This memo came out today announcing repairs to Main Street, Though, they are temporary it will be an improvement especially to the crosswallks. See the memo below:
Dear Roosevelt Island Community,
Starting Monday, May 5, RIOC will begin performing necessary maintenance work on Main Street between 510 Main Street and 580 Main Street. This work will temporarily impact traffic and parking in the area, and is expected to last through Wednesday, May 14.
What to Know
RIOC will be addressing persistent problem areas along Main Street where the road surface has become uneven and hazardous. We will be removing sections of z-brick and replacing them with a new asphalt surface that is safer for both motorists and pedestrians.
Although this work is not part of the major Roadways Project currently underway, it is an important interim step needed to improve traffic safety.
Work hours: Weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Impacts to Parking
There will be NO PARKING for ANY vehicles, including those with placards, between 501 Main Street and 571 Main Street, from Monday, May 5 through Wednesday, May 14.
This restriction allows for the creation of two temporary lanes in the southbound lane to accommodate traffic during construction. Motorists who typically park in this area are encouraged to use Motorgate Garage during this period.
Impacts to Traffic
During construction, the northbound lane of Main Street between 510 and 580 Main Street will be closed. The southbound lane will be temporarily converted into two-way traffic using the cleared parking lane.
Flaggers and Public Safety Department (PSD) officers will be on-site to monitor and assist with traffic and pedestrian safety.
Impacts to Pedestrians
As part of this work, the crosswalk at Good Shepherd Chapel will be replaced. The current z-brick crosswalk will be removed and replaced with a level asphalt surface for improved safety.
During this time, the crosswalk will be periodically closed to pedestrians. However, the sidewalks along the work route will remain open and accessible.
If the full scope of work is completed ahead of schedule, RIOC will reopen the northbound lane and restore parking as soon as possible.
Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding.
– RIOC Maintenance
*RIOC agrees to permit visitors and residents to use bathrooms in Sportspark. SInce Sportspark re-opened a few years ago, the staff there would not permit non members to use their bathrooms.
At the Visitor Center we repeaetedly asked RIOC to change the rules. It is not fair to have facilities in a public building that are limited to members only.
At last night’s Operations Meeting, Mary Cunneen, RIOC’s Chief Operating Officer agreed to change the rules, that visitors use the bathrooms and the signs advising otherwise would be removed.
We now have signage on the kiosk doors advising of the availabilty. See below:
Thanks, Mary!!
PUBLIC BATHROOMS
ARE AVAILABLE
AT
SPORTSPARK
250 MAIN STREET
WALK UNDER BRIDGE,
BUILDING ON THE LEFT
THANK YOU
And finally, a push to have precast concrete toilets installed at Firefighters’ Field. This need was presented to the RIOC Operations Committee and hopefully this need will become a reality. Below is a link to a company that can provide attractive units to the island ball field.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
E lizabeth I’s reign in 1558, a desire was expressed that the role and position of the Church of England should be explained. As a consequence, a stream of devotional and exegetical publications designed for Protestant edification flooded the market. Printers gained a prominent place in the process.
From the outset women were active participants in the trade. They looked after the well-being of young apprentices in the shop and worked alongside men as printer’s devils and compositors. They managed the distribution of printed matter, the sale of stationery and kept the books.
A small number of them ran an entire printing shop by themselves. They were mostly widows who continued business after the death of their partners. Although women were restricted from partaking in business (from buying and selling or interacting with local government), widows were exempt from these repressive “coverture” regulations.
The same conditions would apply in New England. It was a widowed Puritan immigrant who initiated the foundation of Harvard University Press.
Press & Pulpit
In 1562 John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, published Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae (The Apology of the Church of England) in response to the demand for clarification. Crucially, an English version was made widely available in translation of the learned Lady Anne Bacon (her father Anthony Cooke had been tutor to King Edward VI).
The author supplied a vindication of the establishment of the English Church by exposing the failings of Roman Catholicism. The document embodied the deep divisions of a polemical age in which politics and religion were inextricably entwined.
Increasingly, English Protestants started to use the printing press in order to disseminate their message and ideology. Printers supplanted preachers; the press replaced the pulpit.
Printing proved to be a double-edged sword. Soon Puritans, separatists, non-conformists and other dissidents also resorted to the press to advance their brands of Protestantism. Their onslaught against the “half” reformed Church of England and its representatives may have been relentless, but it was met with brutal counterattacks.
Authors, printers and booksellers were imprisoned, physically mutilated or worse. Once strict censorship made printing and publishing too dangerous, Puritan radicals turned to presses in the Protestant Netherlands and continued their crusade by smuggling clandestine literature into the country. The same applied to Catholic authors and printers who organized their “mission” from the university town of Louvain in (Catholic) Flemish Brabant.
For Puritans, printing became a major instrument of religious education and reform. Once the “Great Migration” had started in 1620 with the establishment of the Plymouth Plantation, they transported their skills, practices and regulations from England to Massachusetts.
Diatribe of Distrust
Pre-Revolutionary printing in the British colonies was an urban undertaking and largely confined to the seats of local government. The number of printing establishments was therefore never great and the shops were relatively small (one to three presses).
Compared to London which supplied the whole British Empire with printed matter, the output was small. London not only remained the source for most of the books read in America, but it was also a focus for its authors. First generation Puritan ministers such as John Cotton or Thomas Hooker published their writings almost entirely in the capital.
Early printers produced mainly what could be more conveniently produced at home rather than being shipped from England such as local laws, ephemera, pamphlets or almanacs. Large or lengthy works (including novels) were more economical to import. Before 1740, law books were almost the only folios printed in the colonies.
