By the second half of the 19th Century the need for a larger, more secure hall of records was evident. The population of Manhattan had grown from 61,000 in 1800 to 942,000 in 1870. Necessarily, as the population burgeoned so did the amount of paper records to be archived. In 1888 the Sinking Fund Commission was formed to erect the new facility.
Concurrently, a plan to demolish the elegant 1803 City Hall was initiated and John R. Thomas won the commission for its replacement with an exuberant Beaux Arts design. Thomas was a prolific architect credited with designing more public and semi-public buildings than any other designer in the country, including armories, the old Stock Exchange and more than 150 churches.
Public outcry against the demolition of City Hall was immediate and strong. Subsequently the State Legislature voted down a new City Hall and, as compensation, the commission for the new Hall of Records was given to Thomas.
It would be nearly a decade before the city obtained the land for the new building. The Board of Estimate and Apportionment met on December 16, 1897 to award the building contract to John Pierce, who had bid $1,997,900. The board estimated the total cost to be $2.2 million.
By the time the building was finally completed that figure would rise to $8 million.
Thomas’ plans, a gentle re-do of his City Hall design, were approved by an advisory committee of William E. Ware of Columbia University’s Architectural School, noted architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler, and Metropolitan Museum trustee Henry G. Marquand. It was a grand French Beaux Arts building in keeping with the new City Beautiful Movement.
The theory of the movement held that monumental and classical buildings would not only beautify the urban area, but citizens who were surrounded by civilized structures would behave in a civilized manner. Thomas’ Hall of Records would be monumental beyond imagination.
A lavish mansarded giant constructed of granite from Hallowell, Maine (the same quarry used for the stone of the State Capitol building), it would be embellished with sculptures on three levels. Groupings closest to street level would depict “various races and nations,” the second tier would be portraiture of distinguished city fathers, while the uppermost sculptures would be allegorical.
Photo New York Citywide Administrative Services
As sumptuous as his exterior design would be, the interior was doubly-so. Opulence was created with yellow Siena marble, mahogany woodwork, and an intricate arched mosaic ceiling in an Egyptian motif. White marble sculptural groupings of “The Consolidation of Greater New York” and “Recording the Purchase of Manhattan Island” would sit above the east and west doorways.
The inlaid foyer floor would be of pink Tennessee and Blue Beige marble, illuminated by a bronze chandelier and wall sconces; even the radiator covers would be bronze , topped by spread eagles atop globes.
If the visitor was struck by the foyer, he would be awed by the lobby where a grand baroque split staircase rose two floors to a balustraded level. A century later, author Bill Harris in his “One Thousand New York Buildings” said “Want to see the Paris Opera? Step into the lobby right here.” Thomas’ interior design was one of lavish theatricality.
Ground breaking did not occur until 1899 and the cornerstone was laid in April 13, 1901. Shortly thereafter, on August 28, John R. Thomas died unexpectedly. Reaction on the part of the new Tammany-backed Mayor Robert A. Van Wyck was immediate.
He gave the job of completing the project to architects Horgan & Slattery, also connected to Tammany Hall. The firm recommended various alterations to the plan, which The New York Times grumbled was “horganizing and slatterifying” the design.
On April 28, 1902 the first of the eight mammoth granite columns was hoisted into position. Carved in a single piece, it was 36 feet high, 4 feet two inches in diameter and weighed 41 tons. Transporting the monolith from Pier 1 took a team of 21 horses.
Construction dragged on for eight years during which time the grandiose plans for the 54 separate sculptures threatened the completion deadline. The Fine Arts Association and then the Municipal Art Society gave their opinions, chiming in on materials (bronze, marble or granite) and subject matter. “The material used is of the greatest importance, very naturally,” reported The Times. “Marble will weather, and is easily broken, but granite also is not proof against the folly and malice of boys and degenerates, of fanatics and drunken men. Bronze will stand the wear and tear of the crowds who will pass the Hall of Records, and will always contain a sprinkling of those imbeciles who knock off a finger or toe in sport or to keep as a souvenir.”
Thomas had given the commissions to two sculptors only, H. K. Bush-Brown for the roof sculptures and Philip Martiny for the rest; far too much work for the allotted time. Martiny did his work at the Hallowell, Maine quarry where the stone for rest of the building was cut. As work progressed, delays were caused when his plaster casts for the statue of former Mayor Hewitt were rejected four times. Finally on December 8, 1905 the finished 12-foot, four ton statue was completed and prepared for hoisting into place on the cornice at the sixth floor. When the sculpture was about two and a half feet from the cornice, the main boom of the rigging snapped, sending the statue plummeting to the sidewalk where it smashed.
Luckily, because of the long construction process, a new mayor took over and most of the changes to Thomas’ original design were reversed. Nevertheless, as city workers began moving in to their offices in 1906 they were shocked to find that the gray and white marble on the upper floors was actually plaster.
The Times explained “The presence of the plaster where the marble ought to be is explained by the fact that the hall was planned in one administration, replanned in another, and finally planned in a third.” No graft was involved, the newspaper said. Nevertheless, “…the imitation work is very poorly done indeed, and, though the hall has been opened but a few weeks, is already beginning to show signs of wear.”
Amid the controversy, Horgan & Slattery publically admitted the substitution of materials was a mistake. In 1961 when Centre Street was widened, the two sculptures flanking the entrance were removed to the front of the New York County Courthouse at 60 Centre Street. A year later the Hall of Records was renamed The Surrogate’s Courthouse.
UPDATE
Recent restoration of the interior lobby has brought the brilliance back to the building.
(How many LAW & ORDER scenes were filmed here?)
