Jan Matulka, Arrangement with Phonograph, Mask, and Shell, ca. 1930, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1978.158 Painter, printmaker.
Brought to the United States from Bohemia at the age of sixteen, Matulka studied at the National Academy of Design from 1911 to 1916. The next year he was awarded a Joseph Pulitzer Traveling Scholarship, which enabled him to tour the American Southwest.
While in New Mexico and Arizona, he frequented Indian dances and studied the art, ceremonies, and customs of the Pueblo tribes. Like other modernist-inclined painters of the post-Armory Show era, Matulka was drawn by the romantic appeal of the Indian and Hispanic cultures of the Southwest, subjects he translated into stylized geometric drawings and paintings.
As an influential teacher during the twenties and thirties, he transmitted modernist precepts to many American art students who gained prominence in succeeding decades.
Jan Matulka, Still Life Composition, ca. 1933-1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.29
Jan Matulka, Arrangement–New York, ca. 1925, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1973.138
Work
Hopi Snake Dance #2 by Jan Matulka 1917–18
In 1919 Matulka illustrated Czechoslovak Fairy Tales with writer Parker Fillmore and published by Hippocrene Books. In 1920 the pair compiled a second book, The Shoemaker’s Apron, published by Harcourt Brace & Company
The next few years Jan and Lida traveled to Czechoslovakia to visit the old family farm, as well as to Germany and France. Matulka found inspiration in the scenery of Tŭri Pôle village, a place that fueled many more paintings over the years. Jan established a studio in Paris and would over-winter there while Lida returned to New York City each October. In Paris he was acquaintances with Gertrude Stein, André Lhote, Jean Lurçat, Josef Šíma, Václav Vytlačil, and Albert Gleizes.
In the 1920s Matulka maintained both his studios, frequently traveling to and fro from Paris to New York City. Around the middle of the decade Matulka began painting stark and jazzy cityscapes. This by no means meant he limited himself to that style, as he was also painting landscapes in Cape Ann, as well as Abstract pieces.
Katherine Sophie Dreier became his patron briefly from 1925 to 1926, which came to a premature end mainly due to petty disagreements and Matulka’s general lack of social grace, ranging from tardiness to tantrums. In November 1926 he started to contribute illustrations to The New Masses.
In 1927, Matulka began an association with the Frank K. M. Rehn Gallery. The clientele of the gallery wanted more conservative and representational works so Matulka complied because he needed the income. Again, this did not prevent him from painting in other styles for other outlets. In 1928 he began drawing from the model when he started meeting with the Society of Independent Artists, while contributing illustrations to the socialist Dělník Kalendar.
“Tŭri Pôle Landscape” by Jan Matulka (1921)
With help from Max Weber and Václav Vytlačil Matulka landed a teaching job at the Art Students League of New York, his first salaried position. Being the only modernist faculty member, his classes were quite popular. His students include Dorothy Dehner, Francis Criss, Burgoyne Diller, I. Rice Pereira, David Smith, Jacob Burck, and Esther Shemitz. The lattermost would later state that Matulka was the greatest influence on his work. Matulka was pushed out of his position at the Art Students League by conservative factions in 1931, but with encouragement from students he continued teaching a private class, which later disbanded in 1932. Matulka continued teaching one-on-one classes for a time after that.
Personal and global financial woes soon prevented Matulka from traveling annually to Paris. In 1928 he sublet his studio there to jazz painter Stuart Davis. Later Josef Šíma sublet it, taking it over completely from Matulka in 1934. Šíma stored all Matulka’s paintings and other works left in the studio, eventually transporting them to his own house in Fontainebleau, where unfortunately these things did not survive World War II.
From 1934 until it ended in 1935 Matulka became one of the few abstract painters to join the Public Works of Art Project, giving him a taste for murals and public art. Immediately afterward he joined the Federal Art Project and also worked on the Williamsburg Houses, eventually completing two murals, both of which were eventually destroyed or painted over.
Isolation and death
In 1936 Matulka helped found the American Abstract Artists, but refused to join the group. His emotional state continued to decline, even more so when his sister Barbara killed herself on 5 July. By the time his association with the Federal Art Project ended in 1939 he had become even more socially and emotionally isolated. He continued painting more and more experimental works.
Over the next few decades Matulka received much acclaim from his exhibitions, but remained relatively withdrawn from society. As age caught up with him, he suffered from many health issues, including deafness. Matulka died 25 June 1972 in New York City.
Jan Matulka, Untitled (Cassis Street Scene), 1930, watercolor and conte crayon on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Ben Goldstein and museum purchase, 1971.383
Waiting on line for Smallpox vaccinations in 1947 after fear of a pandemic was found and the entire population was inoculated in a few months. Andy Sparberg got it
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Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
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The Roosevelt Island Historical Society and the New York Public Library are proud to host author Richard Panchyk and his presentation of his book “Abandoned Queens”.
TUESDAY, MARCH 16TH, 7 P.M. VIA ZOOM Click below to register:
There are many places in New York City’s borough of Queens where traces of the past linger, haunting reminders of the way things used to be, sometimes hidden and sometimes in plain sight. In this presentation, author Richard Panchyk takes us on a journey through his book Abandoned Queens, through a variety of fascinating abandoned places in Queens, including the chilling Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, the meandering remains of the country’s first modern highway, and a defunct airport reclaimed by wilderness. Because Queens is so densely populated, these abandoned places usually coexist adjacent to living, thriving locations, making for an often eerie and beautiful juxtaposition of old and new, used and unused. From an eerie old railroad line in Forest Hills to a destroyed neighborhood in the Rockaways, the poignant images in this book are filled with context and history.
310th Edition
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MARCH 13-14, 2021
CROSSING THE ATLANTIC, PART 2
BY STEPHEN BLANK
CROSSING THE ATLANTIC, PART 2
Stephen Blank
The first part of this tale concluded with the beginning of the great era of Atlantic liners. Soon engines would be more powerful, screw propellers would replace sidewheels and sleek steel hulls would enable ships to grow to unimaginable size, speed and grandeur.
American companies, centered in New York, dominated the early Atlantic passenger trade. American packets first created regular scheduled crossings; American clipper ships were the fastest, most elegant and most technologically advanced in the world fleet; Americans had pioneered the use of steam in ship propulsion, and the first steamship to cross the Atlantic (more or less) was the American Savannah. But soon, America would drop out of this competition and the Atlantic passenger trade would be dominated by British, German and other European vessels.
Welcome aboard, friends, and hear how this happened.
Immigrants
Crossing was dangerous, particularly for the growing number of emigrants heading west across the Atlantic. Worst were the “Irish coffin ships” that carried people escaping the Famine. Crowded and disease-ridden, with poor access to food and water, many did not complete the voyage. Owners of coffin ships provided as little food, water and living space as was legally possible. In 1847, during the Famine, 7,000 Irish emigrants died of typhus on the way to America. Another 10,000 died soon after arriving in quarantine areas in the US. Coffin ships were the cheapest way to cross the Atlantic, but mortality rates of 30% were common. It was said that sharks could be seen following the ships, because so many bodies were thrown overboard.
When steam replaced sail, steerage passage wasn’t more comfortable, but it was faster. In 1852 steamships began to bring emigrants to America that could transport 450 at a time from Liverpool to New York. The fare of six guineas a head was double that charged by sailing ships. However, it was much faster and by the 1870s the journey across the Atlantic was only taking two weeks.
