OUR HEARTS GO OUR TO OUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS IN ISRAEL
FROM THE ARCHIVES
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2023
NEW SEWER ALLIGATOR
ART IN
UNION SQUARE
IS INSPIRED BY NYC MYTH
ISSUE# 1108
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
In 2015, Untapped New York writer Thomas Hynes asked a pressing question to a representative of the NYC Department of Environmental Protection. “Are there now or have there ever been alligators in the New York City sewer system?”
Legend has it that in the early 20th century, wealthy New Yorkers would vacation to warm states like Louisiana and Florida, bringing back with them baby alligators as souvenirs. Once these gators got bigger and their owners realized New York was not the appropriate home for them, they would be flushed down the toilet to live and reproduce in our city sewer system. Despite the response that came back from the Department denying any existence of sewer alligators, New Yorkers have remained fascinated with this mythical concept
Photo by Jane Kratochvil
The myth comes back to life with a new statue unveiled on Tuesday, October 17th; a life-sized bronze alligator perched on the back of a manhole lid. This piece of alligator art, titled NYC Legend, was crafted by Swedish artist Alexander Klingspor, famous for his gorgeous bronze work. A smaller version of the gator was displayed at the 2022 London Art Fair, only now having the full-sized piece unveiled in exactly the city where it belongs.
In Klingspor’s description of the sculpture, he says that it’s inspired by two themes he noticed in our world. The first is the fact that our civilization still very much needs gods and mythical creatures as did the humans that came before us. Our natural desire for the supernatural is simply not as visible as it once was, but it surely still exists in the backdrop (or sewers) of our daily lives. The second theme aims at exposing our modern habit of taking animals out of their natural environment and putting them where we see fit, creating an endless cycle of invasive species.
Photo by Jane Kratochvil
Alligators themselves have made themselves an integral part of mythology spanning thousands of years, symbolizing survival and the ability to regrow and adapt. New Yorkers have consistently proven they have the thick skin of a gator- through a pandemic, economic downfall, a terrorist attack, and beyond. Klingspor’s statue is a personification of this resilient New York spirit.
Alligator art sculpture in Union Square
At the Thompson Central Park New York, a short distance uptown from Union Square, there is a highly-anticipated public art exhibition featuring more of Klingspor’s work where visitors can also get a behind-the-scenes into the artist’s creative process of bringing NYC Legend to life. This exhibition will be on display within the hotel’s newly unveiled ground floor atrium through November. The alligator sculpture, NYC Legends, will be on display in Union Square’s Triangle Park through June 2024.
OUR JULIA GASH TAPESTRY THROWS HAVE ARRIVED.
100 % COTTON 48″ x 60″ MADE IN USA $75- CHARGE CARDS ACCEPTED ORDER YOURS TODAY OR AVAILABLE AT RIHS KIOSK. ORDER FROM US BY CHARGE CARD AND WE WILL SHIP TO YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY ($22- SHIPPING AND HANDLING)
MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK THE DESCRIPTION SAYS:BELLOWS, UNKOWN MAKER, C.1820 WOOD,LATHER, BRASS AND PAINT GIFT OF MYRS.LYMAN RHOADES, 1953 (5394)
“ThIS ORNATE PAIR OF BELLOWS WAS CREATED BY AN UNIDENTIFIED INMATE ON WELFARE ISLAND AS TODAY’S ROOSEVELT ISLAND WAS SOMETIMES KNOWN BECAUSE OF NUMEROUS PRISONS , ASYLUMS AND ALMSHOUSES LOCATED THERE. THE INMATE CREATED A SET OF BELLOWS, FOR REASONS THAT ARE UNKNOWN, FOR WIVES OF TEN OF THE MOST PROMINENT NEW YORKS OF THE DAY.
Credits
UNTAPPED NEW YORK JUDITH BERDY
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
At the turn of the last century the neighborhood north of 34th Street and west of Fifth Avenue was a mish-mash of old brick-faced houses and small commercial buildings four or five stories tall. The millinery and apparel districts had already begun inching northward; but it would be several years before the neighborhood would earn the title of The Garment District. Instead, now, it was the theaters and entertainment houses around Herald Square that drew the most attention.
But on December 12, 1901 the Pennsylvania Railroad made an announcement that would change the area forever. The company planned to spent $150 million to join New Jersey and Manhattan with an under-river railroad tunnel terminating in a monumental station facing engulfing Seventh to Eighth Avenues from 31st Street to 33rd Streets—the Pennsylvania Station.
Developers were quick to recognize the potential in the surrounding blocks—soon to be swarming with businessmen and tourists coming and going from the station. Within the year ground was broken for R. H. Macy’s enormous department store facing 34th Street, far above the established shopping district, and brothers James and David Todd laid plans for upscale hotels.
At the time of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s announcement the Doherty brothers, John and William, lived in the house at No. 488 Seventh Avenue. William was an architect and John earned a living as a mason. The Dohertys would soon be moving out.
James and David Todd engaged architect Harry B.Mulliken to design the Aberdeen Hotel at No. 17 West 32nd Street. Ground was broken in 1902, the same year that Mulliken teamed with Edgar J. Moeller to form the partnership of Mulliken & Moeller. Perhaps that firm’s firm commission was also for the Todds—another hotel nearby on the side of the Doherty house and its neighbors at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 36th Street—the Hotel York.
