Brooklyn is a historic place, but a special history-making event took place on April 5, of 1913: Opening Day at Ebbets Field.
By the end of the 19th century, baseball had become a very popular sport in New York State as well as elsewhere in the nation. There were organized amateur or semi-professional teams in just about every New York city. Thousands of people attended games. Big cities had professional teams.
The New York Giants traced their origins to 1883, the Yankees to 1903. Brooklyn, an independent city until it merged with the city of New York in 1898, had its own team, organized in 1883, which had gone by various names, and in the early 20th century was called the Superbas.
Charles Ebbets, team owner, believed that an outstanding team deserved an exceptional field. In 1913, he opened Ebbets Field, at the time one of the most modern and largest in the nation.
It was the pride of Brooklyn. The Superbas debuted in their new home on April 5, 1913, beating their cross-town rivals, the Yankees, in an exhibition game before a cheering crowd of about 30,000 people.
The Superbas soon changed their name to the Dodgers, which became one of the most famous teams in history. The Dodgers were beloved in Brooklyn but also a source of pride in the rest of the city. Ebbets Field was one of the best-known baseball venues in the nation.
The spacious new stadium was filled to capacity for home games for many years. But interest began to wane and attendance fell off in the 1950s. The Dodgers left Brooklyn and moved to Los Angeles in 1958 and Ebbets Field was torn down two years later to make way for apartments.
Here is how Opening Day was reported in the New York Tribune on April 6, 1913:
“Ebbets Field is the last word in the way of a baseball park. Charles H. Ebbets, owner and president of the Brooklyn club, has spared neither money nor constant care to add to the comfort and convenience of the ‘fans’ and players. Nothing has been overlooked. From the grandstand to playing field, every modern improvement has been made and the home of the Brooklyn Superbas who, according to one of their most ardent rooters, “are first in well-wishers, first in enthusiasm, and only seventh in the National League pennant race,” stands out as the most complete field in the country today.
“Erected at a cost of $750,000, the park includes everything that could be thought out by the fertile mind of a master in baseball. The grandstand is the pride of Mr. Ebbets and he has good reason to be proud, as he practically designed it himself. The entrance to the stand is more like that of some vast theater than of a ballpark and the ‘fans’ have never seen anything like it. The main gate is located at the corner of Cedar Place and Sullivan Street, named after General Sullivan of Revolutionary War fame.
“The lobby of the entrance is more than eighty feet in diameter and is resplendent with its marble and glazed brick walls, its glass plate windows in the ticket booths and brass railings. There are a dozen ticket windows placed about the rotunda, and enormous crowd can be handled with little trouble. Since all stairs have been done away with, and inclined runways installed in place, the ‘fans’ will have no trouble in finding their seats quickly.
“The holders of unreserved seats will enter through the stile, which will be marked, and, ascending the short incline, will come out in the center of the stand, from which they make take the best seats procurable. The holders of box seats and seats in the reserve section will proceed through the proper stile under and through the front of the stand and to their proper seats.
“There will be no unnecessary intermingling of the fans. Those who old tickets on the upper tiers will ascend the runways at the rear of the stands and so up to their seats. The bleacherites [sic] will find ticket booths at convenient points. Only one point is lacking to add to the comfort of all. There is not a single knothole in the whole blooming fence for what with the great still girders and solid concrete, the small boy will have to draw his own conclusions from the volume of noise that will arise from the inner battlements.
“The park is centrally located and easy of access to all. For the benefit of the New York “fans” who will make the trip, be it noted that the fastest and shortest way of reaching the park is by taking the Brighton Beach ‘L’ train to Consumers’ Park station and walking across the block to Cedar Place, arriving right at the entrance to the rotunda.
“The admissions rates will be as follows: general admission, 75 cents; reserved seats (lower tier) first nine rows, first nine rows on Saturdays and holidays (four rows on other days), $1; box seats, $ 1.50; exchange rates from upper to lower tier, 25 cents. Upper tier admission $1, box seats $1.50. Pavilion general admission 50 cents, north end pavilion 25 cents….
“Among the conveniences which may be found at the new park are a ladies’ suite, which is located on the lower tier of the main grandstand, consisting of a parlor, private retiring room with maid, telephone and writing desk; a checkroom where all articles may be checked free of charge, incoming telephone messages received and umbrellas loaned at the nominal charge of 10 cents.
“Brooklyn owes the fact that she can boast of the finest ball park in the country to Charles H. Ebbets, after whom the park is named. [After construction delays] now all is ready and Brooklyn has one of the most magnificent monuments to the great national game.”
WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Frederick Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt From Ed Litcher
This heroic-sized bronze bust by Gustaf Blaeser (1813–1874) depicts German scientist, explorer, and naturalist Frederick Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859). Humboldt made an expedition into Central and South America in 1799, exploring the Orinoco and Amazon Rivers and portions of the Andes to learn more about meteorology and plant life. His later expedition to Siberia in 1829 furthered his study of ocean currents and magnetism. Gustav Blaeser knew Humboldt and used his death mask as a reference as he sculpted the bust. In 1981 it was moved to its current location at Explorer’s Gate on Central Park West and 77th Street, across from the Museum of Natural History.
Joyce Gold also got it right
Eid-al-Fitr Visitors
A couple visiting the kiosk celebrating the end of Ramadan. Welcome to Roosevelt Island !
Gloria takes on the garden
Gloria Herman groomed our garden for it’s springtime cleanup including tackling the ivy and other invasive weeks with the magic weed puller!
CREDITS
Photos, from above: Ebbets Field in ca. 1913; and in 1956. JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
The walls are decorated with whimsical murals painted by the creator of the Madeline franchise.
IN A BAR IN MANHATTAN that is covered in art, lives the last public place Ludwig Bemelmans’ whimsy plays a big part.
The story of the feisty literary heroine Madeline begins in Paris, but the girl with the red hair and big yellow hat travels all around the world in the books written and illustrated by Ludwig Bemelmans. Much like his most famous character, Bemelmans’ life began in Europe, in the Austrian Tirol, but he emigrated to the United States when he was nearly 20 years old. After working in the hotel industry and serving in the army, he began writing and illustrating books for children. He found huge success with his Madeline series, the first book of which came out in 1939.
He went on to write five books about the spunky seven-year-old and her adventures, and also produced popular artwork for publications like The New Yorker and Vogue. In the 1940s, Bemelmans took on a commission that combined two of his passions: hotels and painting. He was contracted to decorate the new bar that was built in The Carlyle, a luxury hotel in Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
For this, he was paid not in cash, but received free board for himself and his family for a year and a half, the duration it took for the wall murals to be completed.
