TUGBOAT SAILING BY CENTRAL NURSES RESIDENCE WHERE 455 NOW STANDS. RITA MEED WAS THE WINNER!!
PHOTO OF THE YEAR
OUR GREAT POLL WORKERS AFTER A DAY WORKING AT PS217!!
MEMORIES
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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)
MICHEAL FRANK PHOTOS PART OF THE RIHS ARCHIVES
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Clyde J. Singer (1908-1999), East River, 1938, oil on canvas, 32 x 40 ¼ in.
Born in 1908, in Malvern, Ohio, forty miles south of Akron, Clyde Singer became known for his Social Realist and American Regionalist paintings and watercolors. His style and subjects were inspired by the Ash Can artists Robert Henri and John Sloan as well as the American Scene painters John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood. He studied at the Art Students League beginning in 1933, and his teachers included Curry and Thomas Hart Benton, among others.
The two artists that he admired most were George Bellows and John Sloan, and in non-classroom hours, he sought out locations where they had painted. Singer had the opportunity of meeting Sloan and developed a friendship with him, hearing stories about The Eight. Returning to Ohio, he became recognized as a talented up-and-comer in the realm of American Scene painting. From 1935 to 1940, Singer began selling paintings and became more recognized as he participated in over eighty-two exhibitions in fifty-six cities.
East River, 1938, has the appearance of an Ash Can subject, focusing upon urban life along the river on the Eastside of Manhattan. Here, a trio of young women, perhaps office workers, are in intense conversation, while two children, with their backs turned, watch a classic New York City tugboat creating a spew as well as workmen on the opposite shore. The shore opposite the promenade is a site on Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island since 1973), a tract of land in the river between Manhattan and Queens, just north of the Queensboro, now Ed Koch, Bridge. In the painting, workmen are engaged before the several storied building, which would open the following year (1939) as the Goldwater Memorial Hospital, the Welfare Island Hospital for Chronic Diseases (thel building was razed in 2014).
Although back in Ohio in 1938, the artist was clearly enamored with New York and continued to paint scenes of the City, as he did throughout his life. The year of East River proved a laudatory one for Singer, as he won a prize at the National Academy of Design for Barn Dance (private collection).
WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
PART OF OUR WONDERFUL GROUP OF POLL WORKERS WHO HELPED OVER 1850 ISLANDERS CAST THEIR BALLOTS
A SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR GREAT GROUP OF YOUNG, ENERGETIC LINE MONITORS!!!
TUESDAY’S PHOTO OF THE DAY
ANDY SPARBER AND OTHERS THAT I WILL POST SOON.
EDITORIAL
AFTER 100 HOURS AT EARLY VOTING AND 16 HOURS TODAY, I AM GOING TO CELEBRATE OUT 200TH ISSUE LATER IN THE WEEK.
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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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
Google Images (c)
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November this year is a crucial moment for many New Yorkers, with the election at the forefront of everyone’s attention. However, the rest of the month is filled with exciting art events and installations. As many people retreat indoors and shield themselves from the early winter breeze, now is a great time to visit some of the newest public art installations throughout New York City without having to worry too much about being around other people. Remember to wear a mask and practice social distancing as you check out these art installations, from the empowering Medusa Sculpture sitting across from the city’s criminal courthouse where many abusers were tried to the Mother Cabrini Statue unveiled by Governor Andrew Cuomo in Battery Park City. You have to catch a glimpse of the “plastic bag store” before it closes this month as well as take a ride to Rockaway for Shantell Martin’s new mural. Here are the public art installations on display in New York City this November:
A seven-foot tall bronze sculpture of Medusa was unveiled in Collect Pond Park in October, across from the New York County Criminal Court in Lower Manhattan. A collaboration between Medusa With The Head Project (MWTH) and New York City Parks, Medusa With The Head of Perseus is meant to question Medusa’s portrayal and narrative in Greek mythology and reimagine an inverted narrative.
