CORRECTION THE CORRECT WEBSITE FOR RON CRAWFORD ART IS: RONCRAWFORDART.COM
THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2020
The
88th Edition
From Our Archives
PENNY POSTCARDS
Remembering RKB
THIS SUMMER HAVE SOME FUN WITH YOUR FRIENDS AND SEND THEM A POSTCARD FROM HOME!
Even before the bridge was complete images of it were being sent.
WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Howard and Ellen Polivy with volunteer clearing debris in Blackwell Park
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
SEND YOUR ENTRY TO JBIRD134@AOL.COM WIN A TRINKET FROM THE KIOSK
REMEMBERING RKB
Judy, Alan, Ruth and Ranyee celebrating Ruth’s birthday with Elle’s great Orange Cake.
Tuesday was the 8th anniversary of my mother’s passing. For the last three years of her life she shared my apartment with me in Rivercross.
My mother was Hunter College graduate who majored in math and statistics, a talent I did not inherit. She worked for a few years and married my dad in 1941. She was the perfect wife, mother, homemaker, mostly taking great care of her family and had great patience with us. She was a great reader and for many years enjoyed sewing and needlepoint. This was so typical of her generation.
My dad was much more of a salesman and outgoing personality. He loved travel, meeting people and going and doing. My mom enjoyed this life and if there was a difference we did not hear it.
In 2002 my dad passed and a few years later we (my brother Alan) and I realized she did not need her large 3 bedroom apartment. We moved her to a smaller unit in her Upper East Side building. The apartment was not a perfect fit and soon it became evident that her daughter would make room for her in her studio apartment.
We made it work by building a bedroom. Ruth suddenly discovered many of my neighbors and people I knew on the island. She would accompany me to meetings and trips outside. She would come to the kiosk and loved sitting outside and watching the passing crowd.
As time passed her legs failed more and more. We managed with some aides and more personal attention.
I see my neighbors leaving the community to live with their families. Sometimes this is great and other times it is an isolating experience. There is no simple answer.
I am sure she enjoyed her communal life on Roosevelt Island in her last 3 years. It was fun having her with me all it meant to both of us.
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
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Since most of us will be traveling around the world from our backyard this summer, enjoy Ron Crawford’ delightful images of some our favorite destinations.
Your Flight is now departing, take off your shoes, and we are boarding your flight of fancy.
CUBA – OLD CADDY
Ron Crawford Bio
As a documentary film cameraman, Ron realized he could combine his drawing talent with filmmaking and he became an animator. For many years he sparked the three seconds at the end of TV commercials, flipped station call letters or exploded galaxies for science show openings. Suddenly his next career choice became artist and actor and between Broadway and black box theater in New York City he has his pencil ready for that scene that will compel him to commit to paper; or brush to canvas.
Importantly for Ron, none of the works here are commissioned, they are all a matter of impulse. Everyday scenes with moving vibrant people that capture a moment. A quick drawing can then turn into a colorful completed work, requiring many hours of precision computer time inspired by a sketch that took perhaps minutes in a crowded city and a tight schedule.
What is this and where is it located E-mail jbird134@aol.com Win a trinket from Kiosk
TUESDAY’S PHOTO OF THE DAY
THE OVAL ROOM AT THE CHAPEL OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD
EDITORIAL
We may not be venturing far this summer. Think of the island as a tourist would. Where else can you find:
A HIGH FLYING CABLE CAR FRIENDLY STAFF THAT OFFERS ADVISE AND DIRECTIONS A LIGHTHOUSE REMAINS THAT ARE NOT AS OLD AS ROMAN ONES A PANORAMIC VIEW OF A GREAT CITY SOME DINING SPOTS THAT DO NOT CHARGE YOU EXTRA TO DINE OUTSIDE A FARMHOUSE THAT DOES NOT HAVE CREEKING FLOORS FRIENDLY ISLANDERS A SIGHT OF THE RESIDENTS AT THE STREET MARKET EVERY SATURDAY KIDS RUNNING AROUND FUNNY BUSES THAT GO AROUND AND AROUND PLENTY OF PLACES TO SIT IF YOUR FEET HURT A CHARMING ALCOVE WITH AN ART PIECE IN THE CENTER A FREE ART GALLERY
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 RON CRAWFORD (C) FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPORE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Included in this Issue: STATEN ISLAND ALICE AUSTEN PHOTOGRAPHER
Alice in June,1888-Photograph by Oswald Muller
Biography
Austen’s father abandoned the family before she was born, and she was baptized under the name Elizabeth Alice Munn on May 23, 1866, in St. John’s Church on Staten Island. She never used the name Munn and would initial her negatives with “EAA” for Elizabeth Alice Austen. With no household income and no husband, Alice’s mother moved back to her own parent’s home, which was known as Clear Comfort. Alice was the only child in the household, which now consisted of: Alice’s mother, Alice Cornell Austen (1836-?); Alice’s maternal grandparents, John Haggerty Austen (c1810–1894) and Elizabeth Alice Townsend (c1810s–1887). Also in the house were her mother’s siblings: Peter Austen, who was a chemistry professor at Rutgers University; and Mary Austen (1840-?) aka Minnie Austen, who was married to Oswald Müller (1840–?) who was the owner of a shipping company. Oswald was born in Denmark. Clear Comfort Austen in a June 1888 photograph by Oswald Müller
The house was built in the 17th century, but was expanded during the 19th century by Alice’s grandparents: John Haggerty Austen; and Elizabeth Alice Townsend. Clear Comfort was dedicated as a National Historic Landmark on April 8, 1976, one month after the 110th anniversary of Alice’s birth. It is also known as “Alice Austen House” and is located in the Rosebank neighborhood.(Wikipedia)
Photography
Austen became interested in photography when her uncle, Oswald Müller, brought home a camera around 1876.[5] Alice’s uncle Peter Townsend Austen was a chemistry professor at Rutgers who taught her photographic processing. Peter and Oswald converted a closet on the second floor into Alice’s darkroom. The earliest extant photograph by her is dated 1884. Over the next 40 years she produced around 8,000 photographs. Austen’s subject was daily life of the people of New York. She documented upper middle-class society on Staten Island and lower-class people living in New York’s Lower East Side. Her images of immigrants showed “a hesitancy and curiosity experienced by both photographer and subject.
