It is a plain box, probably held a pair of boots. I was 15 years old and a sophomore in high school. My classmates were part of the Camelot generation who idolized a youthful president.
I started collecting items from the coverage of President Kennedy’s death.
The box has traveled with me from Forest Hills, to Manhattan, to 580, 575 and now in 531.
Many of the newspapers are disintegrating. The photos are sharp and the memories are forever.
The White House sent out photos of the First Family upon request.
The next morning the news came in the Times.
I kept a diary of the events for the week.
History was in black and white, no color needed
The next year we visited DC and included a visit to JFK’s gravesite.
The Post caught the secrets
It took a few days and everyone published commemorative issues.
William Davis and family at their farm near Crothersville, Ind.
Thanksgiving Maskers: 1911
November 1911. Before Halloween came into its own as a holiday in this country, there was “Thanksgiving masking,” where kids would dress up and go door to door for apples, or maybe “scramble for pennies.”
Thanksgiving Dinner: 1924
Washington, D.C., circa 1924. “Park View Citizens Association store.” LOOK CLOSELY, FEATHERS WERE INCLUDED!
Thanksgiving Turkey: 1919
A child holding the Thanksgiving turkey. From the National Photo Company collection, 1919.
Basting the Bird: 1940
November 28, 1940. “Mrs. T.L. Crouch, of Ledyard, Connecticut, pouring some water over her twenty-pound turkey on Thanksgiving Day.”
Stuff It: 1937
December 4, 1937. Washington, D.C. “Note to housewives: your turkey-baking troubles will be over and the bird you serve for dinner this yuletide will be tender, juicy and flavorsome if you follow the method used by the expert cooks at the Bureau of Economics, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Continual testing and experimenting with various recipes has taught Uncle Sam’s cooks that many a prize bird has become a ‘ham’ when improperly prepared. The best recipe so far discovered by the Bureau of Economics is demonstrated in the following set of pictures, made under the supervision of Miss Lucy Alexander, Chief Cooking Specialist. Miss Alexander, a graduate of Vassar and the University of Illinois, has been on her present job for 11 years. Mrs. Jessie Lamb, Assistant Cook, is stuffing the turkey under her watchful eye. The turkeys on the table will go into the ovens at regular intervals, and be tasted and judged by a group of experts who are determining which diet and feeding program will produce the best flavored meat.” Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative
Pies in Repose: 1940
November 28, 1940. “Pumpkin pies and Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Mr. Timothy Levy Crouch, a Rogerene Quaker living in Ledyard, Connecticut.
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Wheeler Hazard Peckham, born in 1833, was the eldest of three sons of New York Court of Appeals Judge Rufus Wheeler Peckham. He was born in Albany, attended Albany Academy, and later a French boarding school in Utica and a year at Union College.
He left Union due to health problems and spent a year in Europe. Returning in 1853, he became one of Albany Law School’s first students. Completing the program at Albany Law, he joined his father’s firm of Peckham & Tremain. He was admitted to the bar in 1854.
In 1855, Wheeler Peckham married Anne A. Keasbey, whom he had met while traveling in Europe. In 1856, he suffered what was called a hemorrhage of the lungs (tuberculosis) that caused him such alarm that he returned to Europe for another 14 months for medical help.
After returning to the U.S., he took up residence first in Dubuque, Iowa and then St. Paul, Minnesota, where he remained until 1864. That year he joined a law partnership with George M. Miller and John A. Stautenburg practicing in the city of New York.
Defender of the Greenback Dollar
His New York law firm flourished and Wheeler carried a large portion of the work. His first notable case came in 1868, when he came to the defense of the “greenback dollar.”
Prior to the Civil War, most money had inherent value meaning that a $20 gold coin contained about $20 worth of gold; a silver dollar contained about $1 worth of silver.
There was little question about the value of the denomination and counterfeiting was difficult, why would you make a counterfeit silver dollar if you had to make it from $1 worth of silver? Paper money could be counterfeit and therefore was scorned by many Americans.
However, there was never enough money in circulation. Pounds of flour, barrels of rum, pounds of salt, beaver pelts, nails and all sorts of other products were being used as money.