Technological change
Technology changed rapidly. Iron hulls were stronger and could support larger engines. Ship size increased dramatically, particularly those created by the Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Brunel, known for his innovative bridges and tunnels, built three great steamships, each marking a technological leap forward. A great leap was taken in 1858 with the launching of the Great Eastern, with a length of 692 feet, more than twice that of any other ship. It displaced 32,160 tons, was driven by a propeller and two paddle wheels, as well as auxiliary sails, and its iron hull set a standard for most subsequent liners. The Great Eastern could carry nearly 4,000 passengers. But the Company failed to win a British government mail contract (losing out to Cunard) and the Great Eastern was just too large in the shipping market of the 1860s.
The Great Eastern, iron steamship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel; lithograph by T.G. Dutton, 1859. Courtesy of the Science Museum, London
Larger ships with more powerful engines could move faster. Speed and increasing comfort appealed greatly to growing market of first-class passengers, who were willing to pay premium fares for a fast voyage. At the same time, larger ships had more room in steerage. Steerage, or third-class, passengers provided the basic income that allowed the lines to thrive. Steerage passengers paid low fares, and they received very little in return in terms of shipboard comfort. Indeed, because steamships were faster, ship owners sold little more than bed space in steerage, leaving emigrants to bring their own food, bedding, and other necessities. The first company to seize the emigration opportunity was the Liverpool-based Inman Line, which began by specializing in the steerage trade, but Cunard, White Star and others soon made the adjustment, increasing their steerage capacity and improving its amenities.
Competition
Efforts by Americans to compete in the Atlantic market were not successful. One exception was the Collins Line, which in 1847 owned the four finest ships afloat. The federal government paid Collins a million dollars a year to carry mail and make better time than the Cunards. The Collins ships were widely advertised as models of comfort and beauty and foreshadowed the elegance which was soon identified with ocean travel. They made better time than their English rivals, averaging crossings in ten to eleven days, while the Cunarders could not do better than twelve. But the enormous expense of speed ruined the line.
U S M Steam Ship Arctic. Collins Line Royal Greenwich Museum
Other reasons help explain the American lost dominance in this industry. During the Civil War, Confederate raiders (constructed in Britain) sank Union ships or drove them to operate under other registries. Also, attention in the US was increasingly focused on opening the West and on railroads rather than steamships. Finally, the bottom line in the industry was bringing immigrants to the US. Immigrants who chose to return (about a third did), found nickel-and-dime fares in now empty foreign steerage. The US went from being the world’s largest merchant marine power to merely an importing shipping nation.
If a company’s bread and butter came from steerage, glamour and prestige came from speed and ship’s image. Each new ship on the North Atlantic run boasted a higher standard of luxury. For the wealthy, these ships offered ever-grander decorative public rooms, finer food and more spacious staterooms with the most modern conveniences-including private bathrooms with hot and cold running water, electric light and steam and heat.
But the Brits didn’t own the industry.
Parts of the next paragraphs are lifted from Robert Ballarad’s Lost Liners: From the Titanic to the Andrea Doria the Ocean Floor Reveals Its Greatest Lost Ships. To say that the Germans invented the twentieth-century luxury liner might be overstating the case, but they surely combined the existing strands of liner evolution to bring it into being. In the late 1890s their ships rapidly overtook the British in terms of size and speed. Two aggressive German companies, Norddeutscher Lloyd and Hamburg-Amerika, themselves fierce rivals, left a greater imprint on shipboard style than on marine engineering. They were the first to turn over the artistic control for designing a passenger liner’s interiors to a single architect/designer.
Hamburg-Amerika’s managing director, Albert Ballin, decreed that comfort and luxury, not speed, would be his watchwords. On a stopover in London, he dined at the Carlton Hotel’s new Ritz-Carlton Grill. Here he encountered not only the lavish haute cuisine of Auguste Escoffier but also the tasteful interiors of a French architect Charles Mewès. Ballin was so smitten by the combination that he determined his next ship would contain a floating version of the Ritz-Carlton Grill, an à la carte alternative-at an additional price-to the first-class dining room. Here was a golden carrot to attract the cream of the Edwardian beau monde. He sought out Mewès and offered him the commission to design the interiors of the Amerika. Then he approached César Ritz and asked him to oversee the restaurant. The two Frenchmen accepted, and a fruitful, enduring partnership was born.
Mewès’s Amerika became a floating grand hotel par excellence. So popular was her Ritz-Carlton Restaurant on the ship’s maiden voyage in the fall of 1905 that Ballin immediately ordered its kitchen doubled in size. But the marvel of a first-class à la carte restaurant, decorated in the classic style of Louis XVI, where one could dine superbly and intimately, was only half the story. On the Amerika, Mewès “was given the opportunity to achieve some kind of total design harmony,” according to liner historian John Maxtone-Graham, “implementing a scheme of uniform decoration in all the public rooms throughout the ship.” Aft of the restaurant, one entered an elegant lounge in the eighteenth-century style of Robert Adam. The airy Palm Court, with its blooming flowers, potted palms, and white rattan furniture, was also inspired by Louis XVI.
Uploaded by: Ballins Dampfer Welt, Sep 10, 2015
Amerika, which immediately became the most fashionable ship on the North Atlantic, set the stage for the heyday of liner grand luxe. Mewès went on to design the interiors of the Amerika’s sister ship, Kaiserin Auguste Viktoria, and then the three Hamburg-Amerika giants of the Imperator class that outsized even White Star’s famous, doomed Titanic. In this competitive climate, both White Star and Cunard realized that to maintain their share of the Atlantic passenger trade, they would have to build new ships of unprecedented size and luxury. The age of the Atlantic superliner had truly begun. Alas, I had intended to do this one in two parts, but I see it will take three. Please don’t run to the lifeboats yet. I hope you will remain on board for the Third Sailing.
M. FRANKS, SUSAN RODETIS, STEVE BESSENOFF, GLORIA HERMAN, LISA FERNANDEZ, HARA REISER, THOM HEYER & ARON EISENPREISS GOT IT
Sources
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
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The Roosevelt Island Historical Society and the New York Public Library are proud to host author Richard Panchyk and his presentation of his book “Abandoned Queens”.
TUESDAY, MARCH 16TH, 7 P.M. VIA ZOOM Click below to register:
There are many places in New York City’s borough of Queens where traces of the past linger, haunting reminders of the way things used to be, sometimes hidden and sometimes in plain sight. In this presentation, author Richard Panchyk takes us on a journey through his book Abandoned Queens, through a variety of fascinating abandoned places in Queens, including the chilling Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, the meandering remains of the country’s first modern highway, and a defunct airport reclaimed by wilderness. Because Queens is so densely populated, these abandoned places usually coexist adjacent to living, thriving locations, making for an often eerie and beautiful juxtaposition of old and new, used and unused. From an eerie old railroad line in Forest Hills to a destroyed neighborhood in the Rockaways, the poignant images in this book are filled with context and history.
SWING LOW: HARRIET TUBMAN MEMORIAL
FROM NYC PARKS
This larger-than-life bronze sculpture depicts abolitionist organizer and Underground Railroad leader Harriet Tubman (c. 1822-1913), and stands at the crossroads of St. Nicholas Avenue, West 122nd Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem. Douglass once said of Tubman that except for John Brown, he knew of “no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people.”
Born into slavery in Maryland around 1822, Tubman escaped in 1849 via the Underground Railroad, the network of places and people dedicated to helping slaves find their way to freedom in non-slaveholding communities. Settling first in Philadelphia, then Canada, Tubman spent ten years returning to Maryland at great personal risk, to guide scores of friends and family members to freedom. Determined to end slavery, she later served the Union Army as a scout, spy and nurse in the Civil War. Settling in Auburn, New York after the war, she continued campaigning for equal rights for women and African-Americans. Her humanitarian work, including caring for the sick, homeless and disabled of all races, resulted in the establishment of the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged in that community. She died in 1913 and was buried in Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn with semi-military honors.
