at the Kiosk Wed-Sun 12-5 p.m. See details in tomorrow’s edition
TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2021
The
354th Edition
From Our Archives
ALFRED MIRA
ARTIST OF OUR CITY SCENE
FROM EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
The Greenwich Village vision of artist Alfred Mira Alfred S. Mira and his realistic, gritty, intimate Greenwich Village street scenes should be better known. [“Seventh Avenue, Greenwich Village”]
Born in 1900 in Italy to a carpenter father, he left school and began working for an interior decorator, dreaming of going to art school but without the 50 cents a day it cost to attend.
Alfred S. Mira (on left, with arms crossed) at the Grand Central Art Galleries with Associate Director Claude Barber (on right) [photograph] / (photographed by Peter A. Juley & Son)
He did make a career out of painting though; he listed his address as East 8th Street and his occupation as painter in the 1940 census. And he sold his work at the Washington Square outdoor art exhibit, a heralded event decades ago.
Though he painted scenes from all over the city, Mira focused his work on the sites and monuments of Greenwich Village: the Washington Arch, MacDougal Street, and Seventh Avenue South. His inspiration seems to come from the urban realists who made a name for themselves in the early 1900s, such as George Bellows and George Luks.
Rainy Day in Washington Square Park
“Mira painted angled, bird’s eye viewpoints, thereby creating what one critic categorized as ‘moving camera eye impressions,’” explains gallery Questroyal Fine Art LLC. He died in 1980 or 1981, depending on the source, and his work still inspires. It also still sells, with several paintings going for thousands of dollars at top auction houses.
60th STREET LAMPPOST BASE THAT WAS REMOVED WHEN TRAM WAS BUILT. THE SECOND AVENUE EL WAS ON THE AVENUE AND A ROW OF BROWNSTONES ON 60th STREET. (WILLIAM H. JACKSON COMPANY) Vicki Feinmel got it.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
Sources
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
PHOTOS BY JUDITH BERDY / RIHS (C)
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American illustrator best known for his fifty-year career as a cover artist for The New Yorker magazine. Between 1938 and 1988, two hundred and thirteen Getz covers appeared on The New Yorker, making Getz the most prolific New Yorker cover artist of the twentieth century.
Getz was also a fine artist, painted murals for the Works Progress Administration Program, wrote and illustrated children’s books, and taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the University of Connecticut, and the Washington Art Association in Washington, Connecticut.
In addition to his New Yorker covers and spot drawings, Getz’s illustrations were published in American Childhood, Audubon, Collier’s, Consumer Reports, Cue, Esquire, Fortune, The Nation, The National Guardian, The New Masses, The New Republic, PM, Reader’s Digest, Saturday Review, Stage, and The Reporter.
TURKEYS IN THE TUNNEL, 1956
JULY 5, 1967
NOVEMBER 14, 1964
CONSTRUCTION NEXT DOOR, JULY 9, 1955
Getz relocated to the country-side and his work changed in later years
HARA REISER, ANDY SPARBERG, ED LITCHER, ARON EISENPREISS, VERN HARWOOD, GLORIA HERMAN, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, NINA LUBLIN, HARRIET LIEBER, JAY JACOBSON ARLENE BESSENOFF, THOM HEYER ALL GOT IT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources: THE NEW YORKER (C)
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JANE’S WALK LED BY THEODORE LIEBMAN, ARCHITECT, PERKINS EASTMAN, AND JUDITH BERDY, PRESIDENT, ROOSEVELT ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY MONDAY, MAY 3, 1:00 P.M. ON ZOOM
We will review the history of the island and its change from the infamous Welfare Island to today’s vibrant Roosevelt Island community and the 1969 Johnson Plan and its execution. We will review all the architecture, the restoration of landmarks, and sustainability features on the island, the tram and subway, the new Cornell Tech University and Four Freedoms Park created as a memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and designed by Louis I. Kahn. TO REGISTER:
When watching the news about an FBI raid, I recognized the building at Madison Avenue and 66th Street. I decided to stop wondering and check it out along with the architects who designed this apartment house and two others
45 EAST 66 STREET
45 East 66th Street / 773 Madison Avenue
Describing this trio of buildings as “the best gingerbread in town,” Paul Golberger noted in his book, “The City Observed, A Guide To the Architecture of New York, An Illustrated History” (Vintage Books, 1979), that this was “the best” of the trio, adding that “The detail is an eclectic mix of Elizabethan and Flemish Gothic, and it is just elaborate enough to be showy, but restrained enough not to compete with the separate, secondary level of texture created by the dozens of 12-over-12 double-hung windows, a veritable curtain of tiny square panes.”
Some history of the site by Christopher Gray (1988):
“In 1905, Charles F. Rogers, who had built the Prince George and other hotels, bought the All Souls church site at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 66th Street. Rogers, the son of the sculptor John S. Rogers, lived at 60th Street and Madison Avenue and was an All Souls parishioner….The new building dominated the Madison Avenue brownstones, and its distinctive round corner tower was unusually prominent. The square-doughnut structure has a central light court, but the majestic multipaned windows -framed in white terra-cotta and rising to overhanging, screen-like assemblies of Gothic ornament – are what catch the eye….The building was divided into only two apartments…on each floor. Only a handful survived intact, still grand and elegant but with most of their unusual woodwork painted over. The building opened in 1908 as 777 Madison Avenue…..In 1929 the entrance was moved onto East 66th Street, giving the building its present address,…The exterior remained in fairly good shape except for a gradual buildup of grime from engine exhaust (Madison Avenue streetcars were replaced by buses in the 1930’s). From 1928 to 1973, the building was owned by the Bing & Bing real estate company. Major change came after the mid-50’s, with most of the overhanging decorative work at the sixth and 10th floors either cut back or stripped away entirely. In 1973, 45 East 66th Street was acquired by a builder, Sigmund Sommer, who cut back some services, discharged the elevator attendant and replaced incandescent lighting with fluorescent in the hallways. Tenants conducted a rent strike….They ultimately won most of their battles and the Bing interests took the building back in the spring of 1977, just as a tenant effort of landmark designation was starting….In 1987, a partnership managed by M. J. Raynes bought the building and began a cooperative conversion plan that was completed last month.”
