I cannot believe this Monday is our 150th issue!!! Send us your favorite articles and items that were in the first 149 issues of FROM THE ARCHIVES. Your comments are welcome too. We will feature them in issue #150. Issue #150 is on MONDAY. Send to rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com
WEEKEND EDITION
SEPTMEBER 5-6, 2020 The 149th Edition
DONALD DE LUE
MASTER IN BRONZE
THE ROCKET THROWER FLUSHING MEADOWS PARK, NY
The “Rocket Thrower” by Donald De Lue commissioned for the 1964 Worlds Fair, in Flushing Meadows Park in Queens in New York
Life and career De Lue studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and later served as an assistant to sculptors Richard Henry Recchia and Robert P. Baker. This was followed by five years in Paris where he continued his study, while working as an assistant to various French artists.
He returned to the United States where he was engaged by Bryant Baker. In 1940 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1943. In 1941, De Lue won a competition to create sculpture for the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse Building in Philadelphia, and from then on he stopped being an assistant for other artists and only worked on his own commissions and creations.
De Lue’s works can be found in many museums across America. Like many other sculptors of his generation, he executed architectural works. He was also a prolific designer of medals and medallions. De Lue taught at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City during the early 1940s. (See Issue #142 on August 28th)
In 1960, he won two Henry Hering Awards, given by the National Sculpture Society for outstanding collaboration between a sculptor and an architect, for the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, and for the Stations of the Cross at the Loyola Jesuit Seminary in Shrub Oak, New York.
In 1967, De Lue won the American Numismatic Society’s J. Sanford Saltus Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Art of the Medal, known as the Saltus Award. Beginning in 1964, for many years De Lue was a Trustee of Brookgreen Gardens, as well as Chairman of the Art Committee. In his later years, De Lue and his wife Naomi (who served as a model for many of his statues) lived in the Leonardo section of Middletown Township, New Jersey, a small shore town with a bayside beach and long-distance view of lower Manhattan.
De Lue cited the 23rd Psalm and the words “He leadeth me beside the still waters…” as the inspiration by which he arrived in Leonardo from New York City. Although he continued to maintain his NYC apartment, it was in his Leonardo studio that many of his largest statues were made. One of the last was a commission by a private individual intended for the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. The bigger-than-life statue of Bowie, Travis and Crockett was considered “too violent” by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas for placement in a sacred chapel.
A compromise was sought, that the statue be installed outside the building in the large courtyard rather than inside. DeLue and his patron, a wealthy Texan, preferred the statue be installed in the interior space for which it was made. Unfortunately, the impasse was never resolved in De Lue’s lifetime. Donald and Naomi De Lue are buried in Manalapan Township, New Jersey at the cemetery at Old Tennent Presbyterian Church.
PHOTO NY DAILY NEWS (C) 2013
JUSTICE AND LAW PHILADELPHIA FEDERAL BUILDING 1941
THE ALCHEMIST UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 1940
NORMANDY AMERICAN CEMETERY COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, FRANCE
The loggias and colonnade are made of Vaurion, a French limestone from the Cote d’Or region. Centered in the open arc of the memorial facing the graves area is a 22-foot tall bronze statue, The Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves, created by the American sculptor Donald De Lue. The statue stands on a rectangular pedestal of Ploumanach granite from Brittany, France. Encircling the pedestal of the statue on the floor in bronze letters is the inscription: MINE EYES HAVE SEEN THE GLORY OF THE COMING OF THE LORD.
ICARUS
Donald De Lue, Icarus, modeled 1934, signed 1945, plaster with metallic patination, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of the artist, 1989.29
JACOBI HOSPITAL, BRONX, NY
Donald De Lue Untitled, 1954 incised white marble relief 11′ x 7′ Main entrance lobby (Abraham Jacobi Hospital Building)
One of the most popular portrait series of medals in the world, the Hall of Fame for Great Americans Series honors the most famous Americans chosen by highly selected judging committees and sponsored by New York University. The first election was held in 1900 — when a building was erected to house the Hall and an ongoing collection of statues. Elections were held every five years thereafter. Bronze statues of the honorees were installed within outside niches along the open colonnade at the University Heights campus. It partly surrounds a Pantheon style building created by architect Stamford White that has served as a library and auditorium over its first century. The Medals.
In 1962 a coalition was formed to sponsor and market fine art medals to honor these same famous Americans. The coalition consisted of New York University, the owner of the Hall of Fame; the National Sculpture Society, which would furnish an art committee; the Medallic Art Company, which would manufacture the medals; and the Coin and Currency Institute which would market the medals.
The Art Committee was formed of five members with sculptor Donald De Lue as chairman; this committee issued commissions to American sculptors who expressed an interest in creating one or more of the medals. (Those sculptors who had created the bust were given first choice to do the medal.) Over the next 13 years, 96 medalswere created by 42 sculptors, predominantly members of the National Sculpture Society.
Rules for the medal design were simple. It had to bear a portrait on the obverse, significant scene from that subject’s accomplishment for the reverse. The lettering HALL OF FAME FOR GREAT AMERICANS AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY must appear on the medal, either side was permissible. While the design was left to the artist, each submission had to pass the approval of the Art Committee composed of the artist’s sculptural peers. Medals were struck in two sizes. A large 3-inch (76mm) size in bronze only, and a small 1 3/4-inch (44mm) in bronze and silver. The silver was serially numbered.
Medalist Laura Gardin Fraser had selected two medals to create — Mary Lyon and Gilbert Stuart — but died before completing the models. Sculptor Karl Gruppe finished the two medals as close to her designs and style as possible. The two Wright Brothers, with different statues and years of election, appear on one medal, by Paul Fjelde. Later status. In 1973 and 1976 the last 20th century elections were held and seven new honorees* were elected into the Hall (which would fill in every niche in the colonnade). In 1973 New York University sold their University Heights Campus to City College of New York along with the building and the statues forming the Colonnade. The statues, and the Hall of Fame itself, were in limbo for awhile. Bronx Community College, which now occupies the campus, is present stewardship of the Hall.
Since 1977 no elections have been held, no new statues erected or medals issued. However, visitors to New York City can still travel to University Heights in the Bronx and walk the Colonnade, viewing the magnificent statues overlooking the Hudson River. Or they can build a set of fine art medals created by some of the most talented medalists of the 20th century with high relief portraits and stunning medallic art. * For 1973: Louis Brandeis, George Washington Carver, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John Phillip Sousa. For 1976: Clara Barton, Luther Burbank and Andrew Carnegie.
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SAYRE AND FISHER BRICK THAT WAS PLACED ON THE REVERSE IN THE CHAPEL. IT IS ON THE NORTH WALL NEAR THE EXIT
A little information about the bricks in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd:
Sayre and Fisher Brick Company was established in 1850 by James R. Sayre, Jr., and Peter Fisher,and later became one of the USA’s leading manufacturers of building brick, fire brick, and enamel brick.
In 1876 the area around the village then known as Wood’s Landing was renamed Sayreville, after the company’s co-founder. It eventually acquired most factories along the Raritan River, and by 1905 operated a two-mile-long complex with 13 separate yards. By 1912, production reached 62 million bricks a year, providing employment for a large part of the local population, some of whom lived in company housing.
The complex included a power plant, granary, bakery, slaughterhouse, coal yard, ice plant, general store, machine shop, and blacksmith shop. Among the structures built with bricks from the company are the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, the base of the Statue of Liberty, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Brick manufacturing declined in the Great Depression, but recovered and stayed profitable into the 1960s. The Sayre and Fisher plant closed in 1970. While most of the industrial buildings were razed, the reading room and some housing buildings remain. The water tower has been restored.
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EDITORIAL
When researching artwork at other municipal hospitals, we discovered the work of Donald De Lue. Turns out we found another great artist and his work. Our H+H system has an amazing collection of artworks and we will feature more in the future.
Enjoy the story of the backwards brick at the Chapel. Next time you are there, see if you can locate it.
Judith Berdy
Funding Provided by: Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation Public Purpose Funds Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD Text by Judith Berdy
CREDITS:
NEW YORK TIMES NEW YORK DAILY NEWS SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM WIKIPEDIA NYC PARKS DEPT. Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
I cannot believe this Monday is our 150th issue!!! Send us your favorite articles and items that were in the first 149 issues of FROM THE ARCHIVES. Your comments are welcome too. We will feature them in issue #150. Issue #150 is on MONDAY.
Elizabeth Kolligs works on restoring Vertis Hayes’s “Pursuit of Happiness” at Harlem Hospital.Credit…Karsten Moran for The New York Times
At Harlem Hospital, Murals Get a New Life
From the NY Times (C): By Robin Pogrebin Sept. 16, 2012 This article is from 2012 and the mural pavilion is easy visible from the street
When the Works Progress Administration commissioned murals for Harlem Hospital Center in 1936, it easily approved the sketches submitted by seven artists, which depicted black people at work and at play throughout history. The hospital, however, objected, saying four of the sketches focused too much on “Negro” subject matter and that blacks “may not form the greater part of the Community” in years to come. Protesters rallied around the art, though, lodging complaints as high as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the murals ultimately prevailed.