Now that we told you of this building, the good and bad news is that the Municipal Archives are moving to a new facility in Industry City in Brooklyn. For decades the Archives have been crammed into unsuitable space at 31 Chambers Street. Soon a new research center will be open across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Our red garbage can is guarding the tulips in the RIHS Garden. These $2200- cans have served us well and outlasted their predecessors. NINA LUBLIN, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, GLORIA HERMAN, JAY JACOBSON, JINNY EWALD, JOAN BROOKS, VICKI FEINMEL 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
A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN NYC MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES/ DEPARTMENT OF RECORDS
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Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania operating amphitheater, 1915. ALL PHOTOS: LEGACY CENTER ARCHIVES, DREXEL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MEDICINE, PHILADELPHIA.
In early November 1869, Anna Broomall, a student at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP), received a note. It had made the rounds among her male counterparts at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School before a clinical lecture at Pennsylvania Hospital. For the first time, WMCP students were to attend this lecture, which was an essential, hands-on experience for medical students. The message on the slip of paper was significant enough that Broomall kept it for more than 50 years: “Go tomorrow to the hospital to see the She Doctors!”
On Saturday, November 6, Broomall recalled, she arrived at the lecture along with 19 other young women. What happened next became known as the “Jeering Incident.”
“When we turned up at the clinic, in what was then the new amphitheater, pandemonium broke loose,” Broomall said in a later interview. “The students rushed in pell-mell, stood up in the seats, hooted, called us names and threw spitballs, trying in vain to dislodge us.” Joanne Murray, Historian and Director at the Drexel University Legacy Center Archives and Special Collections, describes another account: “The men greeted the women students with yells, hisses, caterwauling, mock applause, offensive remarks on personal appearance, etc.”
The incident caught the attention of the press. “Newspaper articles about this incident nearly uniformly condemned the men for ‘ungentlemanly’ behavior,” says Murray. The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin called for expulsions and arrests of men who continued to harass the students in the streets. The public reproach wasn’t universal, however. A very different view came from a letter to the editor of the New Republic newspaper: “Who is this shameless herd of sexless beings who dishonor the garb of ladies?”
Alice Evan’s scrapbook with dissection images, c. 1898.
At a time of strictly observed gender roles, it was very rare for a woman to seek a medical education. In 1849—a year before WMCP opened—Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in America to earn a medical degree, from New York’s Geneva Medical College. Her initial application was subject to a vote by the all-male student body. Assuming that it was a joke, they all voted “yes.”
But Joseph S. Longshore had a different view. A Quaker, abolitionist, and physician, Longshore was a fervent believer in the importance of women’s education. Along with other physicians and businessmen*, he cofounded WMCP, and its first class included his sister Anna and sister-in-law Hannah. “That the exercise of the healing art, should be monopolized solely by the male practitioner … can neither be sanctioned by humanity, justified by reason, [nor] approved by ordinary intelligence,” he declared at the College’s introductory lecture.
WMCP opened in 1850, the first medical college for women. The idea of female physicians was welcomed by some, shunned by others. An editorial from the Boston Journal sniffed, “We consider the needle a much more appropriate weapon in the hands of woman than the scalpel or bistoury [curved surgical knife].” A Michigan newspaper took a more condescending approach: “We give our vote for a lady physician here—especially if a single lady, and therefore capable of administering a remedy for any disease of the heart that may occur.” Some male doctors argued in favor of separate terminology: Doctoress.
Despite the Jeering Incident, WMCP students continued to attend clinical lectures. They also participated in another essential aspect of medical training. “Women students learned through dissecting human cadavers as well, which of course was and is considered a rite of passage for medical students” says Murray. “But in the 19th century it was seen as a practice that women should not be undertaking. But the students generally valued the experience and even boasted about it to friends and family.” One student, Alice Evans, created a scrapbook with a page devoted to photographs of students mid-dissection.
Students with skeletons, c. 1895.
Students at WMCP also worked with patients. They received clinical instruction at the Woman’s Hospital of Philadelphia after it was founded in 1861 (until that point, women had been barred from most hospital training). “A maternity practice gave students hands-on experience as they served an often-impoverished immigrant community in South Philadelphia,” says Murray. “They also learned at affiliated dispensaries, treating ailments such as measles, typhoid fever, and tuberculosis.”
The WMCP records are held today at the Legacy Center Archives at Drexel University. In 2002, Drexel absorbed the MCP Hahnemann University School of Medicine, which itself was once two medical schools: Hahnemann University and Medical College of Pennsylvania, the new name for WMCP after it became coeducational in 1970.
Combing through the Drexel Archives—either online or through its Twitter account—is a glimpse into a world that is both familiar and surprising. Students lounge in dorms and take notes in a lecture hall. But they also goof around with a skeleton, while others, in constrictive Victorian attire, prod at a brain on a table. “Photographs of women in 19th-century garb, complete with mutton chop sleeves and floor-length dresses, standing with their cadavers, can seem out of sync,” Murray says.
International students Anandabai Joshee, Kei Okami, and Tabat Islambooly, photographed at the Dean’s Reception on October 10, 1885.
Even as many images seem to be mundane slices of medical school life, there are some particularly striking photos. “The 1885 photograph of three foreign women medical students dressed in the traditional style of their home countries is an image that surprises people all over the world,” says Murray. “It’s unusual enough to see photographs of 19th-century women doctors, but seeing a visual representation of the fact that women came to WMCP from foreign countries at that time is generally fairly shocking to most.”
The women in the photograph are Anandabai Joshee, who graduated in 1886, the first woman from India to earn a medical degree in America; Kei Okami, class of 1889, one of the first female physicians in Japan; and Tabat M. Islambooly, one of Syria’s first female doctors, who graduated in 1890. (She is also known as Sabat Islambouli, but very little else is known about her). A 1904 newspaper reported that WMCP’s alumnae include women from “Canada … Jamaica, Brazil, England, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Russia, Syria, India, China, Japan, Burmah, Australia, and the Congo Free State.”
