efficient supervision of patients, ease of circulation and ample provision for good lighting and ventilation in the wards. Davis’ plan was a variant of the influential “panoptic plan,” which was centralized with radiating wings, developed in Great Britain by Jeremy Bentham (1742-1832), a philosopher and jurist interested in prison reform. While only a portion of Davis’ original proposal for the Lunatic Asylum was actually built, the plan still functioned very effectively. Davis’ New York City Asylum project was also significant in that it served as the prototype for his North Carolina Hospital for the Insane at Raleigh.
Dr. R.L. Parsons, Resident Physician of the Lunatic Asylum during the 1860s, remarked in his annual report of 1865 that the Octagon “has a symmetry, a beauty and a grandeur even, that are to be admired.” These qualities are still in evidence, not only to the visitor to Roosevelt Island, but also from Manhattan where the picturesque silhouette of the Octagon is a prominent feature of the island’s skyline.
Did you guess them?Trestle Bridge, Roosevelt Island Bridge London Tower Bridge, Pont Neuf, Paris Bow Bridge, Central Park., Hellgate Bridge, New York
References Wikipedia https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/davs/hd_davs.htm https://tclf.org/pioneer/alexander-jackson-davis https://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php/Alexander_Jackson_Davis http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/nyhs/davis/bioghist.html https://rihs.us/landmarks/octagon.htm Amelia Peck, ed., Alexander Jackson Davis, American Architect 1803-1892
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
THE THIRD EAST RIVER BRIDGE WAS MALIGNED AND IGNORED UNTIL WILLIAMSBURG BECAME MECCA.
Williamsburg Bridge
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carries 8 lanes of roadway, 2 tracks of the “J” train”M” train”Z” train trains of the New York City Subway, pedestrians, and bicycles Crosses East River Locale Manhattan and Brooklyn, New York City Maintained by New York City Department of Transportation
Characteristics Suspension bridge and truss causeways Total length 7,308 feet (2,227 m) Width 118 feet (36 m) Longest span 1,600 feet (490 m) Clearance above 10 feet 6 inches (3.2 m) (inner roadways only) Clearance below 135 feet (41 m) at mean high water
History Architect Henry Hornbostel Designer Leffert L. Buck Opened December 19, 1903; 116 years ago Statistics Daily traffic 105,465 (2016)
Completed in 1903, it was the longest suspension bridge span in the world until 1924. The bridge is one of four toll-free vehicular bridges connecting Manhattan Island and Long Island. The others are the Queensboro Bridge to the north, and the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges to the south. The Williamsburg Bridge once carried New York State Route 27A
CONSTRUCTION
Construction on what was then known as the “East River Bridge”, the second to span it, began in 1896 after approval by the Governor of New York on May 27, 1895. The new bridge was to be built north of the Grand Street Ferry, terminating at Delancey and Clinton Streets on the Manhattan side and at South Fifth Street and Driggs Avenue on the Brooklyn side. Leffert L. Buck was the chief engineer, Henry Hornbostel was the architect, and Holton D. Robinson was the assistant engineer.
Engineers first constructed caissons on either side to support the future bridge] The caisson on the Manhattan side was completed in May 1897,upon which time the caisson on the Brooklyn side was launched. The caissons were manufactured in a shipyard in Williamsburg. In January 1898, Mayor Robert Anderson Van Wyck removed the members of the East River Bridge Commission due to “charges of extravagance”.[ A commission of six people appointed by the state was proposed, but the bill was rejected.
As part of the Williamsburg Bridge’s construction, the section of Delancey Street between the bridge’s western end and the Bowery was widened. The portion of Spring Street between the Bowery and Lafayette Street was also expanded. This was the third plan for the bridge’s western approaches that was publicly announced. Public opposition had caused the cancellation of previous proposals, which included a wide street extending from the end of the bridge to either Cooper Square or the intersection of Houston Street and Second Avenue.[To accommodate the bridge’s approaches, 600 houses were demolished in total, including 330 on the Manhattan side and 270 on the Brooklyn side. More than 10,000 people were evicted from these houses during construction.