ALWYN COURT
ALWYN COURT 180 WEST 58 STREET
The Alwyn Court, also known as The Alwyn, is an apartment building at 180 West 58th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.
The building is at the southeast corner with Seventh Avenue, one block south of Central Park. The Alwyn Court was built between 1907 and 1909 and was designed by Harde & Short in the French Renaissance style. It is one of several luxury developments constructed along Seventh Avenue during the late 19th and early 20th century.
The building is thirteen stories tall. Its facade is clad with elaborate terracotta ornamentation in the Francis I style, with a main entrance on Seventh Avenue and 58th Street. Inside is an octagonal courtyard with a painted facade by artist Richard Haas, as well as a location of the Petrossian caviar bar. The Alwyn Court was originally built with twenty-two elaborately decorated apartments, two on every floor, which typically had fourteen rooms and five bathrooms. The interior was subdivided into 75 apartments in 1938.
The Alwyn Court was named after Alwyn Ball Jr., one of the building’s developers. Despite a fire shortly after opening, the Alwyn Court quickly became one of New York City’s most expensive apartment buildings. During the early 20th century, ownership changed several times. By the 1930s, the last luxury tenant had moved out, and the building’s interior was completely rebuilt. The Alwyn Court was made a New York City designated landmark in 1966, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The building was renovated and converted to cooperative apartments in 1980, and the facade was restored in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
RED HOUSE
From A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
Harde & Short’s 1904 “Red House” — No. 350 West 85th Street
Architects Herbert Spencer Harde and Richard Thomas Short kept themselves busy around the turn of the century designing tenement houses throughout the city. Harde branched out into real estate at some point, establishing the Eronel Realty Company – “Eronel” being his wife Lenore’s name spelled backwards. With the Upper West Side rapidly developing, Eronel Realty acquired the plot of land at 350 West 85th Street and, in 1903, commissioned Harde & Short to design an apartment building on the lot – in short, Harde hired himself. Terra cotta was just making its mark as a remarkably versatile and relatively inexpensive material and the architects embraced it with gusto for this project. In an effort to lure well-to-do residents from private homes into apartments, Harde & Short lavished the façade with intricate terra cotta ornamentation. It would be a stark departure from the firm’s usual tenement buildings. Drawing on several styles and periods, they created an eye-catching and unique structure. Expanses of multi-paned windows hardened back to great English country estates while dripping Gothic screens coexisted with terra cotta salamanders – the symbol of Francis I.
Harde & Short played the red brick and white terra cotta against one another, creating visual interest that was accentuated by the light and shadow of the façade’s angles and bays. The distinctive six-story building was completed in 1904, drawing the unexcited comment from The Real Estate Record & Guide which said it was “a departure from the usual.”
The salamander, symbol of Francis I, would appear again in the facade of Harde & Short’s magnificent Alwyn Court — photo by Alice Lum Harde named his building “Red House” and immediately moved in with Lenore. Joining them in the new building were socially-important Mr. and Mrs. William Smith Young and their two daughters, Caroline Grace and Lucy. The 32-year old attorney was a member of no fewer than five exclusive clubs, including the Columbia Yacht Club and the Cornell Club.
Mrs. Young, who went by the ponderous name Caroline Marshall Page Young was a Daughter of the American Revolution and was active in philanthropic and charitable causes. On May 14, 1907, for instance, she and Mrs. Franklin P. Duryea, who lived in the elaborate Ansonia Apartments, hosted “a bridge” to aid the School for Crippled Children. Reflective of the difference between West Side and East Side, many of the tenants here were movers and shakers; unafraid to break the chains of tradition or to question the status-quo.
At this same time the banker Ashton Parker was living here. His astonishingly modern views on smoking in public sound more like 2011 than 1905. Parker complained to the editor of The New York Times, calling public smoking “a nuisance” and “disagreeable to ladies.” “Why is it that smoking is forbidden in the ladies’ cabin, yet is permitted in the Wall Street ferry house, where the ladies wait for the boats?” he asked. Other early tenants were Harvard graduate Semour M. Peyser and William Robinson. The modern-thinking Robinson owned an early motorcycle which, sadly in 1906, caused him to be charged with “overspeeding on a motor bicycle.” He was released on $100 bail. Smith College alumna Nancy Elizabeth Barnhart was living here in 1915 when the women’s rights advocate won honorable mention for her submission of a poster design for the Woman Suffrage Campaign Poster Competition exhibited at the gallery of the Society of Beaux Arts Architects. Not all of the endeavors of the residents were so lofty, unfortunately. Alexander S. Timson was a 20-year old insurance broker when he lived here in 1911. On his wedding day, June 10, Detectives arrived at Red House where they arrested Timson as a jewel thief. When he was searched at the station house, police found two diamond rings set with sapphires, two diamond hatpins also set with sapphires, one diamond ring set with pearls and another diamond ring. “This is terrible. I am to be married tonight,” Timson protested. “My people, who live in this city, are wealthy, and will help me out of this trouble.” Timson’s people never showed up. Little has changed on the exterior of Red House. The windows have been replaced, as have the entrance doors and the original paint scheme for the windows has been changed to black. Yet it appears very much as it did when Lenore and Herbert Harde moved in in 1904 – what the AIA Guide to New York City calls “a romantic six-story masterpiece.”
IN HONOR OF GLASS ART, THE PHOTO IS FROM STEUBEN GLASS, THE GAZELLE BOWL. SEE MONDAY’S EDITION LAURA HUSSEY& ED LITCHER GOT IT!!!
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
WIKIPEDIA FRIENDS OF UPPER EAST SIDE A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN NY TIMES/CHRISTOPHER GRAY
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Sargent, Whistler, Venetian Glass: American Artists and the Magic of Murano
The Smithsonian Museums are open again or opening very soon. Now you can visit in person the artworks that we have featured the last year.
Most of the artworks in the is issue will be featured in the upcoming exhibition.
Pack your bags, get the Amtrak ticket and off to D.C.
OCTOBER 8, 2021 — MAY 8, 2022
Smithsonian American Art Museum (8th and G Streets, NW)
Experience the spectacle of Venice and its rich history as a glassmaking capital through Sargent, Whistler, and Venetian Glass: American Artists and the Magic of Murano. The exhibition is the first comprehensive examination of the American Grand Tour to Venice in the late nineteenth century, revealing the glass furnaces and their new creative boom as a vibrant facet of the city’s allure.