Over the years, those wall paintings deteriorated or were obscured by plaster. Now they have been restored and brought front and center as part of a new, $325 million patient pavilion for the hospital, on Lenox Avenue at 135th Street that will be unveiled on Sept. 27. The WPA’s Federal Art Project, created in 1935 to support and employ artists, commissioned more than 500 murals for New York City’s public hospitals.
Harlem Hospital’s were perhaps the first major federal government commissions awarded to African-Americans.
The artists — the last of whom, Georgette Seabrooke, died last year — were not well known and their murals portrayed ordinary people going about their daily lives. Vertis Hayes’s “Pursuit of Happiness” panel traces the African diaspora from 18th-century African village life to slavery in America to 20th-century freedom; from agrarian struggles in the South to professional success in the industrialized North.
Ms. Seabrooke’s “Recreation in Harlem” depicts children roughhousing, a couple dancing, a group of women chatting. After decades of renovations and building changes, some of the murals had all but disappeared. But they were rediscovered in 2004 during a campus modernization project by the architecture firm HOK. At that point, all conservators could see of the Seabrooke mural was the left-hand corner where the artist had signed her name.
The new pavilion at Harlem Hospital will showcase murals.The murals’ new home is a 192,000-square-foot building — called the Mural Pavilion — that connects the existing Martin Luther King Jr. Pavilion to the Ron Brown Building. The Mural Pavilion contains new intensive care units, surgery rooms, clinics, imaging spaces and an emergency department.
Part of the hospital’s mandate to the architects was to save the murals, and the cost has been considerable, topping $4 million, which had to be raised privately. “We were going to preserve these national treasures,” said Deborah Thornhill, the hospital’s associate executive director for strategic planning. “They’re an important part of the history of the hospital, the community and the country.” Where the murals had been visible only to staff members and patients, now they have a gallery all to themselves, visible from the street.
Digital enlargements of three of the murals adorn the building’s 12,000-square-foot glass facade. These color images — printed on the glass using ceramic ink — are a city block long and five stories high. “All the murals tell wonderful stories,” said Chuck Siconolfi, HOK’s senior principal for health care. “We said, ‘Let’s go beyond displaying these murals and make them emblematic of the whole community and its role in American life.” “This was not only a cultural device but a therapeutic device,” he added.
“They are as much a tool in the delivery of care as any radiological device or any scalpel.” Because the digital copies of the murals are backlit, the facade essentially becomes a light box, “to the point,” Kenneth Drucker, HOK’s director of design, said jokingly, “where there could be some traffic accidents on the street.
The facade can also be appreciated from inside the building, the architects said, since column-free corridors are directly behind it, and patients can look into the gallery from adjoining waiting areas and hallways. “When you talk to people about the murals, they listen politely,” Ms. Thornhill said. “It’s only when they walk in the gallery and see how awesome they are that you get the ‘wow’ moment.”
The other murals include Charles Alston’s “Magic in Medicine” and “Modern Medicine,” a diptych that highlights both traditional and modern healing practices in Africa and the United States. A ritual Fang reliquary sculpture from Gabon, in Central Africa, for example, is juxtaposed with a microscope. Ms. Thornhill said Mr. Alston featured Myra Logan, whom he would later marry, as a nurse in the painting; she was an intern at the time and eventually became a surgeon. Mr. Alston also included the microbiologist Louis Pasteur and a surgeon modeled after Louis T. Wright, the first African-American physician appointed to the hospital and a friend of the artist. “The artist wanted to share the importance of African-American and white physicians working together toward a common goal,” Ms. Thornhill said.
More than 75 years ago, in response to the initial rejection of the murals by the hospital superintendent, the Harlem Artists Guild issued a statement with the Artists Union — copies of which were sent to Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia and members of President Roosevelt’s cabinet in addition to the president himself. The hospital had rejected the murals, citing the extent of the “Negro subject matter,” the possible demographic change in the neighborhood in years to come and the hospital’s perception that the murals would offend some blacks. Publicity about the controversy aroused support for the artists. The hospital’s commissioner eventually reversed his decision after determining that “there was no offense to Negroes in these paintings.”
The current restoration of the murals was overseen by the city’s Public Design Commission, which questioned whether it was appropriate to display the murals so prominently because, as a matter of history, they had previously been located largely out of public view.
The surviving son of Ms. Hayes testified before the commission that it was not only appropriate “but the correction of an injustice to have hidden them in a back corridor,” Ms. Thornhill said. Although the hospital raised $4.2 million to restore the murals, it is still seeking funds to finish the work; Ms. Seabrooke’s mural — the most conservation intensive — still needs $400,000 worth of work. “It was a struggle for the artists to create them,” said Denise C. Soares, the hospital’s executive director. “And it was our honor to conserve their legacy.”
The new pavilion at Harlem Hospital will showcase murals. Credit…Karsten Moran for The New York Times
“MODERN SURGERY AND ANESTHESIA” ALFRED CIMI
Alfred Cimi’s Modern Surgery and Anesthesia is the only fresco in the Harlem Hospital Center. Crimi, an accomplished fresco artist trained in Italy, was the only non-African American commissioned for the project. A fresco is a challenging technique in which watercolor is applied rapidly to wet lime plaster. As it dries, the colors become fixed in the plaster. Modern Surgery and Anesthesia was created in an alcove in the former Physician’s Dining Room.
“RECREATION IN HARLEM”
GEORGETTE SEABROOKE
A detail of Georgette Seabrooke’s “Recreation in Harlem.”Credit…Karsten Moran for The New York Times
“IN PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS” VERTIS HAYES
Vertis Hayes’s eight-panel mural spans both walls of the first-floor corridor of the New Nurses Residence. The work chronologically follows an arc of African American history, transporting the viewer from Africa to America, from an African village to an American city peopled by African Americans in zoot suits and white nurse’s dresses. The mural also suggests the migration of African Americans from their agrarian lives in the South to the industrialized North, an experience of personal significance for the artist who himself migrated from Atlanta to New York. Hayes’s work deploys numerous motifs of progress, which, for many artists of the period, was symbolized by capitalism and Western civilization. In this mural, Hayes describes the irresistible force of progress symbolized by a giant cog. Most likely, he borrowed this symbol from another African American artist, Aaron Douglas, who uses a cog in his 1934 muralAspects of Negro Life, also created under the patronage of the WPA for the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library.
Crocodile 1st century BC- 1st century AD Red granite
In ancient times crocodiles lived in great numbers on the banks of the Nile. Ancient Egyptians had an ambivalent attitude toward these animals, as they did toward many other species. Crocodiles were the most dangerous creatures in the Egyptian environment, and so embodied the essence of evil. On the other hand, they were also believed to incarnate the ba (soul) of the creator god Sobek. In this role crocodiles represented cosmic and regenerative powers, and might accompany deities such as Isis.
During Hellenistic and Roman times the cults of the Egyptian gods Isis and Serapis, along with elements of their Egyptian iconography including the crocodile, spread widely throughout the Mediterranean and reached Rome itself. Placed in the context of Roman art, crocodile images served primarily to evoke the Nilotic environment. This superb sculpture serves the same function today at the temple of Dendur.
Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.
TEMPLE OF DENDUR METROPOLITAN MUSEUM (HE WAS GREETING VISITORS)
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My neighbor Anne Cripps asked me a question this morning about the Harlem Hospital murals. I hope this issue is the answer. The project was done in 2012 by Evergreene Studios. Working in an active hospital, which was under construction and restoration at the time revealed a wonderful art experience after many years of planning and restoration.
Harlem is a municipal hospital owned and operated by the NYC Health + Hospitals. This hospital, like Coler treats all persons without question of immigration status or ability to pay.
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 Roosevelt Island Historical Society WIKIPEDIA (C)
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For those of you who have not been commuting recently there are some images to remind you of your traveling world. You may work from home even longer after seeing these.
“Locomotive Standing,” a lithograph by Harold Faye (1910-1980), created while he was in the WPA’s Federal Art Program, 1939. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Gibbes Museum of Art.
“Locomotive Standing,” a lithograph by Harold Faye (1910-1980), created while he was in the WPA’s Federal Art Program, 1939. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Gibbes Museum of Art.
“Long Island Railroad,” an oil painting by Earl John Colville (1878-1970), created while he was in the WPA’s Federal Art Project, 1937. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and Gregory Halpern.