The bridge’s supporting wires were ready to be installed by February 1901.The first temporary wires between the East River Bridge’s two towers were strung on April 9, 1901. They were to be replaced later with permanent 18 3⁄4-inch-thick (48 cm) main cables made up of 7,696 smaller cables twisted together.[ The pair were fully strung by April 16, and work on the bridge’s pedestrian deck begun soon afterward.] The pedestrian path on the East River Bridge was completed in June 1901.] Afterward, construction progressed at a fast pace, owing to the ease of manufacturing the steel.Ornamental lights were also placed on the bridge .[The East River Bridge was renamed the “Williamsburg Bridge”, after its Brooklyn terminus,
In 1902
The bridge was damaged by fire while under construction in 1902There were several deaths during construction, including a worker who fell from the Manhattan approach in May 1900;[the main steelwork engineer, who fell from the Brooklyn approach in September 1900; and a foreman who drowned in March 1902Additionally, a fire occurred on the Brooklyn side’s tower in November 1902, which nearly severed the bridge’s cables. The bridge opened on December 19, 1903, at a cost of $24.2 million ($624 million in 2016).[At the time it was the longest suspension bridge span in the world, and remained so until the opening of the Bear Mountain Bridge in 1924.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVE FRIEDER (C) New Orthotropic Deck was being installed
Rebuilding the Bridge During the 1990’s, the DOT invested more than $600 million in the Williamsburg Bridge. In 1991, the DOT began a major rehabilitation of the Williamsburg Bridge. The program was designed to undo the effects of age, weather, increased traffic volumes and deferred maintenance and prepare the bridge for another 100 years of service to the City of New York.
Completed projects have
rehabilitated the main cables; reconstructed the south roadways; reconstructed the BMT Transit Structure between the Manhattan and Brooklyn approaches; reconstructed the North roadways. Now that the DOT has completed work on Contract #7, all of the bridges supports and roadways, walkways and subway tracks have been completely rebuilt. For the City of New York and the many users who drive, walk or ride across the bridge every day, a major component of the New York City infrastructure has been preserved for future generations.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVE FRIEDER (C)
Painting contract
Our adventurous friend Dave Frieder has published a wonderful book of his spectacular bridge photographs. This beautiful edition is a wonderful gift for New York (and New Jersey) admirers. For more information go to davefrieder.com
FRIDAY PHOTOS OF THE DAY
CHECK OUR RIVERCROSS WINDOW DISPLAY. BUILDING BRIDGES IS REAL FUN! CAN YOU IDENTIFY EACH OF THE 6 BRIDGES?
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
FDNY TRAINING SCHOOL ON WELFARE ISLAND LOCATED JUST NORTH OF NOW MOTORGATE CLOSED IN 1970 AND RELOCATED TO WARD’ ISLAND NINA LUBLIN GOT IT FIRST JAY JACOBSON GOT IT NEXT
EDITORIAL
Yesterday, I finished climbing thru the Rivercross Display window putting the final touches on our holiday display. Our great friend Melanie Colter was the great train display engineer. We have all kinds of goodies hidden in the scenery. We have everything to make kids happy in the window. The fun thing of standing inside, is watching little kids see the trains and bridges. Can they find the three owls? We have all kinds of gifts for everyone at the visitor center. We have gloves for kids and adults, goodies for all and even NYC themed face masks. WE NEED A BIG CHEERFUL SAFE HOLIDAY. STOP BY THE KIOSK AND DO YOUR HOLIDAY SHOPPING WITH US!!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS
Judy Berdy Bill, Jon. Ellen, Barbara- The Kiosk Staff
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 Roosevelt Island Historical SocietyMATERIALS USED FROM:
GOOGLE IMAGES
DAVE FRIEDER NYC DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION WIKIPEDIA
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
While riding by this corner of Forest Park in Queens, this building stands out. What is it? Our friends at UNTAPPED New York answered our question. Story by Jeff Reuben (c).
Spread across the five boroughs of New York City, the Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations stand in City parks as reminders of the City’s efforts decades ago to improve the efficiency of its fire fighting system. They are architecturally distinctive buildings set in bucolic park settings, with minimal signage to indicate their purpose.
During the 1910s and ’20s, the Fire Department of New York built Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, to serve as central dispatching offices. Unlike firehouses and the Fire Headquarters, they were deliberately placed in isolated park sites, so as to minimize the risk that fires from neighboring buildings could endanger. It also provided space for freestanding radio towers.
