Max Arthur Cohn was a prolific 20th century artist of many mediums. But whether a silkscreen print, oil painting, mural, or lithograph, Cohn’s work imbues nuanced scenes of midcentury New York City with bursts of color and Ashcan-inspired realism. (“Rainy Day/Victor Food Shop,” date unknown, seriograph)
His early years echo those of so many early 20th century immigrants. Born in London in 1903 to Russian parents, Cohn and his family settled in America two years later, moving to Cleveland and then Kingston, New York. At 17, he landed his first art-related job in New York City: making commercial silkscreens.
(“New York Street Scene,” 1935, oil)
Silkscreening seemed to become Cohn’s creative focus. At the Art Students League—where he studied under John Sloan—he’s thought to have made his first artistic screenprint, according to the Annex Galleries. In 1940, he founded the National Serigraph Society (a serigraph is another word for a silkscreen print) and exhibited his prints in New York galleries.
During the Depression, Cohn found employment at the Works Progress Administration. The small stipend the WPA paid to artists must have been welcome support during these lean years of national financial uncertainty.
“In 1934, as part of the New Deal, he was selected as one of the artists for the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) and from 1936-1939 the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Easel Project,” states arts agency fineleaf.net.
(“Hooverville Depression Scene,” 1938, oil)
The work featured in this post don’t reflect Cohn’s later artistic style, which became more abstract. Instead, they reveal an artist with a sensitivity to New York City’s rhythms and moods from the 1920s to 1940s.
I’ve read a fair amount about Cohn, and what strikes me most is that he doesn’t seem to belong to any one school. Art historians have described him as a pointillist, modernist, and American scene artist. I see the influence of the post-Impressionists and the Ashcan School, sometimes with a Hopper-esque quality as well.
(“New York City Subway,” 1940s, oil)
FROM THE SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
Max Arthur Cohn, Coal Tower, ca. 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.4
Max Arthur Cohn, Bethlehem Steel Works, 1938, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Max Arthur Cohn, 1978.41.1
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY COACH USED BY GENERAL LAFAYETTE ON HIS RETURN TOUR TO THE UNITED STATES
COACH IS ON EXHIBIT AT THE STUDEBAKER MUSEUM GLORIA HERMAN GOT IT RIGHT
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2024 will mark the 200th anniversary of the return of the Marquis de Lafayette (Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette) to America. In 1824, almost 50 years after the start of the American Revolution, the 68-year-old Lafayette was invited by President James Monroe, an old Revolutionary War comrade and lifelong friend, to tour the United States.
Lafayette’s visit was one the major events of the early 19th century. It had the effect of unifying a country sometime fractured by electoral discord and reminding Americans of their hard won democracy.
In 2015, the French government and private groups raised approximately $28 million to build a replica Hermione, the French ship which had carried Lafayette to America in 1780 (his second voyage to here). That 1780 voyage is considered by some to have revived flagging Revolutionary efforts, and ultimately to have been a factor in the ultimate American victory, with French support, at Yorktown.
The replica of the Hermione, which was constructed by the French as a good will effort to highlight the historical ties between France and America, had a triumphant visit in 2015 to cities on the Eastern seaboard. The ship is currently in dry dock in Rochefort, France where it was constructed. You can read about that here.
The Marquis de Lafayette
The Marquis de Lafayette was born in 1757, at a time when England had largely defeated the French forces throughout Europe in the Seven Years’ War (the larger conflict that included the French and Indian War in the America). His family (and particularly his wife Adrienne) was one of the wealthiest in the country and was well-connected with the French monarchy. His father, a colonel of grenadiers, had been killed by the British at the Battle of Minden in 1759 (when Lafayette was two).
Like many young aristocratic Frenchmen, he had a desire to avenge the French defeats of earlier generations and a desire for glory in battle. Growing up in Auvergne, he attended private schools with the children of French nobility. When a revolution broke out in the 13 colonies America in 1775 he used his family resources and connections to fund his participation in the battle against the English and their allies.
In 1777, he voyaged to the British colonies to join the revolution then underway. At the time there were many young French adventurers who sought positions with the budding revolutionary army. General George Washington, eager to receive help from the French government, was informed by Silas Deane, the American ambassador in France that Lafayette was exceptionally well-connected with the senior levels of the French government, particularly the King. Washington added him to his personal staff (which also included Alexander Hamilton).
When the British were threatening Philadelphia, Lafayette was permitted to attend a council where the revolutionaries planned resistance to the British attack at Brandywine Creek. Washington was cautioned to take care that Lafayette not be put in danger. His death could provide the British with a great propaganda victory. At the succeeding Battle of Brandywine Lafayette saw the British begin to outflank the revolutionary army’s right under General John Sullivan. In the confusion of the battle, he rode out to the collapsing line and helped to organize an orderly retreat.
Wounded during the battle, Washington instructed his personal physician to treat him as if he were his own son. Thereafter Lafayette became a much more important American commander with whom General Washington would have a close relationship. Among the officers at Brandywine who attended to Lafayette when he was wounded was James Monroe, then a Virginia Militia Captain.
Lafayette then received a battlefield command of Continental soldiers in New Jersey, and was tapped by General Horatio Gates to lead an expedition from Albany into Quebec. It was hoped that French Canadians would rally to the revolutionary movement under Lafayette. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which was political intrigue and the lack of forces and equipment, the attack was never carried out.
Meanwhile his exploits received great acclaim in France where he became something of a national hero, and the pressure grew on him to return to France to see his wife and young child. Always in this period he was extremely active in trying to convince the French government to intervene on the side of the revolution with significant aid to the cause.
In 1780, with the American efforts at a low ebb, the king was finally convinced to send a substantial force under the Marshal Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, along with a French fleet. Lafayette helped lead this effort’s advance guard aboard the Hermione. From the revolutionary point of view, the arrival of Hermione was a ray of hope at an otherwise dark time. When the ship arrived in Boston, a large crowd was there to cheer it. Shortly thereafter, at his arrival in Philadelphia, Lafayette was greeted warmly by the Continental Congress.
The arrival of the French in force proved to be an important factor in the victory at Yorktown. Lafayette, as both an Revolutionary and French military leader, was intimately involved with the planning and execution of that victory.
Lafayette’s Return to France
After the American victory, Lafayette (then just 22) return to France and his young children and wife. Given a hero’s welcome for his role in defeating the British, he grew closer to King Louis XVI (two years older), to whom he often served as a kind of political and psychological adviser. After all, these young men had in effect avenged their country’s humiliation in the Seven Years War and forged an important relationship with the new United States.
The problems of a centuries old archaic and autocratic French society remained and both Lafayette and the king were also the inheritors of that legacy. The American Revolution had occurred in part according to the principles of Thomas Paine, who sought to overthrow monarchical and aristocratic society. The ultimate result would come just ten years later with the execution of the king and a long period of imprisonment and degradation for Lafayette.
During the opening events of the French Revolution Lafayette supported liberal reforms. As a member of the Estates General of 1789 he supported voting by individual delegates, rather than in blocks (known as Estates). In particular, before a critical meeting of May 5, 1789, Lafayette (a member of the “Committee of Thirty” argued for individual votes, which supported the power of the larger Third Estate (the commoners and bourgeois) over the clergy (the First Estate) and nobility (the Second Estate).
Lafayette could not convince the bulk of the nobility to agree with his position, and when the First and Third Estates declared the National Assembly on May 17th and were locked out by the loyalist supporting the Second Estate, Lafayette was among them. This led to the Tennis Court Oath, in which those locked out swore to remain together until there was a constitution. On July 11th Lafayette presented the original draft of the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,” which he had written after consultation with Thomas Jefferson.
The next day armed revolutionaries assembled in Paris and two days later the Bastille was stormed. The day after that Lafayette was made commander of the Parisian National Guard (the Garde nationale), which claimed for itself the role of protecting and administering the city. Lafayette chose the Guard’s symbol, the red, white and blue cockade, forerunner of today’s French flag. The king and many loyalists considered him a revolutionary, but many of the Third Estate considered him to be helping to keep the monarchy in power.
In many ways Lafayette played the role of middle-man and tried to serve as a moderating force against the most radical revolutionaries. In early October, after the King rejected the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a crowd of some 20,000, included the National Guard, marched on Versailles. Lafayette only reluctantly led them in hopes of protecting the king and public order. When they arrived, the king accepted the Declaration but when he refused to return to Paris the crowd broke into the palace. Lafayette brought the royal family onto the balcony, and attempting to placate the crowd at one point kissed the hand of Marie Antoinette – the crowd cheered. Eventually the King was forced to return to Paris, changing the power of the monarchy forever.
Later Lafayette launched an investigation into the role of the National Guard in what is now known as the October Days, which was rejected by the National Assembly in protection of the ongoing revolution. The following spring the Marquis helped organize the Fête de la Fédération, on July 14, 1790 (the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille), a large convocation of more than 400,000 people at the Champs de Mars in Paris. At this event, representatives from around France and from all segments of society, including the king and royal family, who swore allegiance to a new liberal constitutional monarchy.
Among those swearing the oath to to “be ever faithful to the nation, to the law, and to the king; to support with our utmost power the constitution decreed by the National Assembly, and accepted by the king.” was the Marquis de Lafayette. During the ceremony the new 13-star American flag was the presented to Lafayette on behalf of the United States by Thomas Paine and John Paul Jones. It symbolized the support of democracy in both France and the United States.
Despite the Marquis’ best efforts, the illusionary unity of the Fete de Federation did not last more than a year. Loyalists thought the event threatened the king’s safety and diminished his power. More radical Jacobins saw the event as proof of Lafayette’s royalist tendencies and as an attempt to help keep the monarchy in power. Lafayette continued to support a moderate position which would protect public order in the coming months, including protecting the revolution in an armed stand-off with nobles known as the Day of Daggers in February 1791.
Lafayette’s National Guard was not always loyal to him, including occasionally disobeying his orders. In June, 1791 the king and queen escaped from the palace in Paris where they were being held under the watch of Lafayette’s National Guard. When he learned of their escape, the Marquis led the effort to recapture them and led the column returning them to the city five days later. The effect was devastating to Layette’s reputation however, as radicals, including Maximilien Robespierre denounced him as the protector of the king and the monarchy.