Garbati made the original Medusa sculpture in 2008. He posted photos of it on social media in 2018, at the height of Me Too movement and the year the Argentine Senate rejected a bill that would fully decriminalize abortion during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. The photos went viral, and the sculpture became a symbol of resistance for women. Garbati seeks to change the traditional narrative of Medusa by portraying her in a somber moment of self-defense, holding the head of her slayer. According to the organizers of the sculpture, Medusa With The Head of Perseus has been deliberately sited across the street from the courthouse where “high profile abuse cases, including the recent Harvey Weinstein trial.”
Light of Freedom, an outdoor art project in which a torch is filled with a timeworn bell, a herald of freedom, and with the arms of mannequins, is meant to reflect the current turbulent political climate in the country during a time of global pandemic and mass protests. The torch, based on the Statue of Liberty’s hand holding a torch which was on view in the same park more than a century prior, symbolizes the light of democracy. The artist Abigail DeVille said that the project is inspired by the words of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. “In my research, I have found that the first Blacks to be brought to New York City were eleven Angolans in 1626. That makes people of African descent the second-oldest group of settlers in New Amsterdam, after the Dutch,” DeVille said on Madison Square Park’s website. “Unfortunately, history has erased the contributions and victories of this group. I want to make something that could honor their lives and question what it means to be a New Yorker, past, present, and future.”
Photograph by Ian Douglas
Starting in October, you can visit “The Plastic Bag Store” at 20 Times Square, a public art installation and immersive theater project that was delayed from March due to Covid-19. The Plastic Bag Store is a work by artist and director Robin Frohardt, produced by Pomegranate Arts and presented by Times Square Arts. It will be open free to the public through November 7, 2020 from Wednesdays to Sundays, with advance reservations. The store will have thousands of hand-sculpted “products” made from discarded, single-use plastics. You’ll find everything you can find in a grocery store, like meat, produce, cakes, toiletries, dry goods, and even sushi rolls. According to Times Square Arts, “With The Plastic Bag Store, Robin Frohardt employs humor and craft to examine our culture of consumption and convenience and the enduring effects of single-use plastics. Small groups will enter The Plastic Bag Store for a 60-minute immersive experience, featuring hidden sets and a captivating puppet film that explores how the overabundance of plastic waste we leave behind might be misinterpreted by future generations.”
Photo: Kevin P. Coughlin / Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
A new statue designed and created by the sculptors Jill Burkee-Biagi and Giancarlo Biagi dedicated to Mother Cabrini was unveiled by Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s Battery Park. Located just south of the South Cove on the Battery Park Esplanade, the statue is in honor of Saint Frances Xavier (Mother) Cabrini. Born in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano in modern-day Italy in 1850, Mother Cabrini was the first American citizen to be made a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. Governor Cuomo announced plans for the creation of a Mother Cabrini statue and memorial on Columbus Day 2019. The announcement came in the wake of controversy surrounding the She Built NYC initiative from Mayor de Blasio and his wife Chirlaine McCray. She Built NYC will add five new statues of women in New York City, including one of Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman to serve in Congress. The five women were selected in part through a public voting process, and although Mother Cabrini won the vote, she was not chosen to be honored. A spokesman for She Built NYC stated at the time that she had not been selected because tributes already existed.
Time Square Arts’ Midnight Moment series, the world’s largest, longest-running digital art exhibition that displays on Times Square nightly from 11:57pm to midnight, continues into November with its newest art installation: Table Manners by artist Zina Saro-Wiwa. The projection on the screen features individuals from the Niger Delta Region who consume their meals with their hands while gazing directly at the artists’s camera during the videos. These videos are staged as a celebration of community, tradition, and a collective act of memory. Saro-Wiwa’s work, according to Time Square Arts website, is candid and vulnerable yet undeniably confrontational, raising consciousness around the socioeconomic and political troubles the oil-producing Nigerian region faces.