The dull yellow of the walls is enlivened by elephants, rabbits, and other animals frolicking around Central Park, all painted in Bemelmans’ trademark style. Madeline and her friends can also be spotted, alongside other typical park scenes like dogs sprinting with their owners and nurses taking babies for a stroll. The simplicity of the wall art is contrasted by the more luxurious Art Deco interiors of the bar. The ceilings are coated in gold leaf and leather banquettes line the walls, placed near glass-top tables.
The whimsical artwork adds to the New York City piano bar’s quiet appeal and it is the only remaining place where Bemelmans’ work that is open to the public. It’s all there is, and there isn’t anymore.
Know Before You Go
Located in the Carlyle Hotel.
A cover charged is applied to individuals and tables when the jazz band is playing in the evenings, usually after 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday $25 per table and $15 for an individual. Friday and Saturday $35 per table and $15 for individuals. The bar opens at noon and serves food after 5 p.m. (These prices are subject to change)
I was sitting in Madison Square Park today at lunchtime and it turns out I was sharing the table with a young architect. We chatted about all things including Roosevelt Island (which he thinks is a great place).
He asked me to look at the Metropolitan Insurance North Building, not the glorious south building. I had never noticed before, but the north building has a base the size of the Empire Ste but ends about 20 plus floors high. There had to be a story here.
The North Building was built in three stages on the site of the second Madison Square Presbyterian Church. Construction started in 1929, just before the onset of the Great Depression. Originally planned to be 100 stories, the North Building was never completed as originally planned due to funding problems following the Depression. The current design was constructed in three stages through 1950. As part of the Metropolitan Life Home Office Complex, the North Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 19, 1996.[1]
The original Madison Square Presbyterian Church, designed by Richard M. Upjohn in the Gothic Revival architectural style, was located on Madison Square Park at the southeast corner of East 24th Street and Madison Avenue, and was completed in 1854.[2] The building was acquired by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and razed to make way for the 50-story Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower,[3] which was briefly the world’s tallest building.[4] In exchange, the church received a 75-by-150-foot (23 by 46 m) plot of land on the north side of 24th Street that became the site for Stanford White’s 1906 building for the Madison Square Presbyterian Church,[5] sometimes called the “Parkhurst Church” after Reverend Charles Henry Parkhurst.[6]
A plot on the north side of 24th Street, measuring 75 by 100 feet (23 by 30 m), was developed in 1903 as the first Metropolitan Annex, a 16-story printing plant building faced in Tuckahoe marble. The annex was designed by LeBrun,[7] and it was connected to the main building by a tunnel.[8] White’s building was demolished in 1919 to make way for an expansion of that annex. The structure was to be 18 stories tall with six elevators, and would incorporate the existing annex, which would be 75 by 225 feet (23 by 69 m). The ground story of the new annex would contain an auditorium with 1,100-seats, and the 12th story would include a lunchroom and a sky bridge to the 11th story of the home office building across 24th Street.[9] This annex was designed by D. Everett Waid and completed in 1921.[7]
Construction The North Building was designed in the 1920s by Harvey Wiley Corbett and D. Everett Waid and built in three stages.[10] Metropolitan Life had acquired the lot bounded by Madison Avenue, 24th Street, Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue South), and 25th Street in September 1929.[11] Preliminary plans, submitted that October, proposed a 35-story building that would serve as a new “home office”, supplanting the old “home office” in the Metropolitan Life Tower directly to the south.[12] The final design for the new building, presented in November 1929, called for a 100-story tower with several setbacks, which would have been the tallest building in the world.[4][13] The structure would accommodate 30,000 daily visitors when completed, and would have escalators connecting the lowest 13 stories.[13]
Following the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression, Corbett and Waid resubmitted plans for the building in November 1930. The new plans called for a 28-story brick, granite, and limestone structure. Starrett Brothers & Eken were selected as contractors the following month.[14] Initially, only the eastern half of the block was developed; that structure was finished in 1932.[15] Upon the first stage’s completion, Corbett said, “it is a highly specialized building designed primarily as a machine to do as efficiently as possible the particular headquarters’ work of our largest insurance company”.[16] The new structure contained 22 acres (8.9 ha) of new office space.[15][16] The original 16-story Metropolitan Life annex, at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 24th Street, remained in place.[17]
In 1937, four buildings on Madison Avenue between 24th and 25th Street, ranging in height from 12 to 20 stories, were demolished to make way for the second phase of construction: the northwestern portion of the 28-story structure.[17] In 1938, the company filed plans to build the western half of the 28-story building at a cost of $10 million. The western wall of the existing structure would be demolished so the two sections would be integrated into a single building.[18] The second phase was finished in 1940 and contained 32 stories: 28 above-ground and four basement levels, the same as in the first phase.[19]
LeBrun’s and Waid’s northern annexes were demolished in 1946 to make way for the third and final stage of the North Building. Waid and Corbett prepared the third phase along with Arthur O. Angilly. The design was similar to that of the first and second phases, but in smaller scale. Construction was completed in 1950.[7] There were no plans to build the extra stories, even though the building plan would have allowed for such an expansion, because Metropolitan Life no longer required the extra space.[20]
Later years In 1985, Metropolitan Life vacated the clock tower and moved all remaining operations to the north building and the east wing of the south building.[21] From 1994 to 1997, the building’s interior was demolished and rebuilt by Haines Lundberg Waehler and the exterior was renovated at a cost of $300 million. The renovation entailed reducing the size of the building’s core to provide additional office space. The North Building had been considered obsolete for the uses of Metropolitan Life (now MetLife), which had moved most of its employees to the MetLife Building in Midtown Manhattan. Credit Suisse First Boston, a subsidiary of Credit Suisse, then leased 1.5 million square feet (140,000 m2) within the building, an agreement that was later expanded to 1.6 million square feet (150,000 m2). Other space was taken up by Alexander & Alexander Services, Emanuel/Emanuel Ungaro, Wells Rich Greene and the Gould Paper Corporation.[20]’
Digital rendering In January 2022, ArchDaily published a digital rendering of what the building would have looked like if it had been constructed as planned to 100 stories and not truncated at 25 stories. Cortesía de 90Grados Arquitectura-Renderings assembled all the available data and graphic information about the building’s intended design. The original plans were not extant, but sketches and photographs of a model were available. Where there were gaps in the information, they extrapolated from other designs by Corbett, in particular his work on Rockefeller Center. They then used various rendering programs to create the finished images of the building.[22]
