Lexicographer Eric Partridge was an intriguing figure. Born in New Zealand, he was educated in Queensland, Australia, served in the First World War and finished his studies at Balliol College, Oxford. He would spent the rest of his life in Britain, working as a researcher and lecturer. The Library of the British Museum (now: British Library) became his second home. Always seated at the same desk (K1), he produced numerous books on the English language.
A surprising aspect of this unassuming man’s career was his interest in slang and offbeat language (which apparently was rooted in his wartime experiences), culminating in 1937 with the publication of a Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. From this rich offering of linguistic treasures, many words have been “dropped” over time or changed their original meaning.
We tend to assume today that because of social media new (slang) terms are transmitted around the world in record time. That may be true. Etymologists, however, have always been aware of the swift introduction, spread and passing of such words. One of those is “scorcher.” Once a hotly debated Anglo-American concept of the 1890s, the term quickly lost its relevance (its present meaning is entirely different) and was not included in Partridge’s Dictionary.
Reckless Riders
Nineteenth century social commentators were deeply concerned that the noxious conditions and pressures of city-life would lead to a decline in bodily and mental health. Social Darwinists fanned fears that a horde of degenerates was dragging down civilized society into biological decay. The “survival of the un-fittest” was a peril that had to be confronted. Sport, gymnastics and out-of-door activities provided one solution in the battle for regeneration.
Cycling was seen as an exertion that benefited the emerging dogma of exercise. It offered physical well-being and spiritual refreshment to unhealthy and fatigued (middle-class) city dwellers. Physicians stressed the bike’s curative powers. Pushing the pedals – they claimed – improves digestion; strengthens muscles and heart; reduces rheumatism, gout or hernia; lessens obesity; and calms the nerves.
The rage for cycling had its opponents too. In Britain, the “outrage” of uncontrolled bikers was widely discussed in the press. Critics hated the presence of such maniacs on public roads. One adversary sent a letter to The Times of London (1892), in which he described a group of scorchers descending a hill “like a horde of Apaches or Sioux Indians, conches shrieking and bells going; and woe betide the luckless man or aught else coming in their way.”
The emotionally loaded term spread fast. A scorcher was a cyclist who rode his/her bike aggressively at high speed in public spaces risking crashes with fellow riders, pedestrians or other users of the road. Since bicycles of the day either had either no or else poor brakes, accidents were reported frequently. A scorcher was a reckless two-wheeled speed merchant.
By November 1895 the word had crossed the Atlantic when an indignant reader of the New York Times submitted a letter of complaint to the editor about the hazard of cyclists racing each other on Manhattan’s streets, sidewalks and avenues. Hoodlums ‘scorching … with heads down’ were a menace to pedestrians.
The Upper West Side was particularly popular with competing cyclists. From Columbus Circle to Grant’s Tomb on Riverside Drive, the district’s broad avenues were packed with riders who turned the roads into makeshift velodromes. New York’s pedestrians demanded protection and stricter law enforcement. The presence of scorchers, not just young males but ‘wild’ women as well, had to be curtailed.
The bike was a symbol of the New Woman, an agent for change and a tool of emancipation. Riding a bike was a statement of self-reliance and independence. As traditional dress hampered free movement, outfits were adjusted and streamlined, infuriating traditionalists. Women on wheels wearing bloomers and skimpy garments were accused of outraging public decency. Calling a woman bicyclist a scorcher had profoundly negative and sexist connotations.
Health warnings were issued to women who had fallen for the ‘wheeling’ mania. Cycling, it was suggested, came at a price. Young women risked losing their femininity by developing a “Bicycle Face” (flushed face with dark circles under bulging eyes). Medical magazines and popular press reports raised warnings about the danger of infertility. To hard-line moralists the bicycle seat spelled loose morals which, in the worst cases, would lead to prostitution.
The criticism of female bicyclists as rebellious and unrespectable diminished by the mid-1890s as more and more women took to the road. The trend is reflected in a number of songs that during the decade were inspired by lady scorchers in particular (ragtime was the perfect genre to reflect the biker’s rhythmic movement).
Scorcher Squad
On January 1st, 1895, Republican politician William Lafayette Strong was appointed New York City’s 90th Mayor. A reform-minded leader, he invited Theodore Roosevelt to take on the role of Police Commissioner with a brief to eliminate corruption amongst the ranks and make the police department a more professional unit. William Strong’s choice of candidate was well-considered. Roosevelt had served the previous six years on the Civil Service Commission fighting favoritism and nepotism in federal nominations.
For Roosevelt this appointment was an opportunity to impose his presence in the political arena. Cleaning up New York would strengthen his political clout. During his two-year spell as Police Commissioner, he set out to implement a series of structural reforms and innovations.
As President of the Board of Commissioners, he shook up the police force by enforcing regular inspections of firearms, appointing recruits based on their physical and mental suitability rather than political affiliation, closing corrupt stations and introducing a range of service awards and medals. He was also the first official to employ a female member of police staff.
During his tenure in New York, Roosevelt’s right-hand man was a former military man named Avery Delano Andrews. The latter was also a cycling enthusiast. Concerned about the long hours and heavy workload that officers had to face in an ever-expanding city, he suggested to put policemen on bicycles to quicken up response time and release the fatigue caused by lengthy foot patrols.
Roosevelt was initially skeptical about the idea, but in the end the Board relented and agreed to begin a trial period with a squad of four officers on bikes, all of them former champions or experienced cyclists. The officers wore uniforms with eye-catching yellow leggings, nautical caps and long (winter) coats. They were instructed to reel in and fine “scorchers,” chase down drunk drivers, guide traffic where needed and protect female cyclists (even if in bloomers) from insults and cat calls.
The squad was led by Brooklyn-born Charles Minthorn Murphy. A record-holding cyclist, he was the first person to race a mile in less than a minute. The feat took place between Farmingdale and Babylon on Long Island on June 30th, 1899. He finished the distance 57.8 seconds, a time he achieved by slip-streaming behind a railroad boxcar. Acknowledged as the world’s fastest man on wheels, he became known as Charles “Mile a Minute” Murphy.
The policing trial proved to be a resounding success. The squad was so effective that their numbers increased rapidly. In his 1913 Autobiography Theodore Roosevelt looked back with admiration to the achievements of his Bicycle Squad officers, praising them for their “extraordinary proficiency on the wheel” in the battle against scorchers and other law breakers.