Completed in 1903 the Hotel York was a standout. A two story base of rusticated limestone was topped by a third floor of planar stone. Above this nine stories of red brick and limestone erupted skyward in a profusion of turn-of-the-century architectural ostentation. A residential wedding cake, the Beaux Arts façade was frosted with carved urns, garlands, cartouches, and grotesques. Balconies of carved stone or cast iron broke the flat planes
The facade boiled over with carved ornamentation. photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com
The Hotel York opened as both a transient and residential hotel. The lavish public spaces mimicked the exterior with gushing molded plaster festoons and scrollwork, marble columns and expensive carpeting and draperies. Guests and residents enjoyed amenities like the in-house barber shop. The hotel’s proximity to the theater district made it an immediate favorite with the acting profession
The elaborate public rooms were often the scene of formal functions — photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
Among the first of these was well-known actor E. M. Holland. In February 1904 the 56-year old was much annoyed with hotel security. He lived in room 455 on the 10th floor on and February 7 went to bed with his door open. According to The Sun the following day, “When he woke up his overcoat, a derby hat and $17 in money were gone.”
Holland dressed for his part as Eben Holden in 1901 — copyright expired
The newspaper noted that “Holland was pretty sore over his loss.” His professional pride was perhaps bruised since, at the time, he was playing the great detective Bedford in the play Raffles.
Also living in the hotel at the time were, according to The Sun, “Mrs. Nellie Stevens, an actress out of a job, and her friend, a Miss Goodrich, an actress in better luck.” In November that year the two women met at the Liberty Theatre to see a play. Nellie Stevens was running late and tossed her rings into a handkerchief, hoping to save time by putting them on in the hansom cab.
No sooner had she settled into her seat in the theater than she noticed one of her rings—a diamond valued at $400 (about $10,000 today) was missing. She rushed back to the York Hotel and notified the house detective Andrew Hanley. He traced the cab back to Sullivan’s Stables on West 35th Street; only to find out that in the day or two it took him to track it down the cabbie, James Lawrence, had been laid off.
When Lawrence arrived back at the stables on November 14 to pick up his pay the detective was notified. He and Mrs. Stevens rushed the one-block distance to confront him. Lawrence admitted to finding the ring, stuck his hand in his pocket and announced “And here it is.”
“Mrs. Stevens, with a little shriek of joy and gratitude, seized the ring. She looked at it. Then she shrieked again.,” said The Sun.
It wasn’t her ring. “This is a phony diamond. The ring is a ringer, and a poor ringer at that,” she exclaimed. She pressed charges of grand larceny against cabbie with grand larceny. But she was out a diamond ring, nevertheless.
Another actress to cross the threshold of the Hotel York was the young and beautiful Evelyn Nesbit. She had been married to millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw in 1904; however she carried on a dalliance with architect Stanford White. The affair would end with the renowned architect dead on the floor of his magnificent Madison Square Garden on June 25, 1906, the victim of an enraged husband.
During the murder trial, White’s chauffeur testified to driving Evelyn here and there on certain occasions, including one night in September 1905 when he dropped her off at the Hotel York.
A long, permanent marquee sheltered arriving guests from the elements — photo by Irving Underhill, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
On October 26, 1907 the new Italian conductor of the Metropolitan Opera House arrived from Europe and moved into his apartments in the hotel. The famed conductor would be in friendly surroundings—the Hotel York was a favorite home for many of the opera house’s singers and workers.
Not all the residents, of course, were in the theater. Mining engineer Thomas R. Marshall lived here in 1907, and earlier that year the hotel had been forced into the awkward situation of evicting a Duke.
In 1904, a day or two following his brother James B. Duke’s wedding, tobacco millionaire Brodie Duke went on a binge of drinking and partying. The spree lasted for several days and along for the ride much of the time was Alice Webb, whose reputation was not altogether without stain. On December 19, 1904 the pair was married in the Madison Square Presbyterian Church—although Brodie later denied remembering any of it.
Duke won a divorce decree on March 27, 1906 and a year later Alice was living in the York Hotel. But on May 2, 1907 the hotel was forced to evict the 38-year old for failing to pay her board. On Saturday night, two days later, around 9:30 she showed up at the hotel drunk “and was unable to take care of herself,” according to the New-York Tribune. “She rejected an offer of the clerk who wished to show her to a room, to protect her, and she left the hotel.”
While the Duke name was normally engraved on invitations to the balls and dinners at the highest levels of Manhattan society; that night it would be written in the ledger of the West 38th Street police station. Alice Duke was arrested around midnight incapacitated with drink. “The woman was well dressed. She wore a big straw hat and big pearl earrings,” said the Tribune. She had with her “numerous bonds and several thousand dollars of stock of the American Tobacco Company.”
The following year on December 1 the Todds sold the Hotel York to Columbia University professor William M. Sloane for $825,000—a substantial $20 million in today’s dollars. Seven days later Sloane resold the property to the Stanworth Company of which Sloane was a director.
The English actress Maud Odell, known in the theatrical world as “The $10,000 English beauty,” was staying in the York while playing at the American Theatre in November 1909. She was terrified when she received a letter threatening to disfigure her face with acid.
“If you do not pay Mr. Mudd $100 on Wednesday following your matinee performance do not be surprised to be shot during your next performance or to have your face marred by acid. A man will come up to you and say, ‘Have you a package for Mr. Mudd?’ Then you are to turn over to him a package containing 100 iron men. Do not notify the cops; they will not do you any good. You will see this insignia in your sleep.”
