The Nassau, a twin-hulled boat, was the first regularly scheduled steam-powered ferry from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Credit…Brooklyn Historical Society
Steaming on the East River
Stephen Blank
The East River has long been a key thoroughfare for profit and pleasure. A big change, of course, was the advent of steam propulsion. Bigger craft, more people, more business. We’ve seen many pictures of great steamships on the Hudson. But our river, too, had some glorious steamers. So join me for a trip down memory lane, steaming on the East River.
Talking steamboats, begin with Fulton, inventor of the first successful steamboat and the first to put a steamboat on the East River. In 1814, Robert Fulton and William Cutting, his brother-in-law, formed the New York & Brooklyn Steamboat Ferry Association and obtained a lease from the City to establish a steam-powered ferry to cross the river. Fulton’s ferry crossed at the its narrowest point, some 700 yards between what is now Fulton Street in Brooklyn and Fulton Street in Manhattan, between where the River Café is today, beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, and the South Street Seaport. The first ferry was named Nassau. The twin-hulled boat carried 549 passengers, one wagon and three horses. The trip took 5 to 12 minutes and was no longer subject to the mercy of the winds and the East River’s punishing tides. The Nassau was captained by Peter Coffee, who would remain with the company that operated the vessel for 50 years.
Yes, I know this is not really glam travel, it’s commuting.
So how about the fine line of “Sylvan” steamboats which raced up and down the East River from Peck’s Slip (just south of the Brooklyn Bridge, which didn’t exist) to 120th and 130th Streets in Harlem via a stop in Astoria and through Hell Gate?
Why Harlem? For pleasure and profit. The flat, rich, eastern portion of Harlem was fertile farmland, and some of New York’s most illustrious early families, like the Delanceys, Bleekers, Rikers, Beekmans, and Hamiltons kept large estates in the high western section. Harlem recovered slowly from the Revolutionary war struggles that took place there and remained largely rural through the early 19th century. Some of the estates were available at knockdown prices, and Harlem also attracted new immigrants to the City. Undeveloped, but not poor. It is said that Harlem was “a synonym for elegant living through a good part of the nineteenth century.”
To reach Harlem from lower Manhattan Island by stagecoach and later by horse car took a hard hour and a half to two hour ride. But by boat, there was no lovelier vista than the banks of the East River from Jones’ Wood north, where the shore was dotted by splendid country homes with large grounds of well-to-do New Yorkers – except when steaming past Blackwell’s Island.
The Harlem and New York Navigation Company was incorporated in 1856 and the “Sylvan Shore,” the first of this company’s line of “Sylvan” boats, was built that year. Four more “Sylvans” would appear over the next dozen years. The steamboats did the Harlem run on weekdays and excursions to points along the Sound on Sundays.
Steamboat “Sylvan Shore”, James Bard (1815–1897), New York Historical Society
The business went well. Not only did the Sylvan boats grow in number, but another line, the Morrisania steamboat line, joined in as a competitor. Their steamship “Shady Side” carried passengers to upper Manhattan and the Bronx. The Shady Side was the fastest Morrisania boat and frequently raced against the Harlem Line’s swiftest ship, the Sylvan Dell – much to the distress at times of the police. The Sylvan Dell carried on her bow mast an unusual but significant flag – a race horse with a jockey instead of the name of the boat.
Steamboat Shady Side, James Bard (1815–1897), New York Historical Society
By 1867 the elevated railroads were being talked of seriously, experiments projected, and in 1875 the Legislature favored granting a franchise for the elevated roads. The elevated opened for operations in 1876, but it was not until after 1880 that the elevated lines on both sides of the city were extended to Harlem. Simultaneously with that accomplishment the patronage of the Harlem and Morrisania declined.
They were attractive but fairly small sidewheel steamboats. We assume they were nicely fitted out with comfortable lounges but no overnight facilities, but we really don’t know the details. We know more about the spectacular vessels that sailed past our Island in the high age of East River steamboating. Stately sidewheelers connected Peck’s Slip with Hartford, Boston and locations between. One author rhapsodizes “These Long Island Sound steamers, unlike the tubby, wedding cake dowagers of Western waters, were long, sleek craft, with sharp prows cutting a neat wake as they cruised along. Departing each afternoon from State Street or Talcott Street wharf in Hartford, the ‘night boats’ reached New York at daybreak, inaugurating a pattern of city commuting that continues to this day.“
Other destinations were reached by a water-rail combination. The Old Colony Railroad developed a network of railroad lines extending from New York to Boston and southeastern Massachusetts. Steamers connected the railroad lines at various points. Established in 1847, the line was originally owned by the Bay State Steamboat Company.
The classic example was The Fall River Line, a combination steamboat and railroad connection between New York City and Boston that operated between 1847 and 1937. Sailing from New York, the Fall River boats paddled up the East River in the early evenings of dusk; up to Hell Gate then down the Long Island sound; calling at Newport in the middle of the night and the morning they landed at the Fall River dock. Boston was just a train ride away with connections north to Maine’s major cities and resorts.
For many years, this was the preferred route for travel between the two major cities. The Long Island Sound steamboats became firmly established with the public as the safe and comfortable way for New Yorkers to go to Boston since they avoided the long, hazardous water route around Cape Cod and the longer crowded train trip all the way from New York. The line was extremely popular, and its steamboats were among the most advanced and luxurious of their day. Everyone from presidents to swindlers sailed the Sound on “Mammoth Palace Steamers” in the heyday of the side-wheelers.
Big paddle steamers, gleaming white, ornamental and luxurious, touched all the islands and reached up the long tidal rivers, carrying “The Four Hundred” – New York’s Gilded Age High Society. Nineteenth Century steamboat men looked down on the railroads as mere “feeders,” and even later through trains ran rapidly along the shore from Boston to New York they maintained, for some time, the favorite of travelers. Old Commodore Vanderbilt and Daniel Drew struggled for power on the Sound before they began to battle for greater prizes among the railroads; its waters were controlled in turn by Jim Fisk and J. P. Morgan, who eventually brought almost all the various steamboat lines under control of his New Haven Railroad. The star of the Fall River Line was the steamship Priscilla.
Judy Berdy has written about the Priscilla in an earlier number of the Almanac but I will tell you more about the Fall River Line and its rivals in my next essay.
Fall River Line ships Priscilla and Puritan steaming under the abuilding Queensboro Bridge and past the Octagon on Blackwell’s Island
Competition on these routes grew. The Lexington was a paddlewheel steamboat that provided service between New York City and Providence, Rhode Island. It was commissioned by Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1835, and at 220 feet in length was considered one of the most luxurious steamers in operation. In 1837, the Lexington switched to the route between New York and Stonington, Connecticut, to connect with the newly built Old Colony railroad to Boston.
And dangers too. On the night of January 13, 1840, midway through the ship’s voyage through the Sound, the casing around the ship’s smokestack caught fire and ignited 150 bales of cotton that were stored on deck aft of the smokestack. The fire was out of control and the order was given to abandon ship. The ships’ overcrowded lifeboats sank almost immediately, leaving the ship’s passengers and crew to drown in the freezing water. Rough water, poor visibility, the frigid cold and the wind made rescue attempts impossible. Of the 143 people on board the Lexington that night, only 4 survived.
Thanks for reading. I’ll be back soon with more on the East River steamboat business, its pleasures and perils.
Stephen Blank RIHS July 11, 2021
THANKS TO GLORIA HERMAN AND HER GRANDKIDS FOR HELPING WEEDING AND FIXING UP THE KIOSK GARDEN TODAY.
Elijah (Eli) and Thomson (Sonny) are 11 and Eadie is 9.
