Our work with old buildings has us studying a lot of different topics in addition to structural engineering – for example, architecture, history, and historic preservation – and we like sharing stories about what we’ve found. OLD STRUCTURES ENGINEERING
From Angelo Rizzuto, a view of the Brooklyn Bridge from June 1954. It was not taken from Woolworth, as the angle is slightly wrong.
The bridge was in a transition period, with one major renovation just completed and another about to start. Between 1950 and 1954, the bridge underwent it’s most extreme changes: the BMT elevated and trolley tracks were removed, the roadway expanded from two lanes each way (one shared with the trolleys) to three by using the elevated lanes for cars, the mid-width trusses that separated the elevated lanes from the traffic removed, and the formerly low outer trusses raised to the height of the inner trusses. This picture was taken a month after the end of that work, with the pedestrian walkway (center of the deck) reopened. The big space at the end of the bridge isn’t a plaza, it’s where the elevated station had been.
Note how close the bridge deck is to the neighboring buildings on both sides. That wouldn’t last: the next project was the – in my opinion, incredibly ill-advised – construction of ramps to connect the bridge to the highway along the East River. Because of the change in elevation, the buildings abutting the bridge on both sides, including the domed World Building on the right, were demolished so the ramps could double back on themselves in plan. This simultaneously encouraged people to drive into and through lower Manhattan and deprived the bridge of part of its original context.
Finally, note that little triangular island, with a subway entrance, at the end of the bridge. While not in the direct path of traffic, thanks to the ghost of the elevated station, it shows that traffic engineers were not yet in control.
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THE ART DECO MAGIC OF BLOOMINGDALE’S LEXINGTON AVENUE STORE SIGN
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 2024 ISSUE # 1256
EPHEMERAL NEWYORK
Like many of Manhattan’s legendary department stores, Bloomingdale’s developed in stages.
First came Lyman and Joseph Bloomingdale’s “Ladies’ Notions Shop” on Chambers Street, where they sold the trendiest garment of the 1860s: the hoop skirt.
In 1886, the Bloomingdale Brothers moved their store, renamed the “East Side Emporium,” to the hinterlands of Manhattan at Lexington Avenue and 59th Street.
“The store expanded steadily and by the 1920’s, Bloomingdale’s converted an entire city block,” states Bloomingdale’s website.
The block-long store that was put together piecemeal underwent an Art Deco makeover in 1930. A movie-marquee awning, metal decals along the facade, and geometric shapes above the main entrance decorate the store’s Lexington Avenue side.
What captures my eye is the Art Deco-style lettering on Bloomingdale’s facade and the entrance awning. I’m not enough of a typeface expert to know if it has a name.
But the san serif, all-caps lettering is a unique reminder of the magic of Art Deco—and that this beloved midcentury design style dominating many of Manhattan’s skyscraper districts can be found hidden away in unusual places: subway entrances, nameplates on building doors, and the lettering above store entrances.
PS 217 SANITATION SQUAD.
ARMED WITH TRASH BAGS AND GRABBERS STUDENTS ATTACKED TRASH ON MAIN STREET A PROGRAM FUNDED BY THE NY SANITATION DEPARTMENT
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Deepa Vinoo and I are pleased to announce that our article “Advancing Health Care Equity: A Memory Care Unit in a Large New York City Public Nursing Home” was published online in Caring for the Ages, which is the official newspaper of AMDA, providing timely and relevant news and commentary to post-acute and long-term care professionals throughout our country. This article, which describes how we went about improving dementia care, is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the entire Coler team. We greatly appreciate the support that you have given to Coler over the years. Advancing Health Care Equity: A Memory Care Unit in a Large New York City Public Nursing Home – Caring for the Ages
The 150-bed memory care unit (MCU) at Coler Rehabilitation & Nursing Care Center has a two-thirds racial and ethnic minority population. The unit’s residents have been impacted by social determinants of health associated with poor health outcomes, such as poverty, homelessness, substance use disorders, mental illness, behavioral disorders, and lack of health insurance. In addition, over 20% have no available family or surrogates.
Coler, which is operated by NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H), our nation’s largest municipal health system, serves as a safety net for those who otherwise would lack access to high-quality dementia care.
Recently, Coler received the American Association of Critical Care Nursing’s Beacon Award for Excellence in recognition of the high-quality dementia care provided in its MCU, becoming the first U.S. post-acute care recipient. Coler’s MCU team remains committed to advancing health equity in dementia care for an aging minority population in need of palliative services. To them, the true test of leadership is identifying new challenges, finding solutions, and inspiring others — for advancing health equity requires a deep-seated commitment to providing the highest-quality care.Journey to SuccessThe journey began two decades ago when the dementia care model was aggressive medical treatment, involving a hospital transfer at the resident’s end of life. For Coler, the key initial step involved transforming dementia care from a predominantly medical model to a palliative one, which required changing the culture of care.
The first target was tube-feeding in advanced dementia, which had been commonplace at Coler at the time. By contrast, emerging evidence-based medical literature was advocating maintenance of oral feeding as the more humane alternative (J Am Geriatr Soc 2014;62:1590–1593). Coler’s frontline MCU interdisciplinary team (IDT) took on the challenge, and they persuaded families to try this evidenced-based approach. As a result, within a relatively short interval they significantly reduced tube-feeding among their residents with advanced dementia.
Coler’s efforts continue today, and currently no MCU residents are receiving tube-feeding. A key lesson learned from this experience was how to embolden team spirit and build off an initial success in implementing evidenced-based care.KindnessSince 2008, kindness has been the key ingredient in the MCU team’s recipe for success, enabling the MCU’s residents to find their “comfort zone” and to express themselves in more meaningful ways. Kindness is also the key that enables the MCU IDT to gain the respect and trust of families.
As a case in point, early in the pandemic when family visitations were suspended, the wife of a MCU resident became extremely anxious and fearful for her husband’s safety. The head nurse explained the situation to the chief of psychiatry, who called the wife and reassured her that her husband was doing well. He even gave her his work cellphone number with instructions to call him with any concerns that she might have. When visitations were later resumed, the wife thanked the chief of psychiatry, commenting that his kindness completely rid her of her anxiety and fear; she said that she could sleep normally, knowing her husband was in good hands.
Based on our experience, any organization wishing to improve dementia care should rely on kindness from the onset, as it will never fail them. In fact, NYC H+H later launched a systemwide initiative called ICARE With Kindness, which emphasizes the greater need for kindness in every aspect of care.Liaison With Mentoring OrganizationsColer’s MCU was fortunate to receive guidance and training from organizations dedicated to advancing dementia care, which included Caring Kind, Comfort Matters, the Center to Advance Palliative Care, and AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. For organizations embarking on a similar path, it is essential to have dementia care support organizations by their side. For instance, as part of a research grant Comfort Matters trained all MCU IDT members in dementia care. The training received from these organizations was invaluable, building team confidence and paving the way for future successes, which were subsequently reflected in improved metrics.Person-Centered, Culturally Sensitive Dementia CareCare tailored to the residents’ needs and preferences that respects their values, beliefs, and cultural heritage has served Coler’s MCU residents well. Coler is fortunate to have culturally diverse IDT members, who serve as cultural liaisons to the residents and families.
For advanced-stage dementia, comfort care is provided to spare the residents from nonbeneficial, burdensome treatments while enrolling them in Coler’s palliative care program. In a 2021–2022 quality study, 19 of the 20 MCU residents (95%) who died during that period were enrolled in Coler’s palliative care, and none were transferred to acute care in their last 30 days of life. Organizations seeking to improve dementia care should consider this approach, which can be tailored to the needs and preferences of diverse populations.
A case Illustration Mr. L was a 35-year-old male with AIDS-induced dementia who identified as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. He was combative and was receiving high-dose antipsychotic medication at admission, which caused parkinsonian-like extrapyramidal symptoms (EPS). He required one-to-one observation; the Behavior Rapid Response Team was frequently called to assist, and several staff members had been injured. Moral distress among the staff was high, and Mr. L was transferred to the Coler MCU.
Upon his transfer, the MCU IDT held multiple huddles to explore the antecedents of Mr. L’s behavior. His next-of-kin were contacted to identify his preferences. After videoconferences with the family, a person-centered, culturally sensitive care approach was formulated. As part of this care plan, Mr. L received his favorite snacks and a personalized radio with his favorite music.
Mr. L’s aggressive behavior completely subsided, and he was tapered off his antipsychotic medications, with subsequent lessening of his EPS. He responded well to nonpharmacological pain management. Mr. L was then enrolled in Coler’s palliative care program to receive comfort measures and pastoral care. His family participated in his end-of-life care via videoconferences.
The IDT members comforted him in his final days, and Mr. L died peacefully in the MCU. Several IDT members attended his funeral. His family were deeply appreciative and wrote the team a touching thank-you message.
