In 1925, the New York Giants shared a stadium with the New York Giants. No, the other New York Giants. Back in the golden age of baseball in New York, the city hosted three teams: the Yankees, the Dodgers and the Giants. But there was also the football Giants, and both Giants teams shared a stadium at the long-gone Polo Grounds. But by 1956, they moved to the larger Yankee Stadium until the team announced that it would play in a brand new stadium in New Jersey. So over the next three years, the Giants jumped from Yankee Stadium to the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Conn., to Shea Stadium until finally moving to Giants Stadium in 1976.
THE ORIGINAL YANKEE STADIUM
ED LITCHER, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, HARA REISER, ANDY SPARBERG,JAY JACOBSON, M . FRANK,
FROM JAY JACOBSON: Yankee Stadium — the original one— laid out for football. Constructed for the second team that Brooklyn Dodger Fans loathed, the stadium was Used occasionally for major college football games (Army — Notre Dame, I remember). Later, in the late 1950s, the Stadium became the home for the New York Football Giants before that team moved to the New Jersey swamps. About 50 years ago, the Giants left New York and, by failing or refusing to change their name to the New Jersey Giants, insured the loss of a lifelong fan who now roots only for their opponents. (When the teams with New York names —Giants and Jets— play each other, I root for biblical rain storms to make conditions unbearable for the teams and for people going to support the apostates. ). At least when New York was deserted by the baseball Giants and Dodgers, those teams had the basic decency to adopt the names of the cities to which they had moved. No such luck in the football sphere. If you think I have a long sense of fury and outrage at having been abandoned, don’t get me wound up on the destruction of PS 87 and its replacement by a cleaner, newer, better elementary school building around the corner from Amsterdam Avenue and 77th Street.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff Roosevelt Island Historical Society
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
THE R.I.H.S. ARCHIVES JUDITH BERDY
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The site of the new airport had been earlier occupied by the Gala Amusement Park. Developed by the piano magnate William Steinway, Gala boasted the first Ferris wheel on the East Coast. It was home to saloons, rides, carousels, a zoo, a bowling alley, concert venues, gambling, and a giant beer hall. “Electric lights, amusement piers and thrill rides were added, and fireworks displays, vaudeville acts and ragtime music sweetened the atmosphere,” the New York Times recalls. At night, “single young men and women drank beer, danced and caroused.” Prohibition closed the beer hall, and the amusement park’s beaches were overwhelmed with horrifying water pollution.
TWA DC-2 sitting at LGA in the late 1930s, with American Airlines Hangars 1, 3 and 5 in the background. (Jon Proctor Collection)
Building the airport was an enormous construction project for the time. It required that landfill be brought from Rikers Island and a nearby garbage dump, then laid onto a metal framework. It is said that the metallic presence still affects compass readings on aircraft departing on runway 13.
The airport leapt forward in October 1938 when American Airlines signed a long-term lease to locate its overhaul base and main office, then located in Chicago, at LGA. Finally dedicated on October 15 as New York City Municipal Airport, “La Guardia Field” was tacked on by a hyphen two weeks later. It would become, simply, LaGuardia Airport in 1947. The airport opened officially on December 2, 1939, when a TWA DC-3 from Chicago landed just minutes after midnight.
PanAm moved from Port Washington to a new facility at LaGuardia, the Marine Air Terminal. First called the Overseas Terminal, the art deco structure was designed in 1939 by William Delano and completed a year later. An overhead mural inside the terminal portrayed the history of man’s creation and involvement in flight. Titled “Flight” and created by James Brooks, it would be painted over in the 1950s due to some saying that its use of dark greens and reds gave it too much of a “communist” feel. It would later be restored in 1979-80.
The nation’s five largest airlines — Pan American Airways, American, United, Eastern Air Lines, and Transcontinental and Western Air — began offering flights from the new airport and, within a year, LaGuardia was the busiest airport in the world.
Following the war, the Marine Air Terminal became the airport’s international departure point for land planes, but larger aircraft and a need for more space led carriers to move to Idlewild Airport. In the early 1950s, the Douglas DC-7 and Lockheed 1049 Constellation began flying nonstop across the country but, unable to take off heavily loaded from La Guardia, they flew from Idlewild. Many of us are all too familiar with LGA’s descent into what Joe Biden called a n airport “in some third-world country.”
Still, LGA is easily reachable from our Island – no bridges or tunnels, and many of us (me) became more or less used to it. But it will be fun to see what has happened there.
Thanks for flying with me!
SPECIAL MOTHER’S DAY SHOPPING AT RIHS KIOSK FRIDAY TO SUNDAY 12 NOON TO 5 P.M.
