In 1925, the Brooklyn-born entrepreneur Clarence Birdseye invented a machine for freezing packaged fish that would revolutionize the storage and preparation of food. Maxson Food Systems of Long Island used Birdseye’s technology, the double-belt freezer, to sell the first complete frozen dinners to airlines in 1945, but plans to offer those meals in supermarkets were canceled after the death of the company’s founder, William L. Maxson. Ultimately, it was the Swanson company that transformed how Americans ate dinner (and lunch)—and it all came about, the story goes, because of Thanksgiving turkey.
According to the most widely accepted account, a Swanson salesman named Gerry Thomas conceived the company’s frozen dinners in late 1953 when he saw that the company had 260 tons of frozen turkey left over after Thanksgiving, sitting in ten refrigerated railroad cars. (The train’s refrigeration worked only when the cars were moving, so Swanson had the trains travel back and forth between its Nebraska headquarters and the East Coast “until panicked executives could figure out what to do,” according to Adweek.) Thomas had the idea to add other holiday staples such as cornbread stuffing and sweet potatoes, and to serve them alongside the bird in frozen, partitioned aluminum trays designed to be heated in the oven. Betty Cronin, Swanson’s bacteriologist, helped the meals succeed with her research into how to heat the meat and vegetables at the same time while killing food-borne germs.
“Eating off a tray in the dusk before a TV set is an abomination,” the columnist Frederick C. Othman wrote in 1957. (Advertising Archive / Everett Collection) FRIOM THE SMITHSONAIN MAGAZINE, NOV. 2020 (C) The Swanson company has offered different accounts of this history. Cronin has said that Gilbert and Clarke Swanson, sons of company founder Carl Swanson, came up with the idea for the frozen-meal-on-a-tray, and Clarke Swanson’s heirs, in turn, have disputed Thomas’ claim that he invented it. Whoever provided the spark, this new American convenience was a commercial triumph. In 1954, the first full year of production, Swanson sold ten million trays. Banquet Foods and Morton Frozen Foods soon brought out their own offerings, winning over more and more middle-class households across the country.
Whereas Maxson had called its frozen airline meals “Strato-Plates,” Swanson introduced America to its “TV dinner” (Thomas claims to have invented the name) at a time when the concept was guaranteed to be lucrative: As millions of white women entered the workforce in the early 1950s, Mom was no longer always at home to cook elaborate meals—but now the question of what to eat for dinner had a prepared answer. Some men wrote angry letters to the Swanson company complaining about the loss of home-cooked meals. For many families, though, TV dinners were just the ticket. Pop them in the oven, and 25 minutes later, you could have a full supper while enjoying the new national pastime: television.
In 1950, only 9 percent of U.S. households had television sets—but by 1955, the number had risen to more than 64 percent, and by 1960, to more than 87 percent. Swanson took full advantage of this trend, with TV advertisements that depicted elegant, modern women serving these novel meals to their families, or enjoying one themselves. “The best fried chicken I know comes with a TV dinner,” Barbra Streisand told the New Yorker in 1962.
By the 1970s, competition among the frozen food giants spurred some menu innovation, including such questionable options as Swanson’s take on a “Polynesian Style Dinner,” which doesn’t resemble any meal you will see in Polynesia. Tastemakers, of course, sniffed, like the New York Times food critic who observed in 1977 that TV dinner consumers had no taste. But perhaps that was never the main draw. “In what other way can I get…a single serving of turkey, a portion of dressing…and the potatoes, vegetable and dessert…[for] something like 69 cents?” a Shrewsbury, New Jersey, newspaper quoted one reader as saying. TV dinners had found another niche audience in dieters, who were glad for the built-in portion control. The next big breakthrough came in 1986, with the Campbell Soup Company’s invention of microwave-safe trays, which cut meal preparation to mere minutes. Yet the ultimate convenience food was now too convenient for some diners, as one columnist lamented: “Progress is wonderful, but I will still miss those steaming, crinkly aluminum TV trays.” With restaurants closed during Covid-19, Americans are again snapping up frozen meals, spending nearly 50 percent more on them in April 2020 over April 2019, says the American Frozen Food Institute. Specialty stores like Williams Sonoma now stock gourmet TV dinners. Ipsa Provisions, a high-end frozen-food company launched this past February in New York, specializes in “artisanal frozen dishes for a civilized meal any night of the week”—a slogan right out of the 1950s. Restaurants from Detroit to Colorado Springs to Los Angeles are offering frozen versions of their dishes for carryout, a practice that some experts predict will continue beyond the pandemic. To many Americans, the TV dinner tastes like nostalgia; to others, it still tastes like the future.
BOW BRIDGE IN CENTRAL PARK ARLENE BESSENOFF WAS THE FIRST CORRECT ANSWER
CLARIFICATION WE ARE HAPPY TO GIVE THE FIRST WINNER 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
EDITORIAL
I am a little behind this week as I am working early voting at Wagner JHS on East 75th Street. We have had thousands of voters coming in daily to early vote. At times the waiting time has been up to to 4 hours. Even though the waits are long most voters are grateful we are there and having a great time meeting others in the lines.
We will have voting at PS 217 next Tuesday from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
See you at the polls,
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 Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Wikipedia for both
THIS ISSUE COMPILED FROM WIKIPEDIA
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Our Bridgemaster Henry has constructed a three bridge system to master all the traffic in the Big Apple. Henry will be consulting with agencies to design NYC 2040!!
Henry has consulted with Jr. Engineer Crosby to advance more designs for the Bridgemasters!!!
ALL THREE BRIDGES AREA AVAILABLE AT THE RIHS VISITOR CENTER KIOSK.
THE ROOSEVELT ISLAND BRIDGE IS $ 28.00 HELLGATE BRIDGE $40.00 BROOKLYN BRIDGE $75.00
ALL BRIDGES ARE MADE IN THE USA BY MAPLE LANDMARK AND ARE CERTIFIED CHILD SAFE.
STOCK OF THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE ARE LIMITED. E-MAIL YOUR ORDER TO US TODAY AT ROOSEVELT ISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM
HERE ARE SOME CLASSIC IMAGES OF THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE TO ENJOY
Berenice Abbott, Brooklyn Bridge, Water and Dock Streets, Brooklyn, 1936, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Transfer from the Evander Childs High School, Bronx, New York through the General Services Administration, 1975.83.10
Berenice Abbott returned home in 1929 after nearly eight years abroad and found herself fascinated by the rapid growth of New York City. She saw the city as bristling with new buildings and structures that seem to her as solid and as permanent as a mountain range. Aiming to capture “the past jostling the present,” Abbott spent the next five years on a project she called Changing New York. In Brooklyn Bridge, Water and Dock Streets, Brooklyn, Abbott presented a century of history in a single image. The Brooklyn Bridge, once a marvel of modern engineering, seems dark and heavy compared with the skeletal structure beneath it. The construction site at center suggests the never-ending cycle of death and regeneration. And the Manhattan skyline, veiled and weightless, hangs just out of reach, its shape accommodating the ambitious spirit of American modernism.
Howard Cook, George C. Miller, Brooklyn Bridge, 1949, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Barbara Latham, 1980.122.6
Stow Wengenroth, Brooklyn Bridge in Winter, 1959, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Frank McClure, 1979.98.241
Martin Lewis, Dock Workers Under the Brooklyn Bridge, ca. 1916-1918, printed 1973, aquatint and etching on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Frank McClure, 1975.82.2
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
SEND YOUR SUGGESTION TO ROOSEVLTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM WIN A SMALL TRINKET FROM THE RIHS VISITOR CENTER KIOSK. WE CAN ONLY ACKNOWLEDGE 3 WINNERS EVERY DAY. THANKS, EVERYONE WHO IS NOT MENTIONED. WE APPRECIATE YOUR INTEREST
WEEKEND IMAGE
WAS THE LA GUARDIA ORIGINAL TERMINAL, NOT THE MARINE AIR TERMINAL. LOTS OF YOU GUESSED LGA!!! THANKS FOR YOUR SUBMISSIONS
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
Today was day 1 of 9 days of early voting In New York State. I am working at Wagner JHS on East 75th Street. Wagner is the Early Voting site for Roosevelt Island residents. On November 3rd, you can vote at PS 217.
We had over 1700 voters in our 10 hours. We were scheduled to be open 8 hours but took everyone who was on line at 4 p.m. We had enough voters to stay open 2 more hours. It is thrilling to see people eager to vote and waiting up to 4 hours to do so,.
For details go early and regular voting go to vote.NYC!!
I remember riding in the car with fins. It was turquoise and white I believe. There was enough room in the ledge behind the back seat that my brother and I could lie down on it. I liked the windows that the Dodge had for decades, and other cars too. It was a triangular window in the front that you could open to get fresh air without it whipping around. Those would be good to bring back.
STATION WAGONS
FROM OUR READERS
I don’t remember the first car my family had, but I do remember the mid-1970’s Ford Country Squire Station Wagon. It had the wood paneling on the sides and the backwards facing rumble seat in the back. It was so much fun riding in that seat and making faces at the drivers behind us. The one thing I don’t recall from that rumble seat is seatbelts. Amazing us kids are still alive.
John Gallagher
A used Ford Country Squire station wagon with faux wood panels on the side! It was driven from Minnesota to California, where I grew up. Clara Bells
FROM OUR READER …MATT ALTWICKER
FROM OUR FRIEND ROBERT
My dad had a fire engine red VW bug!
TWO FRIENDS FIRST RESPONSE WAS “FORD FAIRLANE”
1960 Ford Fairlane 500 sedan
MY TEACHER HAD A RED CORVETTE IN 1958
For Sale: 1958 Chevrolet Corvette in Anaheim, California $79,900
1958 LINCOLN CONTINENTAL WITH WEIRD REAR WINDOW
My father had this car when I was a pre-teen. It had the inverted rear window. and modified fins.
OLDS 442
My brother’s first car was an Olds 442, probably 1968.
FROM ITALY…ROSSANA REPORTS ON HER DAD’S LOVE OF CARS
FIAT TOPOLINO AND FORD CORTINA WERE TWO OF MANY HE HAD
CAR DIES OF BROKEN HEART
When I was a kid we had a 1948 Pontiac. But I can’t think of any stories about it. The only thing that comes to mind is that in 1955 my father decided to trade it in for a Buick. Between the time he actually purchased the Buick and the time it was delivered, the Pontiac developed a cracked cylinder block—or a broken heart, depending on how you look at it. Bobbie Slonevsky
CARS, CARS, CARS
This week I have been working the Javits Center training Election workers…….Javits is better known as the home of the AUTO SHOW.
Riding down 11th Avenue from 57th Street to 44th Street, these are dealerships that I spotted: BMW VW TOYOTA RANGE ROVER PEUGEOT VOLVO PORSCHE MERCEDES BENZ JEEP RANGE ROVER CHRYSLER LEXUS JAGUAR These are definitely the high end dealers……………….HAPPY WINDOW SHOPPING…………..A GREAT WAY FOR AFICIONADOS TO SPEND A SOCIALLY DISTANCED SATURDAY!
Thanks to our friends and neighbors who shared their memories with us.
SPECIAL EDITION THIS WEEKEND SEND US STORIES ABOUT YOUR FAMILY CAR “THE CARS OUR PARENTS DROVE” DEADLINE IS FRIDAY AT 6 P.M.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23 , 2020
The
190th Edition
From Our Archives
THE SOHMER
PIANO FACTORY
&
THE ELEGANT SHOWROOMS
THAT
PROUDLY SHOWCASED
THE
INSTRUMENTS
Hugo Sohmer – founder of Sohmer & Co. – relocated his manufacturing premises from 149 East 14th Street in 1886 after building a new land-mark building on the Astoria coast of East River.
He had founded the company few years earlier together with his partner Joseph Kuder from Vienna, who was also a former Steinway and Sons employee.
The new building of Sohmer & Co was designed by Berger & Baylies architecture firm. Entering in piano building business in NY in the end of 19th century was not a hard thing to do as there were many skilled emigrants coming from Europe (mostly Germany) and the demand for the instrument was growing fast.
The building was expanded by Baylies & Co architecture firm in 1906–7. After 1924 year’s collapse of piano industry Sohmer’s production rates fell. In the time of Great Depression parts of the building were leased out to other manufacturers. However the company survived the Great Depression and maintained production in its Astoria factory till 1982 when the grand son of Hugo Sohmer sold the company to Pratt-Read company – producers of piano pieces and furniture.