Key MetricsColer’s MCU leadership have used key metrics from the onset to improve dementia care in areas such as reducing falls, avoiding tube-feeding in advanced dementia, limiting antipsychotics, promoting systemwide deprescribing initiatives, expanding palliative care enrollment, and preventing end-of-life hospital transfers. They have presented their quality improvement data both within our health organization and to peer organizations such as the Society.Milestones/Distinctions• 2008–2011. Brown University sponsored research study: “Bathing Without a Battle: Creating a Better Bathing Experience for Persons With Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders”• 2010. Two protected units with 47 beds developed for residents with dementia• 2011–2013. Antipsychotic stewardship leading to a major reduction in antipsychotic use in MCU• 2014. Development of full-fledged memory care programs• 2016. “Algorithm for the Unbefriended” introduced at Coler, a support tool to assist care teams in making end-of-life treatment decisions for patients who lack both decisional capacity and surrogates• 2018. Collaboration with Comfort Matters and Caring Kind to build a palliative care program for dementia• 2018. Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (MOLST) quality improvement initiative launched to improve advance care planning• 2020–2021. COVID-19 pandemic, with no COVID deaths at Coler from July 1, 2020 to December 31, 2021 These milestones have helped us earn the recognition we have today as a quality facility, including the Quality Improvement & Health Care Outcomes Award from the Society (Caring for the Ages 2020;21[5]:23) and the recognition of our chief medical officer, Rani Rao, MD, FACP, CMD, as the Society’s Medical Director of the Year (Caring for the Ages 2023;24[3]:7).Take-Home Points• Leadership’s role is to seek new challenges, find solutions, and inspire others.• Advancing health care equity for America’s rapidly growing minority elders requires a deep-seated commitment to provide the highest-quality care.• Facilities must build off their successes.• Kindness is the key ingredient in the formula for success.• To succeed, it is essential to form liaisons with mentoring dementia care organizations.• Person-centered, culturally sensitive dementia care can be tailored to meet the needs and preferences of diverse populations. Throughout the process, leaders should utilize key metrics, measure your progress, set higher goals, present your quality improvement accomplishments to peer organizations, and collaborate with colleagues at annual conferences. Dr. Finger is attending physician/clinical ethics consultant at Coler Rehabilitation & Nursing Care Center and at Henry J. Carter Specialty Hospital & Nursing Facility. Dr. Vinoo is associate director nursing for the Coler Memory Care Unit.Article infoIdentificationDOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carage.2024.05.015CopyrightScienceDirectAccess this article on ScienceDirectRelated ArticlesEmpowering Care Through Connection: How Peer Mentoring Transformed a South Carolina Nursing Home’s Staff RetentionPischel et al. Caring for the AgesPreviewFull-Text PDFMedicare Home Health Care Outcomes Different by RaceJeffrey S. Eisenberg Caring for the AgesPreviewFull-Text PDFPartnering With Nursing Home Administrators to Improve Diabetes CareCarolyn Kazdan Caring for the AgesPreviewFull-Text PDFAcute Care in Nursing Homes May Be Better Than Hospital Care for Some ConditionsJeffrey S. Eisenberg Caring for the AgesPreviewFull-Text PDFA Year in Review in Long-Term Care: Virtual Reality, Breast Cancer Overdiagnosis, and Decolonization Interventions in Nursing HomesStaff Caring for the Ages
COLER STAFF CELEBRATES
The Beacon Award for Excellence FROM THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF CRITICAL CARE NURSES THEIR RECEIVING A PRESTIGIOUS AWARD FOR EXCELLENT CARE OF MEMORY UNIT RESIDENTS.
For patients and their families, the Beacon Award signifies exceptional care in a unit that puts patients first. For nurses, this award can mean a positive and supportive work environment with greater collaboration, higher morale and lower turnover.
he Beacon Award program comprises three distinct modules: Patient Outcomes, Work Environment and Nursing Workforce. While units must complete all three modules to be eligible for the Beacon Award, a unit may still receive recognition for top-tier performance at the module level even if only one module is completed.
CREDIT CARING FOR THE AGES (c) HOWARD FINGER, MD
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
While walking west on 28th Street I spotted a skinny building on the southwest corner of Broadway with Grecian temple at it’s peak. Time to check out the building with this odd design.
Charles A. Baudouine opened his first cabinetmaking shop on Pearl Street around 1830. As highly-ornate Victorian style came into fashion, his exquisitely carved Rococo Revival furniture earned him the reputation as one of New York’s premier cabinetmakers in the decades after Duncan Phyfe. His sole competitor in New York was John Henry Belter with whom he was (and is) consistently compared.
This Rococo Revival sofa came from the workshop of Charles Baudouine — The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
When Cyrus West Field purchased his mansion on the newly-developed Gramercy Park, he commissioned Baudouine to furnish the entire house—it was the first time in New York that a professional designer was hired as an interior decorator.
As Baudouine’s wealth accumulated, he invested heavily in real estate. Recognizing the potential of the northward movement of commerce up Fifth Avenue and Broadway, he bought up small buildings and erected modern business structures. Charles Baudouine would not live to see his last project fulfilled. He died on January 13, 1895 leaving an estate of approximately $3 million.
At Nos. 1181 to 1183 Broadway stood an old hotel known as the Brower House. The building was demolished and not long after Baudouine’s death construction commenced on a 10-story store and office structure–the Baudouine Building. Designed by architect Alfred Zucker, it was completed the following year. Situated at a slight bend in the thoroughfare, it claimed a commanding presence to anyone looking down Broadway.
Even today the location affords the building an opportune presence.
Zucker clothed his steel and iron framework in sandy-colored brick and terra-cotta on a rusticated two-story base of limestone. Despite the decorative elements, including an ornate closed pediment on the West 28th Street side; Zucker’s design would have been less-than-remarkable were it not for one feature: a large, meticulously designed Greco-Roman temple on the roof
Painstaking details in the temple, invisible from street level, are seen from a roof across the street — photography by C. T. Brady, Jr., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York,
It is possible that the two-story temple was designed specifically as the offices of the Charles A. Baudouine Realty Company, the first tenant in the building. Run principally by son Charles A. Baudoine, it was also perhaps the first tenant to run into trouble.
Baudoine had in his employ a 27-year old “confidential clerk,” Albert Page Wood. On November 4, 1897 Baudoine sent the man to the Second National Bank to deposit $700 in checks and $262 in cash. When he returned to the office around noon, he made the excuse that he had left the deposit book at the bank. On November 6 The New York Times reported “The officers of the bank said that Wood had made no deposit, and they knew nothing of the book. The police found the book and checks in Wood’s pockets. He refuses to tell what he did with the cash.”Young Albert Wood was arrested and learned a valuable lesson: When you steal $262 in cash from your employer, it is best not to go back to work.
Unlike his father, Charles had difficulty keeping his name out of the newspapers. In 1894 he married Agnes M. Rutter, daughter of Thomas Rutter, president of the New York Central Railroad. That same year they became friendly with writer Casper W. Whitney and his wife, Annie Childs Whitney, who lived nearby the newlyweds on West 58th Street. In December of that same year the Baudouines were divorced and a month later the Whitneys separated.
Six months later Charles and his new love were married and sailed off to Europe where they remained until February 1897. They returned to find that Casper Whitney had sued to have his wife’s divorce decree set aside and he filed for his own divorce. Since the original divorce was no longer legal, neither was Charles’ and Annie’s wedding. The couple was remarried amid the glare of newspapers and society.
Louis L. Meyer ran his tailoring business on the second floor of the Baudouine Building in 1899. He was found dead on a sofa here on April 11 that year in mysterious circumstances. A janitor reported seeing a “strange man” leaving the vicinity. On the floor nearby Meyer’s bloodied body was a broken bottle which had contained carbolic acid. His lips were acid-burned and an ambulance surgeon said that “his death had undoubtedly been caused by carbolic acid,” according to The New York Times.
Friends of the tailor said they believed he committed suicide while “mentally overbalanced from overwork,” despite the fact that his business was prospering. The Times noted that “The blood stains were not accounted for.”At the same time, the famous stage actress Julia Arthur had her offices here. One of her celebrated roles was that of a man—Hamlet. Readers of The New York Times were delighted when, on July 13, 1899, the newspaper reported “It was said yesterday at the offices of Miss Arthur’s company, 1181 Broadway, that she would probably be seen as the Dane before her engagement at the Broadway Theatre ends.”
A succession of renowned architects would take space in the building over the years. In 1900 Henry Anderson moved in; in 1909 Henry Atterbury Smith was here when he designed a group of four tenement houses for Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, specifically designed for tuberculosis victims; and William A. Hewlett occupied offices here in 1914 through 1916.In 1901 Harry Elliott ran his pharmacy in the Baudouine Building; the same year that The Art Publishing Company came up with a clever gimmick to sell issues of its new magazine. The firm ran advertisements in newspapers like The Sun publicizing a contest to name the new periodical. It offered $3,500 to the person who submitted the winning title.
“Can you suggest a suitable name? The publication is handsomely bound with colored cover, and printed on the finest super-calendared paper, is beautifully illustrated and full of bright, up-to-date articles on current topics, all of which are of a most interesting character. In other words, you will find it the most interesting and instructive publication you ever read, and fit for the finest homes in the land.”
The Art Publishing Company was careful not to reveal too much about the contents. It wanted to sell a copy to each of the aspiring contest participants with the glint of $3,500 in their eyes. “The best and surest way to win the money is to get a sample copy so that you can see what it’s like. You can then form an idea of what would be a suitable name for it, and may suggest and send any number of names from 1 to 30 to select from.” In order to find out what the magazine was all about, the reader was required to mail in a dime, the price of a single issue.
Also in the building was T. Cook & Sons, ticket agents for the Midland Railway, an English railroad that promised “the most interesting and picturesque route through the centre of England.” The agents would stay on in the Baudouine Building for years.
At the same time the New York Registry Company was located here. A sort of life insurance firm, clients would “register” and were provided with a brass tag on which a number was inscribed. Upon producing the tag, which was intended to be worn by the insured, the beneficiary would be paid.
The company figured somewhat ghoulishly in the life (and death) of canal boat captain Gordon Maxon in 1903. Early in December of that year Maxon moored his boat the H. A. Comiskey to a pier at Coenties Slip. He was nagged by an uneasy premonition and told acquaintances “he felt that he would drown sooner or later.” He therefore registered with the New York Registry Company. Only a few nights later the Captain and his wife were aboard the canal boat. He went above board to make sure things were properly moored and did not return.