Another notable image shows the class of 1891. At the far right is Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson, an African-American student from Pittsburgh. She graduated WMCP with honors, and became the first woman to practice medicine in Alabama—but only after passing the 10-day Alabama State medical exam, described by The New York Times as “unusually severe.”
The first African-American student to matriculate at WMCP was educator and abolitionist Sarah Mapps Douglass, who enrolled in 1853. “She did not graduate, but she used her medical education to offer lectures and evening classes in hygiene and physiology to other African-American women,” says Murray. In 1867, Rebecca J. Cole graduated WMCP, and became the second African-American woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. (The first was Rebecca Crumpler, who graduated from the New England Female Medical College in 1864).
Marie Curie and WMCP Dean Martha Tracy, 1920.
Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson, an African-American student from Pittsburgh. graduated WMCP with honors, and became the first woman to practice medicine in Alabama—but only after passing the 10-day Alabama State medical exam, described byThe New York Times as “unusually severe.”
The first African-American student to matriculate at WMCP was educator and abolitionist Sarah Mapps Douglass, who enrolled in 1853. “She did not graduate, but she used her medical education to offer lectures and evening classes in hygiene and physiology to other African-American women,” says Murray. In 1867, Rebecca J. Cole graduated WMCP, and became the second African-American woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. (The first was Rebecca Crumpler, who graduated from the New England Female Medical College in 1864).
There were more milestones to come. In 1888 Verina M. Harris Morton Jones became the first woman physician in Mississippi. Eliza Ann Grier was an emancipated slave who put herself through medical school to become, in 1897, the first African-American woman licensed to practice in Georgia, and Matilda Evans, graduate of 1897, was the first African-American woman doctor in South Carolina.
Susan La Flesche Picotte was another pioneering WCMP graduate. Born on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska, she saw, as a child, a woman die while waiting for a white doctor who never arrived. La Flesche Picotte graduated at the top of her class in 1889. She became the country’s first Native American doctor and returned to the Omaha Reservation to work.
The extraordinary achievements of these women occurred at a time of widespread racial and gender discrimination. Under the law at the time, La Flesche Picotte was not regarded as a citizen (and would not be until 1924). Not one of these women was able to vote.
As WMCP expanded, so did its influence. In 1920, Marie Curie visited the campus and met with Dean Martha Tracy. “The photograph of the Dean and Madam Curie underscores the growing work of women in science and medicine and the support women leaders found in others like them,” says Murray.
Last year, in 2017, for the first time, the number of women enrolling in medical school in the United States exceeded the number of men. Earlier in 2017, a New Yorker magazine cover depicting four female surgeons went viral and was replicated by female surgeons around the world with the hashtag #Ilooklikeasurgeon. Yet, despite the increased acceptance and visibility of women in medicine, there is still considerable wage inequality for women and minority doctors.
If we have moved from a place of jeering to a place of celebration, we can be thankful to the 19th-century women who first challenged the status quo. Recalling the harassment at that first clinical lecture, Broomall, who became a professor of obstetrics at WMCP, noted, “We went back. The disorder was renewed, but with diminishing violence, and at last the opposition wore itself out.”
A SPECIAL GRADUATE
GLORIA O. SCHRAGER, MD
Dr. Schrager was a graduate who did her residency in Surgery at Metropolitan Hospital, where she met her hsband, from 1948-1951. She is retired and lives in New Jersey, Her biography is Medicine, Matzo Balls and Motherhood.
VICKI FEINMEL, GLORIA HERMAN, NINA LUBLIN, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, NANCY BROWN AND VERN HARWOOD ALL GUESSED THAT THIS THE EAST SEAWALL CONSTRUCTION SITE.
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
ATLAS OBSCURA
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
This treasured piece of medical history still exists next to the former Roosevelt Hospital, now Mount Sinai West.
Syms Operating Theatre, Coutesy of the Museum of the City of New York
When the immensely wealthy James Henry Roosevelt died in 1863, he left $1 million to establish a hospital “for the reception and relief of sick and diseased persons.” It was a staggering amount of money.
The new Roosevelt Hospital purchased its building site in 1866 between 9th and 10th Avenues, from 58th to 59th Streets, well north of the established city. In this sparsely-developed area land was much more affordable.
As plans for the new hospital were discussed, the trustees opted for the “pavilion plan” that had been devised in France. The concept was to inhibit the growth and spread of infection and disease by reducing stale air and dirt. It was believed that proper ventilation and ample sunlight would disperse the harmful elements.
Therefore small hospital buildings, or pavilions, rather than a single bulky edifice were considered more scientifically healthful. By 1872 three pavilions, all in the Victorian Gothic style and designed by Carl Pfeiffer, had been completed.
Fate would change the future of Roosevelt Hospital when multimillionaire William J. Syms became ill.
Syms was an iconic 19th century tycoon who increased his fortune with every new enterprise. Spreading his interests among diverse industries, he founded both the Metropolitan Gas Company and the Forty-second and Grand Street Railroad Company. He was President of the Franklin Telegraph Company, Vice-President of the Atlantic And Pacific Telegraph Company and a partner in the largest gun maker and dealer in New York, Blunt & Syms. Syms, his wife Catherine and their adopted daughter, Frances Mary, lived in a mansion at 477 Fifth Avenue.
Dr. Charles McBurney was “attending surgeon” at Roosevelt Hospital at the time and treated Syms who was more than happy to recover. In payment for the doctor’s $300 bill, the millionaire sent back a check for $3000, which Dr. McBurney promptly returned. But Syms never forgot.