The plant was then relocated to Ivoryton, Connecticut, and the building sold to Adirondack Chair Company. Between 2007 and 2013, the building was converted for residential use with new penthouse additions above the sixth floor.[5] Currently Sohmer pianos are produced in Korea.
WIKIPEDIA
Architecture
The building is one of the most prominent in the coast of Astoria on the East River. The building is specially distinguished by its mansard roofed clock tower over the top of its impressive scale. Designed by Berger & Baylies architecture firm this 6 story L-shaped factory building was a typical wealthy factory of New York’ s piano manufacturing scene. It is built in red bricks and designed in German Romanesque Revival Style or Rundbogenstil. Characteristic to this style was the usage of curved edges and surfaces on the roof. Thus segmentally-arched brick lintels. Band courses surmount the first, second and fifth floors.[7]
This factory building is one of the few surviving factories in Queens. It represents many characteristics of 19th century factory building. typically to the age these principles were always rooted in functionality and practical needs. According to architecture historian Betsy Hunter Bradly “the aesthetic bases of American Industrial building design was an ideal of beauty based on function, utility and process”.[10]
Basic characteristics of Sohmer factory – its narrow width and L-shaped plan was due to the need for natural light as the factory was built before the advent of electric lighting. The need for good light for the interior dictated the narrow shape of the floor plan, but the land plot size did not let to build it in I shaped formation. thus L-shape was chosen. Often factory buildings were in I, L, U, H, E configurations. Flat roofs were also a practical need for a factory. They were mostly used after 1860s. It was due to the fire safety.[10] Flat roofs let to eliminate the attic space – a place that could get dusty and easily catch on fire. Bricks were used for factory walls because they were the most fire resistant material.[7] Brick work decorations was a popular method of livening up large wall surfaces – displaying dogtoothing, recessed panels, channeling, pilasters, corbelling were among most popular forms of decorative brickwork.
Positioning the building on the edge of the street let the owners of the factory preserve larger back side space away from public eyes, thus buildings well organized and regular facade was the only public face of the company. The physical aesthetics played important role in marketing the company. Factory’s image was used on letterheads, catalogs, business directories and in advertisements. Typically they were bird’s eye views of the factory with smoke coming out of the chimneys thus rendering image of energy, dynamics and organization of the work.[7]
The building’s prominent location on the river front also served as an attraction of new customers. It was seen from long distances, even from across the East River. As the Sohmers were producing product for popular consumption it was important that his factory was seen by as many people as possible, thus this location served not only as a display for inhabitants of Manhattan, but also those who passed by on the boats. The building served excellent as an eye catcher because of its scale and proportions. But the most focal point of the building of course remained the clock tower elevating above the 2 wings of the factory. This clock tower remains the most significant feature of the building. It is also most elaborately decorated part of the building. Mansard roof with curved dome is covered with decorations expressing this as the most focal part of the building. From the corner side the building was seen the best thus architects have chosen to express this part of it the most. For factories usually most decorated parts were entrances and clock towers.[10]
The clock towers had their roots in cupolas of New England Mills. Clocks organized the daily lives of local community. It was long before the affordable watch had made its first appearance, when need for strictly organized daily rhythm was established. By late nineteenth century clock was one of the main tool to organize the daily lives of New Yorkers. Living synchronized was becoming a necessity. They delivered this function to the network of public clock towers, factory whistles and bells. But clock tower was more than that. it was also a fire sealed staircase for factory that prevented the fires to spread vertically in the building. Thus tower was not only aesthetically most prominent place in the factory, but also most socially important and functional one.
The clocktower that is still maintained
SOHMER PIANO SHOWROOM AT 22 STREET
The Sohmer Piano Building, or Sohmer Building, is a Neo-classical Beaux-Arts building located at 170 Fifth Avenue at East 22nd Street, in the Flatiron District neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan, diagonally southwest of the Flatiron Building.
Designed by Robert Maynicke as a store-and-loft building for real-estate developer Henry Corn, and built in 1897-98 It is easily recognizable by its gold dome, which sits on top of a 2-story octagonal cupola. The building is located in within the Ladies’ Mile Historic District, and, according to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, is “characteristic of the later development phase of the District”
.It was named for the Sohmer Piano Company, which had its offices and showroom there early in the building’s history. Other tenants included architects, publishers, and merchants of leather, hats, perfume and upholstery.
SOHMER SHOWROOM AT 315 FIFTH AVENUE
SOHMER SHOWROOM AT 31 WEST 57 STREET
31 West 57 Street Showroom
On April 4, 1911 the 68-year old millionaire died in the house following a severe stroke. His death coincided with changes that were already being noticed in the neighborhood. It had all started a decade earlier when John Jacob Astor demolished mansions at the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street for his high-end St. Regis Hotel. As millionaires avoided the encroaching commerce, fleeing northward along Central Park, their mansions were altered or razed for business buildings. The Rothschild mansion would soon join them. On November 20, 1913 The New York Times reported that Dunstan, Incorporated “one of the oldest dressmaking concerns in the city,” had taken a long-term lease on the house. The firm announced it would make “extensive alterations.” In the meantime Sohmer & Company was following the northward trend, as well. The long-established piano firm had started on 14th Street; then moved to No. 170 Fifth Avenue in 1898; then to No. 315 Fifth Avenue in July of 1909. The highly-competitive piano business in New York City kept the company’s directors constantly aware of the need to change business practices—or location. In 1919 the need to move once again was evident. Before long the piano and organ district would be centered along West 57th Street and Sohmer would be one of the pioneers in the movement. On May 3 the Real Estate Record and Guide reported that “Sohmer & Co. make the announcement that negotiations have just been completed for the leasing for a long term of years, the property at 31 West 57th Street.” It signaled the end of the line for the Rothschild residence. “The present building will be razed and there will be erected by Sohmer & Co. a six-story building, all of which will be occupied in the conduct of their piano business.” On June 7, 1919 The Music Trades reported that Harry J. Sohmer and his wife were “compelled to return to New York last Monday on account of matters pertaining to the new building now being planned by Sohmer & Co. for early erection on West Fifty-seventh Street, that required his attention. Mr. Sohmer said they were making good progress with the plans and sketches and work on the new building would be started soon.” Indeed, work got started soon. Two months later, on August 30, The Music Trades noted “Demolition of the building occupying the site of the new Sohmer structure was begun last week, and the work of construction will be pushed rapidly from this time on.” Sohmer & Co. had chosen architect Randolph H. Almiroty for its $100,000 home. “The building will have an Italian façade and will be constructed throughout with the idea of making it one of the most complete piano salons in the country,” said the Record and Guide. “The top floor will house the executive and accounting departments, both wholesale and retail.” In reporting on the planned structure, the Real Estate Record and Guide noted the changes on West 57th. “Real estate experts and those competent to know are all agreed that 57th street is destined to become one of the famous streets of the world—the ‘Bond Street’ of America.” Construction was completed within the year and Sohmer & Co. opened its doors for business in October 1920. Almiroty’s handsome Italian-inspired façade retained the proportions of the surviving former residences that surrounded it, creating a harmonious flow. The double-height, rusticated ground floor base supported four floors of understated and dignified design that demanded little attention. An 32-foot arched opening at ground floor however presented a dramatic introduction to the showrooms.
The firm’s opening announcement on October 9 said “The building was especially designed and erected” for the display of “Sohmer Pianos–Grands, Uprights, Player-Pianos–and Victor Victrolas.” “Every detail has been planned to afford a perfect environment in which to display the exquisite beauties of the Sohmer Piano.”
Before long other piano dealers would follow the lead to West 57th Street. Further west was the handsome Steinway Building which included Steinway Hall, and in 1924 the Chickering Piano firm opened its 13-story Chickering Hall next door to Sohmer & Co. at No. 29. Then in 1934 Hardman, Peck & Co. moved into the old Edward Rapallo house on the other side at No. 33 West 57th Street. Following Almiroty’s example, the street level was renovated to a similar double-height glass-paned arch.
A clever marketing scheme devised by Sohmer in 1933 was its annual National Piano Playing Tournament. School-aged pianists from New York and the vicinity entered the three-day contest, vying for national, state or district certificates of honor. The children were graded according to their excellence as compared to their age and length of time they had studied. The stark difference in the youthful attire of the 1930s and today is evident in The New York Times report on the competition on June 9, 1939. “Immaculate in starched white frocks and natty blue coats, the girls and boys, respectively–with the former outnumbering the latter by three to one–were nervous at first, but soon lost themselves in the spirit of the occasion. Although both judges and parents were forced by the rules of the tournament to sit behind screens, the players knew they were there and did their best to prove their knowledge of the piano and its part in music.” After manufacturing pianos in New York for 110 years, Sohmer & Co. moved its factory to Connecticut in 1982. The company was making at the time about 3,000 instruments per year. In announcing the move, the Sohmer management promised that the 57th Street showroom would remain. But only two years later it was gone. In December 1984 the Rizzoli International Bookstore announced its plan to move into the former Sohmer Piano Building. Like Sohmer, Rizzoli intended to use the entire building—the lower three stories being used as the main bookstore while the upper floors were reserved for imported books, stationery items and related products. Three months later the Rizzoli bookstore was opened with a grand champagne reception. Along with the facade, the firm’s architects sensitively preserved the original elegant Italian interiors. The delicate, carved-in-place plaster ceiling ornamentation was gently updated by adding a Italian fresco glaze. A few vintage fixtures from Rizzoli’s old Fifth Avenue location were integrated; including four hand-crafted chandeliers, cherry woodwork, and the hand-carved marble doorframe. Within a generation New Yorkers had forgotten that the beautiful building at No. 31 West 57th Street had not always been the Rizzoli Building. The vaulted ceilings, the old world atmosphere and the warm racks of books were as familiar to some Manhattanites as their own living room. As the 20th century came to a close, the Schieffelin mansion had lost its lower floors to be replaced by a flat-faced commercial façade; the Rapallo mansion held on to its 1930s storefront and Victorian upper floors; but the Sohmer Building was virtually intact, inside and out. By now the West 57th Street block had drastically changed and the three survivors were essentially the last relics of a far more elegant era. Then as 2013 drew to a close the LeFrak real estate family and Vornado Realty Trust, owners of the three structures, announced plans to demolish the buildings for an unspecified project. The Landmarks Preservation Commission considered the Sohmer & Co. Building and decided it “lacks the architectural significance necessary to meet the criteria for designation as an individual landmark.” The hearts of preservationists, historians, and lovers of Manhattan in general dropped. Interestingly, the three picturesque structures represent the three rapid-fire developments of the block: The Rapallo house is a surviving example of the first period of rowhouse construction; the Schieffelin mansion represents the second, fashionable period; and the Sohmer Building the commercial period. Look fast, though. It appears fairly certain that the charming buildings will not last much longer. Posted by Tom Miller at 3:27 AMEmail ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest
I happened to drive on West 57th Street today. All that is left is 37 West. The buildings that are mentioned are only memories now.
The new fieldhouse in Queensbridge Park, just north of the Queensboro Bridge.
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 Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff Roosevelt Island Historical Society MATERIALS USED FROM:
WIKIPEDIA
A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN (C) NYC LANDMARKS PRESERVATION COMMISSION FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
The stories behind the buildings, statues and other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating.
In the first decade of the 20th century what had been the carriage-making district of Broadway from Times Square to approximately 72nd Street was becoming known as “Automobile Row.” The horseless carriage was rapidly taking over America’s roads with manufacturers cranking out around 200,000 automobiles a year. By 1910 the industry-related buildings would stretch as far as 110th Street. Among the smart carriage builders had been Demarest & Chevalier whose high-end showrooms were located in the fashionable 5th Avenue and 33rd Street neighborhood, across from the Waldorf Hotel. Around 1902 the firm cautiously began manufacturing automobile bodies as well. The elderly Aaron T. Demarest died on July 13, 1908 after having eaten tainted clams. His partner, Gabriel C. Chevalier, recognized that the age of the carriage was quickly passing away and that same year decided on a move to Automobile Row. Simultaneously the Peerless Motor Car Co. of New York, a branch of the Cleveland automobile manufacturing firm, planned its new showroom and headquarters. Peerless Motor Cars were the top of the line—luxury automobiles built for discriminating and wealthy consumers. On December 8, 1908 The New York Times reported that A. T. Demarest & Co. had leased a nine-story building—yet to be erected—on the southeast corner of Broadway and 57th Street. “The United States Realty and Improvement Company,” said the article, “will erect the building from plans by Francis H. Kimball.” The Times remarked that “Originally in the carriage building business, the Demarest concern now finds it advantageous to be north of Times Square.
