There are many myths and legends surrounding Grand Central Terminal. We have an entire list that we’ve debunked. One of those myths, which contains slivers of truth, involves a clandestine World War II operation led by German spies, also known as saboteurs. The story goes, that these spies were sent to the United States to disrupt train travel by throwing sand into the giant rotary converters below Grand Central in the secret M42 basement power station. The truth is a bit more complicated.
During World War II, there was a German plot to disrupt wartime operations in the United States. It was well documented and railroad infrastructure sites were targeted. The plan was called Operation Pastorius. Operation Pastorius involved eight saboteurs with a mission to “slow down production at certain factories concerned with the American war effort.” To do so, they were instructed to “interfere with transportation systems, including railways and canals,” according to a 1943 report. The main targets were aluminum factories and cryolite plants, materials vital for wartime necessities like artillery, ammunition, and aircraft construction.
Many railroad infrastructure sites were targets of this plot including Hell Gate Bridge and Newark Penn Station. Routes traveling through those two sites were vital links for the movement of military supplies and personnel, so taking out those hubs would have been a strategic move. However, in the many extensive reports about the operation that came out later, Grand Central Terminal was never mentioned as a target. In a list of targets published by the New York Timesin 1942, Grand Central is not listed.
The saboteurs had extensive training on the most effective ways to achieve their goals of sabotage. According to the 1943 report, they were advised to attack the most vulnerable parts of a train including the pressure pipes that control the brake system, signals and switches, and parts of tracks that curve or go over bridges and are therefore harder to repair. No mention of power plants.
The saboteurs had extensive training on the most effective ways to achieve their goals of sabotage. According to the 1943 report, they were advised to attack the most vulnerable parts of a train including the pressure pipes that control the brake system, signals and switches, and parts of tracks that curve or go over bridges and are therefore harder to repair. No mention of power plants.
The saboteurs of Operation Pastorius arrived in the U.S. via U-boats in the summer of 1942, landing in Florida and Long Island. From the shores of Amagansett, they traveled into New York City, taking the LIRR and arriving at Penn Station. Two saboteurs, Heinrich Heinck and Richard Quirin, stayed at the Martinique Hotel in Midtown, now Martinique New York on Broadway, Curio Collection by Hilton. Two other saboteurs on the New York team, including leader (and eventual whistleblower) George John Dasch, stayed at the Hotel Governor Clinton, now the Stewart Hotel. According to Martinique New York’s resident historian Tara Williams, Heinck and Quirin felt exposed in the public space, and found the room rates to be quite expensive!
You can learn more about the spies’ hotel stay, and how they were eventually caught, at our upcoming after-dark tour of Martinique New York! At this Halloween week experience, you’ll hear tales of the many spirits alleged to linger at the 125-year-old landmark, from the daring but doomed acrobat who met his demise while promoting a 1923 silent film, to the mischievous guest, Sara, whose spectral pranks have been caught on film.
WATCH OUR I AM PRESERVATION ON INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/p/CzEn5zPodM1/?hl=enWEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY SEND YOUR SUBMISSION TO: ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COMTUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY Circa 1904. “Seeing New York.” Electric omnibuses at the Flatiron Building. 8×10 inch dry plate glass … made by the Vehicle Equipment Company of Long Island City, New York.
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UNTAPPED NEW YORK
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Circa 1904. “Seeing New York.” Electric omnibuses at the Flatiron Building. 8×10 inch dry plate glass … made by the Vehicle Equipment Company of Long Island City, New York.
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In the 21st Century, it’s difficult to picture Morningside Heights without the prestigious Columbia University campus. But what most people may not remember is that before the university, 116th and Broadway was home to the Bloomingdale Asylum for mentally ill patients. What had started out as a modern approach to treating these patients ended in controversy. This isn’t a ghost story but a real account based on reports of the asylum’s eerie tenure on the Upper West Side.
