One of the promises of our early Roosevelt Island was that it would be auto-free. That would never be the case, but this suggests that many of us were charmed by the notion of living in a heaven with no auto noises, fumes or congestion. Well, return with me to the thrilling days of yesteryear when the automobile was viewed as the solution to transportation noise, fumes and congestion.
The problem: Horses.
A lot of horses.
In late nineteenth century, New York contained somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 horses. All transport, whether of goods or people, was drawn by horses, from fancy carriages pulled by the finest breeds to cabs and horse trollies as well as countless carts, drays, and wains, all working constantly to deliver the goods needed by the City’s rapidly growing population.
Judy Berdy in an earlier number of the Almanac, pointed out some of the City’s lovely nineteenth century stables. That’s true, but we have to look at the other end of the animal, too. Each horse produced up to 30 pounds of manure per day and a quart of urine. All of this ended up in their stables or along the street. For those of you slow on your math, that adds up to millions of pounds each day and over 100,000 tons per year (not to mention around 10 million gallons of urine).
A lot, indeed. By the end of the 19th century, vacant lots around New York City housed manure piles that reached 40 or 60 feet high. It was estimated that in a few decades, every street would have manure piled up to third story levels.
Streets covered by horse manure attracted huge numbers of flies. One estimate claimed that horse manure was the hatching ground for three billion flies daily throughout the United States, flies that spread disease rapidly through dense human populations. In the winter, manure mixed with the dirt of unpaved streets to form a detestable, smelly, gooey muck and in the summer, the dried and ground-up manure was blown everywhere. Come summer, the smell was overbearing and when it rained, poop-rivers flooded the streets and sidewalks often seeping into people’s basements.
Horses also died. Often in the middle of the street. When they died, their carcasses were abandoned on the streets, creating an additional health issue. In 1880, New York City removed 15,000 dead horses from its streets. But sometimes a big carcass would simply be left to rot until it had disintegrated enough for someone to pick up the pieces.
Moreover, 19th-century New York was already unsettlingly unsanitary, with whole swathes of the city dominated by “a loathsome train of dependent nuisances” like slaughterhouses, facilities for fat melting and gut-cleaning, and “manure heaps in summer” that stretched across entire blocks.
Bear in mind that an increasing number of our New York predecessors shared smaller and smaller spaces with all of this. The human density of New York City rose over the 19th century from just below 40,000 people per square mile to above 90,000, and we had our own waste to deal with.
But as we have seen earlier with clean water and waste, New Yorkers were not keen to spend to improve their situation. Some cities tried to cover the cost of street cleaning by selling the manure for fertilizer. In 1803 the New York superintendent of scavengers spent about $26,000 for street cleaning and realized over $29,000 from selling the manure collected. Nevertheless, it was soon impossible to absorb the huge production distributed around the city. There was so much that farmers began to charge for taking it away.
The structural problem was that the larger and richer cities became, the more horses they needed to function, to move and haul ever growing numbers of people and amounts of goods. Technological innovation didn’t help – indeed made things worse. The horse remained essential in urban civilization, even after the development of the steam engine. As the Nation noted in 1872, though great improvements had been made in the development of such “agents of progress” as the railroad, the steamboat, and the telegraph, modern society’s continued to depend the horse. For it was the horse who fed the railroads and steamboats with passengers and freight, and who provided transportation within the cities.
The more horses, the more manure. Moreover, all these horses had to be stabled, which used up ever-larger areas of increasingly valuable land. And as the number of horses grew, ever-more land had to be devoted to producing hay to feed them (rather than producing food for people), and this had to be brought into cities and distributed—by horse-drawn vehicles. It seemed that urban civilization was doomed.
In the late 1800s, the city hired drainage engineer George E. Waring Jr., who had worked on Central Park, to start cleaning things up. He pushed for new laws forcing owners to stable horses overnight (instead of leaving them in the streets) and mobilized crews to gather manure and horse corpses to be sold for fertilizer and glue. What they couldn’t sell was dumped. And the City tried harder – sewage infrastructure was improved, and the first streetcar lines appeared (horse-drawn, but able to carry more passengers than a carriage); in addition, public transport was encouraged and street cleaning crews (known as White Wings because of their white uniforms) were established.
Still, the situation remained so grim that in 1898, then New York Mayor George E. Waring Jr. organized the first international congress on urban planning. Manure was the main topic. This event, the first environmental summit in history, was attended by representatives from other cities to develop ideas on how to resolve the manure issue. But despite their collective efforts, participants were unable to solve the problem and the conference planned for 10 days concluded on the third.
By then, things were changing. Electric streetcars were gaining traction. Rising land pricing (for stables and farmland) coupled with higher food costs increasingly made these new options more economical, too. But the rise of private cars was the final nail in the horse-drawn coffin.
Automobiles were cleaner, quieter and healthier than horses! “The horse in the city is bound to be a menace to a condition of perfect health,” warned one leading urban health authority in 1901. Public health officials charged that windblown dust from ground-up manure damaged eyes and irritated respiratory organs, while the “noise and clatter” of city traffic aggravated nervous diseases. Since, noted Scientific American, the motor vehicle left no litter and was “always noiseless or nearly so”, the exit of the horse would “benefit the public health to an almost incalculable degree.” By 1912, cars outnumbered horses on the streets of NYC and by 1917 the last horsecar was put out of commission and the issue of horse droppings slowly disappeared into history.