ABOVE- Broadway Tabernacle on 57th Street
Demurest signed a 20-year lease with a staggering aggregate rent of $1 million. In a somewhat “and by the way” note, article added that “An ‘L’ –shaped parcel adjoining this Broadway and Fifty-seventh Street corner was sold recently to the Peerless Motor Car Company through the same brokers.” A month later Francis H. Kimball filed plans for the new building, a “nine-story garage,” for A. T. Demarest & Co. The projected cost of the structure was $150,000. The Times remarked in February 1909 on the rapid building along what it termed the “automobile belt.” The newspaper remarked on the proposed buildings of Peerless and Demarest saying “the one to be built and owned by the future occupants, and the other controlled under a long lease that for all practical purposes amounts almost to ownership.” The automobile had changed the complexion of Broadway. The article noted that developers, a decade earlier, had other plans for the real estate, “…but at just about that time came the remarkable expansion in the automobile industry, and these Broadway concerns have become the sites, not of apartment houses, but of salesrooms and garages…To-day the automobile business has become so firmly established in this section that it is not likely to be displaced easily.” Architect Francis Kimball paid deference to the hulking Gothic-style Broadway Tabernacle adjacent to the building sites and planned both to complement it. Designing the two structures so harmoniously that they are most often mistaken for a single building, he frosted the facades with Gothic- and Romanesque-inspired motifs. Plans moved ahead in a blurring pace with construction on both structures commencing early in March 1909. Within three months the Demarest was completed, followed by the Peerless building in September. The remarkable façade, produced by the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co., was praised by Architects’ & Builders’ Magazine.
“Carried out in white terra cotta, the Gothic treatment is suitable in keeping with the design of the church, and makes a bond between the business structure and the house of worship, which would hardly seem a possibility were it not before our eyes.”
Peerless immediately published a description of the showrooms as a reflection of its high-end product. “The salesroom occupies the ground floor, and is designed to be in keeping with the Peerless cars, in dignity and richness. The walls and columns are of Botticino marble. The panels and side walls are of Greek Skyros, and the base of Pennsylvania Serpentine marble. The border of the floor is in Verde Antique and Old Convent Sienna. The Mosaic floor is of Sienna marble sawed in slabs and broken by hand, to get a novel effect. “
In order to prevent an unwanted glare of electric lights, the lamps were concealed behind marble caps to diffuse the light. The entire ceiling of the showroom was gold leafed. Two huge elevators moved automobiles between floors and a turntable at the 57th Street entrance easily changed the direction of the cars.
A Peerless automobile leaves the 57th Street entrance in 1910 — from The New York Home of the Peerless (copyright expired) Unlike its neighbor, Demarest & Co. did not manufacture complete automobiles, but luxury car bodies. In 1911 The New York Times reported on the luxurious and colorful bodies being shown. “Demarest & Co. will place the 38 horsepower English Daimler Silent Knight show chassis in the space this morning. The other cars they are displaying are three Italas and three Renaults. All the bodies having been built in their own shops. One Itala is a 30 horse power with a green limousine body, another is a 20 horse power show chassis, and the third is a 15 horse power dark blue folding front landaulet. “The Renaults shown in the Demarest space are a 12-16 horse maroon extension front landaulet, with one-fourth windows at each side in front; a 14-20 horse power green landaulet, with a detachable top over the driver’s seat and folding window pillars arranged so the body can be changed into an open one for touring, and a 20-30 horse power maroon limousine.”
PHOTO ABOVE To emphasize the exclusive nature of the Peerless automobile, the company would often advertise it parked in front of a mansion or other high-end setting, as in this 1909 ad — NYPL Collection
Around 1915 Peerless Motor Car left its L-shaped building and two years later A. T. Demarest & Co. did the same. In May 1917 Chevrolet Motor Co. of New York leased the Demarest building, only to purchase it the following year. Chevrolet became a division of General Motors that year, in 1918, transferred the property to GM. Almost simultaneously, General Motors purchased the Peerless building next door. Architect Henry J. Hardenbergh was commissioned to combine the two buildings into one. While the exterior remained unchanged, the two structures became the headquarters of General Motors Corporation. Although GM erected another headquarters building in Detroit in 1922, it retained the 57th Street building as its New York headquarters until 1927. The street level showrooms continued to be used to showcase its many makes—Cadillac, LaSalle, Chevrolet and Pontiac among them—until the early 1970s.
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MEMORIES
Your photo of the Erector Set in the RIHS newsletter today reminder me of the many hours of pleasure I got from building objects with my Erector Sets (I had several). I thought you might be interested in the attached photo of me (c. 13 yrs. Old) looking with pride of my just completed parachute jump—the ultimate Erector Set construction. IVAN STEEN is a professor at SUNY Albany and historian on UDC, Ed Logue and the development of Roosevelt Island.
Now this one sure did bring back memories. Every one of these toys were in our home in Kearny, NJ when we 4 were little. And although I couldn’t play with my train set I still have that set here in my apartment. My erector set was a special gift from my grandmother. My sisters had the kitchen cabinets with china dishes. Chinese checkers. Candy Land. Monopoly…we had it all. Pin the tail on the donkey…put it up on a door with tape. Memories. Bill Weiss
EDITORIAL
From DNA INFO:
“The Sunbather,” a 4,000-pound bronze work by artist Ohad Meromi, was installed on a traffic median at the intersection of 43rd Avenue and Jackson Avenue.
A controversial bright pink sculpture that drew criticism for its color and $515,000 price tag now has a permanent place on Jackson Avenue. “The Sunbather,” a 4,000-pound bronze work by artist Ohad Meromi, was installed over the weekend on a traffic median at the intersection of 43rd Avenue, according to city officials.
The bubble-gum pink sculpture, which the city calls an “instant icon for the Long Island City neighborhood,” stands more than 8 feet tall and 10 feet wide, and depicts a reclining human figure described by the artist as a “generalized body at rest.”
Paid for with funding from a street improvement project completed in 2010, the sculpture was commissioned under the Department of Cultural Affairs’ Percent for Art program, which uses one percent of the budget from certain city construction projects for public art.
But plans for the work were initially met with some online criticism, particularly about the sculpture’s color. Someone erected their own wooden sculpture on Jackson Avenue, with a sign calling The Sunbather’s $515,000 budget a “misuse of our tax dollars.” The controversy over the piece prompted City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer to introduce a bill that would require more public input on Percent for Art projects.
In a statement sent out Monday, Cultural Affairs Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl praised the work. “Public art is so important to New York City,” he said. “Whether it’s joyous or somber, large or small, traditional sculpture or an innovative, interactive work, public art has the power to enhance our civic space and make us see our city with new eyes.”
As I passed by this morning and was shocked to see the work of art in the middle of the street. My personal opinion was that it looked like papier mache work we did as kids wrapping the paper around clothes hangers,
That is my opinion and I am glad not to have to pass by this object often.
Judith Berdy
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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)
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EDITORIAL
Let’s think of toys of our youth, instead of the world today. Many parents pulled out the old games this year and showed the kids how we spent our time white watching Howdy Doody, Miss Francis, Lambchop and Soupy Sales!!
JUDITH BERDY
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Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was an American author of poetry, prose, and translations, as well as an activist for Jewish causes.
She wrote the sonnet “The New Colossus” in 1883. Its lines appear inscribed on a bronze plaque, installed in 1903, on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. The last lines of the sonnet were set to music by Irving Berlin as the song “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor” for the 1949 musical Miss Liberty, which was based on the sculpting of the Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World). The latter part of the sonnet was also set by Lee Hoiby in his song “The Lady of the Harbor” written in 1985 as part of his song cycle “Three Women”.
Lazarus was also the author of Poems and Translations (New York, 1867); Admetus, and other Poems (1871); Alide: An Episode of Goethe’s Life (Philadelphia, 1874); Poems and Ballads of Heine (New York, 1881); Poems, 2 Vols.; Narrative, Lyric and Dramatic; as well as Jewish Poems and Translations.
Early years and education
Emma Lazarus was born in New York City, July 22, 1849,into a large Sephardic Jewish family.
She was the fourth of seven children of Moses Lazarus, a wealthy Jewish merchant and sugar refiner, and Esther Nathan. One of her great-grandfathers on the Lazarus side was from Germany; the rest of her Lazarus and Nathan ancestors were originally from Portugal and resident in New York long before the American Revolution, being among the original twenty-three Portuguese Jews who arrived in New Amsterdam fleeing the Inquisition from their settlement of Recife, Brazil
] Lazarus’s great-great-grandmother on her mother’s side, Grace Seixas Nathan (born in New York in 1752) was also a poet.[12] Lazarus was related through her mother to Benjamin N. Cardozo, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Her siblings included sisters Josephine, Sarah, Mary, Agnes and Annie, and a brother, Frank. Privately educated by tutors from an early age, she studied American and British literature as well as several languages, including German, French, and Italian.[16] She was attracted in youth to poetry, writing her first lyrics when eleven years old.
Writer
Poems and ballads of Heinrich Heine The first stimulus for Lazarus’ writing was offered by the American Civil War. A collection of her Poems and Translations, verses written between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, appeared in 1867 , and was commended by William Cullen Bryant.
It included translations from Friedrich Schiller, Heinrich Heine, Alexandre Dumas, and Victor Hugo. Admetus and Other Poems followed in 1871. The title poem was dedicated “To my friend Ralph Waldo Emerson”, whose works and personality were exercising an abiding influence upon the poet’s intellectual growth.
During the next decade, in which “Phantasies” and “Epochs” were written, her poems appeared chiefly in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine and Scribner’s Monthly. By this time, Lazarus’ work had won recognition abroad.
Her first prose production, Alide: An Episode of Goethe’s Life, a romance treating of the Friederike Brion incident, was published in 1874 (Philadelphia), and was followed by The Spagnoletto (1876), a tragedy. Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heine (New York, 1881) followed, and was prefixed by a biographical sketch of Heine; Lazarus’ renderings of some of Heine’s verse are considered among the best in English.
In the same year, 1881, she became friends with Rose Hawthorne Lathrop. In April 1882, Lazarus published in The Century Magazine the article “Was the Earl of Beaconsfield a Representative Jew?” Her statement of the reasons for answering this question in the affirmative may be taken to close what may be termed the Hellenic and journeyman period of Lazarus’ life, during which her subjects were drawn from classic and romantic sources..
Lazarus also wrote The Crowing of the Red Cock,[5] and the sixteen-part cycle poem “Epochs”. In addition to writing her own poems, Lazarus edited many adaptations of German poems, notably those of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Heinrich Heine. She also wrote a novel and two plays in five acts, The Spagnoletto, a tragic verse drama about the titular figure and The Dance to Death, a dramatization of a German short story about the burning of Jews in Nordhausen during the Black Death.
During the time Lazarus became interested in her Jewish roots, she continued her purely literary and critical work in magazines with such articles as “Tommaso Salvini”, “Salvini’s ‘King Lear'”, “Emerson’s Personality”, “Heine, the Poet”, “A Day in Surrey with William Morris”, and others.
Joseph Puliter’s NEW YORK WORLD was the motivating force to have people donate for the base.
Lines from her sonnet “The New Colossus” appear on a bronze plaque which was placed in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903. The sonnet was written in 1883 and donated to an auction, conducted by the “Art Loan Fund Exhibition in Aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund for the Statue of Liberty” in order to raise funds to build the pedestal.
Lazarus’ close friend Rose Hawthorne Lathrop was inspired by “The New Colossus” to found the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne. She traveled twice to Europe, first in 1883 and again from 1885 to 1887.[ On one of those trips, Georgiana Burne-Jones, the wife of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, introduced her to William Morris at her home[ She also met with Henry James, Robert Browning and Thomas Huxley during her European travels. A collection of Poems in Prose (1887) was her last book. Her Complete Poems with a Memoir appeared in 1888, at Boston.