“Wall Street Station,” a lithograph by Elizabeth Olds (1896-1991), created while she was in the WPA’s Federal Art Project, ca. 1935-1938. Image courtesy of the General Services Administration and the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Dox Thrash, Railroad Yard, ca. 1933-1934, aquatint, etching and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1981.11.2
Jack Savitsky, Train in Coal Town, 1968, oil on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson, 1986.65.137 Jack Savitsky’s Train in Coal Town depicts a coal-fired passenger train traveling between Pottsville and Silver Creek, two well-known coal towns in Pennsylvania. Behind the smoky plume of the locomotive stand a blue-gray coal breaker and eight mill houses—the very houses that make up the painting’s border. Savitsky conveys the sameness and unending work of the company town through his use of repetitive patterning and decorative elements. However, the lively colors and cheerful rural setting also reflect an energetic spirit within the miner community. Title Train in Coal Town Artist Jack Savitsky Date 1968 Location Smithsonian American Art Museum Luce Foundation Center 3rd Floor 22A Dimensions
Karl Fortess, Island Dock Yard, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.94
Trains, trucks, and industrial buildings were what Karl Fortess envisioned when the Public Works of Art Project suggested that he depict “the American Scene.” The artist left his home in the picturesque artists’ colony of Woodstock, New York, and traveled ten miles to Kingston to make this painting. Kingston had long been a thriving Hudson River port town that supplied Pennsylvania coal and local brick, stone, and cement to New York City. The Depression slowed shipping, but a newly invented concrete mixture stimulated the local cement business. Fortess’s pictorial research at Kingston was demanding, as he noted, “Inclement weather and bad roads have made it impossible to go into Kingston as often as necessary.”
Fortess described his painting as “a view of the Kingston Point railway yard, showing track intersections, [a] station, freight trains, . . . shacks, and [a] background of buildings with a suggestion of a plain and barren winter trees [on] a grey day.” The artist emphasized the angular geometry of the structures. He played the predominant shadowy gray colors against spots of intense red, yellow, and blue. Trucks and trains hurry to and fro, but the action proceeds without the presence of a single visible human figure.
Theodore C. Polos, Train, n.d., lithograph, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from D.C. Public Library, 1967.72.210
Steve Ashby, Train in Landscape, n.d., carved wood with applied wood pieces, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr., 1998.84.4
“I wake up with an idea that won’t let me get back to sleep. So I get up and make that idea.” Steve Ashby converted most of his ideas into objects in the early 1960s after his wife had died and he retired from his years of work as a farm hand and gardener. Ashby’s favorite subjects were figures and animals, often inspired by the agrarian activities of Fauquier County, Virginia, where his ancestors had been slaves. Some of his figures were wind-activated to perform various activities that ranged from the domestic to the pornographic. Others include parts that move when handled. Lynda Roscoe Hartigan Made with Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C. and London: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990) A descendant of Virginia slaves, Steve Ashby spent his entire life in Delaplane, Virginia. Ashby and his wife rented a former schoolhouse and enjoyed a modest lifestyle with their adopted son. Ashby had a lifelong interest in carving but began making the figures he called “fixing-ups” in the early 1960s, after his wife had passed away and his son no longer lived at home. These works were slapdash and highly expressive, comprising found objects and personal items such as clothing, jewelry, and hair. Ashby sometimes used photographic cutouts to create faces and frequently bestowed his sculptures with moving parts.
Reginald Marsh, Locomotives, Jersey City, 1934, oil on canvas mounted on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Felicia Meyer Marsh, 1979.127.1 Locomotives, Jersey City is from a series of paintings Reginald Marsh did in the 1930s that focuses on modes of transportation. Here, four mighty trains power along the tracks, while the smoke and steam emitted from the smokestacks trail behind. In the distance, Marsh painted a cloud of smoke using a thin oil wash, creating a backdrop that is both delicate and dense. Together, the distant smoke clouds and those coming from the locomotives obscure much of the sky. The painting’s gritty colors reflect the urban environment of Jersey City, which was a manufacturing center in the years preceding World War II. Railroads, however, were the biggest employer and owned a third of the city’s nearly fifteen square miles. It was here that the national train networks terminated (Andrew Jacobs, “A City Whose Time Has Come Again,” New York Times, April 30, 2000).
Lily Furedi, Subway, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1965.18.43
In this painting Lily Furedi boldly did something that few dare to do: she looked at people on the subway. She took the viewpoint of a seated rider gazing down the car at her fellow passengers. The Hungarian-born artist knew of the subway riders’ customary avoidance of staring at one’s fellow riders; most people in her painting keep to themselves by hiding behind a magazine or newspaper, or by sleeping. Those who violate the unwritten rule do so furtively. A woman takes a quiet sidelong glance at the newspaper read by the man next to her, while a man steals a peek at a young woman applying lipstick. Only two women in the foreground, who obviously know each other, dare to look directly at each other as they talk companionably.
Furedi takes a friendly interest in her fellow subway riders, portraying them sympathetically. She focuses particularly on a musician who has fallen asleep in his formal working clothes, holding his violin case. The artist would have identified with such a New York musician because her father, Samuel Furedi, was a professional cellist.
Home time ,some news to read too I like this painting by artist Lily Furedi 1896-1969 ‘Subway’ painted 1939.
CHECK PAID BY THE CITY OF NEW YORK TO PURCHASE BLACKWELL’S ISLAND ON JULY 28,1826 THIS WAS FOR HALF THE COST.
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EDITORIAL
Exciting things are happening at Coler. Thru a wonderful program ARTS IN MEDICINE, Coler will have a new three part mural painted in the main corridor. ARTS IN MEDICINE is funded by the Laurie M. Tisch ILLUMINATION FUND.
Members of the Coler residents, staff and others are on a committee to choose the artwork and theme. After approval the mural panels will be painted by the residents and then the panels will be applied to the walls.
By the first week in November their will be an unveiling and hopefully members of the island community will be able to attend. (The nursing home is still closed to outside visitors).
Coler is one facility that is receiving a mural this year. The others are Jacobi, Queens Hospital,Gouveneur Hospital, Seaview, Lincoln and Elmhurst Hospital
Judith Berdy
2019 Murals at Municipal Hospitals. Photo NYC H+H
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 TEXT AND IMAGE COURTESY OF THE ANNEX GALLERIES. All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM.
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Hayley Lever, East Gloucester, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William S. Benedict in memory of her parents, Sophie and Carl Boschwitz, 1977.110.2
HAYLEY LEVER
Lever was born in Bowden, South Australia on 28 September 1875, the son of Albion W. Lever. He excelled in painting classes at Prince Alfred College under James Ashton and on leaving school continued to study under Ashton at his Norwood art school. He was a charter member of the Adelaide Easel Club in 1892.
Lever’s maternal grandfather Richard Hayley, owner of Bowden Tannery, died in 1882,and the subsequent inheritance was sufficient for Lever to finance a trip to England in 1899 to[ further his career in painting. He moved to St. Ives, a fishing port and artistic colony on the Cornish coast. The town’s reputation as a centre for marine painting was largely due to Julius Olsson, who became a prominent British seascape painter. In St. Ives, Lever shared a studio with Frederick Judd Waugh, and studied painting techniques under the Impressionists Olsson and Algernon Talmage.
Lever also painted in the French port villages of Douarnenez and Concarneau, Brittany, directly across the English Channel from St. Ives. In late 1904 Lever made a trip back to Adelaide, where his mother was dying of tuberculosis. During his twelve-month stay he staged several exhibitions, painted seascapes and taught.
In 1906, upon returning to Europe, he married Aida Smith Gale in St. Ives’ Parish Church. In 1908, Lever did a series of paintings called Van Gogh’s Hospital, Holland expressing the profound influence he felt from that artist. In 1911, Ernest Lawson, an Impressionist painter, persuaded Lever to move to United States, saying he would have greater success there. Lever arrived in New York City in 1912 and painted views of the Hudson River, Times Square and Central Park. Upon discovering the American east coast, he painted in Gloucester, Massachusetts for several summers and at Marblehead, Massachusetts. Both artists developed spontaneous, bold painting styles, and Lever was accepted into Lawson’s circle of friends: Robert Henri, William Glackens, John Sloan and George Bellows.
He exhibited with this group regularly, but eventually left New York to settle in Massachusetts. From 1919 to 1931, Lever taught art classes at the Art Students League of New York where he maintained a Gloucester studio and often traveled to paint on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. He offered this message to his students: “Art is the re-creation of mood in line, form and color. If I were confined to my own back yard for the rest of my life, I’d still have more pictures in my mind than I would have time to paint. Art is nothing but having a good time.” Lever went to Pittsburgh in 1922 as an art juror for the Carnegie International exhibition.
In 1924, Lever was commissioned to paint a portrait of the presidential yacht, USS Mayflower, which was subsequently presented to President Calvin Coolidge in the Cabinet Room of the White House. By 1930, Lever had moved to Caldwell, New Jersey, staying there until 1938, when he moved to Mount Vernon, New York. While living in New York, Lever painted marines and landscapes in New Jersey, New England, New York and the Canadian Maritimes.