But progress has a price: Many businesses collapsed and many jobs lost. Not counting those who directly drove or cared for horses, in New York and Brooklyn in 1880, there were 427 blacksmith shops, 249 carriage and wagon enterprises, 262 wheelwright shops, and 290 establishments dealing in saddles and harnesses. Add to this vets and the makers and suppliers of all the goods dealt with by these enterprises.
So our lovely island was never car-free. But it could be worse. We could have had horses.
When it first opened in 1766 as an outreach chapel of Trinity Church to better serve its expanding congregation, St. Paul’s was a “chapel-of-ease” for those who did not want to walk a few blocks south along unpaved streets to Trinity. A decade later, the Great Fire of 1776 destroyed the first Trinity Church, but St. Paul’s survived, thanks to a bucket brigade dousing the building with water.
Until the second Trinity Church was rebuilt in 1790, many, including George Washington, made St. Paul’s their church home. On April 30, 1789, after Washington took the oath of office to become the first President of the United States, he made his way from Federal Hall on Wall Street to St. Paul’s Chapel, where he attended services.
Over the next two centuries, the ministries of St. Paul’s expanded along with the city. Community outreach was a primary focus, with services to accommodate the needs of immigrants, working women, and the homeless.
After September 11, 2001, St. Paul’s became the site of an extraordinary, round-the-clock relief ministry to rescue and recovery workers for nine months. Though the World Trade Center buildings collapsed just across the street, there was no damage to St. Paul’s, earning it the nickname “the little chapel that stood.”
Today, St. Paul’s Chapel and Trinity Church (on Broadway at Wall Street) are the cornerstones of Trinity Church Wall Street, a vibrant Episcopal parish that serves the community with worship, arts, education, and social justice outreach. St. Paul’s Chapel is committed to leadership, social justice, and reconciliation as it carries its legacy into the future.
HARA REISER, ANDY SPARBERG, ARLENE BESSENOFF GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
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Photo Credit: NYC Dept. of Records & Information Services
Blackwell’s Almanac:
In this first issue of Blackwell’s Almanac Volume VII:
RIHS brings you Part II of Old New York: Ruin to Riches, delving into City history, post-Revolutionary War.
Following is a recap of Beth Goffe’s presentation Scandals of the Upper West Side — the Society’s first virtual event of the RIHS Public Lecture Series (and certainly not the last!)
Read on to learn about the life of Emma Goldman and why she was derided in her day as “one of the most dangerous women in America.”
Click here to access the February Issue of Blackwell’s Almanac Vol. VII, No. 1
Robert Wilvers, Trinity Church, New York, ca. 1956-1957, watercolor and pencil on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Ford Motor Company, 1966.36.201
Trinity Church is a historic parish church in the Episcopal Diocese of New York, at the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Known for its history, location, architecture and endowment,[5] Trinity is a traditional high church, with an active parish centered around the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion in missionary, outreach, and fellowship. In addition to its main facility, Trinity operates two chapels: St. Paul’s Chapel, and the Chapel of St. Cornelius the Centurion on Governors Island.[6] The Church of the Intercession, the Trinity Chapel Complex and many other of Anglican congregations in Manhattan were part of Trinity at one point.
The current building is the third constructed for Trinity Church, and was designed by Richard Upjohn in the Gothic Revival style. The first Trinity Church building was a single-story rectangular structure facing the Hudson River, which was constructed in 1698 and destroyed in the Great New York City Fire of 1776. The second Trinity Church was built facing Wall Street and was consecrated in 1790. The current church building was erected from 1839 to 1846 and was the tallest building in the United States until 1869, as well as the tallest in New York City until 1890. In 1876–1877 a reredos and altar were erected in memory of William Backhouse Astor, Sr., to the designs of architect Frederick Clarke Withers.
The church building is adjacent to the Trinity Churchyard, one of three used by the church. Besides its building, Trinity manages real estate properties with a combined worth of over $6 billion as of 2019. Trinity’s main building is a National Historic Landmark as well as a New York City designated landmark.
Wall Street by Arnold Ronnebeck, 1925
The market’s up! The market’s down! While the financial markets try to regain their footing, I decided to see how artists have portrayed Wall Street over the years, and came across this interesting lithograph by Arnold Ronnebeck. Executed in 1925, Ronnebeck’s view of “the Street” creates a precisionist’s canyon of shadows and light. The buildings loom tall and have taken on larger-than-life personalities. From the viewer’s vantage point, it appears as if you’ve just landed in a new country or are about to embark on a monumental quest, one step at a time.
Ronnebeck was born in Germany in 1885 and died in Denver, Colorado in 1947. As a young man he fought in the German army during World War I, then studied art in Munich and Berlin before moving to Paris in 1908 to continue his studies with Aristide Maillol and Emile-Antoine Bourdelle. When Ronnebeck immigrated to America he arrived in Washington, D.C., where he lived briefly before moving to New York City and finally settling in Colorado.
Ronnebeck’s fascination with downtown Manhattan is apparent in this lithograph. He often worked from photographs to capture the precise details of his subjects. What Berenice Abbott could do with a camera, Ronnebeck accomplished with ink and paper. Here the buildings loom tall and easily intimidate. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel, as well as the steeple of Trinity Church. Of course, this image was made in 1925 . . . four years before the Street would take its record pounding.
Howard Cook, Trinity Church, 1950, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Barbara Latham, 1980.122.27
Kerr Eby, No. 1 Wall Street, 1930, etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Katz, 1971.397
B. J. O. Nordfeldt, Wall Street, ca. 1907-1915,Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. B.J.O. Nordfeldt, 1974.10.24
What familiar name is mentioned in the history of Trinity Church and our island?
TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
TOM OTTERNESS SCULPTURES AT 14th STREET & 8th AVENUE STATION.