INTERNATIONAL ARRIVALS BUILDING JFK 1959 ED LITCHER , MITCH HAMMER GOT IT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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Our aviation neighbor. From my balcony, I can sometimes see 4 or 5 planes in a long row preparing to land on runway 4. I’m looking forward to a trip out of the newly redone LGA, but let’s pause before take-off.
Well before LGA, Long Island was home to many aerodromes. Indeed, over the 20th century, some 70 airfields were located on the Island, most in aviation’s “Golden Age” of the mid ’20s to late ‘30s. Largely small with only simple structures. But some are memorable. On the morning of May 20, 1927, Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field airport and pointed his airplane towards Paris, on way to a successful transatlantic flight. Flying for 33 1/2 hours and covering approximately 3,600 miles, Lindbergh was the first person to fly nonstop from the United States to France.
On June 28, 1939, Pan Am’s Boeing 314 Dixie Clipper lifted off the water in the Port Washington airport to begin the first regular trans-Atlantic passenger service to Europe. The aircraft carried 22 passengers on the southern route to Horta, Lisbon, and Marseilles. Later, on July 8, the Yankee Clipper would launch Pan Am service across the Atlantic on the northern route, carrying 17 passengers to England.
Aerial view of Floyd Bennett Field
Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn was New York’s first municipal airport. During the 1920s, air travel in Europe, with shorter distances between main centers, was more popular than in the United States which was still more enraptured with trains. Interestingly, while other localities such as Atlantic City and Cleveland had municipal airports, New York City had a multitude of private airfields, and felt no need for a municipal airport until the late 1920s. Newark was the main airport serving New York City into the 1930s.
But Lindbergh’s flight changed this. Billed as New York to Paris, Roosevelt Field was outside the city. New York City now wanted its own airport. A city panel selected Barren Island in Brooklyn as the location, and New York’s first municipal airport was named Floyd Bennett Field, honoring the pilot on Byrd’s 1926 North Pole flight. Dedicated on May 23, 1931, it was rated A-1-A, the highest classification of the Civil Aeronautics Board. It boasted concrete runways, fours hangers that could service the largest aircraft of the day, and an Administration Building that served as a terminal.
Floyd Bennett Field was the site of many adventures. In 1938, Douglas Corrigan planned to fly out for Los Angeles. But he somehow got turned around and ended up in Ireland instead, earning him the nickname “Wrong Way” Corrigan. Probably not really an error. Lacking funds and permission for a transatlantic flight to Ireland, Corrigan decided to take the matter into his own hands. With the owner’s unspoken support, Corrigan landed in Ireland, having consumed two chocolate bars and a couple boxes of fig bars on the way over. Despite his adamant assertion that he had made an honest mistake, the country knew the truth and cities from New York to Chicago threw ticker tape parades to honor the lovable rogue.
Floyd Bennett Field in the 1930s. Eagle postcard photo by Rudy Arnold
On Sunday July 10, 1938 at 7:20 PM, Howard Hughes and four companions lifted off from Floyd Bennett Field to try to break the record for a round the world flight. On July 14 at 2:34 PM, they returned to the same airport completing their tour in 3 days 19 hours 14 minutes and 10 seconds, less than half the time of Wiley Post’s record-breaking flight in 1933. Nothing new, however, for Floyd Bennett Field: Between 1931 and 1939, 26 around the world or transatlantic flights started or ended there.
Flushing Airport was one of New York City’s early airports and was located only a mile east of present-day LaGuardia Airport. Opened in 1927 on city-owned land leased to private operators, Flushing Airport was briefly New York City’s busiest airfield, until the much bigger LaGuardia superseded it. But ever since its closure by Mayor Koch in 1984, it has been largely forgotten, save by aviation and history buffs, and Queens old-timers.
In addition to LaGuardia and JFK, four Long Island airports continue to be active: Brookhaven Calabro (HWV), East Hampton (HTO), Long Island MacArthur (ISP) and Republic (FRG).
And LaGuardia. As a publicity stunt in 1934, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia refused to deplane after landing on a TWA flight from Pittsburgh to Newark, declaring that his ticket showed his destination as New York. TWA quickly agreed to fly the mayor and several reporters on to Floyd Bennett Field. The press conference that followed underlined that it was time for a new, modern facility closer to Manhattan. In conjunction with the City of New York and the Federal Works Progress Administration, ground was broken in 1937 to create a 558-acre airport in Flushing.
CONTINUED TOMORROW
SPECIAL MOTHER’S DAY SHOPPING AT RIHS KIOSK THURSDAY TO SUNDAY 12 NOON TO 5 P.M.
ANDY SPARBERG, ED LITCHER, SUSAN RODETIS, HARA REISER, GLORIA HERMAN, LAURA HUSSEY, VICKI FEINMEL ALL GOT IT!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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Many of us have never heard of Stone Street until we have to go there to get our Senior Metrocards. @ Stone Street is the address that is really the back of 2 Broadway, where the MTA offices are located.