The first colonial press was established in 1639. The “Cambridge Press,” like the William Brewster’s “Pilgrim Press” at Leiden in the Netherlands (between 1617 and 1619), began the publication of religious works without interference from London. But practitioners had other obstacles to overcome. They were dependent on government contracts and their output was regulated by the ruling oligarchy.
Control was strict as the authorities were prone to take offense at any “disagreeable” publication (William Bradford was persecuted in 1692). They distrusted the printed word and feared it would breed schism and sedition – England had set a precedent.
William Berkeley, Charles II’s Royal Governor of Virginia in 1671, attacked both public education and printing, arguing that learning had brought “heresy and sects into the world and printing [had] divulged them.” Berkeley’s diatribe summarized Puritan unease about the free flow of ideas.
Up until the eighteenth century little changed in the actual technology of the printing process. The slow evolution of the press gave way to rapid expansion in the 1720s and 30s.
The rise of the newspaper altered the socio-economic position of colonial printers as commercial demand for printed matter increased. It was only then that the city of New York manifested itself as a future printing powerhouse.
The Widow Franklin
Early colonial printers were mainly male immigrants from England. The Franklin brothers may have been American-born, but they received their training in English printing shops. The role of immigrant women in general and in the trade in particular has been persistently underestimated.
In 1721, Benjamin Franklin’s elder brother James became the Boston-based printer of the New England Courant, one of the first independent American newspapers. In 1727, he and his wife Ann Smith-James moved to Newport, Rhode Island, and opened the colony’s first print shop.
Ann was fully engaged in the undertaking, she knew how to set type and operate the press. In 1732, the couple started the Rhode-Island Gazette, James acting as its editor and Ann taking on the role of assistant printer.
James died in February 1735. With her know-how of the printing process and her extensive experience of running the firm, Ann was more than capable of continuing the business.
As Franklin’s widow, she was granted the legal right of forming and dissolving partnerships, pursuing contracts and expanding the firm’s commitments. Within a year of her husband’s death, Ann secured the lucrative position of “Colony Printer.”
Working for the Rhode Island Assembly, she was tasked with producing all legislative and official documents (she printed the Colony’s Charter granted by Charles II). Her publications carried the standard imprint “Newport, Printed by the Widow Franklin.”
In addition to printing pamphlets and sermons, she also published a newspaper titled The Newport Mercury. In 1748, her son Jemmy became a partner in his mother’s printing house. After Ann’s death in 1763, the company continued to produce books, almanacs, pamphlets and legal documents.
The Franklin succession was a common phenomenon in the trade. It occurred continuously in Europe and was likewise repeated in the American Colonies where female professionals stood in the vanguard of the trade.
It was Mary Katherine Goddard (1738-1816) in Baltimore who printed the first signed edition of the Declaration of Independence. America’s first printing house was also run by a widowed woman.
The Glovers
In 1624 Reverend Joseph Glover took on the position as Rector of St Nicholas Church, Sutton (about fifteen miles south of London), where he arrived with his young wife Sarah Owfield who brought with her a generous dowry. The clergyman came from a prosperous family too and the couple lived in stylish comfort until Sarah’s early death.
In 1630 Glover remarried Elizabeth Harris, daughter of the Reverend Nathaniel Harris, a prominent figure in ecclesiastical circles. During the first six years of their marriage, Joseph continued to serve the Sutton rectory. Elizabeth cared for three stepchildren and had two children herself with Joseph.
Gradually, Glover began questioning his religious loyalty, whilst his interest in Puritan thinking deepened. As a consequence, in 1636 the family had to leave Sutton and began planning a move to New England with the ambition of starting a printing press.
With financial support from friends, Joseph purchased a press, font and other supplies needed to establish a business. In June 1638, he hired Sutton-born locksmith Stephen Daye and three workers to run and maintain the press. Part of that contract included the Glovers financing the journey to New England of Daye and his family.
In the summer that year the John of London, captained by Master George Lamberton, sailed from Hull to Boston. She was one of eight to twelve ships organized by the Reverend Ezekiel Rogers to transport about sixty families from the Yorkshire village of Rowley to New England (they would eventually settle in Rowley, Massachusetts). Colonization of the region was to a large extent determined by the arrival of family groups.
Among the passengers were the Glovers, the Daye family and three assistants. Stowed away in the ship’s hold were a printing press, type, reams of paper, ink and maintenance tools.
During the voyage Joseph died of an illness, probably smallpox, and was buried at sea. Elizabeth was now the sole owner of the printing press and Stephen Daye’s indenture. The ship arrived a few weeks later on the coast of New England.
Crooked Street
When Elizabeth and her children arrived in Cambridge in the fall of 1638, she decided to settle near the town’s college and acquired a large house built by John Haynes (former governor of Massachusetts and the first governor of Connecticut). Once settled, Elizabeth gained approval from local magistrates and elders to establish a printing house.
She purchased a property for Stephen Daye and his family in Crooked Street (later: Holyoke Street) where the printing press was installed in one of the lower rooms. Elizabeth was in charge of the “Cambridge Press,” Stephen Daye acted as manager, while his son Matthew did much of the laborious tasks.
Within the first year of settlement, Stephen and Matthew printed a broadside entitled “The Freeman’s Oath,” the first tract published in North America. Written by John Winthrop, the Oath was taken by every man over the age of twenty who had been a householder for at least six months, making him a freeman of the Corporation and legal citizen of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Apart from the original text penned by Winthrop himself, no copy of this document exists today. The only surviving work is a reprint.
Elizabeth Glover also produced The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre, commonly called the “Bay Psalm Book.” It was the first book printed in the Colonies. Although a versatile craftsman, Stephen Daye was not a trained printer; his workers were inexperienced; and his types were poor.