Though the Venetian island of Murano has been a leading center of glass-making since the middle ages, today’s thriving industry stems from a burst in production between 1860 and 1915. In this era, Murano glassmakers began specializing in delicate and complex hand-blown vessels, dazzling the world with brilliant colors and virtuoso sculptural flourishes. This glass revival coincided with a surge in Venice’s popularity as a destination for tourists, leading to frequent depictions of Italian glassmakers and glass objects by artists from abroad. American painters and their patrons visited the glass furnaces, and many collected ornate goblets and vases decorated with flowers, dragons, and sea creatures. Venetian glass vessels, and also glass mosaics, quickly became more than souvenirs—these were esteemed as museum-quality works of fine art.
Moreover, the inventions of Murano’s master glassmakers established Venice as a center for artistic experimentation. Sojourns in Venice were turning points for John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, and scores of artists who followed in their footsteps, often referencing the glass industry in their works. Featuring more than 150 objects, this exhibition presents a choice selection of glass vessels in conversation with paintings, watercolors, and prints by the many talented American artists who found inspiration in Venice. This juxtaposition reveals the impact of Italian glass on American art, literature, design theory, and science education, as well as ideas at the time about gender, labor, and class relations.
In addition to works by Sargent and Whistler, the exhibition features paintings and prints by Frank Duveneck, Thomas Moran, William Merritt Chase, Maurice Prendergast, Maxfield Parrish, Louise Cox, and Ellen Day Hale. These are featured alongside rarely seen Venetian glass mosaic portraits and glass cups, vases, and urns by the leading glassmakers of Murano, including members of the legendary Seguso, Barovier, and Moretti families. Remarkable works from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection join loans from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and dozens of other distinguished public and private collections.
For Sargent, Whistler, and many of their patrons, Venetian glassware was irresistibly beautiful, and collecting these exquisite vessels expressed respect for both history and innovation. By recreating their transatlantic journey—from the furnaces of Murano to American parlors and museums—this exhibition and catalogue will bring to life the creative energy that beckoned nineteenth-century tourists and artists to Venice. This spirit spawned the renowned Venice Biennale contemporary art festival, and it lives on in Venetian glassmakers’ continued commitment to excellence.
The exhibition is organized by Crawford Alexander Mann III, curator of prints and drawings at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Unidentified, Unidentified (Murano, Venice, Italy), Goblet with Striped Bowl, 1890s-1910s, blown, enameled, and applied hot-worked glass, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.8.469.8
Robert Frederick Blum, Canal in Venice, San Trovaso Quarter, ca. 1885, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William T. Evans, 1909.7.7
In this piece, Robert Blum positioned the viewer as though he were looking down a narrow Venetian canal from a boat on the water. The view shows the Rio Ogni Santi (River of All Saints), in the San Trovaso Quarter, where Blum lived for a time. He spent many summers and winters in Venice, and his sketches, pastels, and paintings capture the city’s bright colors and hodgepodge of buildings. In the center of the waterway a man steers a sandolo, which is a smaller, lighter version of a gondola.
Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, Venice, 1843, ink and watercolor on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Martha F. Butler, 1991.56.130
Everett Warner, Venice, 1904, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. James M. Fetherolf, 1966.10.2
Cass Gilbert, Venice, 1933, watercolor and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Emily Finch Gilbert through Julia Post Bastedo, executor, 1962.13.71
Mabel Pugh, St. Mark’s, Venice, ca. 1923-1926, linoleum cut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the North Carolina Museum of Art (Gift of the artist, 1977), 2020.4.12
VASE WITH DOLPHINS AND FLOWERS
americanart.si.edu/artwork/vase-dolphins-and-flowers-31068 ca. 1880s-1890s, blown and applied hot-worked glass, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.8.469.
Unveiled in July 2018, Spot the Dog is a 38-foot-tall statue of a Dalmatian puppy balancing a real New York City yellow cab precariously on its nose. The dog has a playful grin and golden toenails (Spot is a she). The taxi cab is wired so that its headlights illuminate Spot when it gets dark. When it rains, the cab’s wipers turn on.
Spot’s artist, Donald Lipski, wanted to create a playful sculpture because it stands at the entrance to a children’s hospital, and the hospital’s principal donors are the Hassenfeld family, who founded the Hasbro toy company. Also, Lipski lives in the neighborhood, so he wanted to make an artwork that he’d be happy to see every day.
Lipski has assured everyone that despite appearances, the front license plate of the taxi is securely attached to Spot’s nose.
ED LITCHER, CLARA BELLA, NINA LUBLIN, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, JAYJACOBSON, VERN HARWOOD, VICKI FEINMEL AND LUAR HUSSEY GOT IT RIGHT.
OUR NEXT RIHS/NYPL ZOOM PROGRAM
Tuesday, May 18 “Saving America’s Cities” Author and Harvard History Professor Lizabeth Cohen provides an eye-opening look at her award-winning book’s subtitle: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age. Tracing Logue’s career from the development of Roosevelt Island in the ‘70s, to the redevelopment of New Haven in the ‘50s, Boston in the’60s and the South Bronx from 1978–85, she focuses on Logue’s vision to revitalize post-war cities, the rise of the Urban Development Corporation, and the world of city planning. Watch this site for registration information.
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
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
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
Psychopathic Building, Bellevue and Allied Hospitals, architects’ rendering, 1927. Department of Public Charities and Hospitals Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Manhattan Block 958. Bromley Atlas, 1955. New York Public Library.
The Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital, as it was called at the time, was built in 1931 by Charles B. Meyers in the Italian Renaissance style. The building is still standing alongside the East River on First Avenue between 29th and 30th Streets, occupying an entire city block. When constructed, it joined the growing Bellevue hospital complex, and was intended to match the existing buildings, which were designed by architects McKim, Mead & White – same color brick, embellished with granite base course, limestone and terra cotta trimmings. By then, McKim, Mead & White was barely active; Meyers had just designed the Tammany Hall building and was a favorite of then-Mayor Jimmy Walker.
Prior to its construction, Bellevue’s mental-health facilities were part of the main hospital and included an 1879 “pavilion for the insane,” and an alcoholic ward was added in 1892. Dr. Menas Gregory, a well-known psychiatrist who spent his career working in Bellevue’s psychiatric division, is credited with the idea for a psychiatric building after a trip to inspect similar institutions in Europe – a “Temple of Mental Health,” as he called it.
