Illustration from the “Projected Trends” section of Hugh Ferriss’ The Metropolis of Tomorrow (1929) — Source.
In a dramatic, monochrome rendering in ink and charcoal, a fractal of pyramids and steps regenerates at different scales and angles. Vertiginous towers, the tallest outgrowing the frame, ascend from a base of tiered structures — ziggurats — rising in regular terraces. The roofs of lower blocks are dotted with miniscule trees that echo the larger, manmade shapes around them. They are the only living things visible at this scale, but an accompanying text tells us that this skyline is populated with people, citizens who enjoy the city’s elaborate roof gardens, sun porches, and open-air swimming pools.1
This was how Hugh Ferriss imagined the future of urbanism in his treatise Metropolis of Tomorrow (1929). Born in St. Louis in 1899, Ferris trained as an architect and forged a career for himself in a role for which he invented his own job title: “architectural delineator”, bringing other architects’ projects to life on paper. His portfolio, now held by the Avery Art and Architecture Library at Columbia University, speaks to his proximity to numerous major works of modern architecture and engineering, with renderings of Rockefeller Center, Works Progress Administration infrastructure projects, World’s Fairs, United Nations buildings, and various mysterious, unnamed structures of his own imagination, visions swimming up to us through Ferriss’ dramatic wash of line and shadow.2
Metropolis is a portfolio of Ferriss’ images annotated with reflections on the work he had participated in and the architectural changes he had witnessed during recent decades, when American cities, especially his adopted home of New York, exploded upward. He made modest trend forecasts for the near future: glass, he predicted, would be huge (true); hydroplanes would be everywhere (sadly not). In the final, most memorable section of the book, he sketched a distant City of Tomorrow. This city would be planned along rational lines to maximize human health and spiritual happiness through a three-part plan with districts for art, science, and business, each centered on aesthetically appropriate superblocks.3
In the early twentieth century, architects turned to a newly discovered past to craft novel visions of the future: the ancient history of Mesopotamia. Eva Miller traces how both the mythology of Babel and reconstructions of stepped-pyramid forms influenced skyscraper design, speculative cinema in the 1910s and 20s, and, above all else, the retrofuturist dreams of Hugh Ferriss, architectural delineator extraordinaire.
“The Art Center” from Hugh Ferriss’ The Metropolis of Tomorrow (1929) — Source.“The Business Center” from Hugh Ferriss’ The Metropolis of Tomorrow (1929) — Source.
Ferriss’ dramatic depictions of towering skyscrapers and lofty perspectives became, as media scholar Eric Gordon argues, the means by which “the image of the American urban future in the popular imagination took shape”.4 His futurism anticipated and influenced Norman Bel Geddes, as he created his Futurama for the 1939 New York World’s Fair, the Walt Disney Company’s Tomorrowland, TV’s The Jetsons, and numerous other prognostications of the rational planned city, the elevated expressway, and the heliport.5
Yet Ferriss’ forward-looking vision also repeatedly evoked the ancient past. The pyramid skyscraper that he promoted was, in his own description, a “modern ziggurat”, the monumental architectural form of ancient Mesopotamian cities. Centered in modern-day Iraq, Assyria and Babylon were geopolitical superpowers of the first millennium BCE, empires discussed in both biblical and classical traditions which had once been considered lost to the desolating force of time. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, the crumbled remains of ziggurat towers had inspired speculative reconstructions. By the 1920s, German excavations had exposed the well-preserved urban fabric of Babylon’s sixth-century BCE city walls and gates, parts of which were also partially reconstructed in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum, looking rather Art Nouveau. Meanwhile, the nearby city of Ur was being excavated by thousands of workers in digs sponsored by the British Museum and the Penn Museum, turning up mass burials of gold-bedecked bodies. These new discoveries stirred those who read about them in the popular press to imagine an antiquity that was also somehow strangely modern: the women’s fashion in the Ur burials led to press jokes about these dead bodies as traces of the original flappers.6
Learning from the Past
At the time of Ferriss’ Metropolis, a question had bedeviled modern architects for decades: what could be learned from the traditions of the past? Were the great buildings of antiquity, particularly of classical Greece and Rome, eternal blueprints, a standard never to be bettered? Architectural training programs in the US during the early twentieth century suggested this was the case. But increasing numbers of builders worried that the adulation of the past produced dead, stagnant structures, irrelevant to the modern world. Wherever they came down on this matter (and there was a wide middle ground), numerous commentators with different aesthetic preferences could agree on damning random and eclectic historical borrowing — even if they might disagree on what constituted an example of that tendency.
Perhaps no writer treated this historicizing, classicizing eclecticism with more vitriol than the perpetually worked-up Ayn Rand. Her architectural-philosophical melodrama The Fountainhead, published in 1943 but set during the years that Ferriss was writing, was an insightful, if unsubtle, rant against these trends. She castigated architects who “competed on who could steal best, from the oldest source and from the most sources at once”, resulting in “shingled post offices with Doric porticos, brick mansions with iron pediments, lofts made of twelve Parthenons piled on top of one another.” She imagined a benighted public who celebrated a skyscraper which “offered so many columns, pediments, friezes, tripods, gladiators, urns and volutes that it looked as if it had not been built of white marble, but squeezed out of a pastry tube.”7
Ferriss was against this kind of inauthenticity too, advocating that modern buildings must follow the diktat of America’s great modernist innovator Louis Sullivan: form ever follows function. Architects of the future, Ferriss assures us, “will dismiss, as sentimentality, the notion that architectural beauty was once and for all delivered to the builders of ancient times. The employment of modern construction to support what are little more than classic or medieval stage sets, they will look upon as, at its most harmless, a minor theatrical art, but no longer as being Architecture”.8 He mocked this kind of “stage set” architecture in an illustration of the “Reversion to Past Styles” for Metropolis. He bemoaned this tendency’s persistence “despite the logical, and sometimes impassioned, pleas of leaders in modern design.” Still, stacks of “the same conventional forms” were appearing, and Ferriss believed it was his “duty to show what would happen if architects continued piling Parthenons upon skyscrapers!”9
THE ABOVE IS A PART OF A LONGER ESSAY ON FERRIS AND THE ZIGGURAT MOVEMENT. FOR THE CONTINUATION SEE: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/modern-babylon-ziggurat-skyscrapers-and-hugh-ferriss-retrofuturism/?utm_source=newsletter
At the time of Ferriss’ Metropolis, a question had bedeviled modern architects for decades: what could be learned from the traditions of the past? Were the great buildings of antiquity, particularly of classical Greece and Rome, eternal blueprints, a standard never to be bettered? Architectural training programs in the US during the early twentieth century suggested this was the case. But increasing numbers of builders worried that the adulation of the past produced dead, stagnant structures, irrelevant to the modern world. Wherever they came down on this matter (and there was a wide middle ground), numerous commentators with different aesthetic preferences could agree on damning random and eclectic historical borrowing — even if they might disagree on what constituted an example of that tendency.