His reputation was further hurt when he led the National Guard into a riot at the Champ de Mars where the troops fired into the crowd, an event that was used for propaganda purposes by his personal and political enemies. After this incident, rioters attacked Lafayette’s home and tried to seize his wife. When the National Assembly approved the new constitution two months later, Lafayette resigned his position and returned to his home in Auvergne.
His retreat from the chaos of the revolution was only temporary however. When France declared war on Austria in April 1792, he commanded one of three armies. Three days later Robespierre demanded the Marquis resign his leadership position. He refused, and instead sought peace negotiations through the National Assembly. In June he became openly and aggressively critical of the radicals in control of the Assembly and wrote that their parties should be “closed down by force.” They also controlled Paris however, and finding his position increasingly untenable he left the city in haste. A crowd burned his effigy and Robespierre declared him a traitor.
On July 25, 1792 the Duke of Brunswick, Charles William Ferdinand, who commanded of the Allied Army during what is now known as the War of the First Coalition, threatened to destroy Paris, including its civilian population, if King Louis XVI was harmed. This radicalized the French Revolution even more. The king and queen were imprisoned and the monarchy abolished by the National Assembly. On August 14th an arrest warrant was issued for Lafayette.
The Marquis attempted to flee to the United States but was captured by the Austrians near Rochefort (in what was then the Austrian Netherlands, now Belgium). Frederick William II of Prussia (Austria’s ally against the French revolutionaries) had him held as a threat to other monarchies in Europe. For the next five years Lafayette was held a prisoner at various places, for some time with his family. He suffered harsh conditions, especially after a failed attempt to escape. He unsuccessfully attempted to use his American citizenship to argue for his release, although then President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson successfully convinced Congress to pay the Marquis for his service during and after the American Revolution.
After his eventual release, Lafayette was allowed to return to France under Napoleon Bonaparte, on the condition he would not engage in political activity. He remained personally loyal to the democratic principles of the American and French Revolutions, but remained largely out of public life. He quietly opposed the centralized power of Napoleon, and publicly called on him to step down after the Battle of Waterloo. When the Bourbon Monarchy was restored he worked more actively in various European quarters to oppose absolute monarchy, including during the Greek Revolution of 1821.
1824 A Triumphant Return Visit to the United States
In 1820, James Monroe, his old comrade from the Battle of Brandywine, was elected President of the United States, with his Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, Monroe promulgated the Monroe Doctrine warning European powers not to interfere with matters in the Americas. In 1824, he invited Lafayette to return to the United States for a tour of the country as a national guest in honor of the upcoming 50th anniversary of the nation’s independence.
The purpose of the visit, among other things, would be to highlight the country’s unity. Electoral politics had been somewhat fractured in the United States in the previous two decades, including during the War of 1812 against France old nemesis, England. The visit would also indicate American support for democratic movements throughout Europe.
The King Louis XVIII found the American invitation to Lafayette insulting and caused troops to disperse the crowds that had gathered at Le Havre to see him off. His arrival in New York Harbor was met by dozens of ships and the tolling of bells. Its said that more than 50,000 well-wishers witnessed his arrival at Fort Clinton on the battery (later Castle Garden).
The procession up Broadway to City Hall, which would normally take about 20 minutes, took two hours. That evening a ball was held in his honor, at which veterans of the American Revolution moved him to tears.
“New York celebrated Lafayette’s presence for four days and nights almost continuously. Americans had never seen anything like it… He spent two hours each afternoon greeting the public at City Hall — trying to shake every hand in the endless line. Some waited all night to see him…. Women brought their babies for him to bless; fathers led their sons into the past, into American history, to touch the hand of a Founding Father. It was a mystical experience they would relate to their heirs through generations to come. Lafayette had materialized from a distant age, the last leader and hero of the nation’s defining moment. They knew they and the world would never see his kind again.”
In Boston Lafayette said: “My obligations to the United States, ladies and gentlemen, far surpass the services I was able to render.…The approbation of the American people…is the greatest reward I can receive. I have stood strong and held my head high whenever in their name I have proclaimed the American principles of liberty, equality and social order. I have devoted myself to these principles since I was a boy and they will remain a sacred obligation to me until I take my final breath…. The greatness and prosperity of the United States are spreading the light of civilization across the world—a civilization based on liberty and resistance to oppression with political institutions and the rights of man and republican principles of government by the people.”
The Marquis de Lafayette then visited towns and cities throughout the United States. His initially intended three to four month tour was extended to thirteen. A triumphal procession lasting more than 6,000 miles. In recognition of his service in the propagation of democracy in the United States, France, and Europe, Congress awarded him $200,000.
In 1917, when the Americans arrived to help defend France during the First World War, Colonel John E. Stanton declared “Lafayette, we are here!”
The top of one the eastern tower of the Blackwell’s Island, Queensboro, 59th Street, Ed Koch Bridge. The towers originally held flagpoies. Andy Sparberg, Ed Litcher, & 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 Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
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illustrations, from above: George Washington and Lafayette at Mount Vernon, 1784 by Rossiter and Mignot, 1859; Lafayette in the uniform of a major general of the Continental Army, by Charles Willson Peale, between 1779–1780; Lafayette wounded at the battle of Brandywine by Charles Henry Jeans; Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen proposed to the Estates-General by Lafayette; Lafayette kisses Marie Antoinette’s hand on the balcony of the royal palace during a riot there in October 6, 1789; The Oath of LaFayette at the Fête de la Fédération on July 14, 1790; Lafayette as a lieutenant general in 1791, by Joseph-Désiré Court (1834); Marquis de Lafayette in prison, by an unknown artist; 1823 portrait of Lafayette, now hanging the House of Representatives chamber by Arey Scheffer.
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As the 19th century drew to a close, collectors had begun to take American art seriously. Millionaires, who had for decades scoured Europe for paintings and sculptures to adorn their mansions, took a new pride in home-grown artists. Another movement was taking hold as well. The world of professional art had been one almost exclusively of men. Now female artists sought equality. On May 31, 1892 socialite, painter and philanthropist Mrs. Ellen Dunlap Hopkins founded the New York School of Applied Design for Women. Ellen came from the old and respected Pond family of Massachusetts. Initially the school was only a step removed from a trade school, its goals were “…affording to women instruction which may enable them to earn a livelihood by the employment of their taste and manual dexterity in the application of ornamental design to manufacture and the arts.” The New York Times explained “Mrs. Hopkins’s theory in starting the school…was that with the increasing demand for original and artistic designs for carpets, oil cloths, wall papers, silks, book covers, &c., there was a field for the employment of women of natural art taste and ability, could they obtain practical training at a low cost.” At the school’s opening, Ellen Dunlap Hopkins described her initial 45 students as “women who were determined to study in order to compete with men in the arts, and whose endeavor it was to make places for themselves in the branches of their choice, not by asking sympathy and not by taking less pay than men, but by the excellence of their work.” Ellen Dunlap Hopkins rented several floors in a building at Seventh Avenue and 23rd Street in what had become an artistic center. The Artist-Artisan Institute Building sat nearby at Nos. 136-140 West 23rd Street. The building was shared with the School for Industrial Art and Technical Design for Women. The Associated Artists was at No. 115 East 23rd Street; and an artists’ studio building had opened at No. 44 West 22nd Street. Only three months after the school opened, it created waves across the nation. The New-York Tribune reported that a collection of “designs of wallpaper, carpets, silks, rugs, book-covers, architectural plans and designs and water colors, all the work of the new students,” was exhibited in New York before being sent to the World’s Fair in Chicago. “From there it was forwarded by request to the Midwinter Fair in San Francisco, and has already been spoken for by the Countess of Aberdeen, to be exhibited at the coming Canadian exhibition.” The fledgling school earned four gold medals in Chicago and three in San Francisco.
An exhibition in the rented space in 1903 included these designs based on floral forms. photograph by Byron Company from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
Students paid a $50 tuition fee per year. After passing through the elementary department “where the student is taught the first steps,” according to the Tribune on September 30, 1894, she moved to the “advanced” class where “she is left to work out her own artistic salvation.” The concept and success of the school was quickly noticed overseas. Just two years after its founding, Ellen Dunlap Hopkins was invited by the British royal family to establish a branch school in London. That school was opened under the patronage of “Princess Christian, the Princess of Wales, and other members of the English royal family and the nobility,” reported The New York Times. Meanwhile the student body of 45 had grown to nearly 400 by now. On September 30, 1894 the New-York Tribune noted that the school “is self-supporting, and the work of its students is so constantly in demand that the supply is inadequate.” The rented space on West 23rd Street could not accommodate the growing school for many more years. On January 30, 1906 The New York Times reported that “The property at the northwest corner of Lexington Avenue and Thirtieth Street is to be made the site of a new six-story building, which will be occupied by an art school.” The art school was, of course, the School for Applied Design for Women, and the two houses sat at Nos. 160 and 162 Lexington Avenue. Plans for the new building were filed by the architectural firm of Pell & Corbett and construction did not begin until 1908. It was partner Harvey Wiley Corbett who designed the building. The choice of architects was doubtlessly influenced by Corbett’s position as an instructor at the school. The structure was completed late in 1908 and the school officially moved in on January 18, 1909. The total cost was $215,000—approximately $5.75 million in 2015—paid for by private donations. The New-York Tribune noted “the largest contributors being J. Pierpont Morgan and Mrs. Collis P. Huntington, who gave $15,000 and $10,000 respectively.”
Vintage brownstone homes surround the completed structure. photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
The costs were also offset by fund-raising events like the “large bridge tournament” at the Hotel Gotham ballroom on January 29, 1909. Socialites played for prizes donated by some of the most recognized names in art and literature. The New York Times listed “autograph sketches and books from artists and authors, including Ernest Thompson Seton, Arnest Peixotto, Alphonse Mucha, Brander Matthews, Richard Watson Gilder, and Mark Twain.” Corbett had produced a seven story beauty of brick and stone with an impressive bas relief frieze above the second floor highly reminiscent of the Elgin Marbles. Two-story polished gray engaged columns supported a cornice which somewhat playfully zig-zagged in and out following their contours. Corbett included a good-humored single column on the Lexington Avenue elevation.
A lonely column on the Lexington Avenue elevation was a tongue-in-cheek touch.