William J. Syms died in 1889 and on April 19 his will was probated. The New York Times reported that “the Roosevelt Hospital will receive $350,000. Of that amount $250,000 is to be used in the erection of a surgical operating theatre, at the easterly end of the lot on which the hospital stands. The theatre is to be under the direction of Dr. Charles McBurney, and to be called the ‘William J. Syms Operating Theatre of Roosevelt Hospital.’ The remaining $100,000 is to be invested and the income applied to the expenses of the operating theatre.”
The gift was not totally humanitarian. Syms wanted the building to be “an enduring monument to himself” as well as of “great service to suffering humanity,” according to Harper’s Weekly
. Architect William Wheeler Smith was given the commission for the new structure. By November 2, 1890 work was well underway. The New York Times announced “The nearest approach to perfection in all that goes to bring about the results attainable by modern surgery will be made with the completion of the Syms Operating Theatre, upon which work is being rapidly pushed at Fifty-ninth Street and Ninth Avenue.”
The reason the operating theatre would be near to perfection, said the newspaper, was that “Dr. McBurney spent much time in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, filled with original ideas and anxious to glean the latest improvements in these surgical centres of the Old World.”
McBurney consulted with the architect and after three unsuccessful drafts, Smith came up with plans “that combined all the necessary features and were within the estimate.” To keep within “the estimate,” Smith had to forego any over-the-top architectural embellishment.
“All style and architectural feelings were sacrificed to the scientific demands, but the building, nevertheless, will be an ornament to its neighborhood,” said The Times.
The Syms building was separate from the main hospital. Image Mt. Sinai Archives
Smith’s design called for a rather bulky, understated red Haverstraw brick Romanesque Revival structure three stories tall over a basement, with a tall, conical glass skylight. A four-foot dry moat surrounded the structure, assuring light, air and drainage.
To ensure cleanliness the floors were to be mosaic, “these being absolutely impervious;” and the walls were either marble-clad or of hard plaster. The ground-breaking design included facilities for preparing patients and disinfecting them, the doctors and the instruments after operations.
The operating arena was clad in Italian marble and could accommodate 184 students. The glass dome, 40 feet above the floor, provided natural lighting. There was no wood–a potential harbor for germs– used in any section of the amphitheater.
The ultra-modern facility would include etherizing rooms, examination rooms, rooms for septic cases, rooms for quarantining dangerous cases, photographic rooms, a microscope room, instrument room, preparatory laboratory, and a room for preparing surgical dressings and bandages. The Times noted “Arrangements for the ventilation of the building will be elaborate and most complete.”
And then came the contesting of the will.
In March 1891, with construction well underway, Syms’ sister, Mary E. Serrell, protested that he was of unsound mind when he wrote the will and was under “undue influence.” Things ground to a halt on 10th Avenue. “When the contest of the will was started it became problematical whether the hospital would ever get the $350,000, so the work was stopped,” said The Times. The hospital had good reason to be worried. A reporter visiting that year said “The most noticeable feature of the [existing] surgical pavilion is its crowded condition. Every one of its thirty-six beds contains a patient.” But by mid-July Serrell dropped her suit and construction was restarted. It was finally completed in 1892, about six month past the expected date.Harper’s Weekly called it “The finest structure in the world for surgical operations.” As instructed by Sym’s will, Dr. McBurney headed the new surgical theater and, as the years progressed, the doctor’s reputation in the medical professional grew. Here he developed processes to perform appendectomies, he identified the “McBurney’s point,” a focused site of tenderness and, in 1894, developed the muscle-splitting incision access. It was McBurney who first used the term appendicitis and, contrary to contemporary practice, urged the early removal of the appendix. The Syms Operating Theater was still a world-renowned facility when, in 1909, 100 surgeons from foreign warships visited to observe about a dozen emergency operations performed under the direction of the then-head surgeon, Dr. George E. Brewer. As the 20th century progressed, however, the importance of the building would wane. Although the Syms Theater received a facelift in 1934, it was upstaged in 1941 when a new Private Patients Pavilion was built with new, modern surgical areas. The Syms was used as a blood bank and mortuary for six years, then in 1948 became a temporary emergency room. Things got worse for the old building in 1953. When the new Tower Building was built behind, over 17 feet of the rear of the building were removed to make way. Portions of the conical skylights were covered with copper and the interiors were gutted to provide space for the Department of Pathology.
Although the hospital repeatedly threatened to demolish the old Syms Operating Theatre, it never got around to it and in 1979 the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated it a landmark. Shortly thereafter the hospital sold the east end of the block to developers. The stocky little building became the focal point for two 49-story luxury apartment buildings. Restoration architect Walter Sedovich was hired who repaired the central skylight, original ground floor windows and the great red oak entrance doors. Salvage yards were searched to find just the right vintage bricks to replace lost or damaged ones. In the meantime, architect Robert Crane, working on the two new structures, relied on the Syms building as his design theme. Granite courses, curved bricks and other detailing echo the architectural feeling of the operating theater. After narrowly escaping demolition, the future of The William J. Syms Operating Theater which was on the cutting edge of science and medicine when designed is now secure.
Octagon Residents enjoyed a tour of the south end today, courtesy of Bozzuto Management and the RIHS. Lots of fun on a wonderful spring day for neighbors to meet each other. The RIHS can arrange a special tour for your group.
THE CHERRY TREES IN FULL BLOOM THROUGH THE WINDOW OF THE RIHS VISITOR CENTER
THOM HEYR, CLARA BELLA, ARON EISENPRESS, HARA REISER, GLORIA HRMAN, VICKI FEINMEL, 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 Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources: A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN MT.SINAI ARCHIVES MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Will Barnet, Woman and Cats, 1962, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Harry W. Zichterman in memory of Joshua C. Taylor, 1981.140
Will Barnet, Silent Seasons–Winter, 1968, color lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Atelier Mourlot Ltd., 1969.2.28
Will Barnet, Study for Three Muses, ca. 1980-1985, charcoal and oil stick on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1994.42.6
Will Barnet, The Blue Thread, 1984, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Frank K. Ribelin and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 1996.72
Will Barnet has painted several images of mothers and children that capture intimate scenes of family life. In The Blue Thread, the verticals and horizontals of the windows, table, and chair divide the painting into neat rectangles, and Barnet positioned his daughter, her son, and the family cat so that they evoke figures from an Egyptian wall painting. The subdued tones and stylized poses transform a fleeting moment in his household into an image that feels timeless.