Perhaps no writer treated this historicizing, classicizing eclecticism with more vitriol than the perpetually worked-up Ayn Rand. Her architectural-philosophical melodrama The Fountainhead, published in 1943 but set during the years that Ferriss was writing, was an insightful, if unsubtle, rant against these trends. She castigated architects who “competed on who could steal best, from the oldest source and from the most sources at once”, resulting in “shingled post offices with Doric porticos, brick mansions with iron pediments, lofts made of twelve Parthenons piled on top of one another.” She imagined a benighted public who celebrated a skyscraper which “offered so many columns, pediments, friezes, tripods, gladiators, urns and volutes that it looked as if it had not been built of white marble, but squeezed out of a pastry tube.”7
Ferriss was against this kind of inauthenticity too, advocating that modern buildings must follow the diktat of America’s great modernist innovator Louis Sullivan: form ever follows function. Architects of the future, Ferriss assures us, “will dismiss, as sentimentality, the notion that architectural beauty was once and for all delivered to the builders of ancient times. The employment of modern construction to support what are little more than classic or medieval stage sets, they will look upon as, at its most harmless, a minor theatrical art, but no longer as being Architecture”.8 He mocked this kind of “stage set” architecture in an illustration of the “Reversion to Past Styles” for Metropolis. He bemoaned this tendency’s persistence “despite the logical, and sometimes impassioned, pleas of leaders in modern design.” Still, stacks of “the same conventional forms” were appearing, and Ferriss believed it was his “duty to show what would happen if architects continued piling Parthenons upon skyscrapers!”9
THE ABOVE IS A PART OF A LONGER ESSAY ON FERRIS AND THE ZIGGURAT MOVEMENT. FOR THE CONTINUATION SEE: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/modern-babylon-ziggurat-skyscrapers-and-hugh-ferriss-retrofuturism/?utm_source=newsletter
PHOTOS OF THE DAY
THE DEMOLITION OF THE SYMBOLIC GLASS ATRIUM OF THE 540 EASTWOOD BUILDING C&C MANAGEMENT IS DESTROYING THE SYMBOLIC FACADE WITH NO COMMENT OR INPUT FROM THE PRESEVATION WORLD OR THE COMMUNITY.
CREDITS
Eva Miller is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at UCL History whose research explores how modern scholars and artists have conceived of the ancient past and theorized the importance of “origins”. She is the author of Early Civilization and the American Modern: Images of Middle Eastern Origins in the United States, 1893–1939 (UCL Press 2024) and editor (with G. Crouzet) of Finding Antiquity, Making the Modern Middle East: Archaeology, Empires, Nations (Bloomsbury 2025). Among other areas, she has worked on self-Orientalising Jewish art, cryptozoological investigations of living dinosaurs attested in ancient Babylonian artefacts, anthropological theories on the evolution of languages and writing, and the role of art in science museums. She originally trained as an Assyriologist, earning her doctorate from the University of Oxford in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.
The text of this essay is published under a CC BY-SA license, see here for details.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Exclusive Gilded Age Arts Society Debuts New Public Exhibits in NYC
The American Academy of Arts and Letters, a venerable New York cultural institution, is a portal to art across time!
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Untapped New York
ISSUE #1420
American Academy of Arts and Letters. Photo by Jeremy Liebman.
Jeff Reuben
The American Academy of Arts and Letters, an organization with a storied history, is now reintroducing itself to the New York City cultural scene as one of Manhattan’s newest art museums.
Based in multiple monumental buildings at the Audubon Terrace Cultural Complex in Washington Heights, visitors are greeted by the following words above one of its entryways: “By the gates of art we enter the temple of happiness.” While this sounds excessively earnest and prescriptive today, it reflects a belief in the power of the arts that still finds resonance in our times.
Arts and Letters, as it is known informally, dates back to 1898, when a predecessor organization called the National Institute of Arts and Letters was founded for the “advancement of art and literature.” The non-profit organization is an honor society with a membership capped at 300 individuals distinguished in the fields of architecture, art, literature, and music. Current members include Robert Caro, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Wynton Marsalis, while those from the past include Mark Twain, Helen Keller, and IM Pei. It also has a long history of bestowing awards for artistic achievement to non-members.
American Academy of Arts and Letters, South Building (McKim, Mead, & White, architects, 1923)
Over the years, the organization has hosted exhibitions and events, but it had not offered year-round programming for the public since before World War II. That changed in September 2024, when, following a series of building renovations, several temporary exhibitions opened across 10,000 square feet of gallery space.
This new chapter for Arts and Letters is led by Chief Curator Jenny Jaskey. “We’re excited to connect to the history of Arts and Letters as a place that brings people together and creates new opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration,” Jaskey noted. Billie Tsien, architect and board member, added, “Arts and Letters has a rare opportunity to not only offer extraordinary landmark buildings to artists in a city where space is a precious resource but to share this space with the public.”
Currently, four temporary exhibitions are on display until July 3, 2025. The newest of these is “Twenty Minutes to Sunset” by Teresa Baker, which opened in April. The artist’s work juxtaposes unexpected materials—astroturf and acrylic yarn stitched alongside willow and buckskin—in abstract landscapes to convey the embodied experience and sense memory of places. Baker will give a gallery talk this Sunday, April 13, 2025, at 4 PM.
Photo by Elle Pérez, part of “The World Is Always Again Beginning, History With The Present”
Other current exhibitions include “Aviary,” a site-specific sonic commission by Raven Chacon, “Kosmic Music,” an installation by Wadada Leo Smith exploring 50 years of his work on a musical language called Ankhrasmation, and “The World Is Always Again Beginning, History With The Present” featuring photographs from the archive of Bronx native Elle Pérez, intended “to speak to the future, to say we were alive.”
The galleries are open Thursday to Sunday, from noon to 6 PM, and admission is free. A visit to Arts and Letters can be combined with a stop to the nearby Hispanic Society Museum and Library which is also free. These buildings can be accessed from Broadway between West 155th and West 156th Streets, just a block from the 157th Street subway station served by the 1 train.
In 1923, Arts and Letters moved to what is now known as its South Building, which was designed by architect William Mitchell Kendall of the legendary firm McKim, Mead, and White. Kendall took design cues from Audubon Terrace’s earlier buildings, which were primarily the work of Charles Pratt Huntington, including the building to the east, the American Numismatic Society, completed in 1907.