LAURA HUSSEY, CLARA BELLA, HARA REISER, GLORIA HERMAN GOT IT RIGHT!!!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM WIKIPEDIA TRINITY ARCHIVES
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Courtesy National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
Born in Russia, brought to Maine in 1905, lived in New York City starting in 1920. Internationally famous artist who created striking assemblages of found wooden forms, and sculptures in steel, aluminum, Plexiglass, and other materials. Her etchings are not as widely known.
Charles Sullivan, ed American Beauties: Women in Art and Literature (New York: Henry N. Abrams, Inc., in association with National Museum of American Art, 1993)
Nevelson came to the United States as a child with her family, settling first in Rockland, Maine. At age twenty she went to New York to study voice and drama as well as painting and drawing. She attended the Art Students League in 1929 and 1930, then traveled to Munich to study with Hans Hofmann. Two years later she was working as an assistant to Diego Rivera, who introduced her to pre-Columbian art; her first solo show in 1941 featured terra cotta and wood sculptures based on Mayan and other primitive imagery. Not until the mid 1950s did Nevelson’s far-ranging interests coalesce into dramatically conceived constructions for which she became world-renowned. Nevelson’s sculptures are about myth and mystery, and although she took motifs from the world around her, she stated that she identified with ideas “more than with nature.” Although she was fascinated with the living quality of wood, in the 1960s she added plastics and formica to her repertoire of media and in the 1970s began to create monumentally scaled pieces in aluminum and steel.
Virginia M. Mecklenburg Modern American Realism: The Sara Roby Foundation Collection (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Museum of American Art, 1987)
Louise Nevelson remembered painting, drawing, and carving soap sculptures when she was only five years old. Born in Russia, she moved with her family to Rockland, Maine, in 1905. She felt like an outsider while growing up and apart from her art classes, she did not enjoy being in school. She married Charles Nevelson in 1920 and moved with him to New York. The marriage did not last, however, and Louise left her husband and son to go to Germany, where she worked with abstract expressionist painter Hans Hofmann. She returned to New York after only a few months, feeling a strong connection to the country of her youth and seeing far greater possibilities for the development of her work: “I could be a leaf on the tree in Paris, but I could be the whole tree in America.” Nevelson struggled to gain recognition for many years but eventually achieved success during the 1950s, creating dreamlike constructions that evoked dramatic cityscapes. She built boxes and walls from dismantled furniture, ornaments, and scraps of wood that she found on the street, and often painted them in single colors to emphasize the effects of light and shadow.
Louise Nevelson, Three Nudes, n.d., pen and sepia ink on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Emil J. Arnold, 1967.56.4
Louise Nevelson, Dawnscape, 1975, cast paper relief, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1978.25
Louise Nevelson, (Untitled #1), 1973, color aquatint and collage on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1973.181
Louise Nevelson, Night Leaf, 1969, plexiglas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Woodward Foundation, 1976.108.90
In the late 1960s, Louise Nevelson experimented with new techniques and materials, developing work in Plexiglas and Cor-Ten steel. Night Leaf displays an arrangement of opaque black boxes that contain variations of a simple leaf shape. Nevelson emphasized the contrast between nature and technology by using industrial techniques to illustrate an organic form. The rigid plastic transforms the leaf into a geometric and uniform shape, highlighted by the use of black.
“Sometimes it’s the material that takes over; sometimes it’s me that takes over. I permit them to play, like a seesaw. I use action and counteraction, like in music, all the time …” Louise Nevelson, “American Artists on Art,” 1982
Louise Nevelson, Untitled, 1967, lithograph, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Inc., 1973.97
Louise Nevelson, Untitled (Tamarind no. 830 (830b)), 1963, color lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1971.84.213
Louise Nevelson, Gate V, from the Garden Gate Series, 1959-1960, cast bronze, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David K. Anderson, Martha Jackson Memorial Collection, 1980.137.84
The illusion of timeworn wood conveyed by the cast bronze of Gate V suggests a once beautiful garden that is now overgrown and wild. It also creates an awareness of the past that is at the heart of Nevelson’s “resurrection” of discarded materials. Nevelson viewed gates and doorways as metaphors that suggest transition in nature and in life. As she explained it, “After a tree is cut down, it is assumed that the tree is dead. It may be the finish of that life as such. But even [then], there’s activity.…Patterns of life change, but life doesn’t change
Louise Nevelson, Figure, 1958, softground, etching, aquatint, and drypoint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1971.308
LOUISE NEVELSON NIGHT PRESENCE IV
FROM ART NERD NEW YORK
CHAPEL OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD AT ST. PETER’S CHURCH
The Chapel prior to the current restoration. Opened in 1977, the need for updates were necessary and have been going on for the last 3 years.
Located in the Citicorp Building, a place of respite and Meditation.
TO SEE VIDEO ON THE CHAPEL AND NEVELSON GO TO NYC ARTS WEBSITE:
HARA REISER, JAY JACOBSON, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, ANDY SPARBERG, & NANCY BROWN GOT IT RIGHT.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated PHOTOS BY JUDITH BERDY / RIHS (C)
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IS NOW A NURSING HOME ON STATEN ISLAND. SEAVIEW HAS A LONG HISTORY AS A FARM COLONY, HOSPITAL AND HISTORIC SITE
Sometime I think our island has had a vast history. The Staten Island Farm Colony and Seaview Hospital, also municipal institutions have a great place in medical and research history. Long forgotten and abandoned many parts of this campus have been left to history, Today, Seaview is a long term care home and rehabilitation facility. Parts of the campus have new housing for seniors, while this vast campus in the middle of Staten Island is a treasury of the forgotten.