Wanting to create a very clean and stately environment for the new hospital was right on brand for Dr. Gregory. In his position, he had already changed the terminology – preferring “psychopathic” to the word “insane,” thinking this would help make the patients seem curable. He had also removed the iron bars from the old pavilion’s windows and had lessened the use of narcotics and physical restraints on the patients. Dr. Gregory was seen as a good guy in the field, at a time when most medical professionals were largely ignorant about mental illness.
Psychopathic Hospital, Department of Hospitals, Charles B. Meyers, elevation, 1929, blueprint. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Before the hospital was built, The New York Times said it would be “one of the finest hospitals in the world for the treatment of mental disorders” and “thoroughly modern” at a cost of $3,000,000. (Unsurprisingly, by the time it was finished, the cost would be $4,300,000 ($66,000,000 today). It was designed as a single building with three separate units: 1) 10-stories to house administrative services, doctors’ offices, labs and a library; 2) 8-stories, for mild cases; 3) 8-stories, for more advanced cases. There were facilities for recreation and occupational therapy; physio-, electro- and hydro-therapy; an out-patient clinic; teaching facilities for medical students, and a special research clinic for the study and treatment of delinquency, crime and behavior problems, in collaboration with the Department of Correction, Criminal Courts and Probation Bureau.
Bellevue Hospital complex with new psychopathic building at right, October 31, 1934. Borough President Manhattan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Rooms were designed to house either one, two or three patients at a time. In a Mental Hygiene Bulletin, it was written that “special consideration has been given in the plans to incorporate within the building the appearance and aspect of home or normal living conditions with simple decorations and color tones believed to have the most soothing effect upon the patient.” One hundred of the six hundred beds were dedicated for the study and treatment of children, under the supervision of the Department of Education.
Completing the building was nothing short of dramatic and filled with accusations of corruption and mismanagement. Its lavish exterior juxtaposed against the great depression couldn’t have been more tone deaf to the city’s residents. When ground was broken on June 18, 1930, it was thought the building would be completed at the end of 1931. Almost a year later, in February 1931, the cornerstone was just being laid. Delays were plentiful. It reportedly took a year to choose the architect and another year to draw the plans, and then, according to the Acting Commissioner of Hospitals, “after the contractor had collected all the funds he could get, he left for Europe.”
Psychopathic Hospital, Department of Hospitals, Charles B. Meyers, first floor plan, 1929, blueprint. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital, Manhattan Block 958, Lot 1, 1940. Tax Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
The hospital partially opened in May 1933 with the 600-bed facility only ready for 375 patients. A formal dedication occurred later that year in November, where tribute was paid to Dr. Gregory for his vision. Dr. Gregory resigned from his post in 1934, amid an investigation of his division by the Commissioner of Hospitals, Dr. S. S. Goldwater. This formed a spectacular tit-for-tat-type relationship between Dr. Gregory and Dr. Goldwater, which The New York Times covered extensively. Dr. Gregory died in 1941.
Over the years, the building went from temple of health to a scary place you didn’t want to go, and was the subject of many films, novels and exposes. The hospital saw many celebrity patients. Norman Mailer was sent there after stabbing his wife in a drunken rage. William Burroughs after he chopped off his own finger to impress someone. Eugene O’Neill had several stays in the alcoholic ward. Sylvia Plath came after a nervous breakdown. And infamous criminals like George Metesky the “Mad Bomber,” and John Lennon’s assassin, Mark David Chapman, were briefly committed to the hospital.
In 1984, the city began transitioning the building into a homeless shelter and intake center, but much of it was left empty. Around 2008, a proposal to turn the building into a hotel surfaced. To developers, the building was naturally suited to such a use, given the H-shaped layout with long hallways and small rooms.
July 20, 1934 Dr. Goldwater was the Hospital Commissioner under Mayor La Guardia
Unfortunately this building is a sad eyesore now as a neglected and homeless shelter. It is the shelter of last resort and many attempts to renovate it have not come to fruition.
ED LITCHER, ARON EISENPREISS, GLORIA HERMAN, NINA LUBLIN, NINA LUBLIN AND LAURA HUSSEY ALL GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
By the second half of the 19th Century the need for a larger, more secure hall of records was evident. The population of Manhattan had grown from 61,000 in 1800 to 942,000 in 1870. Necessarily, as the population burgeoned so did the amount of paper records to be archived. In 1888 the Sinking Fund Commission was formed to erect the new facility.
Concurrently, a plan to demolish the elegant 1803 City Hall was initiated and John R. Thomas won the commission for its replacement with an exuberant Beaux Arts design. Thomas was a prolific architect credited with designing more public and semi-public buildings than any other designer in the country, including armories, the old Stock Exchange and more than 150 churches.
Public outcry against the demolition of City Hall was immediate and strong. Subsequently the State Legislature voted down a new City Hall and, as compensation, the commission for the new Hall of Records was given to Thomas.
It would be nearly a decade before the city obtained the land for the new building. The Board of Estimate and Apportionment met on December 16, 1897 to award the building contract to John Pierce, who had bid $1,997,900. The board estimated the total cost to be $2.2 million.
By the time the building was finally completed that figure would rise to $8 million.
Thomas’ plans, a gentle re-do of his City Hall design, were approved by an advisory committee of William E. Ware of Columbia University’s Architectural School, noted architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler, and Metropolitan Museum trustee Henry G. Marquand. It was a grand French Beaux Arts building in keeping with the new City Beautiful Movement.
The theory of the movement held that monumental and classical buildings would not only beautify the urban area, but citizens who were surrounded by civilized structures would behave in a civilized manner. Thomas’ Hall of Records would be monumental beyond imagination.
A lavish mansarded giant constructed of granite from Hallowell, Maine (the same quarry used for the stone of the State Capitol building), it would be embellished with sculptures on three levels. Groupings closest to street level would depict “various races and nations,” the second tier would be portraiture of distinguished city fathers, while the uppermost sculptures would be allegorical.
Photo New York Citywide Administrative Services
As sumptuous as his exterior design would be, the interior was doubly-so. Opulence was created with yellow Siena marble, mahogany woodwork, and an intricate arched mosaic ceiling in an Egyptian motif. White marble sculptural groupings of “The Consolidation of Greater New York” and “Recording the Purchase of Manhattan Island” would sit above the east and west doorways.
