ILLUSTRATIONS BY HUGH FERRIS DEDICATION: JUNE 18, 1940
80 YEARS ON THE F.D.R.
Hugh Macomber Ferriss (July 12, 1889 – January 28, 1962) was an American architect, illustrator, and poet.[1][2] He was associated with exploring the psychological condition of modern urban life, a common cultural enquiry of the first decades of the twentieth century. After his death a colleague said he ‘influenced my generation of architects’ more than any other man.” Ferriss also influenced popular culture, for example Gotham City (the setting for Batman) and Kerry Conran’s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.[
Early in his career, Ferriss began to specialize in creating architectural renderings for other architects’ work rather than designing buildings himself. As a delineator, his task was to create a perspective drawing of a building or project. This was done either as part of the sales process for a project, or, more commonly, to advertise or promote the project to a wider audience. Thus, his drawings were frequently destined for annual shows or advertisements. As a result of this, his works were often published (rather than just given to the architect’s client), and Ferriss acquired a reputation.
After he had set up as a free-lance artist, he found himself much sought after. In 1912, Ferriss arrived in New York City and was soon employed as a delineator for Cass Gilbert. Some of his earliest drawings are of Gilbert’s Woolworth Building; they reveal that Ferriss’s illustrations had not yet developed his signature dark, moody appearance. In 1915, with Gilbert’s blessing, he left the firm and set up shop as an independent architectural delineator.
In 1914, Ferriss married Dorothy Lapham, an editor and artist for Vanity Fair. Daily News Building, NYC By 1920, Ferriss had begun to develop his own style, frequently presenting the building at night, lit up by spotlights, or in a fog, as if photographed with a soft focus. The shadows cast by and on the building became almost as important as the revealed surfaces. His style elicited emotional responses from the viewer. His drawings were being regularly featured by such diverse publications as the Century Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, Harper’s Magazine, and Vanity Fair. His writings also began to appear in various publications.
In 1916, New York City had passed landmark zoning laws that regulated and limited the massing of buildings according to a formula. The reason was to counteract the tendency for buildings to occupy the whole of their lot and go straight up as far as was possible. Since many architects were not sure exactly what these laws meant for their designs, in 1922 the skyscraper architect Harvey Wiley Corbett commissioned Ferriss to draw a series of four step-by-step perspectives demonstrating the architectural consequences of the zoning law. These four drawings would later be used in his 1929 book The Metropolis of Tomorrow.
This book illustrated many conte crayon sketches of tall buildings. Some of the sketches were theoretical studies of possible setback variations within the 1916 zoning laws. Some were renderings for other architect’s skyscrapers. And at the end of the book was a sequence of views in Manhattan emerged in an almost Babylonian guise. His writing in the book betrayed an ambivalence to the rapid urbanization of America: There are occasional mornings when, with an early fog not yet dispersed, one finds oneself, on stepping onto the parapet, the spectator of an even more nebulous panorama. Literally, there is nothing to be seen but mist; not a tower has yet been revealed below, and except for the immediate parapet rail . . . there is no suggestion of either locality or solidity for the coming scene.
To an imaginative spectator, it might seem that he is perched in some elevated stage box to witness some gigantic spectacle, some cyclopean drama of forms; and that the curtain has not yet risen . . . there could not fail to be at least a moment of wonder. What apocalypse is about to be revealed? What is its setting? And what will be the purport of this modern metropolitan drama? In 1955, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1960.
THIS IS A SMALL SELECTION OF THE IMAGES IN THE COMMEMORATIVE BOOK. THERE ARE MULTIPLE PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY. YOU CAN REQUEST TO SEE IT FROM THE RI.I.H.S.
Drawing of Southbound Roadway in the Triple-Dec Section in the 80’s
North portal of only true tunnel in East River Drive. It fronts Gracie Mansion, preserving it ancient view of the river.
Architects’ rendering of new municipal asphalt plant to replace existing structure on 91st Street.
The successful Asphalt Green today
Drawing of north-bound roadway of triple deck section in the 80’s
2020
From the Archives
Artist view of Grand to Montgomery Street link looking southward toward lower Manhattan.
