KEEPING WARM UNDER A SPECIAL R.I. DESIGN ORDER YOURS TODAY
$70- BEFORE 10/1 $80- AFTER 10/1 RESERVE YOURS TODAY AT FLEA MARKET Contact rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com
FROM THE ARCHIVES
MONDAY, AUGUST 15 2023
ISSUE# 1060
NOTES FROM
ALL AROUND TODAY
JUDITH BERDY
SURPRISE!! A FUN SHOP LOCATED ON THE MEZZANINE OF THE ROOSEVELT AVENUE / 74 STREET JACKSON HEIGHTS STATION
Need to get some end of summer cool clothes at bargain prices? This shop has great Indian designed women’s clothes from $5 to $15. Just take the F train to Roosevelt Avenue and the shop is upstairs, a minute from the platform. (Sorry, you have to get there before August 28th due to our upcoming subway shutdown eastbound)
THIS IS THE NAVY YARD, NOT AIRPORT!!
When Concorde service ended in 2003, 75 air museums around the world put in bids for the 13 planes then in use. New York’s Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum got the British Airways Concorde that still holds the record for the fastest transatlantic crossing by a passenger aircraft — 2 hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds from Heathrow to JFK.
After welcoming museum visitors for nearly two decades, the needle-nosed jet will once again be out of commission until the spring of 2024, the Intrepid said in a news release.
The only supersonic commercial jet that ever flew, the Concorde cruised at twice the speed of sound. A one-way ticket cost $6,000 in 2003.
A crane lifted the Intrepid’s Concorde onto a barge Wednesday for a very subsonic passage to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where it will be stripped down, sanded and repainted.
“We are stewards of some of the most important artifacts of the 20th and 21st centuries, and with that comes the responsibility to preserve, protect and perpetuate these icons for generations to come,” said Susan Marenoff-Zausner, president of the Intrepid Museum.
The restoration “will ultimately allow us to present this awe-inspiring technological marvel and continue to tell the stories behind it for the foreseeable future,” she said.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
On November 2, 1820, the city of New York‘s Chamber of Commerce placed an advertisement in the Commercial Advertiser and other newspapers inviting merchant clerks to meet in Tontine Coffee House at 82 Wall Street and discuss forming of an organization that would be similar to Boston’s Mercantile Library (founded earlier that same year).
Nearly two hundred and fifty young men responded to the notice and joined the meeting which led to the creation of Manhattan’s Mercantile Library Association.
On February 12, 1821, the library opened in a large room on an upper floor of 49 Fulton Street under the guidance of its first librarian, John Thompson. Politically, it was an era of change. In Europe the year marked the death of Napoleon and the coronation of George IV; in the United States, President James Monroe had just begun his second term as the last of the so-called “Founding Fathers” in the post.
In the city of New York positive perceptions of opportunity and advancement took hold. It was felt that an “Era of Good Feelings” was about to open up.
Young professionals were inspired and challenged by people like John Jacob Astor, the son of a German butcher who had arrived in the United States after the Revolution and who, by 1820, had risen to be one of the city of New York’s wealthiest men.
The Association’s circulating library held a collection of seven hundred volumes in a mix of trade books and novels. Its mission was to provide the city’s growing population of young (often newly-arrived and socially mobile) clerks with an alternative to “immoral” entertainments and urban vices.
Books were championed as a means of cleaning up the city’s poor image of an incoherent mass of money-grabbing individuals. From our cynical perspective, it was astonishing that in commercial circles the realization dawned that a good library would be beneficial to the building of a civilized and cohesive society.
It may well be that their representatives had taken note of Benjamin Franklin’s words when he – the “ultimate bibliophile” – recommended the creation of lending libraries to stimulate learning.
Another (implied) aspect of the initiative was the growing irritation with rival Bostonians for their cultural snobbery and claims of intellectual superiority. New Yorkers were ready to take up the gauntlet.
Literary Manhattan
By 1820, with a population of somewhere between 120,000 and 150,000 inhabitants, Manhattan had become America’s most populous city. The small-town feel was vanishing slowly. The dirty streets were mostly unpaved and any form of infrastructure had barely been initiated. Pigs still ran lose all over town. Manhattan was an outhouse.
Early visitors were not impressed by the city’s poor standard of accommodation and hospitality. At night, the streets were as dark as a country town, lit only by smokey whale-oil (later: gas) lamps in an attempt to prevent crime. English novelist Frances “Fanny” Trollope, visiting in the late 1820s, complained bitterly about the New York’s philistinism in her book Domestic Manners of the American (1832). New York City was a haven for cash worshipers, an uncultured temple of Mammon.
Boston in the early nineteenth century was New England’s nerve center with a network of railways and other means of transport. Thanks to the city’s economic success, it became a financial center with abundant capital available for social and commercial investment. By 1820, Boston was focus of the nation’s intellectual, medical and publishing activities.
Three decades later, the roles were reversed. The city of New York had become a magnet of internal migration with many of the country’s most ambitious and creative individuals being drawn to Manhattan which soon was establishing itself as America’s publishing capital, displacing Boston as a literary hub.
Many in Manhattan’s emerging literary environment produced work that was unmistakably American in style and subject, but authors were just as keen to promote both their individual and collective status as New York intellectuals – thinkers that were as distinct from New Englanders as they differed from their European counterparts.