The New York City Farm Colony was a poorhouse on the New York City borough of Staten Island, one of the city’s five boroughs. It was located across Brielle Avenue from Seaview Hospital, on the edge of the Staten Island Greenbelt.
Part of the town of Castleton from the 1680s onward, the land was taken over by the government of Richmond County in 1829 and the Richmond County Poor Farm was established thereon. When Staten Island became a borough of New York City in 1898, the city assumed responsibility for the property and redesignated it the New York City Farm Colony, although it was sometimes also referred to as the Staten Island Farm Colony. In 1915, its administration was merged with that of Seaview Hospital, which had been set up with the expressed purpose of treating tuberculosis (it is now a city-run nursing home, under the new name of Sea View Farms).[1]
Jurisdiction over the site was transferred in 1924 to the city’s Homes for Dependents agency, which lifted the requirement that all residents of the colony had to work — with most of the work involving the cultivation of many varieties of fruits and vegetables, and at various times even grains such as wheat and corn; these crops fed not only the colony’s residents but met the needs of other city institutions as well.[1]
The abandoned tuberculosis hospital that is styled architecturally similar to Triboro in Queens and Riverside on North Brother Island. All were built in the 1930’s.
On a remote hilltop in Staten Island, New York City is preparing for battle in the fight against one of the nation’s most deadly diseases…again.
A hundred years ago at the height of the tuberculosis epidemic, New York City’s planners and public health establishment mobilized to develop what the New York Times called “…the largest and finest hospital ever built” for tuberculosis. Operating in the absence of any known cure for the disease, the Sea View Tuberculosis Hospital’s medical facilities were, in a real sense, speculative and aspirational. Tuberculosis (TB) had topped the list of causes of death in New York City for decades, and the call to action was urgent.
Sea View Patient Pavilion with Balconies, NYC Dept. of Records.
For the next 40 years, research and medical treatment were conducted alongside the general care of tuberculosis patients at Sea View. Fresh air, sunshine, and a nutritious diet – all known at the time to have therapeutic effects on TB patients – were woven into the hospital’s design and provided patients with relief and, on occasion, recovery.
Indeed, until a cure was discovered, Sea View’s most therapeutic agents may well have been its location, site planning, and design. Archival photos of onsite vegetable gardens, hiking trails, patient pavilions with balconies, and social gathering spaces all read like an early manual for what planners today call “Active Design” and presaged the 21st-century distillation of core Healthy Community goals: physical activity, fresh local food, access to nature, and sociability. Then, in the early 1950s, doctors at Sea View began clinical trials of hydrazides. That drug famously led to the widespread cure of the disease, and is now part of Sea View’s public health legacy.
Architects of the Seaview Hospital Complex: Renwick, Aspinwall & Owen and that firm’s successor-Renwick, Aspinwall & Tucker, Raymond F. Almirall and Charles B. Meyer.
Many structures on the Seaview campus are abandoned and you can catch a glimpse of the Delft tile ceramic tiles on the exterior.
THOSE WHO TENDED TO THE PATIENTS AT SEAVIEW
Black Angels Nurses at Sea View Hospital Honored in New Mural
from Untapped New York
Just in time for Black History Month, a new mural has just been unveiled at Staten Island’s Sea View Hospital. “The Spirit of Sea View” by Yana Dimitrova, depicts the hospital’s deep history dedicated to serving the most vulnerable populations of New York, including the role of the Black Angels. The project was completed under New York City Health + Hospitals Community Murals Project in partnership with the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund and is located in the E. Robitzek Building at Sea View. It consists of four panels, each highlighting significant individuals and events of Sea View’s past. In the mural, you’ll see a reference to the Delft terra cotta panels that were salvaged from the abandoned tuberculosis buildings in the hospital.
The first panel highlights Sea View’s beginnings as a part of the New York City Farm Colony. Founded in 1829 as the Richmond County Poor Farm, it welcomed the poor, mentally ill, criminals, and other outcasts of the time. In exchange for a place to stay, people were given work on the farm and in various shops that specialized in skills such as carpentry, print, and tailoring. Seaview Hospital was built as a tuberculosis sanatorium right by the Staten Island farm colony, and the two later merged in 1915, forming Seaview Farms. Combining the farm colony and the hospital enabled both institutions to maximize each others’ resources and services.
Panel ones depicts individuals involved in manual labor such as farming and construction. Photo by Michael Paras.
Called Black Angels by their parents, around 300 of African American nurses came to Seaview from across the country between 1928 to 1960 to help patients fight tuberculosis. Although many white nurses left Seaview during the height of the pandemic, Black nurses fearlessly and heroically served patients at the risk of their own lives. Their story will also be the subject of a forthcoming book from Oprah Books by Mara Smilios, The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis.
Panel three continues the narrative of Seaview’s integral role in the tuberculosis pandemic. In it, Dr. Edward H. Robitzek, who discovered a cure for tuberculosis, has provided the mediation to a patient who is celebrating her recovery. Before, the only recommendations doctors could recommend for tuberculosis patients were ample sunlight, fresh air, and a good diet. However, Dr. Robitzek’s discovery of the effectiveness of the drug isoniazid led to drastic recoveries in patients who were likely to die from the disease. Alongside the Black Angels, Dr. Robitzek is portrayed as another commendable hero of Seaview’s history
The final panel reflects the present. Although for many years Sea View’s buildings were abandoned and forgotten, they have been revived and transformed into a rehabilitation center, nursing home, and a volunteer fire company as a part of The New York City Economic Development Corp’s efforts to create a Wellness Community. In the mural, the patient is the portrait of Miss Marquita, an actual patient of Sea View, in the greenhouse of the hospital. The four panels reflect the rich history of a hospital that has created opportunities for the poor, served tuberculosis patients with the help of Black Angels, and helped instigate a cure for tuberculosis patients.