Hugh Ferris drawings of the 81st Street portal during construction. The sketch show the tower and northbound roadway.
81st Street Portal Today
74th Street Power Station as it looks today above, and under construction below
Drawing looking south from 60th Street showing north and southbound roadways as they pass under Queensboro Bridge. Structure at left is new Department of Sanitation dump. The ramp to the dump is for Sanitation trucks. Now, just north of the dump is the East River Roundabout artpiece by Alyce Aycock
A drawing of the completed portal of the triple deck structure at 81st Street. The tower marks the juncture of the portion of the drive built on land with that built over water. The stairway joins the shore front drive at water level with the esplanade that is the third deck of the drive. Overpass leads to 81st Street.
Future concept of 91st Street redesign with Sanitation dump.
Chester Price drawing of new municipal ferry house at 78th Street. The roof of the ferryhouse will serve as a section tho the Drive’s pedestrian esplanade. Access to the ferryhouse from the west side of the Drive is by an overpass.
Park Area in the Grand to 14th Street section of the Drive built in cooperation with the Department of Parks and dedicated in 1939.
Williamsburg Bridge today.
TUESDAYPHOTO OF THE DAY
COURTESY OF JUDITH LIEBERMAN SEND US YOUR TITLE FOR THIS PHOTO
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 PURPORE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Our computer glitch has been repaired with a new keyboard. Glad to have one where you can actually see the letters on the keys.
A rendering of “Biosignature Preservation” on Park Avenue, a sculpture by Jorge Otero-Pailos which will be part of his forthcoming exhibition “Analogue Sites” on Park Avenue Exhibition
The Fund for Park Avenue will unveil two massive sculptures this spring by artists Jorge Otero-Pailos and Betsabeé Romero.Traces in Order to Remember by Betsabeé Romero is a collection of five sculptures, each with a unique story to tell. On The Other Side Of The Track, a tower that symbolizes the industry and exploitation of Western colonization, kicks off the series on 81st St. The series continues uptown with Moon Seal and Warriors in Captivity III on 82nd St, Warriors in Captivity at 83rd Street, and Rubber and Feathered Snakes at 83rd Street. Romero is a Mexican visual artist who uses everyday materials in her work.
Jorge Otero-Pailos’ sculpture is made of large steel pieces wrought from a fence that once surrounded the former U.S. Embassy in Oslo. Part of an upcoming exhibition, Analogue Sites, the sculpture aims to raise awareness of the importance of American modern architecture and the preservation of mid-century embassies. Originally placed in Oslo, the art piece will relocate to Park Avenue in mid-March. It will be on display until October 2024. Don’t miss out on the Spring Program Lecture for the exhibition hosted at Colombia University, which will feature the artist himself.
Photo Courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden
Take a walk through The New York Botanical Garden this spring for The Orchid Show: Florals in Fashion, a fashion-themed orchid exhibition featuring exotic plants arranged in bold, vibrant arrangements. This year’s 21st-anniversary display highlights the work of rising sustainability-focused and climate-aware fashion brands Collina Strada by Hillary Taymour, Dauphinette by Olivia Cheng, and FLWR PSTL L a.k.a. Kristen Alpaugh. Each artist provides their take on the connection between plants and fashion. Walk the runway with Alpaugh’s leafy model, strike a pose with Cheng’s mannequins clad in flowery bikinis and draping leaves, and snap a picture of Taymour’s gown made of blooming flowers! Look out for select dates of Orchid Nights, an evening that offers music, cocktails, and live performances, a must-see event for fashion and nature enthusiasts alike. The Orchid Show runs from February 17th to April 21st.
Spend Friday evening at a late-night festival of conversations, debates, multimedia pop-ups, and workshops, that will inspire you to consider the impact of urban development through lenses of inclusivity, sustainability, arts and culture, education, and food. Night of Ideas, co-curated by Villa Albertine and Centre Pompidou, will take over Hudson County Community College (HCCC) in Jersey City from 6pm on Friday, March 1st to 1am. This nocturnal arts and culture annual marathon is free and open to the public! RSVP here.