ONE OF THE DECORATED WALLS AND MOTIFS OUTSIDE “THE SANCTUARY” IS THIS GREAT GREETING FROM ROOSEVELT ISLAND MURAL AND SPOT FOR A PHOTO.
WEEKEND PHOTO OF THE DAY #2
(SOMEONE FORGOT TO POST ONE OF THESE ANSWERS) FORMER TRIBORO HOSPITAL NOW UNDER RESTORATION INTO AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN JAMAICA, QUEENS. Ed Litcher, Andy Sparberg and Harriet Lieber 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)
A.J.Wall, “The Sylvan Steamboats on the East River, New York to Harlem”, THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY BULLETIN VOL. VIII OCTOBER, 1924 No. 3
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Guy Ludwig and Ed Lticher added great history Thanks
I believe today’s historic photograph is of the White Star Line’s pier complex on the Hudson river. This is where the Titanic would have tied up had she made it. The Titanic (and her sisters the Olympic and the Gigantic – no kidding, but she was renamed Britannic) flew the flag of White Star Lines, a company controlled by J.P. Morgan. Following the Titanic disaster, White Star became an easy target for acquisition by the most powerful transatlantic line, Cunard. Four years after Titanic sank, the Britannic went to the bottom of the Aegean Sea after hitting a mine. It took until the 1930’s but eventually Cunard did merge with White Star, and in 1949 bought out firm completely and retired its name.
Guy Ludwig Westview
Chelsea PiersDesigned by the architectural firm of Warren and Wetmore, which was also designing Grand Central Terminal at the same time, the Chelsea Piers replaced a hodgepodge of run-down waterfront structures with a magnificent row of grand buildings embellished with pink granite facades.In 1910, the opening of the Chelsea Piers was marked with a ribbon cutting and speeches, including lots of back-patting after 30 long years of talk and 8 years of construction. In 1907, even before the piers were completed, the first of the new luxury liners, the Lusitania and Mauretania, docked there. The man responsible for the completion of the piers, Mayor George B. McClellan, wasn’t even in office when the liner Oceanic broke through a colorful wide ribbon to signal the official opening of the Chelsea Piers. The next day The New York Times called them “the most remarkable urban design achievement of their day.”For the next 50 years, the Chelsea Piers served the needs of the New York port: first, as the city’s premier passenger ship terminal; then as an embarkation point for soldiers departing for the battlefields of World Wars I and II; and finally, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, as a cargo terminal.After that, the Chelsea Piers, like much of Manhattan’s waterfront, became neglected maritime relics, made obsolete by the jet plane that whisked passengers across the Atlantic and the large container ships that required dock facilities and truck linkages that Manhattan could never provide.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff Roosevelt Island Historical Society
NYC HEALTH + HOSPITALS
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Judith Berdy with Xiomara Wallace, Office of Community Relations, NY H+H.
I had the honor to receive a Marjorie Matthews Award today for service with the Coler Community Advisory Board and the Coler Auxiliary. The ceremony was held at the Queens Hospital Center.
There are over 500 volunteers who work on these committees to make our municipal hospitals better serve all the residents of New York City,
Of course being there, I had to find out about the wonderful WPA mural that is in the main corridor and the progress of converting Triboro Hospital into affordable housing.
Above: The Grand Republic steamship. As you can see from its paddlewheel, it was a twin to the General Slocum
East River Maritime Disasters
Stephen Blank
OK. By popular demand, one more – but only one more – East River ship story.
How about East River Maritime disasters? Turns out the East River has been a pretty dangerous place. Many serious shipping accidents have occurred in this short non-river (tidal estuary, to be precise). The most famous was the terrible General Slocum fire in 1904. Most of us have heard the name but don’t really know much about it. General Slocum was a triple-decker wooden side paddler that took folks on excursions around New York City. On Wednesday, June 15, 1904, the ship was chartered for $350 by St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Church’s parish drew on German immigrants in the Lower East Side and East Village (then known as “Little Germany”). This was the trip’s 17th consecutive year, during a period when German settlers moved out of Little Germany for the Upper East and West Sides. Almost 1,400 passengers, mostly women and children (fewer than 150 were adult males) boarded General Slocum, which was to sail up the East River and then across the Long Island Sound to Locust Grove, a picnic site in Eatons Neck, Long Island.
But the steamboat caught fire and sank. In just 20 minutes, more than 1,000 people died. Prior to 9-11, the burning of the General Slocum had the highest death toll of any disaster in New York City history. It is the worst maritime disaster in the city’s history, and the second worst maritime disaster on United States waterways.
The excursion boat General Slocum lies beached off North Brother Island New York City’s East River, following a fire and resulting panic. The disaster cost the lives of 1,030 mostly German immigrants, June 15, 1904. (AP)
It was a preventable disaster. The crew was inexperienced and never conducted a fire drill. Some passengers jumped overboard but most of the ship’s lifejackets proved worthless because the cork then used for buoyancy, had turned to dust. Even worse, investigations discovered that Nonpareil Cork Works, supplier of cork for the life preservers, had placed 8 once iron bars inside the cork materials to meet minimum content requirements (6 pounds of “good cork” for each lifejacket) at the time. As the ship raced to shallow water the crew tried to fight the blaze, but the elderly fire hoses burst under the pressure. The Captain decided to continue his course rather than run the ship aground or stop at a nearby landing. By going into headwinds and failing to immediately ground the ship, he fanned the fire and promoted its spread from fore to aft. And he jumped ship as soon as he could. ‘
The Slocum disaster may have been the worst on the East River. But there were more.
The steamship caught fire just as it was in Hell Gate, the turbulent waters north of Blackwell’s (Roosevelt) Island, a particularly wicked part of the East River. Many tales have been told about the hundreds – even thousands – of ships sunk or damaged making this treacherous passage.
Indeed, histories repeat the same refrain: “Hundreds of ships have sunk into Hell Gate” “By the 1850s, one in fifty ships passing through the Hell Gate were either damaged or sunk—an annual average of 1,000 ships ran aground in the strait.” This is found again and again in the literature.
No less interesting than this Hell Gate horror story is the finding that while this liturgy is often repeated, evidence of these many maritime calamities never appears. (Where sources are indicated – rarely – they quote each other.) A thousand ships a year run aground just north of our island?? Why the north end of our island should have been littered in wreckage and bodies. The picture that these tales create was well captured by this dramatic painting of chaos in Hell Gate. (So many ships are waiting to run the gauntlet!) I suspect the reality of the numbers is as true as the reality of this image.
However, we know of one famous victim of Hell Gate, H.M.S. Hussar. She was a 28-gun, 6th-rate, Mermaid Class Frigate of the British Royal Navy with a crew of over one hundred. Built in 1763, the ship fought in sea battles off the coasts of Ireland and Portugal before being dispatched to New York in November 1780 to fight the colonists.
On 23 November 1780, against his pilot’s better judgment, Hussar’s captain decided to sail from the East River through the treacherous waters of Hell Gate between Randall’s Island and Astoria. Just before reaching Long Island Sound, Hussar was swept onto Pot Rock and began sinking. Pole was unable to run her aground and she sank in 96 feet of water.
What makes this loss of a relatively minor ship so interesting is that the British army’s payroll was to be moved to Gardiners Bay – aboard, of course, H.M.S. Hussar. The Brits owed a lot of back pay to its soldiers, and Hussar arrived in Manhattan with wages and 70 American prisoners of war. The exact amount is under dispute, but some say it might have been 960,000 British pounds in gold, worth roughly $576 million at the time. Various accounts of the tragedy emerged, but the British immediately denied that any payroll of gold guineas or sterling silver was consigned on the voyage. The survivors never mentioned a valuable cargo, nor was there any listed on the cargo manifest. The best bet is that the gold and silver was offloaded before the accident. The Brits denied the payroll delivery, but were suspect when they conducted extensive salvage efforts.