Stone Street is a short street in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. It runs in two sections between Whitehall Street in the west and Hanover Square in the east. The street originally ran as one continuous roadway from Whitehall Street to Hanover Square, but the section between Broad Street and Coenties Alley was eliminated in 1980 to make way for the Goldman Sachs building at 85 Broad Street. The one-block-long western section between Whitehall and Broad Streets carries vehicular traffic, while the two-block-long eastern section between Coenties Alley and Hanover Square is a pedestrian zone.
Stone Street is one of New York’s oldest streets, incorporating two 17th-century roads in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. In 1658 it became the first cobbled street in New Amsterdam. Following the British conquest of the colony, the street was called Duke Street before being renamed Stone Street, for its cobblestone paving, in 1794. Many of the early structures around Stone Street were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1835, after which Stone Street was redeveloped with stores and lofts for dry-goods merchants and importers. Following many decades of neglect, Stone Street was restored in the late 20th century and the eastern section became a restaurant area.
1 Hanover Square is in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. It occupies the northeastern side of a block bounded by Stone Street to the northwest, Hanover Square and William Street to the northeast, Pearl Street to the southeast, and Coenties Slip to the southwest.The building carries the alternate addresses 2 Hanover Square, 60–66 Stone Street, and 95–105 Pearl Street.1 Hanover Square contains frontage of 72 feet (22 m) on Hanover Square, 123 feet (37 m) on Stone Street, and 114 feet (35 m) on Pearl Street.[5][6] The building is near 1 William Street to the northwest and the British Garden at Hanover Square to the northeast.[3]
The site was historically part of New Amsterdam, a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement in modern-day Lower Manhattan; the building’s site was acquired by Richard Smith in the 1640s.[7] By the next decade, the southern portion of the lot was sold to Evert Duyckingh (also “Duyckinck”), who developed a house on the site.[8] The northern portion was given to Abraham Martens Clock, who also developed a house on his site; after 1673, town official Nicholas Bayard bought the western end of Clock’s land and built a house there.[9] There were numerous buildings on the site by 1812, occupied by various dwellings and businesses.[4] These structures were all destroyed in the Great Fire of 1835, which leveled a large portion of the neighborhood.[10]
Dutch colonial era
Stone Street is one of New York’s oldest streets, having been built not long after the Dutch West India Company established New Amsterdam in 1624.[14] It contains parts of two colonial streets: Breuers Straet (literally “Brewers Street”), from Whitehall to Broad Streets, and Hoogh Straet (literally “High Street”), from Broad to Hanover Square. The streets formed a longer road running from Peck Slip Ferry at what is now South Street Seaport;[ they were originally connected by a bridge spanning an inlet in the middle of Broad Street.[18][20] The original street surface is about 6.5 to 7 feet (2.0 to 2.1 m) beneath the modern street.
Western section of Stone Street (originally Breuers Straet), looking toward Broad Street Breuers Straet (renamed Straet van de Graft in 1655 and Brouwer Straet by 1668) was named after the breweries along the street.David T. Valentine subsequently wrote that, from the occupations of the residents, “it is to be inferred that this was one of the best streets of the town”.[In March 1657, residents of Breuers Straet filed a petition to pave the street with cobblestone, funding the project with their own money.The petition was approved and, in 1658, Breuers Straet became the first cobbled street in New Amsterdam.
Hoogh Straet was so named because it was on a low embankment flanked by the East River to the south and a swamp, called Bloemmaert’s or the Company Vly, to the north.[ Hoogh Straet continued northeast of Hanover Square, along what is now the northern side of Pearl Street, to modern-day Wall Street; On Hoogh Straet, the Dutch West India Company had laid out two rows of land lots by 1642, which were granted to property owners including Wessel Evertsen, Thomas Willett, and Richard Smith.[14] Around 1656, Hoogh Straet was shifted about 20 to 25 feet (6.1 to 7.6 m) northward, to align it with Breuers Straet.[Some time afterward, Hoogh Straet was paved, although the date of this paving is unknown. The Castello Plan of 1660 indicated that many structures on both streets were gable roofed houses.[
TO BE CONTINUED
MOTHER’S DAY GIFTS FROM THE R.I.H.S. VISITOR CENTER KIOSK
SPECIAL MOTHER’S DAY WEEK HOURS WEDNESDAY, MAY 5 THRU SUNDAY, MAY 9 12 NOON TO 5 P.M. DAILY
Perfect for mom our QUOTABLE ELEANOR, COOKIES FOR ELEANOR, ROOSEVELT ISLAND AND OUR ZINE….ALSO A GREAT MODGY VASE AN FLORAL POUCH.