King of Speed
As cycling became regulated and a start was made with the laying out of designated bike lanes (the six-mile long Ocean Parkway from Prospect Park, Brooklyn, to Coney Island was the first of such paths where scorchers would be stopped and fined for speeding), the Squad’s days were numbered. With the arrival of the automobile on the streets of New York, the passion for pace moved from bike to car. The career of one young immigrant encapsulates that change.
On May 20th, 1905, a car race took place at the old Hippodrome in Morris Park, Bronx, in which two renowned drivers named Barney Oldfield and Walter Christie took part. Their presence was overshadowed by a young man driving a ninety-horse powered Fiat who sped around the track at sixty-eight miles per hour, barely slowing down at the curves and taking unbelievable risks. His name was Louis Chevrolet.
Born in December 1878 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a clock-making centre in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel, his father’s skill as a watchmaker may have inspired his passion for mechanics and precision engineering. Hit by economic setbacks the large family moved to Beaune, a small town in the Burgundy region of France, when Louis was a child.
Times remained difficult for the family and Louis left school at eleven to take up a job at a local bicycle factory. The job sparked his interest in building and handling speed machines. In 1895, Chevrolet enrolled in the town’s bicycle racing association and success ensued almost immediately. For three years he showed a fierce competitive spirit, clinching numerous victories on the track, earning some much needed prize money to help his struggling family and, at the same time, celebrating a French public obsession with bike racing that Ernest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast would describe as the “driving purity of speed.”
When he was offered a job at the Darracq automobile company near Paris, he did not hesitate to grasp the opportunity. It was his first step towards a dazzling career. Louis moved to New York to work for the French De Dion-Bouton Motorette Company which, located in Brooklyn, began manufacturing cars under license in 1901. The venture was in operation for only one year, but Louis was soon given the opportunity to drive a racing car for Fiat in New York. Between 1905 and 1910, Chevrolet amassed a string of triumphs and records.
His “heroic” driving fame caught the attention of William Durant, the owner of the Buick Company and founder of General Motors in 1908. Louis opened up his first garage in Detroit in 1909 and a year later he partnered with Durant to design his first car. The rest is – as they say – history. The Chevy became an American icon. Chevrolet’s place among racing legends and car makers was secured in 1969 when he was elected to the Automotive Hall of Fame.
Addiction to time was a by-product of the technological explosion of the late nineteenth century. Our obsession with speed began on a bicycle and was intensified with the arrival of motor vehicles. Modernism moved on wheels. Chevrolet and other racing drivers exploited the might of the machine by clocking fast and faster times. Henry Ford’s assembly line increased the pace of production by cutting the completion span of a car from twelve hours to ninety-three minutes. The clock became society’s Supreme Leader.
QUEEN LATIFAH AND STARS OF THE EQUALIZER OUTSIDE COLER WHERE THEY ARE FILMING AN EPISODE OF THE SHOW. NINA LUBLIN AND GLORIA HERMAN 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
NEW YORK ALMANACK
JAAP HARSKAMP
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The MTA arts collection just got bigger! New public art installations by famous names such as Yayoi Kusama and Kiki Smith will adorn the soon-to-open Cultural Corridor in Grand Central Madison, the LIRR terminal below Grand Central Terminal. The highly anticipated opening of the corridor is set to take place this month, and the new art installations make it even that much more exciting.
Internationally renowned artist Yayoi Kusama’s glass mosaic piece will bring a shock of color to the Madison Concourse level between 46th and 47th Streets. Titled A Message of Love, Directly from My Heart unto the Universe (2022), the vibrant work measures 120 feet wide by 7 feet tall, for a total coverage area of approximately 875 square feet. “This new, flowing composition, originating from her extensive body of My Eternal Soul paintings spills energy and joy out into the Grand Central Madison passageway. The mural is a journey itself, inspiring incredible moments as you walk along the grand mosaic artwork,” explained Sandra Bloodworth, Director, MTA Arts & Design.
Kiki Smith is another famous artist that will be featured in the new eastside corridor. Smith’s work will be spread throughout the corridor in various locations. The pieces are titled River Light, The Water’s Way, The Presence, The Spring, and The Sound (2022). Smith’s artwork brings a little bit of the outdoors into the underground terminal space. Like much of her work since the 1980s, these mosaics, which appear throughout two levels of the corridor, draw inspiration from a number of sources “spanning scientific anatomical renderings from the eighteenth century to the abject imagery of relics, memento mori, folklore, mythology, Byzantine iconography, and medieval altarpieces.”
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY COTY PERFUME SHOPE LATER THE HENRI BENDEL STORE NOW VACANT NOTICE THE LALIQUE UPPER FLOOR WINDOWS
FROM JAY JACOBSON: Looks like the famous Fifth Avenue headquarters of Henri Bendel. Was the address 714 Fifth Avenue? Andy Sparberg also got it right!
Is there a location to be shared with your pizza story? Some things are really worth sharing!! RAILYARD PIZZA, 51-02 Northern Blvd. Sunnyside, NY WEBSITE: ttps://www.therailyardpizza.com
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
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
THE HIDDEN SILVER CARTIER PLANE AT ROCKEFELLER CENTER
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
Cartier is well known for its watches and fine jewelry, but the French luxury goods company has used precious metals to make more than just accessories. Sitting in the lobby of 610 Fifth Avenue at Rockefeller Center is one of those other objects, a shiny sterling silver Cartier plane model. The miniature aircraft was fabricated by Cartier silversmiths in Paris and gifted to Rockefeller Center by the French government in 1933
The silver Cartier plane is a to-scale reproduction of Le Point d’Interrogation, or “Question Mark” in English. Le Point d’Interrogation was a Breguet Br. 19 TF Super Bidon (super tank) made by a French aeronautics company. It was specifically designed for long-distance journeys. The plane had two wings – the top of which was larger and spanned just over 60 feet – a single engine, and two fuel tanks. It was painted a bright red and adorned with a large white question mark. In September 1930, French aviators Dieudonné Costes and Maurice Bellonte made history by flying the plane on the first nonstop, transatlantic flight from Paris to New York City.
Costes and Bellonte’s flight took a total of 37 hours, 18 minutes, and 30 seconds to complete. They took off from Aéroport de Paris – Le Bourget and landed in Curtiss Field in Valley Stream, New York. Their route was a reverse of that taken by Charles Lindbergh in 1927 on his record-setting flight. Lindbergh departed from Roosevelt Field in New York and landed in Paris. When Le Point d’Interrogation landed in New York, Lindbgerh was among the 25,000 onlookers and bearers of congratulations.There are a few reasons why the airplane was referred as “Question Mark” (it was also called Le Rouge, or “the red one” for it’s bright paint job). It likely stems from the secrecy which surrounded the plane. Secrets of Rockefeller Center tour guide and Untapped New Yorker’s Chief Experience Officer Justin Rivers says one of plane’s sponsors was anonymous. The mystery donor turned out to be Francois Coty of the Coty fragrance company. This theory brings the story of the plane full circle back to Rockefeller Center, since Francois Coty’s perfume emporium was located at 714 Fifth Avenue (former site of Henri Bendel), just a few blocks from Rockefeller Center, while Cartier‘s flagship is just across the street.