The result of his labors was a crudely printed quarto of 148 leaves. Typographical errors and curiosities of spacing exist throughout the book. Out of the 1,700 copies printed, only eleven are known to have survived, many of them in poor condition.
Harvard: College & Press
Henry Dunster was born in 1609 near Bury, Lancashire. After graduating from Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1634, he became Curate of Bury Parish Church and was appointed (the third) Master of Bury School. Like many fellow Puritans, he condemned the “corruptions” of both state and church. In the summer of 1640, he left Lancashire for New England.
Dunster had lived for only three weeks in Massachusetts when he was appointed President of Harvard College (later Harvard University). His selection remains somewhat of a mystery. He was barely known to the authorities; there was no evidence of his qualities as a teacher or administrator; he held a master’s degree, but had never published. In spite of initial uncertainties, he was later credited with rescuing the fledgling institution from collapse and laying the groundwork for its future development.
Elizabeth Glover and Henry Dunster met and shortly after were married (June 1641). He became co-owner of her printing press. She died two years later, leaving in his care five stepchildren and the ownership of a publishing house.
He removed the press to the newly erected President’s residence in Harvard Yard. Here the Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts were printed in 1648, followed a year later by the Cambridge Platform (a standard for Massachusetts Bay’s religion until the time of the American Revolution).
Henry dismissed Stephen Daye and put his son in charge of the Press, but the output declined sharply. With the premature death of Matthew Daye in 1649, Dunster appointed Samuel Green and, in 1651, commissioned a reprint the Bay Psalm Book as this text remained in demand throughout the seventeenth century.
When Henry Dunster died in 1654, the printing press was gifted to Harvard College. Harvard University Press as we know it today was founded in January 1913.
Is there a justifiable case for Britain to claim back stewardship of Harvard University in order to safeguard its academic independence?
PHOTO OF THE DAY
STILL A WONDERFUL SITE- DRIVING OVER THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE
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NEW YORK ALMANACK
Illustrations, from above: U.S. stamp commemorating the 300th anniversary of printing in colonial America; The New-England Courant, August 7, 1721, published in Boston by James and Ann Franklin; Acts and Laws … of Rhode Island; Newport, Printed by the Widow Franklin, 1745; Title page of the first book printed in North America The Whole Booke of Psalmes, 1640 (The Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia); and Harvard University Press logo, 1925.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics all recommend drinking only pasteurized milk and eating dairy products made with pasteurized milk. Even organic milk is only safe to drink if it was pasteurized.
The safety of drinking unpasteurized milk and dairy products made from unpasteurized milk is in the news because Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr. advocates drinking raw milk and is critical of federal regulations.
Current federal law prevents the sale of raw or unpasteurized milk across state lines. Because of budget and workforce cuts by the Trump administration and its Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) the Food and Drug Administration was forced to suspend its quality control program for testing milk and other dairy products.
Concerns about ingesting adulterated or untreated milk has been a major medical and political issue since the middle of the 19th century when food poisoning was a major cause of illness and death. In May 1858, the New York Times and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper exposed the dangers of the unregulated production of milk.
Cows stabled in the metropolitan area, especially in the independent city of Brooklyn, were fed swill, the residual mash created during the distillation of whiskey, producing a bluish adulterated milk. To sell the milk produced by these cows to unsuspecting consumers, it was colored with Plaster of Paris and thickened with food starch and rotten eggs.
Studies by the New York Academy of Medicine found that milk from cows fed the whiskey swill contributed to an increase in infant mortality in the city. The Times estimated that as many as 8,000 infants a year died from the poisoned milk.
The Frank Leslie’s exposé reported that the dairies feeding cows the whiskey swill were also filthy and overcrowded with diseased cows standing in their own manure. Many of these cows had interior ulcers and sores producing pus that visible in their udders.
A New York Times editorial titled “How We Poison Our Children” accused the city’s Inspector’s Department and Health Wardens of being a sham with no power to prevent abuses. Not surprisingly, Tammany Hall defended the production and sale of the tainted milk and one of the most notorious defenders of the practice was put in charge of a Board of Health investigation.
At hearings, the Tammany representatives protected the dairies, savaged their critics, and claimed the swill milk was actually healthier for children to drink than unadulterated milk. After the Board of Health exonerated the distillers and dairies, public outcry led to an 1862 milk regulation law. However, a federal Pure Food and Drug Act was not passed until 1906.
Other diseases that impact people can be spread through untreated milk and unregulated production. People can be infected with M. bovis tuberculosis by ingesting contaminated dairy products. Pasteurization, however, destroys disease-causing organisms rapidly heating followed by cooling milk.
Drinking unpasteurized milk can also cause Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli, Listeriosis, and Brucellosis infections. Symptoms of these infections include vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and fever. The “bird flu” virus has been found in raw milk from cows infected with avian influenza.
Most at risk of illness are young children, pregnant women, older people, and people with weakened immune systems. In severe cases the infections can cause kidney disease, miscarriages, and be life threatening.
Between 1998 through 2018, there were over two hundred outbreaks of infection in the United States caused by people drinking raw milk. There were reported 2,645 illnesses and 228 hospitalizations.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
LAST REMINDER ON MANHATTAN AVENUE, BROOKLYN HAS BEEN CLOSED FOR 20 YEARS STILL THE SIGN REMAINS
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NEW YORK ALMANACK
JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Dr. Thomas Rainey (1824-1910), a resident of Ravenswood, Queens, spent 25 years of his life and most of his fortune advancing the construction of a bridge across the East River between Manhattan and Long Island City. The area that now accommodates Rainey Park was to be the Queens anchor for the “Blackwell Island Bridge,” a project backed by leading citizens of Long Island City after the American Civil War. In 1871, they incorporated the “New York and Queens County Bridge Company.” The bridge, planned with one ramp south to Brooklyn and another out to Long Island, was promoted as a catalyst for developing growth in Queens and as a railroad link to Long Island. To the community’s disadvantage, the effort fell apart during the financial Panic of 1873.