A dog lovers gift APRON, POUCH AND NOTEBOOK
For someone with Queens roots………….GREAT BOOKS ON OUR NEIGHBOR BOROUGH
We remember our friend, neighbor and WIRE editor Dick Lutz. NINALUBLIN, VICKI FEINMEL, ALEXIS VILLEFANE AND JAY JACOBSON REMEMBERED DICK
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
WIKIPEDIA
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at the Kiosk Wed-Sun 12-5 p.m. See details in tomorrow’s edition
TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2021
The
354th Edition
From Our Archives
ALFRED MIRA
ARTIST OF OUR CITY SCENE
FROM EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
The Greenwich Village vision of artist Alfred Mira Alfred S. Mira and his realistic, gritty, intimate Greenwich Village street scenes should be better known. [“Seventh Avenue, Greenwich Village”]
Born in 1900 in Italy to a carpenter father, he left school and began working for an interior decorator, dreaming of going to art school but without the 50 cents a day it cost to attend.
Alfred S. Mira (on left, with arms crossed) at the Grand Central Art Galleries with Associate Director Claude Barber (on right) [photograph] / (photographed by Peter A. Juley & Son)
He did make a career out of painting though; he listed his address as East 8th Street and his occupation as painter in the 1940 census. And he sold his work at the Washington Square outdoor art exhibit, a heralded event decades ago.
Though he painted scenes from all over the city, Mira focused his work on the sites and monuments of Greenwich Village: the Washington Arch, MacDougal Street, and Seventh Avenue South. His inspiration seems to come from the urban realists who made a name for themselves in the early 1900s, such as George Bellows and George Luks.
Rainy Day in Washington Square Park
“Mira painted angled, bird’s eye viewpoints, thereby creating what one critic categorized as ‘moving camera eye impressions,’” explains gallery Questroyal Fine Art LLC. He died in 1980 or 1981, depending on the source, and his work still inspires. It also still sells, with several paintings going for thousands of dollars at top auction houses.
60th STREET LAMPPOST BASE THAT WAS REMOVED WHEN TRAM WAS BUILT. THE SECOND AVENUE EL WAS ON THE AVENUE AND A ROW OF BROWNSTONES ON 60th STREET. (WILLIAM H. JACKSON COMPANY) Vicki Feinmel got it.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
Sources
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
PHOTOS BY JUDITH BERDY / RIHS (C)
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American illustrator best known for his fifty-year career as a cover artist for The New Yorker magazine. Between 1938 and 1988, two hundred and thirteen Getz covers appeared on The New Yorker, making Getz the most prolific New Yorker cover artist of the twentieth century.
Getz was also a fine artist, painted murals for the Works Progress Administration Program, wrote and illustrated children’s books, and taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the University of Connecticut, and the Washington Art Association in Washington, Connecticut.
In addition to his New Yorker covers and spot drawings, Getz’s illustrations were published in American Childhood, Audubon, Collier’s, Consumer Reports, Cue, Esquire, Fortune, The Nation, The National Guardian, The New Masses, The New Republic, PM, Reader’s Digest, Saturday Review, Stage, and The Reporter.
TURKEYS IN THE TUNNEL, 1956
JULY 5, 1967
NOVEMBER 14, 1964
CONSTRUCTION NEXT DOOR, JULY 9, 1955
Getz relocated to the country-side and his work changed in later years
HARA REISER, ANDY SPARBERG, ED LITCHER, ARON EISENPREISS, VERN HARWOOD, GLORIA HERMAN, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, NINA LUBLIN, HARRIET LIEBER, JAY JACOBSON ARLENE BESSENOFF, THOM HEYER ALL GOT IT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources: THE NEW YORKER (C)
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JANE’S WALK LED BY THEODORE LIEBMAN, ARCHITECT, PERKINS EASTMAN, AND JUDITH BERDY, PRESIDENT, ROOSEVELT ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY MONDAY, MAY 3, 1:00 P.M. ON ZOOM
We will review the history of the island and its change from the infamous Welfare Island to today’s vibrant Roosevelt Island community and the 1969 Johnson Plan and its execution. We will review all the architecture, the restoration of landmarks, and sustainability features on the island, the tram and subway, the new Cornell Tech University and Four Freedoms Park created as a memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and designed by Louis I. Kahn. TO REGISTER:
When watching the news about an FBI raid, I recognized the building at Madison Avenue and 66th Street. I decided to stop wondering and check it out along with the architects who designed this apartment house and two others
45 EAST 66 STREET
45 East 66th Street / 773 Madison Avenue
Describing this trio of buildings as “the best gingerbread in town,” Paul Golberger noted in his book, “The City Observed, A Guide To the Architecture of New York, An Illustrated History” (Vintage Books, 1979), that this was “the best” of the trio, adding that “The detail is an eclectic mix of Elizabethan and Flemish Gothic, and it is just elaborate enough to be showy, but restrained enough not to compete with the separate, secondary level of texture created by the dozens of 12-over-12 double-hung windows, a veritable curtain of tiny square panes.”