In 1776, The New York Hospital (now known as New York-Presbyterian Hospital) opened its doors to take care of 3,000 soldiers fighting in the Revolutionary War. Among the wounded were also mentally ill patients. Throughout the years, the hospital saw a steady rise in these patients.
In 1802, a committee considered adding a separate wing specifically for the mentally ill. However, in a more radical move, it was decided that there should be a separate and new building to accommodate them. The committee wanted the new asylum to be formed with a more moral approach to treating patients instead of a medical one, which involved visitation and physical activities.
A new committee composed of Thomas Eddy, John R. Murray, John Aspinwall, Thomas Buckley, Cadwallader Colden, and Peter A. Jay looked around the city of New York to find a suitable home for their new project. They decided to purchase a tranquil site on 116th and Bloomingdale Road, now known as Broadway, overlooking the Hudson River. Of course this site is now home to Columbia University.
The Bloomingdale Insane Asylum officially opened on June 1, 1821.
Drawn by Archibald L. Dick. Engraved by H. Fossette., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
According to reports, it was a beautiful building made of limestone and had 120 patients. Several years later, in 1829, a new, three-story brick building with iron-barred windows was made to accommodate noisier and more violent male patients. A separate wing was also built for violent female patients in 1937.
c/o NYPL Digital Collections
During its first few decades, the asylum basked in the glow as a pioneer for asylums. But by the 1850s, the glow began to fade.
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According to Columbia University Libraries, a patient could be admitted to the asylum against his or her will in the 1850s. Some true stories include Caroline Underhill, who was “forcibly incarcerated” at Bloomingdale by her sister and nephew. Underhill’s relatives had conspired to evict her from her home, which her father left for her. Commodore Richard W. Meade, the brother of Gettysburg hero General George Meade, was also wrongly institutionalized because he didn’t consent to his daughter’s suitor’s proposal.
“Wealthy people would send their family there because it had such a good reputation,” Mackin said. “It was not uncommon, if a wealthy husband wanted to get rid of his wife, he paid a lot of money to get a doctor to sign and put her away for ‘mental health reasons’.”– Jim Mackin, local historian with the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group and author of the upcoming release, Notable New Yorkers of Manhattan’s Upper West Side: Bloomingdale-Morningside Heights
Habeas corpus lawyer John Townsend went to the local paper, The New York Tribune, to shine a light on the Bloomingdale Asylum issues. He spoke against the cruel treatment and brutality the patients experienced, which caused some of them to die from the abuse. When one of the head doctors remarked that critics should stop by the asylum to witness the conditions themselves, the Tribune took him up on his offer.
Reporter Julius Chambers went undercover as a patient on August 12, 1872, to write about the environment. After he was released in the same month, he published a series of damaging articles discussing his experience. In one of his articles called “Among the Maniacs,” Chambers described his stay in great detail:
“A night of horror among raving patients—sleep disturbed by agonized cries of the dangerous idiots—close cells, uncomfortable beds and chairs, scanty and foul food, filthy baths, and rude and vulgar attendants—no amusements, games, or reading matter—imbecile boys exposed naked to the sun, and venerable blind men beaten by enraged keepers.”
Chambers also noted that once he moved to the asylum’s main building, his living conditions and the quality of the attendants improved. Following the public outcry and government investigation, the head doctor at Bloomingdale retired in 1877.
By the 1880s, the Bloomingdale Asylum was reported to be left in a “vulnerable position.” However, during the late 1860s, the institutions’ trustees purchased around 300 acres of land in White Plains to move the asylum there. In 1889, the asylum began selling off property to pay for their big move.
That same year, the New York Times announced that Columbia College students would have a new home in Morningside Heights when college authorities finally took possession of the property. It was reported that the Teachers College took one of the asylum buildings as a dorm. Since then, Columbia University has made the property on Bloomingdale its home in the neighborhood.
However, Buell Hall is the one remaining building on Columbia’s campus which dates back to the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum; it was originally reserved for wealthy male patients.