The portrayal of Harriet Tubman in Swing Low as the powerful and fearless train of freedom is hardly overstated in the artful sculpture that stands on the traffic island of a Harlem intersection. Facing South in righteous conviction for another trip as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, the Bronze and Chinese granite statue is lined with alternating tiles depicting events of Harriet Tubman’s life and traditional quilting patterns. The surrounding area around the Harriett Tubman memorial is landscaped with plants native to both New York and Maryland, Tubman’s home state, provides a contemplative space to consider Tubman’s legacy.
Frontispiece from Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, ca. 1868. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
ALISON SAAR’S SWING LOW
RENÉE ATER
Public Scholar April 13, 2018
Welcome to my blog! In the coming months, I will post on objects related to my Contemporary Monuments to the Slave Past project as well as big ideas I need to sort out. For now, it will not be open for comments but feel free to like!
I selected Alison Saar’s Swing Low: Harriet Tubman Memorial (2008) as my first blog post because it is such a powerful and compelling image, and I am currently obsessed with Harriet Tubman as a woman and as a historical figure. The first public monument to an African American woman in New York City, the statue is located at Harriet Tubman Square, formed at the intersection of St. Nicholas Avenue and Frederick Douglass Boulevard at West 122nd Street in Harlem.
The contrast between the verdigris patina of her coat and skirt and the slate black patina of her skin are visually striking. With a stoic expression and determined gaze (think Roman portrait bust), Tubman moves forward with the steam of a locomotive. The bottom of her skirt becomes the pilot of a train, sometimes called a cattle catcher, which was the device mounted at the front of a locomotive to deflect obstacles on the track that might derail the train. Embedded in her skirt are portraits of anonymous faces, the passengers of the Underground Railroad, as well as objects carried north by fugitive slaves including cowry shells, medicine bottles, time pieces, shoe souls, and the broken manacles of slavery.
Trailing behind Tubman and attached to a boulder and her skirt are tree roots. These gnarled, intertwined roots represent Tubman’s efforts to uproot the system of slavery and the “pulling up of roots by the slaves and all they had to leave behind.” Along the base of the sculpture, Saar included bronze quilt blocks: traditional geometric quilt designs as well as applique blocks of scenes from Tubman’s rescue efforts to the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
I think that Saar ‘s conception of Tubman is based on the 1869 frontispiece from Sarah Bradford’s Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman. In June 1863, Tubman became the first woman to lead an armed military raid when she guided Col. James Montgomery and his 2nd South Carolina black regiment up the Combahee River, routing Confederate outposts, liberating more than 700 slaves, and destroying stockpiles of cotton, food, and weapons. Saar incorporated the core visual elements of the nineteenth-century wood engraving including the head wrap, the pleated skirt, and the Union army issued sack coat and haversack. Strikingly, Saar omitted the 1861 Springfield rifled musket. I speculate that Saar and city planners chose deliberately to omit the weapon because of the location of the memorial across from the 28th Precinct of the NYPD, and its long and difficult history of policing the once predominantly black Harlem. What would it have meant to have a statue of an armed black women in such a prominent public space?
BROOKLYN TERMINAL FOR LONG ISLAND RAILROAD ARLENE BESSENOFF AND ANDY SPARBERG 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 Roosevelt Island Historical Society
Sources
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The Roosevelt Island Historical Society and the New York Public Library are proud to host author Richard Panchyk and his presentation of his book “Abandoned Queens”.
TUESDAY, MARCH 16TH, 7 P.M.
VIA ZOOM Click below to register: https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2021/03/16/abandoned-queens
There are many places in New York City’s borough of Queens where traces of the past linger, haunting reminders of the way things used to be, sometimes hidden and sometimes in plain sight. In this presentation, author Richard Panchyk takes us on a journey through his book Abandoned Queens, through a variety of fascinating abandoned places in Queens, including the chilling Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, the meandering remains of the country’s first modern highway, and a defunct airport reclaimed by wilderness. Because Queens is so densely populated, these abandoned places usually coexist adjacent to living, thriving locations, making for an often eerie and beautiful juxtaposition of old and new, used and unused. From an eerie old railroad line in Forest Hills to a destroyed neighborhood in the Rockaways, the poignant images in this book are filled with context and history.
Irving T. Bush
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search Irving Ter Bush
Irving Ter Bush (July 12, 1869 – October 21, 1948) was an American businessman. He was the son of the wealthy industrialist, oil refinery owner, and yachtsman Rufus T. Bush.
As founder of the Bush Terminal Company, Bush was responsible for the construction of the massive Bush Terminal transportation, warehousing, and manufacturing facility in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York City which employed more than 25,000 people within its boundaries. Bush also commissioned Manhattan’s landmark Bush Tower skyscraper on 42nd Street near New York City’s Times Square and funded the construction of Bush House in London. A prolific author, his life and works attracted attention from the national press, influential figures, and major publishers and journalists.
Early Years….Not from an Average Family
Born in Ridgeway, Lenawee County, Michigan, a small town southwest of Detroit, Bush moved with his family at a young age to Brooklyn, New York, at the time an independent city. When he was in his teens, his father sold his Brooklyn waterfront oil refinery to Standard Oil and retired.Bush was educated at The Hill School, a boarding school outside Philadelphia, and joined his father’s firm at age 19.
The two-masted schooner yacht Coronet, a 136-foot (41 m) vessel that Rufus had built during the mid-1880s, influenced Irving’s life, for the ocean race between the Coronet and the yacht Dauntless in March 1887 made Rufus T. Bush and the victorious Coronet famous—the New York Times devoted its entire first page for March28, 1887 to the story.[ Rufus and Irving then circumnavigated the globe on the Coronet in 1888. Though they traveled overland and did not join the yacht until it arrived in San Diego in 1889, the Coronet was the first registered yacht to cross Cape Horn from East to West.] After crossing the Pacific Ocean, the Coronet stopped in China, Calcutta, Malta (and elsewhere), giving him a view of the world that few had at the time] The Coronet was sold before Rufus’s death in 1890,[4] when Rufus accidentally drank a fatal dose of aconite. Rufus T. Bush left an estate estimated at $2,000,000 to his wife and two sons.[8] The family heirs quickly incorporated under the name The Bush Co.[2] Bush, as a 21-year-old clerk for Standard Oil, could have lived off his inherited wealth and retired from the business life.
Motion Pictures
Bush was chair of the Continental Commerce Co., which had exclusive rights to market Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope overseas. The kinetoscope was the earliest motion picture viewer. Unlike later movie projectors, kinetoscopes could show a moving image to only one person at a time. The Continental Commerce Co. opened the first licensed European kinetoscope parlor in London in 1894.
Bush Terminal
Bush’s connection with Edison’s motion pictures was brief. Soon after, during the mid-1890s, Bush started the planning and construction of Bush Terminal on the Brooklyn waterfront site where his father’s former oil refinery had been located.
To induce railroads to use his car floats, (i.e. using the barges that transported railroad cars across New York Harbor), Bush had to resort to ordering dozens of carloads of hay from Michigan himself. To show shippers that using the wharves and warehouses at the new terminal could be profitable, Bush entered the banana business. Within two decades, the complex originally derided as “Bush’s Folly” became a great success. Though the complex was seized for government use during the First World War by Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bush complied with government demands. He even helped to design the Brooklyn Army Terminal for General Goethals in 1918.