Throughout his life, he traveled and painted extensively, including Nova Scotia and Grand Manan Island in Canada, The Bahamas and Florida, while often returning to Europe. In 1933, Hayley was named Director of the Green Mountains summer art school at Smugglers Notch in Stowe, Vermont. Lever also taught painting classes at the Forum School of Art in Bronxville, New York from 1934 to 1935.
In later life, Lever was inflicted with arthritis in his right hand, which prevented him from further travel and forced him to concentrate on still-life subjects instead. As his arthritis advanced, he taught himself to paint with his left hand. However, following the death of his wife Aida in 1949, Lever was confined to his home, where he continued to paint from 1953 until his death.
Hayley Lever died on 6 December 1958 at his home in Mount Vernon, New York. News of his death surprised some: Lever had all but disappeared from public view over two decades earlier, despite once having been enormously popular and critically acclaimed. Even so, he had continued to paint in the intervening years to such a degree that colleagues and dealers alike were confounded by the cache of unsold, and largely unseen, paintings in his Mount Vernon barn. Since his death, he has been recognized as one of the leaders of American Impressionism in the 20th century.
WIKIPEDIA
Hayley Lever, Interior with Table Top, ca. 1900, crayon on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Nion McEvoy, 2014.39.4
Figures on a Dock by Hayley Lever (1876–1958) Oil on canvas 20 x 23⅞ inches Signed lower right: Hayley Lever Questroyal Fine Art
66th Street, Looking West, New York, 1935 by Hayley Lever (1876–1958) Oil on board 8⅞ x 11⅞ inches Signed and dated lower left: Hayley Lever 35; on verso label: 66th St Looking West. / Park Ave Corner Hayley Lever. / New York 1935 Questroyal Fine Art
Cornwall, England, 1905 by Hayley Lever (1876–1958) Oil on canvas 9½ x 12½ inches Signed and dated lower left: Hayley Lever / 1905 Questroyal Fine Art
Waterfall, Woodstock, NY by Hayley Lever (1876–1958) Watercolor on paper 14⅜ x 17⅜ inches (sight size) Questroyal Fine Art
East river, 1938 Watercolor on paper
Richard Hayley Lever is not considered an exceptional artist, although some of his paintings are very pretty and appear in the collections of important museums. They are rarely displayed, however. Perhaps his brightest moment came in 1924, when President Calvin Coolidge commissioned him to paint a picture of the presidential yacht, the Mayflower. The dour Coolidge always took an awkward photograph, and the one wherein he accepts the painting is the same. Born in Australia in 1876, Hayley Lever studied painting in England. He became captivated by the wild sea and countryside at Cornwall, a peninsula at the southwest corner of England. Just before World War I, he left England for New York where he became friendly with George Bellows, John Sloan, and other artists who comprised the “Ashcan School.”
Richard Hayley Lever 1876-1958 President’s Yacht “Mayflower” at Marblehead at Night, with President Coolidge Aboard Doyle Galleries
MOUNT VERNON, NEW YORK
LEFT The electric company building in Mt. Vernon, N.Y. appears in Hayley Lever’s paintings below. (Westchester County Historical Society) RIGHT City Scene, painting of downtown Mt. Vernon, N. Y. (Richard Hayley Lever, 1943) (www.1stdibs.com) Courtesy Through the Hourglass.com (c)
LEFT Hayley Lever’s painting of the Mt. Vernon, N. Y. train station, in the style of the Ashcan School, 1930s (www.1stdibs.com) RIGHT Railroad Yards, Mt. Vernon, N. Y. (Richard Hayley Lever, 1940s)
RICHARD HAYLEY LEVER, American (1876-1958), Lighthouse with Boats, oil on panel, unsigned., 12 x 15 3/4 inches
Island House 555 Main St. JOAN BROOKS #1 NINA LUBLIN #2 ALEXIS VILLEFANE #3
EDITORIAL
How did I find Hayley Lever? When we were publishing “Images of America-Roosevelt Island” back in 2003, one of our members Maria Harrison was working at Spanierman Galleries on East 58th Street. I saw the exhibit and have a copy of the book about the artist. I have been looking at the long neglected book on my shelf. Lever’s story and art are interesting, varied and remind me of my favorite impressionists.
There is a watercolor of the Queensboro Bridge included, with simple lines showing the south end of our island.
Reading about his life with surprise that he was virtually unknown in his day. After his death, a treasure trove of works were discovered over 2,000 in all.
Enjoy his story and his art.
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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The Blackwell Island Lighthouse is a mysterious remnant of Roosevelt Island’s distant past. Before the slender East River island came to be owned by the city in the 1820s, it was owned by the Blackwell family and hence bore the family name. The lighthouse was commissioned by the city, not the Coast Guard, in 1872. The tower was meant to help illuminate the New York City Insane Asylum for incoming boats. James Renwick, Jr., the architect of the island’s nearby Smallpox Hospital (which still stands in ruins) and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, designed the tower and it is likely that patients were used for labor.
The mystery which surrounds the lighthouse is that of two possible asylum inmates whose names are associated with it. Legend says that before the lighthouse was constructed, asylum patient John McCarthy was building a clay fort to defend against British invasion on the site. When the lighthouse was to be built, his fort was destroyed. Supposedly what happened next was that another patient, Thomas Maxey, a self-styled architect, mason, carpenter, civil engineer, philosopher, and philanthropist built the lighthouse tower. Despite this version of events, a plaque at the lighthouse’s base, which disappeared in the 1960s, credited the lighthouse construction to McCarthy, leading historians to conjecture that either Maxey and McCarthy were the same person or that neither ever even existed.
The lighthouse was decommissioned in the 1940s and became a landmark in the 1970s. Today the site is run by the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp. The grounds surrounding the tower are open to the public but the lighthouse tower remains closed.
LITTLE RED LIGHTHOUSE
The Little Red Lighthouse is perhaps one of New York City’s most famous. The vibrantly colored beacon sits underneath the George Washington Bridge in Fort Washington Park on the shore of the Hudson River. Officially named the Jeffery’s Hook Lighthouse, it was originally erected across the river in New Jersey in 1880 then moved its current location in 1921.
The 40-foot tall structure has 48 cast-iron steps inside which will take you all the way to the top for stunning views of the New York skyline and the Hudson River. Though its color is its most famous feature, the lighthouse wasn’t always red, and no one knows exactly when or why it was painted! The Little Red Lighthouse found its way into the heart’s of New Yorkers
In 1942 when writers Hildegarde Swift and Lynd Ward published The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge. In 1931, the completion of the bridge made the lighthouse obsolete and the Coast Guard planned to demolish it. The book helped to endear the little lighthouse to the public who ultimately saved the lighthouse.
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EXECUTION ROCK
The ominously named Execution Rocks Lighthouse sits on a rocky stretch of reef in the Long Island Sound, not far from City Island and Hart Island in the Bronx. Legend has it that the moniker comes from executions carried out on the island by the British before the American Revolution. The British allegedly would chained prisoners to the rocks at low tide and let them drown when high tide came in, but there is no evidence to support this. The official origin story of the name comes from the treacherous, rocky terrain of the area which has led to many boats being “executed” as they tried to pass.
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ROMER SHOAL LIGHTHOUSE
The Romer Shoal Lighthouse, a landmarked structure placed at its current location in 1898. Before becoming a beacon in the water the steel structure was used at the Staten Island Lighthouse Depot to test fuel, wicks, bulbs and other equipment. Before the lighthouse was moved to its current spot, two other structures marked the location of the dangerous shoal, or hidden ridge, beneath the water. The Romer part of the name has been contested, though the most likely story is that it was named after Wolfgang William Romer, a Dutch military engineer and cartographer who mapped New York’s waterways in the 18th-century.
The lighthouse was manned by a crew of three men while in operation. It was automated in 1966. After a severe storm caused damage to the lighthouse in 1992, the Coast Guard wanted to replace it but Joe Esposito, keeper of the Staten Island Lighthouse at the time, wouldn’t allow it.
In 2011 the lighthouse was put up for auction and purchased by John Scalia. The lighthouse has sentimental value to Scalia who grew up looking at it from his home on Staten Island. It was also the first structure his immigrant parents saw as they journeyed to Ellis Island. Today, Scalia leads an organization of “Romer Keepers” who are working to restore the lighthouse which has sustained significant damage from the passage of time and storms like Superstorm Sandy. UNTAPPED CITIES
PRINCES BAY LIGHTHOUSE
The Princes Bay Lighthouse was erected in 1828 in response to increased shipping traffic in New York City. The original structure consisted of a rubblestone tower which reached a height of just over thirty feet tall. It was replace in 1864 by a new brownstone tower and a two-story keeper’s house was completed next to it in 1868. The two structures are connected by a fifteen-foot-long passageway, which doubled as an oil room. Material from the original house was used to build a new barn and stable.