A second Arts and Letters building by Cass Gilbert, architect of the Woolworth Building, was completed in 1930, and its exterior was a copy of the earlier design, with the two buildings facing each other across the complex’s pedestrian plaza. Arts and Letters acquired and expanded into the American Numismatic Society building as an annex in 2005, after the original occupant relocated to Lower Manhattan. That building includes a 1930 extension by architect H. Brooks Price.
Kendall and Gilbert were both Arts and Letters members. Their buildings were embellished by others, most prominently in the doors and entryways. In 1930, when Gilbert’s building was completed, it included doors with bas-reliefs by sculptor Herbert Adams. To maintain symmetry with the 1923 Kendall building, Adams created a similar set for that building, too. The doors feature allegorical representations of inspiration, drama, painting, sculpture, poetry, music, arts, and letters.
American Academy of Arts and Letters, South Building Audubon Terrace Bronze Doors (Herbert Adams, sculptor, 1930)
These were followed by another sculpted entryway with doors for the Kendall building’s West 155th Street entrance, added in 1938. It features an allegory dedicated to “the Memory of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and the Women Writers of America” created by Adolph A. Weinman, the sculptor of the Penn Station eagles. This entryway was a donation by Archer M. Huntington, heir to a railroad fortune, who provided much of the funding for the Audubon Terrace complex.
American Academy of Arts Letters, South Building W. 155th St. Bronze Doors (Adolph A. Weinman, sculptor, 1938)
The studio of classical music composer Charles Ives, another Arts and Letters member, was relocated from his Connecticut home to the annex building as a permanent installation in 2014. Ives is one of several members, including artist Jacob Lawrence, who provided the organization with significant financial support.
American Academy of Arts and Letters, Charles Ives Studio (James Vincent Czajka, reconstruction architect, 2014)
The studio of classical music composer Charles Ives, another Arts and Letters member, was relocated from his Connecticut home to the annex building as a permanent installation in 2014. Ives is one of several members, including artist Jacob Lawrence, who provided the organization with significant financial support.
When Arts and Letters opened its first building in 1923, one of its board members, Hamlin Garland, suggested that its motto could be: “To conserve the best of the past, to promote the best of the present, and to assure the best of the future.”Artistic taste has changed considerably since these buildings were constructed, as demonstrated by the contrast between the buildings’ architectural style and the current exhibitions. However, if one looks for it, there is a through-line that connects them, namely the continuing relevance of artistic expression for artist and audience alike.
PHOTOS OF THE DAY
THE DEMOLITION OF THE SYMBOLIC GLASS ATRIUM OF THE 540 EASTWOOD BUILDING C&C MANAGEMENT IS DESTROYING THE SYMBOLIC FACADE WITH NO COMMENT OR INPUT FROM THE PRESEVATION WORLD OR THE COMMUNITY.
CREDITS
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
All photos courtesy of Alexandre Ayer / @DiversityPics for the Garment District Alliance
A new striking sculptural installation has taken ‘root’ in Midtown. The Garment District Alliance on Thursday unveiled “New York Roots,” a series of seven towering steel sculptures that invite viewers to reflect on how relationships, families, and communities intertwine to support a common purpose—much like roots that strengthen and sustain a tree. Created by conceptual artist Steve Tobin, the installation is now on view along the Broadway plazas in the Garment District, between 39th and 40th Streets and 40th and 41st Streets.
The soaring structures reflect the unseen strength of roots beneath the surface and the “dynamic energy” of human connection, inspired by the sweeping motion of Japanese calligraphy and the fluid nature of dance and embrace, according to a press release.
With the tallest reaching 22 feet, the sculptures create a striking landscape, not only through their height but also their fluid, intertwining forms and the negative space they create. As viewers move around the sculptures, the forms change, revealing endless perspectives of the sky and cityscape.
Tobin is a renowned artist celebrated for his large-scale sculptures that fuse nature and industry and use of materials like bronze, steel, stone, glass, and ceramics. Since the 1980s, he has advocated for fostering “existential transformation” and environmental awareness, which he expresses through his art.
With a background in theoretical mathematics and physics, Tobin’s work is greatly inspired and guided by scientific principles and his time teaching in Japan. His other notable New York City installations include “Trinity Root,” which was donated to Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan following 9/11.
On view to the public through February 2026, “New York Roots” is part of the Garment District Alliance’s Art on the Plaza program, a year-round initiative made possible through the NYC Department of Transportation’s Art Program. The initiative works to install engaging exhibits and individual pieces to improve public spaces.
“‘New York Roots’ is a captivating addition to the Garment District that transforms our public plazas into spaces for reflection and serves as an important reminder to stay rooted in our communities,” Barbara A. Blair, president of the Garment District Alliance, said.
“By framing the city through sweeping curves, Steve’s impressive sculptures invite passersby to engage with their surroundings in a new way, offering a moment of sanctuary while celebrating the energy that pulses through the streets we call home.”
Visitors can also explore the installation with the Garment District app, which offers self-guided tours and insights on local public art and history.
PHOTOS OF THE DAY THE MISERABLE CONDITION OF OUR STREETS AND CROSSWALKS THE BRICK PAVEMENT IS 50 YEARS OLD AND NOW TIME TO GET RID OF IT. HOW MANY TRIPS AND FALLS DOES IT NEED TO REALIZE THAT A SMOOTH CONCRETE PAVEMENT IS WHAT WE NEED?
CREDIT
Aaron Ginsburg
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Every month this year, Untapped New York will release a new essay from Jo Holmes about the life and work of the late architect Richard Roth, Jr. of Emery Roth & Sons. Each essay explores a different building or developer from Richard’s career, intertwined with stories of his personal life and snippets of exclusive interviews conducted by Holmes and Untapped New York’s Justin Rivers (which can be viewed in our on-demand video archive). Check out the whole series here!
A Controversial Icon The building that sits directly behind Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan is one many New Yorkers love to hate – and others hate to admit they love. The Pan Am Building (known as the MetLife Building after 1981) was one of Emery Roth & Sons’ most interesting and controversial projects, according to Richard Roth, Jr. Completed in 1962, the 807-foot tall elongated octagonal building was designed in partnership with Walter Gropius, pioneer of the Bauhaus school and a ‘starchitect’ of the period. Richard said the construction was challenging, and working with Gropius (affectionately known as ‘Grope’) was a fascinating experience.
‘Project X’, which would eventually become the Pan Am building in Manhattan, was one of the first jobs thrown at Richard when he joined the family firm. The client, Erwin Wolfson, chairman of Diesel Construction, was trying to attract funding for the ‘Grand Central City Building’ slated for the Park Avenue and 45th Street intersection. Although Richard’s father had already designed a building for the site, Wolfson suggested the firm bring in an architect with a global reputation. “After all, this project was probably the most important project built in New York City at the time, on New York City’s most prominent site,” said Richard.