Courtesy New York State Museum, Albany NY
As a tribute to the 400th anniversary of New Amsterdam’s settlement, The New-York Historical Society reveals a special exhibit titled New York Before New York: The Castello Plan of New Amsterdam on March 15th. The original Castello Plan by Johannes Vingboons is a 17th-century map that provides a snapshot of Dutch life in Mannahatta. It reveals the city of New Amsterdam at its peak. Through documents, artifacts, letters, and cartography the exhibit expands upon what the map shows to paint a picture of what life in New Amsterdam was like not just for the Duch settlers, but also for Indigenous people of New York and enslaved Africans. The artist Russel Shorto, Director of the New Amsterdam Project at New-York Historical, utilizes this project to delve into themes of free trade, race, and colonialism of that time while connecting it to our world today. The Castello Plan of New Amsterdam will be on view from March 15 through July 14.
MTA Arts & Design jazzes up your commute this month with six new vibrant artworks. From subway superheroes to flying dragons, talented artists Dennis RedMoon Darkeem, Yevgenia Nayberg, Erin K. Robinson, Taili Wu, and Marcel Dzama celebrate New York City’s history and the Chinese zodiac Year of the Dragon through digital art. Catch these gems at select stations and inside subway cars throughout the year.
Marcel Dzama’s art cards, The underground helps the garden 1 and 2, depict whimsical scenes of nature within subways cars. In Dzama’s art, people and animals coexist in urban places, emphasizing the harmony between city life and the natural environment. NYC Superhero by Yevgenia Nayberg portrays a cape-clad superhero flying over the city. This figure serves to empower commuters on their daily journeys. Talili Wu’s Year of the Dragon is a ceramic-crafted subway-themed dragon with references to New York City landmarks adorning its body to represent growth and energy.
Dennis RedMoon Darkeem blends indigenous culture and inspiration from old maps in his poster, Direct Connection on Turtle Island. Darkeem depicts a colorful version of the New York City skyline sitting on the shell of a turtle as the sun rises in the background. The entire scene is bordered by a wampum, a traditional indigenous bead. Catch a Line by Erin Robinson celebrates subway travel and the graphic design of New York City subway maps through a vibrant collage of subway lines and symbols.
The U.S. Navy New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, New York (USA), photographed from 300 m altitude, looking west, 15 April 1945. The ships in the large dry docks in center are (left to right): USS Houston (CL-81) and the aircraft carriers USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB-42) and USS Reprisal (CV-35).
Photo of the Hindenburg over New York City on May 6, 1937. A few hours after this photo was taken, the airship crashed and burned at Lakehurst, NJ while trying to land.
LOTS OF FOLKS IDENTIFIED THIS IMAGE OF GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL AARON EISENPREISS, LINA BECKER, JOYCE GOLD, ANDY SPARBERG, ALEXIS VILLAFANE, HARA REISER, & GLORA HERMAN
CREDITS
Text by Judith Berdy
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
IN 1961 THE FDNY DID AN AERIAL SURVY OF WELFARE ISLAND. THESE IMAGES ARE POSTED ON FLICKER. THANKS TO DYLAN BROWN FOR TELLING ME ABOUT THIS GREAT HISTORICAL REFERENCE.
The center of the island from Cottage Row, just sout of Blackwell House. Notice that the main road came off the Welfare Island Bridge and was on the West side of the island. The buildings in the center of the island were the City Home.
On the West Road was Our Lady Consoler of the Afflicted Catholic Church.
Just north of the Welfare Island Bridge are the remains of the Convalescent Camp, later to become the FDNY Training Center. North of the camp are the buildings of Metropolitan Hosptial
The north end of the island showing the City Home area around Good Shepherd. Notice the amount of structures on the island. The white roof is Good shepherd with the one adjacent to it Good Samaritan German Lutheran Church
Another view of the Welfare Island Bridge ramp as it come onto the island going north or south.
Lighthouse Park with Draper Hall, the nurses residence that remained from the Metropolitan Hospital School of Nursing.
Metropolitan Hospital campus with the Octagon central building. Coler Hospital is just to the north. Can you spot the lighthouse?