Dr. Thomas Rainey (1824-1910), a resident of Ravenswood, Queens, spent 25 years of his life and most of his fortune advancing the construction of a bridge across the East River between Manhattan and Long Island City. The area that now accommodates Rainey Park was to be the Queens anchor for the “Blackwell Island Bridge,” a project backed by leading citizens of Long Island City after the American Civil War. In 1871, they incorporated the “New York and Queens County Bridge Company.” The bridge, planned with one ramp south to Brooklyn and another out to Long Island, was promoted as a catalyst for developing growth in Queens and as a railroad link to Long Island. To the community’s disadvantage, the effort fell apart during the financial Panic of 1873.
Rainey had been one of the earliest and staunchest supporters of the project, and the burden of organizing and refinancing the company fell on him, first as treasurer in 1874, then as president in 1877. Dr. Rainey lobbied around the country to get financial backing and a bridge franchise. However, the War Department, concerned that a bridge could interfere with the defense of New York and access to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, withheld approval. Most interest in the region was for another bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan. The sparse population in Queens at the time raised further concerns of need and profitability, and the project had once again lost steam by 1892.
A group from the community called the Committee of Forty kept the effort alive. After the consolidation of New York City in 1898, the project gained new momentum and the bridge was finally built at Queens Plaza, a few blocks south of the proposed location. On opening day in 1909, Dr. Rainey realized his dream as he crossed the new bridge with Governor Charles Evans Hughes. The Queensboro Bridge fulfilled its promise by tying the Borough of Queens into Greater New York and Rainey received a gold medal inscribed “The Father of the Bridge.” On that day Rainey told the New York Times, “This is my bridge. At least it is the child of my thought, of my long years of arduous toil and sacrifice. Just over there, are the old towers of my bridge, which I began to build many years ago. I spent all I owned on the project . . . It is a grand bridge, much greater than the one I had in mind. It will be in service to thousands in the years to come, when Dr. Rainey and his bridge projects will long have been gathered into the archives of the past.” Rainey’s pride in the structure was so great that, a year before his death at age 86, he reportedly attempted to walk the length of the bridge.
The structure was named the Queensboro Bridge, but Rainey’s contribution was not forgotten. On April 18, 1904, the City of New York acquired several acres of waterfront property through condemnation procedures. The concrete “sea wall,” built where the park meets the East River, was completed in 1912, by which time Rainey had passed away. To honor his public spirit, the city named the property Rainey Park. An exchange of properties with a local landowner in 1917 nearly 3 acres to the northern part of the park.
This park is the largest in Ravenswood, once an exclusive neighborhood with spacious plots of land along Vernon Boulevard. The area was industrialized in the 1870’s and has been so thoroughly transformed that Rainey Park has become something of an oasis among the factories that populate much the neighborhood. The riverside promenade and baseball fields makes Rainey Park a popular spot for picnicking and play. Oaks, London Planes, and Callery Pear trees shade adorn this public greensward that one former Parks commissioner called “one of the prettiest parks in the system.”
Under Eleanor’s Pier stands the concrete abutment that was built to support the never completed Queensboro Bridge.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
The Kwasan Cherry Tree in full bloom at the Tram Plaza
CREDITS
New-York Histotry Blog JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Weekend, April 26-27, 2025 NEW YORK HISTORY BLOG ISSUE #1435
What do Vaseline, roller coasters, and Weight Watchers all have in common? At first glance, absolutely nothing at all—but all originated on Long Island.
Vaseline
In 1859, Brooklyn chemist Robert Chesebrough (1837-1933) went to the oil fields in Titusville, Pennsylvania to learn more about newly discovered petroleum. During oil extraction, a black sticky residue developed on the equipment. He noticed workers applying this substance they called “rod wax” to minor wounds to help them heal faster. Intrigued, Chesebrough took some back to his lab in Brooklyn. It took him several years, but he eventually figured out how to refine the black “rod wax” into the clear balm now known as petroleum jelly. In 1870 he filed a patent for this petroleum product he named Vaseline. It was first manufactured in his factory in Brooklyn, near Ferris and Sullivan Streets. He established the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company and marketed Vaseline as a medical wonder product. To demonstrate its effectiveness, he would burn himself for stunned audiences, apply Vaseline to the burns, and show off his previous burns in various stages of healing. Petroleum jelly does not actually heal wounds, but when applied it creates a protective barrier that seals in moisture and keeps out dirt. By 1880 Vaseline was so popular that almost every household in America would have had one of these jars in their home. This glass cork-top Vaseline jar in The New York Historical collections dates to ca. 1887-1900.
(First) Chesebrough Manufacturing Company (1881 – 1987). Jar, ca. 1890. Gift of Katrina and Michael Yoder Family; (second) Chesebrough Manufacturing Company (1881 – 1987). Vaseline Lip Balm Tube, 1930-1960. Gift of Bella C. Landauer
Roller Coasters
In 1884, Coney Island was the site of the first roller coaster in the United States. It was called the Switchback Railway and went slightly faster than 6 miles per hour. Although coal mine trains had been used to carry passengers for fun as early as 1874, Coney Island’s Switchback Railway was the first track purpose-built for recreation. Designed by LaMarcus Adna Thompson (1848-1919) who came to be known as the “Father of the Modern American Roller Coaster,” the Switchback Railway became very popular. Its success led to a boom in roller coaster building on Coney Island, with the rides becoming faster and more complex as time went on.