Publishers of newspapers and magazines established their headquarters in Manhattan. The most significant contribution was made by the monthly Knickerbocker Magazine. Founded in 1833 by New York-born Charles Fenno Hoffmann, it set out to resist and correct the predominant Anglo-Saxon and Puritan narrative of American history.
Celebrating New York’s fountain of creativity, Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant and other contributors would turn it into the most popular literary magazine of the age. The journal’s competitive tone had been set in the mid-1820s with the arrival of James Fenimore Cooper in Manhattan.
Literary Rivalry
Although born in New Jersey, James Fenimore Cooper was raised in Cooperstown, a pioneer settlement founded by his father on Otsego Lake. After finishing boarding school in Albany he attended Yale College, but was expelled for bad behavior after only two years as a student. This unhappy spell in his younger years filled him with a lifelong dislike of New England.
In 1819 William Tudor, co-founder and first editor of the North American Review, referred to Boston as the “Athens of America” for being “perhaps the most perfect and certainly the best-regulated democracy that ever existed.” Fenimore Cooper must have been irked and challenged by such statements.
Having inherited a fortune, Cooper briefly led the life of a country gentleman before taking up the pen. His debut novel Precaution, set in England and published anonymously in 1820, was followed a year later by The Spy, the first historical romance about the American Revolution. Its success encouraged him to move to New York and pursue writing as a career.
In 1823, he published The Pioneers, the first of a set of five novels called The Leatherstocking Tales, in which the novelist introduced the figure of Natty Bumppo, a mythic frontier man and the first American fictional hero.
In 1824, Cooper founded the Bread & Cheese Club which was a continuation of “Cooper’s Lunch,” a gathering of friends which had first met in 1822 in the back room of premises owned by bookseller and printer Charles Wiley in Reade Street, Manhattan.
This small printing shop would play a prominent role in the emergence of New York’s literary movement. Among a number of notable writers whose words went to print there were Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Wiley made Cooper a celebrity with the publication of The Spy in 1821.
Fenimore became the center of a group of about thirty-five members that included painters of the Hudson River School as well as writers such as William Cullen Bryant.
The Bread & Cheese Club was not a bohemian gathering of young artists, but a self-conscious coming together of the first generation of the city of New York’s creative and intellectual elite. Although living in Paris at the time, Washington Irving was made its Honorary Chairman in absentia.
The meetings of the Bread & Cheese Club were held fortnightly on Thursday afternoons and ended in the evening after dinner. African-American Abigail Jones was mentioned in Longworth’s Street Directory of 1824 as a pastry chef at 300 Broadway, running an establishment that was considered amongst the finest of the era. Cooper requested that she would prepare the Club’s dinners.
One of the circle’s chief aims was the promotion of America’s artistic competence, but just as important was the drive to compete with Boston’s literary elite and put the city of New York on the intellectual map. The rivalry was intense.
Bread & Cheese
New England and New Netherland clashed on many different levels. New England was a religious colony founded by refugees from a persecuted minority. New Netherland, established by the Dutch West India Company, was a trading post. The Dutch Reformed Church may have been the official religion, but citizens were free to practice other teachings in private. A substantial population of Huguenots, Quakers and Calvinists settled along the Hudson River.
New England did not allow such leniency. Feelings of hostility between the two communities originated in long standing tensions between England and the Low Countries which resulted in four Anglo-Dutch Wars over trade routes and colonial monopolies.
Today, New York City has a rich bread culture that reflects the diversity of the metropolis. Bread had a prominent place almost since the foundation of New Amsterdam when doughnuts were introduced by settlers from the Low Countries. Wheat was a profitable commodity crop for a number of notable New Yorkers, including the descendants of the Dutch Schuyler family.
By 1770, wheat was shipped from New York’s port across the Atlantic to Europe, the West Indies and down the coast. Over time, waves of Germans, Italians and East European Jews (bagels) brought loaves of their own. Once outlandish immigrant specialties, they soon reached every street corner of the city.
Cheese arrived by a different route into America. When English Puritans crossed the Atlantic, they brought their knowledge of dairy farming to the colonies. Coming from predominantly agricultural areas, they set up cheese making operations in their areas of settlement.Production of Cheshire and Cheddar-style cheeses began in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629. As had been the case in Europe previously, cheese making on farmsteads was managed by women. For some considerable time, it remained almost a New England monopoly.With an increasing number of arrivals, English colonists began to press into former New Netherland territory from Connecticut. These Yankees, a disparaging name for New Englanders derived from the Dutch “Jan Kaas” (Jack Cheese), first took the eastern half of Long Island. They then moved westward, finally capturing New York’s port in about 1820 and dominated shipping activities until the Civil War.These expansive developments provoked a triumphant statement by Timothy Dwight, the fundamentalist preacher and President of Yale University (nicknamed the “Puritan Pope”), that New York was becoming “a colony from New England.” Such bragging must have infuriated the proud associates of Fenimore Cooper’s Bread & Cheese Club.Those who aspired to join the Club were chosen by ballot. The club’s very name was derived from the peculiar polls that were applied to admit or refuse new members. Critics have described the practice as somewhat eccentric. In doing so, they ignored its significance in view of the cultural rivalry between Boston and New York City.Considering Cooper’s aversion of New England and Puritanism (he was strongly attached to the Episcopal Church), the manner of selecting candidates was based on the following symbolic principle:Bread = New York = acceptance Cheese = New England = rejectionThese literary meetings and events lasted until 1827. Cooper himself had sailed to Europe in 1826 at the height of his popularity and the Club was dissolved soon after. The generation of “Knickerbockers” would continue his work in its drive to make New York City the nation’s cultural capital.