In 1926, the lighthouse was sold to the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin in a public auction. The mission was a residence and school for orphans which already occupied the land surrounding the lighthouse. One way the mission customized the lighthouse to their needs and taste was by adding a statue of the Virgin Mary to the top of the tower. New York State and the Trust for Public Land bought the structure and surrounding land from the Archdiocese of New York in 1999 and it is now part of Mount Loretto Unique Area. The lighthouse has been renamed the John Cardinal O’Connor Lighthouse in honor of the Archbishop of New York who and it currently serves as the residence of the local forest ranger. UNTAPPED CITIES
KINGSBOROUGH LIGHTHOUSE
Located near the eastern tip of the peninsula below Sheepshead Bay in Manhattan Beach, the Kingsborough Lighthouse is the newest lighthouse in New York City. Built by the Coast Guard in 1990 and originally named the Marine and Academic Center, or MAC, the structure is part of the Kingsborough Community College campus. The flashing white light beams outward from 114 feet above sea level and shines out eleven miles.
The light is housed in a metal point at the top of a building which serves as space for classes and conferences, as well as cultural events and performances as part of On Stage at Kingsborough programming. One of the most popular series hosted at the site is the annual series of intimate jazz concerts, Jazz at the Lighthouse. With floor to ceiling windows which look out to the water, the lighthouse is a great place to enjoy a show.
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NEW DORP LIGHTHOUSE
This Staten Island lighthouse takes its name from the surrounding town which was a Dutch settlement. New Dorp is the anglicized version of the Dutch phrase for “New Town.” The lighthouse tower sticks out from the center of the keeper’s house to cast its light across Lower New York Bay and Sandy Hook, New Jersey.
When the lighthouse was built, the only other nearby establishment was the Moravian Cemetery to the east. The path through the woods to get to the lighthouse wasn’t even wide enough for a horse and wagon, so keepers would use the roads of the cemetery. The town became more populous through the decades and in 1964 the lighthouse was abandoned and boarded up. It sold at auction in 1974 to a local Staten Island resident, John Vokral, who restored the structure, though no light shines out from the tower anymore. It remains a private residence.
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SANDY HOOK LIGHTHOUSE
The Sandy Hook Lighthouse in New Jersey is the oldest continuously operating lighthouse in the United States. Serving as the entryway into New York Harbor, the lighthouse was built in 1764 on Sandy Hook, a stretch of land which juts out dangerously (for ships) into the Atlantic Ocean. In order to help pay for the purchase of land and construction of the lighthouse a lottery was held. 10,000 tickets were but the profit didn’t raise enough money to fun entire project. It did however allow for the purchase of four acres on Sandy Hook from its current owners at the time, Esik and Richard Hartshorne. A second lottery raise the remaining funds.
Since New Yorkers were the ones to raise the money, it was originally called the New York Lighthouse. The Sandy Hook Lighthouse was designated as a National Historic Landmark on its bicentennial in 1964 and transferred to the National Park Service in 1996. In 2014 it underwent a restoration and is open to the public for tours. Because of shifting sands, the lighthouse now sits more than a half mile inland from its original spot, and interesting reversal of shore erosion.
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Yesterday was a perfect day to head of to the Metropolitan Museum. The museum has admissions procedures very well organized. Quick temp check, no food or drinks allowed, not package check. Once you are in the museum there are one way signs in certain areas which means that you end up in area you usually do not visit. To get to the American Wing I travelled thru Egypt and had a brief rest at the Temple of Dendur. Some of the smaller rooms are shut off, but there is lots to see. My old favorites in the Impressionist galleries still are wonderful. Other areas have new exhibits and the 150th anniversary tells the stories of the donors and benefactors that filled the Met with treasures. In today’s world the stories are interesting and enlightening.
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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New Deal Circus, Carnival, Festival,Fair, Vaudeville and Varieties Art
These Images are courtesy of the NEW DEAL OF THE DAY
National New Deal Preservation Association The Living New Deal
Above: “Children at Play and Sport II,” an oil painting by Moses Soyer (1899-1974), created while he was in the WPA’s Federal Art Project, ca. 1938. Soyer went on to become a very prominent artist, and his works are held in galleries across the United States. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: “Amusement Park,” a lithograph by Ann Nooney (1900-1964), created while she was in WPA’s art program, ca. 1935-1941. According to the International Fine Print Dealers Association, “Twenty-two of [Ann Nooney’s] prints are in the Works Progress Administration collection of the New York Public Library print room. Three of her prints appear as illustrations in the ‘WPA Guide to New York City, 1939.'” Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: “Circus People Resting,” an oil painting by Bernice Cross (1912-1996), created while she was in the New Deal’s Public Works of Art Project, ca. 1933-1934. Cross was born in Iowa, but spent most of her professional career in Washington, DC. Her works are held in several galleries today. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: “The Very Strong Man,” a sculpture by Eugenie Gershoy (1901-1986), created while she was in the WPA’s art program, ca. 1936-1940. According to an exhibit label, “During the late 1930s, Eugenie Gershoy began working for the Works Progress Administration in New York. A friend of hers, the artist Max Spivak, was designing a series of murals for a children’s library in Astoria, Long Island. Gershoy decided to create colorful figurines to go along with Spivak’s paintings… The library was so pleased with the work of Gershoy and Spivak, they rebuilt the space into an oval to emphasize the circus setting.” Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Image of the mural at Astoria Library with closeup of figure.
Eugenie Gershoy, Ill-Fated Toreador, ca. 1935-1939, polychromed dextrine on wood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from General Services Administration, 1971.447.31
A WPA poster, created in New York City, 1937. The Federal Theatre was scorned by conservatives as a “waste of taxpayer money,” but millions of middle and low-income Americans enjoyed the shows for a modest fee, or even free. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Above: A WPA poster, created in Massachusetts, 1938. Vaudeville was a popular form of entertainment in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But Vaudeville-like shows still exist today. For example, jugglers, magicians, comedians, sword-swallowers, and theatre performers entertain crowds at Renaissance Festivals all across the country. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Above: “Trapeze Girl,” a color lithograph by Russell T. Limbach (1904-1971), created while he was in the WPA’s Federal Art Project, 1935. According to the Brier Hill Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts, Limbach, “was the recipient of numerous awards” and “His works are held in the collections of numerous libraries and museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Los Angeles Museum of Art.” Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: A WPA poster by artist Charles Verschuuren, promoting a water carnival in New York, 1936. According to his Wikipedia page, Verschuuren was a Dutch painter who moved to the United States in 1922, and served in the U.S. Army during World War II as an illustrator. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Above: “Italians in Jefferson Park,” an oil painting by Jerome Myers (1867-1940), created while he was in the New Deal’s Public Works of Art Project, 1934. Thomas Jefferson Park is in New York City. According to his Wikipedia page, a 1923 magazine quoted Myers about his interest in depicting city life: “All my life I had lived, worked and played in the poorest streets of American cities. I knew them and their population and was one of them. Others saw ugliness and degradation there, I saw poetry and beauty…” Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Above: “Festival at Hamburg,” a mural study for the Hamburg, Iowa Post Office, by William Edward Lewis Bunn (1910-2009), created while he was in the New Deal’s Section of Fine Arts, 1941. According to SNAC, a collaborative enterprise that includes the National Archives and the University of California, “Wiliam Edward Lewis Bunn was a designer, muralist, and painter in Muscatine, Iowa and Ojai, Calif… During the 1930s he won commissions from the Federal Department of Fine Arts [the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Works Agency] to paint murals in public buildings throughout the Midwest. He also worked as an industrial designer for Shaeffer Pen and Cuckler Steel.” Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
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EDITORIAL
“GONE WITH THE GREEN” JUST LOOK AT RECENT GOINGS ON AND WHAT WE ARE LOOSING
New traffic turnaround at Octagon with loss of one mature tree and most of planting area Paving over area around “Sanctuary” with boards and less grassy area Mowing down trees and foliage at Southpoint Park
We loose nature and wildlife with every foot of green we cover-up, cement over, remove in any way.