Occasional efforts are still made to find the treasure on the bottom of Hell Gate. A NY Times reporter in 2013 wrote, “The Hussar is the ship that got away. It has long been part of the lore of a South Bronx community that is among the poorest in the nation, promising untold riches for anyone with the imagination and courage to pluck it from the mud and trash of the East River. Its call has enthralled generations of residents and historians, and lured numerous fortune seekers.”
H.M.S. Hussar, National Maritime Museum
Two other East River maritime catastrophes are remembered today, probably because of the graphic images created at the time.
On October 7, 1833 steamship New England ploughed up the East River, destined for Hartford. Arriving off Essex at 3:00 am, the engine was stopped but both boilers exploded “with a noise like heavy cannon. The shock was dreadful; and the scene which followed … [w]as awful and heart-rending beyond description.”
New England burst its boilers off Essex, October 8, 1833, killing 13 people. Woodcut from Steamboat Disasters and Railroad Accidents in the United States by Warren Lazell, 1846
The ladies’ cabin suffered the worst: “Those who on first alarm, sprang from their berths, were more or less scalded. All who were on deck abaft the boilers, were either killed or wounded….Thirteen people perished, including five crewmen.
And mentioned in an earlier essay, Lexington was a paddlewheel steamboat servicing New York City and Providence. Commissioned by Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1835, it was considered one of the most luxurious steamers in operation. In 1837, the Lexington switched to the route between New York and Stonington, Connecticut, to connect with the newly built Old Colony railroad to Boston.
Hartford lithographers D. W. Kellogg & Co. published this view of the doomed Lexington sometime after Nathaniel Currier’s print was released. Survivors can be seen clinging to floating debris in the foreground. 2003.263.0
On the night of January 13, 1840, midway through the ship’s voyage through the Sound, a fire ignited bales of cotton that were stored (illegally) on deck. The fire went out of control and the order was given to abandon ship. The ships’ overcrowded lifeboats sank almost immediately, leaving the ship’s passengers and crew to drown in the freezing water. Rough water, poor visibility, the frigid cold and the wind made rescue attempts impossible. Of the 143 people on board the Lexington that night, only 4 survived.
These are the East River maritime disasters we remember. Over the years, there were many more incidents and even sinkings – if not hundreds or thousands. The East River was a turbulent and troubled and extraordinarily busy waterway. And as we see every day, it still is. Thanks for reading.
GLORIA HERMAN, ALEXIS VILLAFANE, AND LAURA HUSSEY 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)
Sources
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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Some years ago a family of tourists turned a corner in Greenwich Village. The small boy, perhaps seven years old, exclaimed “Oh, Father! Look! A guild hall!”
He was close. What he mistook for a European guild hall was the Jefferson Market Courthouse. Clearly the most fanciful Victorian structure in Manhattan.
Finished in 1877 on designs by Frederick Withers and Calvert Vaux (of Central Park fame) the courthouse was the product of one of Boss Tweed’s graft schemes. The New York Times, a consistent adversary of Tweed, grumbled that a suitable building could have been built for half the price — variously reported from $360,000 to $550,000. Referring to the seedy area in which it was located, The Times called it “a jewel in a swine’s snout.”
photo NYPL Collection
The completed project was actually a combination of buildings filling the odd triangle of land: the courthouse to the north, a jail complex to the south and the Jefferson Market buildings to the west. The site had been, since 1833, a group of sheds serving the market and a tall wooden fire lookout and bell. The lookout was incorporated into the clock tower and the resulting assemblage was pronounced one of the ten most beautiful buildings in America by a poll of architects in 1885.
A riot of Victorian Gothic design, the courthouse is a medley of materials and shapes. Red brick, ochre colored Ohio stone, cast iron, colored stone, and stained glass work together in creating the arches, pinnacles and gables. The clock tower starts out as an octagon, becomes a cylinder, then a square. It is a feast for the eyes.
The facade is decorated all over with sculptures, from the huge stone New York Seal near the eaveline, to small, unexpected owl heads. Gruesome gargoyles spew from the clock tower. One medallion is of a resting man, reflecting on nature and looking very much like John Ruskin. Another depicts a stork eating a frog.
In 1896 author Stephen Crane testified here in defense of a prostitute — Crane said he had seen the girl in the Tenderloin District while he was there “studying human nature.” In 1906 Harry Thaw was tried for the murder of Stanford White who was having an affair with Thaw’s wife, Evelyn Nesbit.
By 1927 the jail and courthouse was used only for trials of women, becoming locally known as “the lady’s courthouse.” It was here, on February 9, 1927 that Mae West and her entire cast of the Broadway play “Sex” was tried and jailed on obscenity charges.
In 1929 the market buildings and the jail were razed and the Women’s House of Detention, a hulking Art Deco monster rose, nearly dwarfing the courthouse.
Because of redistricting, the courthouse ceased operation in 1945, was used for various uses by the police department and other agencies, but by 1958 it was abandoned. Home to rats and pigeons, it was slated for demolition by the city in favor of an apartment building.
Fate stepped in when Margot Gayle, Democratic district leader, attended a Christmas time cocktail party at 51 5th Avenue in 1959. Conversation turned to the courthouse and it was agreed that it should be saved.
There were no landmarks laws, no preservation movements, and recycling vintage buildings for new purposes was essentially unheard of. Saving the courthouse would be a momumental undertaking. The group started with the clock. According to Ms. Gayle, “it had been stuck at 3:20 for several years.” A telegram was sent to mayor Robert F. Wagner saying “What we want for Christmas is to get the clock started.”
Wagner jumped on the cause and, eventually, other politicians, celebrities and literary figures joined in. The clock was restored. A new use was now needed for the building. Although the New York Public Library was initially not receptive to the idea of having a branch in an old court building, the mayor swayed them by threatening to withhold capital funding.
By 1967 the renovation, designed by Giorgio Cavaglieri, was complete. It was the first real example of historic preservation in the city. In 1974 the Women’s Detention Center was demolished and replaced by a beautiful community garden that perfectly compliments the renewed building.
The demolished Women’s House of Detention. Now a community garden, it adjoins the library,
Today the Jefferson Market Courthouse is not only one of the most distinctive buildings in Manhattan, it is one of the most beloved by New Yorkers.
Emperor Constantine’s foot remaining remnant from the Colossus of Constantine statue in Ancient Rome and bare feet of someone relaxing at a table outside of the Cornell Tech campus cafeteria.
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) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
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By the time New Amsterdam was founded in 1664, sundials had been around for millennia. More than that, they’d been replaced by clocks and were antiquated time-keeping objects. Nonetheless, sundials continued to persist and can be found all over New York City. While a few them are in working order, the sundials are remarkable for their historical range, with pieces constructed anywhere from the late 17th century to the present day. These 10 NYC sundials range widely in style and age, creating a mosaic of artistic periods. These unexpected sightings in New York City can be easily mistaken for just art pieces, so when you’re walking around keep an open eye.
Sitting in front of the Queens Hall of Science in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park is a bronze sculpture, 6 feet in diameter. The museum itself is one of the few survivors of the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. After the museum fell into disrepair, it was renovated and opened in 1984. The Sun Sculpture, unveiled in 2003, is roughly 13 feet in diameter and weighs 25,000 pounds. The sundial provides an appropriate introduction to the museum as children learn its function as both clock and impromptu playground, often using it as a makeshift fort.