TIME TO BITE THE BULLET AND STUDY THE ROUTE MAP FOR RIDING THE “Q” TRAIN ON AUGUST 28TH.
WE WILL BE AT THE CHAPEL FLEA MARKET THIS SATURDAY STOP BY TO ORDER YOUR TAPESTRY THROW.
OUR JULIA GASH TAPESTRY THROWS WILL BE AVAILABLE VERY SOON. RESERVE YOURS TODAY FOR DELIVERY SOON. THINK OF CUDDLING UP THIS WINTER UNDER A UNIQUE JULIA GASH (C) THROW!
COME SHOP OUR JULIA GASH COLLECTION OF GREAT NEW ITEMS:
TAPESTRY THROW $70 UNTIL OCTOBER 1, $80 AFTER OCTOBER 1 MUGS $15- TOTE $28- LANYARD $8- ORNAMENT $20- COLOR BOOK $8- POSTCARD $2- LARGE POSTER $35 (NOT SHOWN)
FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
SEND YOUR RESPONSE TO: OUR SLOTHS ARE BACK IN STOCK. WE WILL BE AT THE FLEA MARKET ON SATURDAY READY FOR YOU TO ADOPT ONE,,,,,OR MORE.
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
WM. H. JACKSON IS THE MANUFACTURER OF OUR LAMP POST BASE LOCATED AT THE KIOSK CORNER.
PHOTO IS OUR LAMP BASE AT THE CORNER OF 60th STREET AND SECOND AVENUE
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Illustrations, from above: Francis Guy’s “Tontine Coffee House” (with flag on top), 1797 (New-York Historical Society); advertisement in the New York Commercial Advertiser of November 2, 1820; Knickerbocker Magazine cover (1856); the first edition of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pioneers published by Charles Wiley; and William Cullen Bryant at work, ca. 1870s (New York Public Library).
TIME TO BITE THE BULLET AND SEE WHAT WONDERS WE WILL FIND WHEN WE START RIDING THE “Q” TRAIN ON AUGUST 28TH.
LET’S FACE FACTS THAT THERE COULD BE A WORSE SITUATION, WITH NO SERVICE AS ORIGINALLY PROPOSED. FOLKS WHO HAVE TO GO TO QUEENS, THIS WILL BE A GIANT CHALLENGE.
WHEN WE ARRIVE AT 63RD STREET AND LEXINGTON AVENUE, WE CAN HEAD SOUTH PAST TIMES SQUARE TO 34th STREET AND THEN ON TO 14th STREET AND THEN CANAL STREET.
Scope and content: A horse-drawn ambulance arrives on the scene where a man lies in the street after being hit by a cable car. From Leslie’s Weekly, Aug. 29,1895. Background left, Union Dime Savings Bank. Background right, 6th Avenue El. Wikimedia Commons
These days you may not be hit by a trolley but by a biker, moped. scooter or out of control car in the Herald Square neighborhood.
Herald square, not as well known as its neighbor a few streets further north., Manhattan. Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons
UNION SQUARE 14 STREET
CHILDE HASSAN Wikimedia Commons
The site of union movements, riots, demonstrations and all kinds chaos ages ago and weeks ago.
CANAL STREET
EXIT IN CHINATOWN FOR SOME FOOD AND THEN HEAD OVER THE MANHATTAN BRIDGE ON THE “Q TRAIN TO BROOKLYN
STAY ON THE Q TRAIN TO CROSS THE MANHATTAN BRIDGE OR WALK OVER IT FOR A MULTI BOROUGH EXPERIENCE.
TOMORROW WE CONTINUE OUR VOYAGE SOUTH ON THE “Q” TRAIN TO MORE STATIONS AND NEIGHBORHOODS IN BROOKLYN
OUR JULIA GASH TAPESTRY THROWS WILL BE AVAILABLE VERY SOON. RESERVE YOURS TODAY FOR DELIVERY SOON. THINK OF CUDDLING UP THIS WINTER UNDER A UNIQUE JULIA GASH (C) THROW!
COME SHOP OUR JULIA GASH COLLECTION OF GREAT NEW ITEMS:
TAPESTRY THROW $70 UNTIL OCTOBER 1, $80 AFTER OCTOBER 1 MUGS $15- TOTE $28- LANYARD $8- ORNAMENT $20- COLOR BOOK $8- POSTCARD $2- LARGE POSTER $35 (NOT SHOWN)
THIRD CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, 64th & PARK AVE. UNDER FULL IMAGE OF STRUCTURE WHILE BUILDING IS UNDER RESTORATION. GLORIA HERMAN GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
TIME TO BITE THE BULLET AND SEE WHAT WONDERS WE WILL FIND WHEN WE START RIDING THE “Q” TRAIN ON AUGUST 28TH.
LET’S FACE FACTS THAT THERE COULD BE A WORSE SITUATION, WITH NO SERVICE AS ORIGINALLY PROPOSED. FOLKS WHO HAVE TO GO TO QUEENS, THIS WILL BE A GIANT CHALLENGE.
WHEN WE ARRIVE AT 63RD STREET AND LEXINGTON AVENUE, WE CAN HEAD NORTH TO 72 STREET, 86TH STREET AND 96TH STREET SECOND AVENUE STATIONS, THAT IS GREAT TO REACH MUCH OF THE UPPER EAST SIDE. WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO THIS FOR THE LAST FEW YEARS,
BETWEEN THE 86th & 96th STREET STATIONS IS CARL SCHURZ PARK WITH ITS BEAUTIFUL GARDENS, OVERLOOKING OUR ISLAND.