The Evening World assumed “In some unknown way he fell overboard and was drowned.” Mrs. Maxon headed off to the Baudouine Building to claim her insurance benefits; but Captain Maxon wore the tag around his neck and the body was missing.
Finally, four months later on the afternoon of April 10, 1904, the body of the 60-year old captain was found floating in the river. “When his body was found the tag was found in his clothes and the identification made,” reported The Evening World. “Maxon’s wife has been unable to collect the insurance on her husband’s life because the tag must be produced, but will be able to do so now.”
While the New York Registry Company was selling insurance, the St. James Society was offering cures to drug addiction. One advertisement in the February 1901 issue of The Cosmopolitan recounted the story of a New York businessman who lost his job and whose life was being ruined by morphine. “I sent for a trial bottle [of the cure], which the doctor sent me free of charge, and before I had taken all of the trial bottle I felt a change come over me—in fact, the FREE TRIAL almost cured me of the desire for drugs, and the St. James Society gave me the only comfort and encouragement I had received in five years.”
Within three months, said the advertisement, he had his job back, was earning $10,000 a year, “which is more salary than I was getting when I lost my position,” and was free of addiction. The ad offered the free trial bottle; but neglected to mention what the follow-up doses would cost.
James D. Murphy Company, a major building contractor, had its offices in the building in 1904 when it had the unenviable task of forcing 32 families out of their homes in the Lexington Avenue and 25th Street neighborhood, to make way for the anticipated 69th Regiment Armory.
James D. Murphy was painted as a cold-hearted brute by newspapers. “In many cases persons were too ill to be removed, and, in one instance, a death resulted from catching cold while looking for another apartment,” said The Times on February 16. Murphy tried to explain. “It is not the James D. Murphy Company which is doing what is being done, but the city…There is no desire on the part of the Murphy Company to be harsh or hard, or to create trouble for any one.”
Another large contracting firm here was that of Patrick Gallagher. Gallagher, his wife and daughter, lived nearby on East 29th Street. In 1905 he received a number of building contracts “and as he could not go on his own bond, he transferred…the property…to his wife, so that she could qualify,” said The Times. The somewhat questionable move would cause problems later.
Three years later Gallagher instructed his wife to reconvey the properties to him. She refused. So he sued her and received a court order in his favor. Mrs. Gallagher appealed. So Gallagher sued her again in September 1908—this time for contempt of court. The New York Times found the back-and-forth legal squabbling puzzling. “Husband and wife are living in the same house and have a 17-year-old daughter,” it said.
Mrs. Gallagher’s lawyer was equally shocked. “Never before in the history of our jurisprudence so far as I have been able to discover, has a court of justice been called upon by a husband to send his wife, with whom he is living, the mother of this child, to jail for contempt on a charge of this kind.”
Gallagher insisted he did not want his wife jailed; he merely wanted his property returned.
His domestic problems were not the only reason Gallagher that would see the inside of a courtroom that year. He had contracts to construct school buildings for the city; but in August 1908 his payments were not being received and he sued the City. The Committee on Buildings of the Board of Education agreed with him. “The committee asserts that the Controller has delayed for months the payment of money to contractors which should never have taken more than ten days,” reported The Times.
Gallagher did not care who was responsible—he simply wanted to be paid. He wrote to the Controller saying he intended to sue him and the city “for loss which he says the Controller has caused him by withholding money due on contracts.”
The outspoken Gallagher was back in the press a year later when he lashed out at the Mayor for “his expressed ignorance of the provisions of the newly revised Building Code. In his letter to the His Honor, the contractor said in part that “city finances are so crippled by the fearful mismanagement and unpardonable extravagance of our officials that we have been and are unable to start any new school buildings for near one year.”
Bold letters announce the building’s name on both elevations.
By now the Garment District was inching towards Broadway and 28th Street. The Croonborg Sartorial Academy, a school of fashion and apparel, was in the building by 1907. Once a year it put on its Annual Garment and Style Exhibit—a fashion show that brought both women and men up to date on current trends.
The August 1907 show proved that dark blue was the new color for men’s formal wear. “Of all the evening suits on exhibition there from the scissors of some of the most celebrated tailors in the country, two-thirds are made of blue worsted,” reported The Times. “The new suits are otherwise not much different than the evening clothes of last year. The tails are chopped off a bit squarer, but that is all.”
The newspaper’s critic was not taken with most of the new styles, saying they looked “very much like the wardrobe of a vaudeville slapstick artist or a Dutch comedian.” Speaking in particular of one coat the exhibitors said promised to be “very popular,” the writer cautioned “Any one who appeared on Broadway a year ago wearing that coat would have been followed for blocks by a mob anxious to see what he was advertising.”
Other apparel concerns followed; among them Croonberg Fashion Co.; Thain, Hewlett & Reddy; the Pennsylvania Button and Trimming Company; and the Matthews Clothes Shop in the first floor retail space. Matthews would be a fixture in the building into the 1920s.
The Evening World, November 26, 1920
In March 1918 the Baudouine family received a shock when Charles’ niece, Marguerite Baudouine Burke, sued her father and uncle for a share in her grandfather’s estate. Her vicious attack asserted that her father was an “inveterate gambler and speculator” who “lived a life of dissipation” and was “morally and financially irresponsible.” She said Charles was “living a life of luxury and pleasure and devoting himself to horses and dogs.” She said he has “lived a life of idleness, luxury and display” and described her father as “openly branded by his creditors as a cheat and fraud.”
Therefore, she explained in her court papers, $15,000 a year would be sufficient for Charles and John Baudouine (about $150,000 today) from their father’s $3 million trust. Assumedly that would leave “sufficient” money for Marguerite and her siblings upon her father’s and uncle’s deaths.
On December 6, 1929 tragedy struck here when Mrs. Henriette Insko visited her husband in his jewelry office. The 23-year old woman dropped a package in the elevator and, as she bent to retrieve it in the moving cab, her head hit the landing of the ninth floor. She died within minutes. Oddly enough, Melvin Anderson, the elevator operator was arrested on a technical charge of homicide.
Throughout the remainder of the century the building continued to be home to apparel firms like the Bowcraft Co., a “shoe trimmings” firm that took a full floor in 1950; and novel companies like the Interstate Toy Co. In 1979 a gas explosion in the basement of a novelty store at street level injured five persons. The blast caused a brief flash fire, broke windows in the area and created gaping holes in the concrete sidewalk.
By 2004 the wonderful temple on the roof of the Baudouine Building had become residential—home to a business tenant whose office was on a lower floor. Although the street level of the building has been brutally altered to accommodate garish novelty and electronics stores; above the structure is unchanged. And the out-of-place slice of Rome atop is a marvel, prompting the “AIA Guide to New York City” to call the building “A sliver with a meticulous Ionic-columned Roman temple on top. Peer upward.”
Luckily, the building is located in the No-Mad Historic District and hopefully a better future may be assured.
de Gourneay, the French wallpaper company has refreshed the exterior of their shop at the Tram Plaza. Wonderful floral murals cover the walls… What a wonderful and delightful site!!!
CREDIT Daytonian in Manhattan
Judith Berdy
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
He also had his young wife to worry about. Virginia Clemm was sick with tuberculosis.
Instead of living downtown or in Greenwich Village, as the couple had in 1837, they moved to a country farmhouse roughly at today’s Broadway and 84th Street.
At the time, this was part of the bucolic village of Bloomingdale. Fresh air, the thinking was, might help ease Virginia’s illness.
When Poe needed to get away from the farmhouse (above, in 1879) and seek inspiration, he went to a rocky knoll of Manhattan schist in the woods overlooking the Hudson River, on the border of the not-yet-created Riverside Park.
He named it Mount Tom, after young Thomas Brennan, the son of the farmhouse’s owner. This outcropping still exists at the end of West 83rd Street (below).
“It was Poe’s custom to wander away from the house in pleasant weather to ‘Mount Tom,’ an immense rock, which may still be seen in Riverside Park, where he would sit alone for hours, gazing at the Hudson,” states this 1903 Poe biography.
“Poe and Virginia enjoyed sitting on [Mount Tom] and gazing across the then-rural riverland north of the city,” according to this collection of Poe’s work.
Poe himself wrote about Manhattan’s rocky topography in an 1844 dispatch to a Pennsylvania newspaper, finding the city’s “certain air of rocky sterility” to be “sublime.”
In the same dispatch, he bemoaned Manhattan’s development and the end of its rural, spacious charm.
“The spirit of Improvement has withered [old picturesque mansions] with its acrid breath,” he wrote.
“Streets are already ‘mapped’ through them. . . . In some 30 years every noble cliff will be a pier, and the whole island will be densely desecrated by buildings of brick, with portentous facades of brown-stone, or brown-stone, as the Gothamites have it.”
Poe didn’t last long on West 84th Street. After The Raven was published in 1845 and turned him into a literary sensation, he and Virginia moved to a cottage in the Fordham section of the Bronx.
Tuberculosis took Virginia in 1847; Poe left the Bronx and found himself in Baltimore, where he died, perhaps from alcoholism, in 1849.
I wonder what he would think of contemporary West 84th Street bearing his name?
THE RAVEN
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. “ “’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door— Only this, and nothing more.”Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore— For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Nameless here for evermore.And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, “ “’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door— Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;— This it is, and nothing more.”Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, “Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;— Darkness there, and nothing more.Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore!” This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”— Merely this, and nothing more.Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. “Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice, Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore— Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;— ‘Tis the wind and nothing more.”Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door— Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door— Perched, and sat, and nothing more.Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore. “Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore— Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door— Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as “Nevermore.”But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing further then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered— Till I scarcely more than muttered, “other friends have flown before— On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.” Then the bird said, “Nevermore.”Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, “Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore— Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore, Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”But the Raven still beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore— What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o’er, But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o’er, She shall press, ah, nevermore!Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee Respite—respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore; Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!— Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted— On this home by horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore— Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore— Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”“Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting— “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted—nevermore!