The economy was being hurt because a merchant might sell a plow blade to a farmer, but the farmer could only pay in flour or chickens and the merchant couldn’t easily buy tools from a supplier in Sheffield, England for flour or chickens.
Banks were particularly affected. They couldn’t take deposits of flour or chickens and they couldn’t make loans in flour or chickens; they needed money. The result was that most banks and some businesses issued their own paper money backed by deposits and loans.
During the Civil War things got much worse. People started hoarding gold and silver. The money supply almost dried up in the middle of a booming economy. Even the city of Albany began issuing its own money.
Several Albany companies couldn’t make change so they stamped their own coins. Albany merchant D. L. Wing stamped a penny, good for a one-pound bag of flour. Fruit dealers Benjamin & Herrick and a grocers P. V. Fort followed suit.
Soon other merchants were accepting and using these “pennies” for change. In Troy, pre-Civil War token coins from Boutwell Mills turned up as pennies in change drawers into the 1940s.
All of these different designs of money made counterfeiting easier. Most people outside Albany wouldn’t know what a $20 bill issued by the National Commercial Bank of Albany was supposed to look like.
Following the Civil War, the need for a new banking system and system of issuing money was obvious. Legislation was passed allowing the Federal Government and only the Federal Government to issue paper currency backed by gold and silver deposits in the Federal Treasury. However, there were still the stalwart opponents to the paper money that people nicknamed “greenbacks.”
Legal cases were brought challenging the Federal Government’s authority to issue paper money; New York State tried to tax all greenbacks issued in the state. The Federal Government hired the Albany firm of Peckham and Tremain and Wheeler Hazard Peckham’s New York firm to defend the greenback dollar.
Lyman Tremain, a former New York State Attorney General, argued the constitutionality of the government’s authority to issue the greenback through the New York Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, winning at each step.
Tremain and Wheeler Hazard Peckham argued the case contesting New York’s right to tax the printing of federal money in the New York Court of Appeals and lost but then successfully reversed the decision before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tremain and Wheeler Hazard Peckham were later frequently referred to as the “defenders of the greenback dollar.”
Peckham represented many influential companies and argued several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He represented the Bell Telephone Company in several important patent cases.
He also argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the State of South Dakota bringing an action against the State of North Carolina and a North Carolina railroad. He represented New Hampshire in a suit against the State of Louisiana.
Peckham served as chief counsel of the Union Trust Company of New York representing them in many varied cases. When federal taxing authorities tried to force the Union Trust Company to pay income tax on the appreciated value of the company caused by the increase in the value of their stock, Peckham successfully argued that only their profit as determined by income minus expenses should be subject to income tax.
In 1869, Wheeler Hazard Peckham was one of the founders of the city of New York’s Bar Association.
In 1873, Charles O’Conor who had been Peckham’s opponent in the greenback dollar case, asked him to take on a case for the New York City District Attorney’s office, the prosecution of the “Tweed Ring.”
Prosecution of the Tweed Ring
Peckham’s father, Judge Rufus Wheeler Peckham, had long been a member of the Democratic Party in Albany serving as County District Attorney for two years and elected to Congress twice in the 1850s with support from Albany’s Democrats.
In the mid-19th century, a dominant political power in the city of New York was Tammany Hall under the leadership of William Marcy “Boss” Tweed. At one time Tweed was also the city’s Superintendent of Public Works, a State Senator, Chairman of the Democrat General Committee, Superintendent of the County Court House and President of the Board of Supervisors. Due to political services provided to Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, Tweed was also appointed a director of the Erie Railroad.
In 1855 the city of New York had a population of around 630,000, half of whom were foreign born. There were 175,000 recent arrivals from Ireland and 95,000 from Germany. Like today, the higher standard of living in the United States (largely a result of the reliance on slave labor and the seizure of natural resources from indigenous people) encouraged emigration to America.
Many Protestant anti-immigrant Americans recoiled, claiming immigrants – especially Catholics – were anti-American, and responsible for the low wages and poverty associated with the burgeoning industrial revolution. They also blamed immigrants for crime and immoral behavior and tried to restrict immigration and limit citizenship (and therefore the political power) of immigrants.