Memorial Flight, the company that restored the original plane from 1997 to 2002, says “Question Mark” was a nickname that mechanics working on the plane used due to the covert conditions they had to work under. Another reason put forth for the name is that the innovative, and therefore yet untested, technology put into the plane could have had…questionable results.
A plaque next to the silver Cartier plane model in the Rockefeller Center lobby notes that it is “scientifically correct in every detail.” Though much smaller than the real “Question Mark,” this sculptural form is not that tiny. It measures 28 1/2 inches in overall length, stretches 48 inches from wing-tip to wing-tip, and reaches 10 1/2 inches in height. It is clearly adorned with the signature question mark of Le Point d’Interrogation and, if you look closely, you can see it is also engraved with all of the insignia and destinations that were painted onto the real plane.
The plaque also states that the model was a gift “for La Maison Francaise,” the building at 610 Fifth Avenue where it still sits today. La Maison Francaise is part of Rockefeller Center’s International Complex which is comprised of the British Empire Building and an International Building, along with the French one. It was a hub for French companies, though over time other various tenants moved in.
Cartier’s ties to aviation go beyond this one foray into model airplane building. It was a pilot who inspired one of Cartier’s signature pieces, the Santos de Cartier men’s wristwatch. This simple square watch was designed by Louis Cartier in 1904 for aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, and is considered one of the earliest modern wristwatches and first pilot’s watch. Men usually carried pocket watches at the time, but fumbling around in a pocket and digging out a watch on a chain was not very conducive to flying planes. The Santos De Cartier watch is defined by its clean square face and exposed screws.
The original Le Point d’Interrogation is now on display in the Musée de l’Air and de l’Espace. The aircraft was gifted to the museum in 1938. The Cartier version of the plane can be seen in the black and grey lobby of 610 Rockefeller Center. See the plane and uncover more secrets of Rockefeller Center (including secret gardens, a room covered in gold, and more!) on Untapped New York’s walking tour of the iconic Art Deco site!
MAISON FRANCAIS, 610 FIFTH AVENUE
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY SEND YOUR RESPONSE TO: ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM
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
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
A TRIBUTE TO THE WOMEN OF IRAN AT THE FDR FOUR FREEDOMS STATE PARK
THE 846th EDITION
HILLARY CLINTON SALUTES IRAN’S WOMEN ON THE ISLAND
Former US Secretary Of State And NY Senator Hillary Clinton Visited Roosevelt Island FDR Four Freedoms Park Today To Support Opening Of Eyes On Iran, Woman Life Freedom Art Exhibit
A NEW LIFE FOR A FORMER TROLLEY BARN.
After shopping at Dollar Tree on Northern Blvd., I was in need of lunch.. With three loaded shopping bags I headed for the closest place for lunch. It was THE RAIL YARD pizzeria, just across the parking lot.
Located in the former site of a Pizza Hut, this locally owned neighborhood pizzeria had a neighborhood feel. Jimmy, the owner was schmoozing with the patrons and the Coca Cola salesman when I arrived. He seemed to know every person who entered and it was fun to be in a real neighborhood joint.
We discussed trolley cars and the RIHS trolley car kiosk along with local Sunnyside history. Jimmy has been a lifelong resident and we had a fun time while I had a slice and Diet Coke.
Jimmy told me that he acquired the spot in 2020 and it took a year to restore the brickwork and other elements from the original use as a trolley barn. Only the tower of the barn remains but the decor of old photos and real bricks and beams bring back the old days of trolley cars traversing Northern Blvd.
Time to return to the island after a fun trip to historic Queens.
Judy and Jimmy at a photo composite mural of Northern Blvd. in the 1910’s
Trolleys were not Jay Gatsby’s speed as he raced his yellow roadster along Northern Blvd. past a cathedral-like structure with imposing twin spires. The Cathedral-like structure was the Woodside carbarn.
The Woodside carbarn, located at the southwest corner of Newtown Avenue and Northern Blvd, was built by the New York & Queens County Railway at a cost of $150,000. The New York & Queens County, about to acquire Steinway Lines Railway in 1896, was in need of carbarn facilities with enough space to house trolleys of both New York & Queens County and Steinway Lines. The Woodside carbarn was the largest carbarn in Queens.
When the New York & Queens County and Steinway Lines Railway (reorganized as the New York & Queens Railway), went bankrupt in 1922, and lost control of the Steinway Lines, the Woodside carbarn continued to house Trolleys of both New York & Queens and Steinway Lines. An oddity of that arrangement was that the Calvary Cemetery Line, (now MTA Q67 bus), not directly connected to other New York & Queens routes, thus needed permission from its Former subsidiary, Steinway Lines, to use its tracks for carbarn moves.
The Woodside carbarn fire
On June 24, 1930, a disastrous fire occurred at the Woodside carbarn (below). The blaze broke out during the night and caused tremendous damage. One Steinway Lines revenue car #629, plus one workcar, were destroyed.
The New York & Queens suffered far more damage: 24 of the older wooden ‘300’ series cars, and 10 of the modern Birney Safety Cars were destroyed along with some others. The whole east end of the carbarn had been gutted out and beyond repair (below, left). The blackened wall was torn down and what was once an enclosed space was made into an open space. The fire crippled New York & Queens lines as only 25 cars were left to maintain service. In its dire need, New York & Queens rented cars from the Jamaica Central Railway and the Department of Plant structures. By a stroke of good luck, 2 newly bought cars from the defunct Auburn & Syracuse Railway lying in the yard waiting for painting, escaped unscathed. The New York & Queens pressed these cars into service the very next morning with their old colors and numbers unchanged. Without these cars the New York & Queens could not have maintained service.
Looked at from the perspective of years the carbarn fire was not a complete disaster. Thirty-eight of the burnt-out cars were old and worn and due for replacement anyway. The fire hastened the process and helped the riding public get newer and faster equipment. The New York & Queens sustained barely any financial losses, for the insurance on the burnt cars came to $104,483, a big sum that came in handy for buying equipment and roadbed materials.