PHOTO OF THE DAY
OUT OF CURIOSITY, I WAS WALKING BY THE CENTRAL SAVINGS BANK BUILDING ON 73 STREET BETWEEN BROADWAY AND AMSTERDAM AVENUES. WHAT A WONDERFUL SURPRISE (COULD NOT RESIST A PHOTO)
CREDIT EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
THE RAVEN
Public domain. First published by Wiley and Putnam, 1845, in The Raven and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
What Washington Square looked like when it was a military parade ground
THURSDAY-FRIDAY, JUNE 13-14 ,2024
ISSUE # 1253
What Washington Square looked like when it was a military parade ground
Washington Square has been many things throughout New York City history.
In the 17th century, it was a marshy hunting ground, according to NYC Parks; two centuries later, it served as a potters field, execution site, and then a neighborhood park bordering an elite residential enclave.
The 20th century brought artists, protestors, NYU students, and park-goers enjoying the car-free ambiance.
But in 1826, Washington Square was rebranded as the Washington Military Parade Ground, a place where military exercises were conducted with soldiers in uniform.
Though the Square became an official public park in 1827, military regiments still gathered there—as this lithograph from 1851 reveals.
Click it to enlarge and take a look at this rich scene. It was painted by Otto Boetticher, a German immigrant turned New Yorker who enlisted to fight for the Union in 1861 and spent time in a Confederate prison camp.
But a decade before that, he captured the city’s Seventh Regiment “on review,” along with what look like well-to-do civilians in the park, the low-rise houses of University Place and West Fourth Street in the distance.
“In the background are two Gothic Revival–style edifices, New York University’s main building (also known as the University Building), to the left, and the Reformed Dutch Church, toward the center; both were demolished in the early 1890s,” states Metmuseum.org, which has this lithograph in its collection.
A piece of the 1830s city on West Fourth Street
In 1894, New York University tore down the 1835 Gothic Revival beauty that was the school’s main building.
For six decades, it anchored the college community and watched the neighborhood go from posh and stylish to more bohemian and rougher around the edges.
By the 1890s, NYU had decided to move its undergraduate school to the Bronx, and the main building had outlived its usefulness.
Lucky for us, when the building met the bulldozer, NYU officials saved one architectural detail: a small spire, complete with a handful of grotesques.
They ceremoniously named it the Founder’s Memorial and brought it to the new Bronx campus, where it spent most of the 20th century.
But the Bronx campus was sold off in the 1970s, and NYU once again concentrated its educational offerings in Greenwich Village. When the school came back, the spire came returned as well.
Today it sits off West Fourth Street between Bobst Library and Shimkin Hall, a modest sliver of the 1830s hiding in the shadows of the modern city.
Thanks to the overwhelming support of our islanders and many others who have come forward to learn about this project, The initiative to protect Coler is still in its planning stages. We hope to form a productive working relationship and find the best possible solution. All part of our island community will be able to participate.
Judith Berdy
COLER STAFF CELEBRATES
The Beacon Award for Excellence FROM THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF CRITICAL CARE NURSES THEIR RECEIVING A PRESTIGIOUS AWARD FOR EXCELLENT CARE OF MEMORY UNIT RESIDENTS.
For patients and their families, the Beacon Award signifies exceptional care in a unit that puts patients first. For nurses, this award can mean a positive and supportive work environment with greater collaboration, higher morale and lower turnover.
The Beacon Award program comprises three distinct modules: Patient Outcomes, Work Environment and Nursing Workforce. While units must complete all three modules to be eligible for the Beacon Award, a unit may still receive recognition for top-tier performance at the module level even if only one module is completed.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
THE VIRTUAL MEETING WAS TONIGHT. TO SAY THE LEAST IT WAS A DISASTER. NO ANSWERS NO SOLUTIONS THE SAME PROPAGANDA THAT WE HEARD AT THE COLER MEETING LAST WEEK
A DISGRACEFUL DISPLAY OF IGNORANCE FROM THE PRESENTERS
PLEASE READ THE QUESTIONS AS PRESSENTED BY RESIDENTS AND MOST WERE NOT ANSWERED.
ONLY TYPED QUESTIONS AND NAMES OF THOSE PRESENT WERE NOT GIVEN.
THANKS TO STEPHAN SILVERSTEIN FOR THE COMMENTS PRESENTED AND QUESTIONS BELOW:
Anonymous attendee 06:03 PM
Hi,who decide this project is necesary? Steve Silverstein (You) 06:03 PM
can you share how many people have joined thus far? This question has been answered live Francene Benjamin 06:05 PM
How many floods have their been since Sandy? Anonymous attendee 06:09 PM
Why would any flood wall be needed at a southern end? Why wall off Coler from our community? Were you on the Island after Sandy? I walked completely around the and no flooding was at these spaces. This question has been answered live Steve Silverstein (You) 06:10 PM
It has been reported that the source of the basement flood during Hurricane Sandy was the abandoned HHC Steam Tunnel along the eastern seawall, which is now at risk for catastrophic collape. Why not use the FEMA funds to repair or fill-in the steam tunnel which is HHC’s responsibility in the first place? judith berdy 06:10 PM
The truth is the 2012 floodding coe from the steam tunnel and not from the river. judith berdy 06:11 PM
Why are you showing a 7 year old rendering? Anonymous attendee 06:11 PM
Do you have any ideea for how long this buildings will be there? Steve Silverstein (You) 06:13 PM
And as a follow-up, how would this design prevent flood water entering through the abandoned steam tunnel again? Melissa Godwin 06:16 PM
What happens to all the existing trees at lighthouse park? judith berdy 06:16 PM
ThThe images do not represent a true height of anything, just imaginary Jerome Dutilloy 06:16 PM
Coler is a building included in the community. Putting a wall at the south tip would close that space from the community and does not make sense as it does not protect Octagon building on the other side. This look more like a form of permanent segregation than protection. Jerome Dutilloy 06:17 PM
How many current trees will be remove? Trees are part of the mitigation in terms of a flooding event and should be integrated and not removed. Anonymous attendee 06:18 PM
Why does this rendering and plan destroy valuable trees that protext against flooding and soak in water constantly and also literally wall in a cherished neighbor with cherished friends. This does not address the cause of the previous flooding. Flood gates are a hideous kind of “solution” and do not work. We need to see what actual proof that a BERM would protect when trees already protect. Please address WHY and HOW Coler flooded exactly. You are not speaking to that. We do not see the “necessity” at all. matthias altwicker 06:18 PM
You can’t seriously be showing us examples of different sloped berms and compare them to this proposal. If they are the same then show they are the same with precise drawings, not mediocre renderings. Anonymous attendee 06:18 PM
Island users are Coler users. We are all together and not separate. judith berdy 06:20 PM
The visionig you showed is from about 2015 and does at all relate to what is being discussed now and is deceptive. matthias altwicker 06:20 PM
Additionally, you will need to show how the different movement systems of all people can be accomodated with a drawing other than a site plan. There are serious slopes which need to be thought through. I don’t believe what I am seeing. Roger Jacobs 06:20 PM
How can you assure us that this isn’t a case of “use it or lose it” as far as FEMA funding is concerned. How can you justify going ahead with this project when it has been reviled almost universally by those it allegedly protects? This question has been answered live Anonymous attendee 06:20 PM
The river overflowed in the middle of the island during Sandy, up to the top of the stairs by Manhattan Park (the former community theater by 2-4 River Road). It was quite high and it was scary. So whatever,the source of the flooding was on the northern tip, it was bad in the higher elevations during Sandy and the two ends of the island were hit hardest. We definitely need to be prepared! Anonymous attendee 06:21 PM
Is a landscape architecct involved in the design scheme. This question has been answered live Jack Burkhalter 06:22 PM
How many existing trees would have to be removed? Can trees be planted in/on top of berms? Anonymous attendee 06:22 PM
None of the photos shown do not show berms in areas of buildings, The GOldwater Hlll is not a berm, it is a hill Anonymous attendee 06:22 PM
Is there a topographical map of the Coler / Lighthouse Park area? It is hard to understand what STV meant in the last meeting presentation about elevating the land to 10’, 12’ and 18’ feet high with soil when the base height of the existing land is unknown. This question has been answered live Anonymous attendee 06:23 PM
Who supervises day to day STV’s land boring / hole making exploration of the land using heavy trucks at Lighthouse Park and Coler to ensure the least amount of land and existing tree damage? We know a water main was recently drilled into by accident and broken during boring and the restroom water disrupted which also is used for landscape watering. This question has been answered live Anonymous attendee 06:23 PM
How many of the 815 beds at Coler are actually being utilized? What is the future anticipated utilization of Coler? John Ghilduta 06:23 PM
How much this project will cost? Anonymous attendee 06:23 PM
Could STV or RIOC supply images of the Roosevelt Island planned design and the Coney Island hospital project and the one other hospital project FEMA funded for coastal resilience alongside Coler? And examples of other thin options that do not remove trees and existing parkland. This question has been answered live Graciela Ramirez 06:24 PM