Architecture The building, which has 2.2 million square feet (200,000 m2) of interior space, was constructed in three stages. The building’s bulk is mitigated by numerous setbacks[10] and its polygonal shape.[23] As a result of these setbacks, mandated under the 1916 Zoning Resolution, the architects maximized the usable interior space[16] The building initially contained 30 elevators, enough to serve the originally-planned 100 floors.[10][20] In addition, because the existing building was constructed to be strong enough to support extra floors, the roof included 16 electrical generators, enough to power the building for several days.[20]
One of the entrance loggias at the corners of the building Facade The North Building is clad entirely with stone and contains numerous angled sides.[24] The building is finished on the outside with Alabama limestone and marble detailing, covering an interior steel frame.[10][25] The window frames are mostly made of bronze, except those installed during the final stage of construction, which are made of aluminum. The ground-floor windows are multi-pane windows and all others are three-over-three sash windows. Limestone grilles are located outside the second-story windows.[25] The stonework is laid in a scalloped pattern; this is the only major decorative element on the building’s exterior.[24]
The North Building features four vaulted corner entrances, which are each three stories high and composed of loggias on either side of the corner.[23][25][26] Each entrance contains a three-story-high pier with ribs, which supports a double-height loggia. The vaulted entrances contain modern-style coffers with a Moderne-style chandelier hanging from the center.[26] Pink Tennessee marble is used as a decorative element on the floors and around the doors of each loggia. The middle of the 24th Street facade contains another entrance. The 25th Street side contains numerous loading docks.[25] In addition, there are paired arched openings on Madison Avenue, which are decorated with floral-patterned stone screens.[26] Until 2020, the North and South buildings were connected by a sky bridge on the eighth floor.[27]
Interior[edit] The three-story lobby contains travertine and marble finishes.[10][25] The lobby contains a coffered ceiling with aluminum leaf in numerous colors. On the walls above the passages to each elevator lobby. there are bas-reliefs made of aluminum leaf.[25] The other corridors contain terrazzo floors, plaster ceilings with stepped moldings, and marble paneling.[28] On the upper floors, the elevators, restrooms, and stairs are located in a core at the center of each floor.[25]
Corbett and Waid described how the building had “the latest ideas in ventilation, air conditioning, sound deadening, artificial lighting, intercommunicating pneumatic tubes, telephones, call bells, unit operating clock systems [and] special elevator and escalator installations”.[16] The offices are located on the outer edges of each floor, near the windows, and are generally open plan spaces with few private rooms in order to accommodate the large numbers of workers at the company.[16][28] The offices were utilitarian, with indirect artificial lighting allowing for office space that was up to 80 feet (24 m) deep. The stepped acoustic-tile ceilings increased in 6-inch (150 mm) intervals, from their lowest height near the building’s core to their highest height near the windows, which maximized natural light while also providing space for ceiling ducts.[15][29] Another innovation for the building at the time of its construction was the inclusion of a building-wide air conditioning system.[30] The 27th floor contained an auditorium.[29]
There are four basements: the kitchen on the first basement level (just below ground), the employee dining areas on the second and third basement levels, and the mechanical spaces on the fourth basement level.[28][29] The dining areas could accommodate 8,000 diners per day.[29][19] Seven-foot-high (2.1 m) murals are mounted on the walls of the basements’ dining rooms and elevator lobbies.[28][29] These murals were painted by Edward Trumbull, D. Putnam Brinley, Nicholas L. Pavloff, N. C. Wyeth, and Griffith Bailey Coale, depicting scenes from American folk stories, North American wildlife, and New York state history. They were intended to “bring to the employees a feeling of cessation from their work through the contemplation of artistic and amusing masterpieces.”[31] The original plans were to include an entrance to the 23rd Street subway station, but the entrance was ultimately built one block south, on 23rd Street, with an entrance through the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower.
The R.M.S. Titanic went to its watery grave in the Atlantic Ocean on the morning of April 15, 1912. Few cities felt the tragedy as deeply as New York City.
At the end of its maiden voyage, the luxurious ship was set to dock at the White Star Line’s Pier 59, near today’s Chelsea Piers. Instead, 706 dazed survivors picked up by the R.M.S. Carpathia disembarked a few blocks away at Pier 54—greeted by a crowd of thousands desperate for news about the iceberg that sank the ship and the whereabouts of family members.
Influential and lesser-known residents went down with the ship, including Macy’s owner Isidor Straus and his wife, Ida, and John Jacob Astor IV (the son of Mrs. Astor, the society leader). Their absence was felt immediately in a city stunned with grief.
In response to so much tragedy, no time was wasted planning a monument to the lives lost—one that would function as not just a memorial but also as a guiding light for ships in New York Harbor.
“The Seaman’s Benefit Society has undertaken the task of collecting the funds for the erection of a permanent memorial to the men and women lost on the Titanic in the form of a lighthouse tower on the new Seaman’s Institute at the corner of Coenties Slip and South Street,” wrote the New York Times on April 23, 1912.
The lighthouse memorial, which would have a lantern gallery and a fixed green light viewable as far away as Sandy Hook, was to be topped by a time ball that dropped down a pole at noon, so seaman could set their chronometers (and Lower Manhattan dwellers could set their watches).
Though it honored everyone who went down with the ship, the memorial would be “in memory of the engineers who sent their stokers up while they went to certain death; the members of the heroic band who played while the water crept up to their instruments; and of the officers and crew who put duty above personal safety,” noted the Times.
“It will be given in memory of those in the steerage who perished without ever realizing their hopes of a new land, the America of endless possibilities.”
Putting the memorial on top of the new Seaman’s Institute was also a fitting choice. This organization, launched in 1834 as the Seaman’s Church Institute, helped take care of the thousands of sailors who came to New York City on the many vessels over the years that made shipping and trade a powerhouse of Gotham’s economy.
The cornerstone for the Institute’s new building went in the ground on the morning of the sinking of the Titanic. One year later, the completed building—featuring dormitory rooms, a bank, library, and chapel—hosted a dedication service for the Titanic Memorial Lighthouse perched on its roof.
The lighthouse, designed by Warren & Wetmore (the architects behind Grand Central Terminal) went into service that November, according to the South Street Seaport Museum.
For the next 55 years, as ship traffic decreased in New York Harbor and South Street’s fortunes turned, the Titanic memorial with its time ball stayed in service on the roof. In 1968, the Seaman’s Institute moved to a new headquarters on State Street. The top of the Titanic Memorial was given to the South Street Seaport Museum.