The unsigned letter bore a sketch of three daggers forming a triangle above a larger dagger.
Police were notified by the theater’s agent and a few days later the actress received a second envelope. In it was a card with the words “La Signa Monte Secunda” and the triangle of daggers—this time with a numeral 3 in the center.
Understandably, the Edwardian actress became hysterical. Two detectives were assigned to escort her back and forth between the York Hotel and the theater in a taxi.
After the completion of Pennsylvania Station in 1910, the Hotel York was quick to market its location, a “two minute walk.” The hotel still soared above the neighboring buildings.
The Italian opera singers sometimes upset the harmony of the upscale residence hotel and it all came to a head in April 1911 when singers Didur, Gilly, Pini-Corsi, and Rossi; the chorus master Romel; and the Italian conductor Signor Podesti were told to leave. Both Podesti and Didur lived in suites with their wives; the others were single. Trouble came when the conductor’s wife tried to scrimp by cooking Italian dishes in their rooms.
“The Italian singers, being of a thrifty disposition, did not eat at the hotel, but preferred the restaurants run by their own countrymen, where they could get macaroni and spaghetti flavored with the grated cheese and washed down with flasks of red chianti,” explained The New York Times.
That was all well and good until Signora Podesi bought a chafing dish and, according to the newspaper, “prepared with a spoonful of butter, a grating of full-flavored cheese, an onion, grated bread crumbs and a strong suspicion of garlic, suppers for herself and spouse. The odor of this dish spread along the corridor, it is said, to the rooms occupied by a learned professor from Chicago. He protested that the perfume of the onion disturbed him.”
Hotel management informed the conductor that cooking in the rooms was forbidden. Repeatedly. Each time Signor Podesti would bow and apologize and his wife would go on cooking. It ended with everyone associated with the Metropolitan Opera Company receiving letters of eviction.
Podesti and his wife, carrying her Pekingese toy dog Winki under her arm, stormed into the office of the Met’s press agent. The agent was already in stress because Caruso could not sing that night. Mrs. Podesti lamented that they would sleep on the street and her husband waved the eviction notice in the air.
While “the Italians held an indignation meeting around him,” the agent phoned Jay G. Wilbraham, resident manager of the York Hotel. The agent heard of garlic and onion odors and complaining guests; Wilbraham heard of the long-term happy relationship the Met had with the York. In the end the troupe was allowed to stay “if Signora Podesti stopped cooking in her room.” The tempest in the pasta pot was allayed.
Perhaps the hotel’s most poignant story played out in 1922 when the former stage star Rose Coghlan checked in to the Hotel York for the last time. One of the best known actresses in America for over 50 years, she reminisced about her glory days in the 1880s and ‘90s on April 7, 1922 “Lord! How fine I used to think myself with my little old one-horse barouche and my $25-a-month coachman here in gay New York. I really felt quite grand as I drove through Central Park and returned the bows of the society elite. I used to board the horse in a livery stable. His name was Pete. I wonder what’s become of the poor chap.”
Now, at 70 years of age, she was penniless. Theater folk heard of her plight and sent checks—David Belsaco’s was for $100. Telling a reporter that she was suffering “a temporary embarrassment,” she sat in the bed and laughed “The ‘financial whirl’ got me. It gets the best of us, especially we women of the stage.”
The New-York Tribune described her rooms in the York as “sunny quarters on an upper floor.” The newspaper said “The veteran actress, suffering from a nervous breakdown, wept as she extolled the generosity of her friends in helping her get these new and comfortable quarters.”
After recollecting her days of stardom she cautioned “Don’t imagine I’m repining, though. I’m not. My friends are dear, the kindest and best of friends. My daughter is the dearest and most capable of daughters. Without her I’d have been poor indeed. Now I’m rich.” She wiped a tear from her eye and continued, “I’m rich because the sort of folk I always wished to have love me still do. That, I assert, is fortune enough.”
Rose Coghlan and her husband, Charles, perform in the 1894 play Lady Barter. Photograph by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
Rose’s daughter was there to take the aged actress to her home on Long Island. Her mother told the reporter “You mustn’t think I’m living in the past, though. I’m going back to the stage. In a few months with the sunlight and the lovely outdoors I’ll be myself again. It isn’t in me to be an invalid…In three months from now I’ll be kicking up my heels like a schoolgirl—just like a schoolgirl—just..” And in the middle of her sentence the elderly woman who had brought audiences to their feet for decades had fallen asleep.
In 1925 the hotel was renovated to accommodate stores at street level. Throughout the next few decades fewer and fewer of the theatrical crowd would live here as newer hotels opened closer to Times Square—now the undisputed center of the theater area.
With the entertainment district gone, the Garment District took over. By the 1960s the York Hotel was occupied mostly by traveling salesmen. Only two floors of the hotel were now rented for guests; the rest having been taken over by garment salesmen as would-be showrooms, especially during market weeks. The salesmen and buyers who managed to get one of the rooms for sleeping would pay $15.65 for a single with bath.
In March 1968 a young designer took room 613 in order to market his first collection—a total of nine designs. It was Calvin Klein’s foot in the door of the Seventh Avenue fashion industry.
A modern glass marquee stretches the near-length of the first floor. photo by Nicolas Lemery Nantel / salokin.com
In 1986 Martin Swartzman & Partners purchased the 12-story building and commissioned architect Costas Kondylis to converted it to mixed commercial and residential space. Completed in 1986 the former hotel opened with 108 rental apartments.