The Wrigley Building in Chicago T.W. Visee, Andy Sparberg got it!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
ROOSEVELT ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEW YORK HEALTH + HOSPITALS UNTAPPED NEW YORK NYC MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES
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Jules Guérin (November 18, 1866 – June 14, 1946), American muralist, architectural delineator, and illustrator.
Jules Vallée Guérin was born in St Louis, Missouri on November 18, 1866 and moved to Chicago to study art in 1880. In 1889 he is known to have shared a studio with Winsor McCay, the noted cartoonist. They influenced each other in their use of daring points of view. In 1893 Guerin made a painting of one of the buildings at the Chicago World’s Fair. His only confirmed art instruction occurred in Chicago, though biographies claim that he studied in Paris. Though of French Huguenot descent, he is not likely to have spoken French fluently as a child. Nothing in his style or method indicates a Beaux Arts education.
In 1900 he established a studio in New York, where he made his name as an architectural delineator and illustrator. His first major break occurred when he was hired by Charles Follen McKim to create some illustrations for the Senate Parks Commission (McMillan Plan) for Washington. These were exhibited and published in 1902. Architects began hiring Guérin to make similar, dramatic renderings of their buildings. He worked mainly in watercolor, gouache, and tempera, usually on colored board. His fame as a colorist soon spread, and he took on more work as a magazine illustrator and sold lithographs. Guérin was a frequent contributor to Scribner’s Magazine and Century Magazine during the first decade of the Twentieth Century.
As a result of his success in the Washington plan Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett hired Guérin to make perspective illustrations for their monumental work, The Plan of Chicago in 1907. The spectacular color views of the proposed city, many from a bird’s eye perspective, are his most famous works. The majority of these original renderings—by Guérin and other artists—are in the collection of the Department of Architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago, while others are currently owned by the Chicago Historical Society.
In 1912, when the architect Henry Bacon was competing with John Russell Pope to win the commission for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., he hired Guérin to create renderings of alternative designs. The paintings, still in the National Archives, were likely influential in Bacon’s triumph. After he received the commission, Bacon retained Guerin to paint two large murals, Reunion and Emancipation, that decorate the cella of the memorial above the Gettysburg and Second Inaugural Addresses. They were recently cleaned, revealing a subtle color palette that complements Daniel Chester French’s Seated Lincoln statue. In 1916 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1931.
As an adjunct to his work as an illustrator, Guérin took an active part in the international expositions of his day, showing at the Pan American Expo in Buffalo, New York, 1901, the Louisiana Purchase Expo held in St Louis in 1904 at which he won a silver medal, and the Lewis & Clark Expo in Portland, Oregon in 1905. He published illustrations of these fairs in popular magazines of the day. In 1915, Guérin was asked by Edward Bennett to serve as Director of Color at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Unlike previous fairs, this west coast effort used a palette of Mediterranean colors to accent the buildings to take advantage of the local climate and flora. It is likely that connections that he made there led to his one-man show at the University of California, Berkeley two years later, followed by several large murals in the old Federal Reserve Bank Building of San Francisco.
Probably because of his early Chicago based background, Guérin was a frequent collaborator with the Chicago architectural firm (and the successor firm to Daniel Burnham’s practice) Graham, Anderson, Probst & White. Most notable of these commissions was the dramatic fire curtain for the theatre in GAPW’s Chicago Civic Opera Building in 1929.
Guérin’s work as a book illustrator came as a result of magazine commissions. Articles in The Century by Maria Hornor Lansdale resulted in her 1906 travel book, The Chateaux of Touraine, which supplements its many photographs with Guérin’s paintings. From 1909 to 1911 the painter traveled with Robert Hichens to create similar illustrations for his popular books on Egypt, the Holy Land, and the Near East. The superb color lithography in these books, as well as two he published with Maxfield Parish, has made them highly collectible today.
Despite his wish to be regarded as a major serious artist, Jules Guérin is most highly regarded as an illustrator and architectural delineator. Indeed, he stands tall among a distinguished group of American artists who brought to life the scenes and buildings of the Progressive Era in the emerging print media of the early Twentieth Century.
THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL MURALS
Above each of the Lincoln Memorial Inscriptions is a 60′ x 12′ mural painted by Jules Guerin graphically portraying governing principles evident in Lincoln’s life. Both scenes contain a background of cypress trees, the emblem of Eternity. The murals were crafted with a special mixture of paint which included elements of kerosene and wax to protect the exposed artwork from fluctuations in temperature and moisture conditions.
Entitled Emancipation, the south mural above the Gettysburg Address represents Freedom and Liberty.The central panel shows the Angel of Truth releasing slaves from the shackles of bondage.On the left hand side of the mural Justice and Law are represented. On the right hand side, Immortality is the central figure surrounded by Faith, Hope and Charity.
Entitled Unity, the north mural located above the Second Inaugural Address, features the Angel of Truth joining the hands of two figures representing the north and south. Her protective wings cradle figures representing the arts of Painting, Philosophy, Music, Architecture, Chemistry, Literature, and Sculpture. Emerging from behind the Music figure is the veiled image of the future.The left group represents Fraternity while the right group represents Charity. The fourth figure from the left of the Angel of Truth is Lincoln Memorial architect Henry Bacon.