The increased floor space included an exhibition room and even before the formal dedication, a permanent exhibition of work done by the advanced students was opened. “This is something that the management has long desired to have, but in the old, limited quarters, in West 23d street, it was impossible,” reported the New-York Tribune on March 2, 1909. Although Ellen Dunlap Hopkins lived in style in a mansion at No 31 East 30th Street; the new building included apartments for her. They would prove effective for holding receptions, luncheons and other entertainments for the benefit of the school. Among guests received here were the Countess of Aberdeen and Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, who visited on January 17, 1913 and “spent several hours there,” according to The New York Times the following day. The newspaper noted “The school, which is the only one of its kind in the country, has 560 students.”
A Roman inspired frieze wrapped the structure.
As the student body increased, so did the curriculum. The exhibit of student work, occupying four full floors of the building on May 16, 1922 reflected the expanded courses. The New-York Tribune said it “included work in illustration, fashion design, commercial art, composition work, textile design, historic ornament, flower painting, architecture and interior decoration, antique drawing and sketching.” The socially powerful with whom Mrs. Ellen Dunlap Hopkins rubbed shoulders was reflected in the guest list of a reception and musicale she held in her apartments here on January 15, 1928. The guest of honor was around-the-world aviator Lt. Leigh Wade of the U.S. Navy. In the room that night were Manhattan’s socially prominent, including Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, Mr. and Mrs. George F. Baker, Jr., Mrs. Charles A. Van Rensselaer, Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, Mrs. Benjamin Harrison, Mrs. John Henry Hammond, Mrs. John W. Alexander, and Mr. and Mrs. Elihu Root among others. The students enjoyed a social life as well. On May 13, 1929 The Times noted that “The annual student dance of the New York School of Applied Design for Women…will be held on Friday evening in the library of the school.” The indefatigable work of Ellen Dunlap Hopkins was recognized in December 1938 when she was conferred the decoration of Les Palmes d’Officier d’Academie by Minister of Education of the French Government. The award had been established by Napoleon I in 1806. Two months later, nearly half a century after she established the School of Applied Design for Women, Ellen Dunlap Hopkins died at the age of 81. Her funeral was held on February 6, 1939 in the school. Among the distinguished mourners was the architect of the building, Harvey Wiley Corbett, who was now President of the school. He would hold the position until his death in 1954. The School of Applied Design for Women continued to respond to the changing professional needs of its students and the community. On July 14, 1940 the school announced a new department for teaching costume design. But the school’s most radical change came about in 1944, when it merged with Lauros M. Phoenix’s art institute. The merger meant that men were now included in the student body. In the early 1970’s the New York-Phoenix School of Design added photography to the curriculum; an area that gained popularity and importance. In 1974 the school merged again—this time with the Pratt Institute. Renamed the Pratt-Phoenix School of Design it continued in the building still unaltered after seven decades. The exterior of structure was given landmark status in 1977. When Touro College took over the edifice it initiated an interior renovation, completed in 1990. The $750,000 renovation converted the interior spaces to modern classrooms. But Touro’s ownership would not be especially long. On May 29, 2007 the building was put on the market; the announcement saying “The property is currently vacant awaiting the next user to enjoy its voluminous interior, high ceilings, abundant light and air and architectural grandeur.” Touro College sold the building to Lexington Landmark Properties for $8.2 million. In 2012 Dover Street Market, a luxury retail fashion store, signed a 15-year lease on the entire building. Despite the ongoing lease, in March 2015 real estate firm Walter & Samuels purchased the building for $24.5 million.
Because of landmark designation the exterior of the astonishingly-unaltered School of Applied Design for Women building looks exactly today as it did in January 1909 when it opened.
National Academy of Design, one of many Gothic Revival buildings modeled on the Doge’s Palace in Venice, seen c. 1863–1865. This building was demolished in 1901.
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
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
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Frontispiece depicting Ole Worm’s cabinet of curiosities, from Museum Wormianum, 1655 (Smithsonian Libraries). Ole Worm was a Danish physician and natural historian. Engravings of his collection were published in a volume after his death. www.khanacademy.org/humanities/approaches-to-art-history/tools-for-understanding-museums/museums-in-history/a/a-brief-history-of-the-art-museum-edit#
Arguments about American Museums Stephen Blank
I’m reading a recent book about the struggle to win American interest in Picasso and other modern artists – Picasso’s War by Hugh Eakin. Made me think about museums, art museums, collecting…
The Romans had something like pop-up museums where they laid out the booty from a victorious battle for folks to see. Churches showed off relics – sort of religious museums. Later, in the age of exploration as the world grew smaller, curious and wealthy types created Wunderkammern, or cabinets of wonders. These were collections of the odd, the rare and newly found, which were the early cousins to museums. As Europe was extending its reach into “new” continents and cultures, Wunderkammern were places to gather, interpret, and show off the riches of the world.
Wunderkammern were playgrounds of the wealthy elite, open only to the collector, his immediate circle, and the occasional visitor who was properly furnished with a letter of introduction. This intimacy meant that objects could be taken from shelves, handled, juxtaposed, and discussed before being returned to storage, often out of sight. Wunderkammern were more like private study collections than the art museums most of us know today.
(This is quite topical for me. On Monday, I gave a talk in Bard Graduate Study Center, a close cousin to the Wunderkammern. Lenore and I donated more than 80 glass, ceramic and wood items we had collected in our travels to the Study Center.)
Travel, organized exploration, and intellectual fermentation produced a new kind of institution. One that not only collected and displayed wonders of the world but sought to understand deeper histories and patterns of relationships. The British Museum, founded in 1750, embodies these objectives – not just exotic objects revealed but a greater sense of what they were, where they came from and how they were used by the societies in which they were found. The British Museum – and soon, similar collections in Paris, Berlin, Vienna and elsewhere – also represented (and glorified) colonial empires.
At the same time, specialized collections, such as botanical and zoological museums, begin to emerge –and, as well, museums devoted only to art. Kustmuseum Basel is seen as the first art museum. Descended from the Amerbach-Cabinet, a Wunderkammern, purchased in 1661 by the city of Basel. It became the first municipally owned museum. Kustmuseum Basel opened publicly in 1671 followed by other art museums — the Capitoline (Rome, 1734), the Louvre (Paris, 1793), and the Alte Pinakothek (Munich, 1836). Britain’s National gallery was founded in 1824 when the government bought 38 paintings from the heirs of John Julius Angerstein, an insurance broker and patron of the arts. Running through these newly public institutions was a deeply didactic structure, and a community, it was felt, to public edification.
Of course, there’s a uniquely American story here. On one side, different institutions claim to be the first American museum.
Founded in 1773, the Charleston Museum is widely regarded as “America’s First Museum.” It was inspired by the creation of the British Museum and established by the Charleston Library Society on the eve of the American Revolution
Charles Wilson Peale opened a portrait gallery in his home studio in 1782, near the war’s official end, where he displayed his portraits of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton. Here where he opened the first public museum — called the Philadelphia Museum — in 1786. The Charleston Museum opened earlier but did not open to the public until 1824. So, the Philadelphia Museum was the nation’s “first successful public museum.”
In 1825, a group of New York artists conceived of the National Academy of Design, one of the nation’s first fine arts institutions. They were students of the American Academy of the Fine Arts who were critical of the academy ‘s commitment to teaching. Samuel Morse, one of the leaders, had been a student at the Royal Academy in London and emulated its structure and goals for the National Academy of Design. The mission of the academy, from its foundation, was to “promote the fine arts in America through exhibition and education.”
A few years later, in 1842, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford was founded with a vision for infusing art into the American experience. The Atheneum is the oldest continuously operating public art museum in the United States, opening its doors to the public in 1844.
Notwithstanding these early efforts, art museums were an unusual luxury in the United States until the later decades of the nineteenth century when wealthy patrons in rapidly expanding American cities began to emulate European models. This is why so many historic American museums resemble their European counterparts (temple-fronted facades over a grand staircase), echo their collecting habits (classical sculpture, Renaissance painting, etc.), and mimic their approach to layout and installation.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the second most visited art museum in the world, largest in the United States and third largest in the world. It was founded in 1870 and opened for public February 20, 1872. It was founded by local businessmen and financiers, leading artists and thinkers. It is originally located on Fifth Avenue but it was later moved to on the eastern edge of Central Park.
The Brooklyn Museum opened in 1905 and the Newark Museum was founded in 1909. Its charter states the purpose was “to establish in the City of Newark, New Jersey, a museum for the reception and exhibition of articles of art, science, history and technology, and for the encouragement of the study of the arts and sciences.” Many others soon followed – in Boston and Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Kansas City among many more.
These museums were all based on the European model. They were built, in many ways, as “temples to art”. Organized along clear and strict historical and modal lines, interaction with viewers was one way. Museum experts decided what visitors would see. These museums represented the ideas, values and interests of the American financial elite of the late 19th century whose purchases of classic European art became legendary and who offered their friends the opportunity to view these works in private salons. These were the leaders of the movement to create new art museums, now open to the public – at least on a limited basis. As kids, when we made a class visit to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, there were two strict rules: “Don’t talk” and Don’t touch.”
Some historians argued, however, that these weren’t the first museums in America, and that the European model did not really represent the American cultural reality.
Other museums had existed in American cities – for example, just in New York where the “American Museum” was founded in 1791 by John Pintard under the patronage of the Tammany Society. That became Scudder’s American Museum in 1810 which ran until 1841, when it was purchased by P.T. Barnum and transformed into the very successful Barnum’s American Museum.
“Museum” may seem an inappropriate title for these operations. The early collection from the Tammany years included an American bison, an 18-foot yellow snake of South American origin, a lamb with two-heads, wax figures, pieces of Indian, African, and Chinese origin. And surely Barnum was best known for his collection of “freaks” like the Fee/Jee mermaid and General Tom Thumb. They offered what one historian described as a “a chance assemblage of curiosities … rather [than] a series of objects selected with reference to their value to investigators, or their possibilities for public enlightenment.” Museum professionals said these American “museums” consisted of spectacular or bizarre objects with no scientific or educational value; in short, they were sideshows aimed at public gratification.
But there was an argument on the other side: That museum staffs had so closely imitated elitist European models that museums soon became little more than isolated segments of European culture set in a hostile environment. These criticisms hold that museums have long been unresponsive to the needs of the public, instead serving the desires of elitists drawn from the ranks of such groups as highly educated historians and scientists, or those with unusually acute aesthetic sensibilities, such as artists. At best, say the critics, the museums have failed to take steps to attract the people; at worst they have actually discouraged the public from attending. Realizing just how invidious this antiegalitarianism is in a free country, curators have taken care to disguise their exclusivity as necessary scholarship or efficient professionalism. But they never deceived the public, who understood that they were not welcome in the preserves of the plutocrats.