Gertrude Amelia Tate
In 1899 Austen met Gertrude Amelia Tate (1871–1962), a kindergarten teacher and dancing instructor of Brooklyn, New York. She became Austen’s lifelong romantic partner. Gertrude visited Alice regularly and they spent holidays together in Europe. She moved in with Alice at Clear Comfort in 1917, overriding her family’s objection over her “wrong devotion” to Alice. They stayed together until, after the Stock Market Crash when they struggled to get by, Gertrude’s family offered housing to Gertrude, and only her, in 1950. They wished to be buried together, but their families refused this wish.
Photo Above “Playing Cards in the Austen Parlor, 1892
The Public Health Service doctor who asked Alice to record the quarantine procedures and equipment poses with his son on the Wadsworth.
Decline
Austen lived off the interest from the money left by her grandfather but the principal was lost in the Wall Street Crash of 1929. In 1920 Austen is listed in the Social Register of New York and was a member of the Colony Club of New York. By age 63, she had no income. She began to sell off her silver, art works, and furniture to get enough money to buy food and fuel. She then took out a mortgage on the house which was taken by the bank in 1945. She sold her remaining possessions for $600 to a second-hand dealer from New Jersey and called her friend Loring McMillen from the Staten Island Historical Society to take the photos. He stored them at the Third County Courthouse in Richmondtown.
She then moved to an apartment, then a nursing home. On June 24, 1950, she was declared a pauper and was admitted to New York City Farm Colony, Staten Island’s poorhouse. Rediscovery In 1950 Picture Press started a project on the history of American women and contacted archives for unpublished images.
C. Copes Brinley of the Staten Island Historical Society had 3,500 extant, uncatalogued Austen glass plate negatives of the roughly 8,000 she took.In October 1950, Constance Foulk Robert met with Brinley and McMillen to look at the negatives. Oliver Jensen came along on the next trip and he published several of the photos in his book Revolt of Women. He also wrote an eight-page story in Life magazine, and published six-pages of travel photos in Holiday magazine. The publications raised more than $4,000 for Austen and she was able to move out of the Farm Colony and into a private nursing home.
On October 9, 1951 Austen was the guest of honor at the first Alice Austen Day. She said: “I am happy that what was once so much pleasure for me turns out now to be a pleasure for other people.”
Austen continued to be supported by the Staten Island Historical Society and lived the next eight months in the nursing home, where she died on June 9, 1952.
The Society arranged for her funeral and she was buried in the Austen family plot in the Moravian Cemetery at New Dorp, Staten Island.[2] The Alice Austen Collection The Staten Island Historical Society at Historic Richmond Town claims it owns over 7,000 original items (glass plate negatives, film base negatives, and original prints) by Austen, but they do not retain the right to license images in their collection.
This collection is cataloged, digitized, and stored in an archival manner at Historic Richmond Town. The collection is available for study by appointment and high-quality images are made available upon request.The Alice Austen House Museum also has a collection of photographs, with about 300 on display in the resource room, which is open to the public.
Photo above Clear Comfort Bedroom
Alice and lifelong companion Gertrude Tate. Alice is seated on latter photo
FOR MORE ALICE AUSTEN PHOTOS PLEASE SEE ALICE AUSTEN.ORG
WHAT AND WHERE IS THIS? Send your submission to JBIRD134@AOL.COM Win a trinket from the RIHS Visitor Center Kiosk
MONDAY’S PHOTO OF THE DAY
“BLACKWELL’S ISLAND” Edward Hopper, 1928. View or Welfare Island from about 82 Street in Manhattan. Dome is the top of the Octagon, then the Metropolitan Hospital.
EDITORIAL
Just in case you did not hear, today is Democratic Party Primary Election Day. All islanders now vote at PS/IS 217 from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
IF YOU HAVE AN ABSENTEE BALLOT, BRING IT TO THE POLL SITE TO HAND IT IN.
Judith Berdy
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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 FUNDING PROVIDED BY: ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION THRU PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDING
CITY COUNCIL MEMBER BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDS THRU DYCD
REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION (C) THE ROOSEVELT ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY (C) WIKIPEDIA (C) STATEN ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY (C) ALICE AUSTEN HOUSE MUSEUM (C)
Miller’s new map of the city of New-York. New York City map Covers New York City (Manhattan) south of 132nd Street. Shows 1-mile radial distances from City Hall. Also covers part of Brooklyn (N.Y.), Jersey City (N.J.), and Hoboken (N.J.). Title from cover. Oriented with north toward the upper right. Hand colored to distinguish city wards (numbered) and adjacent municipalities. “Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by Humphrey Phelps.
MAP Topographical map of the city and county of New-York, and the adjacent country : with views in the border of the principal buildings, and interesting scenery of the island. Relief shown by hachures. Shows wards, physical features, and various places of interest. “Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1836 by J.H. Colton & Co. in the Clerks Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.” Does not show Madison Square. Oriented with north towards the upper right. LC Ward maps, 155 Cohen, P.E. Manhattan in maps,…
MAP Miller’s new map of the city of New-York. New York City map Covers New York City (Manhattan) south of 132nd Street. Shows 1-mile radial distances from City Hall. Also covers part of Brooklyn (N.Y.), Jersey City (N.J.), and Hoboken (N.J.). Title from cover. Oriented with north toward the upper right. Hand colored to distinguish city wards (numbered) and adjacent municipalities. “Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by Humphrey Phelps, in the Clerk’s… Contributor: Miller, James – Fillmore, Millard – Phelps, Humphrey Date: 1862
BLACKWELL’S ISLAND COLLECTION OF NYPL (C)
The Island from South to North 1970 in a State of Abandonment Comparing to Today’s Island
2020 Map Copyright RIHS (c)
From South to North: Smallpox Hospital with Brennan Hall on the East side of the building On west side Nurses residence On fare east side Strecker Laboratory City Hospital on north part stretching entire width of island Note: The island ended just south of the Smallpox Hospital and the debris is landfill
Goldwater Memorial Hospital with City Hospital on south end of the island.
A peek at the Central Nurses Residence with its driveway. In the trees to the north is Blackwell House abandoned for over 15 years.
Chapel of the Good Shepard is recognizable with the since demolished Good Samaritan German Lutheran Church. The other buildings were part of the City Home.