Bush was named Chief Executive of the War Board of the Port of New York in 1917, during World War I. This would later become the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
During this period before and during World War I, Bush planned and had built Bush Tower, a landmark 30-story Neo-Gothic skyscraper on 42nd Street in Manhattan, just east of Times Square.[15][16] The tower was conceived as display space for the manufacturers and shippers of Bush Terminal and New York. An even more ambitious venture was Bush’s attempt to meld commercial displays and social space in London at Bush House, an elaborate and large office building built in three phases during the 1920s, but the concept was not fully carried through at that project.[17] Bush House was known around the globe today as the headquarters of the BBC World Service, which broadcast in 32 languages to all parts of the world.
Image Courtesy Museum of the City of New York
Contributions to art and architecture
Within recent decades, scholarly architects have described and critiqued the buildings Bush had commissioned. Perhaps mindful of the Dutch ancestry of his family (and of New York’s), Bush’s 1905 townhouse at 28 East 64th Street, in Manhattan, built by the firm of Kirby, Petit & Green was “flamboyantly Jacobean, with a high, almost Flemish gable”.
Bush commissioned southern California architect Wallace Neff to design his winter home at Mountain Lake Estates in Florida, near the residence (and later tower) of his father’s former business partner, Edward W. Bok. Neff, who had recently been named “architect to the stars” by the Los Angeles Times, designed few houses outside California.
He also commissioned the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. to design the grounds of the Florida estate. Olmsted was known not only as the son of Central Park’s designer, but among numerous other accomplishments, was notable for re-designing the White House grounds in 1930.
After moving from his townhouse at East 64th Street, Bush lived in the 17-floor tower at 280 Park Avenue, Manhattan, New York, designed by Warren and Wetmore, architects of Grand Central Terminal in New York City, Michigan Central Station in Detroit and the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu.
Bush became one of the founding trustees of New York City’s Grand Central Art Galleries, an artists’ cooperative established that year by John Singer Sargent, Edmund Greacen, Walter Leighton Clark, and others.[33] Also on the board were the Galleries’ architect, William Adams Delano; Robert W. DeForest, president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Frank Logan, vice-president of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Personal life
Bush was in the news from a young age, when he was mentioned in stories of the Coronet’s circumnavigation. He married Belle Barlow, with whom he had two daughters, Eleanor and Beatrice. Divorcing her, he married Maud Beard and had one son, Rufus, named after Irving’s father.[citation needed]
His 1930 divorce in Reno, Nevada, and remarriage one hour later to dentist, artist, socialite, and philanthropist Marian Spore Bush made the front page of the New York Times as well as the “Milestones” section of Time magazine.[36] Irving had met Marian, a fellow Michigan expatriate, while working together on a breadline in New York’s impoverished Bowery during the late 1920s. After their marriage, they lived at 280 Park Avenue along with Mrs. Marian Spore Bush’s niece Helen Tunison, who after Irving’s death, dedicated the statue of him at Bush Terminal in front of 3,000 people.[37]
Bush owned two yachts that subsequently served as patrol boats in the United States Navy. In 1917, during the First World War, the navy bought his 164-foot-long (50 m) steam yacht Christabel and commissioned the vessel as the USS Christabel (SP-162), which took part in at least two actions against German U-Boats and was credited with sinking one. (See Navy History website) A sailor even won a Medal of Honor during one of these engagements. His larger 185-foot-long (56 m) diesel yacht, Coronet, built for him in Germany in 1928 and placed under his wife’s name during the Great Depression, was bought by the Navy during World War II and patrolled the Caribbean as the USS Opal (Pyc-8) before being transferred to Ecuador in 1943, where it was scrapped in 1960.
Legacy
Bush left behind Bush Terminal, which not only provided a model for intermodal transportation, it provided employment for thousands and their families. His Bush Tower in Manhattan and Bush House are both landmarks.
TODAY
The area around the terminal has been reclaimed into a charming waterfront park. Thanks to Lisa Fernandez for telling me about the park and Irving Bush!
You can take a local historic landmark with a visit into Blackwell House. The house is open to the public Wednesday thru Sunday from11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed 2-3 p.m.)
THE PORT OF MIAMI THE LARGEST CRUISE TERMINAL IN THE COUNTRY, DODGE ISLAND TOM WEISE 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 Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
WIKIPEDIA
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
The Roosevelt Island Historical Society and the New York Public Library are proud to host author Richard Panchyk and his presentation of his book “Abandoned Queens”.
There are many places in New York City’s borough of Queens where traces of the past linger, haunting reminders of the way things used to be, sometimes hidden and sometimes in plain sight. In this presentation, author Richard Panchyk takes us on a journey through his book Abandoned Queens, through a variety of fascinating abandoned places in Queens, including the chilling Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, the meandering remains of the country’s first modern highway, and a defunct airport reclaimed by wilderness. Because Queens is so densely populated, these abandoned places usually coexist adjacent to living, thriving locations, making for an often eerie and beautiful juxtaposition of old and new, used and unused. From an eerie old railroad line in Forest Hills to a destroyed neighborhood in the Rockaways, the poignant images in this book are filled with context and history.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2021
THE 307th EDITION
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
CROSSING THE ATLANTIC
STEPHEN BLANK
Black Ball ship Montezuma By Antonio Jacobsen – Christie’s, LotFinder: entry 5648386 (sale 2670, lot 2030, New York, 25 January 2013), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23751297
Crossing the Atlantic, Part I
In March 1959, I left Dartmouth (long story), purchased the cheapest fare possible and boarded the Queen Mary (the original) from the famous Pier 54 and set off for Southampton. A total innocent, I had no idea of the ship’s grand salons and ballrooms I would never see. But I vividly remember climbing to the highest point I could reach and watching the stormy waves rise up to what seemed eye level before crashing down, more like broken glass than water. Over the next few years, I did two more Atlantic crossings and a mid-winter round trip sailing between Marseilles and Haifa. Only years later was I willing even to get on a river cruise.
But crossing the Atlantic by liner is a good story and very much involves New York. On board all.
Folks did sail across the Atlantic in colonial times. But few made the journey for pleasure. Businessmen, diplomats, men on the run – but most of the human cargo was migrants (coming and, about a third, returning).
Mail ships were the earliest regularly scheduled Atlantic crossings. The British Government started operating monthly mail brigs from Falmouth, Cornwall, to New York in 1756. These ships carried few non-governmental passengers and no cargo. Ben Franklin an amazing traveler, made eight crossings, possibly on these vessels.
In the early 19th century, sailing ships took about six weeks to cross the Atlantic. (Columbus made it in 36 days, but not all the way to New York.) With adverse winds or bad weather the journey could take as long as fourteen weeks. When this happened passengers would often run short of provisions which they had to bring on board themselves.
Early on, captains waited until they had a full enough ship and then departed. The novel idea was packet ships that departed from port on a regular schedule. The typical packet sailed between American and British ports, and the ships were designed for the North Atlantic, where storms and rough seas were common.
The first of the packet lines was the Black Ball Line, which began sailing between New York City and Liverpool in 1818. Packets were contracted by governments to carry mail and also carried passengers and timely items such as newspapers. The line originally had four ships, and it advertised that one of its ships would leave New York on the first of each month irrespective of cargo or passengers. Within a few years several other companies followed the example of the Black Ball Line, and the North Atlantic was being crossed by ships that regularly battled the elements while trying to remain on schedule.