Some history of the site by Christopher Gray (1988):
“In 1905, Charles F. Rogers, who had built the Prince George and other hotels, bought the All Souls church site at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 66th Street. Rogers, the son of the sculptor John S. Rogers, lived at 60th Street and Madison Avenue and was an All Souls parishioner….The new building dominated the Madison Avenue brownstones, and its distinctive round corner tower was unusually prominent. The square-doughnut structure has a central light court, but the majestic multipaned windows -framed in white terra-cotta and rising to overhanging, screen-like assemblies of Gothic ornament – are what catch the eye….The building was divided into only two apartments…on each floor. Only a handful survived intact, still grand and elegant but with most of their unusual woodwork painted over. The building opened in 1908 as 777 Madison Avenue…..In 1929 the entrance was moved onto East 66th Street, giving the building its present address,…The exterior remained in fairly good shape except for a gradual buildup of grime from engine exhaust (Madison Avenue streetcars were replaced by buses in the 1930’s). From 1928 to 1973, the building was owned by the Bing & Bing real estate company. Major change came after the mid-50’s, with most of the overhanging decorative work at the sixth and 10th floors either cut back or stripped away entirely. In 1973, 45 East 66th Street was acquired by a builder, Sigmund Sommer, who cut back some services, discharged the elevator attendant and replaced incandescent lighting with fluorescent in the hallways. Tenants conducted a rent strike….They ultimately won most of their battles and the Bing interests took the building back in the spring of 1977, just as a tenant effort of landmark designation was starting….In 1987, a partnership managed by M. J. Raynes bought the building and began a cooperative conversion plan that was completed last month.”
ALWYN COURT
ALWYN COURT 180 WEST 58 STREET
The Alwyn Court, also known as The Alwyn, is an apartment building at 180 West 58th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.
The building is at the southeast corner with Seventh Avenue, one block south of Central Park. The Alwyn Court was built between 1907 and 1909 and was designed by Harde & Short in the French Renaissance style. It is one of several luxury developments constructed along Seventh Avenue during the late 19th and early 20th century.
The building is thirteen stories tall. Its facade is clad with elaborate terracotta ornamentation in the Francis I style, with a main entrance on Seventh Avenue and 58th Street. Inside is an octagonal courtyard with a painted facade by artist Richard Haas, as well as a location of the Petrossian caviar bar. The Alwyn Court was originally built with twenty-two elaborately decorated apartments, two on every floor, which typically had fourteen rooms and five bathrooms. The interior was subdivided into 75 apartments in 1938.
The Alwyn Court was named after Alwyn Ball Jr., one of the building’s developers. Despite a fire shortly after opening, the Alwyn Court quickly became one of New York City’s most expensive apartment buildings. During the early 20th century, ownership changed several times. By the 1930s, the last luxury tenant had moved out, and the building’s interior was completely rebuilt. The Alwyn Court was made a New York City designated landmark in 1966, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The building was renovated and converted to cooperative apartments in 1980, and the facade was restored in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
RED HOUSE
From A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
Harde & Short’s 1904 “Red House” — No. 350 West 85th Street
Architects Herbert Spencer Harde and Richard Thomas Short kept themselves busy around the turn of the century designing tenement houses throughout the city. Harde branched out into real estate at some point, establishing the Eronel Realty Company – “Eronel” being his wife Lenore’s name spelled backwards. With the Upper West Side rapidly developing, Eronel Realty acquired the plot of land at 350 West 85th Street and, in 1903, commissioned Harde & Short to design an apartment building on the lot – in short, Harde hired himself. Terra cotta was just making its mark as a remarkably versatile and relatively inexpensive material and the architects embraced it with gusto for this project. In an effort to lure well-to-do residents from private homes into apartments, Harde & Short lavished the façade with intricate terra cotta ornamentation. It would be a stark departure from the firm’s usual tenement buildings. Drawing on several styles and periods, they created an eye-catching and unique structure. Expanses of multi-paned windows hardened back to great English country estates while dripping Gothic screens coexisted with terra cotta salamanders – the symbol of Francis I.
Harde & Short played the red brick and white terra cotta against one another, creating visual interest that was accentuated by the light and shadow of the façade’s angles and bays. The distinctive six-story building was completed in 1904, drawing the unexcited comment from The Real Estate Record & Guide which said it was “a departure from the usual.”