Although the street level has been brutalized with unsympathetic storefronts and an out-of-place green glass marquee; the grand 1903 former hotel—once home to actresses and divas—still drips with Edwardian decoration.
100 % COTTON 48″ x 60″ MADE IN USA $75- CHARGE CARDS ACCEPTED ORDER YOURS TODAY OR AVAILABLE AT RIHS KIOSK. ORDER FROM US BY CHARGE CARD AND WE WILL SHIP TO YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY ($22- SHIPPING AND HANDLING)
OUR HEARTS GO OUR TO OUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS IN ISRAEL
EDITORIAL
After listening to our neighbors discuss the tram crowding tonight, here are my thoughts: Line monitors are a great idea. We use it at elections where they keep order in the line and let seniors/disabled go ahead. Someone in a bright vest can be an obvious choice. It can be a diplomatic, pleasant, patient person who can gently keep order.
Poma staff are better at customer service and putting up signs is only part of their job. Give them funding to have more staff on hand to deal with the turnstiles. It is exhausting to spend a shift dealing with unruly crowds. Let’s keep order on-line, before the turnstiles, and a limit on 100 persons on the platform.
PSD can be at the base of the staircase to prevent staircase lines.
The tram is being denied staffing, security and customer service. RIOC should let the tram staff manage the platform and fund extra staffing.
We need large obvious signs that seats are for senior disabled only. Signs above seats on cabins and above bench on Manhattan platform.
We love our visitors most of whom tell us how great the island is. Take a look at any of the attractions below and we know that there is organization at these attractions.
Remember, many of them stand on long organized lines for the following.
FOR COMPARISON, PRICES FOR A VIEW: ONE VANDERBILT $42 EMPIRE STATE 44 EDGE 36 TOP OF THE ROCK 34
AND WE ONLY CHARGE $2.90!!!!!
Let’s get our act together and get a calm organized tram ride.
In 1929, Sea View Hospital was in crisis. The now-partially abandoned Staten Island medical facility was experiencing a mass exodus of white nurses while simultaneously handling an overwhelming amount of tuberculosis patients. To remedy the situation, New York City officials began recruiting Black female nurses from the South, offering freedom from the oppression of Jim Crow and the benefits of good pay, education, housing, and employment. The stories of these trailblazing nurses have gone largely untold for nearly a century, but now, author Maria Smilios sheds light on their achievements in her new book TheBlack Angels: The Untold Story ofthe Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis.\
In the early half of the 20th century, tuberculosis killed over 5.6 million Americans. The disease was especially devasting to cities like New York where it ran rampant through crowded tenement houses and spread rapidly among poor communities. Those suffering from the disease were sent to various healthcare facilities around the edge of the city in hopes of containing the spread and giving patients clean, fresh air.Tuberculosis patients filled the rooms of healthcare facilities such as the now-abandoned Neponsit Beach Hospital in the Rockaways and Sea Breeze Hospital in Coney Island as well as a tuberculosis pavilion on North Brother Island. Some were even quarantined on ferry barges converted into floating wards run by Bellevue Hospital. One of the most famous tuberculosis sanitoriums, and the largest at one point, was Sea View Hospital in Staten Island.
Sea View Hospital in an abandoned state
Sea View Hospital opened in 1913 and was comprised of thirty-seven buildings. The sprawling complex sat at the second highest point on Staten Island, once the site of a grand hilltop estate called “Ocean View.” By the 1920s, when the 2,000-bed hospital was running out of nurses, it was called a “pest house” and a place where “no one left alive.” The Black Angels changed that.
Over the course of twenty years, women like Edna Sutton, Missouria Louvinia Meadows-Walker, Clemmie Philips, Janie Shirley, and Virginia Allen, bravely marched to the front lines of the epidemic and cared for patients who others turned their backs on. Not only did these women work grueling hours day in and day out and put themselves at risk to care for New York’s sick, but they did so while also fighting racism and discrimination.
Photo Courtesy of NYCHHC Sea View Archives
At the time, most of New York City’s more than two dozen municipal hospitals discriminated against Black nurses in some way, whether that meant they simply were not allowed to be hired or there were quotas that limited the number of Black nurses who could be employed. While the medical breakthroughs of white, male doctors and researchers at Sea View who found a cure for tuberculosis have long been celebrated worldwide, the contributions of the Black nurses – who were among the first to administer the groundbreaking drug, isoniazid – have largely been kept alive in the memories of their families, friends, and local communities.
Photo Courtesy of James Williams
Using first-hand interviews and never-before-accessed archives, Smilios brings the stories of the Black Angels to centerstage, highlighting how their efforts helped to desegregate the New York City hospital system, stop discriminatory practices in medical education and medical research, and ultimately save countless lives. Learn more about The Black Angelsfrom the author in our upcoming virtual talk, and get your own copy of The Black Angels, out now!
Sea View Hospital: Panoramic View. Wards, gardens, curved paths leading to 1-story building, and covered corridors.
OUR JULIA GASH TAPESTRY THROWS HAVE ARRIVED.