Wolfson and Richard Sr. tasked Richard Jr. with coming up with a list of ten suitable architects. So, Richard made a list of people he most wanted to meet. “The first choice was Mies van der Rohe, who was my idol, second Le Corbusier, then Wright, Gropius, Belluschi, Breuer, Goff, et al,” explained Richard. Things didn’t quite go according to his plan. “Erwin and my father decided that Mies, Corbu, or Wright would be too difficult to work with.” They thought Walter Gropius and Pietro Belluschi, both 70-odd years old, running their own firms and having academic responsibilities, would be too busy to get too heavily involved. “Belluschi, who by the way was a wonderful architect and a wonderful human being, did take more of a backseat, but Gropius took charge and had a big influence on the design,” said Richard.
An Unexpected Turn Richard Roth Sr’s original design had been a 60-story glass building going north-south behind the terminal. Controversially, Gropius turned the building to sit east-west. “Gropius also decided he didn’t want to put a glass tower up. He wanted to use a new material called shotcrete,” explained Richard. Shotcrete is a type of precast concrete. This upset one of the prospective tenants, aluminum manufacturer Alcoa. “The Head of Alcoa sales told us they weren’t too happy about moving into a building with very little aluminum. And he said they had some ideas for how to make the building look like shotcrete, but use aluminum,” said Richard. It turned out they were experimenting with dropping stones into liquid aluminum. “Apparently, it was like being on a battlefield: stones were flying everywhere, and everyone had to duck!” laughed Richard. Alcoa abandoned their experiments and eventually moved into the building anyway.
Richard Roth Sr, Walter Gropius and Erwin Wolfson in front of a model of the Pan Am Building, Courtesy of the Roth Family Archives
Wolfson had cast his net wide to attract tenants and investors for what would be the world’s largest commercial office space. “Erwin had gone to CBS. He had gone to all the banks. He had gone to most of the major companies in the country trying to sell the idea, and we produced drawings showing how we could put their logos on the building. We must have had plans with 40 different logos at the top of the building!” remembered Richard. Eventually, Pan American Airways took a 10 percent stake, and it became the Pan Am Building.
A Feat of Engineering
Much has been written about every aspect of the building’s development. But Richard said the challenges involved in its construction were worth reiterating. As the site was just behind Grand Central Terminal, it involved putting columns down through the two levels of tracks while the railroad was operating. Most of the work was done at night, but the lower section was a 24-hour construction site. “Amazingly, nobody got hurt, and nobody got injured in any way. And as I remember, the railroad actually still ran on time,” said Richard.
This feat of engineering led to Emery Roth & Sons being asked to work on other projects involving construction above railroad tracks. “In 1983, I was invited to Singapore to discuss the issues involved in putting buildings over major transit hubs. They were building a subway and talking about doing exactly that. We then had a similar project in Manila.” It also demonstrated they could tackle difficult projects—which won them the Twin Towers and the Citicorp Building in Manhattan. “It certainly led to us doing an awful lot of architecture,” said Richard.
A Legendary Lobby
Another notable feature of the building was the art. Wolfson approved several artists to design and make work for the lobby, which provided a pedestrian passageway to Grand Central’s main concourse. They included American sculptor Richard Lippold and German abstract painter and muralist Josef Albers.
Flight sculpture by Richard Lippold
Lippold created a three-story wire sculpture called ‘Flight.’ Critics thought the area for it was too small, but Richard argued it was up to Lippold to fill the space the way he wanted to. “The space came first! I think Lippold’s piece is really one of the great pieces of art in any building in New York. It certainly does resemble flight – the way the TWA terminal at JFK does,” observed Richard.
Albers’ mural ‘Manhattan’ is 28 feet (8.5 m) tall by 54 feet (16 m) wide and made from black, red, and white Formica. “It was amazing when Albers picked the colors. I’d never realized there were that many blacks, reds, and whites. Our conference room was covered with pieces of Formica, and most of us couldn’t distinguish between them. It was very difficult to see the difference between the ones he picked and the ones he threw away,” laughed Richard.
The restored Albers mural, “Manhattan,” in Grand Central Terminal
In the middle of the project, Albers came to see Richard. “He shut the doors in the conference room and told me he was very worried. He’d designed this mural for Gropius back in the Bauhaus days and was anxious he’d remember.” Richard told him if Gropius hadn’t recognized the mural yet, he wasn’t going to. “That reassured him. And I don’t think Grope ever realized Albers had done it before.”
A Memorable Relationship
Richard was one of a team of three Emery Roth & Sons architects who traveled back and forth between New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts, to work on drawings with the team at Walter’s firm, The Architecture Cooperative (TAC). He enjoyed getting to know the pioneering—and somewhat enigmatic—architect.
It’s probably hard for New Yorkers to imagine the building sitting north-south now, but the Gropius plan to make it east-west ruffled feathers at the time. There are various theories about the decision to turn the building around, but Richard said Gropius never explained why.“It certainly was a big discussion in our office,” said Richard. “And there were many people, including my father, who to his dying day thought his own design was correct and Grope was wrong.”
The final design for the Pan Am Building sitting east-west (L) and the original design sitting north-south (R)
Much later, Richard asked Gropius why he’d decided the building should be concrete, not glass as originally planned. “He simply said ‘because I liked it,’” chuckled Richard. What Gropius didn’t like were the materials used in the lobby. Richard came across him sitting near the building one day, looking forlorn. “I sat down next to him, and I said ‘Grope, what’s wrong?’ And he said, ‘The granite is terrible! They put up stuff that looks like it belongs in a bathroom.’” Richard noted Diesel Construction ‘deviated’ from some of the specifications for the lobby – and it’s been suggested that was because they were running out of money.
Richard had some treasured possessions from the period. He had to get three letters of recommendation when taking his architectural exam for New York State. He asked Belluschi, Gropius and Erwin Wolfson. “Gropius sent me a copy of his letter, which talked about a great young architect with unbelievable abilities who would be a wonderful addition to the architects in the world…It was a beautiful letter,” said Richard. Three years later, Richard applied for a job with TAC in Rome. “And in response I received a letter saying they did not have room for me.” Richard kept both letters in a book Gropius autographed for him. “So, I have one letter with Grope telling me how good I was, and another telling me I wasn’t good enough to work for him!”