From Carbarn to Shopping Center
With the coming of the automobile and the development of a practical motor coach by the thirties, the days of trolley operators in Queens as well as elsewhere were numbered. Jamaica Central Railway in central Queens converted to Jamaica Buses in 1933. On October 3, 1937, old #332 made the final run on the Calvary Line, then was taken to the Woodside carbarn, where it was soaked in gasoline and set on fire to the sound of Taps. Thus old #332, as well as New York & Queens Railway trolley service went out in a blaze of glory.
Orange-and-cream Queens-Nassau Transit buses (a New York & Queens subsidiary) replaced the trolleys. The year 1939 marked the end of trolleys being housed in the Woodside carbarn when Steinway Lines replaced its trolleys with orange-and-cream Steinway Omnibus buses. The former Woodside carbarn soldiered on as a bus garage for Queens-Nassau Transit until 1957, when it moved its bus facilities to College Point and became Queens Transit. At the same time Steinway Omnibus became Steinway Transit and also moved to College Point.
Today, the site of the former Woodside carbarn is occupied by the Tower Square shopping center. The front facade of the former carbarn with its imposing twin spires has been preserved as the front entrance to the shopping center. Sadly, the Maspeth Depot didn’t enjoy a similar fate, being obliterated by the LIE in 1952.
WEDNESDAY PHOTOS OF THE DAY FROM TRASH TO CLASS
THE FIRST RED TRASH CAN TO BE REHABILITATED AND RESTORED HAS BEEN RETURNED TO MAIN STREET. THESE TRASH CANS ARE MADE OF STRONG STEEL AND WERE REPAIRED AND POWDER COATED SO THEY CAN SERVE MANY MORE YEARS ON MAIN STREET. THE CANS WERE PURCHASED DURING THE ADMINISTRATION OF HERBERT BERMAN, PRESIDENT OF R.I.O.C, (2003-2007). AT ABOUT 18 YEARS OF AGE, THEY HAVE MANY MORE PRODUCTIVE YEARS AHEAD.
TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Jon Batiste, former bandleader for Stephen Colbert, playing at yesterday’s event at 4 Freedoms Park w Hillary Clinton … Thanks, Nina Lublin
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
JUNIPER VALLEY CIVIC ASSOCIATION JUDITH BERDY
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Little more than a century ago, deep in America’s rural South, a community-based movement ignited by two unexpected collaborators quietly grew to become so transformative, its influence shaped the educational and economic future of an entire generation of African American families.
Between 1917 and 1932, nearly 5,000 rural schoolhouses, modest one-, two-, and three-teacher buildings known as Rosenwald Schools, came to exclusively serve more than 700,000 black children over four decades. It was through the shared ideals and a partnership between Booker T. Washington, an educator, intellectual and prominent African American thought leader, and Julius Rosenwald, a German-Jewish immigrant who accumulated his wealth as head of the behemoth retailer, Sears, Roebuck & Company, that Rosenwald Schools would come to comprise more than one in five Black schools operating throughout the South by 1928.
Only about 500 of these structures survive today, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Some schools serve as community centers, others have restoration projects underway with the support of grants from National Trust for Historic Preservation while others are without champions and in advance stages of disrepair. Eroding alongside their dwindling numbers is their legacy of forming an American education revolution.
Photographer and author Andrew Feiler’s new book, A Better Life for Their Children, takes readers on a journey to 53 of these remaining Rosenwald schools. He pairs his own images of the schools as they look today with narratives from former students, teachers, and community members whose lives were molded by the program. A collection of photographs and stories from the book are also set to be featured in an exhibition at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, later this spring.
When Feiler, 59, first learned of Rosenwald Schools in 2015, it was a revelation that launched a nearly four-year journey over 25,000 miles throughout the southeast where he visited 105 schools.
“I’m a fifth-generation Jewish Georgian and a progressive activist my entire life. The story’s pillars: Jewish, southern, progressive activists, are the pillars of my life. How could I have never heard of it?” says Feiler, who saw an opportunity for a new project, to document the schools with his camera.
That the schools’ history is not more widely known is in large part due to the program’s benefactor. Rosenwald was a humble philanthropist who avoided publicity surrounding his efforts; very few of the schools built under the program bear his name. His beliefs about the philanthropic distribution of wealth in one’s own lifetime contributed to the anonymity, as his estate dictated that all funds supporting the schools were to be distributed within 25 years of his death. Many of the former students Feiler met with were unaware of the scope of the program, or that other Rosenwald Schools existed outside of their county, until restoration efforts gained national attention.
As Feiler outlines in the book, Rosenwald and Washington were introduced by mutual friends, and Washington lobbied Rosenwald to join the board of directors at Tuskegee Institute, the Alabama university for African Americans he co-founded. They began a lengthy correspondence about how they might collaborate further and soon focused on schools for black children.
Julius Rosenwald Fund schoolhouse construction map Fisk University Archives
Washington knew education was key to black Americans rising from generations of oppression. His memoir, Up From Slavery, inspired many, including Julius Rosenwald, who was impressed with Washington’s zeal for education as it aligned so closely with his own beliefs.
In the Jim Crow South, institutionalized segregation pushed rural black students into poor public schools. Municipal education expenditures were a small fraction of monies spent on educating similarly situated white children. In North Carolina alone, the state only spent $2.30 per black student was spent in 1915 compared to nearly $7.40 per white student and nearly $30 per student nationally, according to research by Tom Hanchett, a Rosenwald Schools scholar and community historian.
“Washington saw group effort as key to real change in America,” says Hanchett. “Education is one way to harness powerful group effort. If everyone can read and write, they can work together in a way they could not previously. The schools themselves were ways to bring not just children together but entire communities that were geographically dispersed.”
Interior of the Tankersley School in Montgomery County, Alabama, active 1923-1967 Andrew Feiler
Bay Springs School in Forrest County, Mississippi, active 1925-1958 Andrew Feiler
Rosenwald felt, too, that rural America held great promise. “Rosenwald had to think broadly about who Sears’ customers were,” says Hanchett, “The advent of rural free delivery by the U.S. Postal Service had dramatically increased Sears’ base from in-store shopping to catalog-based procurement. Having rural customers made Rosenwald more aware of the disenfranchisement for blacks, especially in education.”
Out of this collaboration came the thousands of schoolhouses across the South, which lived up to Washington’s aspirations of community togetherness for a generation. In 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that race-based segregation in schools was unconstitutional, Rosenwald schools began to consolidate with white schools over time and most of the structures were lost.