But it wasn’t until 1976 when the memorial lighthouse went up on a triangular corner at Pearl and Fulton Streets (now known as Titanic Memorial Park), held in place by a concrete podium. The time ball is also gone; it’s been replaced by an ornamental sphere.
Here it still stands, a memorial to a maritime disaster that hit the city hard and remains in the public imagination.
I’m not the only one who has noticed it could use some TLC. A group dedicated to restoring the monument has formed, according to a 2022 New York Times piece. But a costly restoration of a relic not many passersby notice remains uncertain.
PHOTO PHOTO OF THE DAY
THE ROOF OF THE SOUTH PORTION OF BLACKWELL HOUSE IS LOOSING SHINGLES. I AM TRYING TO RECOLLECT IF THE ROOF WAS REPLACED (OR JUST PATCHED) 3 YEARS AGO AFTER A MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR RESTORATION PROJECT.. TYPICAL OF ISLAND PROJECTS THAT WERE DONE WITH SHODDY CONSTRUCTION AND CORNERS CUT. HOPEFULLY RIOC WILL REPAIR THE ROOF VERY SOON OR THE HOUSE WILL FACT MORE DAMAGE.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
The Netherlands Consulate General in New York announces FUTURE 400, a vibrant, two-year celebration of the 400 years since the Dutch arrived in New York. This event series will bring together artists and thinkers from both New York and the Netherlands for performances, talks, art exhibits, and more.
On Tulip Day, April 7th, over 200,000 tulips will take over Union Square Park, welcoming thousands to pick their own bouquet from the array. The Consul General of The Kingdom of the Netherlands in New York will present a new tulip variety to the city, called FUTURE 400. It will commemorate this year’s anniversary of the first Dutch settlement and honor another 400 years of collaboration between the nations.
A rendering of “Biosignature Preservation” on Park Avenue, a sculpture by Jorge Otero-Pailos which will be part of his forthcoming exhibition “Analogue Sites” on Park Avenue Exhibition
Jorge Otero-Pailos’ Analog Sites lines Park Ave this month with large steel pieces wrought from a fence that once surrounded the former U.S. Embassy in Oslo. The sculptures aims to raise awareness of the importance of American modern architecture and the preservation of mid-century embassies as they stand amongst Park Avenue’s mid-century modernist landmarks and the Park Avenue Armory. Originally placed in Oslo, the series will be on display until October 2024.
The iconic Tiffany & Co. flagship store unveiled an art exhibition in partnership with renowned architect Peter Marino, who led the transformation of the iconic store’s interior. TItled Culture of Creativity, the exhibition is a testament to Tiffany & Co.’s long-standing connection with the art world. It features nearly 70 works of art from the Peter Marino Art Foundation by artists like Louis Comfort Tiffany, Damien Hirst, Rashid Johnson, and Peter Marino himself. Also on view is a beautiful range of 19th-century pieces from Marino’s personal collection of Tiffany silver. The exhibit runs through May 20th at the Tiffany & Co. flagship store on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street called The Landmark. Complimentary tickets can be reserved through the Tiffany website.
The world-famous American Museum of Natural unveils a new exhibit on April 2nd, Grounded by Our Roots. The exhibition features gorgeous works by five up-and-coming Indigenous artists. These thirteen pieces, including paintings, prints, clothing, and sculptures, showcase modern Indigenous art inspired by the beautiful visual traditions of the Northwest Coast.
Artists include Hawilkwalał Rebecca Baker-Grenier, a fashion designer who debuted her first collection at New York Fashion Week in 2022, as well as Alison Bremner Naxhshagheit, an artist of many media who explores the present-day Tlingit experience. The exhibition will be on view in the Contemporary Art Gallery in the Museum’s Northwest Coast Hall, and is included with all admission.
Rendering Courtesy of LeMonde Studio
Baseball season is back! Fans of this iconic New York sport are called to Lou Gehrig Plaza for the launch of Home Run, a new installation by LeMonde Studio in partnership with the 161st Street Business Improvement District and the Québec Government Office in New York. The unvileing of the sculpture, which depicts a giant baseball bat and ball, will take place on the Yankees’ first home game of the season on April 5th!
Preparatory sketch of Rose B. Simpson’s site-specific commission for Madison Square Park Conservancy,Seed Courtesy of the artist and Madison Square Park Conservancy
As a part of the milestone twentieth anniversary of Madison Square Park Conservancy’s art program, Rose B. Simpson will unveil her new public art exhibition, Seed. This outdoor exhibition features nine towering sculptures in both Madison Square Park and Inwood Hill Park. Set in bronze and steel will be figures depicted in gatherings on the grounds of the parks.
The pieces draw from Simpson’s own background as well as the history of Manhattan Island. Simpson illuminates the notions of interconnectedness and our natural relationship with the ground we walk on. Seed is on view from April 11th through September 22nd.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
WONDERFUL STUDENT DESIGNS IN THE WINDOWS OF F.I.T. AT SEVENTH AVENUE AND 27TH STREET
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
The Memorial Scrolls Trust is pleased to announce a scroll gathering in New York City to celebrate MST’s 60th anniversary on Sunday afternoon April 7, 2024, 3pm at Temple Emanu-El of New York. The planning committee has been hard at work to create an afternoon that will be an everlasting memory for all participants. MST Scrolls from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and other states are being invited for a reunion of these scroll survivors. The last time we held a gathering here in 2019, we had 75 scrolls and 800 people. We hope that you will join in. It will be a remarkable event.
This group of 1,564 scrolls which were collected by the Jewish Community in Prague during the Nazi occupation represents the vibrant cultural and religious life of Czech Jewry that once existed. These sacred objects survived when 85% of Czech Jews were murdered in the Shoah. After being collected, stored, moved and eventually sent to London, these scrolls are the tangible links from past generations to today. Help us honor the Jews killed in the Holocaust and celebrate the continuity of Jewish life today.
Program: The program will be held at Temple Emanu-El, 1 E.65th Street (at Fifth Avenue) in NYC. Please enter on 66th street. Our speakers will include Mr. Jeffrey Ohrenstein, Chairman and Trustee of MST, and Ms. Lois Roman, Trustee of MST. There will be a parade of the scrolls, music and other festivities. The program will be appropriate for all ages, from children to seniors.
Registration:
All attendees MUST pre register. Tickets are free.
IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON ATTENDING JOIN THE MEMBERS OF THE RIJC AND CONTACT JUDITH BERDY TO TELL US YOU ARE ATTENDING …. JBIRD134@AOL.COM
Come together for this commemorative service for the Czech scrolls from the Memorial Scrolls Trust (MST) that are being cared for in the New York metropolitan area. Dozens of scrolls and their caregivers will assemble for a program filled with music and reflection. Guest speakers will include MST chairman Jeffrey Ohrenstein and trustee Lois Roman. In addition, we will hear from Miles Laddie, author of 1564 Scrolls.
Please enter using the West 66th Street entrance to Temple Emanu-El. Pre-registration is required.
WEDNESDAY PHOTOS
RIOC’S TIKKET SYSTEM WORKS THESE ARE THE SMALL REPAIRS THAT MAKE LIFE BETTER ON THE ISLAND TRANSFORMER BOX FOUND OPEN ON WEST PROMENADE, ON SUNDAY REPAIRED ON MONDAY
STREET LIGHT OUT OPPOSITE SUBWAY REPAIRED THE NEXT DAY
ADDITIONAL GRAB BAR ADDED IN LADIES ROOM CULTURAL CENTER.
I arrived at our station this morning to find a dust condition in the station. Apparently our station was thorough cleaned over the weekend. When the first trains came through the tunnel at 5 a.m. they brought cement dust that was in the tunnel between 63/Lex station and Roosevelt Island.
The MTA staff was apologetic and promised a thorough cleaning again this week.
I arrived at the Queensbridge station at 8 a.m. for the ceremonial reopening of the F train service. Lots of press coverage and MTA press staff (only positive comments). Richard Davey, NY Transit President gave a brief speech and chatted with the media.
They aides eventually gathered the staff and guest and headed to the train. The F train arrived, full of passengers and a mob of press crowded into the car for the 3minute ride to the Island.
Up the escalator to be greeted by Gerald Ellis, Mary Cuneen, Bryrant Daniel, Paul Krickler and TOUCHDOWN the Cornell mascot bear.
TOUCHDOWN was the star of the station.
Lots of smile and photos.
Time for me to descend back downstairs for an appointment in Manhattan.
Judy Berdy
What a welcome sight
Press briefing describing work completed with Jaime Torres Springer and Richard Davey.
How many film crews can you fit onto an escalator?
Greg Morrisett and Touchdown from Cornell welcome the VIP’s.
Richard Davey admiring the “Double Take” mosaic wall by DIana Cooper, a project of MTA & DESIGN
Maybe TOUCHDOWN can get an orange vest and greet rider more often.
MONDAYPHOTO OF THE DAY
The Workhouse, located where 10 River Road now stands.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
This beautiful kitty was our favorite kiosk visitor on Sunday
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
New York State Environmental Conservation Officers (ECOs) recently took part in rescuing a grey seal from John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens, a harp seal on Staten Island, and another at Shinnecock Bay in Suffolk County on Long Island.
On February 22nd, ECOs McGhee, Vandenbos, Simmons, and Paschke assisted research biologists from the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society with a seal capture in Shinnecock Bay, in the town of Southampton.
Biologists took samples from the seals to support ongoing research by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program, which coordinates national responses to stranded seals and whales, before releasing them unharmed.
Biologists also attached satellite tags to the seals to help monitor population movements. The Southampton Town Marine Patrol also participated.
On March 19th, ECOs Keegan and Milliron responded to John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens County for reports of a grey seal on a runway.The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey escorted the Officers across several runways to the seal and discovered it hiding under a vehicle. The ECOs captured the seal and placed it in a carrier before transporting it to the New York Rescue Center for evaluation.A few days earlier, on March 13, Lieutenant Gates and ECO Clinger responded to a call about a distressed harp seal that had washed ashore on Staten Island and did not move for approximately 24 hours. The Officers assisted in transporting the seal to the New York Rescue Center for treatment.Harp seals are predominantly found in the cold waters of the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Seals are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The public is reminded to always keep a safe distance from marine mammals.To report a live seal that appears to be sick or injured, call the New York Stranding Hotline at 631-369-9829 and speak with trained biologists.For more information on Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, visit their website. Illustrations, from above, provided by DEC: Grey seal discovered under Port Authority vehicle at JFK Airport; and ECO Paschke monitors captured seal pulled from Shinnecock Bay before it was returned to the water unharmed.
OFTEN NEW YORK ALMANACK PUBLISHES STORIES OF RESCUES PERFORMED NY NYS FOREST RANGERS AND OTHER AGENCIES OF PERSONS WHO WENT HIKING IN THE WOODS, COMPLETELY UNPREPARED FOR THE WINTER ENVIRONMENT. READ THE ACCOUNT OF THIS PERSON WHO WAS RESCUED. THANKS TO THE RANGERS WHO RESCUE NY FOLKS IN THE WILDERNESS.
Overnight Rescue at Mount Marcy Saves Freezing Unprepared Hiker
On Friday, March 22 at 9:45 pm, as a major late season storm was bearing down on the Adirondacks, Ray Brook Dispatch received a call from a woman reporting her 33-year-old son from New York City was overdue from hiking Mount Marcy and Gray and Skylight mountains in the High Peaks.
At about 10:30 pm, Forest Ranger Mecus located the subject’s vehicle at Adirondak Loj in Keene Valley. Rangers Adams and Duchene attempted to retrace the subject’s itinerary, going up and over Mount Marcy and down to Four Corners.
At 4:25 am, Ranger Mecus completed searching the trail and campsites to Lake Colden Outpost, before heading up to climb to Four Corners with Colden Caretaker Raudonis. Ranger Evans served as Incident Commander at the Adirondak Loj.
Due to the urgency of the snowstorm potentially hiding footprints or other clues to the hiker’s location, 15 Rangers were sent out early Saturday morning. Ranger crews were sent in from Elk Lake, Upper Works, the Garden Trailhead, and a larger team from the Adirondak Loj, to perform a grid search on the Mount Marcy summit cone.
At 8 am, Ranger Mecus’ search crew located a single set of boot tracks near the Feldspar lean-to. The crew followed the tracks up the Lake Arnold trail to where the tracks lost the trail and started following the north branch of the Opalescent River on the northwest face of Mount Marcy.
At 10:10 am, they found the subject at 4,000 feet in elevation, with his clothes frozen to his body and suffering from hypothermia and frostbite.
Rangers used a patient care kit to change the hiker’s wet clothing, feed him, and provide warm liquids before walking him to the trailhead where they were met by Lake Placid EMS at 3:25 pm.