These are both extreme positions and it’s clear that most contemporary arts institutions do seek to reply to both sides. Still, it isn’t difficult to see the continued tension embedded in our arts and cultural institutions over identify and role in society. And I have wandered a far from where I set out to go. Ah, the dangers of research and the (wonderful) constraints of 1500 words. I promise to return to the reception of Picasso and other modern artists in New York.
CENTRAL NURSES RESIDENCE ON THE SITE OF THE NOW 475 MAIN STREET. WITH 600 SINGLE ROOMS THE BUILDING HOUSED NURSING STUDENTS, GRADUATE NURSES AND STAFFS FROM 1939 TO THE 1960’S.
ALEXIS VILLAFANE GOT IT RIGHT. PHOTO M. FRANK
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
Stephen Blank, “P.T. Barnum: New York’s Famous Entertainment Entrepreneurs” RIHS (2022) Joel J. Orosz, Curators and Culture: The Museum Movement in America, 1740-1870 (2011)
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The Silent Sentinels, or Sentinels of Liberty, organized by Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party, were a group of over 2,000 women demanding women’s suffrage by silently protesting in front of the White House during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency beginning on January 10, 1917. About 500 were arrested, with at least 168 serving jail time – many of them from New York State, a birthplace of the suffrage and women’s rights movements.
Over the two and a half year long protest many of the women who picketed were arrested, harassed and abused by local and federal authorities, most notably being tortured while in local jails. Among the most horrific of these acts occurred during the night of November 14-15, 1917, known as the Night of Terror.
The conditions of the District of Columbia Jail were unsanitary and unsafe, with prisoners sharing cells and prison facilities with people who had syphilis and other communicable diseases, and where worms were often found in the food. When those arrested surpassed the number of spaces at the DC Jail, the women being arrested were taken to Virginia’s Occoquan Workhouse (now the Lorton Correctional Complex, in Lorton Virginia).
The conditions at the Occoquan Workhouse were terrible. Ordered to strip naked and bathe with a single bar of soap, the women refused.
During a suffrage debate in a committee of the House of Representatives in September 1917, Massachusetts Representative Joseph Walsh called suffragist “nagging… iron-jawed angels,” who were “bewildered, deluded creatures with short skirts and short hair.”
The protests continued, and sentences to jail grew longer. On October 20, 1917, Alice Paul was arrested while carrying a banner that said: “The time has come to conquer or submit, for us there can be but one choice. We have made it.” The banner language was a direct quote of President Woodrow Wilson.
Paul was sentenced to seven months. She was put in solitary confinement for two weeks, with only bread and water. She became weak and unable to walk, and began a hunger strike after being taken to the prison medical ward. In response to the hunger strike, the prison doctors force-fed the women who joined her by forcing tubes down their throats.
A large number of woman protested this treatment on November 10th and about 3o women were arrested and sent to Occoquan Workhouse. On the night of November 14th, the superintendent, W.H. Whittaker, ordered some forty guards to brutalize the suffragists. They beat New Yorker Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head, then left her there for the night. They put Dora Lewis into a dark cell and smashed her head against an iron bed, knocking her unconscious. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, who believed Lewis to be dead, suffered a heart attack. Guards dragged, beat, choked, pinched, and kicked other women.
A total of 14 women from New York State were among a larger group of abused protestors. A significant number of New Yorkers also provided support on the White House picket line from January 1917 through June of 1918.
Suffragists themselves called the night the “Night of Terror.” The attack on activists within the correctional facility and the subsequent extensive nationwide publicity became a turning point in the national effort to win votes for women. The campaign for voting rights goes back to the 1848 women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, NY and ends with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in August of 1920.
New York State conducted two referendums on the “votes for women” issue in 1915 and then again in 1917. The 1917 New York State victory recharged the national suffrage movement. After 1917, New York’s large population of new women voters effectively doubled the number of women voters in the nation. The New York victory represented a major step forward in bringing the national suffrage issue to a conclusion in 1920.
New York women arrest for “unlawful assembly” and sentenced on November 14, 1917 included:
Amy Juengling, Buffalo, NY
Hattie Kruger, Buffalo, NY
Paula Jacobi, NYC
Eunice Brannan, NYC
Lucy Burns, NYC
Emily Dubois Butterworth, NYC
Dorothy Day, NYC
Elizabeth Hamilton, NYC
Louise Hornsby, NYC
Peggy Johns, NYC
Kathryn Lincoln, NYC
Belle Sheinberg, NYC
Cora Week, NYC
Matilda Young, NYC
The Turning Point Suffragist Memorial Memorial, near the “Night of Terror” site in Lorton, Virginia, honors the women who were imprisoned at the Occoquan Workhouse and commemorates all of the millions of little-known women who engaged in the suffragist movement primarily from 1848 through passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 with which most women won the right to vote. More information is available at http://www.suffragistmemorial.org
THE ANSONIA HOTEL HARA REISER, ANDT SPARBERG, ALEXIS VILLAFANE, THOM HEYER, ARON EISENPREISS 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.
Wurts Bros. photographed the building shortly after its completion in 1928. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
Justus H. Rathbone was impressed by Irish writer John Banim’s 1821 play Damon and Pythias which highlighted the ideals of friendship, loyalty and honor. In February 1864 he founded The Knights of Pythias, a fraternal group which stressed those qualities and provided philanthropic aid. Like other secret societies, The Knights of Pythias was organized around mystic rituals and included ceremonial props and costumes. Local units were called “Castles” (a term later changed to “Subordinate Lodges”), and members, depending on rank, were Pages, Esquires and Knights. And, like the Masons and Shriners, by the early 20th century their elaborate lodges reflected exotic architectural styles—Moorish, Egyptian and Byzantine, for example. In the mid-1920s the Pythians began accumulating property for its new Manhattan lodge. They had chosen a rather unlikely location—West 70th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues, a narrow, residential street. By 1926 eight four-story houses had been demolished and construction begun. The Knights of Pythias turned to architect Thomas White Lamb to design the large building. Their choice was possibly influenced by his reputation for creating lavish motion picture palaces for the Fox, Loew’s and the Keith-Albee chains. The Pythian Temple would emerge in 1928 as an exotic $2 million behemoth among the rowhouses–the counterpart of an epic silent movie set,
Lamb freely borrowed from Egypt, Byzantium and Syria in lavishing the façade with cast stone bas reliefs, monumental full-figured seated pharaohs and polychrome bulls. The dramatic entrance, decorated with Egyptian symbols like crowned cobras, vultures, lotus flowers and winged lions, was executed in blindingly colored terra cotta. The nearly-windowless midsection was adorned with handsome gray brick diapering and an enormous Pythian symbol.
Even before the lodge was completed the main auditorium space was leased. On October 6, 1927 Dr. Nathan Krass, rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, preached his Yom Kippur sermon on “Tolerance” here. The following month an operatic concert was held here; and on January 20, 1928 the New York Press Club held an “entertainment and dance.” Five days later the building was officially dedicated in the larger of the two auditoriums. More than 1,600 persons were in attendance and the program was well underway when Mayor James Walker—who had a reputation for being late—arrived. He had not been informed that his arch rival, former Mayor John H. Hylan, would share the stage with him. Walker did not notice Hylan until he had already begun his address. He handled the awkward moment by nodding to his nemesis and saying “If I’d seen you when I first came in, I would have paid my respects then. Time has brought a sympathy for you I never held before.” Walker joked about his tardiness, saying “I suppose you have heard of the ‘late Mayor.’ It is a characterization I can’t deny.” But he apparently did not appreciate the shock of Hylan’s presence. Following his speech, in which he congratulated the Knights of Pythias on the new building, he walked off the stage and left.
Four enormous polychrome pharaohs sit high above the street, below an Egyptian peristyle. photo by Beyond My Ken
The larger auditorium featured a pipe organ; and the Christman Piano Co. of New York proudly announced that the Temple had purchased eight pianos, “some of which are Studio grands and the rest uprights.” At least one of these would be housed in the smaller auditorium, which was capable of holding 500 persons. The new building offered members a gymnasium, a bowling alley and billiards room in the basement, 15 lodge rooms decorated in Aztec, Egyptian and other motifs, and a rooftop solarium. The auditoriums and meeting rooms were routinely leased for wedding receptions, musical programs and lectures. Meetings as diverse as those of the Christian Science Liberals, graduation exercises of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and the church services of the Manhattan Congregational Congregation were held here. The week-long hazing of Columbia University fraternity pledges ended here on February 17, 1929. The Columbia Spectator reported three days later, “Since noon of last Tuesday twelve Sigma Chi pledges have been going through the well known miseries connected with ‘Running Week.’ Much to their relief it all ended Sunday night with the formal initiation and banquet. These functions were held at the Pythian Temple on West Seventieth Street.” While the Calvary Baptist Church was being constructed in 1929, the congregation held its Sunday services and its weddings and funerals here. And in April 1930 the Milton Herbert Gropper and Oscar Hammerstein II play New Toys opened here by the Garfield Players. By now many of the meetings held here were of a more political nature. The first session of the Annual Convention of the Federation of Polish Jews met in May 1930. More than 400 delegates met to draft a resolution to Warsaw asking for aid for Polish Jews. That same month Daniel F. Cohalan and Saliendra nath Ghose addressed Indian Nationalists on the 73rd anniversary of the Sepoy Mutiny and the imprisonment of Mahatma Ghandi. And the following year the United Romanian Jews met here, as did the convention of the Advancement of Atheism, formed five years earlier. While Jewish and Christian congregations continued to use the auditoriums on weekends throughout the next two decades, the increasingly extreme political assemblies filled the halls during the week. On May Day 1939 the Federation to Combat Communism and Fascism, Inc. held a demonstration to “protest the infiltration of Communist, Nazi and Fascist propaganda.” But on the same holiday in 1946 the Socialist Labor Party held its celebrations here. The auditorium was routinely leased by the West Side Committee of American-Soviet Friendship, and the Upper West Side Civil Rights Congress; both of which drew the close scrutiny of the United States Congress. A Congressional report dated February 15, 1947 focused on the Upper West Side Civil Rights Congress. The report began “Having adopted a line of militant skullduggery against the United States with the close of World War II, the Communist Party has set up the Civil Rights Congress for the purpose of protecting those of its members who run afoul of the law.” It reported that “On August 28, 1946, the Upper West Side Civil Rights Congress of New York City held a meeting at the Pythian Temple, 135 West Seventieth Street, which was cosponsored by the Communist Party, West Side; American Labor Party; American Youth for Democracy; United Negro and Allied Veterans of America; and the International Workers Order, Lodge 572.” The Report cautioned that some of these groups used deceptively patriotic names. In the first years of the 1950s the Knights of Pythias gave Decca Records the exclusive use of the main auditorium as a recording studio. Some of the best known names in Rock ‘n Roll would produce their hits here. Bill Haley and the Comets recorded the albums “Rock Around the Clock” and “Shake, Rattle and Roll” here in 1955; and Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n Roll Trio recorded its debut album here the following year. Buddy Holly’s first recording session in the Pythian Temple studio was on June 19, 1958. Other hits recorded here were Bobby Darin’s “Early in the Morning” and “Now We’re One,” and Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride.” In the meantime the smaller auditorium continued to be used for operas, plays, and meetings. In April 1956 the People’s Artists staged a “Hootenanny” here and in January 1957 folk singer Pete Seeger held a concert. One notable event was the meeting of the National Council of the American-Soviet Friendship Association in November that year. The group had been meeting here for years with little real notice. But that night, when actor and activist Paul Robeson spoke, the timing was ill-advised. The Soviets had fired on student demonstrators in Budapest a month earlier, killing one. It sparked the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and American sympathies. When the meeting broke up, its members were pelted with eggs, spoiled tomatoes and other projectiles. In 1957 the New York Institute of Technology purchased the building in foreclosure for $500,000—exactly one-quarter of its construction cost. A few weeks later, in January, officials explored the structure to map out classrooms, lecture halls and other areas. What they found was a bit startling and equally creepy. Meyer Berger reported in The New York Times on January 20, 1958, “Wardrobe lockers still hold Egyptian, scriptural and other ritualistic garb. There is great store of halberds, ancient staffs and magic wands and rods. “Under several of the meeting-room altars, which are done in Egyptian, Babylonian or Aztec motifs, the college faculty found coffins filled with grinning skeletons, some done in plastic, some apparently human—the kind of thing used to chill and horrify initiates.”