100 % COTTON 48″ x 60″ MADE IN USA $75- CHARGE CARDS ACCEPTED ORDER YOURS TODAY OR AVAILABLE AT RIHS KIOSK. ORDER FROM US BY CHARGE CARD AND WE WILL SHIP TO YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY ($22- SHIPPING AND HANDLING)
OUR HEARTS GO OUR TO OUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS IN ISRAEL
EDITORIAL
After listening to our neighbors discuss the tram crowding tonight, here are my thoughts: Line monitors are a great idea. We use it at elections where they keep order in the line and let seniors/disabled go ahead. Someone in a bright vest can be an obvious choice. It can be a diplomatic, pleasant, patient person who can gently keep order.
Poma staff are better at customer service and putting up signs is only part of their job. Give them funding to have more staff on hand to deal with the turnstiles. It is exhausting to spend a shift dealing with unruly crowds. Let’s keep order on-line, before the turnstiles, and a limit on 100 persons on the platform.
PSD can be at the base of the staircase to prevent staircase lines.
The tram is being denied staffing, security and customer service. RIOC should let the tram staff manage the platform and fund extra staffing.
We need large obvious signs that seats are for senior disabled only. Signs above seats on cabins and above bench on Manhattan platform.
We love our visitors most of whom tell us how great the island is. Take a look at any of the attractions below and we know that there is organization at these attractions.
Remember, many of them stand on long organized lines for the following.
FOR COMPARISON, PRICES FOR A VIEW: ONE VANDERBILT $42 EMPIRE STATE 44 EDGE 36 TOP OF THE ROCK 34
AND WE ONLY CHARGE $2.90!!!!!
Let’s get our act together and get a calm organized tram ride.
Judith Berdy
FROM THE ARCHIVES
FRIDAY , OCTOBER 20, 2023
Restoration of Richard Haas’
trompe-l’oeil mural in Soho begins
CITY Arts
ISSUE# 1105
The original mural in 1974
112 Prince Street mural in 1974 (left) and during the current restoration project (right). Photos: CITYarts
About
For the first time in over four decades, artist Richard Haas’s landmark 112 Prince Street mural will be restored. Under Haas’s leadership and creative direction, muralist Robin Alcantara will work with a team of painters to restore the mural at the recommendation of Tsipi Ben-Haim, the Founder, Executive and Creative Director of 34-year-old public art and education nonprofit, CITYarts, Inc., which has been the project’s fiscal sponsor since 2015. Created in 1974 under the aegis of public art pioneer Doris Freedman, the 75-foot wide, five-story-high trompe l’oeil mural on the corner of Prince and Greene streets was Haas’s very first outdoor mural. Now largely decayed and covered in graffiti, the original mural was painted to resemble the cast-iron facades typical of 19th-century buildings distinguishing the historic district of SoHo and included the depiction of a cat in one of the windows that belonged to a longtime owner. It was, as Haas describes, “a catalyst that led to the creation of over 100 interior and exterior murals throughout the world.” In a 1989 New York Times review of his public art, architecture critic Paul Goldberger called Mr. Haas “the great architectural muralist of our time.”
Approximately eight years ago, after an article written by David Dunlap appeared in the New York Times describing how the Richard Haas mural in SoHo had faded almost beyond recognition, the artist received a call from David Walentas of Two Trees, the developer and creator of the Dumbo residential district, offering a substantial gift to kick start the fundraising campaign to restore the mural. Encouraged by Mr. Walentas’ donation, the artist and his wife, Katherine Sokolnikoff, selected CITYarts, Inc. to assume the role of fiscal sponsor for the project, and together with assistance from Kenisha Thomas, Alina Slonim, and Pauline Rumore, they were able to secure enough funding from additional philanthropies, like the Bloomberg Foundation, the Silverweed Foundation, and Agnes Gund, as well as 75 private donations to restore the mural. The successful campaign can be largely attributed to the late Doris Freedman, who founded and ran the public art nonprofit CityWalls and was deeply involved in the public art scene in New York City in the early 1970s as the main supporter and dynamo behind the most important early murals and public art projects in NYC—including Haas’s work. In Freedman’s honor, the Bloomberg Philanthropies made a generous grant and proposed that the repainting of the mural be done in Doris’s honor, and the consensus among several other major donors was that this was an excellent idea. The artist was pleased with this plan as well as he has a deep respect and affection for Ms. Freedman as she truly put him on his life’s journey in the public art field through her original support of the 112 Prince Street project.
After the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the project and stalled its progress, the two new owners of the 112 Prince Street Co-op became interested in seeing the mural restored and joined with Haas in efforts to move the project ahead. The new Co-op President had one request for Haas: to add her dog, rescued from Aleppo, Syria, as one of the pets painted into the windows of the mural. Mr. Haas was pleased to oblige.
Finally, in May of this year, Landmarks gave their approval for the mural restoration, prompting Tsipi Ben-Haim to continue her advocacy by garnering the support of local businesses and fellow SoHo residents. Acting as the public art advisor and community liaison of the project, Ms. Ben-Haim also successfully recruited the support of Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and SoHo Councilman Christopher Marte. After years of planning and anticipation, the SoHo community is thrilled to have Haas’s historic mural brought back to life.
The repainting of the wall will begin in late September 2023 and is set to take approximately three to four weeks—weather permitting.