PENNSYLVANIA STATION
It is written that Jules Guerin was the artist for two mural maps in Pennsylvania Station, 1913
Elliot, and David are the names I know. We will try to find the others.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff Roosevelt Island Historical Society ALCHETRON WIKIPEDIA NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
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The Roosevelt Island Aerial Tram is not the most glamorous cable ride – indeed it’s not ranked among the Top Ten on any scorecard. Many of the best are ski lifts, but not all. See, for example, the high ranking Skyline Gondola in Queenstown, New Zealand (below). That’s pretty wild.
SKYLINE- QUEENSTOWN
EL TELEFERICO-LA PAZ
For quite a number of years, we lived by our Roosevelt Island Aerial Tramway (and suffered when it was down). And, more or less, I came to love it.
I arrived on the island shortly after the tram was opened – and missed the pre-Tram, red bus to Manhattan era. The Tram made a huge difference. I told friends who feared I had banished myself to the far reaches of Queens that we were only 4 minutes from Bloomingdales. Which was true, sort of. But it was true, too, that we were further away. It was hard to return to Manhattan after a day’s work. The island was cooler, quieter, and always lovely. The tram was only 4 minutes (and we were only 4 minutes from B’dales), but it took us to a different place. Still, the Tram was our lifeline, even if the line to board at rush hour on the Manhattan side wound around the block to 3rd Ave.
Earlier, folks arrived on Welfare Island (usually not by choice) by boat until 1909 when the Queensboro Bridge was opened. Then they could drop in, catching the upside-down elevator from the Bridge. The trolly-elevator service was ended in 1957 though by then a new bridge to Queens had opened (in 1955).
As most of the Welfare Island institutions decayed in the ‘50s and ‘ Manhattan and the cabin wasn’t crowded. Someone had a boom box and we played music and danced. As dusk came on, we blinked our lights and some apartments blinked back. The only casualty was a guy who was off to meet his wife at a Broadway theater and took the Tram because he didn’t like to ride the subway. Long before cell phones, he had no way to get in touch with her. And we returned ultimately to the Island side.
For quite a number of years, we lived by our Roosevelt Island Aerial Tramway (and suffered when it was down). And, more or less, I came to love it.
I arrived on the island shortly after the tram was opened – and missed the pre-Tram, red bus to Manhattan era. The Tram made a huge difference. I told friends who feared I had banished myself to the far reaches of Queens that we were only 4 minutes from Bloomingdales. Which was true, sort of. But it was true, too, that we were further away. It was hard to return to Manhattan after a day’s work. The island was cooler, quieter, and always lovely. The tram was only 4 minutes (and we were only 4 minutes from B’dales), but it took us to a different place. Still, the Tram was our lifeline, even if the line to board at rush hour on the Manhattan side wound around the block to 3rd Ave.
Earlier, folks arrived on Welfare Island (usually not by choice) by boat until 1909 when the Queensboro Bridge was opened. Then they could drop in, catching the upside-down elevator from the Bridge. The trolly-elevator service was ended in 1957 though by then a new bridge to Queens had opened (in 1955).
As most of the Welfare Island institutions decayed in the ‘50s and ‘60s, ideas were bruited about for what might follow. The best seemed to create a new residential community on the island.
And remember when a cable was dropped on 2nd Avenue? Twice! In those days, a cable was changed every 3 years. The Tram went down and had to be reset afterwards. Somehow someone dropped the cable – though luckily it didn’t hit anything on the street. Profuse apologies, and then it happened again a few days later. This time, the Mayor closed down the Tram, punishment for us all!
Nonetheless, we came to love it, and when the subway finally arrived in October 1989, we hoped the Tram would remain in service. By then, it had become a New York City treasure. It was well known and figured prominently in climatic battle in Spider-Man 2002. Even earlier, the Sylvester Stallone thriller Nighthawks (1981) depicted the tramway as a terrorist target where United Nations delegates were taken hostage. It was used in the opening credits of City Slickers (1991). It also appeared in the 2005 horror movie Dark Water.
Still, when the Tram closed down in 2010, we feared it was lost forever – commitments for a $25 million project to upgrade and modernize the system notwithstanding. But it did return, just two months late. With the help of the French company Poma (a French company famous for its ski lifts), all components were replaced except for the three tower bases. Each car now operates independently, so there are now really two separate systems. The cabins’ suspension from the cable is tauter, with much less swaying and swinging. Docking is smoother. Everything seems incredibly automated. (Do you remember when a guy sat in the booth above the Island docking station? Was he controlling the thing?)
There’s much less drama with the new Tram. At one moment, it looked like the second of the new black glass buildings on the Manhattan side would block the Tram – or we just might have to bounce around it. Didn’t happen, but did you see the big guy, on the big bed with the giant TV in an apartment on the southeast corner of the building? No, of course no one looks into the apartment windows when riding by on the Tram. Over the years, we’ve found things to complain about here on the Island. But not the Tram.
Marvel Comics, (c) 1980
2009 OUT WITH THE OLD TRAM AND ERECTING THE NEW TOWER TOPS
I arrived in 1977 and remember some unique tram or tramless experiences.
When the tram was down, RIOC chartered buses to take us to Manhattan. The ride thru the industrial area in Queens was an educational ride, since the ladies of the eve were on the street early in the morning…..an eye opening experience.
When mass transit was on strike in the early years, we watched thousands of Queens residents walk over the 59th Street Bridge. It was the first time ladies wore sneakers to work, with their stocking on.