This is not early Amanda Matthews 06:24 PM
How long do you expect this project to take once the construction begins? Will this shut off the north end of the island and Lighthouse Park during that time? This question has been answered live Anonymous attendee 06:24 PM
This is not listening or dialoguing with community. This is destruction and not protection. This can be VASTLY improved using much more knowledge of nature. Find a way to do this WITHOUT walling off the hospital. Look at what really happened in Sandy and where the water really came from…without assuming that it came from the edges around. This was not the case. Anonymous attendee 06:25 PM
YOu will use the grant and not care what happens for the residents of the hospital and surrounding areas. Sornakumar Nathan 06:26 PM
Were there other feasible options, besides a berm, that were considered? This question has been answered live Anonymous attendee 06:26 PM
Respectfully request you design smart, design without parkland destruction and preserve all trees because trees capture storm water and are a barrier against storm winds. verna fitzpatrick 06:26 PM
At the meeting that was held at Coler last week, we were told that other options are being considered. What other options are being considered? Marianne Haugaard 06:26 PM
Secure Biodiversity and preservation of exisiting trees is of essence, abiding with the Climate change goals. David Stone 06:26 PM
This rendering resembles the frighteningly inaccurate renderings used to sell the disastrous Southpoint Park reconstruction. And once it is done, there is no going back. We’re stuck with Southpoint. RIOC, don’t let H&H destroy Lighthouse Park too. Anonymous attendee 06:27 PM
Does the current flood status of the land make the land that Coler sits on unsellable to private development? Is there a plan to sell Coler once this project is complete? This question has been answered live Anonymous attendee 06:27 PM
When is the next open meeting with the community so that there will be interactive with open in person conversation? This question has been answered live Jerome Dutilloy 06:27 PM
One of the best protection against floods, is to find places where the water can flow in case of overflowing. How is the project allowing flow and water to go through without destruction or hurting life on Coler? Sophia Fox would like to answer this question live. Sornakumar Nathan 06:27 PM
Will plants, trees in the Coler park be raised 10 ft? matthias altwicker 06:28 PM
You should not come to the visioning process with a vision, you build the vision from the feedback. This is visioning 101. Anonymous attendee 06:28 PM
We interact with Coler all the time. We share the northern end of the Island and have friends and neighbors who live there. We do NOT want Coler separated by walls and berms and we do NOT want Coler friends, neighbors, and workers to have to work and live in a space that has been inappropriately walled off in destructive ways rather than truly saving the natural world. Look at what actually caused the flooding during Sandy. The mission is not clearly presented. Steve Silverstein (You) 06:28 PM
Why do you presume that no matter what you are going forward with this project, albeit with some input and minor modifications? Who authorizes you to do so? Anonymous attendee 06:28 PM
Is funding included for the long term maintenance of the vegetative/planting areas? David Stone 06:28 PM
The 500 year plan is ridiculous as Coler will be long gone by then, and New York City may be underwater too. This boneheaded beaucracy with sufficient consideration. Anonymous attendee 06:30 PM
So happy the electric has now gone up higher after Hurricane Sandy! Since 2022 community has been mapping existing and newly planted trees. Many trees are nearly 75 years old and over 150 feet tall – older trees create more stormwater absorbtion benefits. Soon we will have a very accurate map of the 406 trees, their diameter and species and environmental benefit measurements within the landscape around Coler and Lighthouse Park for STV to work with. Who in RIOC, STV and Coler should we share that with? David Stone 06:31 PM
This feels more like a steamroller pushing through with this session used to numb protests without any real change possible. RIOC needs to stop this. It’s our land and shouldn’t be lost to extreme overreach. Anonymous attendee 06:34 PM
Describe what happens to the patients in Coler when you are drilling30″ borings down to the bedrock? There will be more damage to the building structure. Susy del campo 06:34 PM
Why you want to kill our trees instead of fixing the steam tunnel?
Why you want to bulldoze our park? Anonymous attendee 06:36 PM
Will the Q&A be on the recording? Anonymous attendee 06:36 PM
When Cornell Tech was built on the former Goldwater hospital land on Roosevelt Island it had to go through ULURP a land use review process with community input – our understanding is that hospitals are City Land and go through ULURP. Will this go through ULURP? Frank Farance 06:36 PM
What happens with the 7 million galls of waster water inside when it rains? David Stone 06:37 PM
Are you really familiar with the 2017 plans developed with residents? I ask because this plan does not resemble that at all. Jerome Dutilloy 06:37 PM
three years for the resident will be very long. What measures will be done to allow the residents who cannot leave the premises to be not indisposed. These residents deserve the best. Anonymous attendee 06:37 PM
Show us the other options such as a lift up wall like at JFK? Deployables are an option, not just a giant wall. Amanda Matthews 06:37 PM
So, please confirm whether or not Lighthouse Park will be shut down for months at a time during the estimated 32-month construction. Rachel Dowling 06:38 PM
Why is this being addressed so many years after the fact of Sandy? Is there real urgency? Or just a need to use allocated funds? Steve Silverstein (You) 06:38 PM
why are you ignoring all questions and criticisms regarding the need for in-person interactive dialog? Kris Johnson 06:38 PM
What will happen to the bike path/promenade, Nellie Bly sculpture,grills and picnic tables Anonymous attendee 06:38 PM
So how many of the 815 beds are actually being utilized? Anonymous attendee 06:39 PM
It is time for more islanders to attend meeting and not just mark this off as a public meeting. Anonymous attendee 06:39 PM
I believe you misunderstood the topographically map question or only read half of the question – It is hard to understand what STV meant in the last meeting presentation about elevating the land to 10’, 12’ and 18’ feet high with soil when the base height of the existing land is unknown. Can you overlay future designs over the existing landscape – seeing a nice seating design does not honestly show how much parkland / trees will be uprooted for that design. Steve Silverstein (You) 06:40 PM
this is not an open meeting! we are not able to participate and rebut your propaganda Frank Farance 06:40 PM
That answer doesn’t make sense about the flood water splashing over Frank Farance 06:41 PM
You need to stay within your own property line Sornakumar Nathan 06:42 PM
Where will the flood water pumps be located (I think this was mentioned)? Sophia Fox would like to answer this question live. David Stone 06:42 PM
Who are you talking with at RIOC, keeping in mind that H&H had refused to take responsibility for the dangerously deteriorated steam plant and its tunnel? It looks coercive from here with H&H again just doing whatever it wants. Anonymous attendee 06:42 PM
This iis not CHATTER, this is our island and we are concerned what will be left! Frank Farance 06:42 PM
That’s baloney – you’re not saving the trees, you’re burying them with 7-10 feet of dirtr Jerome Dutilloy 06:43 PM
Trees and plants are the best way of protecting the land. Bare land is dead land. You can’t protect efficiently without using plants. Are their plans for that? It seems in your answers that this is only an afterthought. Sophia Fox would like to answer this question live. Rachel Dowling 06:44 PM
I am on the north tip of the island frequently and have seen very little flooding, save a few puddles to skip around… David Stone 06:44 PM
Honestly, is there any chance you will change this plan based on community concerns? Be honest, please. Anonymous attendee 06:44 PM
Why do berms and walls need to be used. What are the other options? Can money be spent to improve the Coler buildings themselves and improve the facility. Again, we need to hear what actually caused the flooding during Sandy and what has been addressed since then. We also respectfully need to see OTHER options because they do exist. Frank Farance 06:44 PM
It’s about 16 ft elevation at the Octagon garage entrance matthias altwicker 06:44 PM
That is a vision. You don’t understand. You are presenting solutions. Anonymous attendee 06:44 PM
Could STV host another town hall in person for the community (the last mtg was with 24 hours notice at 5PM when people are at work)? A survey with little context beyond a website is hard to understand this large construction project. Ideally, design ideas would be overlaid on top of existing parkland for a better understanding. Sophia Fox would like to answer this question live. Anonymous attendee 06:44 PM
Why is the berm the way to protect best? You have not proven or shown this or explained where the flooding came from Anonymous attendee 06:44 PM
Everybody photograph the questions since I don think they will be on the recording. Ashleigh Piatetsky 06:45 PM
What considerations are being given to drainage where walls might be built? Specifically looking at the sea wall being built by Corlears Hook Park in Manhattan, where it has caused significant flooding during normal rainstorms. David Stone 06:45 PM
Why are you dodging difficult questions? Anonymous attendee 06:45 PM