About the Artists
Richard Haas is best known for his large-scale architectural murals with his signature trompe-l’oeil style that are exemplified in more than 100 public art projects across New York, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, and Munich, Germany that began with SoHo’s 112 Prince Street mural in 1974. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and his numerous awards include the Medal of Honor from the American Institute of Architects. The Prince Street Mural project has also received a grant from the National Academy of Design’s Abbey Mural Fund. Haas’s works have been featured in exhibitions at major museums and galleries and his work is represented in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Smithsonian Museum among others. http://www.richardhaas.com/
Robin Alcantara founded Blazay LLC in 2020. Alcantara is a 30-year-old artist and muralist from Yonkers, NY. After earning his degree from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Alcantara honed in on his craft of hand-painting large-scale murals nationally while working at the award-winning Colossal Media. From 2015-2020, Alcantara served as an expert painter for Colossal working on campaigns for international brands including Adidas, Doyle Dane Bernbach, HBO, and Gucci. Since 2020 Alcantara has focused on crowd-funded projects highlighting current events, local heroes and legends, and other private commissions. He also works with CITYarts and NYpublic schools leading workshops and creating murals with community youth.
OTHER MURALS
Homage to the Chicago School 1211 North LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL. (1980)
Keim silicate paint, 1800 square feet
Executed by Evergreene Painting Studios, New York
The mural, which is painted on three sides of an eighteen-floor apartment house, follows the color and lines of the finished front facade and reflects Louis Sullivan’s decorative style.
Fountainebleau Hotel Miami Beach, FL (1985-86 destroyed)
Keim silicate paint on brick, 19,200 square feet
Commissioned by the Muss Corporation
Executed by American Illusion, New York
The large Art Deco “Arc de Triomphe” offers a view onto the original Fountainebleau Hilton Hotel, designed by Morris Lapidus, and is “lit” by two sixty-five feet high grand lamps in the form of caryatids.
110 Livingston Street Brooklyn, NY. (2007)
This very large project on the former Board of Education building in downtown Brooklyn was completed in the Spring of 2007.
Blackwood Rosen Apartment, Alwyn Court New York, NY. (1977)
10′ x 12′
Nashville Public Library Nashville, TN. (2000-01)
Executed by Jason Gaillard and Chris Semergieff for Robert A. M. Stern Architects
OUR JULIA GASH TAPESTRY THROWS HAVE ARRIVED.
100 % COTTON 48″ x 60″ MADE IN USA $75- CHARGE CARDS ACCEPTED ORDER YOURS TODAY OR AVAILABLE AT RIHS KIOSK. ORDER FROM US BY CHARGE CARD AND WE WILL SHIP TO YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY ($22- SHIPPING AND HANDLING)
OUR HEARTS GO OUR TO OUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS IN ISRAEL
FROM THE ARCHIVES
THURSDAY , OCTOBER 19, 2023
HEMLINES FROM SKYLINES
601 LEXINGTON AVENUE
(FORMERLY CITICORP BUILDING)
ISSUE# 1104
JUDITH BERDY
After visiting the NYU medical offices in the former Citicorp Building, I discovered that the ground level area has been reimagined into 15 restaurants and an exhibit area. We all remember Conran’s, Barnes and Noble stores in the area starting in 1977. This busy lunchtime spot seems to attract the new generation of workers and is thriving.
The area is now called THE HUGH, after Hugh Stubbins the architect of the building.
On the balcony is the exhibit of clothing designed with the theme of HEMLINES FROM SKYLINES.
It is worth a visit to see the creativity of SVA students. It is difficult to photograph the models in the glass cases, so stop by to enjoy in person.
Hemlines From Skylines
“Hemlines to Skylines is a tribute, a thank you, to the concrete and steel beauty we experience every day as New Yorkers. It is a reminder to stop looking at our cellphones and look up. It’s much more interesting. Embrace it!”
—SVA’s 3D Design Chair Kevin O’Callaghan (2014 Art Directors Hall of Fame inductee), co-curator. Hemlines From Skylines features designs by students from SVA’s BFA Design and BFA Interior Design: Built Environments programs. The inspiration for the show came from the infamous 1931 Beaux-Arts Ball where architects wore costumes that looked like the buildings they had designed. Some of those iconic buildings, such as the Empire State Building and our very own 601 Lexington, were the references for the designs in this show. Some students were inspired by more recent modern-day buildings or significant New York City institutions.
The sculptures are made of resin, fabric, a variety of metals and welded steel, stones, rope, grouted tiles, spoons, stained glass, and even Cheerios cereal! This installation was co-curated by SVA alumnus and 3D Design Chair Kevin O’Callaghan and BFA Interior Design: Built Environments Chair, Dr. Carol Bentel.
The Dream Hotel and Empire State Building
The Plaza Hotel
Gramercy Park
Guggenheim Museum
The Cloisters
Broadway
Murals adorn the walls
he clock seems to float in the light fixtures
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
WEDNESDAY , OCTOBER 18, 2023
SHEILA SCHWID
&
RIFKA MILDER
ISSUE# 1103
JUDITH BERDY
The other day while returning from Brooklyn on the NYC Ferry I met artist Rifka Milder.
We discussed her art and that of her mother Sheila Schwid. Below are some of their works, which are now on view on their websites. In the past both have exhibited at the Carter Burden Gallery in Chelsea.