A LIGHTHOUSE OUT THERE!
57 STREET SEVENTH AVENUE RIGHT AT THE DOOR TO CARNEGIE HALL!!! NOT EVEN A BLOCK TO WALK
TIMES SQUARE
IS AN EASY CONNECTION TO THE “F” TRAIN THRU THE CONNECTOR TO THE WONDERFUL NICK CAVE MOSAIC WONDERLAND PASSAGE.
TOMORROW WE CONTINUE OUR VOYAGE SOUTH ON THE “Q” TRAIN TO MORE STATIONS AND NEIGHBORHOODS IN MANHATTAN AND BROOKLYN
OUR JULIA GASH TAPESTRY THROWS WILL BE AVAILABLE VERY SOON. RESERVE YOURS TODAY FOR DELIVERY SOON. THINK OF CUDDLING UP THIS WINTER UNDER A UNIQUE JULIA GASH (C) THROW!
COME SHOP OUR JULIA GASH COLLECTION OF GREAT NEW ITEMS:
TAPESTRY THROW $70 UNTIL OCTOBER 1, $80 AFTER OCTOBER 1 MUGS $15- TOTE $28- LANYARD $8- ORNAMENT $20- COLOR BOOK $8- POSTCARD $2- LARGE POSTER $35 (NOT SHOWN)
OOPS, WE GOOFED IN SPELLING OUR WEBSITE ADDRESS. THE PHOTO IS FROM THE 1970’S OF GOLDWATER RESIDENTS TRYING A NEW BUS TO TAKE THEM AROUND ROOSEVELT ISLAND. NOTE THE STEEP RAMP!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
Lie was born in Moss, in Østfold county, Norway. His father Sverre Lie (1841–1892) was a Norwegian civil engineer and his mother Helen Augusta Steele (1853–1906) was an American from Hartford, Connecticut. He was named for his father’s cousin (and brother-in-law), the famous Norwegian author Jonas Lie, who had married his father’s sister Thomasine.
Following his father’s death in 1892, 12-year-old Lie was sent to live with Thomasine and Jonas Lie in Paris. His aunt and uncle’s home was a meeting place for famous artists such as Henrik Ibsen, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Edvard Grieg, and Georg Brandes. He had already received drawing instruction from Christian Skredsvig in Norway, and Lie attended a small private art school in Paris. The following year he traveled to the United States, where he joined his mother and sisters in New York City. From 1897–1906, he trained at the Art Students League of New York.[6][7]
Lie traveled to Panama in 1913, to paint scenes of the construction of the Panama Canal. His thirty resulting canvases brought him wide acclaim. In 1929, twelve of these were donated to United States Military Academy in memory General George W. Goethals, the West Point graduate who had been the canal’s chief engineer.[7]
Jonas Lie – When the Boats Come In – 48.572 – Museum of Fine Arts
OUR JULIA GASH TAPESTRY THROWS WILL BE AVAILABLE VERY SOON. RESERVE YOURS TODAY FOR DELIVERY SOON. THINK OF CUDDLING UP THIS WINTER UNDER A UNIQUE JULIA GASH (C) THROW!
COME SHOP OUR JULIA GASH COLLECTION OF GREAT NEW ITEMS:
TAPESTRY THROW $70 UNTIL OCTOBER 1, $80 AFTER OCTOBER 1 MUGS $15- TOTE $28- LANYARD $8- ORNAMENT $20- COLOR BOOK $8- POSTCARD $2- LARGE POSTER $35 (NOT SHOWN)
SECOND AVENUE TRAIN COMING OVER QUEENSBORO BRIDGE.
GLORIA HERMAN, ED LITCHER, ANDY SPARBERG, ARON EISENPREISS, SUMIT KAUR, & JUDY SCHNEIDER ALL GOT IT RIGHT!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
The partnership of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux pioneered American landscape architecture. Their work in Manhattan’s Central Park, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and Boston’s Franklin Park set new standards for outdoor spaces which some Upstate New York cities such as Buffalo sought to emulate, albeit on a reduced scale.
In 1859 Olmsted married his brother John’s widow, Mary, and adopted their children, which included John C. Olmsted. In 1870 Mary gave birth to Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. fondly known as Rick, and these siblings followed in their father’s footsteps and formed the landscape architectural firm known as Olmsted Brothers in 1898, which continued many years after their patriarch’s death in 1903.
The Library of Congress is the custodian of Frederick Law Olmsted’s papers, and he is described there as a “farmer, writer, reformer, landscape architect, urban and suburban planner and conservationist.” Certainly he was a man who held a remarkable empathy for all life, and imparted this respect into all his designs.
In Rochester, citizens impressed with the success of Olmsted’s parks in Buffalo desired their own series of parks. In the late 1880s the city selected the Olmsted design which created Seneca Park, Highland Park and South Park, which was later renamed Genesee Valley Park. The city planners must have been delighted when Olmsted declared the farmland recently purchased for Genesee Valley Park was “almost ideal” for the purposed improvement into a city park.
With Governor Theodore Roosevelt in Albany’s Executive Mansion beginning the twentieth century, the citizens of New York State needed to decide the future of their statewide canal network. There was certainly a concern by that Governor about maintaining the preeminence of the Port of New York.