One of the roller coasters built during this boom was the Thunderbolt. Designed and built by John Miller (1872-1941) in 1925, it stopped running in 1982 and was torn down in 2000. This painting by Pamela Talese (b. 1964) in The New York Historical collections was executed in 2000 shortly before the Thunderbolt’s demolition.
Weight Watchers
Weight Watchers, now known as WW International Inc., is a company that helps people lose weight by encouraging healthy eating. In 1961, Queens homemaker Jean Nidetch took part in a free weight loss program sponsored by the New York City Board of Health that focused on nutrition and portion control. Although she lost weight, Nidetch felt the program was not supportive enough. She started a support group with other friends who were trying to lose weight and introduced them to the food program designed by the Board of Health. They held weekly meetings, and the group soon included 40 women. Word continued to spread and in 1963 Nidetch, who had reached a healthy weight, founded Weight Watchers. The first meeting took place in Queens and drew over 400 people. It soon spread nationwide and eventually became a global company. The company sold branded products like these in The New York Historical collections—a scale (ca. 1980s) to help with portion control and a sugar-free diet soda (ca. 1976).
PHOTO OF THE DAY
The Al Weinstein Memorial Tree in full bloom at the Tram Plaza
CREDITS
New-York Histotry Blog JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Artist and activist Ai Weiwei will unveil his first major artwork in New York City since 2017 this fall. Four Freedoms Park Conservancy on Thursday announced it had commissioned the Chinese artist for a monumental installation on Roosevelt Island that will open this September. “Camouflage” will take over all 3.5 acres of FDR Four Freedoms State Park, with an open architectural structure that rises above its granite walls and is draped in camouflage netting.
Artist and activist Ai Weiwei will unveil his first major artwork in New York City since 2017 this fall. Four Freedoms Park Conservancy on Thursday announced it had commissioned the Chinese artist for a monumental installation on Roosevelt Island that will open this September. “Camouflage” will take over all 3.5 acres of FDR Four Freedoms State Park, with an open architectural structure that rises above its granite walls and is draped in camouflage netting.
Aerial view of Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park looking West. Image Credit: Iwan Baan
On view from September 10 through December 1, “Camouflage” will cover sections of the park with a camo netting, creating a shelter over the bust of FDR. According to a press release, the pattern elicits thoughts of war and nationalism, as well as functions like disguise and protection. The camo will incorporate images of animals, instead of its usual abstract design, a tribute to the history of Roosevelt Island as a sanctuary for wildlife.
At the top of the sanctuary will be a traditional Ukrainian proverb on the dual nature of war: “For some people, war is war, for others, war is the dear mothers.” Visitors will be able to write reflections on freedom on ribbons and attach them to the netting, adding a collective element to the public work.
The exhibition coincides with the 80th session of the U.N. General Assembly and the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
“Camouflage” is the first commission under the Four Freedoms Park Conservancy’s new initiative Art X Freedom, which will invite artists to create site-specific works that examine social justice and freedom.
Following Ai’s commission, Art X Freedom will commission future projects through a request-for-proposal process that will seek artists working “at the crossroads of social justice and contemporary expression.” Three artists will be invited to develop full proposals and receive stipends of up to $12,500 to support the project. The finalist will be awarded $25,000 and will have their project built in collaboration with the Conservancy and New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation.
The 2026 finalists will be announced this fall, with the next installation opening in September 2026.
“Artists have paved the way in activism and advocacy throughout history. Art X Freedom amplifies this work by inviting contemporary artists to re-envision FDR’s freedoms for future generations by realizing major new public artworks,” Howard Axel, CEO of Four Freedoms Park Conservancy, said.
“It is an honor to be collaborating with Ai Weiwei to launch this initiative, which marks the first of its kind to activate and transform a presidential memorial and state park.”
Designed by modernist architect Louis Kahn, FDR Four Freedoms Park opened on the southern tip of Roosevelt Island in 2012 to honor the former president and as well as the human freedoms he championed: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
Ai is an obvious choice as the inaugural Art X Freedom commission. The renowned contemporary artist is a social activist and Chinese dissident who is known for works that focus on human rights and free expression.
Ai’s last major work in New York City was “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors,” commissioned in 2017 by the Public Design Commission. The multi-site exhibition was a response to the global migration crisis and to show that while barriers divide us, “humans… are all the same.”
“Ai Weiwei is globally renowned for his provocative and thought-provoking body of work and his staunch and unwavering advocacy for human rights,” Allison Binns, Conservancy board member and Art X Freedom Co-chair, said.
“We could not have found a more perfect partner or resonant project to help us introduce Art X Freedom to the world and inspire park visitors.”
PHOTO OF THE DAY
A VISITOR TO THE KIOSK LEFT US THIS WONDERFUL PHOTO OF THE GIRL PUZZLE
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6SQFT
JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
If you find yourself in Union Square these days, you’d be remiss not to do a double-take: that’s because there are currently two pink chairs facing each other while soaring 15 feet into the sky smack-dab in the middle of the park as part of a new public art installation.
Dubbed “The Space Between Us,” the project is by artist, composer and sculptor Risha Gorig, and it has a deep meaning behind it. The two soaring chairs are meant to represent the act of public discourse, elevating conversation far above the chaos of the city.
“The Space Between Us” will be on display through May of 2025.
“Rappin’ Max Robot,” a towering 18-foot-tall, 7,000-pound metal sculpture is now hanging out in Brooklyn Borough Hall Plaza. The piece was created by Welder Underground, a Bushwick-based apprenticeship program for welders and fabricators, and it pays homage to the titular character in Eric Orr’s 1986 comic book.