EMS took the subject to the hospital for treatment and the rescue operation was completed a little after 5 pm.
TODAY, SATURDAY, MARCH 30TH IS THE LAST DAY OF EARLY VOTING JOIN US TO CAST YOUR BALLOT IN THE PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY 9 A.M. TO 6 PM. AT GALLERY RIVAA 527 MAIN STREET
OR
ELECTION DAY IS TUESDAY, APRIL 2 AT PS/IS217 6 A.M. TO 9 P.M.
MARCH 30, 2023
THE FRICK COLLECTION
REOPENS AFTER
RESTORATION AND RENEWAL
THE YEAR
ISSUE # 1211
THE FRICK COLLECTION
Frick Collection Reveals Plans for New Second-Floor Galleries
The Frick Collection announced details about the transformation of the second floor of the original Frick home, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The changes will make accessible to the public for the first time when the institution reopens in its renovated and expanded home in late 2024. Designed by Selldorf Architects, with Beyer Blinder Belle serving as Executive Architect, the project marks the most comprehensive upgrade to the Frick since opening nearly ninety years ago.
The mansion’s second floor originally served as the private living quarters of the Frick family and subsequently became the institution’s administrative offices after the residence was converted to a museum in 1935. The restoration of a suite of ten rooms and their transition into galleries will, for the first time, enable the public to experience more of the Frick’s historic buildings and remarkable collection, which has expanded significantly over the decades.
A highlight of the second floor will be the rare opportunity to experience two rooms as they were installed when the Frick family lived in the mansion. This includes a new gallery in what was the Frick family’s Breakfast Room and the Boucher Room, which is being returned to its original upstairs location in the private sitting room — or boudoir — of Adelaide Childs Frick, the wife of founder Henry Clay Frick.
In a further series of second-floor galleries, visitors will experience installations inspired by the personal collecting interests of the Frick family through time, including beloved Renaissance gold-ground and Impressionist paintings. Also on view will be significant collections that have more recently entered into the museum’s holdings — some of which have yet to be regularly exhibited —ranging from ceramics to rare portrait medals and including the first permanent display of the Frick’s important clocks and watches collection.
Complementing the galleries of the Frick’s first floor, which include the Oval Room, East and West Galleries, Fragonard Room, Dining Room, and Living Hall, the second-floor galleries will provide entirely new opportunities for visitors to engage with the Frick’s holdings and historic spaces.
Restoration and preservation of architectural and decorative features — including ceiling murals, marble fireplaces, and elaborate carved woodwork — are bringing the intimate rooms of the former residence back to life, with varied arrangements of smaller-scale paintings, sculptures, and decorative objects from different schools and periods. Most art displays on this floor will preserve the traditional blend of objects for which the Frick is known, with select galleries centered on one period or medium.
Two of the new spaces are being restored to their appearance from when the Frick family resided in the house: the Breakfast Room and the Boucher Room. The Breakfast Room — ideally situated for morning light with its east-facing windows — has been reinstated as the family had decorated it, presenting the museum’s treasured holdings from the French Barbizon school of landscape painting, including works by Corot, Rousseau, and Daubigny.
Visitors will also experience the original Boucher Room, which adorned the boudoir of Adelaide Childs Frick (1859–1931). When, after several years of transformation, the residence opened as a museum in 1935, the eight panels by Boucher depicting the Arts and Sciences were moved to the ground floor to make them accessible to the public.
The second-floor room is now being returned to its appearance from when Adelaide Frick was alive. The series of paintings will be presented in a full suite of restored wall paneling, complemented by a series of other works and details from the same period: a marble chimneypiece; delicate Sèvres porcelain; important French furniture that has been treated and reupholstered; and the eighteenth-century wood flooring that originally graced this Gilded Age boudoir. All of these elements have been painstakingly disassembled, treated, and relocated upstairs to complete the gallery’s setting.
Further rooms will pay tribute to the individual collecting interests of the Frick family members. The original bedroom of Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919), which has become known at the museum as the Walnut Room for its sumptuous wood paneling, will present a selection of portraits, one of the founder’s favored genres.
Highlights include Romney’s famed 1782 portrayal of Lady Hamilton, which once again will hold pride of place over the room’s mantelpiece, as well as Ingres’s exquisite Comtesse d’Haussonville (1845), one of the most iconic paintings in the Frick’s holdings.
Another thematic gallery will feature Impressionist paintings, which were considered modern art during Frick’s lifetime and which Frick chose to display in the family’s private quarters.
Other rooms pay tribute to the significant role that the founder’s daughter Helen Clay Frick (1888–1984) played in shaping the collection during her father’s lifetime and for decades after his death. This includes an installation of early Italian Renaissance paintings, a particular passion of hers — including prized works by Cimabue, Piero della Francesca, and Paolo Veneziano —presented in Helen’s former bedroom.
Additional galleries and spaces on this floor will afford visitors the chance to look closely at exceptional holdings that have come to the Frick as major gifts. The Frick’s collections have grown in a focused and complementary manner over the decades, with more than half of the institution’s holdings coming from acquisitions after the original bequest of Henry Clay Frick.
Many of these collections have been shown only in part or temporarily because of space constraints. These new gallery installations include a presentation of French faience ceramics, the bequest of Sidney R. Knafel; remarkable works of Viennese Du Paquier porcelain given by Melinda and Paul Sullivan; and a special display of rare portrait medals from the unparalleled holdings of Stephen K. and Janie Woo Scher.
The installation of the Frick’s second floor has been designed by the curatorial team led by Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon with Curator Aimee Ng, Assistant Curator of Sculpture Giulio Dalvit, and Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts Marie-Laure Buku Pongo, in association with the Frick’s longtime exhibition designer, Stephen Saitas.
About Henry Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick (1849 – 1919) founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company and played a major role in the formation of U.S. Steel.
As a founding member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, he wasin large part responsible for the alterations to the South Fork Dam that caused its failure, leading to the catastrophic Johnstown Flood in 1889, which killed 2,208 people.
Frick’s vehement opposition to unions also caused violent conflict, most notably in the 1892 Homestead Strike, which all but destroyed the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers and led to the death of about 15 people and the injury of dozens more.
Frick had extensive real estate holdings in Pittsburgh and throughout the state of Pennsylvania and later built the Neoclassical Frick Mansion in Manhattan (a National Historic Landmark) on Fifth Avenue, between 70th and 71st streets in Manhattan, and upon his death donated his extensive collection of old master paintings and fine furniture to create the Frick Collection.