Although the original versions of the Erie Canal built in the previous century were extremely successful, transporting all types of commerce between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic seaboard, while enhancing the state treasury through tolls, it was beginning to wear out and needed enlargement to accommodate larger self-propelled vessels, which would dispense with draft-animals.
An actual ship canal would be an extremely large undertaking, and while this perhaps could have been accomplished at a Federal level to take advantage of the only water-level route through the Appalachian chain of mountains, it did not appear the other states in the union were interested in the proposal. The Barge Canal was an effective plan that New York State could build on its own, and was in fact a compromise between the large scale ship canal and the existing horse-drawn canal.
The New York State Barge Canal was approved as a major public works project by voters in a November 1903 referendum. The State constitution at that time provided for an elected State Engineer, and all design work was performed through that office. The construction phase ran from 1905-1918, and crossings of other transportation elements were some of the greatest obstacles the engineering staff faced.
The new canal would be, like its predecessor versions, the only price control on rail-rates east of the Mississippi River, in the days of a pure laissez faire American economy, before the existence of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The workings of a fair market were a motivating factor in the 1903 election, especially for voters on the terminal ends of the canal in New York City and Buffalo.
The onset of World War before the Barge Canal was completed upset and distorted the original premise and interfered with the designed accomplishments. Certainly railroad management did not look forward to continued competition with canal shippers on an economical waterway, which the railroads tax payments were helping build, and the numerous crossings required by the new construction was a matter of deep contention. In the Rochester area, six major rail routes would interface with the new Barge Canal, adding complications, costs and time required for completion.
Another obstacle faced by canal engineers was opposition from the citizens of Rochester. This upstate New York municipality, originally referred to as the Flour City from the numerous mills the original canal spawned, by the early twentieth century saw themselves as beyond inland navigation. The residents of what by then was the Flower City, resented the idea of prospering via what they foresaw as an unsightly and polluted ditch.
Remarkably, the opposition was spearheaded by the Rochester Chamber of Commerce, under the direction of John M. Ives, who evolved into the leading statewide anti-canal advocate. Rochesterians resolutely sought to keep the canal outside of their city limits. The canal engineers succeeded in doing so, by having the Barge Canal route stay south of the city, and using the Genesee River as a nearly three mile navigable spur into downtown. A movable gate dam was constructed near Court Street, which provided the navigational stage into the heart of the state’s third largest municipality.
This same impounding structure also allowed the main east-west route of the Barge Canal to cross the Genesee River in a slack water pool. Guard locks were built on each side of the crossing, which are only used during water level extremes in the Genesee. The Mount Morris Dam, which has mitigated seasonal periodic flooding of the Genesee River, was not completed until 1952.
This more southerly course was not without objection as well, as this route would bisect Rochester’s sylvan Genesee Valley Park. To allay these concerns, the canal engineers hired at great expense the landscape architectural firm of the late Frederick Law Olmsted, to design elegant footbridges to cross the canal. These three identical arched concrete spans are unique to Genesee Valley Park, and were constructed in order to preserve beauty and harmonize with their surroundings while maintaining the integrity of the walking trails.
The Christian Science Monitor wrote in 1912: “Genesee Valley Park is essentially pastoral, but it is pronounced a ”thing of joy and beauty” by all who visit it. It is paralleled in many respects by Franklin Park in Boston, but it has the advantage of the long stretch of the Genesee River running through it. It will be bisected by the Erie Barge Canal, which will be spanned by ornamental bridges, I hope patterned after some of those I saw in Boston. Thus the great waterway from the lakes to tidewater will be made to add beauty and interest to the park.”
Calvert Vaux’s previously designed bridges in New York’s Central Park had pleasingly arched chords, however none of them needed to cross a navigational waterway. The Barge Canal engineers were enamored with the recent advent of reinforced concrete, which allowed them to build large modern structures. An advantage which comes by building with reinforced concrete is that only one set of forms for a particular project need be constructed, from which countless identical clone structures could be cast.
The Guard locks on both sides of the Genesee River allowed the canal section through the park to be dry excavated, and the pilings and footings to be set in a convenient and efficient process. The gentle arch of the bridge chord would be surmounted by an attractive row of balusters topped by a balustrade, serving as an open parapet and enhancing the pleasing unique structure group.
The New York State Barge Canal was completed in its entirety in May of 1918, with the area in the vicinity of Genesee Valley Park being the last construction completed on the statewide route. New York State had built the canal solely with the financial support of its own citizens, with no Federal input or assistance, creating a brand new connection linking the Great Lakes to the Atlantic.