Tammany Hall, which increasingly included Catholic Irish-Americans and German-Americans after the Civil War, looked on these new immigrants as simply voters, and an important base of their power in northern urban areas.
Immigrants who lived in extreme poverty and received little government assistance from the Protestant ruling class were welcomed by Tammany Hall, and were provided basic assistance, including food, charcoal, loans, and a job. In this way, Tammany served as an intermediary with a government foreign and often hostile to them.
Historians now view Tammany Hall, which began as a benevolent association for American Revolutionaries, as an early public welfare system and a champion of social reforms. Tammany nurtured important Progressive politicians such as Al Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt, lending support for the New Deal.
Tammany’s support for the rights of immigrants and other working people was repaid with their loyalty to the Democratic Party. One of the important ways the Party supported new Americans was by expanding public improvement projects in order to provide jobs.
In 1858, the New York State Legislature approved state funds “not to exceed $250,000 for the construction and furnishing” for a new New York County courthouse. By the time it was finished it cost $12 million, more than the cost to build the U.S. Capitol.
The courthouse at 52 Chambers Street, today known as Tweed Courthouse, or the Old New York County Courthouse, was the costliest public building in the United States. Its construction provided opportunity for one of America’s first large-scale graft operations, which involved people from both political parties, numerous businessmen and even newspaper publishers. (You can read about the details here).
In 1870 however, New York County auditor James Watson’s horse bolted and Watson was thrown from his sleigh and killed. The new county auditor was a friend of James O’Brien, who although had once been a friend, had become a political opponent of Tweed’s. O’Brien was a city alderman, then became Sheriff of New York County in 1867.
O’Brien’s friend Matthew O’Rourke gave O’Brien the financial records that would prove the courthouse graft. O’Brien forwarded them to The New York Times, then the only Republican newspaper in the city. Initially The Times did little, although Thomas Nast contributed political cartoons attacking the “Tweed Ring” that proved effective in turning political opinion against Tweed and his fellow schemers.
Meanwhile an ally of O’Brien, John Morrissey, was already organizing opposition to The Ring known as the “Young Democracy,” which included allies of Samuel Tilden. They were soundly defeated by supporters of Tweed in the Spring of 1870, but it provided space for Tilden, then the New York State Democrat Party Chairman, and August Belmont, then the National Democrat Party Chairman, to hold a meeting at New York’s Cooper Union September 4, 1871 to pressure for reform.
On October 26, Tilden signed an affidavit arguing that money from city contractors had been misappropriated into Tweed’s personal bank account. The next day Tweed was arrested and charged with 55 criminal offenses relating to embezzlement of public funds. Nonetheless, Tweed was reelected State Senator in November 1871.
Wheeler Hazard Peckham was named a special prosecutor for the State in what became known as The Ring Cases. In 1872, he unsuccessfully prosecuted Mayor A. Oakey Hall and successfully prosecuted Tweed in 1873. The trial began in 1873, with Peckham assisted by Lyman Tremain, O’Conor, Peter Olney and Henry Allen.
Tweed’s influence on the New York City Police Department was considered so strong that Peckham requested and received permission for each juror to be assigned a plainclothes detective 24 hours a day. Each plainclothes officer was followed by another plainclothes officer and a private detective to be sure that the first plainclothes officer did not carry a bribe or threat to the juror.
Peckham presented to the jury the volumes of obviously inflated and fake invoices. Peckham also introduced new charges that he thought he could make stick without question: approving invoices without audit, a misdemeanor. The city laws required all invoices to be audited and some invoices personally approved by Tweed had not been submitted for audit.
Tweed was convicted on 204 misdemeanor charges of approving fraudulent invoices without audit. The judge, knowing the true involvement of Tweed in the Ring’s graft, sentenced Tweed to 12 years in prison and a $12,750 fine. Tweed’s lawyers appealed the sentence and the Court of Appeals found that 12 years was inappropriate for misdemeanor charges and reduced his term to 1 year.
After Tweed was released from jail, Peckham brought a civil lawsuit against him to recover millions in funds Tweed had personally stolen. Unable to post the $3 million bond the former Boss fled, first to Cuba, but was captured en route to Spain and returned to the United States. Peckham won a $6 million verdict and was returned to the Ludlow Street Jail.