The Frick Madison closed on March 3, 2024, and the Henry Clay Frick House is scheduled to reopen in late 2024. Learn more here.
NEW LONELY PLANET KIDS BOOKS $10-
AT THE RIHS VISITOR CENTER
GO NYC GO
BY ISLAND RESIDENT KEN ANDERSON 416-
Every day, NYC wakes up and is on the go.
Cars, taxis, trucks, and buses move to and fro.
If you want to join the fun, buckle your seat
as we drive on every road, bridge, and street!
CREDITS
THE FRICK COLLECTION
ROOSEVELT ISALND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
TIME OUT: I WILL BE WORKING EARLY VOTING THIS WEEK AT OUR ISLAND POLL SITE IN THE GALLERY RIVAA. STOP BY TO CAST YOUR BALLOT IN THE PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY AND SAY HELLO. BE BACK AFTER EASTER WITH MORE STORIES.
Manhattan’s MacDougal Street was named after merchant Alexander McDougall, a Scottish immigrant who hailed from the Isle of Islay. A rebellious character, he had been actively involved in the Revolutionary War.
In later years, McDougall represented New York in the Continental Congress and became the first President of the Bank of New York. Until their reckless destruction in 2008 to make space for New York University’s law school, the buildings from number 133 to 139 were landmark addresses in the history of Greenwich Village.
Manhattan’s MacDougal Street was named after merchant Alexander McDougall, a Scottish immigrant who hailed from the Isle of Islay. A rebellious character, he had been actively involved in the Revolutionary War.
In later years, McDougall represented New York in the Continental Congress and became the first President of the Bank of New York. Until their reckless destruction in 2008 to make space for New York University’s law school, the buildings from number 133 to 139 were landmark addresses in the history of Greenwich Village.
Village of Dreams
During the last decades of the nineteenth century, Europe’s major cities were in the grip of militant radicalism. Vienna experienced a number of uprisings. Rumors that the Emperor himself was a target abounded in and around the capital, especially since the assassination in 1898 of Empress Elisabeth of Austria by the Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni.
Born in 1869 in Bohemia (then part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire), Hippolyte Havel was educated in Vienna where he associated himself with radical circles. Anarchism in the late nineteenth century was literally a “movement on the move.”
Activists lived under constant threat of arrest and moved from country to country. Many would eventually end up in the United States. American anarchism was established by political refugees from Paris, London, Madrid, Rome, Berlin, Moscow or Vienna.
Havel had started his career as a journalist, but was arrested in 1893 after delivering a blazing May Day speech. Having served eighteen months in prison, he was deported from Vienna. Soon after he was re-arrested for taking part in an anarchist demonstration in Prague. Expelled from the country he traveled to Germany, spent time in Zurich and then moved on to Paris.
After a series of bomb attacks in the 1890s, the French authorities were not inclined to tolerate subversive activities and by 1899 Havel was living “down and out” in London. There he met the political activist Emma Goldman whose orthodox Jewish family had fled anti-Semitism in Lithuania and settled in the United States in 1885. The pair became lovers.
In September 1900 Havel accompanied Goldman to Paris where an attempt was made to stage an international anarchist congress (for which Peter Kropotkin wrote a contribution on Communism and Anarchy), but the police intervened and prevented the event from taking place.
Returning with Emma to the United States, Havel settled in Chicago. He was one of six anarchists arrested and briefly detained in the city on September 7, 1901, accused of plotting with Leon Czolgosz who had murdered President William McKinley on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
All over the nation anarchists were hunted down, but repression breeds resistance. Havel had no intention of being silenced.
In 1903 Emma Goldman had settled in an East Village tenement at 208 East 13th Street. When in 1906 she founded the journal Mother Earth (“A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature”), she ran her office from the neighboring tenement (No. 210). Arguably the most influential anarchist journal in America before the First World War, it was banned by the federal government in 1917. Havel became her associate and collaborator even though their love affair had ended.
Art & Anarchy
A flamboyant character, Havel spoke several languages and expressed himself in a fluent style of writing, but he was not academically minded and never produced a full-length book. A revolutionary with a fondness for drink, Havel’s heroes were activists who adhered to Johann Most’s “propaganda of the deed” and accepted violence as a legitimate means of achieving political ends.
Historically, creative milieus have clustered in urban areas where housing was relatively cheap, attracting a diverse group of migrants, artists and students. These densely populated and overcrowded sites were soon littered with small workshops, bakeries, cafés and eateries.
Their maze-like streets proved difficult to police and offered a perfect hiding place for controversial thinkers and activists. Interactions were intense, forging tight and often rebellious community bonds.
Although the image of Greenwich Village as a progressive “republic” of free spirits won popular acceptance during the mid-1910s, it reflected only a small part and brief period (between 1913 and 1918) of local life.
Most residents were not bohemians. Their lives were not shaped or determined by the influx of young artists and activists, but by continuous migration and changes in ethnic composition that affected local conditions.
The small Village community of radicals centered on Washington Square where Fifth Avenue ends at Stanford White’s triumphal arch. Inspired by his experiences in Vienna and Paris, Havel recognized the primacy of “creative spaces” such as cafes, salons and cabarets where anarchist ideas could be discussed away from the formality of political discourse.
Such gatherings cemented solidarity between anarchists and artists which he considered crucial for the movement’s expansion. They were natural allies who challenged the bounds of conventional thought in order to bring about renewal, be it artistic or social.
The association of anarchism with the arts had been stressed as early as 1857 by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. In his essay on the painter Gustave Courbet the philosopher stressed the social mission of the artist by giving visual form to the struggle of working classes in a bourgeois society.
Havel brought his European heritage to Greenwich Village. He argued that the cultural avant-garde had a vital role to play in the revolutionary struggle.
Playwright Eugene O’Neill served a brief apprenticeship as co-editor of Havel’s journal Revolt before it was closed down for its opposition to the nation’s involvement in World War One. This involvement sparked the writer’s interest in anarchist activity (he portrayed Havel as Hugo Kalmar in his play The Iceman Cometh).
Polly’s Restaurant & The Liberal Club
Havel claimed to have come up with the idea for a Village restaurant as a platform where radicals could eat and talk revolution. In 1913, his then lover Polly Holladay opened a modest bistro in the basement of a townhouse at 137 MacDougal Street located just below Washington Square Park. Originally named The Basement, it became known as Polly’s Restaurant.
Born in Evanston, Illinois, Polly immersed herself in the bohemian atmosphere. Havel served as cook and waiter, while she handled finances and engaged with customers. The bistro’s walls in yellow chalk paint were hung with local artists’ work.