“Table Manners appearing as the Midnight Moment is a special curatorial opportunity. It suggests the magic of the Midnight Feast which is the inspiration for my opening night performance,” Saro-Wiwa said in a press statement. “My hope is that people can come together — socially distanced of course — and commune with not only the people of Ogoniland and Port Harcourt in Nigeria who I have filmed, but also with each other. To look each other in the eye and just be.”
Looking for a great fall photo op? Head to Manhattan’s Seaport District along the East River. At the Heineken Riverdeck at Pier 17 passersby will find a giant arch made out of 500 gourds. Standing under the arch, you will be surrounded by pumpkins of all shapes, sizes, and colors. There are tiny yellow pumpkins, large orange ones, and white pumpkins, decorated with intertwining leaves and branches.
The arch is situated to give you an amazing view of the Brooklyn Bridge and at night, the arch lights up with an orange glow. You can take pictures at the pumpkin arch now until Thanksgiving.
No one guessed the unused prison barge that is docked across from Riker’s Island. ( A blue and white elephant that is costing the city millions a year)
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
Remember to bring your FASTPASS to the poll site to make your check in go faster. P.S. 217 IS open 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. for voting.
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
Betty Parsons, Sailboat, Rockport, 1943-1982, gouache and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Sandra B.D. Waters, 1984.120
William Zorach, Sailboat, woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1967.19.2
Frank McClure, Sailboat, ink, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Frank McClure, 1979.98.341
Werner Drewes, Sailboats, 1931, woodcut, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1969.3.12
Marjorie Raiguel, Sailboat Basin, ca. 1940, watercolor and pencil on paper mounted on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, 1974.28.249
William H. Johnson, Sailboats on the Water, ca. 1932-1937, tempera on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.68
Maurice Prendergast, Inlet with Sailboat, Maine, ca. 1913-1915, watercolor and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Robert Brady, 1981.171A
Allen E. Philbrick, Fishing Boats, n.d., etching, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chicago Society of Etchers, 1935.13.249
Blanche Lazzell, The Seine Boat, 1927/printed 1933, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1982.75
Donald MacDonald, Docking Ferry Boat, ca. 1938, stencil cut and lacquer airbrush, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from D.C. Public Library, 1967.72.224
William H. Johnson, Boats, ca. 1933-1935, tempera with pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.803
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
HIGH BRIDGE WHICH IS NOW A PEDESTRIAN WALKWAY ANDY SPARBERG IS THE WINNER!
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EDITORIAL
EARLY VOTING ENDED TODAY. OUR POLL SITE HAD THE MOST VOTERS OF ANY IN THE CITY, OVER 35,000. JUDY BERDY
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)
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
JUDITH BERDY
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Today, the Harlem River Drive is a highly trafficked north-south reference route for cars along the Harlem River, but few people know its history. Originally built as the Harlem River Speedway in 1894, the road was used as a horse carriage race track by New York City’s elite.
In the late nineteenth century, speeding through the streets was a common sport for the wealthy. However, New York residents were alarmed at the dangers of speeding carriages, and rich drivers did not want to share the road with trolleys and traffic. This put pressure on the mayor to build a speedway going through Central Park for fast horse-drawn carriages. In 1883, a compromise was reached: a 2.3-mile long speedway would be built along the Harlem River.
Image courtesy of Duane Bailey-Castro
The Harlem River Speedway was a subject on the virtual talk we hosted, “The Forgotten Harlem River,” by photographers Nathan Kensinger and Duane Bailey-Castro. Bailey-Castro, a lifelong Bronx resident who has focused much of his work on the Harlem River bridges, showed these vintage postcards he had acquired and the short silent film below from 1903 entitled “Parade of Horses along the Speedway” from the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company.
Construction of the Harlem River Speedway began in 1894 with the carving of the bluffs overlooking the river. After its opening in 1896, it quickly became a tourist attraction where people could watch horse races on the track as well as boat races on the river. The track was as wide as one-hundred feet in some areas, allowing for several carriages to compete at once. The natural beauty of the surrounding scenery attracted spectators from all social classes. Thousands from around the country visited to watch planned parades and competitions, and rich sportsmen were satisfied with their exclusive speedway, using it heavily to train and display their horses.