Activism
Lazarus was a friend and admirer of the American political economist Henry George. She believed deeply in Georgist economic reforms and became active in the “single tax” movement for land value tax. Lazarus published a poem in the New York Times named after George’s book, Progress and Poverty. Lazarus became more interested in her Jewish ancestry as she heard of the Russian pogroms that followed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. As a result of this anti-Semitic violence, and the poor standard of living in Russia in general, thousands of destitute Ashkenazi Jews emigrated from the Russian Pale of Settlement to New York. Lazarus began to advocate on behalf of indigent Jewish immigrants. She helped establish the Hebrew Technical Institute in New York to provide vocational training to assist destitute Jewish immigrants to become self-supporting. Lazarus volunteered in the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society employment bureau; she eventually became a strong critic of the organization. In 1883, she founded the Society for the Improvement and Colonization of East European Jews.
The literary fruits of identification with her religion were poems like “The Crowing of the Red Cock”, “The Banner of the Jew”, “The Choice”, “The New Ezekiel”, “The Dance to Death” (a strong, though unequally executed drama), and her last published work (March 1887), “By the Waters of Babylon: Little Poems in Prose”, which constituted her strongest claim to a foremost rank in American literature. During the same period (1882–87), Lazarus translated the Hebrew poets of medieval Spain with the aid of the German versions of Michael Sachs and Abraham Geiger, and wrote articles, signed and unsigned, upon Jewish subjects for the Jewish press, besides essays on “Bar Kochba”, “Henry Wadsworth Longfellow”, “M. Renan and the Jews”, and others for Jewish literary associations.
] Several of her translations from medieval Hebrew writers found a place in the ritual of American synagogues.[5] Lazarus’ most notable series of articles was that titled “An Epistle to the Hebrews” (The American Hebrew, November 10, 1882 – February 24, 1883), in which she discussed the Jewish problems of the day, urged a technical and a Jewish education for Jews, and ranged herself among the advocates of an independent Jewish nationality and of Jewish repatriation in Palestine. The only collection of poems issued during this period was Songs of a Semite: The Dance to Death and Other Poems (New York, 1882), dedicated to the memory of George Eliot.
Death and legacy
Lazarus returned to New York City seriously ill after her second trip to Europe, and died two months later, on November 19, 1887,most likely from Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
She never married. Lazarus was buried in Beth Olam Cemetery in Cypress Hills, Queens. The Poems of Emma Lazarus (2 vols., Boston and New York, 1889) was published after her death, comprising most of her poetic work from previous collections, periodical publications, and some of the literary heritage her executors deemed appropriate to preserve for posterity.
Her papers are kept by the American Jewish Historical Society, Center for Jewish History, and her letters are collected at Columbia University.
A stamp featuring the Statue of Liberty and Lazarus’ poem, “The New Colossus”, was issued by Antigua and Barbuda in 1985. In 1992, she was named as a Women’s History Month Honoree by the National Women’s History Project.Lazarus was honored by the Office of the Manhattan Borough President in March 2008, and her home on West 10th Street was included on a map of Women’s Rights Historic Sites. In 2009, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame .The Museum of Jewish Heritage featured an exhibition about Lazarus in 2012. Biographer Esther Schor praised Lazarus’ lasting contribution.
“The irony is that the statue goes on speaking, even when the tide turns against immigration — even against immigrants themselves, as they adjust to their American lives. You can’t think of the statue without hearing the words Emma Lazarus gave her.”
NEW YORK ARCHITECTURAL TERRA COTTA WORKS Clara Bella was the winner
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EDITORIAL
The other day Jay Jacobson told me that he often confused Emma Goldman with Emma Lazarus. All I knew of Lazarus was that she was the author of the “The New Colossus.”
With the magic of on-line research I have discovered an amazing woman who accomplished so much and was so talented in her short life. She touched so many and learning from her family and the joy of helping others.
Enjoy her story and writings.
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 Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Wikipedia for both
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Above Official program and guidebook American Negro Exposition that opened the Chicago Coliseum on July 4, 1940. Photo Credit: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Below Truman Gibson, executive director of the American Negro Exposition With replica of Springfield’s Lincoln Monument at the Chicago Coliseum. Photo Credit: Chicago Tribune
October 15, 2020
The official program of the Diamond Jubilee of Negro Progress, which opened at the Chicago Coliseum on July 4, 1940, proudly states, “This is the first real Negro World’s Fair in all history…The Exposition will promote racial understanding and good will; enlighten the world to the contributions of the Negro to civilization and make the Negro conscious of his dramatic progress since emancipation.”
Duke Ellington played during the Bronze America beauty contest. Arctic explorer Matthew Henson was lauded, as was Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, the man who performed the first successful open-heart surgery. The popular dance team, Pops and Laurie, performed in a production of “Tropics After Dark.” Mechanical Man greeted visitors to the Labor section of the fair. Paul Robeson sang ‘Ol’ Man River’ and poet Langston Hughes co-wrote a musical pageant for the Jubilee. Not to be outdone, choral director J. Westley Jones led a chorus of voices, a thousand strong, under seven large religious murals painted by Aaron Douglas.
The Firestone Rubber Company sponsored an educational exhibit on Liberia, the West African nation founded by freed slaves, then the focus of a Black repatriation movement by the American Colonization Society. The fair’s journalism booth showcased the mastheads of 235 Black newspapers. The greatest collection of Negro art ever assembled was on exhibit, as was the Court of Dioramas—33 dioramas the Exposition’s program extolls as “spectacularly beautiful,” and “historically important… illustrating the Negro’s large and valuable contributions to the progress of America and the world.”
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt opened the fair with the press of a button from his Hyde Park, New York home. The fair was the brainchild of James Washington, a Chicago real estate developer. He successfully lobbied the Illinois legislature to appropriate $75,000 for the project. Soon after, Congress matched those funds. Washington hoped the fair would counteract the stereotypes of Black people perpetuated by the 1933 World’s Fair that also took place in Chicago. That fair included a “Darkest Africa” exhibit that offered visitors voyages in canoes “manned by dusky natives.”
The fair was hoping to draw two million visitors to the mammoth convention hall to celebrate the contributions of Blacks to America since emancipation 75 years previous. The President was honored to participate, and Chicago Mayor Edward Kelly said, “The nation pays a debt of gratitude to the Negroes today.”
The exposition was dominated by booths showcasing the many New Deal programs and accomplishments. There was a booth for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC); another for the Federal Works Agency (FWA). “The contribution of the Federal Government to the social and economic progress of the American Negro,” reads the official program, “is the theme of the Exhibit of the Federal Works Agency occupying a commanding space in the Exposition Hall.” The program goes on extolling the virtues of the FWA, citing that the previous year, 300,000 Negro workers were employed on WPA projects and were paid some $15 million in wages.
Above Hall of Flags overlooking the American Negro Exposition The columns in the center surround the Court of Dioramas. Photo Credit: Chicago Tribune Archive
Below Pin American Negro Exposition Photo Credit: Live Auctioneers
The Illinois WPA’s Writers’ Program wrote a book on the fair, Cavalcade of the American Negro, published by the Diamond Jubilee Exposition Authority, it highlighted Black history along with the fair’s extensive offerings, including 33 plaster dioramas, which took center stage at Coliseum.
The dioramas depicted contributions of Africans and others of African descent to world events and culture since Black slaves built the Great Sphinx of Giza. Measuring about 4 by 5 feet, and exquisitely detailed, each diorama was populated with sculpted figures of wood or clay. One diorama depicts the Boston Massacre that ended the life of Crispus Attucks, thought to be the first colonist to die in the American Revolution. Another is of enslaved Africans disembarking a ship onto Virginia soil in 1619. There’s one of dancers celebrating Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States, dating back to 1865. Another one honors the Black soldiers of World War I.
African American artist Charles Dawson designed the 33 dioramas and supervised the 120 Black artisans employed to create them. Twenty of the dioramas are housed at Alabama’s Tuskegee University’s Legacy Museum. Conservators with the Alliance of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) oversaw the restoration of the dioramas, introducing Black students to the field of art conservation.
Dr. Jontyle Robinson, Curator and Assistant Professor at the Legacy Museum notes that those “who organized the 1940 Negro Exposition in Chicago understood the importance of African Americans to American History.” The dioramas reflect that, and are part of that history themselves.
Restoration. Kiera Hammond works on the diorama of the Boston Massacre death of Crispus Attucks. Restoration Kiera Hammond works on the diorama of the Boston Massacre death of Crispus Attucks. Photo Credit: Courtesy Winterthur Museum Other than these twenty dioramas, little else remains of those 1940 Jubilee days. The fate of the13 missing dioramas remains unknown. The Mechanical Man who drew crowds has rusted into oblivion. The remnants of the Chicago Coliseum itself were finally cleared in the early 1990s. Coliseum Park, a dog park across from where the imposing building once stood is the only acknowledgement of the Coliseum in the neighborhood’s history.
When the exposition closed on September 2, 1940, only 250,000 visitors had taken in the exposition, far fewer than the producers had hoped. In the eyes of many, it was deemed a failure. Yet, the first real Negro World’s Fair still resonates 80 years later. As Dr. Robinson says, “All the police brutality, mass incarceration, lynching, health disparities, red lining, Jim Crow laws and economic discrimination cannot disrupt the truth.” And the truth is, Black Americans contributions continue and continue.
Ticket Stub American Negro Exposition celebrating 75 years of progress and achievement. Photo Credit: Swan Auction Galleries
American Negro Exposition. Set of 6 original sepia photographic postcards, postally unused, sold at the 1940 Chicago Exposition, captioned: General View; Tanner Hall Art Galleries; Part of Agricultural Exhibit; 2 Catholic Church Exhibit; Scenes from “Chimes of Normandy” [choral concert]. 3.25 x 5.5”. With: Used $1 admission ticket, “American Negro Exposition / Celebrating 75 Years of Progress and Achievement / Coliseum, 15th and Wabash Ave., Chicago”. 2 x 4 inches.
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THE LIVING NEW DEAL This afternoon while on the F train to take another Board of Elections class, I read the latest issue of the Living New Deal’s Fireside.
The article about the Negro World’s Fair was engaging and I decided to share it with you. I suggest you check out the articles from the Living New Deal publications. The subjects are interesting and realizing that many of these ideas were from the early 1930’s and the FDR administration.
(The Board of Election class was fine and over in a few hours. I have taken and given enough classes this year and can’t wait to serve the voters!!! )
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All materials in this publication are copyrighted (c)
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*** Steel baron Henry Clay Frick and the connection to Emma Goldman
ARRESTED 19 TIMES
Roosevelt Island: “One of the most dangerous women in America”!
Roosevelt Island: “One of the most dangerous women in America”!
Many illustrious folks have lived on our Island. From Boss Tweed to Buddy Hackett, from Nelly Bly to Mae West. Al Lewis – Grandpa – and (maybe) Sarah Jessica Parker. Some were here because they liked the Island and some, because they were confined here.
But did you know the person J. Edgar Hoover called “one of the most dangerous women in America” also lived here? Nelly Bly called her “a modern Joan of Arc.” She was one of the most famous orators in the United States attracting crowds of thousands. Reporters spoke of her “magnetic power”, her “convincing presence”, her “force, eloquence, and fire.” An anarchist political activist with a worldwide reputation, a nurse and a midwife (skills she learned while a visitor here), she also joined Margaret Sanger in crusading for women’s access to birth control. (Both were arrested for violating the Comstock Law which prohibited the dissemination of “obscene, lewd, or lascivious articles”, which authorities defined as including information relating to birth control.)
Her lover, Alexander Berkman, shot the steel magnate Henry Clay Frick in his office after the Homestead Strike, ordering her to stay behind in order to explain his motives after he went to jail. He would be in charge of “the deed”; she of the associated propaganda. (Frick, though seriously wounded, wrestled his assailant to the ground, called the police and continued working through the day.)
She sought, briefly and unsuccessfully, to cover legal costs by prostitution. (Remembering the character of Sonya in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment, she mused: “She had become a prostitute in order to support her little brothers and sisters…Sensitive Sonya could sell her body; why not I?”)
She was arrested at least 19 times between 1893 and 1919, and spent several years in prison. She fought against the World War I draft and was deported with Berkman and 248 other radicals in the 1919-1920 Red Scare. In Russia, her expectations were disappointed, and she felt the new Revolutionary state was as oppressive as any other.