Will Barnet, Big Grey, 1962, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Given in memory of Peter Deitsch, 1974.67
Will Barnet, Big Grey, 1962, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Given in memory of Peter Deitsch, 1974.67
Will Barnet, Woman and Cat, 1979, charcoal on vellum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1994.42.8
Will Barnet, Janus and the White Vertebra, 1955, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. Wreatham E. Gathright, 1986.73
ALEXIS VILLEFANE, THOM HEYER AND VICKI FEINMEL GOT IT
Happy Birthday Judith Berdy!
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
Sources SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
On March 8, 2010 the two old cabins were moved from the Tram Station to Motorgate to suffer 11 years of indignity under the auspices of non-functional RIOC.
THE ART DECO LAMP OUTSIDE GOLDWATER
UNCEREMONIOUSLY LEFT IN BACK OF COLER INSTEAD OF BEING RE-USED
IGNORING THE OBVIOUS
THE PAVING AROUND BLACKWELL HOUSE HAS BEEN IN HAZARDOUS CONDITION FOR YEARS. MAYBE, SINCE PRESIDENT HAYNES HAS MOVED INTO THE HOUSE, THE PAVING WILL BE REPAIRED.
PLUS
OPENING ON JULY 17TH (IN CASE RIOC DOES NOT INVITE YOU) THE LONG AWAITED MEREDITH BERGMANN SCULPTURES WILL BE DEDICATED,
RECYCLE
A LEXUS TRAVELING AT ABOUT 80 MPH HIT THE LAMPPOST AND A BIKE RACK AT THE EAST ENTRY TO SOUTHPOINT PARK. LET’S MAKE THE DAMAGED POST INTO A FOUND OBJECT IN THE PARK.
WHAT IS THE FATE?
IN 2008 A RIOC STAFF MEMBER DISCOVERED THESE CARVED STONES IN SOUTHPOINT PARK. THE RIHS WANTS THEM TO BE PART OF THE NEW EAST PROMENADE IN THE PARK. NO WORD FROM RIOC. WE DO NOT KNOW WHO T. BURNS WAS,BUT THIS IS A COMMEMORATION OF ALL WHO WERE HERE BEFORE US.
OUR TREES
OUR MOST ENDANGERED TREES
THESE WONDERFUL TREES ARE IN FULL BLOOM. RIOC DECIDED THEY ARE “DISEASED” SO THEY CAN BE REMOVED TO BE REPLACED BY A BIKE HELIX.
JOYOUS CHEERFULNESS
THE WONDERFUL WINDOW DISPLAYS IN THE NEW MSTDA SPACE FOR TOT PROGRAMS. THANKS KRISTI AND KARINE FOR CHEERING UP MAIN STREET.
WILDLIFE FREEDOM FOUNDATION
CATS, POSSUMS, SQUIRRELS, GEESE, DUCKS, AND ALL OTHER CREATURES EXIST BETTER THAN HUMAN DO!
JUDY-TORIAL
I walk around the island and grumble at some sites. We were discussing our lives here over 40+ years. We have lost so much of the shine over the years. Newcomers do not know that we had a strong community spirit that has faded over the years.
I remember so many small amenities and events that have just gone away. I feel that after the pandemic even more of our events will vanish.
Do you remember the Good Shepherd Fall Fair with Mrs. Chapin serving up home-made soups for a wonderful fall fair event.
Do you remember the RIJC bazaar in the Thrift Shop?
Do you remember Sister Regina helping all, no questions asked and an active CYO
Do you remember Geof Carr and the Boy Scouts selling and hauling home your Christmas tree?
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
Emma Fordyce Macrae, Lady in Red (New York, New York, 1887 – 1974)
From the GRATZ GALLERY
Born in Vienna, Austria and raised in New York City where she remained based for her lifetime, Emma Fordyce MacRae was part of The Philadelphia Ten group.
An exhibiting member of the group from 1937 to 1945, MacRae summered in Gloucester, where she made acquaintance with Philadelphia Ten women. She befriended and regularly socialized with M. Elizabeth Price and Lucille Howard in the late 1920s and 1930s. MacRae studied under Impressionist Robert Reid and at the Art Students League with Kenneth Hayes Miller, Impressionist Frank Vincent DuMond, Symbolist Luis Mora and Ernest Blumenschein.
Best known for her paintings of floral compositions set against textures of interior backgrounds, she was also critically praised for her figurative compositions. Her work demonstrated a keen decorative sensibility. Her paintings often appear dry and chalky as a result of applying her paint sparingly and allowing the texture of the canvas to show through.
MacRae exhibited extensively in many of the most prestigious exhibition venues of her time, including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, as well as forty-one times between 1918 and 1950 at the National Academy of Design.
In 1951 she was elected as associate member of the National Academy of Design; she was the sole member of The Philadelphia Ten to achieve that great honor. MacRae painted until a few years before her death in 1974. Her later works focused on smaller-scale floral still lifes and cityscapes – especially of Central Park.
Victory Girls
By Bethesda Fountain, Central Park
SUNDAY IN THE PARK
Untitled
Elizabeth
Summer Flowers
Emma Fordyce Mac Rae works were shown at a special exhibit at the Cape Ann Museum in 2008.