The embarrassing cable incident was when an un-named person cut the cable 6 feet too short and the entire cable, all thousands of feet of hit had to be discarded and weeks later a new cable arrived, with a new person to make the cuts.
When “Night Hawks” was being filmed here, the producers thought they would calm the mass anger of the passengers by inviting Sylvester Stallone to a meeting in the Chapel. He was booed and left very fast.
The summer of 2009 was amazing. While most Islanders were using the subway and not watch the goings on at the tram reconstruction. At the same time the RIHS Visitor Center kiosk was being restored and we shared the space and watched with amazement as cranes and barges moved in to replace the tower tops. It was extremely hot that summer, but the work got done and the new tram and RIHS visitor kiosk opened on November 30th!!!
I am looking forward to a crowded tram and welcoming all those tourists!
Judith Berdy
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff Roosevelt Island Historical Society
Sources Wikipedia Smithsonian American Art Museum Google Images
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Jean Xceron, Watercolor #308, 1947, watercolor on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost, 1986.92.107
Jean Xceron, Greek by birth, came to the United States when he was fourteen years old. For the next six years he lived and worked with relatives in Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and New York City. In 1910, determined to be an artist, he moved to Washington, D.C., and enrolled in classes at the Corcoran School of Art. At the Corcoran, where the curriculum focused on the traditional academic practice of drawing from plaster casts, Xceron perfected his skills as a draftsman. He first encountered modernism when, in 1916, two fellow students arranged an exhibition of avant-garde paintings borrowed from Alfred Stieglitz. The show made a deep impression on Xceron, whose own appreciation for flat color and expressive distortion paralleled the work being done by others.
Jean Xceron, Portrait No. 38, 1932, oil on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost, 1986.92.106
In 1920, Xceron moved to New York and became friends with Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Max Weber, Abraham Walkowitz, and Joseph Stella. He exhibited in the New York Independents’ exhibitions in 1921 and 1922. In New York, Xceron studied Céanne and read as much as possible about new artistic movements abroad. Xceron was finally able to travel to Paris in 1927. There he began writing reviews of the latest in art for the Boston Evening Transcript and the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune. His articles on Jean Hélion, Hans Arp, John Graham, Theo Van Doesburg, and other artists showed his increasingly sophisticated understanding of recent art. About the same time, his own painting underwent a dramatic transition. As a writer, he was quickly accepted into the Parisian art world as one of the few critics sympathetic to modern art; but few realized that Xceron was an accomplished painter as well. Soon, however, members of the Parisian Greek community became aware of Xceron’s talents, and Christian Zervos, editor of the influential magazine Cahiers d’Art, arranged a solo exhibition at the Galèrie de France in 1931. Visitors to this first exhibition saw an artist who was working his way through Cubism. Still-life and figural motifs remained prominent, but the artist was striving to capture rhythmic and fluid movement rather than solid form. Over the next several years, Xceron moved away from his figural foundations, introducing at first gridlike structural patterns and, by the mid 1930s, planar arrangements of severe Constructivist purity.
Jean Xceron, Portrait No. 61, 1932, oil on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost, 1986.92.105
When Xceron returned to New York in 1935 for an exhibition at the Garland Gallery, he was among the inner circle of Abstraction-Création and other leading Parisian art groups. Moreover, he had achieved some reputation. He again visited New York in 1937 for a show at Nierendorf Gallery. Although planning only a visit, his move proved permanent. Xceron soon joined the American Abstract Artists, who welcomed him as a leading Parisian artist. Despite his reputation, however, he fared little better commercially than did his new colleagues. He was hired by the WPA Federal Art Project and executed an abstract mural for the chapel at Riker’s Island Penitentiary. In 1939 he began working for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, where he remained for the rest of his career.
Figure 3: Installation view of Abstraction in Relation to Surrounding Architecture by Jean Xceron, Hebrew Chapel, Assembly Room, Rikers Island Penitentiary. (Presumed destroyed). Photograph by Blitzstein, May 6, 1942. Collection of the Public Design Commission of the City of New York.
Abstraction (1942) by John Xceron, left panel, oil on canvas, Hebrew Chapel. Collection of the Public Design Commission of the City of New York.
Abstraction (1942) by John Xceron, right panel, oil on canvas, Hebrew Chapel. Collection of the Public Design Commission of the City of New York.
Untitled by Arshile Gorky, 86 square feet, stained glass, Protestant Chapel, never installed. Collection of the Public Design Commission of the City of New York.
In 1940 and 1941, the Art Commission reviewed abstract murals by Balcomb Greene and John Xceron, as well as a stained glass installation by Arshile Gorky, for new chapels in the Rikers Island penitentiary.
Balcomb Greene proposed a mural installation opposite a work by John Xceron in the Assembly Room of the Christian Science Chapel. Greene noted his intention to use non-objective imagery, as the Chapel served members of both the Orthodox Jewish and Christian Science religions, which “do not jointly permit of any representation.” For reasons undocumented, Greene’s proposal was rejected by the Commission, and instead the Commission approved two murals in the room by Xceron. Both have either been covered up or removed.
Arshile Gorky’s stained glass proposal was based on traditional medieval church symbols. It was initially rejected in March of 1940 but then approved the following month. However, the project was never realized, because, according to Gorky’s assistant Giorgio Cavallon, the artist was depressed over a lost love.
Portrait No. 61 andPortrait No. 38, both of 1932, represent midway points in Xceron’s artistic development. Created several years after his move to Paris, they reflect Xceron’s simultaneous commitment to a tactile surface and the rhythmic movement of line and form. By the early thirties, Xceron was fully indoctrinated into the aesthetics of De Stijl, but had not yet accepted the geometric formulation of spatial balance that would shape his work during the mid 1930s. The muted palette of soft gray tones in the portraits had not yet yielded to the vibrant, almost optical color that became his hallmark during the geometric phase of his work. By the late 1930s, Xceron’s paintings took on striking similarities to Kandinsky’s work of the mid 1920s, and works like Watercolor #308 (1947) show parallels with the paintings of Rudolf Bauer that played so prominent a role in the exhibitions Hilla Rebay presented at the Guggenheim Foundation and later at the at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting. This connection with Rebay meant that Xceron never became closely involved with the inner circle of the American Abstract Artists. They, for the most part, rejected the mystical notions of art propounded by the influential baroness.(1)
COMPOSITION #8 LEFT SIE COMPOSITION #239 A RIGHT SIDE CHRISTIES (C)
The history of murals in municipal buildings is always mystifying. Every time I discover one more, others pop into view. With the continual digitalization of City records, recently of the design commission more treasures are discovered,
Judith Berdy
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM MASTER ART CHRISTIES
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
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William H. Johnson, Children’s Dance, ca. 1940-1941, oil on plywood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.580
Politicians have always ended up on the shelf. Maybe a safe place for them.
Unidentified (Mexican), (Children Swimming), n.d., woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Olin Dows, 1983.90.187
Jean-Francis Auburtin, Children at Play, 1915, pencil and watercolor, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Republic of France, 1915.11.3
Unidentified, The Mabie Children, ca. 1852, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Sturm, 1963.12.11
Elizabeth Olds, Silkscreen for Children, 1955, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1984.31.45
William H. Johnson, Children Playing at Dockside, ca. 1939-1942, tempera and pen and ink with pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.1066
Eddie Arning, Mother Feeding Children, 1973, oil pastel on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Sackton, 1987.51.15
Patsy Billups, Three Children, A Car and A Church, 1976, colored pencil and pen on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 1997.124.106
Lloyd McNeill, Lou Stovall, Feed Kids, 1969, screenprint, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1970.29
Viola Frey, Self Portrait with Toys, 1981, alkyd oil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Bernard Koteen Revocable Trust, 2013.85.2
Zelermy, Memory Vessel with Doll Parts, n.d., sewer pipe clay? overlaid with applied brown compound, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr., 1998.84.67
The folk art tradition of “memory vessels” grew out of grave-marking or commemorative rituals found in several cultures. Objects embedded in the surface of the piece often provide clues to the person who owned or used the items. With its doll parts and clocks, this vessel may have been created to commemorate a child, suggesting a too-short life. These special items may have been from the maker’s childhood, and were gathered here as a keepsake.
63 rd and Lexington Avenue subway station Nina Lublin and Hara Reiser got it right!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
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I had the opportunity today to take a M103 bus from City Hall to 63rd Street. It is an unusual and sad feeling to see the emptiness of some neighborhoods. From my left hand seat, I had a great view on a sunny morning to discover sites we usually ignore. The architecture and design and wonderful hodge-podge of our downtown structures lends excitement to the buildings thru the graffiti and shabbiness of some areas.
No demonstrations or even visitors this morning. City Hall is working from home.
The gracious entry to the Manhattan Bridge and off to Brooklyn
The wonderful former Bowery Savings Bank Building in Chinatown is now a Capitale catering hall. Two icons stand guard at the gates.
You knew your money was safe with all that looks over the building
The lady is protecting the water tank
Chair, table, booth and that is what we sell!
A blur on a mural heading north
The Bouwerie Lane Theatre is a former bank building which became an Off-Broadway theatre, located at 330 Bowery at Bond Street in Manhattan, New York City. It is located in the NoHo Historic District.
The building’s facade on the Bowery (2010) The cast-iron building, which was constructed from 1873-1874, was designed by Henry Engelbert in the Italianate style for the Atlantic Savings Bank, which became the Bond Street Saving Bank before the building was completed.
When the bank failed in 1879, the building was sold to the German Exchange Bank, which served the German immigrant community. ] Prior to the 1960s, the building was used for the storage of fabrics. Then in 1963, the building was converted into a theater by Honey Waldman, who produced several plays there.
From 1974 to 2006, it was the home of the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre. Among the many plays and musicals that were produced at the theatre, the first was The Immoralist (1963) with Frank Langella, Dames at Sea (1968), Night and Day (2000) by Tom Stoppard, Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera (2003), and the Cocteau’s final production, Jean Genet’s The Maids X 2 (2006).
] The building was purchased by Adam Gordon in 2007 for conversion into a private mansion with a climbing wall, and the Bowery street front used for retail. In 1967, the building was designated a New York City landmark,[1] and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The AIA Guide to New York City calls it “One of the most sophisticated cast-iron buildings.”
WIKIPEDIA
Arches, bay widows and some contemporary at the street level and dining too!
Lisa Fernandez, Nina Lublin, Gloria Herman got it right WALKING DOWN 7TH AVENUE IN Manhattan’s fashion district, you might be surprised to see a massive button and needle leaning against the Fashion District Information Center. While the sculpture was designed in the style of works by Claes Oldenburg, it was designed and built along with the information center by Pentagram Architectural Services.
Just next to the information booth, a statue of a garment worker toils in the shadow of the huge needle and button. This weathered-looking bronze statue is a work by Judith Weller. It depicts her father, one of a great many Jewish immigrants who moved to New York and wound up working in the garment district. Looming over the immigrant worker, the needle and button feel less whimsical and more menacingly oppressive.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
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