For several days leading up to September 1, 1960 police had received reports of a mysterious cat-sized beast slipping among the buildings on the block. The phantom animal was considered “imaginary” by officials–until it appeared in the lobby of the New York Institute of Technology that night. Discovered by an elevator operator, the animal curled into a corner was Timmy, the escaped honey bear owned by 17-year old Robert Engler. When police arrived a safari of sorts ensued. Timmy bolted, making his way to a basement restroom; then upstairs to the lobby lavatory. Police were close on its tail, literally. Timmy was eventually captured, but not before Detective Walter Bentley was bitten on the wrist. The prisoner was taken to the West 68th Street police station in a pail and calm was restored to West 70th Street. In 1983 architect David Gura completed a conversion of the structure into apartments. He called the project “like dealing with an enormous Rubik cube” because of the myriad spaces. Windows were carved into the vast brick façade, the major change to the exterior, and 83 different apartment layouts were created. Some of the resulting duplexes had 16-foot high living rooms.
Because of its side street location, the extraordinary building, now called The Pythian, is as overlooked today as it was in 1928. But its dramatic, brilliant decoration is worth a detour.
TIMES SQUARE WITH THE FAMOUS LATIN QUARTER NIGHT CLUB.
ANDY SPARBERG AND GLORIA HERMAN BOTH 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
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Written 100 years ago, this concise history of the New York City welfare system tells the story of how our concern for public health and well-being has grown over the years. The story continues today with many more agencies, names, commissions and advisors.
The vertical files in the Municipal Library contain a treasure trove of newspaper clippings, media releases and documents from City agencies. There also are original analyses written by the legendary Rebecca Rankin, the long-time Municipal Librarian and her staff. Written on onion-skin paper, the articles are distinctive and elicit a jolt of anticipation when located. This week’s blog is a history of public welfare in the City, circa 1922 as written by Ms. Rankin and staff. The original records of these welfare institutions, the Almshouse Ledger Collection, were processed by the Municipal Archives in 2016 under a grant funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and a digitized selection of ledgers are now online.
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
The first Bellevue, a 6-bed infirmary on the present site of City Hall. Department of Public Charities Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
The responsibility for the care and treatment of the dependents in the City of New York rests upon the Department of Public Welfare. The history of the Department really begins in 1734 when it became apparent to the Common Council that some means for caring for the poor, the beggars and the dependent sick must be provided; at this time the population of the City was 8,000 and contained 1,400 houses. It was decided to erect a workhouse on the unimproved lands known as the “Vineyard”; this site was the ground on which the City Hall now stands. This “Publick Workhouse and House of Correction” was finished in 1736; by 1746 it was outgrown and required additions.
Page from Admissions, Discharges and Death Ledger, Almshouse of the City of New York, 1758-1809. Ledger columns include: date admitted, name, age, occupation, where from or born, complaints, by whom sent/by whose order, location/ward no., date of discharge, date of death, remarks. This collection was processed by the Municipal Archives in 2016 under a grant funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and a digitized selection of ledgers are now online. Almshouse Ledger Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Prior to this date, in the early years of the City, the poor had been maintained by the Church. From 1695 on the City appropriated yearly a sum of one hundred pounds or more for the support of the poor, and it appointed Overseers of the Poor who were responsible for policies of management and a Keeper was in charge. But not till 1736 could it be considered as an official part of the city’s activities. The Workhouse was supported by a tax upon the inhabitants. By 1775 this tax amounted to 4,233 pounds or about 95 cents per capita.
View of the “Old Bellevue Establishment” from the East River. Department of Public Charities Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
In May 1796 a new Almshouse was finished and used till 1816; this occupied the site where the Courthouse now stands on Chambers Street. About this time the City purchased old Kip’s Bay Farm on the East River at the foot of 26th Street which later became known as Bellevue Hospital. This group comprised two hospitals, an almshouse, a workshop and a school. In 1819 an epidemic of yellow fever forced the addition of a hospital for contagious diseases. In 1828 Blackwell’s Island was bought and a penitentiary built and by 1839 a lunatic asylum added. In 1850 it became apparent that a poor farm was necessary and consequently Ward’s Island was purchased for that purpose. By 1843 a re-organization was demanded and a special committee investigated and a resolution was passed which provided for an almshouse on Blackwell’s Island, a children’s and an adult hospital, the lunatic asylum extended, a workhouse, and nurseries and infants hospital on Randall’s Island
Blackwell’s Island looking southeast: Penitentiary, Charity Hospital with Superintendent’s cottage, Smallpox Hospital, Reception Pavilion, ca. 1900. Department of Public Charities Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.In 1846-1849 there was an Almshouse Department with a Commissioner at its head. But in 1849 a new state law put the Almshouse Department under a Board of Governors, ten in number which continued its responsibility until 1860 when the Department of Public Charities and Correction was created. It was in 1850 that the City began the practice of subsidizing private institutions for the care of dependents; in that first year a sum of $9,865 was expended. This policy is still continued successfully; in 1920 there were 196 private charitable institutions which accepted public charges for the City.
Horse-and-buggy ambulance in front of (Old) Coney Island Hospital, ca. 1900. Department of Public Charities Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Sea View Hospital, West New Brighton, Staten Island, 1920. Department of Public Charities Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
About 1883 a feeling became general that the existing system under which the paupers, criminals, lunatics and the sick poor were cared for by one department, (Department of Public Charities and Corrections which was established in 1860) was objectionable so that in 1895 a law providing for the division of the department into two distinct bodies, namely, the Department of Public Charities and the Department of Correction was passed. The hospitals, almshouse, lunatic asylum and all institutions on Blackwell’s Island were placed under the Department of Public Charities, and the Department of Correction managed the penal and reformatory institutions. In 1902 further revision resulted in Bellevue and Allied Hospital having a separate organization. In 1920 the name of the Department was changed to the Department of Public Welfare [in 1938 it was further simplified to Department of Welfare
City Home for the Aged, Blackwell’s Island, ca. 1900. Frederick A. Walter, Department of Public Charities Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.No allusion has been made to much legislation affecting the administration of this department. There were many and constant changes in the form of administration; sometimes three, sometimes five, sometimes one commissioner of almshouse, or even a Board of Governors. The Department at present administered is under one commissioner appointed by the Mayor.View fullsize
City Home for the Aged, Blackwell’s Island, ca. 1900. Frederick A. Walter, Department of Public Charities Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.To carry on its diverse activities, the Department in 1920 maintained and operated two reception hospitals, six general hospitals, three special hospitals, two homes for the aged and infirm, cottages for aged couples and women, a preventorium, a convalescent home for women and children, a municipal lodging house, a mortuary, a social service department in connection with the hospitals, four schools of nursing and four training schools for attendants. The combined capacity of the eleven hospitals was 8,796 beds; the daily average of all patients cared for was approximately 5,847. The Department had a staff of 4,200 employees to carry on its work and the appropriation in the 1922 budget for the Department was $7,370,550.
Nurses lined up in front of Cumberland Street Hospital, 1920. Department of Public Charities Collection, NYC
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY SURROGATES COURT BUILDING 31 CHAMBERS STREET LOBBY
ALEXIS VILLAFANE AND HARA REISER GOT THIS ONE 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
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MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Before he was a turncoat, he was an American hero. James K. Martin, Professor Emeritus at the University of Houston and author of Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero: An American Warrior Reconsidered, reveals the strategic genius of Arnold, his essential contributions to the Revolutionary War, and his mistreatment at the hands of his superiors.
ABOUT JAMES KIRBY MARTIN
As for me: Might say that I’ve had a long academic career, teaching almost 50 years at Rutgers in NJ and the Un. of Houston. Also held distinguished visiting appointments at The Citadel in SC and the U. S. Military Academy at West Point. Have published several books, including Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero, on which the film is based. Also served as an executive producer of the film, which is available on Amazon Prime and other streaming networks. My most recent book is a novel, titled Surviving Dresden: A Story of Life, Death, and Redemption in World War II. Many other writing projects are underway. And I serve on the boards of trustees of the Fort Ticonderoga Association on Lake Champlain and the Fort Plain in the Mohawk Valley, and also serve as an historian adviser to the Oneida Indian Nation of NY. That should be plenty and please feel free to reduce this information if you like.