Judith 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)
PHOTOS FROM JUDITH BERDY COPYRIGHT RIHS/2020 (C)
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The first monument honoring real women in Central Park was unveiled Wednesday –commemorating the centennial anniversary of the 19th Amendment’s ratification and its certification. “We have broken the bronze ceiling,” Meredith Bergmann is the renowned sculptor who created the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument, which honors suffragists Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. “It seems especially appropriate that today, on Women’s Equality Day, we are unveiling a new statue in Central Park for the first time in over six decades: the first statue of real, nonfictional women, the first statue of an African American and significantly a statue that depicts three great Americans working together,” former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in remarks at the event. (USA Today)
Already on view in NYC Parks are Eleanor Roosevelt and Harriet Tubman
LATTICE DETOUR
On the roof of the Metropolitan Museum this new sculpture is being revealed this first week of the reopening: Héctor Zamora’s sculpture “Lattice Detour,” a curved wall of terra cotta bricks, is over 100 feet long and 11 feet high.Credit…Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
KING NYANI
KING NYANI
There’s a giant gorilla sculpture in Hudson Yards
BY DANA SCHULZ Photos by Tina Sokolovskaya
To raise awareness and funds for the critically endangered gorilla species, public artists Gillie and Marc Schattner have created a massive sculpture of the animal that arrived this week in Hudson Yards’ Bella Abzug Park.
Titled King Nyani, Swahili for gorilla, it’s the world’s largest bronze gorilla sculpture and can fit two to three humans just in its hands. Photos of King Nyani’s installation by Tina Sokolovskaya Gillie and Marc have dedicated a large part of their career as artists to bringing attention to the world’s endangered species through their Love The Last project.
Two years ago, they brought a 17-foot-tall sculpture of three rhinos to Astor Place and Downtown Brooklyn. As a protest of the sale of rhino horns, it depicted the last three Northern White Rhinos Najin, Fatu, and Sudan. Photo by Tina Sokolovskaya And the artists get passionately involved in their projects. King Nyani is based on the head of a family of silverback mountain gorillas that Gille and Marc encountered on a trip to Uganda.
They say they were moved to tears watching the gorilla exhibit empathy and kindness as opposed to the “scary” image so often portrayed. “It was beautiful watching the silverback interacting with his family. He was so gentle and loving and clearly cared deeply for his family,” said Marc. Gillie added, “We knew we had to let the world know about this loving and gentle side of gorillas. They are often so misunderstood and thought of as scary and dangerous animals. But if they were able to see the silverback, maybe they wouldn’t be so scared.”
But due to illegal poaching, war and deforestation, there are only about 1,000 mountain gorillas and fewer than 3,800 eastern lowland gorillas left in the wild. “We couldn’t sit back and do nothing when these amazing creatures that are genetically so similar to us are in danger,” said Marc.
Inspired by the movie scene where King Kong grabs the woman in his hand, King Nyani’s hand is open for visitors to sit and interact with him. “We wanted to create a sculpture where the public could really get close to the silverback, both physically and emotionally. Being able to sit in his hand and look up to into his gentle face we hope they will fall in love and join the movement to save the gorillas,” explains Gillie.
Through a partnership with the Hudson Yards-Hell’s Kitchen Alliance and NYC Parks, the sculpture will be on display in Bella Abzug Park as of August 24, 2020 and will remain on view for nine months.
BECAUSE ONCE YOU ENTER MY HOUSE IT BECOMES OUR HOUSE
Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House’, 2020 Plywood, posters, steel, LEDs, and performances 44 × 44 × 21 ft at Socrates Sculpture on Vernon Blvd.
Jeffrey Gibson’s ‘Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House’ serves as an homage to ingenuity of Indigenous North American peoples and cultures, to pre-Columbian Mississippian architecture, and to queer camp aesthetics. Gibson designed the multi-tiered structure to reference the earthen architecture of the ancient metropolis of Cahokia, which was the largest city of the North American Indigenous Mississippian people at its height in the thirteenth century. The earth mound of the pre-Columbian ziggurat is represented in Gibson’s multi-tiered monument with a plywood structure adorned with a vibrant surface of wheat-pasted posters. The posters integrate geometric designs inspired by the Serpent Mound located in Ohio, another monument of the Mississippi Valley, alongside texts that operate as activist slogans. Gibson also curated Indigenous led performances to activate the structure over the course of the installation. Image by Scott Lynch
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EDITORIAL
The Metropolitan Museum is re-opening this weekend. I will be thrilled to see my old friends there. We all have our favorite galleries. Mine are the European Galleries, American Wing and Costume Institute. I just remembered I joined the Met as a member for the museum’s 100th anniversary……..and this is there 150th anniversary. I re-joined again, not at the $10- level of 5 decades ago. It was a big deal with Thomas Hoving running the museum and paying over $2.300,000 for Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer. Hoving was the wonder man who took the museum and made it a hip place to visit and made people really want to visit a museum.
I will admire the grand floral displays in the lobby and enjoy having part of the city being “normal”.
Judith Berdy
Funding Provided by: Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation Public Purpose Funds Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD 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 PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
In 1878, as the Paris Exposition was being organized, New Yorker David Maitland Armstrong was made director of the American art section. On the continent—and indeed in many drawing rooms of America’s wealthy– the concept of “American art” was laughable. When the Exposition was over, no one was laughing.
The New-York Tribune reported “the result was one of the great triumphs of his career and resulted in his election as a chevalier of the Legion of Honor. It was the real initiation of the French people into a realization that such a thing as American art existed.” Nevertheless, American art and architecture students who studied at the Ecole Nationale et Speciale des Beaux-Arts in Paris came home with a special prestige. Those lucky—and wealthy—enough to attend to Ecole received what was at the time the world’s most esteemed training in classical, academic architecture.
In 1893 a group of architects who had studied at the Ecole formed the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects. The organization was intended to bring the principals of French design and composition to America; as well as to carry on the discipline and concepts of the French academy. The Society broadened 23 years later when in 1916 it founded the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design.
Aspiring architects could now receive instruction in the French tradition in New York under a provisional charter of the University of New York. The private stable of millionaire Jacob Schiff was purchased in 1914 and by 1915 the Institute was fully established in its new home. The institute soon expanded—offering courses in the decorative arts (sculpture and painting), followed by interior decoration in 1921. To enable students to study here for free (only a registration fee was required), funds were raised through the annual and fashionable Beaux-Arts Ball (a lavish costume ball), the sale of advertising in the Society’s yearbook, and general contributions.
By the early 1920s it became obvious that the old stable building was no longer adequate. Growth and added areas of study were taxing the old space and certain departments—mural painting and sculpture, for instance—required large areas. In October 1927 two old rowhouses at Nos. 304 and 306 East 44th Street were purchased for $85,000. The old school in what was now Manhattan’s most exclusive residential district was sold for about twice that amount. A competition for the design of the new Beaux-Arts Institute of Design was initiated and a jury of six was selected to choose the winning entry. Professional architect members of both the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design and the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects were informed on October 13, 1927 that the competition would be held a month later, on November 17, 1927 at 12:00. The winner would be chosen at 4:00 that same afternoon.
Participation in the competition was essentially mandatory. Architects submitting designs were charged a $25 entry fee; those who sat out the competition were charged $35. The money would be used as part of the building fund. Seventy-two of the nation’s most respected architects submitted designs, among them Raymond Hood, William Lamb, Ralph Walker and Chester Aldrich. The applicants had been given a precise list of design requirements. At 4:00 on the afternoon of November 17 the winning design of British-born Frederic C. Hirons, of Dennison and Hirons, had been chosen. Plans for the four-story structure were not filed with the Bureau of Buildings until February 4, 1928.
In reporting on the filing, The New York Times noted that “Dennison & Hirons, the architects, estimate the cost at $100,000.” That amount—about $1.3 million today– hinted at a formidable new building. Six months later the newspaper updated its readers on the progress. “Work is progressing rapidly on the new home of the Beaux Arts Institute of Design at 304 East 44th Street,” it said. “An outstanding feature of the building will be three polychrome terra cotta panels in the façade, ranking with the finest work of that kind in the United States. The colors will be shaded and blended as if done in oil or water colors. They will picture the Parthenon in Athens, St. Peter’s Church in Rome and the court yard of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, those three cities being symbols of sculpture, painting and architecture.” The Times noted that at the time the institute “has several hundred members.
” In 1928 the fluffy, overly-ornamented Victorian and Edwardian building styles had given way to Art Deco—the visual arts style born in France following the war. The sometimes brassy new style looked to celebrated the modern age in bold colors, sharp geometric shapes, and stylized forms. The style would result in ziggurat skyscrapers, chrome-covered diners, and lavish lobbies that would represent, for decades, the visage of Manhattan world-wide.
photograph by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / Hirons’ completed buff brick building was a severe study in no-nonsense Art Deco. With no zig-zagging lighting bolts, no stylized waterfalls and none of the Rockefeller Center glitz; it made only temperate use of visual design. Two Greek-styled sculptural panels depicting architecture flanked the parapet at the fourth floor and carved Art Deco capitals capped the muscular brick three-story piers. Above the double-height entrance, gutsy Deco lettering announced the Institute’s name. Three limestone blocks at the second floor openings were intended to hold sculptural allegories of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture; but the plan was never executed when the necessary funds were not raised.