This was Emma Goldman who spent a year on our island, in prison. Widely known at the time – admired and reviled – she is scarcely remembered today.
Goldman was probably the most accomplished, magnetic speaker of her time in the United States. A labor organizer and anarchist leader, she crisscrossed the county lecturing on anarchism, economics, drama, birth control, free love, and women’s emancipation. Everywhere she attracted enormous crowds who became spellbound by her rhetoric. In 1893, a terrible year of economic crisis during which urban children were dying of hunger, she addressed an enormous demonstration in New York City’s Union Square, urging her listeners to invade food stores and take what they needed to feed their families in a vivid example of the anarchist principle of direct action. The police dragged Goldman off the protest stage and sent her to the prison on Blackwell’s Island for two years. While in jail, she worked as a practical nurse and upon her release in 1895, she went to Vienna, Austria, where she studied midwifery and nursing. Goldman was arrested again and again for her dangerous ideas and even more dangerous speeches and upon every one of her releases she returned to the speaking circuit, firing the passions of her eager audiences. In 1901, when a young anarchist shot President William McKinley, Goldman startled her admirers by offering—from jail—to nurse the dying president.
Born in Lithuania in 1869, Goldman came from a Jewish family who lived in a ghetto and, at the age of 13, took a factory job to help support her family. Her tyrannical father began trying to marry her off at the age of 15, a fate Goldman strongly resented and resisted. The Goldmans immigrated to Rochester, New York, and lived in an area of Jewish immigrants. Goldman was abruptly married off to a young man whom she did not love and who was unable to consummate the marriage. At the age of 17, she learned about the labor struggles in Chicago, Illinois, where workers were demanding an eight-hour day. During a strike against the International Harvesting Company, the police killed several of the strikers, and anarchists called a protest meeting in Haymarket Square. The meeting began peacefully but when the police broke it up, someone tossed a bomb and wounded 66 policemen. The police then fired into the crowd, killing several people, and wounding hundreds. They arrested the anarchist leaders and hanged four of them, who are now known as the “Haymarket Martyrs.”
These events had a profound influence on Goldman’s life: soon afterward she left her job, her family, and her husband and moved to New York City. There she met anarchist Alexander “Sasha” Berkman and they became lovers. They were outraged when Henry Clay Frick, the manager of one of Andrew Carnegie’s steel mills, set the Pinkerton Detective Agency on striking workers, killing seven of them. Berkman decided to assassinate Frick and burst into Frick’s office, shooting at him multiple times, but merely wounding him. Berkman went to jail for 22 years.
Although Goldman loved and admired Berkman, she also had many other lovers; when he was released from jail, they remained friends and comrades and together published the anarchist journal, Mother Earth. In 1917, they were arrested for leading the opposition to WWI and conscription, sentenced to prison, and then deported to the new Soviet Union. The new socialist state was not the revolutionary ideal Goldman and Berkman had imagined; disillusioned, they soon left the country and spent their time traveling and giving lectures. In 1931, Emma published her autobiography, Living My Life. In 1936, Berkman, who was seriously ill, committed suicide.
After Berkman’s death, Goldman went to London to campaign for understanding and support for those fighting against General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. On a fundraising trip to Canada, she suffered a stroke and three months later died in Toronto at the age of 71. Her body was returned to Chicago, where she was buried near the graves of the Haymarket Martyrs.
Stephen Blank RIHS October 16, 2020
J. EDGAR HOOVER Who called Goldman “one of the most dangerous women in America”
AFTER THE ALTERCATION WITH HENRY CLAY FRICK
On July 9, 1917, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were sentenced to two-year prison terms for violating the Selective Service Act of 1917. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
GOLDMAN WAS IN FULL SUPPORT OF MARGARET SANGER’S EFFORTS
A crusader for birth control
HENRY CLAY FRICK AND THE HOMESTEAD STRIKE
A founding member and perhaps one of, if not the most famous, member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club; perhaps second only to Andrew Carnegie.
The following is from: Historic Structures Report Areated position of president. In 1897, however, he and Carnegie became embroiled in a dispute that threatened to end their relationship.
Though James Reed [a Club Member] helped broker a resolution, their relationship was never the same, and they remained estranged until their deaths. In 1900, though J.P. Morgan consolidated both Carnegie Steel Co. and H.C. Frick Co. (as well as other companies) into U.S. Steel, and Frick became a director of the corporation. The position was in reality the final post in Frick’s remarkable career. Frick’s philanthropic activities are too numerous to catalog, although it should be noted that he left behind after his death an art collection virtually unmatched in this country. Among other charitable actions, Frick bequeathed a sizable park to the city of Pittsburgh and gave liberally to Princeton University. Frick was father to four children: Henry Clay, jr. [sic], who died in infancy; Martha Howard, who died prematurely in 1881; Helen Clay; and Childs.” (Historic Structures Report Appendices: Clubhouse, Brown Cottage, Moorhead Cottage, Clubhouse Annex, p. 387)
Henry Clay Frick is probably most infamous for his role in the Homestead Strike. In July of 1892 workers at the Homestead Works of the Carnegie Steel Company, went on strike because they wanted to organize, something that Frick adamantly opposed. Until they refused to come back to work, Frick locked the workers out of the mill. On July 5, 1892, 300 Pinkerton detectives were brought in to guard the mills surrounded by what workers dubbed “Fort Frick.” The workers and the Pinkertons clashed and the “Battle of Homestead,” as it was called was only quelled by the intervention of the Pennsylvania State Militia (National Guard). Many workers were killed; many more were injured. Frick’s actions in the Battle of Homestead resulted in an attempt on his life.
On Saturday, July 23, 1892, Frick and Carnegie Steel vice-president, as well as member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club John G.A. Leishman were having a conversation in Frick’s office when all of the sudden there was a commotion at the office door. Alexander Berkman, native of Worcester, MA, influenced by social reformer Emma Goldman, had come to pay Mr. Frick a sinister visit. At first Frick was annoyed, but then became fearful when Berkman pulled a revolver and took a shot at Frick. Frick fell to the floor, then Berkman aimed the gun again between Frick’s shoulder blades. Leishman jumped to action and forced Berkman to shoot off aim. Frick was wounded in the neck and two stories exist about what happened next: 1.) That a company carpenter struck Berkman in the back with a hammer. 2.) That when Berkman’s next shot did not go off, the wounded Frick and Leishman went after Berkman. Berkman was apprehended by the local sheriff. When the doctor was summoned, Frick refused anesthesia and assisted the surgeon in probingppendices: Clubhouse, Brown Cottage, Moorhead Cottage, Clubhouse Annex written for the National Park Service.
“Henry Clay Frick was born December 19, 1848 [should be 1849] in West Overton, Pa., a fourth generation American of wealthy parentage. The second of six children, he was named for the Whig leader and Kentucky Senator Henry Clay. Receiving his formal education in the brief span of thirty months (in 1864 and 1865 Mt. Pleasant Institute, and for ten weeks at Otterbein College in Ohio in 1866), Frick entered the business world as quickly as possible. After a short stint as a salesman in Pittsburgh, he returned home to serve as a bookkeeper in his grandfather’s distillery, A. Overholt and Company.
In 1871, Frick founded the coke company that would bear his name. Having survived the Panic of 1873, Frick sought to expand his business, having acquired additional funds by brokering the sale of a local railroad to the Baltimore and Ohio Company for $50,000. His company flourished, and by the age of thirty, Frick had already become a millionaire. In 1882, Frick reorganized the firm into H.C. Frick Coke Company with two million in assets and a stock issue of 40,000 shares.
Soon after his marriage to Adelaide Childs (in December 1881), Frick became acquainted with steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, beginning a long business relationship. In 1889, Frick was entrusted with the reorganization of Carnegie Brothers Steel, and soon orchestrated the consolidation of several companies into the Carnegie Steel Company. In 1895, Frick relinquished control as corporate manager, giving greater autonomy to the newly c for the bullets. Frick died on December 2, 1919.
LIVING MY LIFE
GOLDMAN IMPRISONED AT THE BLACKWELL’S ISLAND PENITENTIARY
Chapter 12I was called before the head matron, a tall woman with a stolid face. She began taking my pedigree. “What religion?” was her first question. “None, I am an atheist.” “Atheism is prohibited here. You will have to go to church.” I replied that I would do nothing of the kind. I did not believe in anything the Church stood for and, not being a hypocrite, I would not attend. Besides, I came from Jewish people. Was there a synagogue?She said curtly that there were services for the Jewish convicts on Saturday afternoon, but as I was the only Jewish female prisoner, she could not permit me to go among so many men.After a bath and a change into the prison uniform I was sent to my cell and locked in.I knew from what Most had related to me about Blackwell’s Island that the prison was old and damp, the cells small, without light or water. I was therefore prepared for what was awaiting me. But the moment the door was locked on me, I began to experience a feeling of suffocation. In the dark I groped for something to sit on and found a narrow iron cot. Sudden exhaustion overpowered me and I fell asleep.I became aware of a sharp burning in my eyes, and I jumped up in fright. A lamp was being held close to the bars. “What is it?” I cried, forgetting where I was. The lamp was lowered and I saw a thin, ascetic face gazing at me. A soft voice congratulated me on my sound sleep. It was the evening matron on her regular rounds. She told me to undress and left me.But there was no more sleep for me that night. The irritating feel of the coarse blanket, the shadows creeping past the bars, kept me awake until the sound of a gong again brought me to my feet. The cells were being unlocked, the door heavily thrown open. Blue and white striped figures slouched by, automatically forming into a line, myself a part of it. “March!” and the line began to move along the corridor down the steps towards a corner containing wash-stands and towels. Again the command: “Wash!” and everybody began clamouring for a towel, already soiled and wet. Before I had time to splash some water on my hands and face and wipe myself half-dry, the order was given to march back.Then breakfast: a slice of bread and a tin cup of warm brownish water. Again the line formed, and the striped humanity was broken up in sections and sent to its daily tasks. With a group of other women I was taken to the sewing-room.The procedure of forming lines — “Forward, march!” — was repeated three times a day, seven days a week. After each meal ten minutes were allowed for talk. A torrent of words would then break forth from the pent-up beings. Each precious second increased the roar of sounds; and then sudden silence.The sewing-room was large and light, the sun often streaming through the high windows, its rays intensifying the whiteness of the walls and the monotony of the regulation dress. In the sharp light the figures in baggy and ungainly attire appeared more hideous. Still, the shop was a welcome relief from the cell. Mine, on the ground floor, was grey and damp even in the day-time; the cells on the upper floors were somewhat brighter. Close to the barred door one could even read by the help of the light coming from the corridor windows.The locking of the cells for the night was the worst experience of the day. The convicts were marched along the tiers in the usual line. On reaching her cell each left the line, stepped inside, hands on the iron door, and awaited the command. “Close!” and with a crash the seventy doors shut, each prisoner automatically locking herself in. More harrowing still was the daily degradation of being forced to march in lock-step to the river, carrying the bucket of excrement accumulated during twenty-four hours.I was put in charge of the sewing-shop. My task consisted in cutting the cloth and preparing work for the two dozen women employed. In addition I had to keep account of the incoming material and the outgoing bundles. I welcomed the work. It helped me to forget the dreary existence within the prison. But the evenings were torturous. The first few weeks I would fall asleep as soon as I touched the pillow. Soon, however, the nights found me restlessly tossing about, seeking sleep in vain. The appalling nights — even if I should get the customary two months’ commutation time, I still had nearly two hundred and ninety of them. Two hundred and ninety — and Sasha? I used to lie awake and mentally figure in the dark the number of days and nights before him. Even if he could come out after his first sentence of seven years, he would still have more than twenty-five hundred nights! Dread overcame me that Sasha could not survive them. Nothing was so likely to drive people to madness, I felt, as sleepless nights in prison. Better dead, I thought. Dead? Frick was not dead, and Sasha’s glorious youth, his life, the things he might have accomplished — all were being sacrificed — perhaps for nothing. But — was Sasha’s Attentat in vain? Was my revolutionary faith a mere echo of what others had said or taught me? “No, not in vain!” something within me insisted. “No sacrifice is lost for a great ideal.”One day I was told by the head matron that I would have to get better results from the women. They were not doing so much work, she said, as under the prisoner who had had charge of the sewing-shop before me. I resented the suggestion that I become a slave-driver. It was because I hated slaves as well as their drivers, I informed the matron, that I had been sent to prison. I considered myself one of the inmates, not above them. I was determined not to do anything that would involve a denial of my ideals. I preferred punishment. One of the methods of treating offenders consisted in placing them in a corner facing a blackboard and compelling them to stay for hours in that position, constantly before the matron’s vigilant eyes. This seemed to me petty and insulting. I decided that if I was offered such an indignity, I would increase my offence and take the dungeon. But the days passed and I was not punished.News in prison travels with amazing rapidity. Within twenty-four hours all the women knew that I had refused to act as a slave-driver. They had not been unkind to me, but they had kept aloof. They had been told that I was a terrible “anarchist” and that I didn’t believe in God. They had never seen me in church and I did not participate in their ten-minute gush of talk. I was a freak in their eyes. But when they learned that I had refused to play the boss over them, their reserve broke down. Sundays after church the cells would be opened to permit the women an hour’s visit with one another. The next Sunday I received visits from every inmate on my