“Camp Columbia” is currently the only (official) sundial on the Columbia University campus. It’s more popular counterpart though, has since been lost from campus. Considered a university landmark, an original 16-ton granite sphere was donated by an alumni in 1914 and it occupied a central hub of Columbia’s campus. While a campus fixture, the sundial’s granite began to crack and disintegrate leading to its removal, although the base is still there. Many assumed the sphere had been destroyed but, almost 60 years later, in 2001, the sundial resurfaced in a field of Ann Arbor that may or may not have belonged to an individual with university affiliations. The current sundial has a less exalted history, with sculptor unknown. The story behind what happened to the original sundial remains somewhat mysterious and the base remains on campus, engraved with the words Horam Expecta Veniet or await this hour, time will come.
Both a historic house converted to a museum and a NYC presidential haunt, the Morris-Jumel mansion is located in Washington Heights. In addition to the house’s cultural and historical import (home to the wife of Aaron Burr with many visits by George Washington), it is also pervaded with a calm serenity, in large part due to the garden that surrounds the house. The sundial, behind the house and in the middle of the garden courtyard, at the center is one of the few that might actually have been used for time-keeping purposes. Also don’t miss the wonderfully quaint Sylvan Terrace just below the mansion, used often for film shoots.
Yorkville’s Asphalt Green Park, located on the spot where the asphalt of New York roads was first mixed, was nicknamed the “Cathedral of Asphalt.” Despised by Robert Moses as “the most hideous waterfront structure ever inflicted on a city,” the park was hailed by the Museum of Modern Art as a masterpiece of functional design. The sundial at the front of the building is itself a piece of sculptural modernism. “Song to the Sun” is scaled to the parabolic building behind it. The artist, Robert Adzema, constructed the dial to “elevate the spirit as it rises up to celebrate and bring sun and sky to this urban plaza.”
Robert Ademza, the artist behind Asphalt Green’s “Song to the Sun”, created this public sculpture found in PS85, Port Richmond, Staten Island. Similar in overall look to its Asphalt Green counterpart, the large, free-standing sundial sculpture is made entirely from steel. Adzema painted it a brilliant yellow hue to emphasize the shadows and increase their visibility. In addition, the emphasis on the north-south axis, with numbers engraved on the opposite axis, also draws attention to the shadows.
While Central Park has no shortage of benches, the Waldo Hutchins bench stands out as one of the most elaborate. Named after public servant Waldo Hutchins, the bench with the sundial at the center, honors a man who helped create Central Park, promoted the idea of personal fulfillment through public service and the broader need to preserve and protect important pieces of New York City’s history.
The small sundial, which sits at the back of the bench includes a bronze female figure attributed to Paul Manship, sculptor of the ”Prometheus” at Rockefeller Center. Another Latin inscription is on the sundial: ”Ne Diruatur Fuga Temporum,” or ”Let it not be destroyed by the passage of time.’’ You can find the bench immediately to the north of the East 72nd street entrance and south-east of the reservoir.
The Armillary Sphere, built of bronze, is just one of Sutton Place’s iconic and memorable structures. The band on the exterior of the sphere is a version of the equator with golden zodiac signs stamped on it. Inside the ban are the hours in roman numerals. Briefly removed in 2000 after a graffiti incident, the dial was refurbished and placed in another vest park of Sutton Place.
Another example of public art rather than timekeeping device, this monument to the veterans of the Korean War in Battery Park was designed to catch the sun shining directly through the statue on the exact time and day the ceasefire was declared. We look at the monument a little further here.
The McGraw Hill Building is part of the “XYZ” building (with McGraw Hill being the Y at the center), all designed by the firm of Wallace Harrison, also responsible for much of Rockefeller Center across the street. The three international style buildings, particularly 1221 above, are examples of Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS) gone wrong. The sunken plazas in each one looks unwelcoming and in the case of 1221 Sixth Avenue, potentially not a POPS at all, given its violation of certain qualifications.
For the McGraw Hill buiding however, the addition of a 50-foot tall polished stainless steel structure raises the sunken plaza back to ground level creating a more open atmosphere for pedestrians. “The Sun Triangle” is arranged so each side points to the four seasonal positions of the sun at solar noon in NYC.
OUR LOST SUNDIAL
In 2008, the Alumni of the Metropolitan Hospital School of Nursing presented this sundial to the Octagon developer, Bruce Becker. The sundial was placed in the triangular turn-around outside the building. It was surround by three benches, flowering trees and foliage.
Last year, the current management removed the sundial and benches. We now have an oversize building sign with 3 “888” mounted on the top.
It was a sad loss of an island memento, the loss of a beautiful pear tree and three benches.
(Unfortunately some of our neighbors must think that their bare feet are the same art-pieces as in ancient Rome)
TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Window of Strecker Memorial Laboratory that has been shot out numerous times and the MTA has replaced the window frequently. MITCH ELINSON GOT IT RIGHT
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We Islanders know that the East River is not a river, that it’s a salt water tidal estuary that connects the Atlantic Ocean in Long Island Sound with the ocean in Upper New York Bay. We know that the East River is 16 miles long and that the tide changes direction 4 times a day. We know that our F train travels under the river at one of its deepest points.
So what’s new? Hang on.
First, the Good
The construction we see on the Manhattan side of the river, north of the Queensboro Bridge, will be the East Midtown Greenway and this looks to be really good. The East Midtown Greenway is part of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenaway project to build a 32.5-mile waterfront path running continuously around the entire island. The Greenway will total more than 1,000 acres—a space larger than Central Park. Joggers, walkers, cyclists, and everyone else from every neighborhood should have access to the Greenway. The project inched closer to reality in April when Mayor de Blasio announced the city would spend $723 million to complete the project by 2029.
What we see from our island will fill a major gap in the Greenway along the East River between East 38th and East 61st Streets, providing waterfront access and open space for the East Midtown community and the public at large.
What we see from our island will fill a major gap in the Greenway along the East River between East 38th and East 61st Streets, providing waterfront access and open space for the East Midtown community and the public at large.
Here are several renderings of the East Midtown Greenway extension. Good.
NYC Economic Development Corporation https://urbanize.city/nyc/post/see-new-renderings-100m-east-midtown-greenway-extension
THE BAD
The Bad. OK, I admit I’ve tricked you a bit. Unless you speak German. I meant “Bad” (Bath) or more accurately “Schwimmbad”. And this would not be bad at all, if it actually happens.
The East River today is clean enough to swim in. On most days, the levels of bacteria meet federal safety guidelines, according to state and local officials. Even when the bacteria levels in the water are high, it’s unlikely that swimmers will get sick. If they do get sick, the severity will probably be more along the lines of eating bad takeout than setting off a cholera outbreak. But who wants to swim in the East River? So the City has approved plans for a floating pool in the East River that would also filter large amounts of river water – which should (note, New York City definition of “should”) be completed in a couple of years. Jessica Cherner writes in Architectural Digest that the idea originated with a group that has pushed for building giant plus sign–shaped floating pool just north of the Manhattan Bridge. Without any chemicals and additives, the pool would filter more than 600,000 gallons of East River water that floats through the pool’s barriers every day. Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeff Franklin of the design firm PlayLab, and Dong-Ping Wong and Oana Stanescu of the architecture firm Family, originally conceived of the idea for + POOL back in 2010, but like anything worth doing, it took a while to actually become a reality. After all, the group had to (and continues to) raise funds, develop working filtration systems, and test them for accuracy and efficiency. And after years of research and testing, the four friends have managed to prove that + POOL’s tech actually works.
And now that the city has allowed + POOL to officially drop anchor in a specific location, the real challenge begins: raising between $20 million and $25 million to give New Yorkers the Olympic-size warm weather haven they’ve been dreaming of for years. Much like the projects of other inventive entrepreneurs who had to hit pause on their brilliant ideas at the start of 2020, + POOL is finally starting to pick up steam again. Now that + POOL has an official home in the East River, eager New Yorkers may be one step closer to fearlessly diving into the salty water, but it’s still a little ways off, considering construction could take up to two years.