The inlaid foyer floor would be of pink Tennessee and Blue Beige marble, illuminated by a bronze chandelier and wall sconces; even the radiator covers would be bronze , topped by spread eagles atop globes.
If the visitor was struck by the foyer, he would be awed by the lobby where a grand baroque split staircase rose two floors to a balustraded level. A century later, author Bill Harris in his “One Thousand New York Buildings” said “Want to see the Paris Opera? Step into the lobby right here.” Thomas’ interior design was one of lavish theatricality.
Ground breaking did not occur until 1899 and the cornerstone was laid in April 13, 1901. Shortly thereafter, on August 28, John R. Thomas died unexpectedly. Reaction on the part of the new Tammany-backed Mayor Robert A. Van Wyck was immediate.
He gave the job of completing the project to architects Horgan & Slattery, also connected to Tammany Hall. The firm recommended various alterations to the plan, which The New York Times grumbled was “horganizing and slatterifying” the design.
On April 28, 1902 the first of the eight mammoth granite columns was hoisted into position. Carved in a single piece, it was 36 feet high, 4 feet two inches in diameter and weighed 41 tons. Transporting the monolith from Pier 1 took a team of 21 horses.
Construction dragged on for eight years during which time the grandiose plans for the 54 separate sculptures threatened the completion deadline. The Fine Arts Association and then the Municipal Art Society gave their opinions, chiming in on materials (bronze, marble or granite) and subject matter. “The material used is of the greatest importance, very naturally,” reported The Times. “Marble will weather, and is easily broken, but granite also is not proof against the folly and malice of boys and degenerates, of fanatics and drunken men. Bronze will stand the wear and tear of the crowds who will pass the Hall of Records, and will always contain a sprinkling of those imbeciles who knock off a finger or toe in sport or to keep as a souvenir.”
Thomas had given the commissions to two sculptors only, H. K. Bush-Brown for the roof sculptures and Philip Martiny for the rest; far too much work for the allotted time. Martiny did his work at the Hallowell, Maine quarry where the stone for rest of the building was cut. As work progressed, delays were caused when his plaster casts for the statue of former Mayor Hewitt were rejected four times. Finally on December 8, 1905 the finished 12-foot, four ton statue was completed and prepared for hoisting into place on the cornice at the sixth floor. When the sculpture was about two and a half feet from the cornice, the main boom of the rigging snapped, sending the statue plummeting to the sidewalk where it smashed.
Luckily, because of the long construction process, a new mayor took over and most of the changes to Thomas’ original design were reversed. Nevertheless, as city workers began moving in to their offices in 1906 they were shocked to find that the gray and white marble on the upper floors was actually plaster.
The Times explained “The presence of the plaster where the marble ought to be is explained by the fact that the hall was planned in one administration, replanned in another, and finally planned in a third.” No graft was involved, the newspaper said. Nevertheless, “…the imitation work is very poorly done indeed, and, though the hall has been opened but a few weeks, is already beginning to show signs of wear.”
Amid the controversy, Horgan & Slattery publically admitted the substitution of materials was a mistake. In 1961 when Centre Street was widened, the two sculptures flanking the entrance were removed to the front of the New York County Courthouse at 60 Centre Street. A year later the Hall of Records was renamed The Surrogate’s Courthouse.
UPDATE
Recent restoration of the interior lobby has brought the brilliance back to the building.
(How many LAW & ORDER scenes were filmed here?)
Now that we told you of this building, the good and bad news is that the Municipal Archives are moving to a new facility in Industry City in Brooklyn. For decades the Archives have been crammed into unsuitable space at 31 Chambers Street. Soon a new research center will be open across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Our red garbage can is guarding the tulips in the RIHS Garden. These $2200- cans have served us well and outlasted their predecessors. NINA LUBLIN, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, GLORIA HERMAN, JAY JACOBSON, JINNY EWALD, JOAN BROOKS, VICKI FEINMEL GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN NYC MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES/ DEPARTMENT OF RECORDS
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania operating amphitheater, 1915. ALL PHOTOS: LEGACY CENTER ARCHIVES, DREXEL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MEDICINE, PHILADELPHIA.
In early November 1869, Anna Broomall, a student at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP), received a note. It had made the rounds among her male counterparts at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School before a clinical lecture at Pennsylvania Hospital. For the first time, WMCP students were to attend this lecture, which was an essential, hands-on experience for medical students. The message on the slip of paper was significant enough that Broomall kept it for more than 50 years: “Go tomorrow to the hospital to see the She Doctors!”
On Saturday, November 6, Broomall recalled, she arrived at the lecture along with 19 other young women. What happened next became known as the “Jeering Incident.”
“When we turned up at the clinic, in what was then the new amphitheater, pandemonium broke loose,” Broomall said in a later interview. “The students rushed in pell-mell, stood up in the seats, hooted, called us names and threw spitballs, trying in vain to dislodge us.” Joanne Murray, Historian and Director at the Drexel University Legacy Center Archives and Special Collections, describes another account: “The men greeted the women students with yells, hisses, caterwauling, mock applause, offensive remarks on personal appearance, etc.”
The incident caught the attention of the press. “Newspaper articles about this incident nearly uniformly condemned the men for ‘ungentlemanly’ behavior,” says Murray. The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin called for expulsions and arrests of men who continued to harass the students in the streets. The public reproach wasn’t universal, however. A very different view came from a letter to the editor of the New Republic newspaper: “Who is this shameless herd of sexless beings who dishonor the garb of ladies?”
Alice Evan’s scrapbook with dissection images, c. 1898.
At a time of strictly observed gender roles, it was very rare for a woman to seek a medical education. In 1849—a year before WMCP opened—Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in America to earn a medical degree, from New York’s Geneva Medical College. Her initial application was subject to a vote by the all-male student body. Assuming that it was a joke, they all voted “yes.”
But Joseph S. Longshore had a different view. A Quaker, abolitionist, and physician, Longshore was a fervent believer in the importance of women’s education. Along with other physicians and businessmen*, he cofounded WMCP, and its first class included his sister Anna and sister-in-law Hannah. “That the exercise of the healing art, should be monopolized solely by the male practitioner … can neither be sanctioned by humanity, justified by reason, [nor] approved by ordinary intelligence,” he declared at the College’s introductory lecture.