Recently the question of whether the City’s seal has outlived its useful life circulated in the media. The seal is omnipresent on letterhead and other documents issued by City government agencies and officials. While news stories date the current seal to a local law enacted in 1915, the imagery dates back much further. The Municipal Library’s Vertical Files (so called because they consist of file folders of media releases, news clippings and other material held in vertical file cabinets, not shelves) yielded a surprising quantity of material on the subject.
Camera art for the City Seal, NYC Municipal Library vertical files.
An interesting history of the City’s seal was published in 1915 in the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society’s twentieth annual report. Titled “SEAL AND FLAG OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK” it traces elements of the seal to the City of Amsterdam in 1342 at which time William Count of Henegouwen and Holland “made a present to the Amsterdammers of three crosses on the field of the City’s arms.” Not just any crosses but “saltire” crosses which means a diagonal cross—shaped like an X, not a t, and sometimes called a St. Andrew’s Cross.
City seals and flags are outgrowths from the coats of arms and banners that initially came into use around 1100 when helmeted knights fought in battle. Distinctive color and design were required to identify who was behind a given helmet. An entire craft, heraldry, evolved. This “practice of devising, granting, displaying, describing and recording coats of arms and heraldic badges is complicated.” There are many rules around the shapes, designs, colors, patterns, and division of the shield into halves, thirds, quarters, etc. There is a separate set of directions for identifying where an item should be drawn or placed, consisting of numbered locations within the shield and, most important for our purposes, four cardinal points: chief for the top, base for the bottom, dexter for the left and sinister for the right (in Latin, dexter means right, and sinister left, but the positions refer to the shield bearer’s perspective). The design of New York City’s official seal incorporates all of these practices.
Evolution of the City Seal, NYC Municipal Library vertical files.
One consistent feature on the New York City seal is the image of a beaver. The fur trade formed the basis of commerce for New Netherlands, including New Amsterdam and the beaver was the foremost symbol. Interestingly a beaver both had value as a commodity and as currency itself. In the Scenic Society’s report the author notes, “The intelligence and industry of these little animals, their ingenuity as house-builders and their amphibious character make them eloquent symbols also for the City of New York. So far as we know, the use of the beaver in the arms of New Netherland, New Amsterdam and New York City is unique in heraldry.”
Documentation on the ornamental cast-iron seals that decorated the old West Side Highway shows the evolution of the City’s seal. The Seal of the Province of New Netherland, adopted in 1623, is made up of two shields—the smaller contains an image of a beaver and the larger, which surrounds the smaller, consists of a string of wampum. It is topped by a crown and the outer border is ringed with the Dutch words for “Seal of the New Belgium.” (Holland and Belgium were united at that time.)
In 1653, New Amsterdam developed a municipal government, the Burgomasters and Schepens, which petitioned the West India Company for its own seal, which was received in 1654. Once again, there were two shields. Arranged one atop the other with a beaver between them, the larger shield contained three saltire crosses. There was drapery above and a label with the words “Seal of Amsterdam in New Belgium” at the bottom.
Tracing of the seal of New Amsterdam, NYC Municipal Library vertical files.
Ten years later, the Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the English and the City was renamed New York, after the Duke of York. The provincial seal was centered around the coat of arms of the Stuarts and was encircled with the Latin words meaning “Evil to Him who evil thinks.” There is a crown atop the shield and all is encircled by a laurel wreath. This is the only seal without the otherwise ubiquitous beaver. In 1686, the rights of the City were affirmed by Governor Dongan in the Dongan Charter which also provided for a City seal. In the center is a shield on which the sails of a windmill are arranged in a saltire cross. There are two beavers and two flour barrels alternating between the crosspieces of the windmill. On either side of the shield are human figures—on the dexter side a sailor holding a device for testing the depth of water; on the sinister, a Native American image.
After the British evacuated the City in 1783, the new government updated the 1686 City seal to remove the Imperial crown. Atop the shield they placed an image of an eagle standing on a hemisphere. It’s dated 1686 to commemorate the Dongan Charter and the words “Seal of the City of New York” are inscribed in Latin. Most of these design elements are present in the City’s seal (and flags) today.
Seal of the Office of the Mayor, NYC Municipal Library vertical files.
Sometimes the use of the City seal was contentious. Common Council minutes from 1735 address an apparent wanton use of the city seal without proper authorization and there was some concern that the Mayor was not providing the Council with use of the seal. The Council passed an ordinance that “lodges and deposits the common seal in the hands and custody of the Common Clerk” of the city—today the city clerk—and further banned alternative city seals. The ordinance restricted the use of the seal to actions taken by the Common Council or the Mayor’s Court.
A review of the archival records in the Office of the Mayor collection starting with the so-called “early mayors” shows that correspondence was not bedecked with official letterhead. In many letters the tops of the pages were blank. In other instances, the name of the agency writing the letter was hand written at the very top of the page, followed closely by the text of the letter, written in flowing cursive. That’s not to say that there wasn’t a City seal in use. But, its’ use was sparing, apparently deployed to certify some official documents, not run-of-the-mill correspondence. A case in point is an 1816 certificate issued by Mayor Jacob Radcliff certifying that a woman named Nancy, approximately 60 years of age, was a free woman and could travel. An embossed seal is embossed at bottom of the document. It bears all the elements of the seal in effect today.
In 1914, a group of former members of the Art Commission was appointed to provide an accurate rendering of the corporate seal of the City, and a design for a City flag. The various departments and boroughs had been using variations of the seal which created confusion about the provenance of official documents.
Based on the recommendation of this committee, in 1915 the Board of Alderman amended the City’s Code of Ordinances relating to the city seal, flags and decorations on city hall. The Aldermen re-established the 1686 seal as updated in 1784 and required it to be used for all documents, publications or stationery issued or used by the city, the boroughs and the departments. They made some minor style changes-the shape of the seal, the position of the eagle, etc. and also changed the date on the seal from 1686, the date of the Dongan Charter to 1664, the year the City was named New York.
It is in this legislation that a major error was made. Apparently the bill’s drafters were not versed in the heraldic arts. As a result, the cardinal directions of “dexter” and “sinister” were assigned as the names of the figures in each location. So the sailor holding a depth reading device was named “Dexter” for the left sided placement and the Native American figure placed on the right was named “Sinister.” How this happened is lost to history. One would think the high-profile former Art Commissioners would have sounded the alarm and corrected the error, which still exists.
In 1975, City Council President Paul O’Dwyer sought to change the founding date on the seal from the existing 1686 date marking the issuance of the Dongan Charter, to 1625 when the Dutch established New Amsterdam. The legislation also invalidated all former seals bearing the 1664 date.
As mentioned, not only is there a City seal, but each of the boroughs have separate seals or emblems dating to the colonial period. After consolidation of the Greater City in 1898, the boroughs continued to use these seals for various official purposes until 1938 when the Board of Estimate mandated that the seal of the City of New York would replace any previous seals that had been in use. Thereafter, the various seals were to be found on the borough flags and not on official documents. But the use of the seal continued to vex officials and in 1970, the Board of Estimate mandated that the seal of the City be placed on each letterhead and restricted the use of a gold seal to the Board of Estimate and the Vice Chair of the Council.
Seal of the Borough of Queens, NYC Municipal Library vertical files.
The flag for the borough of Queens was announced in 1948 after a design competition. The three-paneled seal included a tulip commemorating the Dutch on the dexter side, a double Tudor rose documenting the English on the sinister side. The border consists of shells used as money “wampum.” At the very top of there is a crown signifying that the borough was named for a Queen, namely Queen Catherine Braganza wife of England’s King Charles the Second.
According to an excerpt in the files from a 1925 history, “the Boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, Counties of Nassau and Suffolk Long Island, New York 1609-1924” Brooklyn’s seal was established by the West India Company in 1664. It consists of an image of the Roman goddess Vesta (equivalent to the Greek goddess Hestia) holding fasces—or bunch of rods and an axe bundled together. Apparently, this reflected the colony’s agricultural status. The motto surrounding the seal translates to “unity makes strength” which in 1664 was an update from the 1556 motto on the coat of arms of William the Silent, Prince of Orange. When the Village of Brooklyn officially incorporated in 1817, the seal was adopted by the common council.
Seal of Staten Island, NYC Municipal Library vertical files.
The seal of the Borough of Richmond, aka Staten Island, has gone through several evolutions. The Dutch named the island after the “Staten General” of their legislature. One seal consists of two doves facing each other with the letter S (for Staten) between them and N YORK beneath their feet. Another early seal has a female figure gazing toward the water in which two ships sail, one purportedly Henry Hudson’s Half Moon. In 1970, the then- Borough President held a contest to develop a better emblem. The winner was an oval with waves surrounding an island with birds flying in the sky above and STATEN ISLAND written between the waves and the island. However, this design was not universally admired. The Staten Island Advance reported that current Borough President James Oddo redesigned the emblem in 2017 to incorporate elements of the woman gazing out on the Verrazzano Narrows as well as oystermen, a moon and stars.
The Bronx, by contrast, maintained its seal, adopting the coat of arms of Jonas Bronck who settled in the area in 1639. A sun rises from the sea and a globe topped by an eagle stands above it. The Latin motto under the shield translates to “do not give way to evil.” This same design was the basis for New York State’s post- revolutionary coat of arms.
Brooklyn Markets Seal, NYC Municipal Library vertical files.
Notwithstanding this requirement that the City seal be use on all official materials, some agencies developed their own seals. In 1940, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia announced the conclusion of a contest, with a $10.00 prize won by a high school student, to design a seal for the Department of Markets. The seal featured a scale, a bundle of wheat and two full cornucopias. More recently, the New York Police Department (NYPD) developed a seal described in the agency’s 1987 annual report. It’s a somewhat cluttered design with the names of the five boroughs creating an interior ring. The City seal is at the bottom and the upper portion includes the words Lex and Ordo (Law and Order). The scales of justice are balanced atop the fasce and what looks to be a rocket (but probably isn’t) explodes from the top.
NYC Housing Authority Seal, NYC Municipal Library vertical files.