Tweed eventually agreed to testify against the other Ring members if he was released, but this promise was rejected by then Governor Samuel Tilden and Tweed died in jail on April 12, 1878, from pneumonia.
Peckham was appointed Special District Attorney and Special Deputy Attorney General and continued his prosecution of Tweed Ring members, including bringing impeachment charges against Ring-connected judges.
Return to Private Practice, and Politics
After the Ring Cases Peckham returned to private practice. He was appointed New York District Attorney by Governor Grover Cleveland in 1884, but served less than a year due to health problems.
In 1888, he entered the political fray by supporting Warner Miller in his campaign for Governor against incumbent David B. Hill (a Cleveland opponent who was responsible for establishing the New York State Forest Preserve) and served as president of the New York City Bar Association from 1892 to 1894 where he advocated law reform.
In January, 1894, Peckham (along with William B. Hornblower) was nominated by then President Cleveland to two vacancies on the United States Supreme Court. At that time, the U.S. Senate operated under an informal but powerful custom known as “senatorial courtesy,” which allowed that no appointment or law affecting a state could move forward unless one of its two Senators agreed.
Former Governor David B. Hill, who Peckham and Cleveland had opposed, was one of New York’s U.S. Senators. The other was Edward Murphy of Troy. Neither men, although both Democrats, would move the nominations. Peckham returned to private practice.
In 1900, Peckham represented the New York World, a Democratic newspaper, in an action against New York City Mayor Robert Anderson Van Wyck and Dock Commissioner Charles Murphy and in the subsequent impeachment proceedings against Van Wyck in the infamous “Ice Trust” price fixing scandal.
Peckham was also president of the People’s Municipal League and president of the City Club for many years.
Wheeler Hazard Peckham died suddenly in his office in New York City in September 1905 at the age of 72 and is interred at Albany Rural Cemetery together with his wife and other members of his family.
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It seems RIOC went cheap this year and the chintzy decorations from last year have returned. There are a few yards of green garland in front of the RIOC office at 524 Main Street. It seems that the rest of Main Street does not even deserve some garland. RIOC is being a true SCROOGE this year!! Judy Berdy
1990’s Carnival that would set-up shop on the vacant lot opposite the Tram, now 405 Main Street. The food concession was by the tram entrance……..no one complained and a great time was had by all. Maybe it is time to bring back some good old fashioned entertainment.
From Gloria Herman: Back in the day when we had fairs near the tram prior to Southtown being built. There were carnival rides on the Southtown side and all the food trucks were on the tram side.
Madame Restelle was supposedly imprisoned on Blackwell’s Island for performing abortions.
Hart Island has been the burial place of the unclaimed in New York for centuries. The island is finally being opened to the public. Please see the Hart Island website to reserve a place on an upcoming tour.
PROGRAM TONIGHT FROM CUNY GRADUATE CENTER
Upcoming Free Book Talks
The Trials of Madame Restelle: Nineteenth-Century America’s Most Infamous Female Physician and the Campaign to Make Abortion a Crime
Thursday, November 16th 6:30–8 PM
In this new biography, Nicholas L. Syrett tells the story of one of the most infamous abortionists of the nineteenth century, a tale with unmistakable parallels to the current war over reproductive rights. “Madame Restell,” the nom de guerre of the most successful female physician in America, sold birth control, delivered children, and performed abortions for decades in a series of clinics run out of her home in New York City. But it was the abortions that made her infamous, “Restellism” becoming a term detractors used to indict her.
Abortion was then largely unregulated in most of the United States, including New York. But a sense of disquiet arose about single women flocking to the city for work and greater sexual freedom, amid changing views of motherhood, with fewer children born to white, married, middle-class women. Restell came to stand for everything threatening the status quo. From 1829 onward, restrictions on abortion began to put her in legal jeopardy. For much of this period she prevailed—until she didn’t. The Trials of Madame Restell: Nineteenth-Century America’s Most Infamous Female Physician and the Campaign to Make Abortion a Crime paints an unforgettable picture of the mid-nineteenth-century New York and brings Restell to the attention of a whole new generation of women in the current fight over reproductive choice.