Renderings courtesy of + POOL
Renderings courtesy of + POOL
And now, the Ugly.
Not necessarily ugly. But bizarre ideas for the East River have been bruited about.
The first is a new plan to drain the East River.
In 2017 New York Magazine asked several leading architects to speculate on visionary projects for the future of New York City. One, Mark Foster Gage, proposed draining the East River to create a new “East River Valley” which would include 15,000 acres of new gardens, farms and parks in the very center the City.
Their proposal says “New York City is structured by two rivers, which is very selfish for a city—as it is common knowledge that a city can get by on one. To be even more accurate—one of them, the ‘East River,’ in question, isn’t even actually a river at all – it’s a tidal estuary. Geologists also refer to this condition as a flooded valley. That is to say that under that flood prone pseudo-river cutting thorough our fair city, there is a beautiful and fertile valley awaiting rescue. And so, we propose to drain the East ‘River’- for multiple reasons. The first is that storm surges at a scale of Hurricane Harvey, if occurring at the location of the East river, could annihilate vast sections of city upwards of 15,000 acres across the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan — an area nearly 20 times as large as Central Park. One solution being proposed to combat this is the construction of levees such as the Lower Manhattan ‘Big U’ that aim to deflect water from particular areas of the city—yet leaving others to flood entirely unprotected. In fact, if you wanted to protect the aforementioned boroughs from a Hurricane Harvey-sized storm surge, you would need to build over 40 miles of new seawall along the river’s entire coast.
We propose to, instead, build three strategically placed new dams, totaling less than 1 mile in length. In this process, New York City gains a new ‘East River Valley’ that includes 15,000 acres of new gardens, farms and parks in the very center of our urban fabric. Catastrophe prevention is always better when it includes fresh produce. This new, infrastructure-free, deep land found in this now accessible valley offers an unparalleled opportunity for the city to engage in the construction of massive, next-generation, geothermal wells to power the next century of New York City’s energy needs. Air-conditioned subway stops, occasional water ferries and recycled Metro cards are not sufficient to either save our city or propel it into the new millennium. For both we need to consider larger, bolder ideas that use foresight as fuel and potential risks as unique opportunities that can power a new generation of sustainable and urban scale innovations. The alternative is to await the rising waters of our proverbial winter, and watch the coming floods wash away our city, our future, and hopefully all evidence of our shortsighted complacency.”
And finally, on the East River and on Roosevelt Island, we present the Mandragore Building.
Proposed by the French architecture firm Rescubika, this would be a 2,418-foot tower on Roosevelt Island (to its tip, the Empire State is 1,454 feet high). With wood construction materials, 36 wind turbines, 8,300 shrubs, 1,600 trees, 83,000 square feet of plant walls, and nearly 23,000 square feet of solar panels, it would be the world’s tallest “carbon sink” tower–one that absorbs more CO2 than it releases.
renderings via Rescubika Studio
The tree-studded, 160-story futuristic proposal is planned to loosely resemble a mandrake plant — an anthropomorphic, human-like form. – with a base like a cruise ship morphing into a gleaming twisty tower a la Salvador Dali. “The symbolism of the body confronts us with our own destiny, the one that reminds us that we must preserve our environment in order to live in symbiosis with nature,” the architects say. And no, it isn’t clear what would happen to Cornell Tech. But it’s only a dream though it might be fun to see it on our island.
A little summer reading. Lots of imagination on the East River, but one thing for sure. It’ll be great when the Manhattan Waterfront Greenaway project finishes up.
This is Mr. Romeo, a resident of the WILDLIFE FREEDOM FOUNDATION SANCTUARY IN SOUTHPOINT PARK.
OOPS! MY COMPUTER ATE ALL THE RESPONSES TO TODAY’S TO THE FELINE IDENTIFICATION.
Thanks to all our subscribers for the wonderful comments about our new FDR HOPE MEMORIAL. Please take the opportunity to visit the park and experience this new landmark.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Yesterday, July 17th, 2021 was the day to finally reveal and dedicate the FDR HOPE MEMORIAL.
Located on the west side of Soutpoint Park, just midway between the park entrance and the FDR Four Freedoms Park, this special memorial is located in a cul-de-sac.
Located gracefully on gently sloping hill the area has the trees and lawn above to the east and the area looks out over the East River.
The cul-de-sac is framed by the serpentine stone wall that gives the area dimension and reminds of that this wall was part of the City Hospital construction and made from Fordham Gneiss stone quarried on the island.
Today, after the ceremonies were over and the area was cleared, we watched our first visitors discover the Memorial
CLARA BARTON PHOTOS
I observed that people were tempted to come into the Memorial and slowly read the historical texts as them strolled in.
There is a grooved area to the left as you walk or us an assisted devise to find your way. It is made so a visually impaired person can be guided to the sculptures.
There is a slight barrier in the front of the sculptures and a grooved area so a person can safely feel the sculptors.
The little girl will be the recipient of many handshakes and high-5’s
I am sure that this is one of thousands of kids that will climb up on FDR’s knee..
The sculpture looks out over the East River and the City beyond
ON THIS IMPORTANT DAY, DOZENS OF NEW TREES ARE PLANTED ON THE PROMENADES
(COURTESY OF AN ANONYMOUS DONOR AND MATERIAL FOR THE ARTS)
Two of the thirteen Kwansan cherry trees that were planted yesterday between the lower west promenade and the entry to Southpoint Park
One of the eighteen trees planted between the firehouse and the road to the Octagon. This area has had few trees and was in need of many more blooms.
OPINION
Yesterday , as we celebrated the work of “Uncle” Jim Bates,Nancy Brown, the Roosevelt Island Disabled Association , the wonderful sculpture of Meredith Bergmann, Marc Diamond and all the persons who brought this day to fruition, I had a feeling RIDA needs a new name.
Our organization (RIDA) is not “disabled”. The volunteers and members are fully able and I suggest we change the name to
THE ROOSEVELT ISLAND ENABLED ASSOCIATION.
IN MEMORIUM
This week we learned of the passing of neighbors, past and present.
Mel Rosen husband of Maureen and father of Brenda and Michael passed away at his home in Astoria.
Dick FitzPatrick, husband of Verna and father of two, grandfather of five.
Dr. Daniela S. Gerhard, daughter of Eva Gerhard and long time islander passed away in June. She was a well known researcher and worked at the NIH in Bethesda.
Our heartfelt sympathies to our friends and neighbors.
ONE OF THE DECORATED PICNIC TABLES AT GOOD SHEPHERD PLAZA. JAY JACOBSON, GLORIA HERMAN, NINA LUBLIN, ALEXIS VILLEFANE AND NINA LUBLIN GOT IT RIGHT!!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
JUDITH BERDY
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
THRU AN ANONYMOUS DONATION THE ROOSEVELT ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY, IS RECEIVING APPROXIMATELY 30 KWANZAN CHERRY TREES TODAY. THIS WONDERFUL ADDITION TO OUR ISLAND IS BEING DONATED THRU MATERIAL FOR THE ARTS. THE DONATION INCLUDES PLANTING THE TREES, TODAY SATURDAY, JULY 17th.
WORKING WITH MATTHEW KIBBY OF RIOC’S DIRECTOR OF HORTICULTURE AND GROUNDS, SITES HAVE BEEN SELECTED ON THE EAST AND WEST PROMENADES AND A FEW OTHER LOCATIONS. THESE TREES WILL FILL IN WHERE TREES HAVE BEEN REMOVED AND WILL ENHANCE THE SPRINGTIME BEAUTY OF OUR PROMENADES.