Sacred Heart Church is to the right of the Metropolitan Hospital campus.
A TRYLON AND PERISPHERE REPLICA ONCE STOOD AT THE LINCOLN TUNNEL
ISSUE # 1190
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
Searching the World’s Fair archives, Untapped New York’s founder Michelle Young came upon a forgotten gem: a mini Trylon and Perisphe replica that once stood at the New Jersey entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel. This information booth structure was meant to be eye-catching and to “induce the out-of-town motorist to stop at the booths before plunging into Manhattan.” The Trylon and Perisphere were the centerpieces of the 1939 World’s Fair and this piece of promotional architecture was one of many replicas that popped up around NYC to promote the fair.
“1939 World’s Fair Information Booth,” Courtesy of The Weehawken Time Machine
At the Lincon Tunnel, the spherical Perisphere part of the information booth is described as “containing a window counter with space for two clerks” and it measured 11 feet in diameter. The Trylon part stretched 38 feet high and was wrapped in a silver and black pennant which read “New York World’s Fair.” The structures were painted white and the lettering on them was red with blue trim.
The booth was advertised with 27 billboards on the highways which called attention to it and directed motorists toward it. It was manned 24/7 while the fair was in operation. The press release notes that the fair guides inside were “equipped to not only dispense information about the fair but about hotels and rooming, garages, road conditions, and similar subjects.”
Trylon and Perisphere booth in Times Square Image fromNYPL
The Port Authority built similar information booths at entrances to the Holland Tunnel and George Washington Bridge as well, as the document notes. Another information booth in this shape was built at the center of Times Square, at 46th Street and Broadway, mere steps away from the headquarters of its sponsor, Loews Metro Goldwyn Meyer.
CORRECTION
Good morning. This is Andy Sparberg. My message is not a response to today’s photo of the day, but a needed correction to this morning’s issue ISSUE # 1189 about the Wall St. Subway Station.
Specifically, the paragraph about the ticket chopper is incorrect. I am providing a corrected version below. Additional needed words are in bold font.
What’s the purpose of the ticket chopper? Before subway tokens were introduced in 1953, riders paid the fare via coins. Until 1921, the worker in the subway booth would hand them a paper ticket, and the rider gave the ticket to another employee at the chopper box, which would shred the ticket, according to the New York Transit Museum. To save the labor costs of chopper boxes, in 1921 the subways introduced automatic turnstiles, which required the rider to deposit the proper fare before admitting the rider into the station. Turnstiles required nickels until 1948, dimes from 1948-53, and tokens from 1953 until 2003.
(Turnstile information is from Under the Sidewalks of New York, by Brian Cudahy, pages 88-99.)
STATUE OF PROMETHIUS AT ROCKEFELLER CENTER BEING RE-GUILDED GLORIA HERMAN, JOYCE GOLD AND HARA REISER GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
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 Dottie Jeffries
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Con artists were no strangers to early New York City. At one time or another, nearly every major landmark in the city had been sold by a ‘matchstick man.’ Around the turn of the twentieth century, one such fraud was performed by two men who targeted an artifact of slightly less renown: The Great West Point Chain.
The Great West Point Chain was the linchpin of the American defenses at West Point during the Revolutionary War. Prior to the Chain, various other methods of securing the Hudson River Valley from invading British vessels had been tried, but none with success. First installed across the Hudson at West Point in 1778, “General Washington’s watch chain” would guard the River for four years.
George Washington contracted Sterling Iron Works to make the chain, according to the Office of the USMA Command Historian. It contained 750 links weighing 100-120 pounds each. The chain was pulled out of the river each fall so it wouldn’t break when the water froze in the winter. The ice would keep the British at bay during that time. The chain was reinstalled each spring for four years. It was taken in for the last time in the fall of 1782.
After the War, the Chain was left on the riverbanks. The new country was nervous that they would end up in another war with Great Britain and didn’t want to dispose of the Chain in case it became useful again. However, when war did break out again in 1812 the Chain sat idle. Finally, in 1829, it was melted down.