A Checkered Past
The Pan Am building didn’t get a great reception when it opened in 1963. Ada Louise Huxtable of The New York Times, for example, described it as a ‘colossal collection of minimums’ and ‘gigantically second-rate.’ Tragically, in 1977, a helicopter taking off from the roof crashed, killing five people.
Courtesy of the Roth Family Archives
So, the building perhaps doesn’t have a happy history, but it’s become synonymous with New York, a cultural icon used in films and TV shows. And, while Richard and his colleagues didn’t agree with some of Gropius’s ideas, Richard was happy to defend the building: “It truly was Grand Central City. You never had to leave the building for anything, you could catch a subway, you could catch a train, you could eat in the building. There was a club at the top of the building you could join. And people who worked there admired the building and loved it.”
PHOTOS OF THE DAY MAGNOLIAS BLOOM IN COLER COURTYARD COURTESY OF JOVEMAY SANTOS
CREDITS
Jo Holmes
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
In 1951, Harry Belafonte decided he was finished with singing. For the past few years, he had been taking acting classes at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School with the influential German director Erwin Piscator, alongside Marlon Brando and Sidney Poitier.
Belafonte was passionate about the craft, but the aspiring actor’s career was going nowhere. He spent his evenings hanging out in midtown jazz clubs, complaining to his friends about his lackluster prospects. These friends, all jazz musicians, were the ones who convinced him to start singing, as a simple side gig, to support himself.
The first time he appeared in front of an audience, he was backed by the Charlie Parker band, which included Parker himself, Max Roach and Miles Davis. He soon found a consistent paying gig, singing between sets at The Royal Roost. While he had no musical training nor interest in singing as a career, he had a good voice.
He quickly signed on with the Roost recording label in 1949, launching his career as a pop singer, but he hated it. “I’m not a pop singer,” he said in an interview. “I’m here reading Shakespeare and dissecting ‘Othello,’ and looking at ‘Macbeth.’ Being a pop singer is not what it’s about. And I quit.”
So he left show business, all together, using the money he made from singing to open a burger joint, called the Sage Coffee Shop, with two friends in Greenwich Village.
The Sage Coffee Shop, located on Seventh Avenue South close to Bleecker Street, was a humble affair. They couldn’t afford a cook, so Belafonte got behind the counter and learned how to flip burgers and cook eggs, making meals that Belafonte admits were “not very good.” Neither his restaurant nor his conviction to leave music lasted long.
Being in the West Village brought him in contact with the legendary jazz club, the Village Vanguard, where he saw folk legends like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie perform. Soon the jukebox at the Sage was playing folk classics by Burl Ives, Josh White, and the Weavers. His fascination with folk music intensified and he began learning folk songs through the Library of Congress’s archives.
Born on March 1st, 1927, Belafonte spent much of his childhood in Jamaica with his grandmother, and studying folk music connected him to that past. It reminded him of the songs of Kingston street vendors as they did their work.
To Belafonte, folk music was a populist outlet for a people’s experiences of oppression, cloaking songs of rebellion in the mundanity of daily life. Like other folk musicians of the time, Belafonte saw the power of music for social and political revolution.
In 1952, just a year after its opening, Belafonte’s restaurant closed, burying him in debt. The next year, he made his debut as a folk singer at the Village Vanguard. His repertoire consisted of a diverse constellation of folk music, including the Jewish celebration song “Hava Nagila,” the traditional African American ballad “John Henry,” and the Calypso melody “Matilda.”
Village Vanguard could not contain his star power nor his audience. He moved uptown to the bigger venue, Blue Angel, also owned by Vanguard owner Max Gordon. Soon, he was booking nightclubs and hotels across the country, even performing in Las Vegas during the Rat Pack era, alongside Liberace and Sammy Davis Jr. He even fulfilled his original wish and was cast in movies, including the celebrated Otto Preminger musical Carmen Jones.
Belafonte would continue to have a connection to the Village, singing and recording at the RCA recording studios at Webster Hall. In 1956, Belafonte released his breakthrough album, Calypso. It was the first album to hit a million units sold by a single artist, and introduced the American public to calypso music.
The hit single from the album “Banana Boat Song” (listed as “Day-O” on the Calypso LP) was recorded in Webster Hall’s Grand Ballroom. The Jamaican call and response work song is arguably Belafonte’s most famous song.
Harry Belafonte would go on to have a long, immensely successful career as a singer, actor and activist. He lived in New York City, his home for the entirety of his adult life. In his words, “I think there’s no city quite like New York.”
He died in his at his home on the Upper West Side home on April 25, 2023 at the age of 96.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
The first new subway map in decades Hope to get some paper editions to study.
Founded in 1980, Village Preservation works to document, celebrate, and preserve the special architectural and cultural heritage of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. Learn more about them at their website villagepresevation.org
Illustrations, from above: Portrait of Harry Belafonte ca. 1950; Belefonte’s 1951 ledger showing his pay for gigs (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture); and Belafonte’s first album, “‘Mark Twain’ And Other Folk Favorites,” 1954.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Eugene de Salignac served as Photographer for the Department of Plant & Structures (originally the Department of Bridges) from 1906 to 1934. During this time, the agency took on many of the functions that would later be taken over by the Department of Transportation and the MTA. When I wrote New York Rises: Photographs by Eugene de Salignac (Aperture 2007), I included a chapter “Accidents.” In it I wrote: “An important part of de Salignac’s job seems to have been photographing accidents that occurred on or under New York bridges or that involved city-operated bus lines. These were documents made for the City’s Corporation Counsel to use in possible legal cases or to show needed repairs to damaged property. Often de Salignac arrived at the scene within minutes of the incident before passengers had even been evacuated.” What I did not cover in the book were the ways that the Plant & Structures agency tried to address the growing problem of traffic safety. This week’s “For the Record” takes another look at these photos.
BPS 8214: Williamsburg Bridge, view showing [electric] auto truck, south roadway between Bedford and Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn, June 5, 1923.
BPS 8215: Williamsburg Bridge, view showing [electric] auto truck, south roadway between Bedford and Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn, June 5, 1923.
BPS III 2022: Manhattan Bridge, view showing auto damaged by accident, February 23, 1924.
BPS 5880: Park Circle stage line accident 11:30 a.m., close view, December 6, 1919.
BPS 4974: Lenox Avenue Bridge 145th Street showing accident to auto, Bronx approach north side, July 10, 1917.
BPS 7226: Vernon Avenue Bridge view showing accident to auto truck, May 15, 1922.
BPS IV 1874: Queensboro Bridge, Queens view showing automobile accident, June 11, 1920.
BPS IV 2577: Queensboro Bridge showing accident to auto, May 22, 1933.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
OPENING DAY AT CAFE AVIVA WHAT A JOYFUL LOCATION FOR A CAPPUCINO!