Photo shows intersection of Atlantic, Fourth, and Flatbush Avenues in Brooklyn. Building at left is still there and was then a subway station entrance; today it’s a skylight for the station. Across the street is the Long Island RR terminal, still there underground but a new building on street level. The old BMT 5th Ave. elevated line runs atop Flatbush Avenue; it was closed and removed in 1940.
Today’s Barclay Center would be across the street and to the right.
Andy Sparberg
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OUR HEARTS GO OUR TO OUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS IN ISRAEL
EARLY VOTING IS TAKING PLACE IN THE RIVAA GALLERY, 527 MAIN STREET ON THESE DATES:
Monday, October 30
9am-5pm
Tuesday, October 31
8am-4pm
Wednesday, November 1
10am-8pm
Thursday, November 2
10am-8pm
Friday, November 3
8am-4pm
Saturday, November 4
9am-5pm
Sunday, November 5
9am-5pm
ELECTION DAY-TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7 AT PS 217
FROM THE ARCHIVES
MONDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2023
LET’S TAKE A
SPIN IN OUR NEW CAR
SHORPY AMERICAN HISTORIC PHOTO ARCHIVE
Washington, D.C., circa 1921. “Geo. C. Rice Auto Co., front.” These deals won’t last long, folks.
New York, 1951. “Hoffman Motors, Park Avenue. Driver standing next to Jaguar Mark VII saloon
Washington, D.C., circa 1911. “Hudson cars, H.B. Leary agency, 1317½ 14th Street N.W.”
June 1942. “Florence, Alabama, Saturday afternoon.” Medium format acetate negative by Arthur Rothstein for the Office of War Information
April 12, 1936. Newsboys in Jackson, Ohio
An after photo of Lockheed during WWII (unbelievable 1940s pictures). This is pretty neat special effects during the 1940’s. I have never seen these pictures or knew that we had gone this far to protect ourselves. During World War II the Army Corps of Engineers needed to hide the Lockheed Burbank Aircraft Plant to protect it from Japanese air attack. They covered it with camouflage netting to make it look like a rural subdivision from the air.
“Scene at one of the docks of the East River, New York, where those for whom the journey to the beaches is too long or too expensive forget the sweltering heat of August in the cool waters.”
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2023
Rockefeller Center
Will Transform Into A Beautiful
‘Día De Muertos’
Celebration Tomorrow
ISSUE# 1111
TISHMAN SPEYER
Love the annual Dia de Muertos celebration at Rockefeller Center! (Tishman Speyer)
From Friday, October 27 through Thursday, November 2, the iconic Plaza is hosting their third annual “Mexico Week” alongside Tequila Casa Dragones, which will include everything from musical performances to colorful art installations and cultural activities.
It’s all to celebrate the “Day of the Dead” in NYC, a tradition in Mexico that allows people to mourn and then celebrate loved ones who have passed on by creating ofrendas (offerings) to them, sharing memories and spending time in their spiritual presence.
“Mexico Week” is also in partnership with the Consulate General of Mexico in New York and the Mexican Cultural Institute, honoring 200+ years of Mexico’s independence.
Thiis year’s celebration will specifically highlight Mexican artist Daniel Valero of Mestiz design studio based in San Miguel de Allende. He will be responsible for the 2023 ofrenda, “Los Dos Soles.” Valero will showcase a similar ofrenda at a Casa Dragones at the same time. An ofrenda is a display altar dedicated to those who have passed away.
Los Dos Soles will be a “symbolic portal to San Miguel de Allende.” New Yorkers will be able to honor their loved ones by pinning letters or photos to the back of the ofrenda in remembrance.
“Los Dos Soles asks guests to embrace the duality of life and death, acknowledging them as integral facets of our collective human journey.” adds Daniel Valero, Mexican architect and designer of Mestiz. “This year’s ofrenda transcends the boundaries of space and time, allowing guests to take in the shared elements and colors that unite altars located in two distant locations, fostering a rich and cross-cultural perspective.”