The “H” shaped Neurological Hospital sits where P.S. 217 is now situated.
The Welfare Island Bridge leads to the West Road. The Neurological Hospital is to the south and mostly hidden in the greenery as is the old firehouse. On the north side is the FDNY Training School with its red fire engines.
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Identify and locate this. Send your answer to jbird134@aol.com Win a trinket from the RIHS kiosk.
WEEKEND MYSTERY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Chapel of the Holy Spirit later known as Dayspring Church, now The Sanctuary
EDITORIAL
We are back to “normal” today. I will have a long needed haircut!!! We will have completed 9 long days of early voting, working every day on East 75th Street. After Monday off, our team will be back at PS 217 on Tuesday for primary voting from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Forgive me, if the winners of our photo identifications have not been up-to-date. It is hard to keep up on work days.
Back to near normal later this week!!!! AND EATING OUTSIDE NISI!!!!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All materials in this publication are copyrighted (c)
MATERIAL COPYRIGHT WIKIPEDIA, GOOGLE IMAGES, 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
The nation’s first nursing school based on Florence Nightingale’s principles, the Training School for Nurses, opened at Bellevue in 1873. Sister Helen Bowdin of the All Saints Sisterhood in London was the first Superintendent. In 1952, the administration of the Bellevue Schools of Nursing and the Bellevue Hospital Nursing Service was split for the first time with Associate Directors. In 1954, the school moved to the new building that is Hunter-Bellevue’s current location and enrolled in the National Student Nurses’ Association. In 1967, an agreement with Hunter College was reached to transfer the Bellevue facilities to Hunter. In 1969, the final students in the diploma program were graduated.Hunter began educating nurses in 1943 and admitted the first enrollees in the Basic Collegiate Nursing Program leading to a Bachelor of Science (Nursing) degree in 1955 and to the graduate program leading to a Master of Science (Nursing) in 1961. The Hunter College Department of Nursing then expanded and moved to the facilities of the Bellevue Hospital School of Nursing in 1969 as the latter program was absorbed by Hunter Department of Nursing.[3] From June 1974 until it became independent again in 2008, Hunter-Bellevue Nursing School was part of the Division of the Schools of the Health Professions of Hunter College.(Wikipedia)
When researching this article I could not locate information on Alfred Hopkins Architects. Luckily, I located a NY Times article about the opening of the bailing in 1956. The architects were La Pierre, Litchfield and Partners a firm that succeeded Hopkins Architects. The Times describes the building as costing $14,000,000 and was built to attract more persons to the nursing field. The main 13 story building features 517 dormitory rooms. recreational facilities including 2 gyms, pool, tennis courts, shuffleboard and permanent bleachers. in one wing. The east wing has facilities for 200 male students. A large circular dining room overlooks the East River. There are ultra-modern amphi-theaters for teaching. The school was founded in 1873 as the Mills School for Male Nurses, Now both schools are combined for academic works. Bellevue merged the school with Hunter College in 1966 and the campus is now known as Brookdale. The architecture and design of this campus are a combination of mid-century modern with some art deco. It’s worth a trip to far East 26th Street. Unfortunately, Hunter would like to demolish this wonderful building for a Sanitation Garage and relocate the school to East 74th Street.
Above: Student mailboxes and library
Swimming pool which is shared with community.
One of two gyms.
Auditorium tans seats over 400 persons with round lighting patterns.
A marble staircase leading to lower level, something to steep and dangerous to build today, but looks great
Dining room for hundreds overlooking FDR Drive
Dining Room is spectacular though it lost its view to Waterside Apartments.
The School Today
The Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing is located at Hunter College’s Brookdale Health Science Center at 425 East 25th Street in Manhattan, near Bellevue Hospital. The School’s programs combine liberal and professional education with a humanistic and comprehensive approach to health care. The School’s mission is to provide quality nursing education to promote health and provide care to culturally diverse, urban, and global communities through research, scholarship, and service. The School’s programs combine liberal and professional education with a humanistic and comprehensive approach to health care. The School offers accredited programs leading to the Master of Science (MS) and the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degrees. The School also offers a post-Master’s advanced certificate program. Graduates meet the educational requirements for national board certification in their specialties. In addition, a PhD program in Nursing is offered by the City University of New York Graduate Center in conjunction with Hunter College, Lehman College, and The College of Staten Island.
WEEKEND PHOTO Can you identify this object and location? Send you response to jbird134@aol.com Winner gets a trinket from kiosk.
FRIDAY IMAGE OF THE DAY
North Wing of Metropolitan Hospital
EDITORIAL
This is an important week. Time to early vote for the primary election. Some news:
The only party having a Primary are the DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Our Primary EARLY VOTING SITE IS AT 440 EAST 26 STREET
FROM TODAY UNTIL SUNDAY. SATURDAY AND SUNDAY 10 A.M. TO 4 P.M.
REGULAR VOTING IS TUESDAY, JUNE 23 AT P.S./I.S. 217 6 A.M. TO 9 P.M.
Funding Provided by: Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation Public Purpose Funds Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD 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 PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C) ALL PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
Adapted from A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN article on this railway
Just 55 years after the American Revolution New York City was ready for mass transportation. On April 25, 1831 it granted the first street railway franchise to the New York and Harlem Railroad Company. The franchise concept allowed independent companies to operate street cars on specific streets in exchange for maintaining the pavement between and adjacent to the tracks. The city also received a percentage of the firms’ income. The Third Avenue Railroad Company was granted a franchise on December 18, 1852.
The horse-drawn cars began operating around six months later, on July 3. The company was instantly successful. A year after taking on its first passenger, the company’s line was extended to 86th Street. By 1859 the route ran to Harlem, terminating around 129th Street. The astounding success and growth of the company necessitated a “car barn” where the street cars could be maintained and housed and the teams of horses could be stabled. The car barn was completed in 1861—a cutting-edge explosion of French Second Empire architecture. The style would not gain popularity in the United States for a few years, but the car barn introduced it with gusto.
Providing a block-long expanse of floor space for maintenance and stables, it housed the company’s offices on the second floor. Looking more like a railroad depot than a maintenance shed, it sprouted tiled mansard towers, ornamented dormers and spiky cast iron roof cresting. The iconic Victorian structure would be closely mirrored a century and a half later in Disney World’s pseudo-Victorian railway station.