Image courtesy of Duane Bailey-Castro
There was backlash about the cost of the speedway shortly after its opening. Around $5 million were spent on construction and court cases, exceeding the original estimate of $1 million. Though newspapers acknowledged it to be a great work, they also noted the other ways in which the mayor could have spent the money, with reporter Charles C. Sargent of Munsey Magazine writing, “the sapient rulers of New York have spent in making the Speedway money that would have built thirty school houses, and would have provided twice over for the twenty-five thousand children turned away last September from the overcrowded primary schools of the metropolis.”
As the city grew and automobiles became widely used, New Yorkers began to push for the opening of the speedway to the public around 1909. Aristocrats turned their attention to motorcars, and in 1916 The New York Times reported that there were fewer than 100 carriages on the speedway a day. With the gradual decline in interest, the speedway was opened to automobiles in 1919, and in 1922 it was paved and opened to general traffic. It was then renamed the Harlem River Driveway.
Parks Commissioner Robert Moses played an integral role in connecting Harlem River Drive to the rest of Manhattan. In 1940 he began construction on linking the Harlem River Drive to the Henry Hudson Parkway, the George Washington Bridge, and the East River Drive (now the FDR Drive). The Triborough Bridge and several bridges joining the Major Deegan Expressway would provide a flow of traffic into the Drive. Completed in 1964, the project cost around $38 million.
Image courtesy of Duane Bailey-Castro
Today, you can drive or bike along the track where horse-drawn carriages once raced to the cheers of lively spectators. Though the world has drastically changed since then, the road and the scenic view of the Harlem River still remains.
NINA LUBLIN HIT A HOME RUN! BASEBALL GREAT ROY CAMPANELLA
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EARLY VOTING TIMES EXTENDED
FRIDAY, SATURDAY 7 A.M. TO 5 P.M. SUNDAY 7 A.M. TO 4 P.M.
OUR SITE IS WAGNER MIDDLE SCHOOL 225 EAST 75 STREET BE PREPARED TO WAIT ON A LINE
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:
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Ebbets Field was a Major League Baseball stadium in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York. It is known mainly for having been the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team of the National League, from 1913 to 1957, but was also home to three National Football League teams in the 1920s. Ebbets Field was demolished in 1960 and replaced by apartment buildings.
Game action at Ebbets Field, Brooklyn between the Dodgers and Piartes on May 30, 1955
“Wait ’til next year!” After the wilderness years of the 1920s and 1930s, the Dodgers were rebuilt into a contending club first by general manager Larry MacPhail and then the legendary Branch Rickey. Led by Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, and Gil Hodges in the infield, Duke Snider and Carl Furillo in the outfield, Roy Campanella behind the plate, and Don Newcombe, Carl Erskine, and Preacher Roe on the pitcher’s mound, the Dodgers won pennants in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953, only to fall to the New York Yankees in all five of the subsequent World Series. The annual ritual of building excitement, followed in the end by disappointment, became a common pattern to the long suffering fans, and “Wait ’til next year!” became an unofficial Dodger slogan.
While the Dodgers generally enjoyed success during this period, in 1951 they fell victim to one of the largest collapses in the history of baseball.[31] On August 11, 1951, Brooklyn led the National League by an enormous 13½ games over their archrivals, the Giants. While the Dodgers went 26–22 from that time until the end of the season, the Giants went on an absolute tear, winning an amazing 37 of their last 44 games, including their last seven in a row. At the end of the season the Dodgers and the Giants were tied for first place, forcing a three-game playoff for the pennant. The Giants took Game 1 by a score of 3–1 before being shut out by the Dodgers’ Clem Labine in Game 2, 10–0. It all came down to the final game, and Brooklyn seemed to have the pennant locked up, holding a 4–2 lead in the bottom of the ninth inning. Giants outfielder Bobby Thomson, however, hit a stunning three-run walk-off home run off the Dodgers’ Ralph Branca to secure the NL Championship for New York. To this day Thomson’s home run is known as the Shot Heard ‘Round The World.