According to the press release, the 2023 event programming is as follows:
Friday, October 27: Ofrenda open to the public (all day)
11am: Ofrenda unveiling ceremony & opening remarks @ Center Plaza at 30 Rock
11am-1pm: Traditional Day of the Dead Catrina face painting
12pm-1pm: Performances by TONO and Mariachi bands
12pm-5pm: Timed altar participation, including photo-taking opportunities and tributes.
12pm-5pm: Casa Dragones samplings with special offers for purchase at Morrells’s Wine & Spirits
Saturday, October 28: Ofrenda open to the public (all day)
12pm – 3pm: Traditional Day of the Dead Catrina face painting
12pm – 5pm: Timed altar participation, including photo-taking opportunities and tributes.
1pm: 15-30 min Mariachi performance
1:30pm: TONO performance by Mexican dancer and choreographer Diego Vega Solorza
12pm-5pm: Casa Dragones samplings with special offers for purchase at Morrells’s Wine & Spirits
Sunday, October 29: Ofrenda open to the public (all day)
12pm – 3pm: Traditional Day of the Dead Catrina face painting
12pm – 5pm: Timed altar participation, including photo-taking opportunities and tributes.
1pm: 15-30 min Mariachi performance
1:30pm: TONO performance by Mexican dancer and choreographer Diego Vega Solorza
Monday, October 30 – Thursday, November 2nd: Ofrenda open to the public (all day)
12pm-2pm: Casa Dragones samplings with special offers for purchase at Morrells’s Wine & Spirits
12pm-3pm: Timed altar participation, including photo-taking opportunities and tributes.
Check it out at Rockefeller Center between 49th and 50th Streets and Fifth and Sixth Aves! Stay up to date on the latest happenings at Rockefeller Center here.
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2023
THE WWII RADIO
TOWERS ATOP
STEINER STUDIO
IN THE
BROOKLYN NAVY YARD
ISSUE# 1110
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
@untappedcities Do you have story on a replica bridge on top of buildings in brooklyn. I can’t find anything on it but i see it from BQE.
— lauren (@nationofnations)
A photo she took from a car gave us the clue we needed: rather than a replica bridge, they’re the WWII radio towers once used by the Navy, specifically the Third Naval District US Naval Communication Center Headquarters. They sit atop the 1940s-era building, 25 Washington Avenue, in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and part of Steiner Studios.
In this forum, Navy seamen who worked at the station mention using it to communicate with the Bermuda station, with ships coming in and out of the New York City harbor, and one guys mentions tracking Sputnik (which another refutes). The New York Postwrites, “The spidery structures uncannily conjure the era of warships in the roiling Atlantic with which they communicated.”
Andrew Gustafson, vice president of Turnstile Tours, a company that gives tours of the Navy Yard, confirms that there isn’t too much well-documented information about the towers themselves. He says, “You may find reference to it being ‘strong enough to reach Puerto Rico, which was in the Third Naval District,’ which is not correct. That is not a comment on the power of the antenna – again, I have no idea – but on the fact that Puerto Rico was in the Third Naval District only from 1903 to 1919, long before this building existed.
Dennis Riley, archivist for the Brooklyn Navy Yard shared with us architectural drawings related to the towers
He continues, “The transmitter sits on top of Building 1 or Building 291, which was built in 1942 as the Material Sciences Laboratory. This building housed much of the primary research operations of the Yard, including testing the resilience and properties of materials and equipment used by the navy, as well as developing radio, radar, sonar, and other electronics and navigation equipment. Much of navigation system for the Polaris nuclear submarines was developed in this building.”
Studios Chairman Doug Steiner also had the radio towers lit up too, “in an understated, blue-and-white way. They’re not going to blink,” reports the Post. Today, the building holds not only Steiner Studios but also Carnegie Mellon’s Integrative Media Program and Brooklyn College Graduate School of Cinema.