If Max looks fairly familiar, it’s because the statue was initially installed outside of the Hip Hop Museum in the Bronx. Following ita tenure at Brooklyn Borough Hall Plaza, the art piece will then be permanently installed at Place de la Bataille-de-Stalingrad in Paris. See it in Brooklyn through April 2025.
Puerto Rican artist Edra Soto is known for her larger-than-life sculptures, which challenge the viewer to think about identity, colonialism and social justice.
Her latest installation, now on view at the Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park, does just that: Graft is an eye-catching sculpture based on rejas, the wrought iron screens frequently seen inside homes throughout Puerto Rico.
Made from steel and terrazo, the piece serves as an homage to Puerto Rico’s working class communities, with one side representing a home’s exterior and the other reflecting the privacy and intimacy of its interior.
The sculpture will be on display until August 24, 2025.
Gillie and Marc, the renowned artistic duo known for a number of larger-than-life wildlife sculptures, are exhibiting an array of animal sculptures outside the World Trade Center, including the world’s largest octopus sculpture!
The exhibition named “Wildlife Wonders” includes three interactive bronze works from other pieces that feature their main two iconic characters, Rabbitwomen and Dogman, as well as sculptures of a range of endangered species. The spotlight, however, is on the giant octopus, which spans a whopping 36 feet and weighs around 7 tons. Woven throughout the animal’s eight tentacles are numerous endangered species, like rhinos and zebras. See it through July 31, 2025.
If you’ve spent any amount of time in Upper Manhattan, chances are you’ve seen a mysterious figure spray painting local storefronts in brightly colored hues.
Snoeman, a beloved NYC-based graffiti artist, likes to keep a low profile. On the streets, it’s unlikely you’ll recognize him without a spray can in his hands and a protective mask over his face. Online, you’ll find nothing more than a partly-covered profile. But the same can’t be said for Snoeman’s work—a bold, unique style that is instantly recognizable from miles away.
Since the start of the pandemic, Snoeman has been at work beautifying bodega exteriors in Washington Heights and beyond. The artist’s use of vivid color and thick lines, most times paired with uplifting messages and signature figures, has helped local businesses gain attention while livening up surrounding neighborhoods. Take a stroll through the neighborhood and see how many you can find.
There’s a massive sea serpent on the loose in the Rockaways with an uncanny resemblance to a subway train. This silvery gray creature snakes through an empty lot, but it comes in peace.
“Subway Sea Serpent,” the latest sculpture by Zaq Landsberg and Joey Castillo is now on view indefinitely at Beach 60th Street and Rockaway Beach Boulevard.
The artists were inspired by the A train, the crucial subway line that links the Rockaways to the rest of New York City. Located not far from subway station, it looks as if the artwork jumped from the elevated tracks to burrow through the ground in search of the beach. Segments of the cars peek above the grass as if the serpent’s swimming through the dirt.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
A NEW PARK IN THE MAKING. WHAT IS BEHIND THE CONSTRUCTION FENCE BETWEEN 460 AND430 MAIN STREET? THE WORK IS UNDERWAY TO GRADE THIS STEEP AREA INTO A CONTINUATION OF THE COMMONS. LANDSCAPING WORK WILL BE COMPLETED LATER THIS SUMMER.
CREDITS
TIMEOUT NEW YORK JUDITH BERDY
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The vibrant colors of Mexico come to NYC for a unique Orchid Show at NYBG!
Photo Courtesy of New York Botanical Garden
Extraordinary as the New York Botanical Garden’s orchid shows always are, this year’s is unlike anything that has come before. The current exhibit, Mexican Modernism, inspired by the renowned and Pritzker Prize-winning midcentury Mexican architect Luis Barragán (1902-88), is utterly new. It is an unprecedented extravaganza of color, serenity, and flamboyance. Or, as the New York Timessays, NYBG balances “simplicity of conception with opulence of execution.” This weekend is you last chance to see the show!
Guests entering the Orchid Show at the Haupt Conservatory
The simplicity of execution derives from Barragán’s ideas about color, light, nature, and geometric shapes. The opulence of execution lies with the thousands of orchids chosen for their beauty and diversity. The show is installed in three galleries of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory: the main gallery, the Palms of the World Gallery with its reflecting pool, and two additional seasonal galleries. Excellent signs will guide you.
An Explosion of Color Inspired by Barragán
NYBG’s arches take full advantage of Barragán’s love of deep, dynamic colors.
NYBG has chosen a Barragán masterpiece, Gilardi House in Mexico City, as inspiration for the orchid showcase. I toured the house with Fluenz, a Spanish-immersion company which offers tours of the home conducted by the current owner, Eduardo Luque. Luque has maintained it meticulously. Eduardo’s father, Martín Luque, an advertising executive, had agreed in 1975 to let Barragán design the house around an existing jacaranda tree. Fifty years later, the tree continues to thrive in Mexico City, while a replica serves as a star of the exhibit in the Bronx.
Casa Gilardi’s jacaranda tree saved by Barragán—and starring in the orchid show
The orchid show’s interpretation of Barragán’s jacaranda tree is a fabricated steel sculpture painted blue and adorned with purple and pink orchids. The orange and white orchids planted in the white stucco wall reflect another Barragán principle: flowers can be happy most anywhere, even in seemingly hostile environments.
A fabricated steel sculpture inspired by the jacaranda tree saved by Barragán in Mexico City
A sister exhibit of spectacular photographs by Mexican-born photographer, Martirene Alcántara, is in NYBG’s adjacent Ross Gallery. This might seem a distraction from the orchids, but no. NYBG explains in its signage that “Photography was a critical tool to market and sell Barragán’s unique aesthetic. He was keenly aware of creating spaces that were not only tranquil and beautiful, but that also photographed well.” Sadly, much of his work has been demolished, with the result that “a large part of his legacy lives on in the incredible photos that capture his vision.” NYBG encourages visitors to take photos throughout the show.