CREDIT
All photographs above by Eugene de Salignac, Department of Bridges/Plant & Structures Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Sources:
In 2014, Christopher Gray (a cherished and missed friend of this agency) wrote about the history of New York’s Traffic lights in his popular New York Times “Streetscapes” column:
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
New York is a city filled with hundreds, maybe thousands of public memorials. Some are lifelike figures, some are bas-relief plaques, some take classical architectural forms.
The Henry Hudson Memorial, which for almost 90 years has towered over the British navigator and explorer’s namesake park in the hilly Bronx neighborhood of Spuyten Duyvil, combines all of these elements.
Why so many components to a monument that could have been just as meaningful as a bronze bust on a granite base or an embossed tablet in the ground?
It has to do with the Henry Hudson anniversary mania that gripped the city more than a century ago, when the monument embarked on a three-decade journey from the idea stage to its completion and official dedication in 1938.
The story of the memorial begins in 1906. That’s when New York City was in the midst of planning a spectacular two-week double celebration in 1909 to mark the 300th anniversary of Hudson’s dropping anchor in New York Harbor, as well as the 100th anniversary of the first voyage of Robert Fulton’s paddlewheel steamboat, Clermont.
This citywide party put Hudson and Fulton front and center. But it was also a message to the world highlighting New York’s might and power at the start of a new century. Among the festivities were fireworks, a naval flotilla on the river bearing Hudson’s name, parades, pageants, signal fires, and the nighttime lighting of over a million incandescent bulbs on Gotham’s best-known monuments, bridges, and buildings. A new bridge, eventually named the Henry Hudson Memorial Bridge (below postcard), which connected Inwood with Spuyten Duyvil, was proposed. Statues commemorating Hudson were also in the works, including one placed at Riverside Drive and 72nd Street.
Because Hudson docked at Spuyten Duyvil during his voyage up the river in 1609, civic leaders on the celebration committee decided that a promontory with scenic views would be an ideal setting for a truly glorious Henry Hudson monument.
“The committee broke ground at the donated memorial site in 1909, and the massive Doric column was erected in 1912,” wrote NYC Parks. Karl Bitter, a prominent Austrian-born sculptor who created the Franz Sigel equestrian statue on Riverside Drive and 106th Street, was tasked with designing a statue of Hudson that would be hoisted on top of the column.
But as all New Yorkers know, plans for public works often go awry. A lack of funds kept Bitter from finishing the sculpture; he died in 1915 after being hit by a runaway car outside the Metropolitan Opera House on Broadway.
For decades, the Hudson Memorial remained unfinished. In the 1930s, parks commissioner Robert Moses completed the Henry Hudson Memorial Bridge (with a very different design than the original proposal in the above postcard), then turned his attention to finishing the memorial.
Moses acquired the land around the promontory, which became Henry Hudson Memorial Park. “Sculptor Karl H. Gruppe, a student of Bitter, redesigned the bronze figure of Hudson and the two bas-reliefs at the base of the column, and the completed Henry Hudson Memorial was dedicated on January 6, 1938,” stated NYC Parks.
Since then, a 16-foot Henry Hudson in 17th century pantaloons has stood on top of this 109-foot Doric column. One bas-relief shows the explorer looking at a globe with his men, one of whom is gripping his sword. The second bas-relief depicts Hudson attempting to trade beads for the furs carried in the arms of a Native American.
Monuments to explorers have fallen out of favor; note that no one proposed a 400th anniversary celebration in Hudson’s honor in 2009.
But this memorial in a lovely and scenic pocket park is a commanding one, showing Henry Hudson in “magnificent isolation,” as one newspaper put it.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
New Jersey’s “Merci Train” boxcar, missing for nearly 45 years and feared to have been destroyed, is being returned to New Jersey.
In 1949 France gifted the United States 49 boxcars, the French Gratitude Train (Train de la Reconnaissance française), as a symbolic gesture of gratitude for American aid during and after World War II. The 130-year-old railroad cars, known as “40 and 8” boxcars, had been used to transport troops during the First World War and used again in the Second World War and by occupation forces after the war.
The boxcars arrived in Weehawken, New Jersey on February 2/3, 1949 filled with gifts from ordinary French and Italian citizens. More than six million people contributed, depositing dolls, statues, clothes, ornamental objects, furniture, and even a Legion of Honour medal purported to have belonged to Napoleon. Many of the gifts remain preserved in museum collections around the United States.
he Merci Train boxcars were opened and turned into traveling exhibits before each state committee distributed the entire contents.
New York’s contained, among many smaller gifts, a 500-pound bell cast in Annecy, France and labeled to the attention of Cardinal Francis Spellman. The bell was installed in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. The car was paraded down Broadway and around NYC before some 200,000 people before making a tour of the state.
New Jersey‘s boxcar had been missing since 1958, with unverified claims that it had been scrapped. It was rediscovered in a Tennessee field by the National World War I Museum and Memorial in 1993, accessioned into the museum’s collection and placed in storage in a Kansas City, Missouri warehouse.
To transport the boxcar from Kansas City to New Jersey, URHS is raising $20,000 to cover preparation, stabilization, shrink-wrapping, and transportation of the car via flatbed truck. Any additional funds will support an initial evaluation by a historic architect. You can donate or make a larger sponsorship gift here.
New York’s Forty and Eight
Cramped into narrow gauge boxcars, each stenciled with “40 Hommes/8 Chevaux,” denoting its capacity to hold either 40 men or 8 horses, “40 and 8” cars were a familiar uncomfortable mode of transportation common among the experience of every American who fought in the trenches.
Thereafter, they used “40/8” a lighthearted symbol of the unspoken horrors and shared sacrifice of combat that bound them together.
The Forty & Eight (The Society of Forty Men and Eight Horses, La Société des Quarante Hommes et Huit Chevaux) was founded in 1920 by American veterans returning from France as an “elite” arm of the American Legion.
(It became an independent and separately incorporated veteran’s organization in 1960. Membership is by invitation and open to honorably discharged veterans and honorably serving members of the United States Armed Forces.)
While most of the Merci Trains’ forty-nine 40 and 8 boxcars (there was one for each state and Washington DC/Hawaii Territory) are displayed in museums and parks across the country, five remain lost, including those representing Connecticut; Massachusetts (scrapped in the 1960s); Illinois (believed to have been abandoned and destroyed at the 1948-1949 Chicago Railroad Fair site); Nebraska (partially scrapped in 1951, the remainder converted to a shed and destroyed in 1961); and Colorado.