Photo: U.S. Military Academy PAO Michelle Kalish
Or so it seemed. Over the next 60 years most forgot about the West Point Chain. Then, in 1889 Chicago confectioner Charles Frederick Gunther began displaying 18 links of the “original” West Point Chain in his curiosity museum. He had bought them from a military surplus dealer in New York City.
The dealer went by the unlikely moniker of Westminster Abbey (he told people his father had wanted him to be a lawyer and gave him a distinguished name. This would probably have given his father quite a shock, as the elder Abbey actually named his son ‘John’). ‘Westminster’ ran a junk shop on Front Street near the South Street Seaport, advertising everything from “rifles, revolvers, and military pistols” to the “best mixed tea, wholesale or retail”.
New York Sun – December 25, 1898
Abbey picked up his chain at an auction at the Brooklyn Navy Yard but didn’t pretend to know how it got there. When asked, he simply replied that Gunther had verified it. Abbey hit the jackpot, both in dollars and publicity, when he managed to sell 18 links of the chain to former New York mayor Abram Hewitt in 1898.
Abbey got out of the chain game shortly after the Hewitt sale. He sold his remaining sections to equally dubious (albeit more successful) surplus dealer Francis Bannerman VI, of Bannerman Castle fame. Where Abbey was an amateur self-promoter, Bannerman had gone pro. To go along with his links (and the desk weights he made out of some pieces) Bannerman printed up a booklet detailing the chain’s history.
Photo: U.S. Military Academy PAO Michelle Kalish
According to Bannerman, a large section of the Great Chain had survived the furnace and was brought to Manhattan in 1864 to be displayed at the Metropolitan Sanitary Fair, which raised money for the Union Army. Rather than haul the Chain back to West Point after the fair, it was dumped in Brooklyn. It had been Bannerman’s father (also a surplus dealer) who bought the chain at the Navy Yard Auction. His idea was to melt the unremarkable chain down for scrap.
At this point (Bannerman says) Abbey stepped in and, recognizing their importance, saved the links from destruction by buying them all. After making a few big sales, Abbey sold the leftovers back to Bannerman.
The problem is that none of the chain links sold by Abbey or Bannerman were authentic. In reality, Abbey had acquired a British mooring chain, cast in Wales in the mid-nineteenth century. Made of smooth rolled iron (rather than the rough, hand-hammered metal of the authentic Chain), Abbey’s links were almost double the size and weight of the West Point links. Despite the obvious differences, Abbey and Bannerman crafted a fiction from just enough fact that people believed it.
In reality, some of the original Chain was saved from destruction and left behind at West Point. Some of what was saved was exhibited at the 1864 Sanitary Fair. An auction at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1887 is also documented (although no mention is made of any chain).
Photo: Michelle Kalish, USMA PAO, Feb. 16, 2024
Although some questioned why their links differed from the originals, most either remained silent from embarrassment or made excuses (the Buffalo Historical Society wrote in 1921 that their Bannerman links are larger because they were made for a point in the Chain where the strain from the River was greatest).
By the time all was said and done, spurious chain links were scattered from Vermont to California, from small-town museums to the Smithsonian archives. The whole fraud wasn’t pieced together until 1990 when Hudson River historian Lincoln Diamant investigated all the known links for his book Chaining the Hudson: The Fight for the River in the American Revolution, a wonderful history of the West Point Chain.
Photo: Michelle Kalish, USMA PAO
A few authentic links still survive, most notably at Trophy Point in the United States Military Academy at West Point. Thirteen links ring a monument to the ingenuity, dedication, and patriotism of those who created it. Most of the chain was reused during the 19th century by the West Point Foundry.
You can even see pieces of the fake chain links that Abbey sold. A stretch of 25 links runs across the grounds of Ringwood Manor, the former New Jersey summer estate of Peter Cooper and Abram S. Hewitt. Hewitt purchased the chain segment from Abbey in the early 1900s, but almost immediately realized he had been conned. He had the links analyzed and found out they were made of English iron. The chain remained on the grounds as a reminder of the local area’s iron mining history.