Mary Ziegler, Professor of Law at UC Davis and the author of numerous books on the modern day struggle, joins in conversation
REGISTRATION LINK IS BELOW
NYC Parks Launches Public Access to Hart Island
Today, NYC Parks announced the start of free public tours of Hart Island, the City’s public cemetery, in an effort to increase access to the island, reduce historical stigmas surrounding its past, and educate the public about its role as an important piece of City infrastructure.
Free public history tours led by the Urban Park Rangers will be held twice a month starting November 21. Registration for first tour is open now through November 16.
Beginning on November 21, 2023, NYC Parks’ Urban Park Rangers will offer free walking tours of the island twice per month. Registration is required through an online form and participants will be selected by lottery. All public history tours are done on foot and last approximately 2.5 hours, with ferry transportation provided to and from Hart Island.
Additional public tours will be held on the following dates:
December 5, 2023 December 19, 2023 January 16, 2024 January 30, 2024 February 13, 2024 February 27, 2024 March 12, 2024 March 26, 2024 April 9, 2024 April 23, 2024 May 14, 2024 May 28, 2024
The tours will encompass the history of the Island including how it became a municipal cemetery, wildlife and natural aspects, the burial process, and island advocacy.
Waterpower was the top priority in the development and location of the abundant textile mills in New York State. In places like Utica or Cohoes, the Mohawk River; in Troy, the Hudson River; and in Waterford, the King Canal (built about 1828 by John Fuller King), provided plenty of rushing water.
The humidity in New York was sufficient for spinning and access to seaports was convenient via the Erie and Champlain Canals and the Hudson River. There was an abundant supply of immigrant labor.
In 1855, Clark Tompkins, from Troy, patented the first fully mechanized knitting machine.
In many ways, this invention foretold the industrial future for the Hudson and Mohawk River Valleys. By 1890, Mohawk Valley had become the number one knit-goods manufacturing center in the country.
New York knit-good manufacturers primarily produced underwear. Two-thirds of all underwear produced in the United States in the late 19th century was made in New York, and of that, a large percentage came from the Mohawk and Hudson Valleys.
In 1909, The Knit Underwear Industry reported that New York State produced 33.5% of all knit goods in the United States.
With the opening of the King Canal in 1830, Waterford successfully harnessed the power available from the Mohawk River. The King Canal neighborhood became heavily industrialized, with more than half of the community’s underwear manufacturing concerns located there.
In 1910, about 1,700 people worked in the twelve knitting mills making underwear in Waterford. The community’s total population at the time was about 6,130. There were four other knitting mill operations that did not produce underwear; they employed about 220 workers. One-third of Waterford’s population worked in the industry.
From that time into the 1950s, underwear was Waterford’s largest export item.
Two Waterford manufacturers had pressing questions for the underwear-buying public: “Have you been bothered recently by dangerous underwear fads?” and “Do you need to purchase underwear in a larger size because it shrinks?”
The Kavanaugh Knitting Mill, established by Luke Kavanaugh, was the largest factory, with about 600 employees. Their business was built on the following belief:
“Men who demand cool, comfortable garments and who appreciate good health avoid dangerous underwear fads usually wear the famous Kavanaugh Balbriggan. The comfortable underwear. Just loose enough to avoid the pinch, just light and soft enough for cool comfort, just weight enough to protect against sudden cool breezes.”
Balbriggan was noted textile community just north of Dublin, Ireland. Balbriggans, were “Long-Johns.” Queen Victoria and the Czarina of Russia were known to wear Balbriggans.
The Kavanaugh Balbriggan advertisement featuring the above pledge also included caricatures of the Theodore Roosevelt‘s Rough Riders. Luke Kavanaugh’s son was a personal friend of Roosevelt; his brother Frederick was a close friend of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. The Kavanaugh Mill is said to have provided the underwear for the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War. One wonders if Buffalo Bill wasn’t a customer as well.