The Voiture loaned the boxcar to the Rail City Museum, which opened in Sandy Creek, Oswego County, NY on July 4, 1955. To promote the museum it was placed on display in Clinton Square in Syracuse in 1956 before returning to Rail City where it remained on display until that museum closed in 1974.
It then found its way to Oneida County Forty & Eight Voiture 92 at 5163 Judd Road in Whitesboro, NY and was stored outside behind a chain link fence until 2010 when it was restored, repainted and placed under a new pavilion.
Voiture 92 closed its doors in 2022 citing “lack of support” however, and the car remained on site as late as July 2024. According to mercitrain.org “the car will be moved to a location where it will be renovated. Once that is complete, the car should be moved to the Utica Union Station.”
If you have additional information about the status of New York’s Merci Boxcar please leave a comment below, or email John Warren.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Misery Loves Company As we met outside the Chapel, Scot Bobo and I commiserated about trying to maneuver on our brick sidewalks. Scot is the victim of a skiing accident in Montana. We now know personally how terrible our brick sidewalks, crosswalks and pavements are to persons using assistive devices. Time repair and replace our 50 year old pavements, RIOC!!
CREDIT
Illustrations, from above: New Jersey’s Merci Train boxcar in a warehouse in Missouri in ca. 2024 (provided by the United Railroad Historical Society of New Jersey); New York’s Merci Train Boxcar on display in Syracuse Clinton Square in 1956 (photo by Stanley A Gorman); New York’s boxcar in Whitesboro in 1997 (provided by MerciTrain.org); and the restored New York boxcar in its 2010-built shelter in Whitesboro (photo by John and Sue Stevens, provided by MerciTrain.org).
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
OOPS! Yesterday I wrote that I had my knee replaced. Wrong!!! I had my left hip replaced!! Those opiods really goof with your brain!!!
Women in the dining room of the Clara de Hirsch Home for Working Girls, undated. Photo courtesy of 92NY Archives
The tale of a woman on her own, arriving in New York City to find her fortune, began long before Mary Tyler Moore exuberantly tossed her hat into the air. The city’s history is inseparable from international women’s history, and a handful of residences that offered refuge for young ladies arriving solo is undoubtedly part of this story. With good moral intentions–and rules and regulations–they were gracious in the amenities and camaraderie offered. Introduced here are some of the historic hotels that helped generations of women gain a foothold in the big city–as well as one set to reopen this year as a modern women-only residence.
The Barbizon Hotel for Women
The most famous women-only hotel, the Barbizon Hotel for Women, would still be known as a chic networking hub for women well into the 1970s, but its early days were no less interesting. Far from utilitarian or charity-oriented, the hotel grew into a legendary establishment that attracted a generation of creative and interesting women.
Opening its doors in 1927, the Barbizon Hotel offered a safe–yet sophisticated–space for ambitious young women pursuing careers before marriage. Designed in a distinctive Late Gothic Revival style with pink-toned brick, the 23-story building housed 700 tiny dormitory-style rooms and elite amenities, including a library, solarium, swimming pool, and Turkish bath.
Nicknamed “The Dollhouse,” the Barbizon attracted a mix of creatives, models, and aspiring professionals, counting among its residents literary icons Sylvia Plath and Joan Didion, Hollywood legends Grace Kelly and Liza Minnelli–and a young Nancy Reagan. The hotel was also home to students from the Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School and models from the Powers Agency, earning it a reputation as a launch pad of sorts for ambitious women. Admission was strict: Women were categorized by age and appearance, and diversity was nonexistent until 1956.
For decades, men were barred from the upper floors, though any given evening would find several loitering longingly in the lobby. As social mores loosened by the decade, the Barbizon struggled to maintain its allure, and by the 1970s, the rise of women’s independence made its rules seem outdated. In 1981, the hotel finally opened to male guests, leading to its eventual transformation into luxury condominiums.
Introduced in Paulina Bren’s social history, “The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free,” the Barbizon’s legacy endures in the remarkable form of a handful of original residents. Known as “The Women,” a few residents fought for the right to remain in their rooms, protected by rent control. According to Untapped, as of 2021, five of these women were residing in the building, paying rents that are a fraction of today’s multimillion-dollar condo prices. Their presence is a living testament to an era when the Barbizon symbolized female ambition, worldliness, independence, and change in 20th-century America
Park Avenue Hotel, New York, New York. Between 1900 and 1906. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress
The Stewart Hotel
Among the earliest women’s hotels vying for “first” status, the Stewart Hotel was founded by Alexander Turney Stewart, a wealthy Irish merchant who immigrated to New York City in 1823. Intended as a “working women’s hotel” that would provide a respectable, affordable, and safe refuge for the recent wave of Revolutionary War widows who were flocking to the city in search of a living wage. With profit rather than charity as a motivating factor, Stewart saw vast opportunity in this unusual-for-the-time enterprise.
Stewart commissioned an architect to design a hotel that would occupy an entire block from 32nd Street to 33rd Street along Fourth Avenue, with room for 1,500 women, with common areas for dining and gathering. As Daytonian tells it, when the hotel finally opened its doors in 1877, the New York Times called it “the best constructed, the most elaborately furnished, the best appointed, and with the most perfect culinary department of any hotel in the world. Besides all this the Women’s Hotel is, by almost 200 rooms the largest in the Metropolis, and it is intended to furnish women who earn their livelihood the best possible living for the least possible money.”
For $6 a week, guests got a shared room (a private room could be had for an additional dollar). No food was allowed in the rooms; visitors were not allowed anywhere but the hotel’s reception room; pets were not allowed at all; closing time was 11:30 P.M. sharp; and applicants to the hotel were required to supply written proof that they were employed and over 12 years of age.
Despite these efforts, the hotel’s doors closed fifty-four days after its launch, citing an inability to cover operating costs. The regular Park Avenue Hotel opened subsequently at the same address. In 1925, the building was leveled to build a 35-story office tower
The Martha Washington
By the 1890s, the city was becoming a magnet for women in search of a veritable bonanza of new jobs, seeking careers as stenographers, clerks, secretaries, and teachers. The rather anonymously titled Women’s Hotel opened in 1903 at 30 East 30th Street, according to Untapped, to provide housing, both temporary and permanent, for professional women in its 416 rooms; male guests were not allowed above the ground floor, and almost all staff were female.
Unlike the Stewart, the hotel was a success from the start, with a long waiting list; subsequently renamed the Martha Washington Hotel, it offered rooms starting at $3 a week. The hotel offered a pharmacy, tailor services, and a manicurist and welcomed a new wave of college-educated women headed for professional careers. It was also the headquarters of a feminist organization called the Interurban Women Suffrage Council.