There had been a problem with Chicago’s system. If a cable snapped, the entire system went down. The Third Avenue Railway Company stepped around the problem by laying two cables—if one broke the other could quickly be engaged. Although many of the company’s employees were dissatisfied with the new system—it eliminated the jobs of some stable boys and the increased capacity of the new cable cars meant fewer drivers—the firm realized nearly 30 percent savings. For one thing, the life span of a car horse was only about five years, thereby requiring consistent replacement. The public was elated, as well. Reduced stable odors, horse manure on the streets and lessened damage to pavement by horse hooves were all welcomed side effects.
After 1872 the massive building stretched back to 2nd Avenue — from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
The Railway used cable cars as well as horse-drawn streetcars until 1899 when the company switched over to electric-powered trolleys. The New York Times reported on October 21 “The Third Avenue cable…will terminate its career about 3:30 o’clock to-morrow morning.
The traffic on that stretch of road will be stopped for six or seven hours, and when it starts again, sub-trolley cars will have taken the place of the cable cars. The cable ropes will be piled up on Third Avenue, and probably sold for old metal.”
A writer to The New York Times a month later celebrated the passing of the horse-drawn cars. “Of course, the first thought of every humane patron of the line is to present his congratulations to the Third Avenue car horse on being extinct…In equine days the Third Avenue car horse was the equine analogue of the yellow dog, that is to say, the lowest of his kind.” But while he was happy with the replacement of the horse with electricity, the writer was not as pleased with the accommodations of the new trolleys. He found the 32-inch wide seats too confining.
“There was once a famous glutton who observed that a turkey, though very good eating, was an inconvenient bird, being a little too much for one and not quite enough for two. One need not be a glutton to find that true of the seats in the new cars…Two stout passengers who are doomed to occupy one of these seats in common glare at each other’s unfair proportions with unconcealed, and, in the case of beamy and candid female passengers, with articulately expressed disgust.”
By now Schribner’s magazine deemed the Third Avenue Railway Company “the richest street railway corporation” in the nation. But the expenses of electrification and route extension took its toll. The company failed on February 28, 1900 and was put into receivership. A cost-savings initiative was put into effect in 1907. The “car ahead” policy shortened routes, requiring passengers to inconveniently change cars. The passengers revolted. On August 23 of that year the New-York Tribune reported that “Still another riot was added yesterday to the many for which the “car ahead” rule is responsible, when the passengers on a Third avenue car refused to change at the barns at 65th street when ordered to by the conductor.” Six men and one woman sat stubbornly on the car as it was brought into the car barn around midnight. After an hour, the car cleaners began to clean up and ordered the passengers to leave. “The sweepers outnumbered the passengers, and although the latter fought every inch of the way, they were soon ejected from the barn. Several passengers from another car joined in the melee, and then missiles began to fly.” The battle resulted in at least two arrests and some bruises. The passengers, who would have received a free transfer, continued on their way home having to pay a new fare, somewhat worse for the wear.
But there was another opponent looming in the near future: the subway system. Although the streetcars continued to be used on Manhattan routes, the outlying routes were abandoned. The Third Avenue Railway’s car barn was still constructing streetcars—about two per week—through the 1930s.
Then in the first years of the 1940s the firm changed its name to the Third Avenue Transit Corporation and abandoned the streetcar in favor of motorized buses. By now the magnificent car barn had lost most of its Second Empire detailing, the grand towers sheared off. A bus is under construction in the car barn in the mid-1940s. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
On July 15, 1946 The New York Times reported “To mark the formal end of the era of surface trolley car transportation in Manhattan, the Third Avenue Transit Corporation has decided to sell at auction its old car barns and other properties that it has used for two generations or more.” The article noted that “The oldest and one of the most valuable properties” was the Third Avenue car barn. “The three-story building there is a relic of Civil War days and has been used for car barns, repair shops and offices.”
In 1952 the glazed white brick Manhattan House apartment building rose on the site of the old car barn. The 19-story apartment building still stands, an interesting example of ambitious mid-century modern architecture; but not nearly so picturesque as its predecessor.
The 1950’s Manhattan House with its wide northern 66th Street.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
WHAT IS THE IS AND WHERE WAS IT LOCATED? SEND ANSWER TO JBIRD134@AOL.COM
YESTERDAY’S PHOTO OF THE DAY
Central Nurses Residence that was located where 465/475 are located.The building had 600 single rooms for student nurses and hospital staff from 1939 to 1970. ED LITCHER IS TODAY’S WINNER!!!
Editorial
This is an important week. Time to early vote for the primary election. Some news:
The only party having a Primary are the DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Our Primary EARLY VOTING SITE IS AT 440 EAST 26 STREET FROM TODAY UNTIL SUNDAY. HOURS ARE FRIDAY 7 A.M. TO 3 PM. SATURDAY AND SUNDAY 10 A.M. TO 4 P.M.
REGULAR VOTING IS TUESDAY, JUNE 23 AT P.S./I.S. 217 6 A.M. TO 9 P.M.
Judith Berdy
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated UNTAPPED CITIES NEW YORK (C) CONGREGATION EMANU-EL NEW YORK TIMES (C) AVERY ARCHIVES/COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
GUASTAVINO, THE TILES THAT MADE CEILINGS MASTERPIECES
Above St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University
The Guastavino tile arch system is a version of Catalan vault introduced to the United States in 1885 by Valencian (Spanish) architect and builder Rafael Guastavino (1842–1908). It was patented in the United States by Guastavino in 1892.