tier. They felt I was their friend, they assured me, and they would do anything for me. Girls working in the laundry offered to wash my clothes, others to darn my stockings. Everyone was anxious to do some service. I was deeply moved. These poor creatures so hungered for kindness that the least sign of it loomed high on their limited horizons. After that they would often come to me with their troubles, their hatred of the head matron, their confidences about their infatuations with the male convicts. Their ingenuity in carrying on flirtations under the very eyes of the officials was amazing.My three weeks in the Tombs had given me ample proof that the revolutionary contention that crime is the result of poverty is based on fact. Most of the defendants who were awaiting trial came from the lowest strata of society, men and women without friends, often even without a home. Unfortunate, ignorant creatures they were, but still with hope in their hearts, because they had not yet been convicted. In the penitentiary despair possessed almost all of the prisoners. It served to unveil the mental darkness, fear, and superstition which held them in bondage. Among the seventy inmates, there were no more than half a dozen who showed any intelligence whatever. The rest were outcasts without the least social consciousness. Their personal misfortunes filled their thoughts; they could not understand that they were victims, links in an endless chain of injustice and inequality. From early childhood they had known nothing but poverty, squalor, and want, and the same conditions were awaiting them on their release. Yet they were capable of sympathy and devotion, of generous impulses. I soon had occasion to convince myself of it when I was taken ill.The dampness of my cell and the chill of the late December days had brought on an attack of my old complaint, rheumatism. For some days the head matron opposed my being taken to the hospital, but she was finally compelled to submit to the order of the visiting physician.Blackwell’s Island Penitentiary was fortunate in the absence of a “steady” physician. The inmates were receiving medical attendance from the Charity Hospital, which was situated near by. That institution had six weeks’ post-graduate courses, which meant frequent changes in the staff. They were under the direct supervision of a visiting physician from New York City, Dr. White, a humane and kindly man. The treatment given the prisoners was as good as patients received in any New York hospital.The sick-ward was the largest and brightest room in the building. Its spacious windows looked out upon a wide lawn in front of the prison and, farther on, the East River. In fine weather the sun streamed in generously. A month’s rest, the kindliness of the physician, and the thoughtful attention of my fellow prisoners relieved me of my pain and enabled me to get about again.During one of his rounds Dr. White picked up the card hanging at the foot of my bed giving my crime and pedigree. “Inciting to riot,” he read. “Piffle! I don’t believe you could hurt a fly. A fine inciter you would make!” he chuckled, then asked me if I should not like to remain in the hospital to take care of the sick. “I should, indeed,” I replied, “but I know nothing about nursing.” He assured me that neither did anyone else in the prison. He had tried for some time to induce the city to put a trained nurse in charge of the ward, but he had not succeeded. For operations and grave cases he had to bring a nurse from the Charity Hospital. I could easily pick up the elementary things about tending the sick. He would teach me to take the pulse and temperature and to perform similar services. He would speak to the Warden and the head matron if I wanted to remain.Soon I took up my new work. The ward contained sixteen beds, most of them always filled. The various diseases were treated in the same room, from grave operations to tuberculosis, pneumonia, and childbirth. My hours were long and strenuous, the groans of the patients nerve-racking; but I loved my job. It gave me opportunity to come close to the sick women and bring a little cheer into their lives. I was so much richer than they: I had love and friends, received many letters and daily messages from Ed. Some Austrian anarchists, owners of a restaurant, sent me dinners every day, which Ed himself brought to the boat. Fedya supplied fruit and delicacies weekly. I had so much to give; it was a joy to share with my sisters who had neither friends nor attention. There were a few exceptions, of course; but the majority had nothing. They never had had anything before and they would have nothing on their release. They were derelicts on the social dung-heap.I was gradually given entire charge of the hospital ward, part of my duties being to divide the special rations allowed the sick prisoners. They consisted of a quart of milk, a cup of beef tea, two eggs, two crackers, and two lumps of sugar for each invalid. On several occasions milk and eggs were missing and I reported the matter to a day matron. Later she informed me that a head matron had said that it did not matter and that certain patients were strong enough to do without their extra rations. I had had considerable opportunity to study this head matron, who felt a violent dislike of everyone not Anglo-Saxon. Her special targets were the Irish and the Jews, against whom she discriminated habitually. I was therefore not surprised to get such a message from her.A few days later I was told by the prisoner who brought the hospital rations that the missing portions had been given by this head matron to two husky Negro prisoners. That also did not surprise me. I knew she had a special fondness for the coloured inmates. She rarely punished them and often gave them unusual privileges. In return her favourites would spy on the other prisoners, even on those of their own colour who were too decent to be bribed. I myself never had any prejudice against coloured people; in fact, I felt deeply for them because they were being treated like slaves in America. But I hated discrimination. The idea that sick people, white or coloured, should be robbed of their rations to feed healthy persons outraged my sense of justice, but I was powerless to do anything in the matter.After my first clashes with this woman she left me severely alone. Once she became enraged because I refused to translate a Russian letter that had arrived for one of the prisoners. She had called me into her office to read the letter and tell her its contents. When I saw that the letter was not for me, I informed her that I was not employed by the prison as a translator. It was bad enough for the officials to pry into the personal mail of helpless human beings, but I would not do it. She said that it was stupid of me not to take advantage of her good-will. She could put me back in my cell, deprive me of my commutation time for good behaviour, and make the rest of my stay very hard. She could do as she pleased, I told her, but I would not read the private letters of my unfortunate sisters, much less translate them to her.Then came the matter of the missing rations. The sick women began to suspect that they were not getting their full share and complained to the doctor. Confronted with a direct question from him, I had to tell the truth. I did not know what he said to the offending matron, but the full rations began to arrive again. Two days later I was called downstairs and locked up in the dungeon.I had repeatedly seen the effect of a dungeon experience on other women prisoners. One inmate had been kept there for twenty-eight days on bread and water, although the regulations prohibited a longer stay than forty-eight hours. She had to be carried out on a stretcher; her hands and legs were swollen, her body covered with a rash. The descriptions the poor creature and others had given me used to make me ill. But nothing I had heard compared with the reality. The cell was barren; one had to sit or lie down on the cold stone floor. The dampness of the walls made the dungeon a ghastly place. Worse yet was the complete shutting out of light and air, the impenetrable blackness, so thick that one could not see the hand before one’s face. It gave me the sensation of sinking into a devouring pit. “The Spanish Inquisition come to life in America” — I thought of Most’s description. He had not exaggerated.After the door shut behind me, I stood still, afraid to sit down or to lean against the wall. Then I groped for the door. Gradually the blackness paled. I caught a faint sound slowly approaching; I heard a key turn in the lock. A matron appeared. I recognized Miss Johnson, the one who had frightened me out of my sleep on my first night in the penitentiary. I had come to know and appreciate her as a beautiful personality. Her kindness to the prisoners was the one ray of light in their dreary existence. She had taken me to her bosom almost from the first, and in many indirect ways she had shown me her affection. Often at night, when all were asleep, and quiet had fallen on the prison, Miss Johnson would enter the hospital ward, put my head in her lap, and tenderly stroke my hair. She would tell me the news in the papers to distract me and try to cheer my depressed mood. I knew I had found a friend in the woman, who herself was a lonely soul, never having known the love of man or child.She came into the dungeon carrying a camp-chair and a blanket. “You can sit on that,” she said, “and wrap yourself up. I’ll leave the door open a bit to let in some air. I’ll bring you hot coffee later. It will help to pass the night.” She told me how painful it was for her to see the prisoners locked up in the dreadful hole, but she could do nothing for them because most of them could not be trusted. It was different with me, she was sure.At five in the morning my friend had to take back the chair and blanket and lock me in. I no longer was oppressed by the dungeon. The humanity of Miss Johnson had dissolved the blackness.When I was taken out of the dungeon and sent back to the hospital, I saw that it was almost noon. I resumed my duties. Later I learned that Dr. White had asked for me, and upon being informed that I was in punishment he had categorically demanded my release.No visitors were allowed in the penitentiary until after one month had been served. Ever since my entry I had been longing for Ed, yet at the same time I dreaded his coming. I remembered my terrible visit with Sasha. But it was not quite so appalling in Blackwell’s Island. I met Ed in a room where other prisoners were having their relatives and friends to see them. There was no guard between us. Everyone was so absorbed in his own visitor that no one paid any attention to us. Still we felt constrained. With clasped hands we talked of general things.My second visit took place in the hospital, Miss Johnson being on duty. She thoughtfully put a screen to shut us out from the view of the other patients, she herself keeping at a distance. Ed took me in his arms. It was bliss to feel again the warmth of his body, to hear his beating heart, to cling hungrily to his lips. But his departure left me in an emotional turmoil, consumed by a passionate need for my lover. During the day I strove to subdue the hot desire surging through my veins, but at night the craving held me in its power. Sleep would come finally, sleep disturbed by dreams and images of intoxicating nights with Ed. The ordeal was too torturing and too exhausting. I was glad when he brought Fedya and other friends along.Once Ed came accompanied by Voltairine de Cleyre. She had been invited by New York friends to address a meeting arranged in my behalf. When I had visited her in Philadelphia, she had been too ill to speak. I was glad of the opportunity to come closer to her now. We talked about things nearest to our hearts — Sasha, the movement. Voltairine promised to join me, on my release, in a new effort for Sasha. Meanwhile she would write to him, she said. Ed, too, was in touch with him.My visitors were always sent up to the hospital. I was therefore surprised one day to be called to the Warden’s office to see someone. It proved to be John Swinton and his wife. Swinton was a nationally known figure; he had worked with the abolitionists and had fought in the Civil War. As editor-in-chief of the New York Sun he had pleaded for the European refugees who came to find asylum in the United States. He was the friend and adviser of young literary aspirants, and he had been one of the first to defend Walt Whitman against the misrepresentations of the purists. Tall, erect, with beautiful features, John Swinton was an impressive figure.He greeted me warmly, remarking that he had just been saying to Warden Pillsbury that he himself had made more violent speeches during the abolition days than anything I said at Union Square. Yet he had not been arrested. He had told the Warden that he ought to be ashamed of himself to keep “a little girl like that” locked up. “And what do you suppose he said? He said he had no choice — he was only doing his duty. All weaklings say that, cowards who always put the blame on others.” Just then the Warden approached us. He assured Swinton that I was a model prisoner and that I had become an efficient nurse in the short time. In fact, I was doing such good work that he wished I had been given five years. “Generous cuss, aren’t you?” Swinton laughed. “Perhaps you’ll give her a paid job when her time is up?” “I would, indeed,” Pillsbury replied. “Well, you’d be a damn fool. Don’t you know she doesn’t believe in prisons? Sure as you live, she’d let them all escape, and what would become of you then?” The poor man was embarrassed, but he joined in the banter. Before my visitor took leave, he turned once more to the Warden, cautioning him to “take good care of his little friend,” else he would “take it out of his hide.”The visit of the Swintons completely changed the attitude of the head matron towards me. The Warden had always been quite decent, and she now began showering privileges on me: food from her own table, fruit, coffee, and walks on the island. I refused her favours except the walks; it was my first opportunity in six months to go out in the open and inhale the spring air without iron bars to check me.In March 1894 we received a large influx of women prisoners. They were nearly all prostitutes rounded up during recent raids. The city had been blessed by a new vice crusade. The Lexow Committee, with the Reverend Dr. Parkhurst at its head, wielded the broom which was to sweep New York clean of the fearful scourge. The men found in the public houses were allowed to go free, but the women were arrested and sentenced to Blackwell’s Island.Most of the unfortunates came in a deplorable condition. They were suddenly cut off from the narcotics which almost all of them had been habitually using. The sight of their suffering was heart-breaking. With the strength of giants the frail creatures would shake the iron bars, curse, and scream for dope and cigarettes. Then they would fall exhausted to the ground, pitifully moaning through the night.The misery of the poor creatures brought back my own hard struggle to do without the soothing effect of cigarettes. Except for the ten weeks of my illness in Rochester, I had smoked for years, sometimes as many as forty cigarettes a day. When we were very hard pressed for money, and it was a toss-up between bread and cigarettes, we would generally decide to buy the latter. We simply could not go for very long without smoking. Being cut off from the satisfaction of the habit when I came to the penitentiary, I found the torture almost beyond endurance. The nights in the cell became doubly hideous. The only way to get tobacco in prison was by means of bribery. I knew that if any of the inmates were caught bringing me cigarettes, they would be punished. I could not expose them to the risk. Snuff tobacco was allowed, but I could never take to it. There was nothing to be done but to get used to the deprivation. I had resisting power and I could forget my craving in reading.Not so the new