The salamander, symbol of Francis I, would appear again in the facade of Harde & Short’s magnificent Alwyn Court — photo by Alice Lum Harde named his building “Red House” and immediately moved in with Lenore. Joining them in the new building were socially-important Mr. and Mrs. William Smith Young and their two daughters, Caroline Grace and Lucy. The 32-year old attorney was a member of no fewer than five exclusive clubs, including the Columbia Yacht Club and the Cornell Club.
Mrs. Young, who went by the ponderous name Caroline Marshall Page Young was a Daughter of the American Revolution and was active in philanthropic and charitable causes. On May 14, 1907, for instance, she and Mrs. Franklin P. Duryea, who lived in the elaborate Ansonia Apartments, hosted “a bridge” to aid the School for Crippled Children. Reflective of the difference between West Side and East Side, many of the tenants here were movers and shakers; unafraid to break the chains of tradition or to question the status-quo.
At this same time the banker Ashton Parker was living here. His astonishingly modern views on smoking in public sound more like 2011 than 1905. Parker complained to the editor of The New York Times, calling public smoking “a nuisance” and “disagreeable to ladies.” “Why is it that smoking is forbidden in the ladies’ cabin, yet is permitted in the Wall Street ferry house, where the ladies wait for the boats?” he asked. Other early tenants were Harvard graduate Semour M. Peyser and William Robinson. The modern-thinking Robinson owned an early motorcycle which, sadly in 1906, caused him to be charged with “overspeeding on a motor bicycle.” He was released on $100 bail. Smith College alumna Nancy Elizabeth Barnhart was living here in 1915 when the women’s rights advocate won honorable mention for her submission of a poster design for the Woman Suffrage Campaign Poster Competition exhibited at the gallery of the Society of Beaux Arts Architects. Not all of the endeavors of the residents were so lofty, unfortunately. Alexander S. Timson was a 20-year old insurance broker when he lived here in 1911. On his wedding day, June 10, Detectives arrived at Red House where they arrested Timson as a jewel thief. When he was searched at the station house, police found two diamond rings set with sapphires, two diamond hatpins also set with sapphires, one diamond ring set with pearls and another diamond ring. “This is terrible. I am to be married tonight,” Timson protested. “My people, who live in this city, are wealthy, and will help me out of this trouble.” Timson’s people never showed up. Little has changed on the exterior of Red House. The windows have been replaced, as have the entrance doors and the original paint scheme for the windows has been changed to black. Yet it appears very much as it did when Lenore and Herbert Harde moved in in 1904 – what the AIA Guide to New York City calls “a romantic six-story masterpiece.”
IN HONOR OF GLASS ART, THE PHOTO IS FROM STEUBEN GLASS, THE GAZELLE BOWL. SEE MONDAY’S EDITION LAURA HUSSEY& ED LITCHER GOT IT!!!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
WIKIPEDIA FRIENDS OF UPPER EAST SIDE A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN NY TIMES/CHRISTOPHER GRAY
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Sargent, Whistler, Venetian Glass: American Artists and the Magic of Murano
The Smithsonian Museums are open again or opening very soon. Now you can visit in person the artworks that we have featured the last year.
Most of the artworks in the is issue will be featured in the upcoming exhibition.
Pack your bags, get the Amtrak ticket and off to D.C.
OCTOBER 8, 2021 — MAY 8, 2022
Smithsonian American Art Museum (8th and G Streets, NW)
Experience the spectacle of Venice and its rich history as a glassmaking capital through Sargent, Whistler, and Venetian Glass: American Artists and the Magic of Murano. The exhibition is the first comprehensive examination of the American Grand Tour to Venice in the late nineteenth century, revealing the glass furnaces and their new creative boom as a vibrant facet of the city’s allure.
Though the Venetian island of Murano has been a leading center of glass-making since the middle ages, today’s thriving industry stems from a burst in production between 1860 and 1915. In this era, Murano glassmakers began specializing in delicate and complex hand-blown vessels, dazzling the world with brilliant colors and virtuoso sculptural flourishes. This glass revival coincided with a surge in Venice’s popularity as a destination for tourists, leading to frequent depictions of Italian glassmakers and glass objects by artists from abroad. American painters and their patrons visited the glass furnaces, and many collected ornate goblets and vases decorated with flowers, dragons, and sea creatures. Venetian glass vessels, and also glass mosaics, quickly became more than souvenirs—these were esteemed as museum-quality works of fine art.
Moreover, the inventions of Murano’s master glassmakers established Venice as a center for artistic experimentation. Sojourns in Venice were turning points for John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, and scores of artists who followed in their footsteps, often referencing the glass industry in their works. Featuring more than 150 objects, this exhibition presents a choice selection of glass vessels in conversation with paintings, watercolors, and prints by the many talented American artists who found inspiration in Venice. This juxtaposition reveals the impact of Italian glass on American art, literature, design theory, and science education, as well as ideas at the time about gender, labor, and class relations.