In 1955, by which time the core of the Dodger team was beginning to age, “next year” finally came. The fabled “Boys of Summer” shot down the “Bronx Bombers” in seven games,[32] led by the first-class pitching of young left-hander Johnny Podres, whose key pitch was a changeup known as “pulling down the lampshade” because of the arm motion used right when the ball was released.[33] Podres won two Series games, including the deciding seventh. The turning point of Game 7 was a spectacular double play that began with left fielder Sandy Amorós running down Yogi Berra’s long fly ball, then throwing to shortstop Pee Wee Reese, who relayed to first baseman Gil Hodges to double up a surprised Gil McDougald to preserve the Dodger lead. Hank Bauer grounded out and the Dodgers won 2–0.
Although the Dodgers lost the World Series to the Yankees in 1956 during which the Yankees pitcher Don Larsen pitched the only World Series perfect game in baseball history and the only post-season no-hitter for the next 54 years, it hardly seemed to matter. Brooklyn fans had their memory of triumph, and soon that was all they were left with – a victory that was remembered decades later in the Billy Joel single “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, which included the line, “Brooklyn’s got a winning team.”
THE SCENE OUTSIDE OF WAGNER JHS WITH VOTERS WAITING TO DO EARLY VOTING
MEMORIES
All I remember of the 1955 World Series was my brother and friend watching it and the moving men waiting to take the TV to the moving van. They held off and we celebrated the Dodgers victory in the basement of our house at 36 East Voss Avenue, East Rockaway!!!!
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 All image are copyrighted (c)
THE GLORIOUS WORKS BY PROFESSIONALS AND SELF-TAUGHT QUILTERS
Unidentified (American), Crazy Quilt, ca. 1901-1929, wool and mixed taffetas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Raymond Vlasin and family, with deepest appreciation for the many friends with whom Claire Vlasin quilted, 2017.24.35
Clementine Hunter, Melrose Quilt, ca. 1960, fabric, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Barbara Coffey Quilt Endowment, 2014.5 Clementine Hunter was born on a Louisiana plantation where her grandparents had been slaves. When she was twelve, her family moved to Melrose Plantation in Natchitoches Parish to work as sharecroppers. Clementine worked as a field hand, cook, and housekeeper. The Henry family bought Melrose in 1884; they restored architectural structures on the property and moved historic log cabins from the area onto the property. When John Hampton Henry died, his wife Cammie made Melrose a retreat for visiting artists. Hunter’s exposure to artists and some leftover paints led her to own artistry. She painted quotidian stories she felt historians overlooked—primarily the activities of the black workers. She also made pictorial quilts. This one depicts several notable buildings at Melrose, including the Big House, Yucca House, and African House, in which Hunter painted a now-historic mural of plantation life in 1955.
Unidentified (American), Untitled (String Quilt with Diamond Pattern), 1950s, cotton, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Corrine Riley and museum purchase through the Barbara Coffey Quilt Endowment and the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2016.5.37 The themes of protection and shelter are central to many traditional African American forms, but are perhaps most powerful in the improvisational quilts made by African American women across the South. Quilts are inherently a folk form–most quilters learned from their mothers or grandmothers. Yet, when the patterns and color combinations must take their cues from what clothes are too worn to wear, the maker’s inventiveness takes center stage. Salvaged fabrics from family members were essentially scrapbooked into the quilts, and the astonishing result showed both the artistry of the maker and a larger, communal aesthetic. Mary Lee Bendolph, a quilter from Gee’s Bend, Alabama, explained, “A woman made utility quilts as fast as she could so her family wouldn’t freeze, and she made them as beautiful as she could so her heart wouldn’t break.”