With its wooden tables crammed together, Polly’s soon became an alternative eatery of choice for a set of patrons that included novelists Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson, playwright Eugene O’Neill, political activist Emma Goldman as well as the imposing figure of Max Eastman, editor of the magazine The Masses. It was a creative space where Village residents sat down to discuss art, politics and revolution.
Havel took center stage for his verbal power and “volcanic outbursts.” He gained notoriety for addressing patrons of the restaurant as “bourgeois pigs” (throwing insults at clients was a feature of the European cabaret culture). He always reserved a table and bench for Emma Goldman and her lover, fellow Lithuanian activist and editor of her journal, Alexander Berkman.
The bistro was home to the Heterodoxy Club, a woman’s forum founded in 1912 by the extraordinary Marie Jenney Howe (biographer of the French novelist George Sand) to lunch and discuss radical feminist strategies.
A “heterodite” defined herself as a woman “not orthodox in her opinion” which allowed for members of diverse political views and sexual orientations to exchange ideas and in doing so define American feminism (a new word at the time, borrowed from the French).
The upstairs space from Polly’s basement was occupied by the Liberal Club which, founded in 1912, billed itself as a social meeting place for “those interested in new ideas.” Henrietta Rodman was the most outspoken of its female members in their demands for “free love,” birth control and equal rights.
Several of them took part on March 3, 1913, in the eventful women’s suffrage procession along Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue (the day before President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration).
The club also became notorious for its annual costume ball, a bacchanalian event known as the Pagan Rout, held at nearby Webster Hall at 125 East 11th Street. The location became even more popular when a passage was created into the neighboring building where the brothers Albert and Charles Boni ran their Washington Square Bookshop.
Books & Plays
Opened at 135 MacDougal Street in 1913, the Washington Square Bookshop gained a central place in the Village community. Members of the Liberal Club used the shop as a library, “borrowing” books to read in the comfort of the club and return them when finished.
The Boni brothers never made a profit out of the business. In 1915, they decided to give up bookselling and focus on publishing instead (their company would eventually become Random House). They sold the shop to Frank Shay.
Born Frank Xavier Shea in 1888 in East Orange, New Jersey, he changed the spelling of his name in order to associate himself with Shays’ Rebellion (an armed uprising led by Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays against tax rises in Western Massachusetts). He would run the Washington Square Bookshop for about two years and became closely involved with the arrival of theater in the Village, both as an actor and a publisher.
In 1916, the Provincetown Players opened the Playwrights’ Theatre at 139 MacDougal Street, next to Polly’s Restaurant and the Liberal Club. This collective of artists, writers and theatre lovers produced plays for two seasons in Provincetown, Massachusetts (1915/6), and six seasons in New York City (1916 to 1922).
Shay played the role of Scotty in their production of Eugene O’Neill’s Bound East for Cardiff, the play that launched the dramatist’s career. From his bookshop he published three volumes of The Provincetown Plays (1916), landmark collections of the group’s earliest productions.
Shay’s activities were interrupted when conscripted in 1917. He fought the draft on the basis of his pacifist beliefs, but did not succeed. He served in the Headquarters Company of the 78th Division in France and saw action in the battles of Saint-Mihiel and the Forest of Argonne.
Demobilized in June 1919, Shay returned to New York and opened a tiny bookshop at 4 Christopher Street, West Village, and remained engaged in publishing volumes and anthologies of plays. He kept in touch with the latest literary developments.
When novelist and poet Christopher Morley visited the shop in April 1922, he reported his first sight of the blue-covered first edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses, recently published by Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare & Company in Paris.
Deportations Delirium
Politically the Village was no longer the same as the First Red Scare took hold of its community. From April through June 1919 several bombings were carried out nationwide aimed at judges, politicians and law enforcement officials, including the Washington home of newly appointed Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer. The latter responded by creating a division of intelligence agents led by the young lawyer J. Edgar Hoover. The aim was to crush the “Reds.”
Tensions between activists and agencies increased sharply after the raid on the headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the East Village on November 11, 1919, leading to violent street clashes between opposing political camps. The 1917 Espionage Act and the 1918 Anarchist Exclusion Act were used to justify the onslaught. Temporarily, Village radicalism went underground.
On December 21, 1919, the Federal government assembled 249 “undesirable” left-leaning East European immigrants onto the US Army transport Buford (nicknamed the “Soviet Ark”) and expelled them to Russia.
It was reported in The New York Times as “A merry Christmas present to Lenin and Trotsky.” Or as the jubilant Saturday Evening Post put it: “The Mayflower brought the first builders to this country; the Buford has taken away the first destroyers.”
On January 16, 1920, the ship arrived in Finland and the deportees were transported by train to the Russian border. Amongst them were Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman.
The impact of the intervention caused a persecution frenzy. Palmer and Hoover organized a massive roundup of radicals. By early January 1920, the Palmer Raids led to thousands of arrests and hundreds of deportations (described in 1923 by Louis F. Post as the “Deportations Delirium”).
The project turned into a festival of retribution based on dubious constitutional grounds and a disregard for civil rights. It should be a reminder to who partake in the present debate on democratic values.
An extremist is someone who engages in violence for political or religious ends. Any definition of radicalism must therefore be fit for purpose in a particular context. What matters is how people act, not what they think. Only those who resort to (or incite) extreme methods should be confronted.
Democracy encourages contrarian debate, even if an argument may offend the majority or unsettle the status quo. No nation can progress without heretics. Galileo was sentenced to life imprisonment for his perceived insult of the church while claiming the earth orbited the sun.
THURSDAY & FRIDAY PHOTO
LIST OF DAILY BAKED GOODS AT MEDITERRANEAN EATERY NINA LUBLIN., THOM HEYER, JOAN BROOKS, & GLORIA HERMAN GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy
Illustrations, from above: Demolition of historic McDougall Street buildings in 2009 (courtesy Village Preservation); Edwin Wright Woodman’s “Portrait of Havel,” published in September 1901 in The Minneapolis Journal (Library of Congress); cover of the inaugural issue of Emma Goldman’s anarchist magazine Mother Earth, March 1906; Polly’s Restaurant at 137 MacDougal Street, NYC circa 1915; poster of the Liberal Club’s annual ball, “Pagan Rout III,” 1917, signed by “Rienecke” (probably Rienecke Beckman); and the I.W.W.’s New York City headquarters after a Palmer Raid, 1919.
CREDITS
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