Average time for packets to cross between New York and Liverpool was 23 days eastward and 40 days westward. But many times, crossing were much longer, and westward passages of 65 to 90 days were not uncommon. The best time from New York to Liverpool was the 15 days 16 hours achieved at the end of 1823 by the ship New York. American packets, based in New York, dominated this market.
Travel times might be better, but the trip was not very pleasant. Wealthier, more distinguished passengers fared a bit better. But it was rough sailing. One historian observes, “In 1842 the British government attempted to bring an end to the exploitation of passengers by passing legislation that made it the responsibility of the shipping company to provide adequate food and water on the journey. However, the specified seven pounds a week of provisions was not very generous. Food provided by the shipping companies included bread, biscuits and potatoes. This was usually of poor quality. One government official who inspected provisions in Liverpool in 1850 commented that ‘the bread is mostly condemned bread ground over with a little fresh flour, sugar and saleratus and rebaked’.” (SB: “fresh flour, sugar and baking powder and then baked again”)
Steam changed everything. Only a dozen years after Fulton’s Clermont steamed from New York City to Albany—150 miles—in 32 hours, the Savannah in 1819, an American sailing ship with auxiliary steam engines and two paddle wheels that could be folded away on deck, made the first steam-assisted crossing of the Atlantic. In reality, she (always “she”) used her engines only a fraction of the time and mostly when she was in sight of critical eyes ashore. No one could be found who was willing to risk the trip, so Savannah carried no passengers. In the end, the steam experiment failed, and Savannah was converted back to full sails. (The name Savannah appeared again in another unsuccessful experiment – the USS Savannah was the first and last nuclear powered merchant ship, in 1955.)
In 1838, the British and American Steam Navigation Co.’s Sirius left Ireland with 40 paying passengers for a historic voyage to New York. It took 18 days and the Sirius ran out of coal—the crew had to burn cabin furniture and even a mast—but it was the first passenger ship to cross the Atlantic entirely on steam power. There’s a story here, involving competition between lines and the beginning of a new era of Atlantic liner history.
The Great Western Steamship Company was an outgrowth of the yet incomplete Great Western Railway. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was chief engineer. The Great Western Company was ready to send its new ship, Great Western from Bristol to New York. The British and American Steam Navigation Company was also planning a transatlantic steamship service, but because its first ship was unfinished, British and American chartered the Irish Sea steamer, the Sirius from the St. George Steam Packet Company for two voyages. Sirius left Cork four days before Great Western departed, but Great Western still came within a day of overtaking Sirius to New York.
Because British and American did not begin its regular service until the following year, the Great Western Steam Ship Company is considered the first regular transatlantic steamship service. Great Western was launched in July 1837 and ready for her maiden Bristol-New York voyage the following April and the Company operated the first regular transatlantic steamer service from 1838 until 1846.
In fact, the Great Western Company didn’t achieve a dominant position in Atlantic passenger trade when it failed to win a mail contract – although it was a pioneer in ship building. Cunard was the winner.
With the birth of the Cunard Line in 1840 a steamship company promised to deliver its passengers to their destinations on a regular timetable. Cunard’s first four small steamers, all commissioned in 1840-41, had actually launched something completely new in ocean travel: constant, reliable service on a fixed schedule.
But wind was still important. These early steamers weren’t pure steamships, but wooden-hulled sailing ships with steam engines and great side paddle wheels. They used their sails whenever possible, to enhance speed and to promote fuel economy. Coal was bulky and expensive, and making steam was a noisy and dirty process. Nautical technology would need years of development before steam completely displaced sail.
The nineteenth century saw great waves of emigration from the Old World to the New, but in the early days of steam, few emigrants arrived under steam power. The four original Cunard ships, each with space for only 115 passengers, made no provision for steerage passengers at all, concentrating on their main task, which was the speedy and safe delivery of the Royal Mail.
The new world of the grand trans-Atlantic passenger steamship (whose revenues were largely based on immigrants in steerage class) was about to begin. It would include both the worst – Irish “coffin ships” – and the best – an entire new class of elegance in Atlantic travel. New York was the destination for most of these passages, but foreign companies dominated the industry.
Britannia of 1840, the first Cunard liner built for the transatlantic By Wikid77 -http://cunardline.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/rmsbritannia.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4242795
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Tuesday, March 16 “Abandoned Queens” Author Richard Panchyk takes us on a journey through Queens’ past. Revealing haunting reminders of the way things used to be, he describes fascinating, abandoned places, including the chilling Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, the meandering remains of the country’s first modern highway, a defunct airport reclaimed by wilderness, an eerie old railroad line in Forest Hills, and a destroyed neighborhood in the Rockaways.
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.
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.
EXCLUSIVE NYC MAP DESIGN MASKS AND ZIPPER POUCHES MASKS $18-, ZIPPER POUCHES $12- AT RIHS VISITOR KIOSK
Thom Heyer was the only person to recognize Miss Hunter.
** Yesterday’s image was the library at the Morgan Library.
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)
STEPHEN BLANK
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
DIANE PRYOR HOLLAND, WILLIAM DANIELS AND ROCHELLE HOLLAND IN FRONT OF: “IN THAT NUMBER” A QUILT BY WILLIAM DANIELS
PURPLE PEACOCK SWIRL DIANE PRIOR HOLLAND
ROCHELLE HOLLAND
HEAD ROOSTER
DIANE PRYOR-HOLLAND
I PRESENT MISS BILLIE
TOTEM SERIES DANIEL WILLIAMS
DIANE PRYOR-HOLLAND
LEFT: FREEDOM FIGHTER: MISS FANNIE LOU HAMER RIGHT:FLOATING DIAMONDS
DIANE PRYOR – HOLLAND
is well known and active in many quilting groups including: Quilt N Queens, Brooklyn Quilters Guild, Empire Quilting Guild, Quilters of Color of NYC, Quits for Cops ABOVE IS QUILT MADE IN HONOR OR POLICE OFFICER.
JUNGLE FRIENDS
DIANE PRIOR-HOLLAND
STAINED GLASS WITH AFRICAN ART KAREN BROWN
DR. ROCHELLE A. HOLLAND
DR. ROCHELLE A. HOLLAND
QUILT BIO
My educational background is in sociology and mental health; however as a teen, during the weekends , I took classes at a local arts center. During 2012, I started learning mixed media art by watching YouTube and completing classes at Craftsy. Currently I enjoy creating mixed media fine art by using fabric, canvas and/or paper as substrata. I equally enjoy designing and sewing quilts. I have always admired the works of other artists and I have grown to enjoy my autistic process and work,
JINNY EWALD, THOM HEYER, TOM VISEE, HARA REISER, GLORIA HERMAN, ARLENE BESSENOFF ALL GOT IT !!!
FROM A READER I remember seeing the submarine Turtle, which was displayed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard when that was still a military facility. As for Revolutionary history, my cousin, Art Cohn, founder and emeritus executive director of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, is writing a book about Benedict Arnold and his role in the history of the time. Stay tuned. Matt Katz
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)
DIANE PRYOR HOLLAND, WILLIAM DANIELS, ROCHELLE HOLLAND
ROOSEVELT ISLAND VISUAL ARTS ASSOCIATION
THE ROOSEVELT ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY (C)
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Mother and Children (1876). Photo by Ben Davis. FOR YEARS THIS PAINTING WAS ON A LANDING AND NOT IN CLEAR VIEW AT THE MANSION. NOW IS IN PLAIN SIGHT!