OUT THANKS TO MATERIAL FOR THE ARTS WHO REACHED OUT TO THE R.I.H.S. TO BE A RECIPIENT OF THIS WONDERFUL GIFT.
JUDITH BERDY, PRESIDENT
JULY 17-18, 2021
OUR 419TH EDITION
Hart Island’s Last Stand
After years of study, the city has declared an emergency to bulldoze most of the buildings on the city’s potter’s field, without following the usual environmental review process.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 16, 2021 (C)
By John Freeman Gill July 16, 2021Updated 11:02 a.m. ETFor more than 150 years, Hart Island, half a mile east of City Island in the Bronx, has been a depository of the marginalized, an isolated outpost to which the city has variously shipped the poor and unclaimed dead, the imprisoned, the sick and the troubled.Best known as the city’s potter’s field, where more than a million New Yorkers have been buried in common graves since the 1860s, the one-mile-long strip of land has also been home to facilities for the insane, the diseased, the addicted and the homeless — as well as for a segregated regiment of African-American Union Army troops during the Civil War.
A Catholic chapel, shown here in 2004, was built on Hart Island in the 1930s. In 2016, New York State designated the entire island, including the chapel, as eligible for listing on the State and National Registers of Historic Places. But the city plans to spend $52 million to raze all of the island’s old buildings under an emergency demolition order.Credit…Melinda Hunt Courtesy of The Hart Island Project
Enough remnants of this layered institutional history survive on Hart Island, both above and below the ground, that in 2016, New York State formally designated the entire island as eligible for listing on both the State and National Registers of Historic Places. Among the 19 or so abandoned old structures still standing to tell the island’s tale — and the city’s — are several that the state identified as “notable buildings,” among them an 1885 women’s insane asylum, a 1930s Catholic chapel and a 1912 “Dynamo Room,” with its arched openings and prominent smokestack.
Yet even as control of Hart Island passed on July 1 from the city’s Department of Correction to the Parks Department, as mandated by a 2019 law, city agencies had already been working for months on a $52 million plan to demolish every one of the island’s old buildings.
On June 5, the Department of Buildings, citing public safety, issued an emergency order for the “immediate demolition” of 18 institutional, residential and service buildings constructed on Hart Island between the late 1800s and the mid 1900s.
Preservationists called for a more deliberate and transparent decision-making process with a full environmental review, including public hearings and formal consideration of potential damage to historic resources before the buildings are destroyed.
But if the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, gives final approval for the emergency declaration, the Department of Design and Construction will be authorized to raze the 18 structures for the Parks Department. “
The comptroller’s office has been working with the city to resolve questions and concerns regarding the proposed demolition,” said Hazel Crampton-Hays, the comptroller’s press secretary. “In response to our requests, the Department of Design and Construction has agreed to communicate with the state historic preservation and environmental authorities about any necessary reviews or adjustments, and agreed to amend the emergency request to procure a construction manager to determine the timeline, scope, and pricing of the proposed project and use that information to then seek approval from our office for the demolition itself.”
“Given these modifications and approval from the Law Department,” she continued, “we have now approved the amended emergency request.”
Under city rules, before receiving approval from the comptroller’s office to proceed with an emergency demolition, a city agency must demonstrate the existence of an emergency condition that poses “an unforeseen danger” to life, safety, property or a necessary service. The agency must also show that the condition creates an immediate need for such action that cannot be procured using normal procedures.
The city’s emergency order stated that “excluding the current field offices for island operations, a war memorial and two decommissioned Nike missile silos, there are 18 remnant and unsafe one-, two-, three- and four-story buildings” on Hart Island. “All were observed to be in advanced stages of collapse, either fully or mostly so.” The buildings, the order said, “are an immediate danger to the public and the island staff.”
As emergencies go, this has been a slow-developing one, according to internal city agency reports obtained by The New York Times. Most of the buildings on the island have been vacant and deteriorating ever since Phoenix House, a substance-abuse rehabilitation center, left the island in 1976.
In 2015, an internal draft report by the Department of Buildings called for the demolition of 13 Hart Island buildings but recommended “immediate repair” of the century-old Record Storage Building and a pumping station; it also said that no action was required for a third building, a small pump house. The report further recommended that the chimney adjacent to the Dynamo Room, a power-generating facility built around 1912, be lowered — not demolished — and that the Catholic chapel and the three-story Victorian-era Women’s Asylum, also known as the Pavilion, each be fenced as a “possible ruin site.”
The Pavilion, shown here in 2004, was built in 1885 as a women’s insane asylum. The facility closed in 1895 and the building was later used as a mess hall and workhouse for young men incarcerated on the island. It is now partially collapsed.Credit…Melinda Hunt Courtesy of The Hart Island Project.
In March 2020, after a new survey, another internal Buildings Department draft report again recommended the red-brick Record Storage Building “for immediate repair” and noted that “eight-foot-high chain-link fences with lockable gates are viable options for 16 vacant, open and unguarded buildings” — but the report nonetheless recommended that those 16 structures be razed.
Not for another 15 months, however, did the agency issue the emergency demolition order, yet again increasing the number of buildings to be leveled, this time to 18. Among the 18 edifices slated for emergency demolition was the Record Storage Building, which the same agency had described just a year earlier as “suitable to renovate” and “not complicated to repair.”
Under state law, the City Environmental Quality Review process, is triggered whenever a city agency directly undertakes a discretionary action or when a project needs city funding. According to the manual for the city’s review process, city agencies are required “to assess, disclose and mitigate to the greatest extent practicable the significant environmental consequences of their decisions to fund, directly undertake or approve a project.” The effects on historic and cultural resources are among the impacts that must be reviewed. The purpose of the law is to ensure that decision makers formally incorporate consideration of environmental impacts, including damage to historic structures, into their policy decisions.
But a spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio said, in an emailed message, “The emergency demolition work is not subject to environmental review” and that all necessary permits and approvals would be obtained before the work began.
“Clearly this is all a pretext for environmental-law evasion,” said Jack L. Lester, a lawyer who specializes in New York environmental review law. “There’s no emergency, but that’s something they can hang their hat on to avoid any kind of public scrutiny. It’s not rational — it’s pretextual, it’s arbitrary and it violates the law.”
Under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, emergency actions exempt from environmental review are defined as those “that are immediately necessary on a limited and temporary basis for the protection or preservation of life, health, property or natural resources.” The actions must also be tailored to deal with the emergency while causing the least possible change or disturbance to the environment.
Mr. Lester said that the passage of time between the Buildings Department’s surveys of Hart Island and its emergency order undermined any claim that the demolitions are “immediately necessary.” “How do you have an emergency if it’s been going on for five years and their own reports show that less drastic means can be taken short of demolition?” he asked.
The Pavilion today, as seen from above the roof of the Catholic chapel. In designating Hart Island eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, New York State described both structures as “notable buildings.” They are now among the 18 old edifices slated for “immediate demolition” by the city.Credit…Alon Sicherman & Sean Vegezzi courtesy The Hart Island Project
On July 12, officials from the mayor’s office and the city Landmarks Preservation Commission held “an initial discussion” with the State Historic Preservation Office about the Hart Island project, according to a spokesman for the New York State Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
“City officials indicated that project work is not imminent in 2021, and that specific funding sources — a potential trigger for project review by the State Historic Preservation Office — have not been identified,” the state spokesman said. He added that state preservation officials “raised preliminary concerns about grave and archaeological resource protection, and advised the city to consider retaining an on-site archaeological monitor.”
In justifying the city’s emergency demolition order, the mayor’s spokesman said in an email that “city employees and city contractors are authorized” to be on Hart Island “for work associated with ongoing burial operations and island administration work throughout the island, in close proximity to these unsafe buildings.”