In 2014, the Museum of the City of New York housed an exhibition on the work of the Guastavinos, named “Palaces for the People: Guastavino and the Art of Structural Tile.” The retrospective called attention to many structures, including the Ellis Island Registry Room (The Great Hall), which used to be the first step in the U.S. immigration process for people who were waiting to be inspected by Immigration Service Officers. The room opened in 1900, and for over two decades, up to 5,000 immigrants passed through on a daily basis. Guastavino’s work, however, was not added until 1918. The Registry Room has since been restored to its appearance in 1918-24. (Untapped Cities)
Don’t worry about conspicuously lingering about in this government building; there is no need to go inside to find Guastavino tiles. The south wing of the Municipal building on Chambers Street is fitted with a vaulted tile ceiling, though not in the characteristic herringbone pattern. The Manhattan Municipal Building was the first to incorporate a subway station in its base, and it’s regarded as one of the most beautiful stations in the city, featuring 11 columns. According to MCNY, Guastavino “devised a series of elegant vaults to cover the space, adapting to its various shapes three basic forms: the barrel vault, used along the length of the colonnades; lunettes, curving between the columns; and groin vaults, to accommodate the diversely shaped polygons spanning the internal columns.” (Untapped Cities)
Guastavino vaulting is a technique for constructing robust, self-supporting arches and architectural vaults using interlocking terracotta tiles and layers of mortar to form a thin skin, with the tiles following the curve of the roof as opposed to horizontally (corbelling), or perpendicular to the curve (as in Roman vaulting). This is known as timbrel vaulting, because of supposed likeness to the skin of a timbrel or tambourine. It is also called Catalan vaulting and “compression-only thin-tile vaulting”[.Guastavino tile is found in some of New York’s most prominent Beaux-Arts structures and in major buildings across the United States. It is also found in some non-Beaux-Arts structures such as the crossing of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
The Guastavino terracotta tiles are standardized, less than an inch (25 mm) thick, and approximately 6 inches (150 mm) by 12 inches (300 mm) across. They are usually set in three herringbone-pattern courses with a sandwich of thin layers of Portland cement. Unlike heavier stone construction, these tile domes could be built without centering. Each tile was cantilevered out over the open space, relying only on the quick drying cements developed by the company. Akoustolith, a special sound absorbing tile, was one of several trade names used by Guastavino.
Guastavino tile has both structural and aesthetic significance. Structurally, the timbrel vault was based on traditional vernacular vaulting techniques already very familiar to Mediterranean architects, but not well known in America. Terracotta free-span timbrel vaults were far more economical and structurally resilient than the ancient Roman vaulting alternatives. Guastavino wrote extensively about his system of “Cohesive Construction”. As the name suggests, he believed that these timbrel vaults represented an innovation in structural engineering. The tile system provided solutions that were impossible with traditional masonry arches and vaults. Subsequent research has shown the timbrel vault is simply a masonry vault, much less thick than traditional arches, that produces less horizontal thrust due to its lighter weight. This permits flatter arch profiles, which would produce unacceptable horizontal thrust if constructed in thicker, heavier masonry. (Wikipedia)
Inside the RIHS Visitor Center Kiosk dating from 1909, when the Queensboro Bridge opened with 5 kiosks for entry to the below ground trolley station under 60th Street and Second Avenue.
OUTSIDE NEW YORK
BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
BAIRD AUDITORIUM, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
THE TILE HOUSE BAY SHORE, LONG ISLAND, NY
The Tile House, its local nickname, is an eccentric, Moorish-looking brick folly on the south shore of Long Island, built by Rafael Guastavino Jr., the son of the architect Rafael Guastavino Sr., who developed the tile-vaulting system used in the Oyster Bar, the Whispering Gallery and in hundreds of other spaces, including Carnegie Hall and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Begun in 1912, when the younger Guastavino was working on Grand Central, the house is a riot of tile work: his own instantly recognizable herringbone arches, supplemented with European tiles he brought back from a honeymoon tour. When he died in 1950, he left the place to his daughter, Louise, who sold it eight years later (she died in 2004). By 2005, it was for sale, and on the Preservation League of New York State’s “Seven to Save” list. A couple from Florida who are in the business of buying and restoring old houses bought it then, saving it from a developer who wanted to tear it down. Their renovations included removing the decades-old trees that were growing in a garage. (NY Times)
THURSDAY IMAGE OF THE DAY
The interior of Temple Emanu-El is lined in Akoustalith tiles from Guastavino. These are non glazed tiles and the rough natural face gives them a more enjoyable sound resonance than glazed tiles. They were restored to their original condition in 2006. The tiles were cleaned with dry sponges absorbing decades of dust and grime.
CARNEGIE LIBRARY WASHINGTON, DC A TREASURE OF A BUILDING
This D.C. public library was closed for years. Last year, 2019, it re-opened as a research library, art gallery and Apple Store. The building is shining in the sunlight, just across the street from the DC Convention Center. Inside the main floor has a great Apple Store with a a performance space. Upstairs is a wonderful gallery with a selection of panoramic photos. The ground floor level is an art gallery featuring the building’s history. The ceilings are Guastavino tiles, these reproduced for the restoration.
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
WHAT IS THIS BUILDING? SEND ANSWER TO JUDITH BERDY JBIRD134@AOL.COM
WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY ENTRANCE TO NYPL ROOSEVELT ISLAND BRANCH The winner is Arlene Bessenoff
FROM OUR READERS
Wednesday Photo of the Day This is the original staircase in the Octagon
EDITORIAL
It is fun to look thru art and design such as today’s images of the works by the Guastavino family. Last summer we walked into a fantastic building in Washington, D.C. The Carnegie Library is worth the trip alone. It glows in the square where it is located. I returned a few months after my first visit to show to another friend. Upstairs the Preservation League of DC has an exhibit of panoramic photos. Next time you are in DC, stop by. You are in for a treat.
This is an important week. Time to early vote for the primary election. Some news:
The only party having a Primary are the DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Our Primary EARLY VOTING SITE IS AT 440 EAST 26 STREET
FROM TODAY UNTIL SUNDAY.
HOURS ARE: THURSDAY 10 A.M. TO 6 P.M. FRIDAY 7 A.M. TO 3 PM. SATURDAY AND SUNDAY 10 A.M. TO 4 P.M.
REGULAR VOTING IS TUESDAY, JUNE 23 AT P.S./I.S. 217 6 A.M. TO 9 P.M
Judith Berdy
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated UNTAPPED CITIES NEW YORK (C) CONGREGATION EMANU-EL NEW YORK TIMES (C) AVERY ARCHIVES/COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
In New Dorp, Staten Island, on the southeastern waterfront of the borough is a decommissioned airfield used for half a century by the U.S. Army from 1919 to 1969. Part of the Gateway National Recreation Area today, Miller Field is one of those remaining anomalies: where formal activities co-exist side by side with quasi-accessible remnants of the past.