WMCP opened in 1850, the first medical college for women. The idea of female physicians was welcomed by some, shunned by others. An editorial from the Boston Journal sniffed, “We consider the needle a much more appropriate weapon in the hands of woman than the scalpel or bistoury [curved surgical knife].” A Michigan newspaper took a more condescending approach: “We give our vote for a lady physician here—especially if a single lady, and therefore capable of administering a remedy for any disease of the heart that may occur.” Some male doctors argued in favor of separate terminology: Doctoress.
Despite the Jeering Incident, WMCP students continued to attend clinical lectures. They also participated in another essential aspect of medical training. “Women students learned through dissecting human cadavers as well, which of course was and is considered a rite of passage for medical students” says Murray. “But in the 19th century it was seen as a practice that women should not be undertaking. But the students generally valued the experience and even boasted about it to friends and family.” One student, Alice Evans, created a scrapbook with a page devoted to photographs of students mid-dissection.
Students with skeletons, c. 1895.
Students at WMCP also worked with patients. They received clinical instruction at the Woman’s Hospital of Philadelphia after it was founded in 1861 (until that point, women had been barred from most hospital training). “A maternity practice gave students hands-on experience as they served an often-impoverished immigrant community in South Philadelphia,” says Murray. “They also learned at affiliated dispensaries, treating ailments such as measles, typhoid fever, and tuberculosis.”
The WMCP records are held today at the Legacy Center Archives at Drexel University. In 2002, Drexel absorbed the MCP Hahnemann University School of Medicine, which itself was once two medical schools: Hahnemann University and Medical College of Pennsylvania, the new name for WMCP after it became coeducational in 1970.
Combing through the Drexel Archives—either online or through its Twitter account—is a glimpse into a world that is both familiar and surprising. Students lounge in dorms and take notes in a lecture hall. But they also goof around with a skeleton, while others, in constrictive Victorian attire, prod at a brain on a table. “Photographs of women in 19th-century garb, complete with mutton chop sleeves and floor-length dresses, standing with their cadavers, can seem out of sync,” Murray says.
International students Anandabai Joshee, Kei Okami, and Tabat Islambooly, photographed at the Dean’s Reception on October 10, 1885.
Even as many images seem to be mundane slices of medical school life, there are some particularly striking photos. “The 1885 photograph of three foreign women medical students dressed in the traditional style of their home countries is an image that surprises people all over the world,” says Murray. “It’s unusual enough to see photographs of 19th-century women doctors, but seeing a visual representation of the fact that women came to WMCP from foreign countries at that time is generally fairly shocking to most.”
The women in the photograph are Anandabai Joshee, who graduated in 1886, the first woman from India to earn a medical degree in America; Kei Okami, class of 1889, one of the first female physicians in Japan; and Tabat M. Islambooly, one of Syria’s first female doctors, who graduated in 1890. (She is also known as Sabat Islambouli, but very little else is known about her). A 1904 newspaper reported that WMCP’s alumnae include women from “Canada … Jamaica, Brazil, England, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Russia, Syria, India, China, Japan, Burmah, Australia, and the Congo Free State.”
Another notable image shows the class of 1891. At the far right is Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson, an African-American student from Pittsburgh. She graduated WMCP with honors, and became the first woman to practice medicine in Alabama—but only after passing the 10-day Alabama State medical exam, described by The New York Times as “unusually severe.”
The first African-American student to matriculate at WMCP was educator and abolitionist Sarah Mapps Douglass, who enrolled in 1853. “She did not graduate, but she used her medical education to offer lectures and evening classes in hygiene and physiology to other African-American women,” says Murray. In 1867, Rebecca J. Cole graduated WMCP, and became the second African-American woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. (The first was Rebecca Crumpler, who graduated from the New England Female Medical College in 1864).
Marie Curie and WMCP Dean Martha Tracy, 1920.
Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson, an African-American student from Pittsburgh. graduated WMCP with honors, and became the first woman to practice medicine in Alabama—but only after passing the 10-day Alabama State medical exam, described byThe New York Times as “unusually severe.”
The first African-American student to matriculate at WMCP was educator and abolitionist Sarah Mapps Douglass, who enrolled in 1853. “She did not graduate, but she used her medical education to offer lectures and evening classes in hygiene and physiology to other African-American women,” says Murray. In 1867, Rebecca J. Cole graduated WMCP, and became the second African-American woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. (The first was Rebecca Crumpler, who graduated from the New England Female Medical College in 1864).
There were more milestones to come. In 1888 Verina M. Harris Morton Jones became the first woman physician in Mississippi. Eliza Ann Grier was an emancipated slave who put herself through medical school to become, in 1897, the first African-American woman licensed to practice in Georgia, and Matilda Evans, graduate of 1897, was the first African-American woman doctor in South Carolina.
Susan La Flesche Picotte was another pioneering WCMP graduate. Born on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska, she saw, as a child, a woman die while waiting for a white doctor who never arrived. La Flesche Picotte graduated at the top of her class in 1889. She became the country’s first Native American doctor and returned to the Omaha Reservation to work.
The extraordinary achievements of these women occurred at a time of widespread racial and gender discrimination. Under the law at the time, La Flesche Picotte was not regarded as a citizen (and would not be until 1924). Not one of these women was able to vote.
As WMCP expanded, so did its influence. In 1920, Marie Curie visited the campus and met with Dean Martha Tracy. “The photograph of the Dean and Madam Curie underscores the growing work of women in science and medicine and the support women leaders found in others like them,” says Murray.
Last year, in 2017, for the first time, the number of women enrolling in medical school in the United States exceeded the number of men. Earlier in 2017, a New Yorker magazine cover depicting four female surgeons went viral and was replicated by female surgeons around the world with the hashtag #Ilooklikeasurgeon. Yet, despite the increased acceptance and visibility of women in medicine, there is still considerable wage inequality for women and minority doctors.
If we have moved from a place of jeering to a place of celebration, we can be thankful to the 19th-century women who first challenged the status quo. Recalling the harassment at that first clinical lecture, Broomall, who became a professor of obstetrics at WMCP, noted, “We went back. The disorder was renewed, but with diminishing violence, and at last the opposition wore itself out.”