Unidentified (American), Untitled (String Quilt), 1920s, wool, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Corrine Riley and museum purchase through the Barbara Coffey Quilt Endowment and the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2016.5.41
Top: Detail, The Holen Boys Ties Quilt, about 1935, silk, Lent by The Nebraska Prairie Museum of the Phelps County Historical Society, Holdrege, NE, with permission of the Holen Family. Bottom: The Holen family in front of the Renwick Gallery last December. When I was a young kid in grade school, I had to wear a gold tie and a pressed white shirt each Thursday for “assembly,” when all the students would gather in the auditorium for a special program, a spelling bee (when I was in third grade received did me in), or a concert. On those mornings my father would tie a tie for me around his own neck, then slip it off and place it on the handle of my bedroom door. All I had to do was take the nearly-finished tie, slip it over my head, then tighten it around my neck to fit. So much better than one of those clip-on numbers, or even something with an elastic back that could be snapped by a mischievous friend. Those are my first memories of having to wear a tie and I’ve been a reluctant tie-wearer ever since. When I heard there was a quilt on display at the Renwick made mostly of men’s ties from one family, I had to check it out for myself…if not for men-kind everywhere. I visited the tie quilt on no ordinary day in its own life or in the life of the Holen family. On that day in late December all ninety-two of the Holens, who planned their annual family reunion in D.C., to coincide with the exhibition of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century quilts, Going West! Quilts and Community. In 1935, their relative Ellen Holen of Nebraska decided to collect ties from the men in her family—her six sons and her husband—and make a quilt. Having eight children left Ellen with little time to work on the quilt except for late at night when all the children were asleep. Her only surviving child, her ninety-two year old daughter Rachael made the trip to D.C. and remembered that her mother always wanted to work on the quilt, “but never seemed to have time till late evening after she had taken care of the needs of the family: that always came first.” It turned out that Ellen never finished the quilt. Only after her death in the mid-1980s was the unfinished quilt found, damp and musty, in an old trunk in a basement.” According to Rachael, she and other relatives contacted the quilting ladies at the local senior center for advice on treatment for the quilt. They advised Rachael to roll the quilt in newspapers to take away the musty smell, and several days later—much to their surprise—the smell was gone. Then it was time to finish the quilt. On February 15, 1986, Rachael gathered nearly twenty relatives for “tieing day” including her brothers, Milford and Norris who “put up the quilting frames at my house. We made a full day of it with a pot-luck at noon. Mother would have been proud to know that her children finished what she didn’t quite have time to finish before she left us.” Then on a cold winter morning, one of the last days of 2007, two fully loaded buses pulled up near the Renwick and within minutes, more than ninety members of the Holen family, in identical red and white scarves, were heading up the street. They stopped to pose on the museum steps before entering. Click! They also posed for photos inside the gallery in front of The Holen Boys Ties Quilt which will be on display at the Renwick through January 21. Then it returns to its home at the Nebraska Prairie Museum of the Phelps County Historical Society, Holdrege. I hope you have a chance to see it. The circular shape of the ties forms a spoked pattern reminiscent of the wagon wheel motif that repeats itself in quilts throughout the exhibition. Every quilt tells a story: there’s only one tie quilt, however. And I, for one, though a reluctant wearer of ties, thank Ellen Holen for making me think twice about the patterns and fabric of my own family history.
CLARIFICATION WE ARE HAPPY TO GIVE WINNERS OF OUR DAILY PHOTO IDENTIFICATION A TRINKET FROM THE VISITOR CENTER. ONLY THE PERSON IDENTIFYING THE PHOTO FIRST WILL GET A PRIZE. WE HAVE A SPECIAL GROUP OF ITEMS TO CHOOSE FROM. WE CANNOT GIVE AWAY ALL OUR ITEMS,. PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMES, WE MUST LIMIT GIVE-AWAYS. THANK YOU
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Google Images (c)
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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
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