A central legacy of the Rosenwald School program is its contribution to educating leaders and foot soldiers of the civil rights movement. Feiler’s research crossed paths of several Rosenwald alumnus including Medgar Evers, Maya Angelou, members of the Little Rock Nine and Congressman John Lewis, whose portrait Feiler captured before Lewis’s death last year.
Feiler’s initial photoshoots began with exterior images, yet the schoolhouses themselves only revealed part of the story. “By far the most emotionally rewarding part of my experience was meeting people who attended, taught, and are devoting their lives to saving these schools,” says Feiler.
One of the most compelling anecdotes Feiler shares is from an encounter on his very first school visit to Bartow County, Georgia. There, he met Marian Coleman, 74, who attended grades 1 -3 at the Noble Hill School from 1951 to 1955, when the school closed. Reborn in 1989 as the Noble Hill-Wheeler Memorial Center, the former schoolhouse serves as a black cultural museum and features historical aspects of black culture in Bartow County. For 21 years, Coleman served as the center’s curator, a position now held by her niece, Valarie Coleman, 44.
Coleman’s great-grandfather, Webster Wheeler, led the effort to have Noble Hill built in 1923 with Rosenwald funds. Having left Georgia for Detroit as part of the Great Migration that saw a post-WWI exodus of black farmers from the rural agricultural South move to northern cities for higher paying industrial jobs, he worked for years as a carpenter for the Ford Motor Company. Wheeler returned home upon learning of the Rosenwald grant from family correspondence. Feiler’s photograph captures the two Colemans inside the center, holding a photograph of Wheeler that he had sent to family back home marking his arrival in a new land of promise.
Noble Hill School in Bartow County, Georgia, active 1923-1955 Andrew Feiler
Coleman recalls that even in the 1950s, the school had no electricity or interior bathroom, though nearby schools for white children had modern facilities. “I was aware other [white] schools had different standards,” says Coleman, who went on to become an elementary school teacher herself. “Many times, our parents weren’t able to buy materials we needed. We had books from the white schools after they were finished with them.”
A sense of community made the greatest impression upon Coleman as a child. “My parents would always plan special things for us,” says Coleman, “There were fundraising dinners for the development of the school and folks made quilts that were raffled off. We knew they were interested in us having a better education.”
To Feiler, the connection between Rep. Lewis and the Rosenwald schools made sense; he had lived in the congressman’s district for many years. “Lewis embodied the conscience of American optimism,” he says. “Education was always a high priority to his legislative agenda.”
Siloam School in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, 1920s-1947 Andrew Feiler
Feiler asked Lewis to bring readers into his Rosenwald School classroom, Dunn’s Chapel School in Pike County, Alabama, to share how his education there shaped his life. “I loved school, loved everything about it, no matter how good or bad I was at it,” Lewis writes in the book’s foreword. “Our school had a small library, and biographies were my favorite, stories that opened my eyes to the world beyond Pike County.”Siloam School, a one-teacher classroom in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, built around 1920, is captured by Feiler in evident disrepair, its pine siding decaying and foundation melting into a soft earthen slope. Sixty black children were registered here in 1924, according to the Charlotte Museum of History, which has undertaken an ambitious project to restore the schoolhouse as an interpretive education and community center. “Preserving Siloam School will provide context to this difficult history and a place to interpret it,” says Adria Focht, the museum’s president and CEO. “Once restored, the school will return as a community space and place for conversation, dialogue, and progress to help build a stronger, more equitable and just future.”Like all Rosenwald Schools, Siloam’s architectural plan followed a highly prescribed manner and was developed at Tuskegee Institute as part of the Rosenwald Schools program. Detailed school plans dictated everything from the schools’ physical orientation—north- or south-facing to allow for all-day sunshine through large windows—to the color of the walls—cream or eggshell—to encourage calm and learning.
The guidelines were devised under the stewardship of architect Robert Robinson Taylor, who before becoming a professor at Tuskegee was the first black student enrolled at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the nation’s first accredited black architect. (Taylor’s great-granddaughter, Valerie Jarrett, a former senior advisor to President Barack Obama, sat for a portrait posing with a sheet of commemorative U.S. postage stamps honoring her ancestor.) The story of education as a central focus of civil and human rights is an important framework for helping people understand their role in the culture, in society, and their and political and economic rights,” says Calinda N. Lee of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. “Education is fundamental to being able to advocate for individual rights and work in solidarity with other people. This story is part of what is so compelling about [Feiler’s] work.”
Perhaps no building showcases that dynamic more than Sumner County, Tennessee’s Cairo School, built in 1922. Frank Brinkley, 79, attended Cairo School grades 1-8 from 1947 to 1958, where his father, Hutch, served as the sole teacher and principal for 23 years. “I always loved math,” he says. “When I was in 7th and 8th grade, my father let me teach and help the 1st graders with their arithmetic and math lessons.”
He continued being a teacher on through adulthood, instructing high schoolers and adults in science and mathematics. “At that time, about the only position blacks could hold in education was teaching school,” says Brinkley. “Father encouraged all his children and wanted it known that if you went to Cairo School, you were good students academically. He took a great deal of pride in knowing all six of his children graduated from college.”Feiler’s portrait of Frank and his younger brother, Charles Brinkley Sr., embodies the dignity, pride and honor these men feel about the school serving as a vehicle to shape their family’s lives. All of Hutch’s 10 grandchildren would also continue on to college.“I still have chills when I go back to the school,” says Brinkley. “I feel how far we have come, yet we still have a long way to go. While we are standing the shoulders of giants, our heads are still below the water.”
Classroom in Shiloh School, Anderson County, South Carolina Andrew Feiler
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
Michael J. Solender |Michael J. Solender lives and writes in Charlotte, N.C. Website: michaeljwrites.com
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Photo by Justin Lui, Courtesy of the New York Transit Museum
R-33, R-33WF and R-36 cars from the Musem’s vintage fleet have been selected to make up this year’s Train of Many Colors. All of the cars featured were manufactured in the 1960s. The “Tartar Red” and “Gunn Red” redbirds, Kale Green “Green Machines”, blue-and-silver “Platinum Mist” and striking two-tone robin’s egg blue and cream “Bluebird” paint schemes give the train its festive name and a festive look. The diversity of the cars exemplifies how the subway changed throughout different eras of its history.
Today, it is easy to find a soft pretzel out on the streets and many subway stops have food vendors at the station — like the Turnstyle Underground Market at Columbus Circle — but the most convenient way to grab this classic snack, and not miss your train, would be to have a pretzel vendor right on the subway platform. In the 1960s, commuters at the Union Square station were able to do just that. In recent years, the city has been cracking down on subway food vendors, and in 2017, the MTA Chief even suggested banning food on the subway.