The Empire State patriotically turned over its new transportation network to the national government in order to assist the war effort. Manpower and material shortages, caused by World War I, prevented the Genesee Valley Park pedestrian bridges from being completed until the economic restricting forces of the global conflict eased, with the graceful spans becoming serviceable in the autumn of 1920, and park grading and planting completed the following spring.Legendary canal chronicler Noble E. Whitford in his 1922 epic History of the Barge Canal of New York State wrote: “It was the park, the railroads and the flood conditions that presented the more difficult engineering problems, but none of these was really serious, once the way was cleared for action. By taking scrupulous care the engineers have not allowed the canal to spoil the beauty of the park. Ornamental bridges, both foot and highway, span its waters.”The expansion of the interstate highway system decades later would also bisect Genesee Valley Park, with I-390 spanning the Genesee River and paralleling the Barge Canal. Presently the management and operation of Genesee Valley Park has been divided between the City of Rochester and Monroe County.When the Barge Canal was conceived and built, it had an appeal for recreation possibilities, yet no one was thinking then of trails as activity infrastructure. Yet, in fact what was built is nearly perfect for what has become a statewide network of trails and a system to enjoy, both on the water and along it. The graceful trio of distinctive foot bridges remain an attractive and functional component of Genesee Valley Park, and our canal system and trail network.Herman Melville in Moby Dick wrote: “For three hundred and sixty miles, through the entire breadth of the state of New York; through numerous populous cities and most thriving villages; through long, dismal, uninhabited swamps, and affluent, cultivated fields, unrivalled for fertility; by billiard-room and bar-room; through the holy-of-holies of great forests; on Roman arches over Indian rivers…flows one continual stream…
For more information and online shopping check out the website at globaltable.com
WEEKEND PHOTO
WEST WING OF METROPOLITAN HOSPITAL FEATURED IN EDWARD HOPPER’S “BLACKWELL’S ISLAND” PAINTING, 1928
COME SHOP OUR JULIA GASH COLLECTION OF GREAT NEW ITEMS:
MUGS $15- TOTE $28- LANYARD $8- ORNAMENT $20- COLOR BOOK $8- POSTCARD $2- LARGE POSTER $35 (NOT SHOWN)
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Illustrations, from above: A Real Picture Post Card view of pedestrian bridge spanning the NYS Barge Canal in Genesee Valley Park Rochester, New York; Genesee Valley Park (courtesy Library of Congress); forms and re-bar are in place for the next concrete pour in this westward view of the East Foot Bridge in South Park, Rochester on August 2, 1920 (NYS Dept. of Public Works, courtesy Erie Canal Museum); a view of three foot bridges over the Erie Canal in South Park (Genesee Valley Park) in Rochester on October 15, 1920 (NYS Dept. of Public Works, courtesy Erie Canal Museum); a view of a tugboat pulling a barge under the East foot bridge on the Erie Canal in South Park (Genesee Valley Park), looking West Rochester on August 30, 1921; and a westbound tanker Burlington-SOCONY belonging to the Standard Oil Company of New York passes through Genesee Valley Park circa 1933, with the western most footbridge and Pennsylvania RR (truss) bridge in the distance (Courtesy Auke Visser’s MOBIL Tankers & Tugs website).
Walking down Sullivan Street I noticed a new hat shop, RYAN RAMELOW HATTER, at 107 Sullivan Street. Mostly universal styled for women or men. the hats are all made in this shop. Not only are there great hat styles and the decor is great and a fun store to visit. The hatter, Ryan, is very friendly and we chatted about starting a business during the pandemic and now being very successful.
Brick walls, tin ceiling, copper pipes holding hats give a fun atmosphere to the shop.
FDNY TRAINING ON WELFARE ISLAND IN THE 1960’S. NINA LUBLIN GOT IT RIGHT.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
JUDITH BERDY
COME SHOP OUR JULIA GASH COLLECTION OF GREAT NEW ITEMS:
MUGS $15- TOTE $28- LANYARD $8- ORNAMENT $20- COLOR BOOK $8- POSTCARD $2- LARGE POSTER $35 (NOT SHOWN)
Recently this photo was sent to me asking if I knew the location where it was taken. The photo is of staff and faculty of New York Medical College. I could not identify any of the buildings as being part of Metropolitan Hospital on Welfare Island. Dr. Logan is seated on the right side.
Myra Adele Logan (1908 – January 13, 1977) is known as the first African American female physician, surgeon, and anatomist to perform a successful open-heart surgery. Following this accomplishment, Logan focused her work on children’s heart surgery and was involved in the development of the antibiotic Aureomycin which treated bacterial, viral, and rickettsial diseases with the majority of her medical practice done at the Harlem Hospital in New York. Logan attended medical school during the pre–Civil Rights era. The majority of black female physicians in this time period were forced to attend segregated schools. Earning a medical degree as an African American woman during this time period was extremely difficult.Apart from her work as a medical professional, Logan also dedicated her time to organizations such as the NAACP, Planned Parenthood, and the New York State Commission on Discrimination.[1]
Personal life Early life and education Myra Adele Logan was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1908, to Warren and Adella Hunt Logan. She was the youngest of eight children and sister to Arthur R. Logan.[2] Her mother was college-educated and involved in the suffrage and health care movements. Her father was treasurer and trustee of Tuskegee Institute and the first staff member selected by Booker T. Washington. Logan’s primary school education was conducted at Tuskegee’s Laboratory, the Children’s house. After graduating with honors from Tuskegee High School, she attended a historically black college, Atlanta University, and graduated as valedictorian of her class in 1927. She then moved to New York and attended Columbia University, where she earned her M.S. degree in psychology. She worked for the YWCA in Connecticut before opting for a career in medicine.[3] Logan was the first person to receive a four-year $10,000 Walter Gray Crump Scholarship[4] that was exclusively for aiding African-American medical students to attend New York Medical College. She graduated from medical school in 1933.[5] She was the second female African American intern at Harlem Hospital in New York and did her surgery residency there.[2][6][7]While working at Harlem Hospital, Logan met and married painter Charles Alston on April 8, 1944.[5] Alston was working on a mural project at the hospital and he featured Logan as his model for work Modern Medicine. In the oil canvas painting, Logan appears as a nurse holding a baby.[8] The project was intended to combine the fact of there being a lack of African American physicians during this time with the maternal gender role placed on women as well.[9] Alston included her alongside Dr. Louis Wright who was the first African American physician at Harlem Hospital and Louis Pasteur in this work, showcasing the advancement of Western medicine with African American and Caucasian healthcare professionals working side by side.[10]That mural has been restored and can be viewed at the Harlem Hospital Gallery.