The Garden Blooms Inside and Out
As visitors walk through the many rooms of the exhibit, they repeatedly encounter the magnificence of the Haupt Conservatory both inside and out. Orchids thrive within, and the NYBG’s glorious planted trees can be seen bursting into bloom through the glass windows.
Orchids bloom inside the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory and weeping Japanese cherry trees, Prunus pendula, thrive outside
PHOTO OF THE DAY
OUR 9/11 TREE IN FULL BLOOM AT THE CHAPEL PLAZA
CREDITS
NY BOTANICAL GARDEN
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In the middle decades of the 20th century, Maurice Kish was probably not unlike many of his South Williamsburg neighbors.
[“Poultry Market,” 1940]
Born in Russia in 1895, he immigrated to New York as a teenager, settling in Brownsville with his family. He served in the military and left it in 1919.
Like so many other immigrants, Kish held a hodgepodge of jobs including “poet, amateur boxer, Catskills dance instructor, and factory worker in New York City, where he painted flowers on glass vases,” according to the Smithsonian Institute.
Kish also became a labor activist, a not uncommon cause in a New York hit hard by the Depression. By the 1940s he’d settled into a tenement at 70 South Third Street in Williamsburg with his two brothers and a fourth man identified in the 1950 census as a lodger.
“End of Day’s Toil,” 1932
But what set Kish apart was his talent and passion as a painter. Schooled at Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design, he often used his skills to focus on the work and economic struggles in the neighborhood around him.
“As an artist, Kish’s main subjects were cities and the human activity within; a labor activist, he used his canvases as a vehicle for telling the stories of industrial workers,” states the Smithsonian Institute.
Williamsburg must have provided plenty of material. His apartment would have been close to the East River waterfront, where thousands of workers toiled at industrial sites like the Domino Sugar Factory, which features in his 1932 painting “End of Day’s Toil.”
“Job Seekers,” 1932
“The men’s bowed heads convey their exhaustion after a long, hard day’s work, but the smoke serves as a reminder that they will have to return to the same tomorrow,” states the Smithsonian, which owns the painting.
“Kish based the factory buildings in the foreground on New York’s Domino Sugar factory, located on the East River and shown here with boats in the background,” per the Smithsonian.
The subdued “Job Seekers,” also a sympathetic portrait of the workers on the East River waterfront, is in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum. “Here, industrial sites tower over faceless laborers, and all is described in the dull, dark tones indicative of the harsh monotony of their lives,” the museum website states.
“Around East River,” 1940s
Kish didn’t only paint factory workers and small businesses. “Around East River” is a colorful and stylized glimpse of tugboats plying the gray river, with chimney smoke blending into a smoky sky. “Ice Skating at Dusk” has a gracefulness and loveliness to it.
He painted the Washington Arch in Washington Square Park, and the dismantling of the El in the 1930s. His work contains landscapes, nudes, and portraits, many in a folk-art kind of style in direct contrast to his social realist paintings of the 1930s and 1940s.
Kish moved to Queens at some point after 1950, and he died in 1987. Like so many artists, he garnered some notice during his lifetime but very little if any after his death. He captures an era in New York history no one alive today remembers.
[Title not known, about 1940]
With the Domino Sugar factory transformed into high-end offices and lofts and the Williamsburg waterfront now a recreational mecca, all that remains of Kish’s Williamsburg are the tenement apartments.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Tulips in Bloom in front of 405 Main Street
CREDITS
[Top image: Ashcan_Daily; second image: Smithsonian Institute; third image: Brooklyn Museum; fourth image: Artsy; fifth image: Live Auctioneers]
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“Try to imagine New York City without Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Jefferson Market Courthouse, the Flatiron Building, or the brownstones in Stuyvesant Heights, Greenwich Village, Brooklyn Heights and the St. Nicholas Historic Districts.”
Bowne House, Main Street S. and Franklin Place, Queens, 1929. Landmarked 2/15/1966. Borough President Queens collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
These words are printed on a brochure distributed by New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1975, ten years after Mayor Robert F. Wagner signed the bill that established the agency on April 19, 1965.
The story of landmark preservation in New York City neither begins nor ends in 1965, and the collections of the Municipal Library provide the documentation.
Mayor Wagner’s subject files and the records of City Planning Commissioner William F. R. Ballard (1961-1969) in the Municipal Archives are good resources to explore the topic beginning in the early 1960s and leading up to establishment of the Commission in 1965.
One of the earliest documents in Wagner’s subject file folder is a copy of his press release dated June 19, 1961, announcing the appointment of a “committee of prominent citizens …for the purpose of developing a program for the preservation of structures of historic and esthetic importance in the City.”
Six months later, Wagner issued another press release stating that his new Committee had recommended the establishment of a Landmarks Preservation Commission to begin the work of identifying historic structures. Soon after, in February 1962, Wagner requested $50,000 in the budget to fund the new Commission. Receiving approval in early April, he appointed twelve members to the Commission under the leadership of architect Geoffrey Platt.
Mayor Wagner’s Commission could act in only an advisory capacity. It quickly became evident that it would need significantly greater power to protect historic buildings and districts. Using documents in Wagner’s files and the records of City Planning Commissioner Ballard, researchers can explore the ensuing back-and-forth with councilmembers that took place over the next few years as they crafted what would become Local Law 46 of 1965. In essence, the new Law provided that the “Temporary” Landmarks Preservation Commission become a permanent Commission with control over the building exteriors in historic districts.
The Flatiron Building, ca. 1936. WPA Federal Writers’ Project collection, NYC Municipal Archives. Landmarked 9/20/1966
New York County “Tweed” Courthouse, ca. 1955. NYC Municipal Archives Collection. Landmarked 10/10/1984.