Vintage subway car at the New York Transit Museum with fabric “straphangers”. Courtesy of New York Transit Museum.
The term straphangers may be confusing to modern-day riders, after all, there are no straps on the subway. However, the first standing subway car riders held onto canvas straps to stabilize themselves. Over time, the canvas straps were replaced by metal “grab holds” and eventually replaced entirely by plain metal bars.
No solution keeps the spread of germs away, but individual straps at least eliminate the awkwardness of accidentally touching a stranger’s hand or having to fight for a spot on a pole to hold onto. Those who want to relive the strap-hanging experience can check out the entire level of vintage subway trains at the New York Transit Museum, ride on a nostalgia train, or purchase metal subway grab holds from the Transit Museum store.
Classic white subway tile is having a moment in interior design, but our focus is on the colorful mosaics that adorn the walls of New York City subway platforms. During the construction of the subway system, many architects and artists were commissioned to design ceramic flourishes for signage. The original intent of the decorative signs was to announce the name of the stop and to help non-English speakers, who couldn’t read the words on signs, orient themselves based on the artwork. Most original Arts and Crafts/Beaux Arts-style ceramic designs were created by Heins & LaFarge and Squire Vickers.
While many newer subway stations, like the World Trade Center Transportation Hub and the Second Ave subway, have a streamlined and modern aesthetic, we are happy that the tradition of showcasing art in the subway is being upheld, and that new stations continue to feature artwork that incorporates the mosaic technique.
No subway station can rival the grandeur of the City Hall Station, even in its decommissioned state. It features architectural wonders, such as tiled arches, brass chandeliers, and skylights. However, due to its curved platform, which was not able to accommodate newer, longer cars, the station was ultimately closed in 1945. Today, new subway stations and transit hub renovations showcase exciting new sleek, and modern designs, but we’re nostalgic for the Gilded-Age extravagance of City Hall Station.
PROMOTING ETIQUETTE
MAN SPREADING HAS ALWAYS BEEN A PROBLEM……HEAR THAT GUYS???
DOOR BLOCKERS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN WITH US, TODAY WITH A CELL PHONE AND NOT A NEWSPAPER!
SOME COMPLAINTS REMAIN THE SAME THROUGHOUT THE YEARS!
A VIEW OF THE BLACKWELL’S ISLAND PENITENTIARY FROM QUEENS WITH THE WATER TANK OF THE TERRA COTTA WORKS ON VERNON BLVD IN FOREGROUND.
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 All image are copyrighted (c)
The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation is a nonprofit organization that “promotes the legacies of the artists Milton Resnick (1917–2004) and Pat Passlof (1928–2011) and supports the work of other painters.” The foundation opened to the public in 2018 inside a repurposed Lower East Side synagogue at 87 Eldridge Street. The synagogue served as Resnick’s studio from the 1970s to the 1990s. Restoration of the building and its conversion into an art space was done by Ryall Sheridan Architects. While the interior looks much like any other art gallery with plane white walls hung with paintings, there are remnants of the building’s past that peek through.
Angel Orensanz Center at 172 Norfolk Street, the oldest synagogue building still standing in New York state, currently serves as an arts center. It opened in 1850 as the Ansche Chesed Synagogue. At the time, it was the largest synagogue in the country, and services were conducted in German.After multiple shifts in ownership, the space was abandoned in the 1970s. Eventually, in 1986, Angel Orensanz, a Jewish Spanish sculptor and painter, converted the building into a gallery and performance space. The local Reform Shul of New York still holds holiday services here twice a year. Plus, the place has had its fair share of celebrity visits: Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick were married here, and composer Philip Glass and Florence + The Machine have hosted concerts.
58-60 Rivington Street used to be the address of the First Warschauer Congregation, a Romanian synagogue. The congregation began in 1886 as Kehal Adath Yeshurin of Yassay at 131 Hester Street. By 1903, the congregation was looking to upgrade its place of worship.
They turned to Emery Roth — a Hungarian immigrant and the architect behind dozens of New York buildings like The San Remo, The Beresford, and the Ritz Tower. The synagogue facade that Roth designed was in a Moorish Revival style. The interior was upgraded as well. In 1904, the congregation celebrated their new home with a four-hour parade march, carrying their sacred Torah scrolls to the new location.
Many famous New Yorkers worshipped here including George and Ira Gershwin (who both grew up on Eldridge Street), Republican New York Senator Jacob Javits, co-founder of MGM and film producer Samuel Goldwyn, and comedian George Burns. After some financial struggles, the building was left vacant in 1973.
By 1980 there was a new tenant, SoHo-based sculptor Hale Gurland. Gurland transformed the space into his own personal studios and living quarters. The Roth-designed facade still maintains most of its original features, but some additions have been made. You’ll notice if you look at the central round window, the grilles are arranged to make it look like a camera aperture.
The former synagogue building at 13-15 Pike Street once served the congregation Sons of Isreal Kalw Arie. Now, it serves a congregation of another faith, Buddhism. Built in 1903-1904 and designed by architect Alfred E. Badt, the synagogue is a New York City landmark. The Sons of Isreal Kalw Arie, which began in 1853 remained in this large synagogue until the 1980s.
Today, the building has many uses. On the ground floor, flanked by the former synagogue’s twin staircases there is a commercial space. The main level houses a Buddhist temple and apartments can be found on the upper floors.
Meseritz Shul at 415 E. 6th St. is one of the smallest and most narrow urban synagogues in New York. It’s also been embroiled in quite a bit of controversy. For a time, the interior of this 1888 building was in shambles. There were many development plans put forth for the building and the site, including plans that simply knocked down the structure. The building was saved however by a highly debated landmark ruling in 2012. The designation set up a historic district in the East Village/Lower East Side covering 330 buildings located along Second Avenue and its adjacent side streets.
The cash-strapped congregation did move forward with a deal to convert its upper floors into condos. The deal also included the restoration of the lower-level worship space. The building’s gorgeous facade, in line with the landmark designation, didn’t change significantly. The upper-floor condos were put up for sale in 2016. One of the condos that hit the market was a $4.3 million dollar penthouse! After a four-year hiatus, the synagogue restarted services in 2017. We’ll consider this one partially repurposed!