In 1891, the same year the Kavanaugh Mill opened, John Wheeler Ford established a large textile mill on the Hudson River to the north of the village. The facilities were later purchased by the Robert Reis Company, whose main products were tee shirts and men’s and ladies’ undergarments. Their advertising made the following claim:
“Reis’ Union Suits, we’ll put you wise; you needn’t buy them oversize. The size mark on Reis’ Lavender Label means precisely what it says. All athletic underwear shrinks when first laundered. Instead of pretending that it doesn’t. Reis, frankly, allows for shrinkage. So you needn’t buy a 42 when your size is 38 or a 38 when your size is 34. It’s sized right in the first place. Reis, you see, doesn’t skimp on material. Yet, for all the roominess of a Reis, they are tailored to fit. It doesn’t flop around you like a sail or wrap you up like a bug. They fit, and of course, they don’t chafe. They are made for a man, not a wax figure.”
Reis’ Mill lasted the longest of the community’s textile mills, until 1979. Their main office was in the Empire State Building, but the bulk of their manufacturing was conducted in Waterford. During First and Second World Wars, about 300 workers there delivered on contracts to supply underwear to the United States Army.
During the first half of the 20th century, the Harmony Mills in Cohoes and the Ford and Kavanaugh Mills in Waterford all had military contracts that impacted their ability to produce, distribute, and sell civilian supplies. The others were quick to fill the void.
By the mid-1950s however, they were mostly gone. Of the twelve mills that produced underwear in Waterford, several had majestic brick buildings. Their buildings are now all gone, with the exception of the Laughlin Textile Mill, which is vacant. It was the headquarters for Ursula of Switzerland. The company’s founder Ursula Garreau-Rickenbacher passed away in 2021. That marked the closing of the textile industry in Waterford.
Kavanaugh’s advertisement made mention of “Dangerous Underwear Fads” and the Utica Brand underwear company asked, “tired of underwear fads?”
Among the fads found in newspapers where those for underwear that didn’t need ironing; material fads of fine rayon mesh, nalmook, velvet, silk, and crepe; a black underwear fad during the Great Depression, to cut down on washing; and colored and lightweight underwear.
As far as dangerous? Lightweight underwear was sometimes blamed for hospital admissions. Wearing silk underwear was used successfully as grounds for divorce. Later, underwear made of highly flammable materials was to blame for many burning deaths when their wearers got too close to open flames that were prevalent in households before regulations against open flames were enacted in the later part of the 20th century.
AN IMAGE PROPOSED IN THE EARLY 1990’S BY A DEVELOPER, WHO DID NOT HAVE THE RIGHTS TO USE THE MARRIOTT NAME AND WAS SPECULATING THAT THIS IS JUST WHAT WE WANTED ON THE SOUTH END OF THE ISLAND. HIS NAME WAS STEVE JUMEL AND HIS FAMILY WAS THE OWNERS OF “RAZY EDDIE” STORES. THE LESS SAID THE BETTER!! NINA LUBLIN AND GLORIA HERMAN GOT THIS RIGH
Russ VanDervoort is the Waterford Town Historian, leader of the Waterford Canal and Towpath Society and a Trustee of the Saratoga County History Center. John Warren contributed to this essay.
Illustrations, from above: Waterford’s Kavanaugh Knitting Mill advertising card; a Tompkins Upright Circular Knitting Machine (1891); and a Utica Knitting Company underwear advertisement.
JUDITH BERDY
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
A burial ground and parking lot in Central Park, an airport spanning dozens of blocks on Manhattan’s West Side, filling in the East River to create more land—the list of ideas for “improving” the city’s infrastructure and transit system includes some truly weird proposals.
But as this 1911 map shows, some of the most ambitious plans focused on bridge and tunnel building. The image comes from the New-York Tribune, which ran a front page article On January 1 of that year outlining all of the bridges and tunnels the city should build to make it easier to traverse the boroughs.
Of course, some of these bridges and tunnels already existed: the Queensboro, Manhattan, and Brooklyn Bridges across the East River, for example. And others made the jump from proposal to reality in the ensuing years, like the Hell Gate Bridge (completed in 1916) and the 179th Street bridge across the Hudson—opened in 1931 as the George Washington Bridge.
But others were merely wishful thinking—like the 57th Street and 110th Street bridges to New Jersey, and a fourth East River crossing between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. The Tribune noted that “borings have been made for this proposed bridge” and it was to be named after Brooklyn Democratic leader and politician Pat McCarren. (His name ended up gracing a park instead.)