Ballard’s files are notable for the comments solicited and received from interested parties regarding the proposed legislation. His files contain a transcript of City Planning Commission member Harmon Goldstone’s testimony before the Council on December 3, 1964. Goldstone spoke eloquently about the benefits and necessity of the Landmarks law. In his statement, he cited “a quotation attributed to a former Republican President: ‘I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lies. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.’ —Abraham Lincoln.” Addressing concerns regarding limitations on private property proposed by the legislation, Goldstone noted: “Just as the zoning power, the police power, the power of eminent domain must take precedence over the interests of the individual, so it is proposed to protect the public interest in our common past.”
Taking up the question of what motived Mayor Wagner to create the Landmark Preservation Committee (and later Commission) in the early 1960s, Ballard’s files provide some clues. Again, Goldstone’s testimony is pertinent: “It was, in fact, at the suggestion of James Felt, then Chairman of the Planning Commission, and with the advice of Maxwell Lehman, Deputy City Administrator, that Mayor Wagner appointed in May 1961, a committee of interested citizens to explore the problem.” The Municipal Archives’ holdings include records created by James Felt during his term as City Planning Commissioner (1956-1963). The inventory does not list an obvious subject in his records, e.g. “Landmarks,” but a closer examination of his correspondence might reveal additional intelligence about what motivated Felt to make the suggestion to Wagner.
Landmarks Preservation Committee brochure, 1988. NYC Municipal Library.
The Municipal Library collection also serves as a resource to answer what prompted Mayor Wagner to create the Commission. Among the Library holdings are several published sources that discuss the historical antecedents of the preservation movement. For example, a report published in 1989 by the Historic City Committee of the Municipal Art Society of New York, entitled “New York, the Historic City,” included a section on the “Background and Development of the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission.” According to the report, “The real flowering of historic preservation in America… came in the decades after World War II as a building boom began to actively threaten historic buildings across the nation.” Not surprisingly, according to the report, growing opposition to Robert Moses played a role: “In Manhattan the modernist glass and steel skyscrapers which had begun to fill midtown, and the white brick apartment buildings interrupting residential rowhouse blocks, coupled with the cumulative effect of thirty years of Robert Moses’ urban renewal work in all boroughs, began to generate citizen interest in the cityscape as it stood.”
Another important impetus, according to the report, came from the Brooklyn Heights Association. In the late 1950s, the Association drafted legislation proposing landmark protection for its historic neighborhood. According to the report, this action made it clear to the city’s political powers that “…historic preservation would be supported by the grass-roots citizenry.”
Alice Austen House, Staten Island, ca. 1940. Landmarked 5/13/69. 1940s Tax Department photographs, NYC Municipal Archives.
Returning to Wagner’s file, two carefully clipped and mounted newspaper articles may also point to a motivation for the legislative action to preserve landmarks. From the New York Times on April 2, 1962, an article announced establishment of the Commission. Tellingly, the story quickly dispensed with the facts of the new Commission in two sentences. It then continued for several paragraphs describing the then-impending demolition of Pennsylvania Station: “Mr. Platt, asked about the architects’ protest over the planned demolition of Penn Station, said he personally regretted that his commission had come into being too late to try to save the terminal.”
Pennsylvania Station, 1961. Demolished 1964. Mayor Robert F. Wagner papers, NYC Municipal Archives.
The second clipping is an editorial that ran on March 3, 1962, in which the author, Elias S. Wilentz, decried the imminent destruction of the “historic Walt Whitman building as part of its [Housing and Redevelopment Board] plan for Cadman Plaza urban renewal.” The writer noted that the building, “where the great poet helped set the type and print the first edition of “Leaves of Grass” in 1855, marks the central event in Whitman’s life and one of the most historic occasions in our nation’s cultural history.” Like Penn Station, the protests came to naught and the Whitman building vanished.
Further research in Municipal Archives and Library collections will undoubtedly shed light on the origins of the preservation movement and New York City’s pioneering agency.
High Bridge, Aqueduct and Pedestrian Walk, Harlem River at West 170th Street, Borough of The Bronx, to High Bridge Park, Borough of Manhattan, ca. 1926. Landmarked 11/10/1970. Municipal Archives Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
The Municipal Library collection is also a rich resource for information about the Commission after its establishment in 1965. All landmark designation reports are easily accessible online via the Library’s Government Publications Portal. Searching the Library catalog pulls up dozens of entries for reports, audits, guides and publications about the Commission and its work. The Library’s vertical files are stuffed with clippings and ephemera charting the trajectory of the often-controversial City agency and its subsequent history – fights over designations, court challenges, etc.
Soon after Mayor Wagner signed the bill in 1965, the Landmarks Preservation Commission got to work. Six months later, the Commission notified the Mayor that a public hearing would be held on October 19, 1965, to consider designation of City Hall, the Municipal Building, New York County [Tweed] Courthouse, Surrogate’s Court (Hall of Records), the Brooklyn Bridge and Fire House, Engine Company 31, at 87 Lafayette Street.
The Surrogates’ Courthouse and the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, ca. 1939. Landmarked 2/15/1966. 1940s Tax Department photographs, NYC Municipal Archives.
Jack Lutsky, Wagner’s “Legal Aide” dutifully forwarded the notice to several relevant City offices requesting comments. One response is worth noting. “Dear Mr. Lutsky,” Bradford N. Clark, the Commissioner of the Department of Public Works wrote, “The designation of the Surrogates Court (Hall of Records) is considered appropriate. However, it should be pointed out that the long-range plans for the Manhattan Civic Center contemplate the demolition of this building…”.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