Amid the pandemic, the number of dead buried on the island last year more than doubled to 2,666 from the previous year, according to a public statement by Dina Maniotis, chief of staff of the city’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner.
In addition, the mayor’s spokesman said, unauthorized visitors travel to the island by boat, placing themselves at risk from severely deteriorated buildings. “In the interest of public safety,” he said, “the buildings must be fully demolished, and brought down to grade, with foundations removed.”
The 2020 internal Buildings Department draft report painted a more nuanced and somewhat less dire picture of the condition of Hart Island’s buildings and described how they might be made safe by fencing them off. But, noting that “no plans exist for the restoration or refurbishment of the remnant structures on the island,” the report recommended that the 16 dilapidated buildings be demolished for safety reasons.
The report also observed, however, that some of the island’s old buildings were not irrevocably deteriorated.
The red-brick Records Storage Building, constructed around 1910 facing a U-shaped young men’s reformatory that also still stands, “is suitable for repair and can be put into service,” the report observed. “With a footprint of approximately 35 feet by 35 feet, the building is not complicated to repair.”
The report recommended that the building, which has a shallow pyramidal roof with high clerestory windows, be made safe by fencing it rather than razing it, and city engineers rated its “ease of restoration” as “moderate to good.” But the structure is now slated to be leveled.
The 2020 report also described a one-story red-brick pumping station, dating to around the 1920s, as “viable for storage,” but it recommended demolition anyway.
The red-brick-and-stone Catholic Chapel, built by the Catholic Charities around 1935, “still stands in surprisingly good condition” despite the removal of its bell and stained-glass windows, noted a guidebook published in 2018 by the Historic Districts Council, a citywide preservation group. By 2020, Buildings Department engineers described the church’s “ease of restoration” as “moderate,” but they nonetheless recommended that it be razed.
The cornerstone for the chapel, at the time of its construction the only separate prison building in the United States set aside for Catholic services, was laid in 1931 by the rector of St. Patrick’s Cathedral at a ceremony attended by Protestant and Jewish clergymen, prominent citizens and about 1,000 prisoners. The house of worship replaced wooden chapels that had been built on the island by Catholic, Episcopal and Hebrew organizations, and it was used by all faiths.
In the 1950s, the chapel served homeless men living in a Hart Island rehabilitation center, but the religious building was abandoned in 1966, after the island’s workhouse closed. Under the city’s current emergency order, the chapel will be bulldozed.
The 1885 Pavilion was built as a 300-patient women’s asylum.
“Some of the buildings used as dormitories for the insane” on Hart Island, an 1890 grand jury concluded, “are a disgrace to civilization.”
“The water supply on this island is obtained from cisterns and driven wells,”the grand jury continued. “When it is known that 75,000 bodies lie buried” very close “to these cisterns, one can readily imagine what the character of the water must necessarily be.”
The asylum closed in 1895 and was later used as a workhouse for incarcerated young men. The 2020 report described the Pavilion as unsafe.
The mayor’s spokesman said that Buildings Department engineers were most recently on Hart Island in February and found that the 18 buildings now planned for demolition had continued to deteriorate and were in danger of further collapse.
A peace monument made of reinforced concrete, shown here in 2004, was erected by prisoners in 1948 on the former site of Civil War-era barracks. Under the city’s plan, it will be fenced and secured.Credit…Melinda Hunt Courtesy of The Hart Island Project
Not included in the demolition order are the modern field offices for Hart Island operations, two decommissioned Cold War-era Nike missile silos and a peace monument built by prisoners in the 1940s, which will be fenced and secured.
Notwithstanding the state’s determination that Hart Island contains notable archaeological and architectural resources, the city landmarks commission concluded in 2012, after surveying the island, that the buildings were in too advanced a state of disrepair to be viable for designation either as individual city landmarks or as a historic district.
At the commission’s recommendation, archaeologists will monitor for artifacts during subsurface work performed as part of the planned demolition project. A Historic American Buildings Survey of the 18 doomed buildings will also be prepared, documenting the structures before their destruction.
Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, said that the planned demolition “of 18 recognized, publicly owned historic structures by the City of New York” should be aired in public hearings under the city’s environmental quality review process.
“What we don’t want is a rush to action by government without a clearly defined plan and without an opportunity for public stakeholders to weigh in and opine on that plan,” he said. “This is a huge public project with implications for all of New York, because it has implications for anyone who has relatives or loved ones buried on the island, as well as for how Hart Island is going to be utilized and accessed moving forward into the future.”
Mr. Lester, the environmental lawyer, said that the issue of knocking down Hart Island’s buildings without an environmental review was larger than the fate of the specific buildings.
“What’s at stake is the rule of law, and it affects everyone’s life because it affects how the city considers the environment or doesn’t consider the environment,” he said. By declaring an emergency and forgoing the customary environmental review, he said, “they avoid oversight, they avoid having to come up with alternatives, they avoid having public comment, they avoid having to consider mitigating actions and they circumvent democracy.”
Melinda Hunt, president of the Hart Island Project, a nonprofit group that advocates for the restoration of the island as a natural burial ground and wilderness site, said that she wholeheartedly supported the mayor’s demolition plan and that preserving the burial process on the island was far more important than preserving buildings.
“City Cemetery is a historic site for marginalized people whose histories have long been overlooked,” she said. “The buildings are offensive to thousands of low-income families whose relatives are buried in close proximity to former prison facilities.” She added that the buildings should be removed “to honor and provide access to the gravesites of low-income people of color.”
Herbert Sweat Jr., whose infant daughter was buried on Hart Island along with many of his forebears, said he was in favor of preserving all buildings that could help give perspective on the island’s many transfigurations. “From my travels over there,” he said, “I have seen with my own eyes, brick and mortar where you can tell the bricks were reused” from Civil War-era buildings and survive as part of extant structures.
Mr. Sweat, 72, former chairman of Black Veterans for Social Justice, said he wanted the island transferred to the National Park Service and that a memorial should be erected for the 31st Regiment of the United States Colored Troops, an African-American regiment that was organized and trained on Hart Island during the Civil War. The regiment fought several battles, pursued Commander Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army to Appomattox and was on hand for the Confederate surrender in 1865.
But Mr. Sweat said that he had never been taught any of that history in Brooklyn public schools and that demolishing Hart Island’s buildings would similarly deprive New Yorkers of a tangible connection with their past.
“That’s how the taking away of history from the people is done — they take it out of our sight,” he said. “That’s so deep, because how do you destroy that type of history? How many thousands of people have been transformed in those buildings that held them and ministered to them before they either went into the ground or went back into the city? As quiet as it’s kept, they hide what went on with the people there.”
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ISLAND HOUSE GARDEN TO THE WEST OF THE 555 ENTRANCE.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff Roosevelt Island Historical Society
THE NEW YORK TIMES (C)
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS
CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
This Saturday, July 17th, Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) and the Roosevelt Island Disabled Association (RIDA) plan to celebrate the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) with the unveiling of the FDR Hope Memorial, an immersive work of art commemorating the progressive former U.S. president and disability advocate, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Join us at Southpoint Park for the celebratory ribbon-cutting. Attendees able to utilize grass areas surrounding the memorial will be asked to do so. Special accommodations can be made upon request for those who require them.
The inspiration for the sculpture by Meredith Bergmann was this image of FDR with a young girl.
IRT POWERHOUSE WEWST END AVENUE AND 58 STREET AND SPARBERG, ED LITCHER, ARON EISENPREISS, GLORIA HERMAN AND LAURA HUSSEY GOT IT RIGHT!