In addition to works by Sargent and Whistler, the exhibition features paintings and prints by Frank Duveneck, Thomas Moran, William Merritt Chase, Maurice Prendergast, Maxfield Parrish, Louise Cox, and Ellen Day Hale. These are featured alongside rarely seen Venetian glass mosaic portraits and glass cups, vases, and urns by the leading glassmakers of Murano, including members of the legendary Seguso, Barovier, and Moretti families. Remarkable works from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection join loans from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and dozens of other distinguished public and private collections.
For Sargent, Whistler, and many of their patrons, Venetian glassware was irresistibly beautiful, and collecting these exquisite vessels expressed respect for both history and innovation. By recreating their transatlantic journey—from the furnaces of Murano to American parlors and museums—this exhibition and catalogue will bring to life the creative energy that beckoned nineteenth-century tourists and artists to Venice. This spirit spawned the renowned Venice Biennale contemporary art festival, and it lives on in Venetian glassmakers’ continued commitment to excellence.
The exhibition is organized by Crawford Alexander Mann III, curator of prints and drawings at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Unidentified, Unidentified (Murano, Venice, Italy), Goblet with Striped Bowl, 1890s-1910s, blown, enameled, and applied hot-worked glass, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.8.469.8
Robert Frederick Blum, Canal in Venice, San Trovaso Quarter, ca. 1885, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William T. Evans, 1909.7.7
In this piece, Robert Blum positioned the viewer as though he were looking down a narrow Venetian canal from a boat on the water. The view shows the Rio Ogni Santi (River of All Saints), in the San Trovaso Quarter, where Blum lived for a time. He spent many summers and winters in Venice, and his sketches, pastels, and paintings capture the city’s bright colors and hodgepodge of buildings. In the center of the waterway a man steers a sandolo, which is a smaller, lighter version of a gondola.
Miner Kilbourne Kellogg, Venice, 1843, ink and watercolor on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Martha F. Butler, 1991.56.130
Everett Warner, Venice, 1904, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. James M. Fetherolf, 1966.10.2
Cass Gilbert, Venice, 1933, watercolor and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Emily Finch Gilbert through Julia Post Bastedo, executor, 1962.13.71
Mabel Pugh, St. Mark’s, Venice, ca. 1923-1926, linoleum cut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the North Carolina Museum of Art (Gift of the artist, 1977), 2020.4.12
VASE WITH DOLPHINS AND FLOWERS
americanart.si.edu/artwork/vase-dolphins-and-flowers-31068 ca. 1880s-1890s, blown and applied hot-worked glass, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.8.469.
Unveiled in July 2018, Spot the Dog is a 38-foot-tall statue of a Dalmatian puppy balancing a real New York City yellow cab precariously on its nose. The dog has a playful grin and golden toenails (Spot is a she). The taxi cab is wired so that its headlights illuminate Spot when it gets dark. When it rains, the cab’s wipers turn on.
Spot’s artist, Donald Lipski, wanted to create a playful sculpture because it stands at the entrance to a children’s hospital, and the hospital’s principal donors are the Hassenfeld family, who founded the Hasbro toy company. Also, Lipski lives in the neighborhood, so he wanted to make an artwork that he’d be happy to see every day.
Lipski has assured everyone that despite appearances, the front license plate of the taxi is securely attached to Spot’s nose.
ED LITCHER, CLARA BELLA, NINA LUBLIN, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, JAYJACOBSON, VERN HARWOOD, VICKI FEINMEL AND LUAR HUSSEY GOT IT RIGHT.
OUR NEXT RIHS/NYPL ZOOM PROGRAM
Tuesday, May 18 “Saving America’s Cities” Author and Harvard History Professor Lizabeth Cohen provides an eye-opening look at her award-winning book’s subtitle: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age. Tracing Logue’s career from the development of Roosevelt Island in the ‘70s, to the redevelopment of New Haven in the ‘50s, Boston in the’60s and the South Bronx from 1978–85, she focuses on Logue’s vision to revitalize post-war cities, the rise of the Urban Development Corporation, and the world of city planning. Watch this site for registration information.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Psychopathic Building, Bellevue and Allied Hospitals, architects’ rendering, 1927. Department of Public Charities and Hospitals Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Manhattan Block 958. Bromley Atlas, 1955. New York Public Library.
The Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital, as it was called at the time, was built in 1931 by Charles B. Meyers in the Italian Renaissance style. The building is still standing alongside the East River on First Avenue between 29th and 30th Streets, occupying an entire city block. When constructed, it joined the growing Bellevue hospital complex, and was intended to match the existing buildings, which were designed by architects McKim, Mead & White – same color brick, embellished with granite base course, limestone and terra cotta trimmings. By then, McKim, Mead & White was barely active; Meyers had just designed the Tammany Hall building and was a favorite of then-Mayor Jimmy Walker.