Comtesse d’Haussonville” by Jean-Auguste-
THE FRICK HAS RELOCATED FROM IT’S CLASSICAL MANSION ON FIFTH AVENUE FOR THE NEXT FEW YEARS WHILE THE MANSION IS RENOVATED AND UPGRADED.
IN THE MEANTIME THE ARTWORK IS DISPLAYED IN THE BREUER MODERNIST BUILDING ON MADISON AVENUE.
ENJOY THE SIGHT OF THE GRAND ARTWORK IN IT’S NEW ENVIRONMENT. (TIMED TICKETS AVAILABLE ON-LINE)
Rembrandt’s 1658 “Self-Portrait “is among the first works visitors see after entering Frick Madison. (Nick Garber/Patch)
Johannes Vermeer, Officer and Girl. Photo by Ben Davis., Mistress and Maid
“Vétheuil in Winter” by Claude Monet (Nick Garber/Patch)
The third floor has a room devoted to Spanish art, including works by Velázquez and El Greco. (Courtesy of the Frick Collection)
The “Vermeer room” on Frick Madison’s second floor. (Courtesy of the Frick Collection)
“Purification of the Temple “by El Greco (Nick Garber/Patch)
Asian porcelain from the Frick Collection. (Nick Garber/Patch)
The European and Asian Porcelain Gallery at the Frick Madison. Photo by Sarah Cascone.
the Normandie Only Ed Litcher got it. The Normandie could be mistaken for the Queen Mary
The stacks were taller on the RMS Queen Mary than the SS Normandie
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:
UPPER EAST SIDE PATCH
6SQFT
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
New York City is built around one of the world’s greatest harbors. Over the years, many forts have protected the harbor from invasion. But feared invasions never took place and few shots were fired, not that is after the war of the Revolution. However, a great sea battle did take place just off the coast.
There’s an ongoing theme here: A threat is identified, plans are prepared, and implementation is slow (budget problems and conflict among authorities). By the time construction is (and if) completed, it is often outdated.
To learn more, read on.
The Dutch built a fort to protect their settlement but in 1664 when an English expedition demanded the colony’s surrender, Governor Peter Stuyvesant felt the colony wasn’t able to defend itself. Stuyvesant regretted that his requests for troops and defensive resources from the Dutch West India Company had not been met, though some folks feel that the Dutch leaders, including the Governor’s son, were reluctant to engage in a battle that would damage their community. On September 8, Stuyvesant surrendered New Netherland to the English. Still, battle or not, the Dutch would continue to run much of the city and the Hudson Valley.
Critical fighting took place around New York during the American Revolution. When the British left Boston, it was clear that they would soon invade New York City. In June and July 1776, Washington’s troops hastily constructed many forts, on the east shore of the East River, in the city and Fort Washington in northwestern Manhattan and Fort Constitution (later Fort Lee) across the Hudson in the town later named for it. Both forts were just south of the George Washington Bridge. A barrier was placed in the Hudson between the two forts to prevent ships passing.
The story of the battles of Long Island, Brooklyn, Manhattan and the retreat to New Jersey are fascinating and illustrate the desperate conditions the Revolutionary forces faced in the early days of the war. No significant action took place in the harbor, but of interest to this tale, from very large to very small:
• At its peak, the British fleet numbered over 400 ships, including 73 war ships. It delivered 32,000 troops to Staten Island. This was one of the largest fleets in history.
• On September 6, the submarine Turtle made the first recorded submarine attack in history in New York Harbor. This one-man hand-powered submarine had been built the previous year by David Bushnell, an inventor from Connecticut. Turtle was equipped to attach a bomb to a ship, but the mission failed.
British Landing, Kip’s Bay, September 15, 1776 patriottoursnyc.com/the-battle-of-new-york/
After the war, the U.S. government launched a massive fortification building program around the Harbor. Dr. Thomas W. Matteo, Staten Island Historian, provides more detail: “For the most part, the defense of New York’s harbor was left to the State government and its governor, Daniel Tompkins… At the outset of hostilities, he personally oversaw the defense of New York. After turning down a Cabinet appointment, Tompkins was appointed the Commander-in-Chief of the Third Military District by President Madison in October 1814. Tompkins appointed several aids-de-camp including Washington Irving. Also serving under his command was a young officer by the name of Ichabod Crane.
By 1814, New York City was defended by 900 pieces of artillery and 25,500 men. This is probably why the citizens did not panic when five British war vessels were spotted off the coast of Sandy Hook on August 18th, 1814. They never came any closer.”
One fort is of particular interest to us Islanders: Hell Gate, connecting the East River with Long Island Sound and the Harlem River, was protected by a fortification constructed on a small island in the middle of the waterway. It was designed to defend against any back door penetration of the harbor from Long Island Sound.
These forts would have provided an impressive defense of the harbor during the War of 1812, but were never used and obsolete in a few years.
Castle Clinton Courtesy Museum of the City of New York
After the war, a new series of larger forts on the Atlantic Coast was proposed, but funding was slow, and most were not begun until the 1830s. New York received six major forts under this program; initial plans for the latter four of these are said to have been drawn up by Robert E. Lee during when he was post engineer at Fort Hamilton in the 1840s. When war broke out in 1861, much of this construction was still incomplete and several forts were still unfinished in 1867.
Another major building study was begun in 1885 for a replacement of existing coast defenses. Most of its recommendations were adopted, and construction began in 1890 on new batteries and controlled minefields to defend New York City. Plans were elaborate and involved the most advanced weaponry. But when the Spanish–American War broke out in early 1898, most of the new batteries were still years from completion, and it was feared the Spanish fleet would bombard the US east coast
Again, concern heightened as the European War opened (and some New Yorkers feared a German invasion). New harbor defenses were constructed but many of its large weapons were removed and transferred to the European theater when the US entered the war. During the War and in the interwar period, major changes were made in the organization of coastal defense and new weaponry introduced (and removed).
10-inch disappearing gun at Battery Granger, Fort Hancock, New Jersey Wikipedia
After the Fall of France in 1940 the Army decided to up gun all existing heavy coast defense guns to protect against attack by sea and air. But this was never a threat. Instead, during the winter of 1941-42, the greatest battle in the sea around New York took place.
When Germany declared war on the US (the day after Pearl Harbor) our east coast offered easy pickings for German U-boats. These months were known among German submariners as the “American Shooting Season” when their submarines attacked merchant shipping and Allied naval vessels along the east coast. From February to May 1942, 348 ships were sunk, for the loss of two U-boats. The cumulative effect of this campaign was severe; a quarter of all wartime sinkings – 3.1 million tons and the eradication of much of the US coastal shipping fleet.
My father who was stationed at Fort Eustis, Virginia at this time said that he and my mother could see from the shore ships blazing after being torpedoed. I can’t verify the story, but it’s not impossible. Sinkings were a nightly occurrence.
Several reasons for this disaster. The American naval commander, Admiral Ernest King, as an apparent anglophobe, was averse to taking British recommendations to introduce convoys, US Coast Guard and Navy patrols were predictable and could be avoided by U-boats, inter-service co-operation was poor, and the US Navy did not possess enough suitable escort vessels. Without coastal blackouts, shipping was silhouetted against the bright lights of American towns and cities such as Atlantic City until a dim-out was ordered in May.
The dim-out was less severe than a blackout. Times Square’s neon advertising went dark. Office buildings and apartment houses had to veil windows more than 15 stories high. Stores, restaurants and bars toned down their exterior lighting. Streetlights and traffic signals had their wattage reduced, and automobile headlights were hooded. Night baseball was banned in the war’s early years at the Dodgers’ Ebbets Field and the Giants’ Polo Grounds. (Yankee Stadium did not yet have lights.) The Statue of Liberty’s torch did not glow.