EMERGENCY EXIT FROM 53RD STREET SUBWAY TUNNEL NEXT TO STRECKER LABORATORY
Text by Judith Berdy
ROOSEVELT ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
UNTAPPED NEW YORK DAN THURBER
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 Dottie Jeffries
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
During the 1920’s Aloysisus O’Kelly painted a series of paintings of Blackwell’s Island and the East River.
Years ago, I saw 5 of the painting at a conference room at Metropolitan Hospital. I took photos, just in case…..
Originally the painting I assume were hung at the Metropolitan Hospital on Blackwell’s Island.
Recently the NYC Health + Hospitals Arts in Medicine program has been surveying the collections of all the hospitals and facilities. The survey for Metropolitan Hospital lists two of the 5 paintings as being on site. The others may still be there, but not yet discovered.
Two other paintings were listed by an auction gallery on the internet.
Thanks to Larissa Trinder and the Arts in Medicine program for discovering many great artworks that have been lost of not on view at our H+H facilities.
Aloysius O’Kelly (3 July 1853 in Dublin – 12 January 1936) was an Irishpainter.
Early life
Aloysius was born to John and Bridget O’Kelly in Peterson’s Lane (now Lombard Street East), Dublin 3 July 1853. He was the youngest of four boys and one girl. The O’Kelly family along with Aloysius’ cousins, the Lawlors, made up a network of artists and political activists in 19th-century Irish cultural history. His grandparents on his father’s side were natives of County Roscommon and his father ran a blacksmith’s shop and dray making business in Peterson’s Lane.[1] His uncle on his mother’s side was John Lawlor, a successful sculptor, and his cousin, Michael Lawlor, was also a sculptor employed in London. Aloysius’ brothers, Charles and Stephen, also became artists, whereas the eldest brother, James J. O’Kelly, set forth on a successful political career. O’Kelly’s mother directed him towards a career in the arts.
In 1861, John’s father died and Bridget, whose brother, John Lawlor (1820-1901) was already an established sculptor in London. moved her family there. Lawlor became a father figure to her children, especially her sons. Lawlor took on the boys, including Aloysius, as apprentices in his studio.[2]
Career
Mass in a Connemara Cabin by Aloysius O’Kelly, 1883
O’Kelly traveled to Paris in order to enroll at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1874, where he studied under Bonnat and Gérôme. To enter the Gérôme’s atelier was a great honour, however, the master was exceedingly strict and merciless in his criticism; such that a number of students could not last the distance. It is uncertain whether O’Kelly ever matriculated.
From Gérôme, O’Kelly developed an interest in Oriental scenes. He traveled to Brittany in 1876, painting its aesthetic coastlines, fishing ports and villages.
In October 1881, Charles Stewart Parnell, a member of Parliament and leader of the Irish Party, was arrested and imprisoned in Kilmainham. Two days following his arrest, Aloysius’ brother, James J. O’Kelly, along with some other Party members, including John Dillon, were imprisoned where they remained until May 1882. A number of Aloysius’ drawings during this period portrayed the political situation dealing with his brother’s incarceration.[4]
Aloysius inevitably became embroiled in the murky and often secretive life of his brother. He began to paint and sketch political activists including members of the Land League.
O’Kelly lived in Concarneau, Connemara and eventually the United States, painting rural scenes in the prior and city life in New York City.[5] He knew Mark Twain, and painted a depiction of Huckleberry Finn, which the author inspected and commented on.[citation needed]
O’KELLY’S WORKS AT METROPOLITAN HOSPITAL
DRAPER HALL-NURSES RESIDENCE, BLACKWELL’S ISLAND LABELED AS GOLDWATER HOSPITAL) PAINTING ON SITE AT HOSPITAL
LIBRARY – PROBABLY DRAPER HALL, BLACKWELL’S ISLAND
CHAPEL OF THE HOLY SPIRIT- BLACKWELL’S ISLAND PAINTING IS ON SITE AT METROPOLITAN HOSPITAL
METROPOLITAN HOSPITAL BUIDINGS, BLACKWELL’S ISLAND
CITY HOSPITAL SCHOOL OF MEDICINE & NEW YORK TRAINING SCHOOL FOR NURSES
ISSUE # 1185
ROOSEVELT ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The south end of the island was the training center for physicians and nurses from the 1870’s until the 1950’s. Enjoy some of our vintage images.