arrivals. When they learned that I was in charge of the medicine chest, they pursued me with offers of money; worse still, with pitiful appeals to my humanity. “Just a whiff of dope, for the love of Christ!” I rebelled against the Christian hypocrisy which allowed the men to go free and sent the poor women to prison for having ministered to the sexual demands of those men. Suddenly cutting off the victims from the narcotics they had used for years seemed ruthless. I would have gladly given the addicts what they craved so terribly. It was not fear of punishment which kept me from bringing them relief; it was Dr. White’s faith in me. He had trusted me with the medicines, he had been kind and generous — I could not fail him. The screams of the women would unnerve me for days, but I stuck to my responsibility.One day a young Irish girl was brought to the hospital for an operation. In view of the seriousness of the case Dr. White called in two trained nurses. The operation lasted until late in the evening, and then the patient was left in my charge. She was very ill from the effect of the ether, vomited violently, and burst the stitches of her wound, which resulted in a severe hemorrhage. I sent a hurry call to the Charity Hospital. It seemed hours before the doctor and his staff arrived. There were no nurses this time and I had to take their place.The day had been an unusually hard one and I had had very little steep. I felt exhausted and had to hold on to the operating-table with my left hand while passing with my right instruments and sponges. Suddenly the operating-table gave way, and my arm was caught. I screamed with pain. Dr. White was so absorbed in his manipulations that for a moment he did not realize what had happened. When he at last had the table raised and my arm was lifted out, it looked as if every bone had been broken. The pain was excruciating and he ordered a shot of morphine. “We’ll set the arm later. This has got to come first.” “No morphine,” I begged. I still remembered the effect of morphine on me when Dr. Julius Hoffmann had given me a dose against insomnia. It had put me to sleep, but during the night I had tried to throw myself out of the window, and it had required all of Sasha’s strength to pull me back. The morphine had crazed me, now I would have none of it.One of the physicians gave me something that had a soothing, effect. After the patient on the operating-table had been returned to their bed, Dr. White examined my arm. “You’re nice and chubby,” he said; “that has saved your bones. Nothing has been broken — just flattened a bit.” My arm was put in a splint. The doctor wanted me to go to bed, but there was no one else to sit up with the patient. It might be her last night: her tissues were so badly infected that they would not hold the stitches, and another hemorrhage would prove fatal. I decided to remain at her bedside. I knew I could not sleep with the case as serious as it was.All night I watched her struggle for life. In the morning I sent for the priest. Everyone was surprised at my action, particularly the head matron. How could I, an atheist, do such a thing, she wondered, and choose a priest, at that! I had declined to see the missionaries as well as the rabbi. She had noticed how friendly I had become with the two Catholic sisters who often visited us on Sunday. I had even made coffee for them. Didn’t I think that the Catholic Church had always been the enemy of progress and that it had persecuted and tortured the Jews? How could I be so inconsistent? Of course, I thought so, I assured her. I was just as opposed to the Catholic as to the other Churches. I considered them all alike, enemies of the people. They preached submission, and their God was the God of the rich and the mighty. I hated their God and would never make peace with him. But if I could believe in any religion at all, I should prefer the Catholic Church. “It is less hypocritical,” I said to her; “it makes allowance for human frailties and it has a sense of beauty.” The Catholic sisters and the priest had not tried to preach to me like the missionaries, the minister, and the vulgar rabbi. They left my soul to its own fate; they talked to me about human things, especially the priest, who was a cultured man. My poor patient had reached the end of a life that had been too hard for her. The priest might give her a few moments of peace and kindness; why should I not have sent for him? But the matron was too dull to follow my argument or understand my motives. I remained a “queer one,” in her estimation.Before my patient died, she begged me to lay her out. I had been kinder to her, she said, than her own mother. She wanted to know that it would be my hand that would get her ready for the last journey. I would make her beautiful; she wanted to look beautiful to meet Mother Mary and the Lord Jesus. It required little effort to make her as lovely in death as she had been in life. Her black curls made her alabaster face more delicate than the artificial methods she had used to enhance her looks. Her luminous eyes were closed now; I had closed them with my own hands. But her chiselled eyebrows and long, black lashes were remindful of the radiance that had been hers. How she must have fascinated men! And they destroyed her. Now she was beyond their reach. Death had smoothed her suffering. She looked serene in her marble whiteness now.During the Jewish Easter holidays I was again called to the Warden’s office. I found my grandmother there. She had repeatedly begged Ed to take her to see me, but he had declined in order to spare her the painful experience. The devoted soul could not be stopped . With her broken English she had made her way to the Commissioner of Corrections, procured a pass, and come to the penitentiary. She handed me a large white handkerchief containing matzoth, gefüllte fish, and some Easter cake of her own baking. She tried to explain to the Warden what a good Jewish daughter her Chavele was; in fact, better than any rabbi’s wife, because she gave everything to the poor. She was fearfully wrought up when the moment of departure came, and I tried to soothe her, begging her not to break down before the Warden. She bravely dried her tears and walked out straight and proud, but I knew she would weep bitterly as soon as she got out of sight. No doubt she also prayed to her God for her Chavele.June saw many prisoners discharged from the sick-ward, only a few beds remaining occupied. For the first time since coming to the hospital I had some leisure, enabling me to read more systematically. I had accumulated a large library; John Swinton had sent me many books, as did also other friends; but most of them were from Justus Schwab. He had never come to see me; he had asked Ed to tell me that it was impossible for him to visit me. He hated prison so much that he would not be able to leave me behind. If he should come, he would be tempted to use force to take me back with him, and it would only cause trouble. Instead he sent me stacks of books. Walt Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Spencer, John Stuart Mill, and many other English and American authors I learned to know and love through the friendship of Justus. At the same time other elements also became interested in my salvation — spiritualists and metaphysical redeemers of various kinds. I tried honestly to get at their meaning, but I was no doubt too much of the earth to follow their shadows in the clouds.Among the books I received was the Life of Albert Brisbane, written by his widow. The fly-leaf had an appreciative dedication to me. The book came with a cordial letter from her son, Arthur Brisbane, who expressed his admiration and the hope that on my release I would allow him to arrange an evening for me. The biography of Brisbane brought me in touch with Fourier and other pioneers of socialist thought.The prison library had some good literature, including the works of George Sand, George Eliot, and Ouida. The librarian in charge was an educated Englishman serving a five-year sentence for forgery. The books he handed out to me soon began to contain love notes framed in most affectionate terms, and presently they flamed with passion. He had already put in four years in prison, one of his notes read, and he was starved for the love of woman and companionship. He begged me at least to give him the companionship. Would I write him occasionally about the books I was reading? I disliked becoming involved in a silly prison flirtation, yet the need for free, uncensored expression was too compelling to resist. We exchanged many notes, often of a very ardent nature.My admirer was a splendid musician and played the organ in the chapel. I should have loved to attend, to be able to hear him and feel him near, but the sight of the male prisoners in stripes, some of them handcuffed, and still further degraded and insulted by the lip-service of the minister, was too appalling to me. I had seen it once on the fourth of July, when some politician had come over to speak to the inmates about the glories of American liberty. I had to pass through the male wing on an errand to the Warden, and I heard the pompous patriot spouting of freedom and independence to the mental and physical wrecks. One convict had been put in irons because of an attempted escape. I could hear the clanking of his chains with his every movement. I could not bear to go to church.The chapel was underneath the hospital ward. Twice on Sundays I could listen on the stairway to my prison flame playing the organ. Sunday was quite a holiday: the head matron was off duty, and we were free from the irritation of her harsh voice. Sometimes the two Catholic sisters would come on that day. I was charmed with the younger one, still in her teens, very lovely and full of life. Once I asked her what had induced her to take the veil. Turning her large eyes upwards, she said: “The priest was young and so beautiful!” The “baby nun,” as I called her, would prattle for hours in her cheery young voice, telling me the news and gossip. It was a relief from the prison greyness.Of the friends I made on Blackwell’s Island the priest was the most interesting. At first I felt antagonistic to him. I thought he was like the rest of the religious busybodies, but I soon found that he wanted to talk only about books. He had studied in Cologne and had read much. He knew I had many books and he asked me to exchange some of them with him. I was amazed and wondered what kind of books he would bring me, expecting the New Testament or the Catechism. But he came with works of poetry and music. He had free access to the prison at any time, and often he would come to the ward at nine in the evening and remain till after midnight. We would discuss his favourite composers — Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms — and compare our views on poetry and social ideas. He presented me with an English-Latin dictionary as a gift, inscribed: “With the highest respect, to Emma Goldman.”On one occasion I asked him why he never gave me the Bible. “Because no one can understand or love it if he is forced to read it,” he replied. That appealed to me and I asked him for it. Its simplicity of language and legendry fascinated me. There was no make-believe about my young friend. He was devout, entirely consecrated. He observed every fast and he would lose himself in prayer for hours. Once he asked me to help him decorate the chapel. When I came down, I found the frail, emaciated figure in silent prayer, oblivious of his surroundings. My own ideal, my faith, was at the opposite pole from his, but I knew he was as ardently sincere as I. Our fervent was our meeting-ground.Warden Pillsbury often came to the hospital. He was an unusual man for his surroundings. His grandfather had been a jailer, and both his father and himself had been born in the prison. He understood his wards and the social forces that had created them. Once he remarked to me that he could not bear “stool-pigeons”; he preferred the prisoner who had pride and who would not stoop to mean acts against his fellow convicts in order to gain privileges for himself. If an inmate asseverated that he would reform and never again commit a crime, the Warden felt sure he was lying. He knew that no one could start a new life after years of prison and with the whole world against him unless he had outside friends to help him. He used to say that the State did not even supply a released man with enough money for his first week’s meals. How, then, could he be expected to “make good?” He would relate the story of the man who on the morning of his release told him: “Pillsbury, the next watch and chain I steal I’ll send to you as a present.” “That’s my man,” the Warden would laugh.Pillsbury was in a position to do much good for the unfortunates in his charge, but he was constantly hampered. He had to allow prisoners to do cooking, washing, and cleaning for others than themselves. If the table damask was not properly rolled before ironing, the laundress stood in danger of confinement to the dungeon. The whole prison was demoralized by favouritism. Convicts were deprived of food for the slightest infraction, but Pillsbury, who was an old man, was powerless to do much about it. Besides, he was eager to avoid a scandal.The nearer the day of my liberation approached, the more unbearable life in prison became. The days dragged and I grew restless and irritable with impatience. Even reading became impossible. I would sit for hours lost in reminiscences. I thought of the comrades in the Illinois penitentiary brought back to life by the pardon of Governor Altgeld. Since I had come to prison, I realized how much the release of the three men, Neebe, Fielden, and Schwab, had done for the cause for which their comrades in Chicago had been hanged. The venom of the press against Altgeld for his gesture of justice proved how deeply he had struck the vested interests, particularly by his analysis of the trial and his clear demonstration that the executed anarchists had been judicially killed in spite of their proved innocence of the crime charged against them. Every detail of the momentous days of 1887 stood out in strong relief before me. Then Sasha, our life together, his act, his martyrdom — every moment of the five years since I had first met him I now relived with poignant reality. Why was it, I mused, that Sasha was still so deeply rooted in my being? Was not my love for Ed more ecstatic, more enriching? Perhaps it was his act that had bound me to him with such powerful cords. How insignificant was my own prison experience compared with what Sasha was suffering in the Allegheny purgatory! I now felt ashamed that, even for a moment, I could have found my incarceration hard. Not one friendly face in the court-room to be near Sasha and comfort him — solitary confinement and complete isolation, for no more visits had been allowed him. The Inspector had kept his promise; since my visit in November 1892, Sasha had not again been permitted to see anyone. How he must have craved the sight and touch of a kindred spirit, how he must be yearning for it!My thoughts rushed on. Fedya, the lover of beauty, so fine and sensitive! And Ed. Ed — he had kissed to life so many mysterious longings, had opened such spiritual sources of wealth to me! I owed my development to Ed, tied to the others, too, who had been in my life. And yet, more than all else, it was the prison that had proved the best school. A more painful, but a more vital, school. Here I had been brought close to the depths and complexities of the human soul; here I had found ugliness and beauty, meanness and generosity. Here, too, I had learned to see life through my own eyes and not through those of Sasha, Most, or Ed. The prison had been the crucible that tested my faith. It had helped me to discover strength in my own being, the strength to stand alone, the strength to live my life and fight for my ideals, against the whole world if need be. The State of New York could have rendered me no greater service than by sending me to Blackwell’s Island Penitentiary!