The piece de resistance, of course, was the three terra cotta panels described earlier by The New York Times. Designed by Hirons’ favorite architectural sculptor, Rene Chambellan, they were produced by the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company. (Hirons and Chambellan were already working together on a new project–the Art Deco State Bank & TrustCo. Building on 43rd Street and Eighth Avenue).** see photo
With the Institute in its new home, the Society continued its regimen, including the annual Beaux Arts Ball. On January 24, 1930, despite the ongoing Great Depression, the event did not hold back on the expected grandeur. Noting that “The proceeds of the ball are devoted to the education work of the Beaux Arts Institute of Design, which gives instruction in architecture, painting and sculpture to deserving students,” The New York Times described the upcoming Ball on January 5 at the Astor Hotel.
“This year the grand ballroom, to be known as ‘il Palazzo,’ will be decorated to represent the great central court of the Palace of Lorenzo the Magnificent in Florence. From the main cornice surrounding the court, enormous drapes of red and gold will be suspended and these will be drawn apart with golden cords and tassels to reveal the balconies in which the nobility will assemble to view the historic pageant.
” The “pageant” was to represent scenes in the French court during the Renaissance and the court of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. The cast of the production included more than 300 “people of high station in society and the arts.” The north ballroom, said the newspaper, “will be styled ‘il Cortile’ and will be treated as a walled garden through which the entrance to the grand ballroom will be made. The south ballroom will be called ‘il Mercato’ and all the wares appropriate to the market place will be displayed lavishly therein.” The Times described fountains, statuary, vases and flowers and added “The splendor of this setting will be further enhanced by the throng of several thousand guests, all garbed in the luxurious costumes of the Renaissance.”
Within the next decade the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design building was purchased by the Reeves Sound Studios and converted to offices, recording studios, editing labs and viewing theaters. Today it is home to Egypt’s Permanent Mission to the United States. Despite its several uses since the 1940s, Frederick C. Hirons’ brawny Art Deco design manifested in brick is virtually unchanged. It is a much overlooked treasure on an otherwise unexciting block.
NINA LUBLIN AND JAY JACOBSON WERE THE FIRST WITH THE CORRECT ANSWER
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EDITORIAL
People ask my how I find topics to write about. The other day I was researching the work of Fred Becker. One item in his biography stood out. He studied at the Beaux Art Institute in New York. I have walked by that building on East 44th Street with it’s moderne facade and wondered what the story was about the building. The story is today’s article. The building is a NYC landmark and cannot be changed on the exterior. It is now the Egyptian Mission to the United Nations. Maybe it is appropriate for such an ancient civilization preserve a building of such architectural significance.
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 TEXT COURTESY OF A DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN (C) photograph by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society WIKIPEDIA (C)
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Fred Becker, New York Landscape, 1936, wood engraving on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Evander Childs High School, Bronx, New York through the General Services Administration, 1975.83.30
Frederick G. Becker was born in Oakland, California on August 5, 1913. The son of silent film actor Fred Becker, Sr., he was raised in Los Angeles, surrounded by movie and theater creatives. Drawing was a passion for the younger Becker, and in high school he was the primary illustrator and cartoonist for his school’s paper, developing his skills as an illustrator and cartoonist.
His formal art studies commenced at the Otis Art Institute in 1931, where he was first introduced to printmaking. In the fall of 1933, Becker relocated to New York and registered at New York University in architectural studies. Eugene Steinhof, an instructor at NYU, played an important role in Becker’s early development as an artist. Becker enrolled in Steinhof’s class on form and color and became transfixed by his talents and worldliness. Discovering that architecture was not his calling, Becker transferred to Steinhof’s classes at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design on 44th Street.
This artistic freedom is visible in the caricatures of jazz musicians produced by Becker during nightly visits to jazz clubs, particularly Adrian’s Tap Room in the basement of the President Hotel. In his article, “The WPA Federal Art Project, New York City: A Reminiscence,” Becker states: “During my first visits to the place, I drew caricatures of some of the musicians and Adrian asked me to come in regularly and draw caricatures of the customers. He didn’t have to ask twice.”
Louis Lozowick, impressed by this imagery and the young artist’s tenacity, signed Becker up for the Graphic Arts Division of the WPA. Becker worked in the WPA between 1935 and the day he was “laid off” of the project in the summer of 1939. An exhibition in 1937 at the Federal Art Project Gallery in New York included two of his prints and the following year his work was exhibited at the Willard Gallery in New York. When Stanley William Hayter relocated his famous Atelier 17 to New York in 1940 as the war expanded, Becker was among the first to sign up for classes. He found there another free, informal and imaginative place to learn and work; however, with the entry of the US into the war in 1941, Becker left the city, relocated to Long Island and found employment in the war industry until he was drafted into the military in 1945.
Returning from the war in 1946, Becker accepted a teaching position at Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia. After two years, he moved to Saint Louis where he joined the faculty of Washington University and established their printmaking department. Becker’s first fellowship was a Tiffany in 1948, followed by a Yaddo in 1954. A Guggenheim fellowship in 1957 allowed him to travel to Paris and work again with Hayter at Atelier 17. Numerous retrospective exhibitions, his inclusion in the seminal exhibition “A Spectrum of Innovation: Color in American Printmaking”, and James Wechsler’s prize winning article, “Fred Becker and Experimental Printmaking,” have paid tribute to Becker’s innovative images and printmaking techniques.
Fred Becker’s work is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Asheville Art Museum, the Kemper Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Johnson Museum of Art, and the Davis Museum at Wellesley College. Fred Becker died in Amhurst, Massachusetts on June 30, 2004.
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EDITORIAL
SOON THE RIHS WILL BE HAVING OUR PROGRAMS AVAILABLE AS ZOOM OR SIMILAR PLATFORMS. WE HOPE TO HAVE OUR FIRST PROGRAM IN SEPTEMBER. WATCH FOR DETAILS.
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 TEXT AND IMAGE COURTESY OF THE ANNEX GALLERIES. All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM.
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East of Cross Bay Boulevard between East 10th and 14th Roads there are houses built on stilts over an inlet of Jamaica Bay (also known as Broad Channel). Above: East 12th Road Broad Channel is the province of seagulls, roaring jets taking off from Kennedy Airport, The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, and a proud, insular neighborhood.
Unlike many NYC mainland neighborhoods (such as Glendale, Laurelton, Marine Park or Throgs Neck, it features a subway stop. Cross Bay Boulevard is the main artery and carries traffic between Broad Channel and the mainland, as well as the Rockaway peninsula. Many Broad Channel families have been there for two or three generations, since the island began to become populated in the 1880s. The island remains the only populated island in Jamaica Bay.
Broad Channel is a neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Queens. It occupies the southern portion of Rulers Bar Hassock (known colloquially as “Broad Channel Island”), the only inhabited island in Jamaica Bay. The neighborhood stands on Big Egg Marsh, an area of fill approximately 20 blocks long and 4 blocks wide at the south end of Rulers Bar Hassock.
The community is an inholding within the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, managed by the U.S. National Park Service as part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. The area comprises several artificial canals separating dead-end residential blocks. It is connected to the rest of Queens by road and subway bridges.
EARLY SETTLEMENT
Prior to European settlement, the Jameco and Canarsie bands of Lenape Native Americans frequented this area. During the 17th century, Dutch settlers established a community on the island and began harvesting oysters, clams, shrimp, and fish.The name “Broad Channel” itself originally referred to a channel in Jamaica Bay, within which the island is located.
Until the American Civil War, most of Jamaica Bay’s islands east of Bergen Island and Barren Island were not inhabited, including Broad Channel. The boundary line between the towns of Flatlands, Brooklyn, and Jamaica, Queens, ran through Jamaica Bay, cutting through Broad Channel, though the island was mostly part of Jamaica.
After 1865, fisheries were developed in the bay, and by the late 1870s, the town of Jamaica indicated that structures had been built in the bay without the town’s permission. The Long Island Rail Road built its Rockaway Beach Branch across the bay in 1880, cutting through Broad Channel The presence of the railroad led to the development of fishing villages with shacks, summer homes, boathouses, and stores. As part of the project, some other islands in Jamaica Bay were removed or connected to others.
Broad Channel remained a parcel within the town of Jamaica until the City of Greater New York was created in 1898. The northern (and larger) portion of the island is part of Gateway National Recreation Area and is managed as part of the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, the only wildlife refuge in the National Park System. The waters and marsh islands of the refuge entirely surround the community.
20th CENTURY
Seen in 1915 In 1915, the city leased Broad Channel Island, Goose Creek Island, and Raunt Island to Pierre Noel, who subleased it to the Broad Channel Corporation.[The 30-year lease specified payments of $16.57 per acre for the first three years and a maximum of $33.73 per acre for the last five years of the thirty-year term. The Broad Channel Corporation in turn made 10-year subleases to private individuals for the development of summer bungalows and houses.