Medical students in front of City Hospital
Staff House for doctors.
Nursing students picture perfect pose
This lounge with its’ plaster relief of the City of New York existed during my early years on the island. It is the southernmost room in the Smallpox Hospital ruin.
Classes were in lecture style
Student nurses were taught to make healing medications and foods.
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 Dottie Jeffries
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
The former home of the reclusive “Weird Wendels” who dominated New York real estate a century before Donald Trump.
BEFORE DONALD TRUMP’S MONIKER WAS STAMPED all over New York City, there was another super-rich surname that dominated Manhattan real estate, and another bizarre story attached to it.
Around the turn of the 20th century, the Wendels were one of the most powerful real estate families in New York, owning 150 properties in Manhattan, worth about $1 billion today. But they certainly didn’t act the part. The six Wendel siblings—five of whom were women—lived together in a mansion on 5th Avenue and barely ever set foot outside the house. The four-story, 40-room red brick brownstone became known as the “House of Mystery,” where “the Weird Wendels” lived like hermits.
John G. Wendel, the one male, was eccentric at best, tyrannical at worst. He refused to allow his sisters to marry, worried that any children they had would dilute the family fortune. He gave them few opportunities to socialize with others, and lived like a recluse stuck in his ways. The house, built in 1856, was lit by gaslight up through the 1920s, eschewing modern amenities like electricity or telephone. Decades went by without any updates made to the musty furniture or decor, or the Wendels’ clothing—they wore outdated Victorian garb and traversed the city in an old carriage instead of a car on the rare occasion they went out.
The last of the Wendel siblings, Ella, passed away in 1931. She left the Wendel home to Drew University requesting it remain as a memorial to the family in its current state (such that it was). The university maintains a memorial room on campus, but the prized site on 5th Avenue was razed in 1934 and gave way to commercial properties like the rest of the formerly residential avenue.
Today there are a few reminders of the Wendel empire, outside a vault at Trinity Cemetery in lower Manhattan, and a bronze plaque the size of a door at the site of the former Wendel home on 5th Avenue.
19th century map showing Manhattan’s East Side shoreline and Blackwell’s Island, now Roosevelt Island. Avenue A and Avenue B are now York and East End Avenues, respectively.
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 Dottie Jeffries
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
To commemorate the New York City designation of July 10, 1997 as Nikola Tesla Day, the Flatiron Partnership recalls the electric power inventor’s life in the neighborhood during the 1890s. Tesla resided and conducted scientific experiments at the Gerlach Hotel, now known in his honor as the Radio Wave Building at 49 West 27th Street, between Sixth Avenue and Broadway. Wireless remote control was one of Tesla’s notable creations, and he held its first demonstration at the 1898 Electrical Exhibition in Madison Square Garden on 26th Street.
Born on July 10, 1856 in the Croatian village of Smiljan, Nikola Tesla was the fourth of five children. His father was a Serbian Orthodox priest, and mother, a household appliances inventor and manager of the family’s farm. While in high school, their son Nikola could “do integral calculus in his head,” notes thoughtco.com, and was so inspired by the demonstrations of electricity in his physics class that it “made him want to know more of this wonderful force.” He would receive a college scholarship for further study at Austria’s Graz Polytechnic School.
In 1882, Tesla accepted an offer to work at Thomas Edison’s Continental Edison Company in Paris. Two years later, he relocated to New York City for a job opportunity at Edison Machine Works, along “with the hope that Edison would help finance and develop a Tesla invention, an alternating-current (AC) motor and electrical system,” wrote The New York Times on December 30, 2017. “But Edison was instead investing in highly inefficient direct-current (DC) systems, and he had Tesla re-engineer a DC power plant on Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan.”