The Tribune predicted all kinds of chaos if these bridges and tunnels weren’t built to accommodate the “tide of humanity” that needed them. But the reality of raising funds for construction likely sounded the death knell, if they were ever taken seriously in the first place.
And what would we do with all these crossings in the age of remote work? That’s one development the Tribune of more than a century ago could not possibly have predicted.
Renovation work is complete on 604 Fifth Avenue, a six-story commercial building in Midtown, Manhattan. Designed by William Van Alen, architect of the Chrysler Building, the 65-foot-tall structure opened as the Childs Building in 1924 and most recently housed an 18,000-square-foot TGI Fridays. Japanese confectioner Minamoto Kitchoan purchased the property from The Riese Organization for $45 million in April 2021 for its new flagship store. Andrew Pettit Architect was the designer and Cross Management Corp. was the general contractor for the interior and exterior renovation project, which is located between East 48th and 49th Streets.
Recent photos show the new façade composed of light-hued stone with a symmetrical grid of windows replete with red awnings and decorative black metal railings. The exterior features numerous ornamental flourishes, including thick banding between the floors and a half-moon motif below the trapezoidal cornice. Three flag poles extend from the third story, and two pairs of up-firing spotlights will illuminate the edges of the exterior at night. Some plastic barriers remain in front of the property as interior work wraps up on the ground-floor frontage, but should be removed in the coming weeks.
The Most Ugly Building on Fifth Avenue was an appropriate title for this building, luckily now reborn
604 Fifth Avenue. Photo via Google Maps
604 Fifth Avenue has remained standing for nearly a century as many surrounding properties were torn down to make way for taller developments, including the Rockefeller Center complex to the north, and skyscrapers like 520, 570, and 665 Fifth Avenue. 604 Fifth Avenue was never designated as a historical landmark, allowing for the redesign to proceed without intervention from the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Nevertheless, the outcome features a classic aesthetic evocative of prewar New York architecture.
The original design of 604 Fifth Avenue
For years the Friday’s facade was an eyesore on Fifth Avenue and we are glad that the appropriate renovation of the building will be a vast improvement.
When the actors strike was settled, the Silvercup sign has been lit up nightly Silvercup Studios building in Long Island City, Queens, adjacent to the Queensboro Bridge. Was formerly the bakery for Silvercup bread, which I remember from the 1950s and 1960s, Andy Sparberg David Jacoby also got it right
JULIA GASH TAPESTRY THROWS TO KEEP YOU WARM AND COZY. TRAM PILLOWS, JULIA GASH DESIGN LANYARDS,ORNAMENTS, KEY CHAINS, MAGNETS AND MORE.
FRIDAY, SATURDAY AND SUNDAY 12 NOON TO 5 P.M. AT THE RIHS KIOSK, TRAM PLAZA
SATURDAY AT THE MAIN STREET FLEA MARKET
FROM THE ARCHIVES
FRIDAY-SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10-12, 2023
VETERAN’S DAY MEMORIES
ISSUE #1122
SHORPY HISTORIC PHOTO ARCHIVE
Washington, D.C., circa 1916. “Mrs. George Barnett and son.” Lelia Gordon Barnett, wife of the Marine Corps commandant, and her son Basil Gordon, who in 1923 became the first person to crash an airplane in the District of Columbia. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative.
These are members of G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic) Conyngham Post 97 located in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. I researched it to try and find out exactly when the picture may have been taken and found two possibilities in the Wilkes-Barre Record Almanacs: “April 21, 1923 – Conyngham Post, G. A. R., observes its fifty-sixth anniversary; about forty veterans of the Civil War, together with many friends, present.”
New York, June 6, 1944. ALLIED ARMIES LAND ON COAST OF FRANCE. GREAT INVASION OF CONTINENT BEGINS. “D-Day. Crowd watching the news line on the New York Times building at Times Square.” Photo by Howard Hollem or Edward Meyer for the Office of War Information
Washington, D.C., circa 1918. “Pension Office interior.” This former repository of Civil War veterans’ pension records is now the National Building Museum. National Photo Company Collection glass negative
The place and provenance of this photo are unknown to me. Scanned from a large print. Perhaps someone can identify the uniforms?