Perhaps the most famous repurposed synagogue is at 12 Eldridge Street. Now known as the Museum at Eldridge Street, this landmark synagogue was built in 1887. According to the Museum’s website, it was the first synagogue in America purpose-built by immigrants from Eastern Europe. After fifty years of wild success, by 1924, the synagogue started to decline. The recently enacted Immigrant Quota Laws and an increasing exodus of the Jewish population to other boroughs were major factors.
For forty years, the congregation worshipped in the lower levels of the building, leaving the gorgeous main sanctuary space closed off. It wasn’t until 1986 that restoration began, a process that would take nearly twenty years. Today, the beautifully restored space hosts tours, school programs, concerts, talks, festivals, and other cultural events that celebrate the history of the neighborhood and Jewish New York.
St. Barbara’s Greek Orthodox Church at 27 Forsyth Street in Chinatown is another synagogue turned church conversion. It is named after the martyr Saint Barbara, the patron saint of firefighters and artillery, a saint many looked to during World War II.
The synagogue building dedicated in 1892 for the Congregation Kol Israel Anshe Poland. After more than thirty years in service, the synagogue was foreclosed on in 1926. Eventually, a Greek Orthodox congregation acquired the building and in 1934 it became St. Barbara.
The former synagogue at378 Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn has unclear origins. But in 1917, whatever existed there became the Talmud Torah Beth Jacob Joseph, a school and synagogue. In the ’70s, the building switched functions twice, first to a heating/AC company and then to an antique shop.
Finally, in 2004, the former shul became the aptly named Deity, a nightclub, although it never reached the Limelight’s highs (or lows). Now, it’s transitioned into a high-end lounge and event space that hosts weddings.
The synagogue’s/church’s Corinthian pillars exemplify Neoclassical architecture.
Mount Olivet Baptist Church at 120th and Lenox Avenue shares a story with many synagogues in New York that have been converted into churches. The Temple Israel of the City of New York was founded in 1873 and is still active today in Harlem. One of its many previous homes was a 1907 Harlem building, constructed for the synagogue in the Neoclassical style.
Perhaps it was the resemblance to a Roman temple that caused Mount Olivet to acquire it in 1925. The influential black Baptist congregation has left most of the Judaica intact, including an ark and Star of David fanlights.
From 1905 until the ’70s, this building at 636 E. 6th Street in the East Village was a functioning synagogue for the Congregation Ahawath Yeshurun Shar’a Torah. Since then, it has served as a nonprofit health center seeking to educate and empower lower-income households in the area, Sixth Street Community Center. For instance, the center runs a Community Supported Agriculture program that supplies members with local produce.
Although the interior of the building has been renovated and the entrance painted over, most of the former shul’s exterior artistry has been preserved or restored. Check out the plaque bearing the synagogue’s name that is still in placed above the entrance.
WELFARE ISLAND BRIDGE, 1970 BEFORE THE ISLAND DEVELOPMENT THE BRIDGE EXITED TO THE WEST ROADWAY TO REACH ISLAND BUILDINGS. NOTE RED FIRE ENGINES AT NORTH SIDE OF BRIDGE, NEUROLOGICAL HOSPITAL TOTHE SOUTH OF THE BRIDGE ANDY SPARBERG, GLORIA HERMAN. ALEXIS VILLAFANE 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
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
I decided to spend the afternoon in the Visitor Center Kiosk on Thanksgiving. While the wonderful staff Ellen, Barbara, Gloria and Vicki) were off and enjoying their families, I had the opportunity to meet and greet visitors arriving on the Island. It has been 15 years since we opened in 2007!
You never know who comes into to request a map, get directions, find a bathroom or ask questions.
A sample our visitors this afternoon:
A sailing instructor from Annapolis who loved the island and FDR Four Freedoms Park, He returned after visiting the park to purchase two books.
An Island family that will be moving home to Europe soon and wanted a large poster of the island. We had one by artist Julia Gash, measuring 24 X 36″. They were thrilled to have this souvenir of their short stay on the island.
A dentist from Argentina, whose phone was in need of a charge. While it was charging we discussed Argentina and her dental profession in (my) mangled Spanish. She was enthralled with our large stuffed owls and purchased one for her niece. After the phone charges, she was off to NISI for lunch.
A mother and son from Tenerife, Canary Islands. We had a great chat about that beautiful island and her son studying engineering in Kansas City, Mo.
Some fun visitors from Texas, Alabama, Fishkill amongst those who stopped in.
Some visitors asked for a map and left immediately. Others stayed as I described the sites on the island. We suggest Southpoint Park and the Girl Puzzle in Lighthouse Park.
Of course there are numerous people looking for a restroom. We suggest Cornell Tech if it is open, if not restaurants or the Southpoint Park. This is the most frustrating part of our job, that RIOC is blind to the needs of visitors.
We do not realize how visitors are thrilled to visit the island and constantly comment on our location, beauty and friendly people. We are loosing so much business to the island by RIOC’s lack of publicity and making visitors welcome. The RIHS can only do so much along without more support of RIOC.
When was the last time you were in the kiosk? Have you come in to say hello, check out our merchandise, buy some gifts, leave a donation to support the RIHS?
Looking forward to seeing you for holiday shopping.
Judith Berdy
THESE ARE A FEW OF THE GREAT KIDS BOOKS ON SALE AT THE KIOSK
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
JUDITH BERDY
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
STOP BY THE KIOSK FOR YOUR HOLIDAY SHOPPING AND TOMEET OUR GREAT STAFF.
JULIA GASH MUGS $15-
MAGNETS $5-
GREAT STOCKING STUFFERS
PULLBACK TRAINS $14-
BUILDING MODELS INCLUDING ONE WORLD TRADE, BROOKLYN BRIDGE, CHRYSLER BUILDING $15-
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OUR FAVORITE BOOSK FOR ADULTS AND KIDS
OUR BEST SELLING LOQI SOFT TOTES $15-
OUR FAVORITE MAP BOOK, A GREAT COLLECTION OF NEW YORK MAPS $22-
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Horatio Walker, Watching the Turkeys, n.d., watercolor, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Dwight Wardlaw, 1968.59.3
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
JUDITH BERDY R.I.H.S.
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
ENJOY SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR WINTER READING. THE ABUNDANCE OF NEW BOOKS FOCUSING ON NEW YORK HISTORY IS CONSTANTLY GROWING.
Bits and pieces of the lives led long before the age of skyscrapers are scattered throughout New York City, found in backyards, construction sites, street beds, and parks. Indigenous tools used thousands of years ago; wine jugs from a seventeenth-century tavern; a teapot from Seneca Village, the nineteenth-century Black settlement displaced by Central Park; raspberry seeds sown in backyard Brooklyn gardens―these everyday objects are windows into the city’s forgotten history.