Fasanella spent time in reform schools run by the Catholic Church, an experience that instilled a deep dislike for authority and reinforced Fasanella’s hatred for anything which broke people’s spirits. (I suggest Lineup at the Protectory 2 here) He quit school after the sixth grade.
During the Great Depression, Fasanella, then a member of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1227, became strongly aware of the growing economic and social injustice in the U.S., as well as the plight and powerlessness of the working class. During the Spanish Civil War, Fasanella volunteered for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and, after the War, returned to the United States and became a union organizer.
In the mid-1940s, Fasanella began to suffer from intense finger pain caused by arthritis. A union co-worker suggested that he take up painting as a way to exercise his fingers and ease the pain. Soon he began to paint full-time. To pay the bills, he bought a service station and worked there. As early as 1947, his work was exhibited alongside the most important social realist painters of the day, including Philip Evergood and Ben Shahn. By the 1970s he had gained national recognition and soon devoted all of his energies to making art. He appeared on the October 30, 1972 cover of New York magazine. The cover depicted him wearing a work shirt and standing in his tiny studio. Accompanying the photo was the headline: “This man pumps gas in the Bronx for a living. He may also be the best primitive painter since Grandma Moses.”
Fasanella developed a reputation for large-scale depictions of New York City’s streets, portraying baseball games, political campaigns, strikes, factories, union halls, and, occasionally, scenes of leisure. In addition to drawing and painting, the artist began his lifelong practice of carrying a sketchbook with him. A tireless advocate for workers’ rights, he created artworks as teaching tools, rallying cries, and memorial documents. He felt so strongly about the need to remember the sacrifices of previous generations that he inscribed the phrase “Lest We Forget” on several of his paintings.
He spent three years in Massachusetts in the mid-1970s living in an $18-a-week room at the YMCA while completing 18 canvases. He produced several very large paintings of New England mill towns, three of which depicted the Lawrence textile strike of 1912. He also produced a painting of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and violent, blood-red image of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
THIS IS A REPRODUCTION OF AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE
The Berg Brothers: Bibliophile Surgeons Posted on February 26, 2016 by nyamhistorymed By Anne Garner, Curator, Center for the History of Medicine and Public Health
New York physicians Henry W. and Albert A. Berg are well-known to students of literature. In 1940, Albert A. Berg founded the New York Public Library’s spectacular Berg Collection, endowed in his older brother Henry’s memory. It is a magical place, nestled on the third floor of NYPL’s Steven A. Schwarzman building, with endlessly deep collections in its vaults (I should know, I was lucky enough to work there). Highlights include a typescript draft of T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, annotated by Ezra Pound; the manuscript notebooks containing five of Virginia Woolf’s seven novels; and a map drawn by Jack Kerouac of territory covered on the cross-country trip that inspired On The Road.
Left: Dr. Albert A. Berg, holding Blake’s Europe, in an oil portrait by Jean Spencer hanging in The New York Public Library’s Berg Collection. Right: Dr. Henry W. Berg in an oil portrait by Ellen Emmett Rand, also in the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection. In Szladits, Brothers: The Origins of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection,1985. Click to enlarge.
Fourteen years separated the eldest and youngest Berg siblings, but they had much in common, including interests in book collecting and literature, along with an aptitude for real estate investment (a pastime that funded their library interests). The two doctors lived together until Henry’s death in 1939 in a townhouse on East 73rd Street. The story of Henry and Albert Berg’s establishment of one of the world’s great literary collections is told in Lola Szladits’ excellent book, The Brothers.
The medical legacy of the brothers, both prominent New York doctors, is less widely known. Henry and Albert’s father, Moritz Berg, immigrated to America from Hungary in 1862 with designs to work as a doctor. He found work instead as a tailor to support his family of eight children. Moritz died of cancer when Albert was young, and Henry, already interested in medicine himself, determined that Albert should follow the same career path.
Henry W. and Albert A. Berg (seated, second and third from left), most likely in a family portrait (circa 1900). In Szladits, Brothers: The Origins of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection,1985. Henry earned his medical degree from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1878, specialized in infectious disease, and headed Mount Sinai’s isolation service. He taught both neurology and pediatrics at the College of Physicians and Surgeons.2 Henry was attending physician at Willard Parker Hospital on East 16th Street for 40 years, until his death in 1939.3 His active role on Willard Parker’s board is documented in the Academy’s collection of Willard Parker minute books. It was Henry who mentored Albert, put him through medical school, and showed him he could be a great doctor. All early indications were to the contrary: Albert repeatedly ditched class to play pool. Their mother was skeptical that Henry could ever make a doctor out of him.4 But by graduation (also from College of Physicians and Surgeons), Albert was a decorated prizewinner.5 And as a surgeon, he proved a brilliant and visionary pioneer, a key player in the development of abdominal surgery in the United States.
Albert’s exceptional skill as a surgeon is attested in a tribute article by Dr. Leon Ginzberg in a festschrift volume of the Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital devoted to Albert’s career: [Dr. Berg’s] tremendous capacity for work, his boldness and resolution, his extraordinary operative skill and his refusal to remain on the accepted path, had brought his service to an enviable position in the field of abdominal surgery. The most significant studies from his clinic were in the fields of gastroduodenal and jejunal ulcers. Other important contributions were made to the subjects of colonic, and more particularly rectal and recto-sigmoidal carcinoma….to chronicle adequately all of Dr. Berg’s ‘labors in the vineyard’ would be to write an important chapter in the history of the development of abdominal surgery in the United States.6
Albert’s exceptional skill as a surgeon is attested in a tribute article by Dr. Leon Ginzberg in a festschrift volume of the Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital devoted to Albert’s career: [Dr. Berg’s] tremendous capacity for work, his boldness and resolution, his extraordinary operative skill and his refusal to remain on the accepted path, had brought his service to an enviable position in the field of abdominal surgery. The most significant studies from his clinic were in the fields of gastroduodenal and jejunal ulcers. Other important contributions were made to the subjects of colonic, and more particularly rectal and recto-sigmoidal carcinoma….to chronicle adequately all of Dr. Berg’s ‘labors in the vineyard’ would be to write an important chapter in the history of the development of abdominal surgery in the United States.6
Mount Sinai Hospital, circa 1913. From The Dr. Robert Matz Collection of Medical Postcards.
A stone’s throw away from A.A. Berg’s beloved Guggenheim pavilion at Mount Sinai Hospital, the Berg name lives on. On the third floor of the New York Academy of Medicine in the former periodicals room is a bronze plaque commemorating the gifts of Drs. Henry W. and Albert A. Berg to the Academy. A bequest from Albert endowed the third floor room that bears their name and still supports the acquisition of library periodicals today. Both brothers were Academy Fellows (Henry beginning in 1890, Albert in 1900).
Albert seems to have recognized how vital a good set of tools were to students of surgery. A copy of his last will and testament in the Academy’s archives entrusts his surgical instruments, instrument bags, and laboratory equipment, including two microscopes and examination tables and one portable operating table, to “one or more deserving young surgeons” to be selected at the Academy’s discretion.11 The items are no longer at the Academy; perhaps they were also used by a student whose path to medicine was at first uncertain, but later found his or her way.
New York Times article from July 18, 1950 announcing Albert A. Berg’s bequests, including to the New York Public Library and the New York Academy of Medicine.
References 1. Szladits, Lola. Brothers : The Origins of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection. New York: New York Public Library, 1985. pp. 9-10.
Szladits, pp. 10-11.
Medical Society of the State of New York. Medical Directory of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. New York: 1899-1939.
Louchheim, Katie. “Sweeping Formalities and Offstage Flourishes.” The New Yorker 3 Nov. 1975: 40-48. Print.
Szladits, pp. 11. 6. Ginzburg, Leon. “Some of the Principles and Methods contributed by the service of Dr. A.A. Berg.” Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital Volume 17.6 (1951): 356-368. The Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital has been digitized and is available online.
Szladits, 39.
Loucheim, 41.
New Yorker and Szladits.
Szladits, 42.
The New York Academy of Medicine Archives. Library Correspondence, 1927-1974.
THE BERG COLLECTION AT THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
The Berg Collection of English and American Literature at the New York Public Library, where rare treasures are on display.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York Times
A selection of Dickensiana in The New York Public Library’s Berg Collection, including a mahogany writing table and brass lamp from Gad’s Hill Place. The typewriter is one in the collection that includes J.D. Salinger’s.
History of the Berg Collection
The establishment of the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library, on October 11, 1940, was made possible by the avid book-collecting and generosity of the brothers Henry W. Berg (1858–1938) and Albert A. Berg (1872–1950). Henry was born in Hungary and immigrated to America with his parents in 1862; Albert was born fourteen years later in New York City. Six other siblings completed the family—three sisters and three brothers. Both Henry and Albert attended City College and Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. After graduation, Henry joined the staff of Mount Sinai Hospital, where he specialized in the treatment of infectious diseases; shortly thereafter, he was appointed to the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Albert, too, joined Mount Sinai, gaining nation-wide renown as an innovator in the field of abdominal surgery. The two bachelors lived together for most of their later lives in a town house on East 73rd Street, off of Fifth Avenue, which they filled with their rare editions of English and American literature.
In 1937, the Bergs approached The New York Public Library’s Board of Trustees to propose donating their collection to the Library. They found a warmly receptive audience—but in 1938, Henry died, leaving Albert to conclude the negotiations. In February 1940 Albert donated and endowed the collection in his brother’s memory. The opening celebration, attended by Mayor LaGuardia, was held in the Berg reading room in October. The collection of literary rarities comprised some 3,500 works, mostly printed books and pamphlets, representing more than 100 authors, though the collection also contained groups of prints and drawings, a few manuscripts, and about two dozen letters (including nine from John Ruskin to Fred Harris). The most heavily represented authors were Dickens (104 items, counting as single items the books-in-parts, and several collections of individual prints and drawings), who had been Albert’s favorite since his days as a page in the stacks of the Cooper Union library; Thackeray (31 items), Henry’s favorite; and Sir Walter Scott (27 items), beloved by both.
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
We were overwhelmed by today’s responses from:BILL SCHMINDER, LISA FERNANDEZ, HARA REISER, VICKI FEINMEL, JOYCE GOLD AND JAY JACOBSON!!!!
EDITORIAL
When researching Mt. Sinai Hospital for the Thursday issue, I came across the NYAM article about the Brother Doctors Berg. The story was so interesting that I have reproduced it in today’s issue………Then I looked up the history of the Berg Collection at the NYPL. More fascination……… I have excerpted some of the NYPL article. The link to the NYPL article is:
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 Roosevelt Island Historical Society
MATERIALS USED FROM:
NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