STATUE OF ABRAHAM DE PEYSER, THE CITY’S 20TH MAYOR IN THOMAS PAYNE PARK IN LOWER MANHATTAN. ED LITCHER 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 Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
JAMES KIRBY MARTIN
Illustration: “The Hudson at Tappan Zee” by Francis Silva 1876 showing a sloop, but actually depicting Esopus Meadows.
CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE JULE MENIN DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Before he was a turncoat, he was an American hero. James K. Martin, Professor Emeritus at the University of Houston and author of Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero: An American Warrior Reconsidered, reveals the strategic genius of Arnold, his essential contributions to the Revolutionary War, and his mistreatment at the hands of his superiors.
ABOUT JAMES KIRBY MARTIN
As for me: Might say that I’ve had a long academic career, teaching almost 50 years at Rutgers in NJ and the Un. of Houston. Also held distinguished visiting appointments at The Citadel in SC and the U. S. Military Academy at West Point. Have published several books, including Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero, on which the film is based. Also served as an executive producer of the film, which is available on Amazon Prime and other streaming networks. My most recent book is a novel, titled Surviving Dresden: A Story of Life, Death, and Redemption in World War II. Many other writing projects are underway. And I serve on the boards of trustees of the Fort Ticonderoga Association on Lake Champlain and the Fort Plain in the Mohawk Valley, and also serve as an historian adviser to the Oneida Indian Nation of NY. That should be plenty and please feel free to reduce this information if you like. https://jameskirbymartin.com/
The 1862 Hope Building
131-135 DUANE STREET
photo courtesy Tribeca Citizen
In 1861 Public School No. 10 had sat within the plots at Nos. 131 through 135 Duane Street for fifteen years or more. The brick building was surrounded by a schoolyard where the children played. By now, however, the neighborhood was becoming less and less residential as commercial buildings replaced or altered homes.
That year Thomas Hope demolished P. S. 10 and began construction on a modern loft and store building. Hope was president of the dry goods wholesaling firm Thomas Hope & Co. But if he ever intended to move his company into what would be called the Hope Building, he changed his mind.
The structure was completed in 1862, a dignified commercial interpretation of the Italianate style. The name of the architect has been lost, however it was almost assuredly he who had designed the abutting No. 129 Duane Street a year earlier. The architect exactly copied that design three-fold.
The four stories of white marble rose that above the cast iron storefront were separated into two sections by a projecting sill course between the third and fourth floors. Each horizontal section had two-story arches separated by Corinthian “sperm candle” pilasters. (The term derived from their visual similarity to the tall, thin candles made from the waxy substance found in the heads of sperm whales.) The spandrel panels between the second and third, and fourth and fifth floors took the form of blind balustrades. An arched gable within the cast iron cornice announced the building’s name.
The Hope Building filled with dry goods merchants, including L. P. Morton & Co.
Surprisingly, within a year of moving in, L. P. Morton & Co. made a drastic change of course. A notice in The New York Herald on December 5, 1863 announced “We have relinquished the dry goods importing and commission business, and taken offices at 35 Wall street for the transaction of a general banking and exchange business.”
On the same day Welling, Coffin & Co. “domestic dry goods commission merchants,” announced that they had moved into the space “lately occupied by Messrs. L. P. Morton & Co.” The war in the South may have prompted the marketing of two of their cloth goods as “Army Kerseys and Flannels.”
Bauendahl & Co., importers of woolens, was a large initial tenant. It did significant business during the Civil War years, and on June 29, 1865 The New York Times reported that it had done $1.5 million in business the previous year–over $25 million today.
Wholesale dry goods firm Allen Brothers moved into the building in 1865. It offered to “clothiers, tailors and the dry goods trade” a long list of items including Spanish linens, repellents, sackings and fancy cloakings, satinets, cottonades, and “mantilla and dress black silks.”
By now one of the stores was home to Lithauer & Cristlar, auctioneers. The firm sold off the overstock of dry goods firms, or the remaining goods of defunct stores. On November 10, 1865, for instance, an auction included 3,000 pairs of men’s, ladies’ and misses’ cloth and Berlin gloves, 1,000 dozen “gents’ hemmed linen cambric Handkerchiefs, including some very fine qualities,” breakfast shawls, furs, and “fancy goods,” including combs and Meerschaum pipes.
D. Powers & Sons operated from the building by 1875 and was perhaps the first of the tenants not involved in the dry goods business. Founded in 1817, it was the city’s oldest manufacturer of oil-cloths–the decorative water-resistant floor coverings placed under kitchen tables. The firm had two factories upstate, one in Lansingburgh and another at Newburgh. D. Powers & Sons was also the agent for “leading manufacturers of linoleums, shades and opague cloths,” according to New York’s Great Industries in 1884.
By the time of that article, shoe manufacturers were taking over the Hope Building. Ira G. Whitney, boots and shoes, was here before 1881, as was Woodmansee & Garside. That firm was looking for “some first-class shoe buttonhole operators for Singer sewing machines” that year.
Before the end of the decade the shoe and boot manufacturers Morse & Rogers, M. L. Hiller & Son, W. A. Ransom & Co., and A. Garside & Sons would also be in the building.
Shoe & Leather Reporter, April 27, 1887 (copyright expired)
The help-wanted ads placed by A. Garside & Sons give a vague idea about the day to day workings within the shop. On October 16, 1888 the firm advertised “shoemakers wanted to make Oxford ties, Louis XV heels.” And four years later, on July 31, 1892, it wanted a “German boy, between 16 and 18 years, for assistant shipping clerk, who can speak and write English.”
The company, which made only ladies shoes, was highly successful. In 1894 it employed 85 men, 3 boys under 18 years old, 2 under 16, 45 women and 20 girls under 20 years old. Two years later the workforce had increased to 106 men, 5 boys, 30 women and 20 girls. And in 1906 there were now 160 men and 50 females. They worked a 52-hour work week.
Morse & Rogers would remain in the building through 1910. An incident in 1909 reflects the close relationship employers often had with their higher-end employees. On November 30, 1909 The New York Press reported that Edward Van Auken, a retired preacher, had died in a Brooklyn boarding house when the gas jet was accidentally left slightly open. His landlady, Margaret Turner, found the 80-year old. The article mentioned “A son of the clergyman is employed in the Morse & Rogers Shoe Manufacturing Company, in No. 131 Duane street, and Mrs. Turner said the preacher told her many times that Morse, the head of the firm, would arrange for the funeral with his son’s aid when the time came.”
Love was the undoing of one employee of shoe maker Clark, Hutchinson & Co. in 1911. Walter P. Richmond was convicted of stealing $600 (about $16,700 today) from the firm on July 22. In court, according to The New York Press, “Richmond blamed his downfall on his infatuation for a woman who worked in an establishment where he formerly was employed and on whom he lavished money and gifts.”
It was a costly crush. Judge Malone sentenced him to not less than four years in Sing Sing prison. “When sentence was imposed Richmond almost collapsed,” said the article.
Shoe manufacturers continued to fill the building throughout the World War I years. W. D. Hannah was looking for “wood heelers” and a “naumkeger and finisher” in 1918. (A naumkeger buffed the bottoms of shoes to a smooth finish.)
The early 1920’s saw tenants arrive who were not involved in the shoe industry. Radio Industries Corporation was in the building by 1923, and the typesetting firm of Stow-Whittaker Company, Inc. operated here be 1929. That firm would change its name twice–in 1932 it was Whittaker-Glegengack-Trapp, Inc., and by 1940 it was Whittaker-Trapp, Inc.
The Radio Sun & Globe, October 13, 1923 (copyright expired)
Shoe firms, nevertheless, continued to call the Hope Building home. Lion Shoe Co. was here in the early to mid-1940’s, as was the Lester Pincus Shoe Corporation. The latter firm changed from tenant to landlord when it purchased the building in February 1946.
The last quarter of the 20th century saw artists, restaurants and boutiques taking over the old factory buildings of Tribeca. The owners of the Hope Building, the Sylvan Lawrence Company, looked the other way as tenants converted former manufacturing space to residential lofts in the early 1970’s. In January 1974 there were two residential tenants on the third floor, two on the fourth, and one on the fifth–despite the leases limiting the use to commercial purposes.
The owners had covered over the Hope Building name at the time of this mid-1970’s photograph. The narrower but otherwise identical building to the right is a year older. photo by Edmund Vincent Gillon from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
But then in 1982 they organized as the Duane Thomas Loft Tenants Association and claimed rent stabilized status. The conflict ended up in court with the tenants winning.
In 1994 Maurya 11 Restaurant opened in the ground floor, followed by 131 Duane Street restaurant, which opened in 1997. That was replaced only a year later by Henry Meer’s City Hall restaurant.
The property was purchased in 2014 for $18.5 million. Once again rent stabilization ended in a legal battle. Duane Street Realty sought to evict the tenants and could legally do so “if the owner intends to demolish the building,” reported The New York Times. But the tenants argued that “demolition” and “gut renovation” were two different things.
In connection with its plans for a residential renovation, the operators hired architect Jonathan Schloss to design a rooftop addition.
Check out the websites for 131 Duane Street and see the convoluted contemporary history. Luckily, the building is being restored to its original design.
RCA BUILDING CANOPY OF RIHS VISITOR CENTER KIOSK DURING RESTORATION IN 2010
GLORIA HERMAN AND 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
NEW YORK ALMANACK JAMES. S. KAPLAN
A New Jersey native and enthusiast, Kirstyn covers northern Brooklyn for Brooklyn paper, from Greenpoint to Gowanus
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Since its foundation, German settlers had been present in New Amsterdam (Peter Minuit was a native of Wesel am Rhein), but the significant arrival of German-speaking migrants took place towards the middle of the nineteenth century. By 1840 more than 24,000 of them had made New York their home.
In the next two decades, when large parts of the territory were plunged into deep socio-political and economic problems, another hundred thousand Germans crossed the Atlantic turning New York into the world’s third-largest German-speaking city, after Berlin and Vienna.
Established in the 1840s and peaking during the 1870s, Little Germany (Kleindeutschland) in Manhattan’s Lower East Side was one of New York’s first major ethnic enclaves. The career of one of those numerous migrants illustrates the rise and decline of an overwhelming Teutonic presence in Manhattan.