According to history.com, Tesla “worked there for a year, impressing Edison with his diligence and ingenuity. At one point Edison told Tesla he would pay $50,000 for an improved design for his DC dynamos. After months of experimentation, Tesla presented a solution and asked for the money. Edison demurred, saying, ‘Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor.’” Tesla left the Edison team, and the pair soon engaged in an electrical power rivalry known as the “War of the Currents.” Their competition included the 1892 bid by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, where Tesla sold his AC patent and was now a consultant, and Edison’s General Electric firm vying for Chicago’s World’s Fair electricity contract, which Westinghouse won.
During 1892, Tesla had also moved to the Gerlach Hotel at 49 West 27th Street, between Sixth Avenue and Broadway. Constructed as French flats between 1882-83, the 11-story structure was designed by August Hatfield. But by the 1890s, it was operating as a hotel. Explained Richard Munson inTesla: Inventor of the Modern about the tech pioneer’s time there, “After arising at 6:30 a.m., having gotten three hours of sleep, Tesla enjoyed a light breakfast, performed a few gymnastic exercises, and began his daily thirty block walk” pass Madison Square Garden and Madison Square Park to his Lower Manhattan lab. Tesla had installed at the Gerlach, a “receiver on the hotel’s roof in order to capture some of the first radio transmissions from his downtown workshop,” wrote Munson. The author also revealed that while Tesla strolled, he “counted his steps, making sure they were divisible by three.” His “obsession with the number three and fastidious washing,” notes history.com, were “dismissed as the eccentricities of genius.”
By 1898, Tesla was ready to showcase one of his most innovative inventions, the first radio-controlled vessel, at an exhibit held in Madison Square Garden on 26th Street. The event’s opening day on May 2nd included a wired message from President William McKinley in Washington, D.C. The Commander in Chief expressed that it gave him “great pleasure to open the Electrical Exhibition in Greater New York, and to participate in this wonderful demonstration of the latest method of recording and publishing by means of electricity,” reported The New York Timeson May 3, 1898. “I am glad to know that the resources of the wonderful electrical arts have already been so far advanced in the United States that American electrical goods are welcome the world over.”
Photo Credit: Nikola Tesla demonstrates his Tesla coil “Magnifying Transmitter via ThoughtCo
Tesla’s presentation was considered to be “a scientific tour de force, a demonstration completely beyond the generally accepted limits of technology,” according to pbs.org. “Everyone expected surprises from Tesla, but few were prepared for the sight of a small, odd-looking, iron-hulled boat scooting across an indoor pond (specifically built for the display). In an era when only a handful of people knew about radio waves, some thought that Tesla was controlling the small ship with his mind. In actuality, he was sending signals to the mechanism using a small box with control levers on the side. Tesla’s device was literally the birth of robotics.”
This groundbreaking technology inside the Garden was not the only sign of change around the neighborhood. At the end of the 19th century, the Gerlach had also temporarily shut its doors in 1899, and Tesla made a move to Midtown Manhattan. “In his heyday,” wroteTime magazine on November 27, 1944, Tesla “lived at the Waldorf-Astoria and had a fabulous reputation as a host. He invariably took his guests to his laboratory and treated them to an electrical display, which included the then startling trick of passing 1,000,000 volts through his body.” Tesla continued to occupy hotels most of his life, which included a 10-year stay at The New Yorker Hotel, where he reportedly died of coronary thrombosis on January 7, 1943 at the age of 86.
Six months after his death, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an earlier decision on Tesla’s radio patent, thus naming him the real inventor of the radio, not Guglielmo Marconi, who had received the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in wireless telegraphy. “The Court had a selfish reason for doing so,” notes pbs.org about the controversial ruling. “The Marconi Company was suing the United States government for use of its patents in World War I. The Court simply avoided the action by restoring the priority of Tesla’s patent over Marconi.” In recognition of Tesla’s triumphs in radio technology while living and working in Madison Square, a commemorative plaque was placed at 49 West 27th Street by the Yugoslav-American Bicentennial Committee on January 7, 1977, which was also 34 years after Tesla’s passing.
SUNY PLATTBURGH NURSING STUDENT STANDING ON ROOF OF CENTRAL NURSES RESIDENCE. STUDENT NURSES LIVED ON WELFARE ISLAND WHILE STUDYING AT NEW YORK HOSPITALS, 1966
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 Dottie Jeffries
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