Bicycle and pedestrian paths wind around abandoned hangars, a lighthouse, and a control tower. You can get tantalizingly close to the forgotten structures, despite a chain link fence. Graffiti work inside clearly shows the ease in which explorers can jump the barriers. Grass and weeds are growing around the hangars, while geese and ducks are bathing undisturbed in the makeshift urban ponds where seaplanes once taxied. And incredibly, on the northern area of the site, people are still living in adorable clapboard homes built for military personnel and their families.
Miller Field has the distinction of being the only Air Coast Defense station in New York City, and on the entire eastern seaboard. There were seven planned defense stations, but this was the only one actually constructed. Before its decommission, Miller Field was the last airport in New York City to have a grass runway. The land also has a very New York City, Gilded Age past. The airfield was built atop the family farm amassed by “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt, who was born on the north shore of Staten Island.
The farm, which also served as a horse breeding station, was later operated by his son George Washington Vanderbilt who built the Biltmore estate in Asheville, North Carolina. Washington Vanderbilt moved the 24-room home built by his father, dubbed the “white house” to the center of the farm in the early 1900s and lived there periodically until he died in 1914, according to the National Park Service. In 1919, the U.S. government acquired the 187 acres of land for Miller Field from the Vanderbilts for $100,000 — a sum that would be nearly $1.5 million in 2018 dollars. It was named for Captain James E. Miller, the very first American aviator killed in action during World War I. Nearly a century after his death, Miller was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 2017 for his brave actions fighting off two German aircraft solo over France.
In 1921, Miller Field was ready for operation, accommodating both land and sea planes with a “concrete seaplane ramp, two grass runways, two landplane hangers, two seaplane hangers,…and three 85 foot radio masts,” as itemized on the National Park Service’s detailed history of the site. However, several of the original Vanderbilt buildings actually remained on site well into the 1930s, including the “white house” which was used as Officer’s Club, along with a stable complex, a dairy house, and an ice house/bull pen. Later, during World War II, observation towers and coastal guns were added, with the airfield becoming under the jurisdiction of Fort Wadsworth.
A later archeological study found fragments of Spanish tile from the roofs of the Vanderbilt buildings and provides significant detail about the location of the Vanderbilt buildings in reference to the airfield structures. A former barrier that still remains, looking out onto the sports field Many military units have used Miller Field, including the Green Berets, New York National Guard, Army Reserve, Civil Air Patrol, and an Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion. One of the more historical moments at Miller Field was the testing of Admiral Byrd’s new plane, the Ford Trimotor, which he took on his first expedition to Antarctica in 1928 — an adventure chronicled in Untapped Cities writer Laurie Gwen Shapiro’s book The Stowaway: A Young Man’s Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica. And on a more morbid note, Miller Field is where the TWA Super Constellation plane crashed after colliding with a United Airlines DC-8, which would make its way all the way to Brooklyn where it landed in Park Slope at the intersection of Sterling Place and 7th Avenue. There were no survivors from the TWA plane, and only one in Park Slope, a little boy who died a day later.
Miller Field also included housing for troops and their families, built in classic American-style architecture — clapboard houses painted in white with green window frames. Set along a curved road lined with lampposts, the homes still evoke ideals of the American Dream. Curiously, the collection of a dozen or so homes remain part of the National Park Service site and are still inhabited. As Matt Green noted in his quest to walk every street in New York City, he was told by a resident there that the houses are only for National Park Service employees and certain other federal workers and their families. The park’s bicycle and walking paths go right by them. Miller Field is a beautiful spot to visit on Staten Island. Head up beyond the sand dunes along the waterfront and catch a nice hidden beach.
In 1919, the U.S. government acquired the 187 acres of land for Miller Field from the Vanderbilts for $100,000 — a sum that would be nearly $1.5 million in 2018 dollars. It was named for Captain James E. Miller, the very first American aviator killed in action during World War I. Nearly a century after his death, Miller was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 2017 for his brave actions fighting off two German aircraft solo over France.
Miller Field also included housing for troops and their families, built in classic American-style architecture — clapboard houses painted in white with green window frames. Set along a curved road lined with lampposts, the homes still evoke ideals of the American Dream. Curiously, the collection of a dozen or so homes remain part of the National Park Service site and are still inhabited. As Matt Green noted in his quest to walk every street in New York City, he was told by a resident there that the houses are only for National Park Service employees and certain other federal workers and their families. The park’s bicycle and walking paths go right by them.
WEDNESDAY’S PHOTO OF THE DAY
What is this and where is it located E-mail jbird134@aol.com Win a trinket from Kiosk
TUESDAY’S PHOTO OF THE DAY
Vent tubes from Rivercross
EDITORIAL
TIME TO EXPLORE THE OUTER BOROS. LET’S HEAD OFF ON AN ADVENTURE AND REMEMBER THE JOYS OF SUMMER AND LEAVING OUR HOMES.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated TEXT FROM THE NEW ENGLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPORE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
AMERICAN MASTERS Mae West: Dirty Blonde Over a career spanning eight decades, the subversive Mae West broke boundaries and possessed creative and economic powers unheard of for a female entertainer in the 1930s. Tuesday, June 16 at 8p
TUESDAY
JUNE 16, 2020
RIHS’s 80th Issue of
Included in this Issue:
MANHATTAN
WASHINGTON SQUARE
”IMAGES FROM HOMAGE TO THE SQUARE PICTURING WASHINGTON SQUARE 1890-1965″
BRUCE WEBER (C)
FERNAND LUNGREN A WINTER WEDDING-WASHINGTON SQUARE 1897
Born in Hagerstown, Maryland, of Swedish descent, on November 13, 1857, Fernand Lungren was raised in Toledo, Ohio. He showed an early talent for drawing but his father induced him to pursue a professional career and in 1874 entered the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, to study mining engineering.