Trees are huge in flood protection. Do not remove trees for a berm. The berm will not drink the water an d produce less heat. Roger Jacobs 06:46 PM Why can’t the lower level of the hospital be hardened against flooding and wouldn’t that be more cost effective? Anonymous attendee 06:46 PM
What are the other options? What are the other options? Anonymous attendee 06:46 PM
If you are on the meeting text me at 917 744 3721 since we do not have a list. Sornakumar Nathan 06:47 PM
Will barges be used to bring in berm, construction material etc? Frank Farance 06:47 PM
H+H is City property and, thus, must have ULURP Frank Farance 06:48 PM
10.2 inch of rain (Sandy) times 1 million sq-ft (foot print your are proposing) = 7 million gals of waste in a storm Monica Skovron 06:48 PM
All of the renderings and photos of berms are POV outside the berm. Are there renderings from the Coler side and views from ground floor and patient rooms? Ashleigh Piatetsky 06:48 PM
Where will the vibration monitoring devices be placed in relation to buildings? Looking again at the Manhattan Lower East Side wall – the vibration monitors were placed quite far away from the drilling and multiple residents of the coops in the area reported buildings trembling during drilling. David Stone 06:48 PM Did you consider how Cornell handled the construction, honoring real concerns from residents? They listened. You are justifying a decision already hardened. Anonymous attendee 06:49 PM
Small trees with one inch caliper can be transplanted. Mature nearly 75 years old, 150 feet in height and with trunks wider than 70 inches provide the most stormwater absorbtion and many positive benefits exponentially – those large trees can not be replanted or transfered. Can you guaranteed to the community that you favor designing thin around those, preserving the value of those trees and parkland? Anonymous attendee 06:49 PM
People visit Coler every day. Coler residents leave and visiit the Island every day. You speak of Coler as if it is separate from Roosevelt Island. It is not. Anonymous attendee 06:50 PM
Show us options that involve improving the actual facility to protect and improve residents lives. Anonymous attendee 06:50 PM
Could Huckel help make this project go away like Congestion Pricing? Rachel Dowling 06:50 PM
Does “deployables”mean structures in the river? Elizabeth Dillon 06:50 PM
For those of us that were late to the meeting (sorry!) – where will we be able to find a link to the recording of this meeting? Anonymous attendee 06:51 PM
Show us really creative options that use natural solutions to protect not artificial berms and walls. Anonymous attendee 06:51 PM
What caused the storm damage in Sandy. Where did the water actually come from. Anonymous attendee 06:51 PM
We have recently had a few Earthquakes. If you drill into the bedrock thirty feet pilings to then do soil dumps to make hill “berms” has there every been past data on earthquake triggering – what do you know about that and any corrolations? Anonymous attendee 06:52 PM
My understanding is none of the patients in Coler have private rooms, and there are a minimum of four patients per room. Most or all patients have limited mobility. I’m concerned patients will feel even more walled in. Steve Silverstein (You) 06:53 PM
You are cherry-picking questions to answer, bypassing ones you choose to ignore. Every question deserves a response, e.g. how many months Lighthouse Park will be closed during construction. Anonymous attendee 06:53 PM
This chat is horse manure. Nothing we ask or say is going to have any effect. You guys are spewing P.R. I’m switching to Jeopardy. Bye! Anonymous attendee 06:53 PM
Was Octagon flooded during Sandy? If not, why have a wall between Coler and Octagon? Anonymous attendee 06:53 PM
We trust that Coler is safe and do not malke us thinl that it is unsafe. Do not scare us into accepting a bad plan….. Come back with real ideas, listten to suggestions. Spend a day at COler and learn about COler!!! Amanda Matthews 06:53 PM
A quarter of a million people from all over the world have purposefully made their way to the north end of the island to see The Girl Puzzle Monument based on our analytics. Will access to Lighthouse Park and the monument be accessible during the construction??? matthias altwicker 06:54 PM
A visioning meeting with plans and physical input is the way to do this. NOT a presentation which we respond to. This allows for open discussion between smaller groups of people instead of all of us talking one at a time to the other dozens. Again, visioning 101. David Stone 06:55 PM
Why is RIOC not here participating? They have some answers they owe us on their involvement without engaging with residents for months. Anonymous attendee 06:55 PM Coler has 500 long term residents who live there as there permanent home. Anonymous attendee 06:55 PM
What are flood pumps and what are their footprint and height? Monica Skovron 06:55 PM
Temporary measures deployed before an event sound like the best idea — and are being successfully deployed in Venice. verna fitzpatrick 06:56 PM
The berm in front of the building will limit residents and staff views of the river. Rachel Dowling 06:56 PM I am concerned about the berms/walls cutting the Coler community off from the rest of the island/waterfront/community. Frank Farance 06:56 PM
I don’t think you’re answering questions about alternatives Schuyler Borden 06:58 PM
How about managed retreat of the low site and rebuilding a state of the art hospital on higher ground? Frank Farance 06:59 PM
Yeah, I’d like to see you stay within your footprint and not take up the rest of our land Amanda Matthews 06:59 PM Will vibration monitors be placed on the newly renovated lighthouse and on The Girl Puzzle Monument? Anonymous attendee 07:00 PM
Have you ever been inside COler and stayed in a first floor room and seen what it would be like if there was a wall obstuctin the views Anonymous attendee 07:00 PM
How long are you accepting community input – is there a stop date? Monica Skovron 07:01 PM
Please provide renderings of the berms from the POV inside the hospital grounds, the hospital ground floor, and from patient rooms. Sornakumar Nathan 07:02 PM
Will there be a webinar later with updates, Q&A,? Graciela Ramirez 07:02 PM
For many residents the only enjoyment is to sit in the lobby or outside of the hospital and look at the river and the manhattan view because they can not push themselves/or limited mobility any further. How will you help to compensate that view/enjoyment?
PLEASE READ THE ARTICLE BELOW AND PRESENT YOUR QUESTIONS ON MONDAY. IT IS TIME TO MAKE SURE THAT ANY PLAN FOR COLER IF NOT DONE RIGHT WILL DESTROY, AND ALL THE AREAS SURROUNDING IT.
IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU ATTEND THIS MEETING ON MONDAY.
THIS MEETING HAS BEEN HELD YESTERDAY WITH THE COLER RESIDENTS AND STAFF.
THERE ARE MANY QUESTIONS TO BE ASKED ASKED:
WHY DO WE NEED A “500 YEAR FLOOD MITIGATION PLAN” FOR COLER? WHO CAME UP WITH THIS AND WHY?
THE FLOODING IN 2012 CAME FROM THE STEAM TUNNEL UP INTO THE BASEMENT, NOT FROM THE RIVER. A SEAWALL WILL DO NOTHING IF WATER COMES FROM THE STEAM TUNNEL (WHICH IS NOW CLOSED, BUT NOT COMPLETELY SEALED).
FEMA HAS AUTHORIZED $90,000,000 TO BE SPENT ON THE PROJECT, BUT THESE PROJECTS USUALLY HAVE VASTLY MORE COSTS AND TAKE YEARS TO COMPLETE. THE CITY PAYS 10% OF THE COST.
COLER’S ENTIRE INFRASTRUCTURE WAS RELOCATED AFTER 2012 HURRICANE SANDY AND ALL UTILITIES ARE ON THE SECOND LEVEL OR ABOVE. THERE IS NO VITAL INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE BASEMENT, THE ONLY AREA TO FLOOD IN 2012. SOME ADJOINING PARKING AREAS ALSO FLOODED BUT DID NOT ENTER PATIENT AREAS.
THIS PROJECT WILL TAKE AT LEAST 32 MONTHS OF MASSIVE CONSTRUCTION AND DISRUPTION, GIANT PILES WOULD HAVE TO BE SUNK INTO THE BEDROCK (10-30 FEET DOWN AROUND THE WALLED IN AREAS). DRILLING AND THIS WORK WILL PROBABLY CAUSE STRUCTURAL ISSUES SUCH AS CRACKS, FOUNDATION DAMAGE AND BROKEN WINDOWS.
IMAGINE LIVING WITH THIS AROUND YOUR HOME FOR YEARS.
ALL TREES AROUND COLER AND PROBABLY NEARBY WOULD BE REMOVED OR PERMANENTLY DAMAGED.
WHEN ASKED ABOUT THE OCTAGON THE RESPONSE WAS THAT THEY WOULD NOT BE AFFECTED. THEY DID NOT SEEM TO CARE IF THIS PROJECT DESTROYED LIGHTHOUSE PARK.
MOST IMPORTANT:
COLER IS A PERMANENT HOME TO 500 RESIDENTS. MANY COLER RESIDENTS DO NOT GO OUT OF THEIR UNITS OR OFF CAMPUS.
MOST OF THE PLANS INCLUDE MASSIVE BERMS (OR HIGH MOUNDS) WOULD BIOCK ANY VIEW FROM THE MAIN FLOOR. PHOTOS AND IMAGES SHOWN WERE MISLEADING SINCE THEY DID NOT REPRESENT ACCURATE IMAGES OF BERMS OR PROTECTIVE HILLS.
THE EAST SIDE OF THE BUILDING WOULD HAVE A MASSIVE WALL TO BLOCK ALL VIEWS EXCEPT THE PARKING LOT FROM MAIN FLOOR. THAT WOULD MEAN THE WALL WOULD BE OVER ONE FLOOR HIGH.
PSYCHOLOGIALLY, THIS PLAN WOULD DAMAGE THE RESIDENTS AND STAFF.
IT IS TIME TO GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD, COME UP WITH A REASONABLE SOLUTION AND THEN PROPOSE TO COLER AND RIOC A REASONABLE SOLUTION, TO THE COLER COMMUNITY AND TO REST OF THE ISLAND RESIDENTS,.
THE COLER COMMUNITY AND OURS ARE VERY ACTIVE POLITICALLY AND KNOWLEDGEABLE & WILL MEET ANY CHALLENGE HEAD-ON.
PRESENTING THE PLAN TO A SKEPTICAL COLER COMMUNITY.
A 2017 PLAN, THAT WAS NOT ADAPTED, THE ONLY IMAGE AVAILABLE LEADING TO CONFUSION
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU ATTEND THIS MEETING ON MONDAY.
THIS MEETING HAS BEEN HELD YESTERDAY WITH THE COLER RESIDENTS AND STAFF.
THERE ARE MANY QUESTIONS TO BE ASKED ASKED:
WHY DO WE NEED A “500 YEAR FLOOD MITIHGATION PLAN” FOR COLER?
THE FLOODING IN 2012 CAME FROM THE STEAM TUNNEL UP INTO THE BASEEMENT, NOT FROM THE RIVER. A SEAWALL WILL DO NOTHING IF WATER COMES FROM THE STEAM TUNNEL (WHICH IS NOW CLOSED, BUT NOT COMPLETELY SEALED).
FEMA HAS AUTHORIZED $90,000,000 TO BE SPENT ON THE PROJECT, BUT THESE PROJECTS USUALLY HAVE VASTLY MORE COSTS AND TAKE YEARS TO COMPLETE.
COLER’S ENTIRE INFRASTRUCTURE WAS RELOCATED AFTER 2012 HURRICANE SANDY AND ALL UTILITIES ARE ON THE SECOND LEVEL OR ABOVE. THERE IS NO VITAL INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE BASEMENT, THE ONLY AREA TO FLOOD IN 2012. SOME ADJOINING PARKING AREAS ALSO FLOODED BUT DID NOT ENTER PATIENT AREAS.
