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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.
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
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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
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2023
THE FLOATING BOAT
AT AN
ORIGINAL BROOKLYN
IRT SUBWAY ENTRANCE
ISSUE# 1098 UNTAPPED NEW YORK
The subway entrance above Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center station has a secret wellspring of life inside: a three-piece art installation called Hook (Archean Reach), Line (Sea House), and Sinker (Mined Swell) by the artist George Trakas. Commissioned by MTA Arts & Design and created in collaboration with di Domenico and Partners, the pieces take up the entire original Beaux-arts fare control center and calls on the history of the area for inspiration. The centerpiece of the installation is a giant steel boat figure that floats above the sea of commuters.
The preexisting configuration of subways and rails at the Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center station, in conjunction with its location at the lip of the LIRR’s Terminal, presented the perfect challenge for a joint effort that incorporated both art and architecture. The space below the original kiosk, which was designed by Heins & LaFarge and constructed in 1908, is far taller and more spacious than it appears from the outside. Trakas and the architects collaborated on a redesign of the station in 2004 and made the spaces airier, with the installation of a skylight in the ceiling, and aesthetically cohesive with Trakas’ art
From outside the above-ground kiosk, visitors can look through a peephole equipped with a lens to see the boat-shaped contraption made of stainless steel hanging just underneath the glass. This part of the installation is called Line (Sea House). The shape is both symbolic and practical as the steel structure serves as a rolling gantry that maintenance workers can access through a locked door and step onto in order to reach the lights floating high in the empty space above the station floor.
The art piece continues down from the lighthouse-like space into the subway station below as large panels of granite cover the walls. The panels are broken by a stair-shaped cut-out which serves to mark where the original staircase once stood in the 1908 structure. The granite stonework continues into Hook (Archean Reach), an undulating band that rolls like waves from the Pacific Street entrance to the tracks. The wave “crests” at the meeting place between the passageways that link Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street. Sinker (Mined Swell) is a wide, rough-faced strip of granite that appears between the staircases connecting the main station exits and train tracks.
The project’s aquatic-inspired name recognizes the convergence of the two streets named after the two major oceans. In some ways, subway stations are like oceans, constantly moving and churning out tides on a regular schedule, and Brooklyn is at its heart a waterfront town. Hook, Line, and Sinker (the name for the entire work)takes note of these roots as well as its location’s contemporary needs to create a place that is at once a hub of travel and a still place in the midst of the rushing sea.
Trakas drew inspiration from sources as varied as the piazzas of Italian hill towns. A self-described environmental sculptor, Trakas was born in Quebec but has lived in New York City since 1963. He often uses recycled materials in his work and has designed a waterfront nature walk at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn, among other installations.
Trakas’s innovative subway station design has opened a portal to the world above, serving as a way for passengers to orient themselves after being spun around several times by the frequently disorienting train rides. This portal allows for something especially rare to happen: on sunny days, the subway station fills with light from the skylight above, reminding travelers on the often stormy sea of New York City’s transit maze that there is a world outside the underground.
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In the decades after the Civil War, New Yorkers with money had several options for housing.
For the really loaded, there were stand-alone mansions and the new luxury residential hotels; upper middle class residents could go with a brownstone row house or one of the early “French flats” apartment buildings.
If you were working class or poor, however, a tenement awaited you. And if you were so broke you couldn’t afford (or were excluded from) a tenement, you could cobble together a shack—housing so primitive that it’s hard to believe existed across Manhattan.
Yet thanks to some talented but unheralded landscape painters, viewers can get a visceral sense of the substandard wood shacks some residents called home in the 1860s and 1870s.
Ralph Blakelock is one of these landscape painters. Born on Christopher Street in 1847 and the son of a doctor, Blakelock dropped out of the precursor to today’s City College in the 1860s and devoted his life to painting romantic, sometimes darkly evocative moonlit landscapes of New England and the American West, explains Artsy.
Back in Manhattan in 1874—where he tried to support a wife and nine children with the meager proceeds from his art while slipping into the throes of mental illness—Blakelock depicted these wood shacks (top image) in a painting he titled simply “Shanties in Harlem.”
Harlem at the time was transforming from a rural district into a place for the middle class, but the hardscrabble shacks in Blakelock’s painting are startling.
Blakelock also painted “Shanties, Seventh Avenue and 55th Street” (second image). These shacks would have stood four blocks below the new Central Park, and area fast becoming a wealthy enclave of mansions and early apartment houses.
An earlier work from 1868 shows a lonely small wood house with a sloping roof at Fifth Avenue and 89th Street, today the site of the Guggenheim Museum (third image).
Another landscape painter, Howard Nesmith, born in 1859, captured the shacks that once stood on today’s Second Avenue and East 72nd Street. Nesmith painted this image (fourth from top) in 1879, showing hilly terrain and rough-hewn homes.
Nesmith’s “East Foot of 72nd Street,” from 1876, is something of an impressionist view of a wood house perched precariously on the side of a hill by the East River (fifth image).
What became of these shacks and shanties? By the early 1900s, they had all likely disappeared, replaced by brick and mortar residences and office buildings. I wish I knew what drew Blakelock and Nesmith to them.
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 STARTING ON SUNDAY
EACH THROW IS NEATLY PACKAGED READY TO BE GIVEN AS A GREAT HOLIDAY PRESENT
THE ANNUAL FALL FOR ARTS FESTIVAL BRINGS OUT THE WONDERFUL ART. THE THEMES WERE MYTHICAL AND RIVERSDE RYHTHMS. TODAY ARTISTS WORKED TO COMPLETE THEIR WORKS AND THE DEPTH AND QUALITY ARE AMAZING. TAKE A STROLL THROUGH THE RIVERCROSS LAWN DURING THE COMING WEEKS.
LA _GALERIA _DEL_LEON ON INSTAGRAM
RAJ THE MIRRORS GLITTER IN THE SUNSHINE
DAN MINER’S WONDERFUL ABSTRACT PAINTING AFTER BEING DETAILED AND
COMPLETED THIS MORNING
HONESTY, BRAVERY, KINDNESS, CALM, RESPECT
AU YU WONG BAMBOO IN THE SHADE OF OUR TREES
DEMING LIAO RECENTLY EMIGRATED FROM CHINA . HE AND ASSOCIATE METICULOUSLY DETAILED THIS PAINTING, IT IS THE FIRST ONE YOU SEE WHEN WALKING NORTH FROM THE SUBWAY.