OUR HEARTS GO OUR TO OUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND NEIGHBORS IN ISRAEL
FROM THE ARCHIVES
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2023
THE LITTLE PRINCE
ON FIFTH AVENUE
ISSUE# 1109
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
A bronze statue of the Little Prince now gazes wistfully toward the trees of Central Park in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The titular subject of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s 1943 children’s novel is celebrating his 80th birthday, and sculptor Jean-Marc de Pas’s four-foot-tall version arrived yesterday, September 21, in front of Villa Albertine, the French Embassy’s bookshop and cultural center in New York. The story of the beloved figure has been translated into more than 500 languages and dialects.
Saint-Exupéry wrote Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) while living in New York after escaping the Nazi invasion of his native France. The book tells the story of a young boy who lands in the Sahara desert from a faraway planet. A pilot crashes and meets him, jumpstarting a winding tale of friendship filled with insightful commentary on the human condition. As the pair wanders through the barren landscape, the Little Prince tells the man about his travels to six planets. He met a different person at each location, each of whom was entangled in his own habitual folly. Saint-Exupéry’s tale offers meditations on how to live a worthwhile life — and how not to fall into the trappings of cynicism and adulthood.
Gaëtan Bruel, the director of Villa Albertine and cultural counselor for the French Embassy, said in an interview with Hyperallergic that the Little Prince is perhaps the most universal character in French literature. Bruel spoke to the importance of the lessons in the story, among them kindness, wisdom, dialogue, and the acceptance of differences.
After his time in New York, Saint-Exupéry served as a reconnaissance pilot for the French Air Force. In 1944, he died in a plane crash, likely shot down by enemy fire.
The new sculpture sits on a low stone wall in front of the gilded-age Payne Whitney House that hosts Villa Albertine. A row of small palm trees blow in the wind behind the prince as he gazes skyward.
One passerby, self-proclaimed arts lover and hobbyist photographer Timothy Arena, stopped to look at the sculpture on his way from the Frick’s Breuer location to the Metropolitan Museum of Art a few blocks north of Villa Albertine.
“I’ve walked by here dozens of times,” he said, noting that the shiny bronze of the sculpture and plaque had caught his attention. He was familiar with the subject, especially after visiting an exhibition on The Little Prince at the Morgan Library and Museum last winter. Seeing the sculpture, he said, made him want to read the book.
Film stylist Meghan Kleinheinz strolled along Fifth Avenue and paused to examine the work and take a photograph. “The texture of the bronze really gives it a lot of movement,” Kleinheinz told Hyperallergic. “It looks perfect — with the breeze coming through and hitting the paint and with the palms.”
“It catches you,” added Kleinheinz, who remembers reading the story as a child.
Gaëtan Bruel, the director of Villa Albertine and cultural counselor for the French Embassy, said in an interview with Hyperallergic that the Little Prince is perhaps the most universal character in French literature. Bruel spoke to the importance of the lessons in the story, among them kindness, wisdom, dialogue, and the acceptance of differences.
“He’s a quite political figure — not a partisan one — but someone who can inspire a generation of minds,” Bruel said. The antifascist biography of the Little Prince’s creator contributes to the tale’s significance as well.
The statue was sponsored by the American Society of Le Souvenir Français nonprofit and the children’s advocacy group Antoine de Saint Exupéry Youth Foundation. Bruel discussed the statue’s connection to Villa Albertine, which hosts an artist residency program. Like the Little Prince, he said, these artists are travelers who have much to learn and share.
Bruel recalled the first time he read the story. His mother was a preschool teacher, and when he was the same age as her students, she read him the book while they were traveling on their sailboat.
“There is no sailboat in The Little Prince,” said Bruel. “But I felt a connection. I remember that the sky in the book reminded me of the sky above the sea.”
DUE TO LATENESS OF THE HOUR, OUR WEDNESDAY PHOTO WILL RETURN ON THURSDAY
TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
WWII RADIO TOWERS ATOP STEINER STUDIOS IN BROOKLYN NAVY YARD
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HYPERALLERGIC JUDITH BERDY
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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.
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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.
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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.
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TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