Detail of Charles Alston’s Modern Medicine (oil on canvas) in Harlem Hospital, a mural commissioned in 1936 by the WPA. Logan was a medical intern at the hospital then and served as a model for the mural; she appears as a nurse holding a baby.
Later life Outside of her career, Logan was a renowned classical pianist. After her retirement in 1970 and later served on the New York State Workmen’s Compensation Board. On January 13, 1977, Logan died of lung cancer at Mount Sinai Hospital at the age of 68.
Medical careerSurgery Myra Adele Logan spent the majority of her career as an associate surgeon at the Harlem Hospital. She remained a surgeon past her terms completion.[11] She was also a visiting surgeon at the Sydenham Hospital, and did all this while maintaining her own private practice.[12] In 1943, Logan became the first woman to perform bypass surgery, an open-heart surgical procedure, which was the ninth of its kind in the world at the time.[12][13] This was when she began dedicating her career towards children’s heart surgery alongside developing the antibiotic Aureomycin.[2][12] In 1951, Logan was elected as a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.[12]
Antibiotic Development She worked with a team of doctors who effectively treated 25 lymphogranuloma venereum patients with the developed Aureomycin. After four days of Aureomycin treatment, the gland size of eight patients with buboes had reduced.[14] Logan published these results in the Archives of Surgery and the Journal of American Medical Surgery; she also published results for her research with Puromycin in multiple journals and archives. She also worked with fellow Harlem Hospital physician, Dr. Louis T. Wright, on antibiotic research.[14]
Breast Cancer Research In the 1960s, she dedicated her time towards researching treatments for breast cancer which led to the development of x-ray technology processes that detected the differences in tissue density more accurately; this allowed for earlier and easier detection of breast cancer as well as other types of tumors.[12]The upper Manhattan Medical Group of the Health Insurance Plan (HIP) was one of the first few group practices within the United States, and Logan helped found the practice as well as serve as the treasurer. Logan worked within NAACP‘s Health Committee, the New York State Fair Employment Practice Committee, the National Cancer Committee, and the National Medical Association Committee.[5]
Social Work[edit] Logan was committed to social issues despite her busy schedule as a surgeon. During her career, she was a member of the New York State Committee on Discrimination, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Planned Parenthood. During Governor Thomas E. Dewey‘s administration, Logan served as a member of the New York State Commission on Discrimination. She and 7 other members resigned from the commission in 1944 when Dewey shelved legislation they drafted in regards to anti-discrimination.[3][2] In 1970, upon retiring, she served on the New York State Workmen’s Compensation Board.[1]
Dr. Myra Adele Logan is the only person we can identify.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
JUDITH BERDY
COME SHOP OUR BUCKET HAT COLLECTION. OUR MODEL IS EADIE WARSING
Yesterday I attended the online meeting of the Medical Archivists of New York. This is a professional group of persons working in medical archives. Most work for major hospital systems and universities in the Metrpolitan area.
Though I am not a professional medical archivist, over the years the RIHS has acquired many papers, publications and information on the subject. We have referred many inquiries to these repositories.
As the meeting progressed I discovered that we on Blackwell’s, Welfare now Rooevelt Island have a connection to most of these institutions.
The first was the Oskar Diethelm Library at NY Presbyterian. I have referred persons their in the past.
About the Oskar Diethelm Library
Founded in 1936, the Oskar Diethelm Library houses, preserves, and provides access to printed books and serials, archives and manuscripts, photographs, prints, sound and video recordings, asylum reports, and other ephemera and is part of Weill Cornell Medical College’s DeWitt Wallace Institute of Psychiatry: History, Policy, & the Arts. The library’s rare book collection contains approximately 35,000 titles dating back to the 15th century dealing with psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis, mesmerism, spiritualism, phrenology, witchcraft and related topics. World-renowned individuals and organizations are also represented in the approximately 1500 linear feet of archives, including Donald W. Winnicott, Thomas Salmon, and the American Psychoanalytic Association. By documenting the evolution of scholarly views on the mind, brain, and soul, the library is a vital national and international resource for the study of the evolution of thinking about mental health and illness. The library is part of the DeWitt Wallace Institute of Psychiatry: History, Policy, & the Arts, which has a mission to support, carry out, and advise scholarship on a broad range of issues relevant to the present-day theory and practice of psychiatry. Since its inception in 1958, the Institute has sought to use in-depth studies of the past to enhance understanding of the many complex matters that surround contemporary thinking and practice regarding mental health and illness. Over the last decades, Institute faculty have made critical contributions to debates surrounding matters like de- institutionalization, the history of the mind-brain problem, stereotyping, the scientific status of psychoanalysis, and the conceptual origins of different forms of mental illness.Directed since 1996 by the scholar and psychiatrist Dr. George Makari, the Institute has branched out beyond history to foster studies at the interface of the “psy” sciences and the humanities, including explorations of the arts, medical ethics, and mental health policy. The Institute also hosts the Richardson History of Psychiatry Research Seminar, the longest running colloquium of its type in the United States. It convenes working groups that bring together researchers in specific domains, such as the impact of psychiatry on society, a speaker series on Mental Health Policy, and various educational activities for students. With an open atmosphere that draws a mix of psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, historians, ethicists, literary critics, and others, the Institute hopes to bridge studies of the past with science of the future, and connect the domains of science and the humanities, a necessity if our understanding of ourselves is to encompass the overwhelming mix of genes, neurons, brains, minds, selves, families, and societies.The library is open to the public by appointment. To work with the library collection, please contact Special Collections Librarian Nicole Topich, MLIS, at nrt4001@med.cornell.edu or (212) 746-3728
The next was the New York Academy of Medicine. This is usually the first step in historical research. The NYAM has some original mother and baby records from the Maternity Hospital on Blackwell’s Island. NYAM.ORG
Mount Sinai Hospital contains records not only from this facility but from others they have acquired, schopol of medicine. They have extensive collections and a wonderful staff dedicated to preserving history.