No New Yorkers actually saw a German U-Boat. The wonderful scene in Woody Allen’s Radio Days when the boys see a U-Boat surface close off a Brooklyn beach never occurred, But a U-boat did land a team of four saboteurs at Amagansett, Long Island on June 13, 1942 (and another four landed in Ponte Vedra, Florida on June 16, 1942), armed with explosives and plans to destroy factories, bridges, tunnels, powerplants and waterworks. One member of the group that landed eventually turned himself over to the FBI and confessed the entire story. All eight saboteurs were arrested and six were executed in Washington D.C. on August 8, 1942.
One other WWII New York harbor story: After the French liner SS Normandie (renamed USS Lafayette as a US troop carrier) burned at dock, fear of sabotage soared. The Navy reached out to well-known Mafia boss Lucky Luciano then serving a 30-50 year sentence for compulsory prostitution at the Clinton Prison facility. The Navy offered him a deal; a reduction of his sentence for information and assistance in their operation. Luciano agreed. Luciano ordered that any suspicious activity along the docks and waterfronts be reported to the authorities. Luciano also apparently guaranteed that there would be no strikes among the dock workers.
Keep warm. Keep safe. Get your vaccination. Stephen Blank RIHS
The Downtown Alliance is taking over Water Street this month with two new art installations enriching the street’s scenery. February 28, 2021 Sources
Designer studio Hou de Sousa’s “Ziggy” at 200 Water Street brilliantly combines steel structure and vibrant lights with cords, and FANTÁSTICA’s “Out-of-Office” transfers the workspace environment to an outdoor setting, seemingly responding to the current time as people are no longer commuting to offices for work due to the pandemic.These artwork are lit at night in brilliant colors.
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
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The Battery Maritime Building is a building at South Ferry on the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City. Located at 10 South Street, near the intersection with Whitehall Street, it is composed of an operational ferry terminal at ground level, as well as a hotel and event space on the upper stories.
The Battery Maritime Building was designed by the firm of Richard Walker and Charles Morris and constructed by Snare & Triest Co. The project’s construction was overseen by C. W. Staniford, the chief engineer of the city’s Department of Docks, as well as assistant engineer S. W. Hoag Jr. It was inspired by the Exposition Universelle and is the only remaining ferry building in that style in Manhattan.
The Battery Maritime Building contains three ferry slips, numbered 5, 6, and 7. These are the three easternmost ferry slips of a never-completed larger terminal: the Whitehall Street Ferry Terminal, which was proposed to contain seven slips when it was constructed in 1906–1909.]
What is now the Battery Maritime Building was originally served by ferries traveling to 39th Street in South Brooklyn (now the neighborhood of Sunset Park in Brooklyn). The Staten Island Ferry terminal comprised slips 1, 2, and 3, which served ferries to St. George Terminal in St. George, Staten Island. The unbuilt slip 4 was to serve ferries from both Staten Island and South Brooklyn.
The three sections were designed to be built independently of each other with a visually identical style. The westernmost slips were drastically rebuilt in 1956, but the easternmost slips remain as a part of the modern Battery Maritime Building.
Facade Ironwork and window panels on balcony Entry bay, north elevation Railing between column on balcony Architectural metals including stamped zinc and copper, rolled steel, and cast iron were used in the building’s design.[8][20] These materials are more widely used on the water-facing side, to the south, than on the other facades.
Ferry slips 5, 6, and 7 are spanned by tall steel arches, which are supported by four pairs of pilasters with ornate capitals.
Slip 5 can accommodate vessels which load passengers from either the bow or the sides. Slips 6 and 7 can accommodate 149-passenger vessels which load passengers from the bow.
The entrances to each of the slips can be sealed with elaborate swinging gates. Above the ferry slips is a penthouse with a row of double-hung windows.The land-facing side, along Whitehall Street to the north, consists of five bays of sash windows, flanked by six pairs of columns that are topped by decorative capitals and brackets.
The columns supporting a hip roof, and the second floor of the land side contains a balcony with an elaborate railing. The balcony forms a loggia that measures 15 feet (4.6 m) wide; a similar loggia was also planned for the Staten Island Ferry terminal and center wing.[ The vaults under the porch roof utilize Guastavino tiles.
The second story had a direct connection to the South Ferry elevated train station, the Staten Island Ferry terminal, and Lower Manhattan.
The windows contain large frames with glazed glass and cast-iron mullions. Between these are connecting walls with wire lattice work, attached to the facade’s “I”-shaped steel stanchions. The steelwork on the remainder of the building contains decorative motifs such as paneled lattice work, raised moldings, and elaborate cross bracings.
Unlike in other structures of the same era, the steel structural members were left exposed without any cladding.
The roof was intended as a recreational area. Originally, the portion of the roof devoted to this purpose was clad with 1 Welsh red tiles, set in cement and laid on a layer of ash concrete. The other sections of the roof were made of gravel roof.
A skylight was installed in the center of the roof during one of the building’s restorationsIn the 2021 hotel conversion, a glass-clad addition was constructed on the roof.
Spires and cupolas were also installed atop the water-facing side these design features had been part of the original design but were removed in the 1930s.
Including bulkheads, the Battery Maritime Building is approximately 104 feet tall, as measured from the sidewalk of South Street.
The superstructure is made of steel framework and reinforced concrete floor slabs, which are finished with terrazzo. The main floor-girders vary in depth from 8 inches (200 mm), for I-beams, to 45-inch (1,100 mm) box girders. The ceilings are made of wire lath and finished in plaster. The columns of the superstructure vary in size; the larger columns are generally 25 inches (640 mm) thick and are built up of riveted steel sections.
Along the waterfront, the building rests upon thick concrete structural piers set over wooden piles, driven into the riverbed to the rock surface. Along the land, the concrete structural piers descend to the rock 20 to 30 feet (6.1 to 9.1 m) deep. Subway tunnels run directly under the terminal.
The interior has many decorative steel columns, beams, and molded ceilings, much of which dates from the original design.[ The terminal’s first story contains a waiting area along South Street. The waiting area was originally accessed by two vestibules and contained a smoking area, ticket office, and other booths[
The walls and furniture of the waiting area were decorated with wood, and the entire space was initially illuminated by a large skylight.
Behind the waiting area, to the south, was a passageway 40 feet (12 m) wide. This passage connected the two transverse driveways to slips 5 and 7, each measuring 51 feet (16 m) wide. It served as a vehicular loading area for wagons and motor vehicles.
The modern terminal contains the waiting area, ticket area, and restrooms for the Governors Island ferry line.
The building was originally constructed with a large second-story waiting room known as the Great Hall. The Great Hall measured 60 feet (18 m) wide and 150 to 170 feet (46 to 52 m) long,] with a ceiling about 30 feet (9.1 m) high.
The interior contains iron columns and stained glass windows and, as in the first floor, had wooden furnishings. Had the center wing of the Whitehall Street Ferry Terminal been completed, it would have formed a single, more massive concourse connected to the Staten Island Ferry slips. The third floor contained office space that could be used by the New York City Dock Board or rented out to other tenants.
Early 20th century
Ferry lines from Manhattan to Staten Island began operating under the municipal authority of the Department of Docks and Ferries in 1905, and ferries from Manhattan to Brooklyn were taken over by the city the following year.[ After the consolidation of these ferry lines, plans for the Beaux-Arts Whitehall Street Ferry Terminal in Lower Manhattan were approved by the city’s Municipal Art Commission in July 1906 and Walker and Morris were named as architects later that year.