Prior to its construction, Bellevue’s mental-health facilities were part of the main hospital and included an 1879 “pavilion for the insane,” and an alcoholic ward was added in 1892. Dr. Menas Gregory, a well-known psychiatrist who spent his career working in Bellevue’s psychiatric division, is credited with the idea for a psychiatric building after a trip to inspect similar institutions in Europe – a “Temple of Mental Health,” as he called it.
Wanting to create a very clean and stately environment for the new hospital was right on brand for Dr. Gregory. In his position, he had already changed the terminology – preferring “psychopathic” to the word “insane,” thinking this would help make the patients seem curable. He had also removed the iron bars from the old pavilion’s windows and had lessened the use of narcotics and physical restraints on the patients. Dr. Gregory was seen as a good guy in the field, at a time when most medical professionals were largely ignorant about mental illness.
Psychopathic Hospital, Department of Hospitals, Charles B. Meyers, elevation, 1929, blueprint. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Before the hospital was built, The New York Times said it would be “one of the finest hospitals in the world for the treatment of mental disorders” and “thoroughly modern” at a cost of $3,000,000. (Unsurprisingly, by the time it was finished, the cost would be $4,300,000 ($66,000,000 today). It was designed as a single building with three separate units: 1) 10-stories to house administrative services, doctors’ offices, labs and a library; 2) 8-stories, for mild cases; 3) 8-stories, for more advanced cases. There were facilities for recreation and occupational therapy; physio-, electro- and hydro-therapy; an out-patient clinic; teaching facilities for medical students, and a special research clinic for the study and treatment of delinquency, crime and behavior problems, in collaboration with the Department of Correction, Criminal Courts and Probation Bureau.
Bellevue Hospital complex with new psychopathic building at right, October 31, 1934. Borough President Manhattan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Rooms were designed to house either one, two or three patients at a time. In a Mental Hygiene Bulletin, it was written that “special consideration has been given in the plans to incorporate within the building the appearance and aspect of home or normal living conditions with simple decorations and color tones believed to have the most soothing effect upon the patient.” One hundred of the six hundred beds were dedicated for the study and treatment of children, under the supervision of the Department of Education.
Completing the building was nothing short of dramatic and filled with accusations of corruption and mismanagement. Its lavish exterior juxtaposed against the great depression couldn’t have been more tone deaf to the city’s residents. When ground was broken on June 18, 1930, it was thought the building would be completed at the end of 1931. Almost a year later, in February 1931, the cornerstone was just being laid. Delays were plentiful. It reportedly took a year to choose the architect and another year to draw the plans, and then, according to the Acting Commissioner of Hospitals, “after the contractor had collected all the funds he could get, he left for Europe.”
Psychopathic Hospital, Department of Hospitals, Charles B. Meyers, first floor plan, 1929, blueprint. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital, Manhattan Block 958, Lot 1, 1940. Tax Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
The hospital partially opened in May 1933 with the 600-bed facility only ready for 375 patients. A formal dedication occurred later that year in November, where tribute was paid to Dr. Gregory for his vision. Dr. Gregory resigned from his post in 1934, amid an investigation of his division by the Commissioner of Hospitals, Dr. S. S. Goldwater. This formed a spectacular tit-for-tat-type relationship between Dr. Gregory and Dr. Goldwater, which The New York Times covered extensively. Dr. Gregory died in 1941.
Over the years, the building went from temple of health to a scary place you didn’t want to go, and was the subject of many films, novels and exposes. The hospital saw many celebrity patients. Norman Mailer was sent there after stabbing his wife in a drunken rage. William Burroughs after he chopped off his own finger to impress someone. Eugene O’Neill had several stays in the alcoholic ward. Sylvia Plath came after a nervous breakdown. And infamous criminals like George Metesky the “Mad Bomber,” and John Lennon’s assassin, Mark David Chapman, were briefly committed to the hospital.
In 1984, the city began transitioning the building into a homeless shelter and intake center, but much of it was left empty. Around 2008, a proposal to turn the building into a hotel surfaced. To developers, the building was naturally suited to such a use, given the H-shaped layout with long hallways and small rooms.
July 20, 1934 Dr. Goldwater was the Hospital Commissioner under Mayor La Guardia
Unfortunately this building is a sad eyesore now as a neglected and homeless shelter. It is the shelter of last resort and many attempts to renovate it have not come to fruition.
ED LITCHER, ARON EISENPREISS, GLORIA HERMAN, NINA LUBLIN, NINA LUBLIN AND LAURA HUSSEY ALL GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