SHEILA SCHWID
These oils are all in the series “Reflections on 14th Street”
“When a Shadow and a Fragment Are Not Enough” diptych, each stretcher 5’x4’ mural is 5’x8’ 2021
“I Can Wait.” 30”x24” oil on linen 2022
“Around We Go” 40”x32” oil on linen 2022 sold
“Best Buy” 30”x24” oil on linen on panel 2018
RIFKA MILDER
Cake Walk 2020 oil on canvas 48 X 60 inches
Penelope 2020 oil on canvas 48 X 60
SET DESIGN
The Ugly Duckling 2014 house paint on the wall 11 X 22 feet I painted the set for a dance choreographed by Rachael Kosch
SET DESIGH Circus Works 2018 oil on canvas 4 paintings 72 X 60 inches each
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What exactly attracted William Glackens to Washington Square, leading this founding member of the Ashcan School to create more than 20 paintings set in this iconic Greenwich Village park between 1908 and 1914, according to Washington Square Park Blog?
“Washington Square Park,” 1908]
Proximity likely had something to do with it. After Glackens left his home city of Philadelphia and relocated to New York City in 1896, he found a studio on the southern edge of Washington Square, according to the New-York Historical Society. Over the years, he occupied studios at different locations on the Square.
Glackens also moved with his family into a circa-1841 townhouse at 10 West Ninth Street, steps away from Washington Arch. Here, the painter dubbed the “American Renoir” lived and worked from 1910 to his death in 1938, explains Village Preservation in a 2019 Off the Grid blog post.
[“Descending From a Bus,” 1910]
But there might be something more to it than the Square’s convenient location. At the time Glackens established himself in Greenwich Village, Washington Square “represented the demarcation between the old and new communities of New York,” according to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (MFA).
While the descendants of many old New York families still lived in the stately brownstones of Washington Square North, “the less fashionable neighborhoods around Washington Square attracted newly arrived immigrants who worked in the factories and sweatshops nearby and also artists (including Glackens) who were drawn to the bohemian lifestyle of the district,” the MFA states
[“Italo-American Celebration,” 1912]
The presence of this new population mix in Washington Square is evident in Glackens’ 1912 painting of an Italian immigrant parade celebrating Christopher Columbus. Per the MFA: “The juxtaposition of the Old World and the New is further enhanced by the prominence of the Italian and American flags standing side by side in the lower foreground.”
What else may have influenced his decision to paint Washington Square Park, particularly his many full-color depictions of moments of leisure and pleasure?
[“29 Washington Square,” 1911]
Perhaps he was inspired by the simple loveliness of this historic square, as so many ordinary New Yorkers are as well.
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
MONDAY , OCTOBER 16, 2023
A WEEKEND OF
ADVENTURES
ISSUE# 1101
JUDITH BERDY
HISTORICAL AMERICAN
RAINY SATURDAY, A PERFECT TIME FOR HAT PAINTING WITH GEORGE KRASSAS, SPONSORED BY I DIG TO LEARN AND COLER LONG TERM CARE.
PHOTOS BY GHILA KRATZMAN AND JUDITH BERDY
George encouraged the kids (and adults) to use the paints and enjoy the fun of free flow art.
Nina and Oona with a freshly painted masterpiece
George has made cap art for years and is eager to share with others
It took two artists to work with all the kids and families
George Krassas, Chrisina Delfico and Judith Berdy enoying the activity.
The joy of free flow art!!!
It takes concentration!!!
SUNDAY, IN SEARCH OF THE ILLUSIVE TAGUA JEWELRY STORE.
It took me a while to find 145 Front Street in Brooklyn, Today the BQE was closed and the streets around DUMBO were jamned with impatient drivers, lots of cops and someone who has no talents with a Google map, me.
After wandering thru the hip and crowded street near York Street I finally located the small arcade where The Tagua is located. GREAT!! Wonderful displays of jewelry and creations on exhibit in this closed shop. The sign on the door said the shop would reopen October 24th.(Please change your listing on Google)
What is a Tagua nut? From Wikipedia:
Vegetable ivory or tagua nut is a product made from the very hard white endosperm of the seeds of certain palm trees. Vegetable ivory is named for its resemblance to animal ivory. Species in the genus Phytelephas (literally “elephant plant”), native to South America, are the most important sources of vegetable ivory. The seeds of the Caroline ivory-nut palm from the Caroline Islands, natangura palm from Solomon Islands and Vanuatu,[1] and the real fan palm, from Sub-Saharan Africa, are also used to produce vegetable ivory.[2] A tagua palm can take up to 15 years to mature. But once it gets to this stage it can go on producing vegetable ivory for up to 100 years. In any given year a tagua palm can produce up to 20 pounds of vegetable ivory.[3]
The material is called corozo or corosso when used in buttons.
An early use of vegetable ivory, attested from the 1880s, was the manufacture of buttons. Rochester, New York was a center of manufacturing where the buttons were “subjected to a treatment which is secret among the Rochester manufacturers”, presumably improving their “beauty and wearing qualities”.[5] Before plastic became common in button production, about 20% of all buttons produced in the US were made of vegetable ivory.[6]
Vegetable ivory has been used extensively to make dice, knife handles, and chess pieces. It is a very hard and dense material. Similar to stone, it is too hard to carve with a knife but instead requires hacksaws and files.[1]
Vegetable ivory is naturally white with a fine marbled grain structure. It can be dyed; dyeing often brings out the grain. It is still commonly used in buttons, jewelry, and artistic carving. Many vegetable ivory buttons were decorated in a way that used the natural tagua nut colour as a contrast to the dyed surface, because the dye did not penetrate deeper than the very first layer.[1][7] This also helps identify the material.
The display of jewelry in the closed shop.
My interest was peaked by purchase of a ring.