Buried Beneath the City uses urban archaeology to retell the history of New York, from the deeper layers of the past to the topsoil of recent events. The book explores the ever-evolving city and the day-to-day world of its residents through artifacts, from the first traces of Indigenous societies more than ten thousand years ago to the detritus of Dutch and English colonization and through to the burgeoning city’s transformation into the modern metropolis. It demonstrates how the archaeological record often goes beyond written history by preserving mundane things―details of everyday life that are beneath the notice of the documentary record. These artifacts reveal the density, diversity, and creativity of a city perpetually tearing up its foundations to rebuild itself. Lavishly illustrated with images of objects excavated in the city, Buried Beneath the City is at once an archaeological history of New York City and an introduction to urban archaeology.
Fundamentally reshapes our understanding of the causes of the American Revolution and the pivotal role foreign news and misinformation played in driving colonists to revolt.
“Fake news” is not new. Just like millions of Americans today, the revolutionaries of the eighteenth century worried that they were entering a “post-truth” era. Their fears, however, were not fixated on social media or clickbait, but rather on peoples’ increasing reliance on reading news gathered from foreign newspapers. In Misinformation Nation, Jordan E. Taylor reveals how foreign news defined the boundaries of American politics and ultimately drove colonists to revolt against Britain and create a new nation.
News was the lifeblood of early American politics, but newspaper printers had few reliable sources to report on events from abroad. Accounts of battles and beheadings, as well as declarations and constitutions, often arrived alongside contradictory intelligence. Though frequently false, the information that Americans encountered in newspapers, letters, and conversations framed their sense of reality, leading them to respond with protests, boycotts, violence, and the creation of new political institutions. Fearing that their enemies were spreading fake news, American colonists fought for control of the news media. As their basic perceptions of reality diverged, Loyalists separated from Patriots and, in the new nation created by the revolution, Republicans inhabited a political reality quite distinct from that of their Federalist rivals.
The American Revolution was not only a political contest for liberty, equality, and independence (for white men, at least); it was also a contest to define certain accounts of reality to be truthful while defining others as false and dangerous. Misinformation Nation argues that we must also conceive of the American Revolution as a series of misperceptions, misunderstandings, and uninformed overreactions. In addition to making a striking and original argument about the founding of the United States, Misinformation Nation will be a valuable prehistory to our current political moment.
The Fulton Fish Market stands out as an iconic New York institution. At first a neighborhood retail market for many different kinds of food, it became the nation’s largest fish and seafood wholesaling center by the late nineteenth century.
Waves of immigrants worked at the Fulton Fish Market and then introduced the rest of the city to their seafood traditions. In popular culture, the market — celebrated by Joseph Mitchell in The New Yorker — conjures up images of the bustling East River waterfront, late-night fishmongering, organized crime, and a vanished working-class New York.
The new book The Fulton Fish Market: A History (Columbia Univ. Press, 2022) by Jonathan H. Rees is a lively and comprehensive history of the Fulton Fish Market, from its founding in 1822 through its move to the Bronx in 2005.
The new book Women Waging War in the American Revolution (University of Virginia Press, 2022) edited by Holly A. Mayer is a collection examining the impact of Revolutionary-era women on the outcomes of the war and its subsequent narrative tradition, from popular perception to academic treatment.
America’s War for Independence dramatically affected the speed and nature of broader social, cultural, and political changes including those shaping the place and roles of women in society. Women fought the American Revolution in many ways, in a literal no less than a figurative sense. Whether Loyalist or Patriot, Indigenous or immigrant, enslaved or slave-owning, going willingly into battle or responding when war came to their doorsteps, women participated in the conflict in complex and varied ways that reveal the critical distinctions and intersections of race, class, and allegiance that defined the era.
The contributors show how women navigated a country at war, directly affected the war’s result, and influenced the foundational historical record left in its wake. Engaging directly with that record, this volume’s authors demonstrate the ways that the Revolution transformed women’s place in America as it offered new opportunities but also imposed new limitations in the brave new world they helped create.
To outsiders or East Siders, Riverside Park and Riverside Drive may not have the star status of Fifth Avenue or Central Park West. But at the city’s westernmost edge, there is a quiet and beauty like few other places in all of New York. There are miles of mansions and monuments, acres of flora, and a breadth of wildlife ranging from Peregrine falcons to goats.
It’s where the Gershwins and Babe Ruth once lived, William Randolph Hearst ensconced his paramour, and Amy Schumer owns a penthouse. Told in the uniquely personal voice of a longtime resident, Heaven on the Hudson features the history, architecture, and personalities of this often overlooked neighborhood, from the eighteenth century through the present day.
Combining history of the area and its people with one-on-one guide to its sights, author Stephanie Azzarone sheds light on the initial development of Riverside Park and Riverside Drive, the challenges encountered ― from massive boulders to “maniacs” ― and the reasons why Riverside Drive never became the “new Fifth Avenue” that promoters anticipated.
From grand “country seats” to squatter settlements to multi-million-dollar residences, the book follows the neighborhood’s roller-coaster highs and lows over time. Readers will discover a trove of architectural and recreational highlights and hidden gems, including the Drive’s only freestanding privately owned villa, a tomb that’s not a tomb, and a memorial to an eighteenth-century child.
Azzarone also tells the stories behind Riverside’s notable and forgotten residents, including celebrities, murderers, and a nineteenth-century female MD who launched the country’s first anti-noise campaign.
WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM THE RIHS AND CBN OLDER ADULT CENTER. PHOTO FROM OUR 2018 THANKSGIVING DINNER.
JUDITH BERDY
TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
JOHN F. KENNEDY CAMPAIGNING IN 1960 WITH WIFE JACQUELINE ON LOWER BROADWAY. JFK WAS ASSASSINATED ON NOV. 22, 1963.
ANDY SPARBERG & GLORIA HERMAN 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
NEW YORK ALMANACK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The silver Cartier plane is a to-scale reproduction of Le Point d’Interrogation, or “Question Mark” in English. Le Point d’Interrogation was a Breguet Br. 19 TF Super Bidon (super tank) made by a French aeronautics company. It was specifically designed for long-distance journeys. The plane had two wings – the top of which was larger and spanned just over 60 feet – a single engine, and two fuel tanks. It was painted a bright red and adorned with a large white question mark. In September 1930, French aviators Dieudonné Costes and Maurice Bellonte made history by flying the plane on the first nonstop, transatlantic flight from Paris to New York City.