A SPECIAL GRADUATE
GLORIA O. SCHRAGER, MD
Dr. Schrager was a graduate who did her residency in Surgery at Metropolitan Hospital, where she met her hsband, from 1948-1951. She is retired and lives in New Jersey, Her biography is Medicine, Matzo Balls and Motherhood.
VICKI FEINMEL, GLORIA HERMAN, NINA LUBLIN, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, NANCY BROWN AND VERN HARWOOD ALL GUESSED THAT THIS THE EAST SEAWALL CONSTRUCTION SITE.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources
ATLAS OBSCURA
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
This treasured piece of medical history still exists next to the former Roosevelt Hospital, now Mount Sinai West.
Syms Operating Theatre, Coutesy of the Museum of the City of New York
When the immensely wealthy James Henry Roosevelt died in 1863, he left $1 million to establish a hospital “for the reception and relief of sick and diseased persons.” It was a staggering amount of money.
The new Roosevelt Hospital purchased its building site in 1866 between 9th and 10th Avenues, from 58th to 59th Streets, well north of the established city. In this sparsely-developed area land was much more affordable.
As plans for the new hospital were discussed, the trustees opted for the “pavilion plan” that had been devised in France. The concept was to inhibit the growth and spread of infection and disease by reducing stale air and dirt. It was believed that proper ventilation and ample sunlight would disperse the harmful elements.
Therefore small hospital buildings, or pavilions, rather than a single bulky edifice were considered more scientifically healthful. By 1872 three pavilions, all in the Victorian Gothic style and designed by Carl Pfeiffer, had been completed.
Fate would change the future of Roosevelt Hospital when multimillionaire William J. Syms became ill.
Syms was an iconic 19th century tycoon who increased his fortune with every new enterprise. Spreading his interests among diverse industries, he founded both the Metropolitan Gas Company and the Forty-second and Grand Street Railroad Company. He was President of the Franklin Telegraph Company, Vice-President of the Atlantic And Pacific Telegraph Company and a partner in the largest gun maker and dealer in New York, Blunt & Syms. Syms, his wife Catherine and their adopted daughter, Frances Mary, lived in a mansion at 477 Fifth Avenue.
Dr. Charles McBurney was “attending surgeon” at Roosevelt Hospital at the time and treated Syms who was more than happy to recover. In payment for the doctor’s $300 bill, the millionaire sent back a check for $3000, which Dr. McBurney promptly returned. But Syms never forgot.
William J. Syms died in 1889 and on April 19 his will was probated. The New York Times reported that “the Roosevelt Hospital will receive $350,000. Of that amount $250,000 is to be used in the erection of a surgical operating theatre, at the easterly end of the lot on which the hospital stands. The theatre is to be under the direction of Dr. Charles McBurney, and to be called the ‘William J. Syms Operating Theatre of Roosevelt Hospital.’ The remaining $100,000 is to be invested and the income applied to the expenses of the operating theatre.”
The gift was not totally humanitarian. Syms wanted the building to be “an enduring monument to himself” as well as of “great service to suffering humanity,” according to Harper’s Weekly
. Architect William Wheeler Smith was given the commission for the new structure. By November 2, 1890 work was well underway. The New York Times announced “The nearest approach to perfection in all that goes to bring about the results attainable by modern surgery will be made with the completion of the Syms Operating Theatre, upon which work is being rapidly pushed at Fifty-ninth Street and Ninth Avenue.”
The reason the operating theatre would be near to perfection, said the newspaper, was that “Dr. McBurney spent much time in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, filled with original ideas and anxious to glean the latest improvements in these surgical centres of the Old World.”
McBurney consulted with the architect and after three unsuccessful drafts, Smith came up with plans “that combined all the necessary features and were within the estimate.” To keep within “the estimate,” Smith had to forego any over-the-top architectural embellishment.
“All style and architectural feelings were sacrificed to the scientific demands, but the building, nevertheless, will be an ornament to its neighborhood,” said The Times.
The Syms building was separate from the main hospital. Image Mt. Sinai Archives
Smith’s design called for a rather bulky, understated red Haverstraw brick Romanesque Revival structure three stories tall over a basement, with a tall, conical glass skylight. A four-foot dry moat surrounded the structure, assuring light, air and drainage.
To ensure cleanliness the floors were to be mosaic, “these being absolutely impervious;” and the walls were either marble-clad or of hard plaster. The ground-breaking design included facilities for preparing patients and disinfecting them, the doctors and the instruments after operations.
The operating arena was clad in Italian marble and could accommodate 184 students. The glass dome, 40 feet above the floor, provided natural lighting. There was no wood–a potential harbor for germs– used in any section of the amphitheater.
The ultra-modern facility would include etherizing rooms, examination rooms, rooms for septic cases, rooms for quarantining dangerous cases, photographic rooms, a microscope room, instrument room, preparatory laboratory, and a room for preparing surgical dressings and bandages. The Times noted “Arrangements for the ventilation of the building will be elaborate and most complete.”
And then came the contesting of the will.
In March 1891, with construction well underway, Syms’ sister, Mary E. Serrell, protested that he was of unsound mind when he wrote the will and was under “undue influence.” Things ground to a halt on 10th Avenue. “When the contest of the will was started it became problematical whether the hospital would ever get the $350,000, so the work was stopped,” said The Times. The hospital had good reason to be worried. A reporter visiting that year said “The most noticeable feature of the [existing] surgical pavilion is its crowded condition. Every one of its thirty-six beds contains a patient.” But by mid-July Serrell dropped her suit and construction was restarted. It was finally completed in 1892, about six month past the expected date.Harper’s Weekly called it “The finest structure in the world for surgical operations.” As instructed by Sym’s will, Dr. McBurney headed the new surgical theater and, as the years progressed, the doctor’s reputation in the medical professional grew. Here he developed processes to perform appendectomies, he identified the “McBurney’s point,” a focused site of tenderness and, in 1894, developed the muscle-splitting incision access. It was McBurney who first used the term appendicitis and, contrary to contemporary practice, urged the early removal of the appendix. The Syms Operating Theater was still a world-renowned facility when, in 1909, 100 surgeons from foreign warships visited to observe about a dozen emergency operations performed under the direction of the then-head surgeon, Dr. George E. Brewer. As the 20th century progressed, however, the importance of the building would wane. Although the Syms Theater received a facelift in 1934, it was upstaged in 1941 when a new Private Patients Pavilion was built with new, modern surgical areas. The Syms was used as a blood bank and mortuary for six years, then in 1948 became a temporary emergency room. Things got worse for the old building in 1953. When the new Tower Building was built behind, over 17 feet of the rear of the building were removed to make way. Portions of the conical skylights were covered with copper and the interiors were gutted to provide space for the Department of Pathology.