However, after meeting the painter Kenyon Cox (1856-1919), he was determined to follow a career as a visual artist.[1] At the age of 19, and following a dispute with his father, Lungren was finally permitted to enroll at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he studied under Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) and Robert Frederick Blum (1857–1903). He also studied briefly in Cincinnati and in 1882, he furthered his studies in Paris at the Académie Julian, but only remained there for brief period, abandoning formal study for direct observation of Parisian street life. It was during this period that he painted In The Cafe Illustrator in New York City Illustration from St. Nicholas, (serial) (1873)
In 1877, now twenty years old, and upon completion of his studies, Fernand Lungren moved to New York City. There he rented a studio with the prominent painter and pastellist Robert Frederick Blum. In New York City, he found work as an illustrator for Scribner’s Monthly (renamed Century in 1881) during the period known as ‘the Golden Age of American illustration.’ His first illustration appeared in 1879 and he continued to contribute to Scribner’s Monthly until 1903. He was also an illustrator for the children’s magazine, Saint Nicholas from 1879 to 1904 and later for Harper’s, McClure’s and The Outlook. His illustration work in these periodicals focussed on portraits, landscapes and social scenes, which gave him some notoriety as the illustrator of New York street scenes.[4] In 1878, he helped found The Tile Club, an association of young artists who gathered for the purpose of painting on decorative tiles. Among the members of the club were William Merritt Chase, J. Carroll Beckwith, John Twachtman, Winslow Homer, J. Alden Weir, and Robert Frederick Blum.
PAUL CORNMOYER WASHINGTON SQUARE 1900
Paul Cornoyer (1864–1923) was an American painter, currently best known for his popularly reproduced painting in an Impressionist and sometimes pointillist style. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Cornoyer began painting in Barbizon style and first exhibited in 1887. In 1909, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician. He taught at Mechanics Institute of New York and in 1917, he moved to Massachusetts, where he continued to teach and paint.
Jessie Tarbox Beals WASHINGTON SQUARE NORTH, 1920 PHOTOGRAPH
was an American photographer, the first published female photojournalist in the United States and the first female night photographer. She is best known for her freelance news photographs, particularly of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, and portraits of places such as Bohemian Greenwich Village. Her trademarks were her self-described “ability to hustle” and her tenacity in overcoming gender barriers in her profession.
In 1893 Beals took a new teaching position in Greenfield, Massachusetts and visited the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. At the Exposition, Beals’ interest in traveling and photography was sparked having met Frances Benjamin Johnston and Gertrude Käsebier. In 1897, Beals married Alfred Tennyson Beals, an Amherst graduate and factory machinist. In 1899, Beals received her first professional assignment when she was asked by The Boston Post to photograph the Massachusetts state prison.
Beals taught Alfred the basics of photography and the couple set out to work as itinerant photographers in 1900, with Alfred as Beals’s darkroom assistant. That year, Beals also received her first credit line for her photographs in a publication, the Windham County Reformer.
By 1901, the Beals’ funds were depleted and they resettled in Buffalo, New York. Later that year, Beals was hired as a staff photographer by the Buffalo Inquirer and The Buffalo Courier, after impressing the editor with a photograph of ducks waddling in a row entitled “On to Albany.”This position made her the first female photojournalist and was well-regarded by the papers and citizens of Buffalo and worked at the publications until 1904 when she left to take photos of the World’s Fair.[
Photojournalism was physically demanding, often risky work, but Beals could be seen carrying out assignments in her ankle-length dresses and large hats, with her 8-by-10-inch glass plate camera and 50 pounds of equipment in tow.
During one assignment for the lurid murder trial of Edwin L. Burdick in Buffalo, Beals broke a rule that forbade photographs of the trial by climbing a tall bookcase to a window to snap a picture of the courtroom before she was detected.In 1904, Beals was sent to the opening of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri. There, Beals persuaded officials to give her a late press permit for the pre-exposition, climbed ladders and jumped into a hot air balloon just to get photographs that interested her.
She was greatly interested in the Indigenous peoples which resulted in capturing many spontaneous images that didn’t necessarily fit into the predominate narrative of racial and developmental progress. She had a different style than most news photographers of the day, focusing on series of pictures that would later be used to write stories, rather than vice versa. Beals’s display of her signature “hustle” earned her the position of official Fair photographer for the New York Herald, Leslie’s Weekly and the Tribune, as well as the Fair’s publicity department, producing over 3,500 photographs and 45,000 prints of the event.
In addition to photographing the various exhibits at the Fair, Beals also captured a candid photograph of President Theodore Roosevelt. This initial encounter earned her a special pass to photograph Roosevelt and the Rough Riders at their reunion in San Antonio, Texas in 1905. A studio on Sixth Avenue In 1905 Beals opened her own studio on Sixth Avenue in New York City. Beals continued to take on a variety of photograph assignments, ranging from shots of auto races and portraits of society figures, to her well-known photographs of Bohemian Greenwich Village and the New York slums Over the years Beals also photographed several presidents and celebrities, including Presidents Coolidge, Hoover and Taft; Mark Twain; Edna St. Vincent Millay; and Emily Post.While Beals’ career flourished, her marriage became troubled.
In 1911, Beals gave birth to a daughter, Nanette Tarbox Beals, most likely from another relationship. Beals finally left her husband in 1917. A studio and a gallery in Greenwich Village She moved to Greenwich Village and opened a new photography studio and gallery in 1920. For a few years, Beals juggled working and caring for Nanette, who also suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and was frequently hospitalized, eventually deciding to send Nanette to camps and private boarding schools throughout the year. Nanette would later go on to live semi-permanently with one of Beals’ old friends.
ERNEST LAWSON WASHINGTON SQUARE 1909-1911
GLENN O. COLEMAN THE ARCH 1927 WHITNEY MUSEUM
Glenn Coleman’s life and art demonstrate the difficulties that often seem to adhere to the artist’s calling. He was born in Springfield, Ohio in 1887, living until only the age of 45, dying on Long Island, New York in 1932 after a period of financial struggle and changing art tastes that effected both his style and subject matter, as well as the response to his art.
Coleman had a talent for drawing, which earned him a position as an apprentice artist for an Indianapolis newspaper while still a teenager. He went to New York City in 1905, where his life became a struggle to find time to paint while trying to survive by working at any job he could find, and studying for a short time with Ash Can artists Everett Shinn and Robert Henri.