Other institutions including NYU, Rutgers, New York Presbyterian, SUNY Downstate told of their collections and work being done.
The featured speaker was from New York Medical College. NYMC still has a long standing affiliation with Metrpolita Hospital. Met was housed in the Octagon from 1895 to 1952. There is an extensive collection of art, collections and documents collected by an alumni and donated to the school. Hoping for a visit to Valhalla soon.
WE ARE NOW ON TIK TOK AND INSTAGRAM!
INSTAGRAM @ roosevelt_island_history
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ED LITCHER RECOGNIZED COLER HOSPITAL WITH THE OCTAGON (THEN METROPOLITAN HOSPITAL TO THE SOUTH)
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Renderings courtesy of Uri Wegman and Richard Joon Yoo
A permanent memorial in Greenwich Village honoring the lives lost to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire will finally be built. Designed by artists Richard Joon Yoo and Uri Wegman and commissioned nearly a decade ago by the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, the tribute will feature the names of all 146 workers who died, cut into steel panels outside of 23-29 Washington Place, the building where the tragedy happened over 100 years ago. As first reported by the New York Times, a dedication ceremony for the new memorial is scheduled for October 11.
The design from Wegman and Yoo is inspired by the mourning ribbons that were traditionally draped on buildings during times of public grief. The main part of the memorial is a textured stainless steel ribbon, which descends from the corner of the building on the ninth floor and splits at the top of the ground floor, continuing along both sides of the building.
The names of the victims are etched into the ribbon, which hangs 12 feet above the sidewalk and is reflected by a reflective panel on street level. As visitors look up and read the names, they will see the testimonies of survivors and eyewitnesses reflected in the panel.
The coalition invited the public to help create a 300-foot-long ribbon formed from individual pieces of fabric and sewn together by volunteers. The cloth ribbon’s patterns and textures will be etched onto the steel ribbon of the memorial.
The Triangle Factory Fire is one of the deadliest workplace tragedies in American history. The event occurred around 4:30 p.m. on March 25, 1911, when a fire broke out on the eighth floor of the Asch Building, located on the corner of Washington Place and Greene Streets.
Most of the factory workers were poor immigrant women and girls, hired by owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, who preferred to hire them because they would work for less pay than men would and were considered less likely to unionize.
The factory floor was notorious for its poor working conditions and neglectful management by Blanck and Harris, who are said to have personally designed the layout of all 280 sewing machines throughout the floor to minimize conversation and maximize production. They even fined workers for talking, singing, and taking too many breaks.
The fire, which was ignited when stray ash from a foreman’s cigarette landed on rags and cloth on the floor, quickly erupted, fueled further by grease from the sewing machines. When the women on the factory’s eighth floor tried to escape, they realized they were trapped behind the doors that Blanck and Harris kept locked throughout the workday. Factory workers leaped out of the building’s windows to their deaths to escape the flames.
Considered one of the worst workplace tragedies in American history, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire brought attention to the widespread mistreatment of laborers and poor working conditions in factories nationwide. As 6sqft previously noted, the working conditions that created the tragedy were common in factories around New York City and the country. Roughly half of the City’s garment workers died above the seventh floor, out of reach of the city’s fire hoses. Most factories sported wooden staircases and blocked exits.
In 2012, the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition organized an international competition aimed at creating a permanent memorial to honor the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire at the site of the tragic event. After reviewing nearly 180 submissions, the Coalition selected Uri Wegman and Richard Joon Yoo’s design as the winning proposal.
In 2015, New York State granted $1.5 million towards the construction of the memorial, and in January 2019, the city’s Landmark Preservation Commission approved the design. Finally, in 2021, the Public Design Commission approved and commended the memorial’s design.
For members of the coalition, the memorial, as is a recognition of the labor movement in New York City, is long overdue.
“In a city that calls itself a union town, it’s about time to have labor stories out there,” Mary Anne Trasciatti, president of the coalition and director of the labor studies program at Hofstra University, told the Times.
“There’s nothing on the landscape that tells the stories of working people as working people.”
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INTERIOR OF GOOD SAMARITAN LUTHERAN CHURCH LOCATED IN AREA NOW BETWEEN GOOD SHEPHERD AND RIVERCROSS DEMOLISHED IN THE 1970’S
THE VIEW OF “DOUBLE TAKE” FROM THE ROOF OF THE SUBWAY STATION. TO SEE MORE OF DIANA COOPER’S ART AND PHOTOGRAPHS CHECK OUT HER WEBSITE: dianacooper.net
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