Although the hospital repeatedly threatened to demolish the old Syms Operating Theatre, it never got around to it and in 1979 the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated it a landmark. Shortly thereafter the hospital sold the east end of the block to developers. The stocky little building became the focal point for two 49-story luxury apartment buildings. Restoration architect Walter Sedovich was hired who repaired the central skylight, original ground floor windows and the great red oak entrance doors. Salvage yards were searched to find just the right vintage bricks to replace lost or damaged ones. In the meantime, architect Robert Crane, working on the two new structures, relied on the Syms building as his design theme. Granite courses, curved bricks and other detailing echo the architectural feeling of the operating theater. After narrowly escaping demolition, the future of The William J. Syms Operating Theater which was on the cutting edge of science and medicine when designed is now secure.
Octagon Residents enjoyed a tour of the south end today, courtesy of Bozzuto Management and the RIHS. Lots of fun on a wonderful spring day for neighbors to meet each other. The RIHS can arrange a special tour for your group.
THE CHERRY TREES IN FULL BLOOM THROUGH THE WINDOW OF THE RIHS VISITOR CENTER
THOM HEYR, CLARA BELLA, ARON EISENPRESS, HARA REISER, GLORIA HRMAN, VICKI FEINMEL, ALEXIS VILLEFANE AND NINA LUBLIN GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources: A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN MT.SINAI ARCHIVES MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Will Barnet, Woman and Cats, 1962, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Harry W. Zichterman in memory of Joshua C. Taylor, 1981.140
Will Barnet, Silent Seasons–Winter, 1968, color lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Atelier Mourlot Ltd., 1969.2.28
Will Barnet, Study for Three Muses, ca. 1980-1985, charcoal and oil stick on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1994.42.6
Will Barnet, The Blue Thread, 1984, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Frank K. Ribelin and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 1996.72
Will Barnet has painted several images of mothers and children that capture intimate scenes of family life. In The Blue Thread, the verticals and horizontals of the windows, table, and chair divide the painting into neat rectangles, and Barnet positioned his daughter, her son, and the family cat so that they evoke figures from an Egyptian wall painting. The subdued tones and stylized poses transform a fleeting moment in his household into an image that feels timeless.
Will Barnet, Big Grey, 1962, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Given in memory of Peter Deitsch, 1974.67
Will Barnet, Big Grey, 1962, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Given in memory of Peter Deitsch, 1974.67
Will Barnet, Woman and Cat, 1979, charcoal on vellum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1994.42.8
Will Barnet, Janus and the White Vertebra, 1955, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Wreatham E. Gathright, 1986.73
ALEXIS VILLEFANE, THOM HEYER AND VICKI FEINMEL GOT IT
Happy Birthday 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 Edited by Deborah Dorff Roosevelt Island Historical Society
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
On March 8, 2010 the two old cabins were moved from the Tram Station to Motorgate to suffer 11 years of indignity under the auspices of non-functional RIOC.
THE ART DECO LAMP OUTSIDE GOLDWATER
UNCEREMONIOUSLY LEFT IN BACK OF COLER INSTEAD OF BEING RE-USED
IGNORING THE OBVIOUS
THE PAVING AROUND BLACKWELL HOUSE HAS BEEN IN HAZARDOUS CONDITION FOR YEARS. MAYBE, SINCE PRESIDENT HAYNES HAS MOVED INTO THE HOUSE, THE PAVING WILL BE REPAIRED.
PLUS
OPENING ON JULY 17TH (IN CASE RIOC DOES NOT INVITE YOU) THE LONG AWAITED MEREDITH BERGMANN SCULPTURES WILL BE DEDICATED,
RECYCLE
A LEXUS TRAVELING AT ABOUT 80 MPH HIT THE LAMPPOST AND A BIKE RACK AT THE EAST ENTRY TO SOUTHPOINT PARK. LET’S MAKE THE DAMAGED POST INTO A FOUND OBJECT IN THE PARK.
WHAT IS THE FATE?
IN 2008 A RIOC STAFF MEMBER DISCOVERED THESE CARVED STONES IN SOUTHPOINT PARK. THE RIHS WANTS THEM TO BE PART OF THE NEW EAST PROMENADE IN THE PARK. NO WORD FROM RIOC. WE DO NOT KNOW WHO T. BURNS WAS,BUT THIS IS A COMMEMORATION OF ALL WHO WERE HERE BEFORE US.
OUR TREES
OUR MOST ENDANGERED TREES
THESE WONDERFUL TREES ARE IN FULL BLOOM. RIOC DECIDED THEY ARE “DISEASED” SO THEY CAN BE REMOVED TO BE REPLACED BY A BIKE HELIX.
JOYOUS CHEERFULNESS
THE WONDERFUL WINDOW DISPLAYS IN THE NEW MSTDA SPACE FOR TOT PROGRAMS. THANKS KRISTI AND KARINE FOR CHEERING UP MAIN STREET.
WILDLIFE FREEDOM FOUNDATION
CATS, POSSUMS, SQUIRRELS, GEESE, DUCKS, AND ALL OTHER CREATURES EXIST BETTER THAN HUMAN DO!
JUDY-TORIAL
I walk around the island and grumble at some sites. We were discussing our lives here over 40+ years. We have lost so much of the shine over the years. Newcomers do not know that we had a strong community spirit that has faded over the years.
I remember so many small amenities and events that have just gone away. I feel that after the pandemic even more of our events will vanish.
Do you remember the Good Shepherd Fall Fair with Mrs. Chapin serving up home-made soups for a wonderful fall fair event.
Do you remember the RIJC bazaar in the Thrift Shop?
Do you remember Sister Regina helping all, no questions asked and an active CYO
Do you remember Geof Carr and the Boy Scouts selling and hauling home your Christmas tree?
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