THIS PROJECT WILL TAKE AT LEAST 32 MONTHS OF MASSIVE CONSTRUCTION AND DISRTUPTION. GIANT PILES WOULD HAVE TO BE SUNK INTO THE BEDROCK (10-30 FEET DOWN AROUND THE WALLED IN AREAS). IMAGINE LIVING WITH THIS AROUND YOUR HOME FOR YEARS.
ALL TREES AROUND COLER AND PROBABLY NEARBY WOULD BE REMOVED OR PERMANENTLY DAMAGED.
MOST IMPORTANT:
COLER IS A PERMANENT HOME TO 500 RESIDENTS. MANY COLER RESIDENTS DO NOT GO OUT OF THEIR UNITS OR OFF CAMPUS.
MOST OF THE PLANS INCLUDING MASSIVE BERMS (OR HIGH MOUNDS) WOULD BIOCK ANY VIEW FROM THE MAIN FLOOR.
THE EAST SIDE OF THE BULDING WOULD HAVE A MASSIVE WALL TO BLOCK ALL VIEWS EXCEPT THE PARKING LOT FROM MAIN FLOOR.
PSYCHOLOGICALLY, THIS PLAN WOULD DAMAGE THE RESIDENTS AND STAFF.
IT IS TIME TO GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD, COME UP WITH A REASONABLE SOLUTION ANTHE PROPOSE TO COLER AND RIOC A REASONABLE SOLUTION, THEN PROPOSE IT TO THE COLER COMMUNITY AND IT REST OF THE ISLAND RESIDENTS,.
THE COLER COMMUNITY AND OURS ARE VERY ACTIVE POLITICALLY AND KNOWLEDGEABLE & WILL MEET ANY CHALLENGE HEAD-ON.
PRESENTING THE PLAN TO A SKEPTICAL COLER COMMUNTY.
A 2017 PLAN, THAT WAS NOT ADAPTED, THE ONLY IMAGE AVAILABLE LEADING TO CONFUSION
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Since 2015, the Municipal Archives has participated in the annual New York City Photoville festival. Photoville is a citywide two-week pop-up exhibit. The main venue is directly under the Brooklyn Bridge at the corner of Water and New Dock Street in DUMBO, Brooklyn. This year, it runs from June 1-16, 2024. For the core exhibits, each Photoville participant transforms a shipping container into a temporary gallery. Our exhibit this year celebrates 100 years of WNYC.
Municipal Building with WNYC radio antennae, July 18, 1924. Photo by Eugene de Salignac. NYC Municipal Archives.
From 1924 until 1997, WNYC radio was owned and operated by the City of New York for “Instruction, Enlightenment, and Entertainment.” WNYC turns 100 this year, and its history is intimately related to both City government and the NYC Municipal Archives. From the first broadcast on July 8, 1924, preserved in photographs by Eugene de Salignac, to historic broadcasts (both radio and television), the Municipal Archives is the repository of much of WNYC’s historical audio and video programs. The rest of its history has been preserved by the New York Public Radio Archives, founded in 2000. Its archivist, Andy Lanset, has spent more than two decades gathering ephemera, equipment, and lost recordings. He has been awarded several collaborative grants to digitize the recordings housed in the Municipal Archives and New York Public Radio.
WNYC’s first day on the air, July 8, 1924. (Earlier in the day – first broadcast at night) Grover A. Whalen, WNYC’s founder, (in tux) is joined by Public Address Operators Bert L. Davies and Frank Orth (seated) who is operating a wave meter. Photo by Eugene de Salignac. Department of Bridges/Plant and Structures collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
WNYC’s first issued program guide, The Masterwork Hour, December 1935. WNYC collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Over time, WNYC Radio grew into both AM and FM stations, as well as a television station that enhanced the civic life of New Yorkers. In 1996, the City sold WNYC TV to a commercial entity. WNYC AM and FM continue today as the core of New York Public Radio, a non-profit organization that also includes WQXR, WQXW, New Jersey Public Radio, Gothamist and The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space.
Although the station was a very public presence in New York and often groundbreaking in programming and technology, it was not always beloved. Mayor John Francis Hylan used the station as a tool to attack his opponents, which led to a 1925 lawsuit and a judgement that WNYC could not be used for propaganda. His successor, Mayor James J. Walker, considered shutting it down, but it survived despite public calls for its elimination, including from mayoral candidate Fiorello H. La Guardia. Mayor La Guardia appointed Seymour N. Siegal as Assistant Program Director to “shut the joint down.” Instead, Siegel returned with a report on how the station could be improved. He saw value in the station as a means to make government more transparent and to educate the public on issues of health and safety. Siegel got a stay of execution from La Guardia as the station was put on probation and a broadcasting panel of experts from the networks studied the situation and eventually reported back to La Guardia with recommendations for what was needed to keep the station going.
WPA Federal Art Project poster by Frank Greco circa 1939 (colorized). NYC Municipal Archives.
Original can from the WNYC Film Unit. WNYC collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Meanwhile by the mid-to-late 1930s, the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) provided funding which underwrote half of the programming. It also supported construction of new studios for the station in the Municipal Building and a new transmitter in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. WPA artists even contributed murals and artwork for the studios. La Guardia changed his attitude and saw the station as an educational and cultural tool and began to use it as a way to talk directly to the people of the City. He also separated WNYC from the Department of Plant & Structures and created a new mayoral agency, the Municipal Broadcasting System, with Morris S. Novik as its director.
Title card from “Baby Knows Best,” a WNYC-TV production, ca. 1950s. WNYC collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
WNYC-TV cameraman in City Hall, ca. 1962. Photographer unknown. WNYC collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Ralph McDaniels, creator of Video Music Box, on the cover of Wavelength, 1989. WNYC Archive Collections.
After World War II, Siegel, fresh from five years in the Navy, became the second director. Siegel continued to develop new educational programming for the station, and in 1949 he created the WNYC film unit to develop short educational films for the new medium of television. By 1962, WNYC-TV had its own television channel, the first municipal TV station in the nation. Facing massive budget cuts, Siegel turned in his resignation in 1971. The 1970s were not kind to WNYC, and in 1975 it held its first on-air membership drive to raise money. In 1979 the WNYC Foundation was formed with the idea of eventual independence from the City. In the 1980s, WNYC-TV broke new ground, with the first LGBT TV news series, Our Time, which premiered in 1983, and Video Music Box, which was launched by a young employee, Ralph McDaniels, in 1984. It was the first TV program to regularly air rap videos.
Staff on the roof of the Municipal Building for the 53rd Anniversary of WNYC, July 1977. Photograph by Sal de Rosa. WNYC Archive Collections.
FM Transmitter on top of World Trade Center, 1986. Photograph by Lisa Clifford. NYC Municipal Archives.
After a tumultuous review, Mayor Guiliani announced the sale of WNYC AM & FM licenses to the WNYC Foundation in 1995. WNYC-TV was to be sold at auction to commercial bidders. June 30, 1996, was the last broadcast of WNYC-TV, and on January 27, 1997, WNYC AM & FM were officially on their own. Of course, it took a little while to move out of the ‘attic.’ It was not until June 2008 that WNYC transferred the studios from the tower of the Municipal Building to the current Varick Street location.
More challenges awaited WNYC. In September 2001, WNYC lost its FM transmitter in the collapse of the north tower of the World Trade Center. The AM station continued to broadcast using a telephone land-line patch. In August 2003, the northeast blackout plunged the city into darkness, but the station stayed on the air with candlelight and emergency generators. In 2012, the WNYC-AM transmitter site in the new Jersey Meadowlands was damaged by Hurricane Sandy, taking it off the air. And in March 2020, WNYC had to set up home studios for its hosts as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down offices. Independence for WNYC also meant the launching of new magazine programing, podcasting, and a bevy of Peabody and other awards for programming including work by the producers of Radiolab, Studio 360, On the Media, Soundcheck and others.
The Masterwork Bulletin, May-June 1971. WNYC Archive Collections.
Fitting 100 years of this history into a 20-foot-long shipping container presented a challenge. An easy solution would have been to just illustrate some part of the station’s history, but that did not seem to be fitting for this momentous birthday. The early years of WNYC were well photographed by Eugene de Salignac, agency photographer, but the Municipal Archives had few photos from the 1970s and 1980s. Luckily WNYC engineer Alfred Tropea had taken some beautiful color slides of the Greenpoint transmitter site and WNYC operations. And the WNYC program guides started to include more colorful covers with photographs of some hosts. Although Photoville centers on photography, we knew to tell the story we would need to use archival photographs, ephemera, and audio clips to celebrate WNYC’s history and importance to the City of New York. Even then, the story is too broad to tell fully. The exhibit had to be an immersive experience, with audio and visual components, so we settled on using four panels, each with a collage of images. A timeline underneath each panel marks highlights in the station’s history. An audio montage accompanies the visual panels:
Brian Lehrer broadcasting from his home, March 2020. Wayne Schulmister/WNYC Engineering.
Not everything made the cut, and the reasons are rather random. The great blues musician Huddie ‘Leadbelly’ Ledbetter was a hugely important presence for WNYC in the 1940s, but the audio was hard to fit in. Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie were also cut, but Bob Dylan’s first radio broadcast went in. Rebecca Rankin, despite her importance to the Municipal Archives, was cut from the exhibit, but stayed in the audio. For Photoville we wanted to include a panel discussion on modern photography with Edward Steichen, Margaret Bourke-White, Walker Evans, Irving Penn, and Ben Shahn from 1950 but it was hard to find a good short clip. Instead, we went with a rare interview with Diane Arbus, recorded shortly before her death in 1971. A 1961 Malcom X interview was left out and Martin Luther King, Jr. was included simply because the Malcolm X interview was not an official WNYC broadcast and the 1964 King event was an important City celebration. We had wanted to include something on gay rights in the wake of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, but we found a better clip of an ACT UP demonstration for more funding for the AIDS crisis, which happened to be recorded by a young reporter named Andy Lanset.