Glenn Coleman identified with the poor because he was one of them. Because of this struggle his and theirs he became interested in socialism, selling drawings to the socialist magazine, “The Masses”. His painting were deeply felt reflections of everyday life in the off-beat nooks and crannies of Greenwich Village, Chinatown and the river. Here life was lived in a nearly small town setting, while uptown skyscrapers dwarfed humanity, and all around a great urban metropolis sprawled Strangely, it was the towering architecture of this metropolis, at the expense of his personal depictions of simple, struggling humanity that, in the mid-1920s, began to evolve into the dominant direction of his art. Cubism intruded itself into Coleman’s style, as it had so many other artists, but it was startling to see a move from a manifestation of Ash Can realism to a form of stylized abstraction.
As this transition was taking place, the artist apparently tried to reach back to his earliest artistic concerns, making realistic lithographs from his youthful drawings of people in the city that, unfortunately, failed to attract any interest in the surging, rapidly-changing, hurly-burly of modernist styles. Moving to Long Island in the year of his death, Coleman appeared to want to re-ground himself in nature, painting the landscape there, but he did not live long enough to accomplish this. Coleman was a member of the New Society of Artists, the Society of Independent Artists and the Whitney Studio Club. His work is in the Newark Museum, New Jersey, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City. Source: Michael David Zellman, 300 Years of American Art Biography from the Archives of AskART
Nankivell studied art at Wesley College, Melbourne. He later travelled to Japan and earned a living as a cartoonist in Tokyo where he made the acquaintance of Rakuten Kitazawa, who later became father of the Japanese comic art now known as manga. Nankivell left Japan in 1894 to study art in San Francisco. He left for New York in 1896 where he worked on magazines as a popular and influential cartoonist devoting his work mainly to social subjects and to state and federal political issues. Nankivell remained in New York until 1913. Nankivell later became a member of the New York Circumnavigators Club, which was open only to those who had circumnavigated the globe longitudinally, by land and/or sea. Other members included Ernest Hemingway and Harry Houdini
THOMAS HART BENTON THE ARTISTS SHOW, WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK 1946
Thomas Hart Benton (April 15, 1889 – January 19, 1975) was an American painter and muralist. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. The fluid, sculpted figures in his paintings showed everyday people in scenes of life in the United States. His work is strongly associated with the Midwestern United States, the region in which he was born and which he called home for most of his life. He also studied in Paris, lived in New York City for more than 20 years and painted scores of works there, summered for 50 years on Martha’s Vineyard off the New England coast, and also painted scenes of the American South and West.
ALFRED S. MIRA WASHINGTON SQUARE 1943
FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF THIS ARTIST SEE: https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/the-greenwich-village-vision-of-artist-alfred-mira/
LUIGI LUCIONI SNOW AT WASHINGTON SQUARE 1935
Luigi Lucioni (born Giuseppe Luigi Carlo Benevenuto Lucioni November 4, 1900 – July 22, 1988) was an Italian American painter known for his still lifes, landscapes, and portraits.
MYSTERY PHOTO OF THE DAY
WHAT AND WHERE IS THIS? Send your submission to JBIRD134@AOL.COM Win a trinket from the RIHS Visitor Center Kiosk
MONDAY’S PHOTO OF THE DAY
The correct answer is a portion of the Albert Swinden mural from Goldwater Hospital that is now at Tata Innovation Center at Cornell Tech.
EDITORIAL
Washington Square has always been a meeting place, a playground. a place to play your guitar or a chess game. It has been enhanced by historic restorations, new designs and plantings. The arch glows white and at the foot of Fifth Avenue the “Village” begins. Recently the site of many BLM demonstrations it holds itself up well and come by and enjoy the park and surrounding neighborhood.
Judith Berdy
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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 FUNDING PROVIDED BY: ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION THRU PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDING
CITY COUNCIL MEMBER BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDS THRU DYCD
IMAGES FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK (C) MATERIAL COPYRIGHT WIKIPEDIA, GOOGLE IMAGES, RIHS ARCHIVES AND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION (C) HOMAGE TO THE SQUARE (C) BRUCE WEBER
ARRIVING AT JFK IN THE YEARS GONE BY IT WAS AND ADVENTURE TO GO THE THE AIRPORT. WHEN YOU MET AN INTERNATIONAL VISITOR AT THE ARRIVALS HALL, YOU COULD WATCH THEM GO THRU CUSTOMS INSPECTION IN THE HALL BELOW. LIFE WAS DIFFERENT IN THE 1970’S AND 1980’S. EVENTUALLY THE WINDOWS WERE BLOCKED OFF AND SECURITY TIGHTENED,
AFTER BEING RE-NAMED JFK, THE AIRPORT WAS MODERNIZED INCLUDING VAST NEW TERMINALS AND EVEN THREE CHAPELS AS A CENTERPIECE. ALL OF THESE AMENITIES VANISHED TO PARKING LOTS, AIRTRAIN LINES, LARGER LOADING AREAS AND MORE UTILITARIAN ARCHITECTURE. THE AMERICAN AND PAN AM TERMINALS VANISHED. LUCKILY ONE SURVIVED.
THE SAARINAN DESIGNED TERMINAL WAS A STANDOUT FROM THE BEGINNING. IT MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN THE MOST EFFICIENT FOR PEOPLE MOVING BUT THE EXPERIENCE WAS GREAT.
ONE FUN THING TO DO WHEN THE WORLD RE-OPENS IS TO TAKE THE AIR-TRAIN FROM JAMAICA TO THE TWA HOTEL. IT IS A GREAT RESTORATION. THERE IS A CONSTELLATION OUTSIDE WITH A LOUNGE. YOU CAN WATCH THE PLANES ON THE RUNWAY FROM THE ROOFTOP POOL.
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Identify and locate this. Send your answer to jbird134@aol.com Win a trinket from the RIHS kiosk.
WEEKEND MYSTERY PHOTO OF THE DAY
The Willis Avenue Bridge passing under the Queensboro Bridge to its new home on the Harlem River.
EDITORIAL
I am working on East 75th Street at Early Voting this week*. Walking in Manhattan is an odd feeling. Big name stores, Bloomingdale’s is still closed and the windows are boarded up. Most restaurants are closed though some have take-out.
We are being kept safe. We want normal.
We want our throbbing, noisy , tumultuous city back…soon Judith Berdy
* For some reason they moved Roosevelt Island early voting to Brookdale Center on East 26th Street. We will be at PS 217 on the 23rd for the Democratic Primary.
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) IMAGES FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK (C)
FUNDING BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDING
