The story of Squire Vickers, the man behind the distinctive look of the New York City subway By KERI BLAKINGER NEW YORK DAILY NEWS | JUN 30, 2016 AT 8:15 AM
Squire Joseph Vickers (seen in his Class of 1900 Cornell yearbook) oversaw subway design for more than three decades. (Cornell University)
You’ve probably never heard of him, but an eccentric man from Rockland County is one of the people most responsible for the look and feel of the New York City subway system. Squire Vickers, the system’s chief architect for more than three decades, oversaw the design of more stations than any other individual — and he left his stamp on the system, with signature tile station plaques and a distinct Arts and Crafts design that permeates the system to this day.
To understand Vickers’ style, though, first it’s necessary to understand what came before him. When the first subway opened in 1904, it had been designed by ecclesiastical architects — church designers. Today, the subway might seem like the most unholy of places, but the system’s first architects — MIT grads George L. Heins and C. Grant LaFarge — were best known for winning the competition to design the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.
In 1901, according to the New York Times, they snagged the job as chief architects for the first subway line, which would run from City Hall up to 145th St. The City Hall station was the crown jewel of the Interborough Rapid Transit subway line, featuring elegant Tiffany skylights and ornate Gruby faience tiles.
Like the other 1904 stations, City Hall was influenced by the Beaux Arts movement, a Parisian neoclassical style of architecture.
“That was an aesthetic that architects at the time were embracing,” MTA Arts & Design Director Sandra Bloodworth told the News.
“They were also evoking the City Beautiful movement showcased at the Chicago World’s Fair, with the hope that if you created these great public spaces it would bring out the higher civic nature of the people.”
Heins and LaFarge stations are often identifiable by those plaques. If the plaques feature the depth of ornate bas relief, you’re probably in a 1904 station. Those early Heins and LaFarge stations are filled with swoops and swirls and architectural flourishes. Also, they’re only on the numbered lines — the lettered lines were built later.
Squire Vickers — who undoubtedly has the coolest name in New York transit history — was an eccentric painter who graduated from Cornell University, according to the New York Times. He lived north of the city— in a Rockland County town called Grand View-on-Hudson — in an Arts and Crafts-style home he designed. The interior of his artist’s retreat was decorated with tiles, much like an upstate subway outpost.
When he wasn’t masterminding the look of the then-biggest underground transit system in the world, Vickers passed the hours painting and writing Romantic poetry. Though he was not a New Yorker, he was a regular subway rider; his daily commute to Manhattan included jaunts on the train, ferry and subway. When he took over as the system’s chief architect, he brought his own sensibilities to the system.
When Vickers took over subway design, he went for an easier-to-maintain Arts and Crafts style that relied heavily on colorful tiled mosaics.
“He was an architect and then he became the primary architect for station design beginning in 1908 till the 1940s,” transit historian and “From a Nickel to a Token” author Andy Sparberg explained. “His stations encompass two types.” First, he oversaw the stations influenced by the Arts and Crafts style. They are less ornate — and easier to maintain — than their Beaux Arts predecessors. Gone were the three-dimensional bas reliefs and swirling flourishes, as curves gave way to straight lines and faiences to vividly colored mosaic tiles and geometric designs.
The Rector St. subway stop features Vickers’ work, as do many of the other stops south of Times Square. (Gryffindor/Wikimedia Commons)
Although some of Vickers’ affection for the simplicity of Arts and Crafts style was undoubtedly about aesthetics and ethos, some of it was probably about dollars and cents. “With Heins and LaFarge,” Transit Museum curator Carissa Amash told the Times in 2007, “there was a point at which it was like, ‘Hey guys, you’re going to have to rein in the costs,’ but with Vickers it was pretty much a tight budget from the get-go.” Some of the most striking examples of his work can be found on many of the local stops south of Times Square — Rector St., Franklin St., Houston St. The geometric mosaic bands along the walls of the Times Square complex, the City Hall mosaics at the R train’s City Hall stop and the train mosaics at Grand Central are all vivid examples of Vickers’ work.
Vickers oversaw the design of the 14 St.-Union Square subway station, which features this tile design. (Keri Blakinger/New York Daily News)
Over time, though, his style shifted. When the city decided to erect the Independent Subway System — better known as the IND — Vickers imbued the new stations with a noticeably different aesthetic. “When the city began building IND stations opening in 1932, they adapted Machine Age design, a variant of Art Deco,” Sparberg explained. Machine Age sensibilities were more streamlined and bolder, evoking a feeling of modernity and precision. As that influence took over, the station name tiles shifted to sans-serif fonts and solid colors. The old IND stations — which correspond to lettered lines after H — feature austere mosaic name tiles with sharp edges and bold colors. They’re vibrant and lively — but straight-to-the-point and all business.
The IND stations have a distinctly different tiling theme from the stations that came before them. (Youngking11/Wikimedia Commons) Although Vickers would have overseen the IND station design, Bloodworth cautioned that it’s not certain how hands-on he was in the bold tiling that defines the look of the IND platforms today. “I’ve always wondered who really did that because it’s so different from his sensibilities,” she said. Above all, his sensibilities focused on a fundamental belief that better art made for better people. “If we start out to find that which is best in art, it will permeate the entire life and rule of action,” he once wrote.
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The story of Squire Vickers, the man behind the distinctive look of the New York City subway
By KERI LAKINGER NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |(C) JUN 30, 2016 AT 8:15 AM
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Clyde J. Singer (1908-1999), East River, 1938, oil on canvas, 32 x 40 ¼ in.
Born in 1908, in Malvern, Ohio, forty miles south of Akron, Clyde Singer became known for his Social Realist and American Regionalist paintings and watercolors. His style and subjects were inspired by the Ash Can artists Robert Henri and John Sloan as well as the American Scene painters John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood. He studied at the Art Students League beginning in 1933, and his teachers included Curry and Thomas Hart Benton, among others.
The two artists that he admired most were George Bellows and John Sloan, and in non-classroom hours, he sought out locations where they had painted. Singer had the opportunity of meeting Sloan and developed a friendship with him, hearing stories about The Eight. Returning to Ohio, he became recognized as a talented up-and-comer in the realm of American Scene painting. From 1935 to 1940, Singer began selling paintings and became more recognized as he participated in over eighty-two exhibitions in fifty-six cities.
East River, 1938, has the appearance of an Ash Can subject, focusing upon urban life along the river on the Eastside of Manhattan. Here, a trio of young women, perhaps office workers, are in intense conversation, while two children, with their backs turned, watch a classic New York City tugboat creating a spew as well as workmen on the opposite shore. The shore opposite the promenade is a site on Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island since 1973), a tract of land in the river between Manhattan and Queens, just north of the Queensboro, now Ed Koch, Bridge. In the painting, workmen are engaged before the several storied building, which would open the following year (1939) as the Goldwater Memorial Hospital, the Welfare Island Hospital for Chronic Diseases (thel building was razed in 2014).
Although back in Ohio in 1938, the artist was clearly enamored with New York and continued to paint scenes of the City, as he did throughout his life. The year of East River proved a laudatory one for Singer, as he won a prize at the National Academy of Design for Barn Dance (private collection).
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November this year is a crucial moment for many New Yorkers, with the election at the forefront of everyone’s attention. However, the rest of the month is filled with exciting art events and installations. As many people retreat indoors and shield themselves from the early winter breeze, now is a great time to visit some of the newest public art installations throughout New York City without having to worry too much about being around other people. Remember to wear a mask and practice social distancing as you check out these art installations, from the empowering Medusa Sculpture sitting across from the city’s criminal courthouse where many abusers were tried to the Mother Cabrini Statue unveiled by Governor Andrew Cuomo in Battery Park City. You have to catch a glimpse of the “plastic bag store” before it closes this month as well as take a ride to Rockaway for Shantell Martin’s new mural. Here are the public art installations on display in New York City this November:
A seven-foot tall bronze sculpture of Medusa was unveiled in Collect Pond Park in October, across from the New York County Criminal Court in Lower Manhattan. A collaboration between Medusa With The Head Project (MWTH) and New York City Parks, Medusa With The Head of Perseus is meant to question Medusa’s portrayal and narrative in Greek mythology and reimagine an inverted narrative.
Garbati made the original Medusa sculpture in 2008. He posted photos of it on social media in 2018, at the height of Me Too movement and the year the Argentine Senate rejected a bill that would fully decriminalize abortion during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. The photos went viral, and the sculpture became a symbol of resistance for women. Garbati seeks to change the traditional narrative of Medusa by portraying her in a somber moment of self-defense, holding the head of her slayer. According to the organizers of the sculpture, Medusa With The Head of Perseus has been deliberately sited across the street from the courthouse where “high profile abuse cases, including the recent Harvey Weinstein trial.”
Light of Freedom, an outdoor art project in which a torch is filled with a timeworn bell, a herald of freedom, and with the arms of mannequins, is meant to reflect the current turbulent political climate in the country during a time of global pandemic and mass protests. The torch, based on the Statue of Liberty’s hand holding a torch which was on view in the same park more than a century prior, symbolizes the light of democracy. The artist Abigail DeVille said that the project is inspired by the words of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. “In my research, I have found that the first Blacks to be brought to New York City were eleven Angolans in 1626. That makes people of African descent the second-oldest group of settlers in New Amsterdam, after the Dutch,” DeVille said on Madison Square Park’s website. “Unfortunately, history has erased the contributions and victories of this group. I want to make something that could honor their lives and question what it means to be a New Yorker, past, present, and future.”
Photograph by Ian Douglas
Starting in October, you can visit “The Plastic Bag Store” at 20 Times Square, a public art installation and immersive theater project that was delayed from March due to Covid-19. The Plastic Bag Store is a work by artist and director Robin Frohardt, produced by Pomegranate Arts and presented by Times Square Arts. It will be open free to the public through November 7, 2020 from Wednesdays to Sundays, with advance reservations. The store will have thousands of hand-sculpted “products” made from discarded, single-use plastics. You’ll find everything you can find in a grocery store, like meat, produce, cakes, toiletries, dry goods, and even sushi rolls. According to Times Square Arts, “With The Plastic Bag Store, Robin Frohardt employs humor and craft to examine our culture of consumption and convenience and the enduring effects of single-use plastics. Small groups will enter The Plastic Bag Store for a 60-minute immersive experience, featuring hidden sets and a captivating puppet film that explores how the overabundance of plastic waste we leave behind might be misinterpreted by future generations.”
Photo: Kevin P. Coughlin / Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
A new statue designed and created by the sculptors Jill Burkee-Biagi and Giancarlo Biagi dedicated to Mother Cabrini was unveiled by Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s Battery Park. Located just south of the South Cove on the Battery Park Esplanade, the statue is in honor of Saint Frances Xavier (Mother) Cabrini. Born in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano in modern-day Italy in 1850, Mother Cabrini was the first American citizen to be made a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. Governor Cuomo announced plans for the creation of a Mother Cabrini statue and memorial on Columbus Day 2019. The announcement came in the wake of controversy surrounding the She Built NYC initiative from Mayor de Blasio and his wife Chirlaine McCray. She Built NYC will add five new statues of women in New York City, including one of Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman to serve in Congress. The five women were selected in part through a public voting process, and although Mother Cabrini won the vote, she was not chosen to be honored. A spokesman for She Built NYC stated at the time that she had not been selected because tributes already existed.
Time Square Arts’ Midnight Moment series, the world’s largest, longest-running digital art exhibition that displays on Times Square nightly from 11:57pm to midnight, continues into November with its newest art installation: Table Manners by artist Zina Saro-Wiwa. The projection on the screen features individuals from the Niger Delta Region who consume their meals with their hands while gazing directly at the artists’s camera during the videos. These videos are staged as a celebration of community, tradition, and a collective act of memory. Saro-Wiwa’s work, according to Time Square Arts website, is candid and vulnerable yet undeniably confrontational, raising consciousness around the socioeconomic and political troubles the oil-producing Nigerian region faces.
“Table Manners appearing as the Midnight Moment is a special curatorial opportunity. It suggests the magic of the Midnight Feast which is the inspiration for my opening night performance,” Saro-Wiwa said in a press statement. “My hope is that people can come together — socially distanced of course — and commune with not only the people of Ogoniland and Port Harcourt in Nigeria who I have filmed, but also with each other. To look each other in the eye and just be.”
Looking for a great fall photo op? Head to Manhattan’s Seaport District along the East River. At the Heineken Riverdeck at Pier 17 passersby will find a giant arch made out of 500 gourds. Standing under the arch, you will be surrounded by pumpkins of all shapes, sizes, and colors. There are tiny yellow pumpkins, large orange ones, and white pumpkins, decorated with intertwining leaves and branches.
The arch is situated to give you an amazing view of the Brooklyn Bridge and at night, the arch lights up with an orange glow. You can take pictures at the pumpkin arch now until Thanksgiving.
No one guessed the unused prison barge that is docked across from Riker’s Island. ( A blue and white elephant that is costing the city millions a year)
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Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Betty Parsons, Sailboat, Rockport, 1943-1982, gouache and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Sandra B.D. Waters, 1984.120
William Zorach, Sailboat, woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1967.19.2
Frank McClure, Sailboat, ink, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Frank McClure, 1979.98.341
Werner Drewes, Sailboats, 1931, woodcut, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1969.3.12
Marjorie Raiguel, Sailboat Basin, ca. 1940, watercolor and pencil on paper mounted on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, 1974.28.249
William H. Johnson, Sailboats on the Water, ca. 1932-1937, tempera on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.68
Maurice Prendergast, Inlet with Sailboat, Maine, ca. 1913-1915, watercolor and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Robert Brady, 1981.171A
Allen E. Philbrick, Fishing Boats, n.d., etching, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chicago Society of Etchers, 1935.13.249
Blanche Lazzell, The Seine Boat, 1927/printed 1933, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1982.75
Donald MacDonald, Docking Ferry Boat, ca. 1938, stencil cut and lacquer airbrush, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from D.C. Public Library, 1967.72.224
William H. Johnson, Boats, ca. 1933-1935, tempera with pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.803
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Today, the Harlem River Drive is a highly trafficked north-south reference route for cars along the Harlem River, but few people know its history. Originally built as the Harlem River Speedway in 1894, the road was used as a horse carriage race track by New York City’s elite.
In the late nineteenth century, speeding through the streets was a common sport for the wealthy. However, New York residents were alarmed at the dangers of speeding carriages, and rich drivers did not want to share the road with trolleys and traffic. This put pressure on the mayor to build a speedway going through Central Park for fast horse-drawn carriages. In 1883, a compromise was reached: a 2.3-mile long speedway would be built along the Harlem River.
Image courtesy of Duane Bailey-Castro
The Harlem River Speedway was a subject on the virtual talk we hosted, “The Forgotten Harlem River,” by photographers Nathan Kensinger and Duane Bailey-Castro. Bailey-Castro, a lifelong Bronx resident who has focused much of his work on the Harlem River bridges, showed these vintage postcards he had acquired and the short silent film below from 1903 entitled “Parade of Horses along the Speedway” from the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company.
Construction of the Harlem River Speedway began in 1894 with the carving of the bluffs overlooking the river. After its opening in 1896, it quickly became a tourist attraction where people could watch horse races on the track as well as boat races on the river. The track was as wide as one-hundred feet in some areas, allowing for several carriages to compete at once. The natural beauty of the surrounding scenery attracted spectators from all social classes. Thousands from around the country visited to watch planned parades and competitions, and rich sportsmen were satisfied with their exclusive speedway, using it heavily to train and display their horses.
Image courtesy of Duane Bailey-Castro
There was backlash about the cost of the speedway shortly after its opening. Around $5 million were spent on construction and court cases, exceeding the original estimate of $1 million. Though newspapers acknowledged it to be a great work, they also noted the other ways in which the mayor could have spent the money, with reporter Charles C. Sargent of Munsey Magazine writing, “the sapient rulers of New York have spent in making the Speedway money that would have built thirty school houses, and would have provided twice over for the twenty-five thousand children turned away last September from the overcrowded primary schools of the metropolis.”
As the city grew and automobiles became widely used, New Yorkers began to push for the opening of the speedway to the public around 1909. Aristocrats turned their attention to motorcars, and in 1916 The New York Times reported that there were fewer than 100 carriages on the speedway a day. With the gradual decline in interest, the speedway was opened to automobiles in 1919, and in 1922 it was paved and opened to general traffic. It was then renamed the Harlem River Driveway.
Parks Commissioner Robert Moses played an integral role in connecting Harlem River Drive to the rest of Manhattan. In 1940 he began construction on linking the Harlem River Drive to the Henry Hudson Parkway, the George Washington Bridge, and the East River Drive (now the FDR Drive). The Triborough Bridge and several bridges joining the Major Deegan Expressway would provide a flow of traffic into the Drive. Completed in 1964, the project cost around $38 million.
Image courtesy of Duane Bailey-Castro
Today, you can drive or bike along the track where horse-drawn carriages once raced to the cheers of lively spectators. Though the world has drastically changed since then, the road and the scenic view of the Harlem River still remains.
NINA LUBLIN HIT A HOME RUN! BASEBALL GREAT ROY CAMPANELLA
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Ebbets Field was a Major League Baseball stadium in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York. It is known mainly for having been the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team of the National League, from 1913 to 1957, but was also home to three National Football League teams in the 1920s. Ebbets Field was demolished in 1960 and replaced by apartment buildings.
Game action at Ebbets Field, Brooklyn between the Dodgers and Piartes on May 30, 1955
“Wait ’til next year!” After the wilderness years of the 1920s and 1930s, the Dodgers were rebuilt into a contending club first by general manager Larry MacPhail and then the legendary Branch Rickey. Led by Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, and Gil Hodges in the infield, Duke Snider and Carl Furillo in the outfield, Roy Campanella behind the plate, and Don Newcombe, Carl Erskine, and Preacher Roe on the pitcher’s mound, the Dodgers won pennants in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953, only to fall to the New York Yankees in all five of the subsequent World Series. The annual ritual of building excitement, followed in the end by disappointment, became a common pattern to the long suffering fans, and “Wait ’til next year!” became an unofficial Dodger slogan.
While the Dodgers generally enjoyed success during this period, in 1951 they fell victim to one of the largest collapses in the history of baseball.[31] On August 11, 1951, Brooklyn led the National League by an enormous 13½ games over their archrivals, the Giants. While the Dodgers went 26–22 from that time until the end of the season, the Giants went on an absolute tear, winning an amazing 37 of their last 44 games, including their last seven in a row. At the end of the season the Dodgers and the Giants were tied for first place, forcing a three-game playoff for the pennant. The Giants took Game 1 by a score of 3–1 before being shut out by the Dodgers’ Clem Labine in Game 2, 10–0. It all came down to the final game, and Brooklyn seemed to have the pennant locked up, holding a 4–2 lead in the bottom of the ninth inning. Giants outfielder Bobby Thomson, however, hit a stunning three-run walk-off home run off the Dodgers’ Ralph Branca to secure the NL Championship for New York. To this day Thomson’s home run is known as the Shot Heard ‘Round The World.
In 1955, by which time the core of the Dodger team was beginning to age, “next year” finally came. The fabled “Boys of Summer” shot down the “Bronx Bombers” in seven games,[32] led by the first-class pitching of young left-hander Johnny Podres, whose key pitch was a changeup known as “pulling down the lampshade” because of the arm motion used right when the ball was released.[33] Podres won two Series games, including the deciding seventh. The turning point of Game 7 was a spectacular double play that began with left fielder Sandy Amorós running down Yogi Berra’s long fly ball, then throwing to shortstop Pee Wee Reese, who relayed to first baseman Gil Hodges to double up a surprised Gil McDougald to preserve the Dodger lead. Hank Bauer grounded out and the Dodgers won 2–0.
Although the Dodgers lost the World Series to the Yankees in 1956 during which the Yankees pitcher Don Larsen pitched the only World Series perfect game in baseball history and the only post-season no-hitter for the next 54 years, it hardly seemed to matter. Brooklyn fans had their memory of triumph, and soon that was all they were left with – a victory that was remembered decades later in the Billy Joel single “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, which included the line, “Brooklyn’s got a winning team.”
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MEMORIES
All I remember of the 1955 World Series was my brother and friend watching it and the moving men waiting to take the TV to the moving van. They held off and we celebrated the Dodgers victory in the basement of our house at 36 East Voss Avenue, East Rockaway!!!!
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THE GLORIOUS WORKS BY PROFESSIONALS AND SELF-TAUGHT QUILTERS
Unidentified (American), Crazy Quilt, ca. 1901-1929, wool and mixed taffetas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Raymond Vlasin and family, with deepest appreciation for the many friends with whom Claire Vlasin quilted, 2017.24.35
Clementine Hunter, Melrose Quilt, ca. 1960, fabric, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Barbara Coffey Quilt Endowment, 2014.5 Clementine Hunter was born on a Louisiana plantation where her grandparents had been slaves. When she was twelve, her family moved to Melrose Plantation in Natchitoches Parish to work as sharecroppers. Clementine worked as a field hand, cook, and housekeeper. The Henry family bought Melrose in 1884; they restored architectural structures on the property and moved historic log cabins from the area onto the property. When John Hampton Henry died, his wife Cammie made Melrose a retreat for visiting artists. Hunter’s exposure to artists and some leftover paints led her to own artistry. She painted quotidian stories she felt historians overlooked—primarily the activities of the black workers. She also made pictorial quilts. This one depicts several notable buildings at Melrose, including the Big House, Yucca House, and African House, in which Hunter painted a now-historic mural of plantation life in 1955.
Unidentified (American), Untitled (String Quilt with Diamond Pattern), 1950s, cotton, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Corrine Riley and museum purchase through the Barbara Coffey Quilt Endowment and the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2016.5.37 The themes of protection and shelter are central to many traditional African American forms, but are perhaps most powerful in the improvisational quilts made by African American women across the South. Quilts are inherently a folk form–most quilters learned from their mothers or grandmothers. Yet, when the patterns and color combinations must take their cues from what clothes are too worn to wear, the maker’s inventiveness takes center stage. Salvaged fabrics from family members were essentially scrapbooked into the quilts, and the astonishing result showed both the artistry of the maker and a larger, communal aesthetic. Mary Lee Bendolph, a quilter from Gee’s Bend, Alabama, explained, “A woman made utility quilts as fast as she could so her family wouldn’t freeze, and she made them as beautiful as she could so her heart wouldn’t break.”
Unidentified (American), Untitled (String Quilt), 1920s, wool, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Corrine Riley and museum purchase through the Barbara Coffey Quilt Endowment and the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2016.5.41
Top: Detail, The Holen Boys Ties Quilt, about 1935, silk, Lent by The Nebraska Prairie Museum of the Phelps County Historical Society, Holdrege, NE, with permission of the Holen Family. Bottom: The Holen family in front of the Renwick Gallery last December. When I was a young kid in grade school, I had to wear a gold tie and a pressed white shirt each Thursday for “assembly,” when all the students would gather in the auditorium for a special program, a spelling bee (when I was in third grade received did me in), or a concert. On those mornings my father would tie a tie for me around his own neck, then slip it off and place it on the handle of my bedroom door. All I had to do was take the nearly-finished tie, slip it over my head, then tighten it around my neck to fit. So much better than one of those clip-on numbers, or even something with an elastic back that could be snapped by a mischievous friend. Those are my first memories of having to wear a tie and I’ve been a reluctant tie-wearer ever since. When I heard there was a quilt on display at the Renwick made mostly of men’s ties from one family, I had to check it out for myself…if not for men-kind everywhere. I visited the tie quilt on no ordinary day in its own life or in the life of the Holen family. On that day in late December all ninety-two of the Holens, who planned their annual family reunion in D.C., to coincide with the exhibition of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century quilts, Going West! Quilts and Community. In 1935, their relative Ellen Holen of Nebraska decided to collect ties from the men in her family—her six sons and her husband—and make a quilt. Having eight children left Ellen with little time to work on the quilt except for late at night when all the children were asleep. Her only surviving child, her ninety-two year old daughter Rachael made the trip to D.C. and remembered that her mother always wanted to work on the quilt, “but never seemed to have time till late evening after she had taken care of the needs of the family: that always came first.” It turned out that Ellen never finished the quilt. Only after her death in the mid-1980s was the unfinished quilt found, damp and musty, in an old trunk in a basement.” According to Rachael, she and other relatives contacted the quilting ladies at the local senior center for advice on treatment for the quilt. They advised Rachael to roll the quilt in newspapers to take away the musty smell, and several days later—much to their surprise—the smell was gone. Then it was time to finish the quilt. On February 15, 1986, Rachael gathered nearly twenty relatives for “tieing day” including her brothers, Milford and Norris who “put up the quilting frames at my house. We made a full day of it with a pot-luck at noon. Mother would have been proud to know that her children finished what she didn’t quite have time to finish before she left us.” Then on a cold winter morning, one of the last days of 2007, two fully loaded buses pulled up near the Renwick and within minutes, more than ninety members of the Holen family, in identical red and white scarves, were heading up the street. They stopped to pose on the museum steps before entering. Click! They also posed for photos inside the gallery in front of The Holen Boys Ties Quilt which will be on display at the Renwick through January 21. Then it returns to its home at the Nebraska Prairie Museum of the Phelps County Historical Society, Holdrege. I hope you have a chance to see it. The circular shape of the ties forms a spoked pattern reminiscent of the wagon wheel motif that repeats itself in quilts throughout the exhibition. Every quilt tells a story: there’s only one tie quilt, however. And I, for one, though a reluctant wearer of ties, thank Ellen Holen for making me think twice about the patterns and fabric of my own family history.
CLARIFICATION WE ARE HAPPY TO GIVE WINNERS OF OUR DAILY PHOTO IDENTIFICATION A TRINKET FROM THE VISITOR CENTER. ONLY THE PERSON IDENTIFYING THE PHOTO FIRST WILL GET A PRIZE. WE HAVE A SPECIAL GROUP OF ITEMS TO CHOOSE FROM. WE CANNOT GIVE AWAY ALL OUR ITEMS,. PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMES, WE MUST LIMIT GIVE-AWAYS. THANK YOU
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
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