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
WEEKEND, OCTOBER 14-15, 2023
SHOPPING IN MANHATTAN
A WHILE BACK
ISSUE# 1100
SHORPY
HISTORICAL AMERICAN
PHOTO ARCHIVE
Enjoy this walk thru city shopping from years past.
New York circa 1931. “R.H. Macy & Co. Building, Broadway & 34th Street.” The original “big box” retailer. Irving Underhill photo. View full size.
Circa 1903. “Shoppers on Sixth Avenue, New York City.” 8×10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
June 9, 1948. New York. “Schrafft’s, Esso Building, Rockefeller Center. 51st Street exterior. Carson & Lundin architects.” Ubiquitous in urban areas, slightly upscale, tastefully decorated — Schrafft’s was something like the mid-century restaurant version of Starbucks. Gottscho-Schleisner photo. View full size.
New York circa 1910-1915. “N.Y. Drug Store, Pennsylvania Station.” 8×10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
New York circa 1906. “14th Street Store.” Several subplots here, involving roofs, windows and hair. Detroit Publishing glass negative. View full size.
June 20, 1952. “Scarves by Vera, 417 Fifth Avenue, New York. Vera at door. Marcel Breuer, architect.” If you hope to see some actual scarves here, you are hopelessly unsophisticated. Gottscho-Schleisner photo. View full size.
April 28, 1949. “Barton’s, business at 790 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, New York. Exterior.” 4×5 inch acetate negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.
Jan. 17, 1953. New York. “Schrafft’s, New Chrysler Building. Interior IV.” Highly developed example of a genre of eatery once known as “quick service lunch,” now more generally called “fast food.” Gottscho-Schleisner photo. View full size.
September 24, 1944. “Jay Thorpe Inc., West 57th Street, New York City. General view to entrance from rear.” A retail fairyland of fire sprinklers and cove lights. Large-format acetate negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.
December 1942. “New York. Corset display at R.H. Macy & Co. department store during the week before Christmas.” Behold the $12.29 “average figure” corselette. Photo by Marjory Collins for the Office of War Information. View full size.
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2023
What the 1910s Stained Glass
Windows
Say About a 19th century
Brooklyn Tavern
ISSUE# 1099
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
What the 1910s stained glass windows say about a 19th century Brooklyn tavern
With its tin ceiling, mosaic tile floor, and handsome mahogany bar, Teddy’s Bar and Grill is like stepping into a late 19th century time machine.
This corner tavern on Berry and North Eighth Streets in Williamsburg opened in 1887 as a family-run Irish tavern, according to Teddy’s website. At the time, Brooklyn was a separate city and Williamsburg was a working-class district of Irish and German immigrants, many of whom worked along the waterfront a few blocks away in sugar refineries and other industrial plants.
Take a seat at the bar inside, and you can almost imagine the flickering gas lamps softly illuminating the barroom, and men—only men, as women were not welcome in taverns at the time—coming by for growlers of beer and community.
Outside the bar, there’s one aspect of Teddy’s that I couldn’t take my eyes off: the multicolor stained-glass windows above the entrance. It’s not unusual to see stained glass like this in an old-school New York bar—delicately wrought with gorgeous colors and design motifs.
But the words emblazoned across the front intrigued me: “Peter Doelger’s Extra Beer.” Who is Peter Doelger? The answer lies in the next chapter of Teddy’s, after it traded hands in 1911.
“The place was purchased by a Bavarian German immigrant named Peter Doelger who was one of New York’s most successful brewers,” explains a 2018 post from the Greenpointers website.
“Doelger, who had started a brewery on the Lower East Side in 1859, is largely responsible for introducing lager beer into New York. The New York Sun wrote that before Doelger opened his Lower East Side brewery, lager beer, in the brewing of which he was to make a fortune, was an exotic and unappreciated drink…a mysterious German drink, as remote from most of the community as pulque or vodka is today.’”
By the 1910s, Doelger’s brewery operated on East 55th Street near the East River. He “was looking to purchase New York bars as an outlet his beers, so his establishment exclusively served Doelger’s brews,” states Greenpointers.
The stained-glass windows are over a century old, but they’re a good 30 years younger than the bar’s other anachronisms, like the tin ceiling and interior woodwork.
Doelger died in 1912, and his brewery, run by his sons, shut down for good in 1947. Teddy’s (above in 1940) entered a new era after it was bought by Teddy and Mary Prusik, who renamed the bar in the 1950s, per Teddy’s website.
The Prusicks were Polish immigrants, and at the time they purchased the bar, the north side of Williamsburg had become a Polish enclave, according to Greenpointers.
The couple operated the tavern until 1987, when it was sold to new owners who added a kitchen and a dining room in an old carriage house next door, states Teddy’s.
In 2015, Teddy’s landed its current owners, and the clientele tends to reflect the demographics of Williamsburg in the 21st century. It’s a bar with a wonderful old-school vibe, but I wonder if the name of a 19th century beer baron in glass above the entrance holds any weight.
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EACH THROW IS NEATLY PACKAGED READY TO BE GIVEN AS A GREAT HOLIDAY PRESENT
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Rough sketches of Roosevelt Island by Edward Hopper I saw them at the Whitney exhibit –which was gorgeous! I actually went back to the exhibit several times….;^) (I know you saw & enjoyed that exhibit as well) THOM HEYER
CREDITS
Judith Berdy
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