WNYC Transmitter building, Greenpoint, ca. 1980s. Photograph by Alfred Tropea, WNYC Archive Collections.
Alam at the Mediterranean Eatery taking a break from baking to photograph a delicious pizza!!!
CREDITS:
NEW YORK MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES MICHAEL LORENZINI
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Renaissance is a French word meaning rebirth or revival. The Harlem Renaissance was a social revolution and cultural explosion among the growing Black community of Harlem during the 1920s and early 1930s. Some of the best-known black artists of the period include Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes.
In 1900 Harlem was home to mostly white Americans. But over-development in 1905-06 left many apartments empty and African Americans began renting there in increasing numbers. They typically came from other parts of Manhattan – like the Tenderloin and San Juan Hill.
They also came from the South during the Great Migration, when Black people were escaping violence and racism and looking for freedom and new job opportunities in the north.
Although Black people were excluded from unions and many professions, the arts offered them some success.
Wintz notes that in 1924 Charles S. Johnson, a black sociologist and director of the Urban League, gathered a dozen writers for lunch at the New York Civic Club. This meeting then paved the way for many black writers, including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Aaron Douglas and Countee Cullen.
These writers created Fire!! magazine in 1926 to express the African American experience. Although only a single issue was published, it was impactful in expressing African American identity.
Several of the writers, including Hurston and Hughes had the backing of a wealthy white patron, Charlotte Osgood Mason. According to Wikipedia, she subsidized Hughes beginning in 1927.
There was, however, a downside to her patronage, as she was very controlling regarding his writing and other aspects of his life – ioncluding in the areas of the music he listened to and the books he read. He quickly cut ties after three years. Charlotte Mason’s relationship with Hurston was also controlling.
The website “Harlem Renaissance: History, Notable Figures and Decline,” mentions Langston Hughes as a prominent leader during the Renaissance and he “wrote poetry mainly to promote equality, condemn racism and injustice, and celebrate African American culture, humor, and spirituality.”
Zora Neale Hurston was also a literary leader. “With her striking wit, irreverence, and folk writing style, she soon gained a reputation as one of the major figures of the Harlem Renaissance,” according to one observer. Another key figure was Countee Cullen “who used art as a vehicle to minimize the distance between blacks and whites.”
The following are a few lines from Hughes, Hurston, and Cullen –
1926: Langston Hughes published “Weary Blues”:
“Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the other night By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light He did a lazy sway. . . . He did a lazy sway. To the tune o’ those Weary Blues. With his ebony hands on each ivory key He made that poor piano moan with melody. O Blues!”
1927: Countee Cullen’s “From the Dark Tower”:
“We shall not always plant while others reap The golden increment of bursting fruit, Not always countenance, abject and mute, That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap; Not everlastingly while others sleep Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute, Not always bend to some more subtle brute; We were not made to eternally weep.”
1926: Zora Neale Hurston published “Spunk.” She often wrote in southern dialect:
“But that’s one thing Ah likes about Spunk Banks – he aint skeered of nothin’ on God’s green footstool.”
From literature, the rebirth spread to include the other arts.
According to The Smithsonian: “The Harlem Renaissance encompassed poetry and prose, painting and sculpture, jazz and swing, opera, and dance. What united these diverse art forms was their realistic presentation of what it meant to be black in America, what writer Langston Hughes called an “expression of our individual dark-skinned selves,” as well as a new militancy in asserting their civil and political rights.” At the height of the movement, Harlem was the center of black American culture, with black owned publishing houses, newspapers, music venues and playhouses.
The Kennedy Center’s website –Drop Me Off in Harlem, contains “Faces of the Harlem Renaissance” – photos and short biographies of the musicians, artists, actors, dancers, writers, and activists.
There is also a large map of Harlem with the names and locations of the famous clubs. This was the Roaring Twenties – folks were listening and dancing to jazz and blues everywhere – at the Cotton Club, the Savoy Ballroom, Small’s Paradise and many others.
The Cotton Club was for many years a venue for black musicians playing to white audiences. The Savoy was one of the first to integrate, and Smalls was also integrated and owned by an African American. Billie Holiday and Fats Waller were frequent entertainers at Smalls.
In musical theater, the musical revue “Shuffle Along” made history in 1921 and proved that audiences were interested in African American talent on Broadway. Many other musicals followed, creating a new era and unique art form.
Harlem during this time also had its own LGBTQ scene. According to Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture, Harlem was a haven for several prominent queer writers and entertainers. Among them were writer Langston Hughes, cabaret performer Jimmie Daniels, and jazz musician Billy Strayhorn. History.com lists another 6:
Wallace Thurman: playwright, poet, and publisher. He wrote The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life in 1929. He was also editor of The Messenger,” an African American socialist journal.
Ethel Waters: blues singer – her three marriages ended in divorce, and she also had a relationship with dancer Ethel Williams, and the two were known as “The Two Ethels.” Later in life, she became religious and toured with Billy Graham.
Countee Cullen: poet; he had relationships with black and white men. A few lines from his poem “Heritage”: “What is Africa to me: Copper sun or scarlet sea, Jungle star or jungle track, Strong bronzed men, or regal black Women from whose loins I sprang When the birds of Eden sang?”
Alain Locke: writer, philosopher, patron, and Rhodes Scholar. In 1925 he published the article “Enter the New Negro” – a term meaning advocating for dignity, self respect and refusal to submit to racial segregation.
Gladys Bentley: singer, often using risqué lyrics. She married a white woman in 1930, then married a man later in life.
Richard Bruce Nugent: writer and painter; He was openly gay but later married. According to Wikipedia, he “had a long productive career bringing to light the creative process of gay and black culture.”
Alice Dunbar Nelson: poet, political activist. She married but also had relationships with women.
Angelina Weld Grimke: poet, activist, and journalist who wrote the influential play “Rachel.” The website includes a sample of Angela’s correspondence with Mamie Burrill: “Oh Mamie if you only knew how my heart overflows with love for you and how it yearns and pants for one more glimpse of your lovely face.” She signed the letter, “Your passionate lover.”
The South Florida Sun Sentinel ran an article about gay Harlem in May 2010: “Harlem Renaissance’s Gay Side.” It featured an exhibit at Florida Atlantic University entitled “Gay Voices of the Harlem Renaissance” – black gays and lesbians were said to be “in the life”. They usually found safe spaces in Harlem, including the Hot-Cha Club and the Clam House. They also gathered at rent parties, private nightclubs and drag balls.End of the Renaissance
As the 1920s drew to a close, and the stock market crashed in 1929, the Renaissance began to decline. During the 1930s social and political attitudes began to change, and the culture was becoming more conservative. The increasing poverty of the 1930s plus the race riot in 1935 were ending markers of the Renaissance in Harlem. The ideas it inspired continued for many years, and are still often reflected in today’s culture.The Renaissance RememberedFrom the 1970s through the early 2000s newspaper articles all over the country celebrated and memorialized the Harlem Renaissance:The Tennessean, August 1972 reviewed “The Harlem Renaissance Remembered”, a group of essays edited by Arna Bontemps. “Ask Arna Bonetmps. He was there – in Harlem in the Twenties, a young man sensitive, talented, and creative, when ‘the Negro was in vogue’.”Philadelphia Inquirer, July 1994: “looking Back at the Harlem Renaissance” it mentioned “The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader” by David L. Lewis.The Journal News (White Plains), December 2000: “Harlem Renaissance Revisited: Library program recalls black culture in Manhattan in ‘20s”.The Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia, August 1987: article about a touring exhibit – “Harlem Renaissance: The Art of Black America”.Rocky Mount Telegram, North Carolina, September 1985: “The Harlem Renaissance is Explosion of Black Creative Expression”: it mentioned an exhibit in Washington, D.C. of writers, poets, painters, and musicians of the Renaissance.Bangor Daily News, March1990: listed the production of a play – “Harlem Renaissance” to be performed in Ellsworth, Maine. The play was on a national tour. Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem” headed the article – “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?…Or does it explode?”Macon Telegraph Georgia, January 1996: “Hurston’s Harlem: Festival Celebrates Literary Renaissance of ‘20s”Many books were also written about the Renaissance in the last 30 years, including:Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance by Cary Wintz, 1988Voices from the Harlem Renaissance by Nathan I. Huggins, 1995I Too Sing America: The Harlem Renaissance at 100 by Wil Haygood et. al., 2018The Harlem Renaissance Remembered: Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen and the Sound of the Harlem Renaissance, 2010, is a unique audiobook.You can read more about the Harlem Renaissance in several articles here at New York Almanack.
For years I walked by this abandoned and deteriorated building. Today the interior was landmarked. The hotel has been open for a few years just a minute from City Hall.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Christina Delfico of I dig2learn and Jovemay Santos, Director of Therapeutic Recreation at Coler worked with a team or residents and staff to do a massive planting around the main entrance yesterday,
CREDITS:
NEW YORK ALMANACK
Illustrations, from above: Allan Rohan Crite’s “School’s Out” (Smithsonian Museum of American Art); United Negro Improvement Association parade in Harlem on August 2, 1920 at 135th Street and Lenox Ave (NYPL); A film still representing gay Black men in Harlem (British Film Institute Gay).
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