Litchfield Villa, or “Grace Hill”, is an Italianate mansion built in 1854–1857 on a large private estate now located in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York City. It is located on Prospect Park West at 5th Street. The villa was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, America’s leading architect of the fashionable Italianate style for railroad and real estate developer Edwin Clark Litchfield.
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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THE COIGNET BUILDING, A SHOWCASE FOR CONCRETE IN BROOKLYN
The restored Coignet Building stands proudly awaiting a new tenant
Before the Whole Foods in Gowanus was built, a handsome building stood alone, left over from the bustling concrete industry that came before. But more than just another pretty Neoclassical building, the Coignet Building was actually a showcase for a new material, known today as concrete, that took the building industry by storm in the 19th century. Moulded concrete, or beton-coignet as it was called in France, was patented by French industrialist François Coignet and consisted of a mix of sand, lime and cement. Beton concrete was showcased to much acclaim at the 1867 Exposition Universelle de Paris.
Though many people were experimenting with similar mixes, Coignet made it possible to mass produce large pieces of concrete and pioneered the use of iron reinforcements. Coignet’s particular mix, perfected through many tests, was found to be particularly durable, adaptable and affordable. The material could be molded instead of painstakingly shaped with chisels and cutting tools. A cement wash could be applied to color the concrete, giving it the appearance of granite, brownstone or whatever was desired.
Etching of the Coignet Stone Company Building shortly after it was constructed. Image via the Victorian Artificial Stone and Plaster Company
The Coignet Building, completed in 1873, was once part of a five acre factory along the Gowanus Canal operated by the New York and Long Island Coignet Stone Company. Designed by William Field and Son (which also did the Tower Buildings in Cobble Hill), the building functioned as both an office and a prototype, much like the New York Terra-Cotta Company building that still stands beneath the Queensboro Bridge . The detailing on the exterior referenced numerous architectural styles popular at the time, in order to show the possibilities of the material. The building was landmarked in 2006 by the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the designation report calls it “the earliest known concrete building in New York City.”
For many years, the Coignet Building was covered in a faux-brick, which concealed the concrete facade. The building was renovated by Whole Foods as part a deal to purchase the land and its completion was long awaited by local residents.
Work by the Coignet Stone Company can still be found today in some of the city’s most famous landmarks – the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleft Ridge Span in Prospect Park and Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.
On the two facades of the Coignet Building that face a street, there are two Ionic-columned porticos topped by a pediment. Quoining along the edges of the building give it a neo-Renaissance influence. The staircases leads up to rounded doors, a shape that is mirrored on the first floor windows.
On the second floor, both the rounded and rectangular windows are framed by columns and Italianate window-heads. The whole building is topped by a relatively simple entablature. It is believed that the original floors were possibly made of concrete as well.
After its use as the Coignet Stone Company offices, it was used by the Brooklyn Improvement Company, a company owned by Edwin Clark Litchfield, whose grand home, known today as the Litchfield Villa, still stands on a hill on the edge of Prospect Park.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
BROWNSTONER
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MANSION AND MUNIFICENCE: THE GILDED AGE OF FIFTH AVENUE TONIGHT
Tuesday, April 20, 7 pm. on Zoom
Guide, lecturer, author and teacher of art and architecture, Emma Guest-Consales leads a virtual tour of the great mansions of Fifth Avenue. Starting with the ex-home of Henry Clay Frick that now houses the Frick Collection, all the way up to the former home of Andrew Carnegie, now the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, she takes us through some of the most extravagant urban palaces the city has ever seen.
The seedier side of Broadway by a 1930s painter October 19, 2020 Cigarette ads, a burlesque house, a struggling theater, a flea circus and freak show (likely Hubert’s Museum): If you visited 42nd Street on the west side of Broadway at Times Square in 1932, this is what you’d find.
“42nd Street West of Broadway” was painted that year by Edmund Yaghjian, an Armenian immigrant who depicted daytime scenes of the 1930s cityscape and nocturnes that showcased the Depression-era Art Deco feel of the New York at the time.
After studying and then teaching at the Art Students League, Yaghjian took a teaching job in 1942 that forced him to leave Gotham for South Carolina, according to The Johnson Collection in Spartanburg, SC.
His New York City, the city of almost 90 years ago, is on view online at Artnet.
Ships on East River, 1937
Lower Manhattan in the 1930’s
When he was only two years old, Edmund Yaghjian’s Armenian family immigrated to Providence, Rhode Island, where they opened a grocery store. The young artist’s talent—and especially his skill in drawing portraits—was encouraged by his local minister who convinced a wealthy parishioner to provide Yaghjian with a scholarship to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design. Following his 1930 graduation from RISD, Yaghjian enrolled at New York’s Art Students League. There, he studied with leading American painters, including John Sloan and Stuart Davis. These instructors and the influence of the Ashcan school led Yaghjian to abandon portraiture in order to pursue realistic portrayals of the people and places he experienced in the city. His work was recognized as “best of the year” in the League’s 1930 year-end report and, in 1932, he was represented at the Society of Independent Artists Annual Exhibition.
From 1938 to 1942, Yaghjian taught drawing and composition at the Art Students League; this tenure was followed by brief teaching stints at schools in New Hampshire and Connecticut, as well as the University of Missouri. Yaghjian was hired as chair of the University of South Carolina’s Department of Fine Arts in 1945, a post he held until 1966 when he was named the university’s artist in residence. Over the years, he mentored Jasper Johns, Sigmund Abeles, and the mural artist Blue Sky, among others. While his move to the South distanced Yaghjian from the national stage, his contributions to the arts in South Carolina were significant. As in New York, he viewed his hometown as a source of intriguing subject matter, capturing the streets of Columbia in vibrantly colored and increasingly modernist urban landscapes that successfully blend vernacular and abstract elements.