IRT Powerhouse
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The IRT Powerhouse, also known as the Interborough Rapid Transit Company Powerhouse, is a former power station of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), which operated part of the modern New York City Subway. The building fills a block bounded by 58th Street, 59th Street, Eleventh Avenue, and Twelfth Avenue in the Hell’s Kitchen and Riverside South neighborhoods of Manhattan.
The IRT Powerhouse was designed in the Renaissance Revival style by Stanford White, an architect working with the firm McKim, Mead & White, and was intended to serve as an aboveground focal point for the IRT. The facade is made of granite, brick, and terracotta, incorporating extensive ornamentation. The interiors were designed by engineers John van Vleck, Lewis B. Stillwell, and S. L. F. Deyo. The powerhouse was constructed to supply power to the New York City Subway’s first line, which was operated by the IRT. At its peak, it could generate more than 100,000 horsepower (75,000 kW).
The land was acquired in late 1901, and the structure was constructed from 1902 to 1905. Several changes were made to the facility throughout the early and mid-20th century, and an annex to the west was completed in 1950. The New York City Board of Transportation took over operation of the powerhouse when it acquired the IRT in 1940 and continued to operate it until 1959, when Consolidated Edison repurposed the building as part of the New York City steam system. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the powerhouse as a city landmark in 2017, after several decades of attempts to grant landmark status to the building.
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 OPERATING CORPORATION ROOSEVELT ISLAND DISABLED ASSOCIATION FDR LIBRARY NATIONAL ARCHIVES COLLECTION
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
The Newtown Creek Nature Walk, located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, is a public esplanade that wraps the waterfront edge of the city’s largest wastewater resource recovery facility. Artist George Trakas was commissioned through the City’s Percent for Art Program to create a site-specific artwork as a part of the comprehensive upgrade of the wastewater facility in the late 1990s. The first phase was completed by DEP in 2007, and now the eagerly anticipated new expansion is open to the public.
Beyond providing much needed public open space, the Nature Walk delves deeply into the history of Greenpoint, Newtown Creek, and the centrality of water to all life on earth. The artist imbued these themes into the design of the public amenities, from the seating elements to the planting and even the trash receptacles.
Courtesy of Jean Schwarzwalder.
The Newtown Creek Nature Walk is planted with native trees, shrubs and other flora, to revive a long-inaccessible industrial shoreline for public use as a waterfront promenade. The walk features a 170-foot-long “Vessel” passage to the waterfront evoking the angled timber construction of ships once built along the East River. The walk also features nine 12-inch-thick granite slab steps that ascend out of Newtown Creek, each with scientific names etched on them to trace the evolution of the Earth through geologic and biologic eras that include forms of life native to Newtown Creek and Greenpoint. While there, check out seven stone circles, etched at various angles with local, native place names used by the Lenape help visitors visualize the places they identify. Another noteworthy feature is a 1,400-pound granite table in the shape of a shipping bollard, the cylindrical posts used to secure ships in port. The table also features an etching of Newtown Creek’s original watershed.
On July 22, join the NYC Department of Environmental Protection’s Alicia West and George Trakas on a virtual walking tour of the newly expanded Newtown Creek Nature Walk. Learn directly from Trakas about the inspiration and construction of the City’s largest Percent for Art commission. See the transformation of the Newtown Creek waterfront since the 1990s. Discover the details of the Nature Walk in preparation for your own in-person visit and attend a live Q&A with the artist following the virtual tour. The event is free for Untapped New York Insiders (and get your first month free with code JOINUS).
Newtown Creek itself has quite a fascinating but troubling history. The three-and-a-half-mile-long estuary used to be one of the most heavily used — and most polluted — waterways in the country. The creek is the site of one of the largest oil spills in U.S history — the culmination of decades of oil leakage. The creek has been undergoing cleanup efforts after it received a Superfund from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2010.
DEP host Alicia West with artist George Trakas.Courtesy of Jean Schwarzwalder.
Newtown Creek is also the site of numerous combined-sewage overflow sites (CSOs). There have been dozens of sites along the creek where sewage was and still is dumped whenever the rainwater system becomes overwhelmed during storms. One of the most notorious stenches that permeated the neighborhood in 1855 originated from the Peter Van Iderstine plant, which turned the entrails of butchered animals (including at least one ten-ton circus elephant) into animal feed, fertilizer, and glue. Recently, 216 small, tightly-wrapped, plastic bags containing a mystery substance were found floating together in the creek. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company also owned a site at Newtown Creek. To add insult to injury, on October 5th, 1950, an explosion rocked Greenpoint, ripping a 10-foot-wide hole out of the pavement at the junction of Manhattan Avenue and Huron. It sent concrete shrapnel flying, blew 25 manhole covers up to three stories high and shattered windows in over 500 buildings.
On July 22, join the NYC Department of Environmental Protection’s Alicia West and George Trakas on a virtual walking tour of the newly expanded Newtown Creek Nature Walk. Learn directly from Trakas about the inspiration and construction of the City’s largest Percent for Art commission. See the transformation of the Newtown Creek waterfront since the 1990s. Discover the details of the Nature Walk in preparation for your own in-person visit and attend a live Q&A with the artist following the virtual tour. The event is free for Untapped New York Insiders (and get your first month free with code JOINUS).
The consulate’s mission is to provide protection and administrative services to French citizens living or traveling in the district. Under the authority of the French Embassy in the United States, its consular district extends across three states (New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey), as well as the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda.
Currently housing the consulate general of France, 934 Fifth Avenue was the residence of Charles E. Mitchell, President of the National City Bank (now Citibank). Anne-Claire Legendre has been the consul general since August 2016.
While residing at 934 Fifth Avenue, from 1925 to 1933, Mitchell served as informal advisor to American Presidents Warren G. Harding and Herbert Hoover. But the prestige of this address owed in great part to his wife, Elizabeth Mitchell, who hosted numerous musical evenings at the house. Musicians such as George Gershwin, Fritz Kreisler, Rudolph Ganz, Ignay Padrewski, or José Iturbi regularly gave recitals in the “Pink Room” at 934 Fifth Avenue.
In the early 1930s, following the stock exchange crash and investigations on his financial activities, Charles E. Mitchell lost most of his fortune and had to give up his residence. Number 934 is the only survivor of the seven townhouses that formerly lined this block. Within 50 years, the first houses built in the 1880s were replaced by equally luxurious large apartment buildings. The Charles E. Mitchell House was preserved thanks to the decision of the French government, which acquired it in 1942 and made it the official consulate general building.
Before the consulate
As historic partners, France and the United States have maintained ties of friendship and cooperation since the first days of the American nation. The first French consular representation was established in Philadelphia in 1778. As soon as 1783, a French consulate was founded in New York, the first consulate to be established in this city. Saint John de Crèvecoeur became the first consul. However, very little information is available on the buildings that housed the consulate over the 18th centuries.
During the First World War, the French consulate general in New York City was located at 8 Bridge Street, Manhattan.[1]
From 1933 to 1942, the consulate general of France was located at Rockefeller Center, at 640 Fifth Avenue. As prestigious as this address was, it was decided, in 1941, to acquire another building that could house the offices and residence of the consul. In 1942, 934 Fifth Avenue became French property. But it wasn’t until 1943, after Franco-American relationships were reestablished (following an interruption under the Vichy regime), that consular affairs resumed with the French resistance representatives.
In keeping with the spirit of its founders, Charles E. Mitchell and his wife, who conceived the 934 as a place for culture, with an emphasis on literature and music, the consulate has perpetuated this tradition and welcomes, every year, numerous receptions involving the French community. The consulate hosts up to 150 events every year, including the monthly Conferences@934, which bring together French and American speakers.
HARA REISER, SUSAN RODESIS,ANDY SPARBERG
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) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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