The structure was to replace an earlier building on the site that had operated since 1887.
Walker and Morris’s plans were approved in February 1907 and a budget of $1.75 million was allotted to the work. The separate sections of the Whitehall Street Ferry Terminal were designed so they could be constructed separately while remaining visually similar. Work started on the Brooklyn ferry slips first, followed by the Staten Island ferry slips in 1908.A simple cornerstone-laying ceremony for the Brooklyn ferry terminal took place in September 1908.
The terminal was completed by 1909. The present Battery Maritime Building comprised the terminal’s eastern wing and became known as the South Street Ferry Terminal, while the ferries to Staten Island used the western wing, which became the Staten Island Ferry’s Whitehall Terminal. The city took over the Atlantic and Hamilton Avenue ferry lines from the Union Ferry Company in 1922. As part of the takeover, the two ferry lines were relocated from Union Ferry’s Whitehall Street slips to the municipally operated South Street ferry slips.
WSJ MAGAZINE
Hotel Conversion
After the exterior renovations were completed, the EDC and GIPEC started advertising for proposals to redevelop the interior .
In 2006, the city considered opening a food market in the building. The marketplace idea, modeled after the San Francisco Ferry Building, subsequently proved infeasible because the second floor lacked a loading dock.
Through only a combination of financial difficulties and doing business with the City of New York various characters were involved which today has become a hotel operated by Cipriani, which will open this year. We think!
M. FRANK, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, HARA REISER, GLORIA HERMAN GOT IT RIGHT ARTURO DI MODICA JUST PASSED AWAY.
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
WSJ MAGAZINE WIKIPEDIA
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Eco Dev Art Installation and Misc. Winter Shots on Monday, Feb. 8, 2021 in New York. (Ann-Sophie Fjello-Jensen/Alliance for Downtown New York)
85 Broad Street in Lower Manhattan is now home to two new light sculptures. Hungarian artist Viktor Vicsek created the piece entitled “Talking Heads.” It features two 21-foot tall heads covered in 4,000 LED lights. The lights change to create different facial expressions as the heads communicate.
The interactive sculpture “C/C,” designed by Singapore-based artist Angela Chong, is a bench made of contoured acrylic panels bound by steel. It performs a rainbow-colored LED light show at night while casting interesting shadows during the day.
A sweeping survey of KAW’S career from his roots as a graffiti artist to a dominating force in contemporary art, KAWS: WHAT PARTY highlights five overarching tenets in the artist’s practice. You will be immersed in the art of KAWS through the various sections of the exhibition.
Renowned for his pop culture-inspired characters in paintings and sculpture and playful use of abstraction with meticulous execution, the show covers drawings, paintings, bronze sculptures, objects and monumental wooden sculptures of his well known COMPANION character. Museum visitors can digitally interact with the art through AR (augmented reality) app on their smartphones. The exhibition is on view through September 5, 2021.
Installation View of The Seances aren’t helping I, 2021 Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner. Image The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photo Bruce Schwar
The séances aren’t helping by Carol Bove will be the second commission featured on the facade of The Met Fifth Avenue. The spaces Bove’s work will fill have historically been empty. Though the niches were intended to contain art, they were empty for 117 years. Bove’s four massive works are sculpted into nonrepresentational forms that “resonate with modernist styles such as Art Deco and abstraction.”
Bove’s piece contrasts the classical style of Richard Morris Hunt’s facade design, which “subtly calls for us to reevaluate and reckon with the legacies of tradition.” The tile also, The séances aren’t helping, further emphasizes the ongoing struggle to reckon with our past. The sculptures will be on display until November 2021.
Photo credit Happy Monday
An exploration of light continues at the South Street Seaport with works entitled Electric Dandelions, Hands of Inspiration and Daisies. All three installations are walkable throughout the cobblestone streets of the district and come to life at night. though they are also viewable any time of day.
Electric Dandelions are 28-feet tall sculptures lining Fulton Street. They are constructed from steel and acrylic spheres featuring a seemingly endless interactive display of LED animations. Artist Abram Santa Cruz and the LA-based art collective Liquid PXL created the work in collaboration with Art House Live and Fired Up Management.
Hands of Inspiration by Kareem Fletcher uses multicolored patterns to represent themes of diversity, unity, and equality through a series of works displayed in the windows of 193 Front Street in partnership with the South Street Seaport Museum. Daisies presents a range of multidisciplinary work in the form of an outdoor walkable gallery. Curated by artist Paige Silveria, the series of art and photography draws inspiration from the vibrantly wrought cult classic 1996 film “Daisies”. The work is best viewed after dark.
Courtesy of Chelsea Market
Scattered throughout Chelsea Market this month visitors will find a series of mixed-media artworks by Brooklyn-based artist Voodo’ Fe. The works honor all of the February and March celebrations of Black History Month, Valentine’s Day, and Women’s History Month. The art speaks to “to a diverse range of issues, feelings, and pop culture,” depicting famous figures such as Kobe Bryant, Harriet Tubman, Frida Kahlo, Ruth Bader Ginsburg among others.
A new addition to the exhibit this month is a special collaboration with Run DMC frontman Darryl “DMC” McDaniels. The collaborative piece, titled “Me and my microphone,” consists of a series of real-life paintings that can be experienced through an augmented reality app. Visitors can now download the Arloopa application and scan their mobile devices over the artwork to see it come to life. Voodo’ Fe’s show is free to all visitors of Chelsea Market and is on display throughout the entirety of the Market’s main concourse through the end of March 2021.
Courtesy of the artist
The work of Rashid Johnson employs a wide range of mediums to explore the themes of art history, individual and shared cultural identity, personal narratives, and materiality. His work often includes diverse materials rich with symbolism and personal history. The mosaic Untitled Broken Crowd is composed of handmade ceramics, wood, brass, oyster shells, spray paint, wax, soap, and mirrors the soaring piece spans 14 by 33 feet. Located at 200 Liberty Street at Brookfield Place, visitors will be able to contemplate Johnson’s extraordinary piece mounted in the lobby entrance. The glass facade of the building also allows the piece to be highly visible from the surrounding streets.
Photo courtesy Tishman Speyer
Tom Friedman’s stainless steel sculptures are instantly recognizable, like a modern-day, oversized Giacommeti sculpture. You may have previously seen a series of his sculptures along the Park Avenue malls between 2015 and 2016. Now, at the entrance to Rockefeller Center’s Channel Gardens, you’ll find his work, Looking Up.
Described as a “quasi-human figure gazing up to the heavens,” Looking Up was created from crushed aluminum foil pans through lost wax casting which keeps the imprint of the original materials on the steel. Looking Up will be on view until March 19, 2021. Also on view at Rockefeller Center’s main plaza and in the underground concourse is Hiba Schahbaz’ site-specific exhibition, “In My Heart,” which features prints of a mythological garden.
Photo courtesy Port Authority of New York & New Jersey
We love art exhibitions in unlikely places, and there may be no place more unlikely than the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The latest installation is inside the Six Summit Gallery, on the first floor of the bus terminal’s South Wing.
The exhibition “Journey to the Sky” showcases fifteen local and regional artists, eight from New York City, and others from New Jersey and Connecticut (with a handful from outside the area including California and abroad.
You can take a local historic landmark with a visit into Blackwell House. The house is open to the public Wednesday thru Sunday from11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed 2-3 p.m.)
No entries for this building across from Battery Park. This was the ticket office on the ground floor for the United States Lines, Transatlantic shipping. There were separate entrances for First Class and Cabin Class Passengers.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
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