On Arrival
When twenty-three year old August “Gus” Lüchow decided to set sail from Hanover for America, migration had become a routine experience amongst his contemporaries. According to official figures, the Kingdom of Hanover lost 183,355 inhabitants between 1832 and 1886. Poverty was rife in rural areas that had been hit by years of harvest failure. Most of those leaving the land moved to the United States and Ohio was their preferred destination, but Lüchow was urban dweller. He planned to make the city of New York his home.
On arrival in the metropolis in 1879, he came across numerous references to his home town, not least in Manhattan’s financial district where a brownstone building at 1 Hanover Square was home to the Hanover National Bank. The suburban town of Hanover in Chautauqua County may have been somewhat out of his way, but on entering Little Germany he walked into a well-established and diversified district with hundreds of active businesses and socio-cultural institutions.
References to “German” migration into New York suggests a false image of oneness. Its religious community consisted of Catholics, Protestants, Lutherans, Mennonites, and Jews, but particularism – more than religion – was a real source of division. Those who escaped a patchwork of German states during the 1850s had no notion of a “national” identity. Differences in dialect, politics, cuisine and regional culture left most of them unable/unwilling to acknowledge fellow migrants.
German unification occurred in 1871, but it would take many decades for a sense of shared characteristics to emerge. New York’s German community was as diversified as the home lands themselves. Little Germany was originally broken up into various neighborhoods of Swabians, Bavarians, Hessians, Westphalians, Hanoverians and Prussians. Initially, migrants – of which Bavarians and Prussians were the largest groups – tended to marry within their own groups and organized themselves around regionally based networks and loyalties.
Living in relative close proximity with many common interests, incomers were eventually pressured into a mutual understanding from which a new type of citizen emerged, that of the German-American.
Music & Hospitality
Gus Lüchow started his career in hospitality. Having learned the skills of the trade as a waiter and bartender, he began work in 1879 in the small Von Muehlbach Restaurant located at 110 East 14th Street. Three years later he bought out his employer. His venture was made possible thanks to a loan from the piano magnate and fellow German immigrant William Steinway who ran his concert-hall and showroom across the street at Union Square. He had also been a regular at Von Muehlbach.
As the district was developing into a hub of theatrical entertainment and nightlife activities, the Academy of Music stood nearby as did the German-language Irving Place Theatre, the newly named Lüchow’s gained a reputation for its cuisine. Employing twenty-eight chefs at its peak, the restaurant not only served Little Germany, but also offered food and entertainment to visitors and revelers.
The menu promoted staples such as wiener schnitzel, knack- and bratwurst, sauerbraten and pumpernickel. An extensive dessert selection included Pfannkuchen mit Preiselbeeren and Sachertorte. The cellar was stocked with the finest European wines. The house was devoted to good living, reflecting the wealth and well-being of New York’s German immigrant population. Lüchow introduced German gemütlichkeit (geniality; friendliness) into the heart of Manhattan. Rapidly expanding by the acquisition of flanking properties, the establishment became known as the “capital of 14th Street.”
Its eclectic ambiance took on a northern European character. Running the food concession for the Tyrolean Alps Exhibit at the St Louis Fair in 1904, Lüchow purchased a huge painting, “The Potato Gatherers” by Swedish artist Auguste Hagborg. It was given a central place in the so-called Heidelberg Room in addition to numerous Dutch and Austrian pictures, a porcelain statue of Frederick the Great, and multitudes of mounted animal heads and beer steins. A huge model of the clipper Great Republic was on show in the background (the largest full-rigged ship ever built in the United States).
Music was a cultural touchstone to German-Americans. August exploited his friendship with Steinway to the full. The latter’s many clients and colleagues were his core patrons during the early years. They enjoyed many lavish meals at his tables. About to leave New York in 1906, a farewell engagement was organized for the immensely popular Polish pianist Ignaz Paderewski. The event was stretched to six hours of food, wine and musical entertainment.
Oscar Hammerstein was a regular. Bohemian composer Anton Dvorak and Russian opera singer Feodor Chaliapin were faithful clients. Enrico Caruso’s had a taste for pig’s knuckles, but was also often seen enjoying a plate of caviar at the house. Irving Berlin and Cole Porter liked to drop by too.
In February 1914 Dublin-born and German-raised Victor Herbert, composer of a series of successful operettas that premiered on pre-war Broadway, met eight associates at Lüchow’s in order to draft plans for the performing rights organization which became the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).
Lüchow’s establishment was a Manhattan institution where musicians, writers and actors mingled. With Tammany Hall nearby, scheming politicians and financiers were a continuous presence. When an emerging politician named Theodore Roosevelt arrived for dinner one day, he ordered venison and a bottle of Burgundy wine (Pommard).
Breweries & Festivities
The influx of German immigrants increased the number of beer producers in the city. By 1877, Manhattan counted seventy-eight breweries; Brooklyn had forty-three. Germans in New York congregated at beer halls with large meeting rooms that were used by singing societies, lodges or political organizations. Elaborate beer gardens were the pride of German neighborhoods.
Locally produced ale was an acceptable substitute, but memories of home brewed beer prevailed. This nostalgic longing inspired Lüchow (a beer drinker himself) to start importing lager directly from Germany. It proved to be a master stroke. The word spread; the pumps began to flow. By 1885 Gus was the sole American agent for Würzburg Hofbräu, an amber-colored Bavarian beer that would soon enjoy a cult status in New York and elsewhere. It was swilled down with such delicacies as pig’s knuckles and sauerkraut or potato dumplings.
In 1902 Harry von Tilzer composed the song “Down Where the Würzburger Flows” in honor of August and his restaurant. It became a hit that traveled from Fourteenth Street to the beer gardens of Cincinnati, St Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee and beyond.
With German beer came the celebration of traditional festivities. During the three-day Bock Beer Festival in March, a band would play a selection of old German songs whilst the guests would consume large amounts of their favorite foods: Bockwurst, liver sausage, roast ham and pheasant on wine kraut.
At Christmas a massive tree was erected. Trimmed with countless electric candles, it showed a splendid nativity village underneath (hand-carved in Oberammergau, Bavaria). The standard menu consisted of oxtail soup, boiled carp, roast goose with chestnut stuffing, pumpernickel, plum pudding with brandy sauce and ice cream. At six on Christmas Eve, the lights would be dimmed, whilst the house orchestra performed “Stille Nacht.”
Umlaut War
In the 1890s, Germans and German-Americans began to move out of the Lower East Side to Yorkville and the Bronx, moving their businesses and institutions with them. Fourteenth Street lost its appeal as department stores and office buildings replaced cafés and theaters. Only Lüchow’s survived as a high-quality relic of the past.
Anti-German sentiment during the First World War ran high with outbreaks of nativism and xenophobia. Americans of German descent were targeted; the German-American press was censored; libraries pulled German books off the shelves; and German-American organizations were under scrutiny. In spite of all the commotion, Lüchow continued to import German beer. One lucrative shipment alone, in November 1915, contained 22,492 casks of Pilsner and Würzburger.
Following the sinking of RMS Lusitania by a German submarine on May 7th, 1915, August was forced to defend his patriotic credentials. When it was reported that some of his patrons had cheered on hearing the news of the attack, his lawyer published a letter in New-York Tribune on his behalf in which he stated that August had instructed his orchestra to refrain from playing national airs or patriotic songs. He had barred demonstrations in favor of any of the belligerents.
Before the war the umlaut had been a mark of identity and a sign of German-American distinctiveness. By the time the United States joined the battle, the symbol was re-interpreted as a token of betrayal and hostility, a statement of aggression. Animosity became so intense that by 1917 August thought it prudent to remove the umlaut of his name in all public statements.
Prohibition & Successors
Prohibition came as a blow to August Lüchow. From the outset in 1920, he was not prepared to break the law and allow patrons to consume illicit liquor. His record was impeccable. When Prohibition finally ended in May 1933 and the finest pilsners flowed again on Fourteenth Street, New York’s authorities honored the establishment with Liquor License Number One.
August himself did not survive Prohibition. On his death in 1923, ownership of the restaurant had passed to his nephew Victor Eckstein whose father was a German migrant too and once operated a restaurant in Fourth Street. During Eckstein’s stewardship the restaurant maintained its grand reputation for fine German food, until the challenge became too taxing for him. In 1950, the restaurant changed hands again. Its new owner was an intriguing figure.
Leonard Jan Mitchell was born in April 1913 in the port city of Libau (now: Liepāja), Latvia, which was then part of the Russian Empire. In 1932, while serving on a merchant marine vessel, young Mitchell jumped ship in Baltimore and headed for New York City. Despite speaking little English, he found work as a waiter at the Hotel Grand Concourse in the Bronx, near Yankee Stadium (Yankee players nicknamed him the Swede) and at the Waldorf-Astoria.
Setting out on his own in 1942, he acquired the Olmsted restaurant in Washington. It prospered. He then set his sights on Lüchow’s with which he had fallen in love after eating there early in his New York years. Eckstein agreed the sale with him on condition that the restaurant’s traditional values and settings be preserved. Mitchell went further than that. In 1952 he re-introduced the umlaut that Lüchow had dropped in 1917. In 1952 Michell recorded the history of the restaurant which had become his passion in Lüchow’s German Cookbook, complete with the original recipes.
Unfortunately, the demands of “progress” were undermining the establishment. Union Square was declining rapidly and was no longer the heart of the theater district. Mitchell sold his business in 1970 (in his later years he became a noted art collector). In 1982 an “unexplained” fire destroyed the building and efforts by preservationists to gain landmark status for Lüchow’s failed.
The restaurant moved uptown to Broadway near Times Square, but revival proved impossible. It finally closed in 1986, symbolizing that a period in which the German presence in Manhattan prevailed, had come to a final conclusion.
SPARROW WHO IS A CONTINUAL VISITOR TO THE P.S. 217 CAFETERIA. IT KNOWS ITS WAY IN AND OUT AND DOES NOT EAT THE SCHOOL FOOD. GLORIA HERMAN AND 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
Illustrations, from above: Lüchow’s in April 1896 (Museum of the City of New York); The Potato Gatherers, undated by August Hagborg (Private collection); an early twentieth century postcard highlighting The Potato Gatherers; original vintage match cover; Luchow’s New York World’s Fair menu, 1939; book jacket by Ludwig Bemelmans to Jan Mitchel’s German cookbook; and Lüchow’s menu for Sunday February 7th, 1954.
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