Reflecting the City Beautiful Movement of that era, which emphasized that public buildings should not only be functional but also should enhance the visual character of their surroundings, New York’s Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations could easily be mistaken for being cultural or educational buildings.
But, the Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations were built to save lives first and be beautiful second. Plans for the first three facilities were approved in 1912, just a year after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire killed 146. McClure’s magazine declared in December 1911 that “the New York fire-alarm system is the worst in the United States.”
Manhattan Fire Alarm Telegraph Station In Manhattan,
The Fire Alarm Telegraph Station was placed hard up against the 79th Street Transverse Road that cuts through Central Park in a trench. Even though this low-slung one-story building is hidden from the view of most park visitors, it was designed in an English Gothic style with a stone facade to be compatible with other structures and buildings in the park, including Belvedere Castle which is located nearby. The Manhattan station was designed by Morgan & Trainer architects, who also created several firehouses across the city. The emphasis on architectural quality was not only for the exterior; the plans also included Guastavino tile for the vaulted ceiling of the instrument room.
Bronx Fire Alarm Telegraph Station
The Bronx and Brooklyn Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations, which are virtually identical in appearance, are Italian Renaissance Revival style buildings featuring a triple-arch entry loggia and a red tile hip roof. They were designed by Frank J. Helmle, an architect responsible for many buildings in Brooklyn including the Prospect Park Boathouse.
The Bronx station is located at the southeastern corner of Bronx Park, near the Bronx Zoo, while the Brooklyn station is located on parkland adjoining the Botanic Garden. Both are set back slightly from the street with lawns, creating stately settings along major urban thoroughfares. The Brooklyn station is a NYC Landmark (designated 1966), but its Bronx twin is not.
Queens Fire Alarm Telegraph Station
Following the opening of the three original Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations, a Queens Fire Alarm Telegraph Station in Forest Park was built and started operating in 1928. It sits prominently on a grassy knoll facing Woodhaven Boulevard and Park Lane South with a grove of trees rising behind it. The one-story station features an octagon-shaped central section with arch windows and a hip roof crowned by a cupola. There are flanking wings with limestone framed entrances. Curiously, this impressive building, incorporating Beaux-Arts and neo-Georgian design elements, is attributed to John R. Sliney, the Fire Department’s Building Inspector. Any architect who assisted Sliney is unrecorded.
The placing of the Fire Alarm Telegraph Stations in parks was not without controversy. For example, after widespread opposition, original plans to put the Bronx station near a playground in Crotona Park were dropped and the Bronx Park site was selected instead.
Staten Island Fire Communications Center
Staten Island did not get a dedicated facility of this type until 1962, when the island’s fire communications center moved from Borough Hall to a new building in Clove Lakes Park. Apart from the adjoining 200-foot tall radio tower, it’s easy to miss and lacks the architectural character of the earlier Fire Alarm Telegraph stations. Reflecting the Cold War times it was built in, the Staten Island facility was designed to withstand an atomic bomb attack, “except in case of direct hit or near miss,” the New York Times reported. It was built with a 35-foot below-ground bunker capable of operating for up to two weeks after an atomic bomb attack.
ARM OF STATUE OF LIBERTY PLACED IN MADISON SQUARE PARK AS A FUND RAISER TO BUILD BASE ON LIBERTY ISLAND Susan Lees and Lisa Fernandez guessed correctly
LETTER FROM A READER
Oh hello Ms. Berdy, thank you for the reply! I share your wonderful Editions with a colleague of mine who is in charge of our Greenacre Library at MAS (Erin Butler) and I was actually trying to tell her that you mentioned us! But please let me take this opportunity to tell you (and all involved) that your RIHS Editions have helped me thru these very difficult times we are all going thru, especially the first three months! It is something I look forward to reading every day, something that is so very interesting, beautiful, varied, and often featuring my favorite subject, Art (and in so many different forms!). It is just AMAZING that you have been able to put this out EVERY day!! Again, my thanks to you and all involved. Sincerely, Maia p.s. Lovely kitties today!
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)
UNTAPPED NEW YORK (C)
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