There was public criticism of the lease after the public learned about the deal, which Pierre Noel, president of the Broad Channel Corporation, countered by pointing to $180,000 of improvements it had made, including digging a well to supply drinking water, building a power plant, adding landfill to reduce the need for houses on piles, and laying out streets on the island Residents disputed the quality of these improvements, however, saying that the tap water was brown and not potable, that their houses had no electricity, and that there were no sewers on the island.
The Broad Channel Corporation responded by saying the water was of the same quality as was available in the Rockaways and that it planned to install a filtration device to remove the iron from the tap water. It said that the streets had electric lights, and it said installing sewers was not possible on the island. For years, the only way to reach the island was by ferry or railroad but in 1925, the North Channel Bridge opened, connecting the island to Howard Beach. The Cross Bay Parkway Bridge opened in 1939, connecting to the Rockaways
The railroad trestle across Jamaica Bay experienced around 30 fires between 1942 and 1950. One such fire, between The Raunt and Broad Channel stations on May 7, 1950, cut service on the middle section of the railroad line.[19] The LIRR, then bankrupt, could not afford to repair the trestle, and the city of New York purchased the line in 1952,[19][20] and it reopened as the New York City Subway’s IND Rockaway Line in 1956.
Parks Commissioner Robert Moses announced his intention to build a park on the island in 1938; he planned recreation on the shore with a wildlife sanctuary on the north end of the island.[25] The next year, the Broad Channel Corporation declared bankruptcy, and the city acquired the island’s property titles. In May 1944, Broad Channel’s 4,000 residents, collectively living in 1,260 homes, secured an injunction that would prevent the city from evicting them by April 30, 1948. Later in 1944, the New York City Board of Estimate indicated that it would give residents the right to purchase the land under their houses.
However, this right was denied for many years; the city made many attempts to alter the island’s purpose, but the local community resisted them all. Proposed changes included the construction of a commercial port and the extension of John F. Kennedy International Airport
Rumors of high hepatitis rates spread in 1967 because of the island’s bad sewage system. At the time, several homes still dumped sewage into the bay, causing activities like clamming, wading, and swimming to be banned. The health hazards prompted the city to again attempt eviction proceedings against Broad Channel’s residents, which prompted them to protest, and the Board of Estimate ordered the residents’ leases to be renewed the following year, despite the real estate commissioner’s protests\ The government of New York City finally granted Broad Channel residents the right to purchase their property in 1982.The Joseph P. Addabbo Memorial Bridge replaced the dilapidated North Channel Bridge during the late 1980s.[33]
THE VOLSTEAD ACT
PROHIBITION
RUM RUNNERS
From The Rockaway Museum Dedicated To The Memory Of Leon S. Locke Historical Views of the Rockaways
Prohibition and Rum-Running in Rockaway
In 1919, while a great number of American men and boys were still in uniform, and still in Europe, the so-called “drys” won out and caused the Volstead Act to be passed and become the law of the land. The passage of this act ushered in the era of prohibition (1919-1933) when the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages was forbidden in the United States. This irked all the veterans of the Great War, who felt that they were wronged while they were overseas.
They came home to soft drinks, tap water and fruit juice! The liquid libations that they had developed a taste for were denied to them by law and this caused the rise of the law-breaking bootlegger or smuggler who illegally brought booze and beer into dry America. Some built secret liquor stills and beer brewery – but most employed trucks, boats and airplanes to slake the thirst of dry Americans – to cure their dehydration. It has been said that Broad Channel (and the two other bay colonies of the Raunt and Goose Creek) was the Mecca of local bootleggers who met and closed their deals at certain hotels at these places, which were only accessible by boat or train.
All of these meeting places were built on wooden piling, driven into the marshes and waterways and were reached by catwalks from the Bay Railroad trestle stations and each other. In case of a raid by the police, a quick get-away was easily facilitated by prepared law-breakers. One such hotel is shown today in Historical Views, and was described as the “bootlegging capitol or our Jamaica Bay.” It was aptly called the Hotel Enterprise, which was located off the northeast end of the Broad Channel Station.
The complex shown began as Parson’s Hotel and Fishing Station in 1881. In 1892 it was known as Dorman’s Atlantic Hotel and Fishing Station. Another name later ascribed for the place was Lindstrom’s. The first names found associated with proprietorship of the enterprise were Mess’rs, August Vogel, and Edward Bollerman, in 1893.
During prohibition, Broad Channel was known as Little Cuba. In today’s photo, the LIRR trestle is shown heading to the Raunt, where some buildings are readily seen. Goose Creek is above the Raunt and cannot be seen. The Broad Channel station is to the left and not shown in this photo. The wooden walks to the enterprise complex all come from the station platform. The marsh shown circles Goose Pond on the north end of Broad Channel. Unfortunately, the booze smugglers kept no records of their dealing for their lucrative business…and newspapers told of booze raids locally – as well as U.S. Coast Guard interceptions of some booze boats.
The Enterprise was raided once, and some illegal beer was confiscated by the authorities along with 1500 bottles of liquor. I’ve been told that most raids were set-ups to show that something was being done by local police, and that local police protected or guarded local landings by rum boats, with a few cases going to the local precincts.
That’s how unpopular prohibition was to all imbibers of alcohol. I once got a grand tour of a sleek boat that was used as a rum-runner during the prohibition years. It looked as if it could go 100 knots an hour to outrun a Coast Guard cutter. And, as expected, no ship’s log was available to tell of the rum-running adventure. Are there any old-timers in Wave-land to enlighten us? The Wave reported that a railroad freight car full of beer was found on a siding by the Broad Channel railroad station, and that pilots stationed at Fort Tilden and the Rockaway Naval Air Station were accused of smuggling booze in their planes. Rockaway Point and Arverne were the favored landing places for large rum-running operations which were done at night.
Other reports of smuggling entailed darkened vessels of all types coming up to the long docks along the bayside or the Rockaways. These docks were full of fishing and yacht clubs that had trap-doors in their floors for special deliveries. One such boat was seized at Beach 97 Street, on the bay, with 400 cases of Scotch Whiskey. I wonder how much was turned in as evidence? At the same time a carload of beer was seized on Beach 102 Street. The Coast Guard intercepted a few slow rum-runners in “rum row”, a name given to the waters around Long Island…and fired on the faster booze boats. Only one was reported to have been hit by gunfire.
One boat company out on Long Island built fast boats for the Coast Guard and even faster ones for bootleggers. The Coast Guard boats could do 26 knots at top speed, while the rum-runners made 30 knots loaded. In 1932, bootlegger radios were seized by local police. It seems as though the smugglers of hootch were really doing a modern communications thing, to stay a step or two ahead of the authorities.
Despite all the law enforcement by federal, state, city and local lawmen, the Volstead Act, which ushered in prohibition, lasting from 1920 to 1933, did little to stop bootlegging and small distillery operations here. Bathtub gin was brewed in private homes, and winemaking in homes was well above the limits on how much could be made. Speakeasy’s were all over the Rockaways during prohibition years. This was the name for private drinking clubs which sprang up, and were often raided by police to keep the “drys” happy. Prohibition was repealed in early 1933 due to a bill sponsored by local congressman William F. Brunner Sr. of Rockaway Beach.
In a short time the Rockaway’s places got “wetter” than they were during the Volstead Act years. World War One veterans were happy now. Most felt that the “drys” got the no alcohol law passed because they were not there to vote on it. The Boats used for rum-running now became sleek pleasure boats. There were often well-built power boats about 50 feet in length and valued at about $1800 in the 1930’s. I wonder if any are still around? All the structures shown in today’s Historical Views are long gone…the victims of fire, storm and bay railroad improvements. Only the memories of the past recall the Hotel Enterprise and the prohibition era. Can anyone out there in Wave-land supply us with a run down of a booze run in the old days, or perhaps a photo or two of a bootleggers rum-running boat?
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EDITORIAL
If you think our island has a convoluted history, check out Broad Channel. It remains an insular community in the Jamaica Bay with a small population. Its history of fighting for survival shows the fortitude of the residents.
The part that the community played in Prohibition is noteworthy. I have not found evidence of massive rum-running on Blackwell’s or Welfare Island. Who knows what was on the boats coming to the island, perhaps transporting libation for the populace. I decided to take a trip and check out Broad Channel for myself. It is a lovely summer day. At West 4th Street, I changed for the A train. The A train takes you directly to Broad Channel. The subway station is a few blocks from the Cross Bay Blvd., the main street.
The streets are narrow and almost every home has an American flag fluttering in the breeze. I wandered around the neighborhood. Many of the homes were destroyed in Hurricane Sandy and have been re-built with a garage on ground level and the rest of the house is raised for flood prevention.
Some old homes partially built on stilts remains adding a quaint feel to the community.
Here are some photos and my suggestion is to take a ride to Broad Channel. The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge is just north of the island, so you can drive to both easily.
JUDITH BERDY
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