Yaghjian’s distinguished career was filled with notable awards and exhibitions at such important museums as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, National Academy of Design, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Butler Institute of Art, and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Credited with being a catalyst in arts awareness in South Carolina, Yaghjian once noted: “I call myself a painter; only time will tell if I am an artist.”
Night at the Fair
Corner House 1950
Antiques Store, Park Street Grocery, Bring in the Vegetables
Interior of Holy Spirit Chapel former Dayspring Church now The Sanctuary
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 JOHNSON COLLECTION
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
MANSION AND MUNIFICENCE: THE GILDED AGE OF FIFTH AVENUE
Tuesday, April 20, 7 pm. on Zoom
Guide, lecturer, author and teacher of art and architecture, Emma Guest-Consales leads a virtual tour of the great mansions of Fifth Avenue. Starting with the ex-home of Henry Clay Frick that now houses the Frick Collection, all the way up to the former home of Andrew Carnegie, now the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, she takes us through some of the most extravagant urban palaces the city has ever seen.
Thousands of souls ended up on this island by choice or chance. There is an extensive collection of records and images about those whom home was on Blackwell’s or later Welfare Island. 1852 Image below, NYPL
In October 2015, under a grant generously funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the New York City Municipal Archives embarked upon a large and exciting new project: processing, preserving and cataloging the Almshouse Ledger Collection. This historic collection contains over 400 handwritten volumes pertaining to city-run institutions including the Almshouses, Workhouses, Lunatic Asylum, Penitentiary and various hospitals, which all found their home on Blackwell’s Island, now Roosevelt Island. The span covers the years 1758-1952. This important project will ensure that the Almshouse Ledgers are preserved for future generations of researchers, scholars, genealogists, educators and anyone interested in social, cultural and medical histories during this period of great change and growth in New York City.
City Home main street: one- and two-story brick buildings; men seated and walking down the street.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ALMSHOUSE: New York City’s Almshouse history dates back to the colonial era, when poverty and regular outbreaks of measles and smallpox overtook its streets. Greater care and responsibility of the city’s poor and sick, along with their dependents, was needed. In 1736, the city took over as official caregivers to these populations and absorbed the workhouses of New York into its activities. Prior to this time, the church had taken care of New York City’s poor and destitute. The first Almshouse was opened on the Commons of the City in 1736 and fell under the care and control of the Overseers of the Poor, House of Correction, Workhouse and Poorhouse, headed by two men appointed by the Office of the Mayor. Broadly referred to as Almshouses, these establishments included workhouses, soldiers’ barracks, hospitals, penitentiaries and asylums. By 1845 all these institutions were housed on Blackwell’s Island, which today we know as Roosevelt Island.
Incurables Hospital Admissions Ledger
As overcrowding, disease, malnutrition and crime became rampant in the Almshouses, they became synonymous with the very worst of New York City. Many city departments were formed to improve and oversee conditions in the Almshouses, Workhouse, Poorhouse, Lunatic Asylum and hospitals on the island only to be disbanded, re-organized or taken over by other agencies.
City Home: Female barracks; 2-story stone building with 1st and 2nd floor balconies
City Home: Nurses’ Home, stone 2-story building with basement, 1st and 2nd floor balconies.
City Home Administration Building, built in 1846: 2-story ivy-covered brick building with hedge.
The ledger-style admissions, discharges and deaths and census books in the collection record the names of people who were confined (voluntarily or otherwise) in the various facilities on Blackwell’s Island. Many volumes contain detailed information regarding age, gender, disease, date of admission, discharge and/or death. While overwhelmingly male dominated, women, and children to a lesser extent, are well-represented in these books during the years 1822-1860. With few opportunities for employment outside the home, a widow or unmarried woman without family support was often forced to turn to the city for help. Many women brought their children with them, or had their babies in the institution. Women who were unable to nurse their own children were assigned a wet nurse who was paid by the department overseeing the institution. A large number of the assigned wet nurses were inmates from one of the island’s institutions. Many mother-child pairs are noted in the children’s registers.
Old man exiting City Home brick building, “1887” medallion over door.
City Home, Indoor Recreation Center (“Klondike”). Long single-story structure; male patients seated outside.
City Home: Men seated on benches in Recreation Hall.
1864-1873 Certificates of Death
City Home for Dependents: Lawn and beach chairs outside Female Division. Look closely and not Chapel of the Good Shepherd
City Home: Ivy-covered Protestant Church.
City Home: Catholic Church under construction. Our Lady Consoler of the Afflicted
City Home District: Exterior, Neurological Hospital Ward. Man in wheel chair seated in front of 1-story building.
Neurological Hospital Ledger 1927
Bond, Hospital and Stock ledgers contain valuable information about the inmates, patients and employees of Blackwell’s Island institutions, including name, age, nativity, child parentage (if known), when they arrived in New York and their port of origin. The type of food, beverages and supplies needed to run such overcrowded and busy facilities are also well documented, as are the needs of the staff of the institutions. Ledgers containing death certificates offer types of illnesses patients suffered succumbed to, while hospital ledgers include information on illnesses suffered from. Some ledgers offer details about the patients themselves. Census Ledgers provide the most detailed information about the various facilities with numbers being taken on a daily basis.
City Home District: Officers’ residences. Two-story wooden bungalows. These were known as Cottage Row, adjoining Blackwell House
CHRYSLER BUILDING Jay Jacobson, Vern Harwood, Guy Ludwig, Alexis Villefane, Hara Reiser, and Ed Litcher got it right!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
Sources:
NYC DEPARTMENT OF RECORDS & INFORMATION SERVICES, 31 CHAMBERS STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10007, USAARCHIVES@RECORDS.NYC.GOV
NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF RECORDS MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES
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
FROM “BLACKWELL’S ALMANAC” 2015, By Bobbie Slonevsky
It is well known that the more than 3,000 cherry blossom trees gracing the Potomac Tidal Basin in Washington DC were a gift of the city of Tokyo early in the 20th century. Less well known is how and when we acquired ours.