Suffragists from Oregon visiting New York City before meeting in Washington, D.C. with President Wilson. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress
The Martha Washington Hotel was a novelty–a tourist attraction, even–in that it offered women a level of freedom that was missing from previous women-only establishments, making even more waves when it applied for a liquor license in 1933. Famous guests included poet Sara Teasdale and actresses Louise Brooks and Veronica Lake.
The hotel lasted well past the turn of the 21st century. Its last incarnation was as the women-run Redbury Hotel, which closed in 2023 to become a migrant shelter.
At the end of the century, Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt Shepard (daughter of William Vanderbilt), a major supporter of the YWCA, funded a new building that was to be known as the Margaret Louisa Home for Protestant Women. The six-story building boasted 78 bedrooms, a restaurant, and common areas for socializing and relaxing. As Daytonian tells us, at its opening in June of 1891, the New York Times called it “an inspiring evidence of woman’s interest in women.”
Rooms would be 60 cents; an extra 85 cents covered three meals. Boarders would be limited to a four-week stay. Like the Martha Washington, the new residence was a hit from the moment it opened its doors, welcoming thousands of women in its first year. Their ranks included (daytonian; In 1898 the Times gave a breakdown) teachers, milliners, dressmakers, housekeepers, stenographers, physicians, librarians, lecturers, missionaries, actresses, nurses, photographers, umbrella makers, confectioners, hair curlers, florists, merchants, and “travelers.” At the close of World War I, the Margaret Louisa Home was still charging only 60 cents per night; it remained open through the first half of the 20th century.
The Parkside Evangeline
The Parkside Evangeline Hotel at 18 Gramercy Park–now a luxury condominium–began as a hotel for women in 1927. It continued as a women’s temporary residence owned by the Salvation Army from 1963 to 2008.
An illustration in “The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living” (1909) Caption: “Dining-room in Trowmart Inn, New York City, Said to Be the Best Managed Hotel for Self-supporting Women in America.” Via Wikimedia
Trowmart Inn
Trowmart Inn for Working Girls at 607 Hudson Street was opened in 1906, mainly to provide a home for nurses during World War I. The building was purchased by the YWCA, and a substantial donation to the YWCA from John D. Rockefeller Jr. helped establish a subsequent women’s residence called Laura Spelman Hall; the building later became a nursing home, which was replaced by, of course, condos.
According to The New York Historical, the Trowmart offered “shop, millinery, and factory girls” minimal rooms, plus breakfast and dinner starting at $4.50 a week. Amenities included a dining room and a cafeteria, “beau parlors” for entertaining gentlemen friends, a music parlor, a library, an on-site doctor’s office, a sewing room, and laundry facilities.
The Jeanne D’Arc Home
Founded in 1896, the Jeanne D’Arc Home on West 26th Street began as a refuge for “friendless French girls” separated from their families, according to Ephemeral New York; it remains a safe haven for women, run by the Congregation of Divine Providence, open to women of all faiths and cultures, with a focus on international visitors who have come for study or work.
The Clara de Hirsch Home
The Clara de Hirsch Home for Working Girls was a non-sectarian teenage girls’ home located at 225 East 63rd Street. Founded in 1897, it was supported by an endowment by Belgian businesswoman and philanthropist Clara de Hirsch. In 1960, the building was sold, and the organization that maintained it merged with the 92nd Street Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA).
The Webster Apartments
One (and perhaps the only of its kind) residence offering women-only living is poised to make a 21st-century comeback. The Webster Apartments will be officially opening in May of 2025 at 229 Duffield Street in a rapidly developing section of Downtown Brooklyn. Operating as a nonprofit organization, the residence will provide “women who are working, studying, and interning, with a safe and healthy environment to live, connect, and network with like-minded individuals.”
Residents won’t find 1923 prices, of course–and applicants must meet income criteria. There will be a minimum stay of 31 days. Amenities will include a fitness center, a community room, a rooftop lounge, and free laundry.
According to The Paris Review, the original Webster Apartments were established in 1923 by brothers Charles and Josiah Webster, senior partners at a nearby Macy’s store, to provide a safe residence for unmarried shopgirls, many of whom were recently arrived from small towns across America.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
HAPPINESS IS SEEING THE GRASS TURN GREEN IN QUEENSBRIDGE PARK
I ventured out today to experience walking on the island Z-brick pavers with a walker. What a grinding experience!!! Not pleasant.
Judy Berdy
CREDITS
6SQFT
MICHELLE COHEN
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The New York City subway recently celebrated its 120th birthday. With such an impressive life span, it’s realistic to expect that many features of the original stations have been altered, removed, destroyed, or otherwise lost to the ages.
But occasionally you come across a subway station that has been strangely left alone or only slightly renovated over the decades. Case in point is this head house for the Bowling Green 4 and 5 train station at Battery Park.
What’s a head house? Also called a control house, it’s the official term for a subway entrance that’s more of a structure than simply a kiosk with a staircase. Many early subway stations in New York had beautiful decorative kiosks, though sadly none survive today. (That one at Astor Place is a recreation).
New York City’s original head houses were designed to be ornate and decorative; the idea was that taking the subway should be an experience enhanced by artistic beauty wherever possible.
Built in 1905, the Bowling Green head house is the work of the architectural firm of Heins & LaFarge, states the Landmarks Preservation Commission. This storied firm was hired to design all of the IRT stations that opened in the early 1900s.
If you’ve ever seen interior images of the long-closed City Hall station, then you’ve seen the beauty that Heins & LaFarge created for New Yorkers.
A lovely little building of yellow brick, limestone, and granite, this head house with its gables and “bulls-eye” designs on each end remind me of the Flemish-style architecture of the city’s earliest colonial settlers. I imagine Heins & LaFarge designed it this way to pay homage to Gotham’s beginnings.
A few other head houses from the original IRT stations survive as well. One is the head house at West 72nd Street, which dates to 1904, according to another Landmarks Preservation Commission designation report.
The West 72nd Street head house (third photo) looks similar to Bowling Green; it’s described as “Flemish Renaissance style” and was also designed by Heins & LaFarge, per the report.
A third head house sits on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, or at least I remember one there last time I visited. Please don’t tell me it’s been demolished!
PHOTO OF THE DAY
COLER A BUILDING VIEW FIRST FLOOR
For the last 3 weeks I have been off line, first having knee replacement surgery at NYU Orthopedic Hospital and then recovering at Coler. It has been a unique experience. Having known Coler as a Community Board member and Auxiliary member I had never been a patient. The care and attention by nursing, physical therapy and staff was great. As you can see the view from my room was rather dreary.
I will say more about Coler in days to come. I am home, walker and all. ready to start PT and enjoy spring on the island.
Thanks to everyone called, visited and made my days go faster.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