The name Mary Lasker reverberates in philanthropic circles, mostly in the field of medicine. But she had other interests too. Wife of advertising mogul Albert D. Lasker, Mrs. Lasker was determined to contribute, and inspire others to contribute, to the beautification of New York City. The two best-known programs of her Salute to the Seasons Fund, founded in 1957, are the Park Avenue Malls Planting Project and the Park Avenue Holiday Lighting. However, another donation may have proved even more consequential.
In 1975–76, at the dawn of the Roosevelt Island development, Lasker made a generous gift of cherry blossom trees to the community. They now constitute the magnificent allées along the west promenade across from what was Goldwater Hospital and will soon be Cornell Tech, and all along the east promenade. There is no doubt that their cloud-like masses of blossoms that bloom every April enriched our Island landscape.
But, just as important, they seem to have inspired RIOC, other RI organizations and Island developers to plant more. Additions over the years now embellish all of Roosevelt Island. Of particular historical note is the grove of less mature trees south of the Rivercross lawn, which was dedicated in 2011 to the people of Japan in the wake of the earthquake/tsunami. The trees were planted by RIOC and the Roosevelt Island Residents’ Association in coordination with the Roosevelt Island Tree Board. They anchored a fundraiser hosted by RIRA, the Japanese Association of Roosevelt Island and other groups to raise money for Japan Society’s Earthquake Relief Fund.
Roosevelt Island boasts several varieties of cherry blossoms. They all flower within a couple of weeks of one another, the white blossoming earlier than the heavier pink blooms. The exquisite blossoms that come and go so quickly are said to symbolize the Allée of cherry blossoms on the west promenade.
Trees planted after the earthquake/tsunami. A commemorative plaque on the rock reads: “Celebration of Hope: This grove of trees is dedicated in solidarity with the Japanese people.” 10 evanescence of life, the cycle of life, death and rebirth, an aspect of Asian cultural tradition often associated with Buddhist influence.
When the flowers burst out of their buds, the Asian people celebrate with food, dance and music— the very components of the Cherry Blossom Festival that took place in Four Freedoms Park on April 25, and has been an annual tradition since 2010. There are upwards of 400 cherry blossom trees on RI. This compares with 500 in Central Park and just 200 in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. What’s more, the recent festival attracted several thousand visitors. Our celebrity may be in its infancy, but surely we have made it to the Cherry Blossom Big League.
*No more Cherry Blossom Festivals since 2019
UPDATES
VISITOR CENTER KIOSK EXPANDS HOURS
April Friday, Saturday, Sunday
May Wednesday-Sunday OPEN 12:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Upcoming Events
with the NYPL Roosevelt Island Branch
Tuesday, April 20
“Mansions and Munificence: the Gilded Age on Fifth Avenue”
Guide, lecturer, author and teacher of art and architecture, Emma Guest-Consales leads a virtual tour of the great mansions of Fifth Avenue. Starting with the ex-home of Henry Clay Frick that now houses the Frick Collection, all the way up to the former home of Andrew Carnegie, now the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, she takes us through some of the most extravagant urban palaces the city has ever seen.
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
Jane’s Walk
on Zoom
Roosevelt Island: A Vibrant Sustainable Community
Monday, May 3 1:00 PM 1-2 hours On Your Browser/ Register at MAS.ORG
TED BY THEODORE LIEBMAN, ARCHITECT, PERKINS EASTMAN, AND JUDITH BERDY, ROOSEVELT ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
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.
TUESDAY, MAY 18th
Health Fair & Senior Awareness Day.
11a.m. to 3 p.m. Chapel Plaza Sponsored by Carter Burden Senior Network Watch for Details
ROOSEVELT ISLAND DAY RETURNS SATURDAY, JUNE 12th
Watch for details about events throughout the island
FDR HOPE MEMORIAL DEDICATION SATURDAY, JULY 17th
Watch for details on the long-awaited opening of this memorial in Southpoint Park
One of the original eagles that graced the old Penn station. This one is in front of Madison Square Garden, 2 Penn Plaza
Ed LItcher, Guy Ludwig, Andy Sparberg, Aron Eisenpreiss, Alexis Villefane all got it!
FROM GUY LUDWIG
good morning Mss berdy and the whole gazette team!
Tthe stone eagle depicted sits in front of two Penn Plaza, facing Seventh avenue. one of many, the proud bird sat atop the original penn station beginning in 1910
At the start of the station’s demolition in 1964, the eagle shown and several others were ceremoniously lowered off of the building for the press, radio and television to see. eventually – and some would say incongruously – the eagle in the picture was mounted in front of the new complex which replaced the old pennsylvania station. interestingly, right behind that eagle, in the lobby of the building she guards, is another statue from inside pennsylvania station – that of alexander cassett, the executive behind the massive effort which resulted in the original penn project.
it is a vivid, large bronze piece, and he looks like he might be hurrying to catch one of his own trains, home. if mr. Cassatt and his eagle could talk, i wonder what they would say about where they live now, versus the stunning surroundings for which they both conceived.
guy ludwig westview since 1980
p.s.
Alexander Cassatt’s was the seventh president of the Pennsylvania railroad and presided over the construction of the entire “New York terminal” project. and, for heaven’s sake, it is NOT Cassatt whose statue is behind the eagle. the one behind our eagle is that of Samuel Rea, who FOLLOWED mr. Cassatt as president of the Pennsylvania system. Cassatt IS cast in bronze as well, and this likeness, too, resided in the old Penn Station, but now rests at the railroad museum of Pennsylvania.
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 BLACKWELL’S ALMANAC
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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