CHAPLAIN AND GUESTS AT THE OPENING OF COLER IN 1952. THOM HEYER GOT IT!
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
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
JUDITH BERDY
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
On a chilly November day in 1829, a man dressed completely in white stood before a crowd on the precipice of the High Falls of the Genesee River in the middle of Rochester, New York. Many watching had traveled for days to view the spectacle. All eyes were riveted on one of the most famous men in America.
In our own day, we’ve been fascinated by Philippe Petit walking a wire between the World Trade Center towers, or by Evel Knievel leaping over a row of buses on a motorcycle. A forerunner of these daredevils was Sam Patch.
As a boy, Sam had learned the art of jumping when he leapt for fun from the roof of the six-story stone textile mill where he worked. Slater’s Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, was the first major factory in the nation. Sam turned every jump into a four-act drama: the tense anticipation, the thrilling leap, the heart-stopping disappearance, and the joyful resurrection.
The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 had made Rochester the largest flour-milling city in the world. The town roared with the clattering machinery driven by the river’s water power. The walls of the Genesee gorge formed a misty amphitheater below the falls. On Friday, November 6, a crowd of more than ten thousand people gathered there for the show.
Sam had earlier scouted the river, taking soundings below the falls. Part of his secret was that dropping into the frothy water at the base of a cataract softened the impact of the landing. Now he bowed, said a few words, launched himself, and plummeted. Some cried out, “He’s dead!” After a tense moment, he bobbed to the surface, relieving the onlookers.
Why did he do it? Was it a hunger for attention? A death wish? For Sam Patch, it went beyond the personal. He was reasserting the worth of industrial laborers like himself. Sam had started working twelve-hour days in the mills at the age of eight. He had found little time for play or for schooling. As a factory hand, he was a hireling, dispensable, worth less than the machinery he tended. He worked for someone else’s profit.
Americans did not take easily to factory work. In 1824, workers in Pawtucket walked off the job to protest a decision by mill owners to cut wages by a quarter and extend the work day by an hour. Women and girls instigated the nation’s first industrial strike. Men, including Sam Patch, joined in.
Patch later moved to Paterson, a prosperous mill town in New Jersey. On a whim, he upstaged the opening of a pleasure garden by leaping from the top of the 77-foot Passaic River Falls. In doing so, he defied the city’s upper classes — the place of amusement was off-limits to working people. He jumped again on the Fourth of July, 1828, advertising his feat with the terse phrase that would become his motto: “Some things can be done as well as others.” It was the working man’s sneer at the pretensions of the elite. Sam Patch had found his calling.
By the time he was thirty, Sam was traveling the country, jumping from ships’ masts and over waterfalls. He became the first of the Niagara Falls daredevils, leaping from a platform into the seething cauldron at the bottom of the falls. With this feat, the Buffalo Republican declared, “he may now challenge the universe for a competitor.”
Now, to the consternation of Rochester’s respectable citizens, Sam scheduled another jump in the city a week after the first — on Friday the thirteenth. He had a platform constructed to raise him even farther above the river, 120 feet. “There’s no Mistake in SAM PATCH,” his handbills read. “HIGHER YET! Sam’s Last Jump.”
Again the great mass of spectators assembled. The mills shut down. Watchers crowded windows and roofs. The sensation, one viewer noted, was “between a horse race and an execution.” All waited in the penetrating cold of a gray November afternoon.
Sam Patch wore the white togs that were the uniform of mill workers. He stepped onto the platform. He had imbibed enough whiskey to make him sway a bit as he looked out on all those looking back.
“Napoleon!” he shouted, knowing few could hear. “Napoleon was a great man. But he couldn’t jump the Genesee.” Sam paused. The wind carried his words away over the housetops. “That was left for me to do. I can do it and I will.”
That was his belief. Anyone, even a working man, could be great. Could be somebody. Instead of a cog in a machine. A man could take his life into his own hands. He could dare.
The anticipation had built long enough. Sam stepped to the very edge of the platform. A man in the crowd bit his thumb until it bled. Each spectator drew a breath and held it. Sam looked into all their eyes, into the abyss. He jumped.
He lost control of his erect posture halfway down. His arms flailed. He tipped sideways. Some spectators covered their eyes. Sam Patch slammed into the river.
“When the bubbling water closed over him,” a journalist wrote, “the almost breathless silence and suspense of the multitude for several minutes was indescribably impressive and painful.” No one moved or spoke. Then, finally, “it became too apparent that poor Sam had jumped from life into eternity.”
It wasn’t until the next March that a workman watering horses near the mouth of the river broke the ice and discovered Sam’s frozen body, still dressed in white. Over his grave, someone mounted a wooden plaque that read: “Sam Patch. Such is Fame.”
CHAPLAIN AND GUESTS AT THE OPENING OF COLER IN 1952.
THOM HEYER GOT IT!
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
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
NEW YORK ALMANACK Illustrations, from above: High Falls of the Genesee River and Sam’s Last Jump handbill.
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Dating from 1785, Edward Mooney House at 18 Bowery, at the corner of Pell Street in Lower Manhattan’s Chinatown, is one of New York’s oldest surviving brick townhouses. Built shortly after the British evacuated New York and before George Washington became President, its architecture contains elements of both pre-Revolutionary (British) Georgian and the in-coming (American) Federal style. Designated in 1966 as a landmark sample of domestic architecture, Mooney House has three stories, an attic and full basement.
The property itself and the land on which it was built are manifestations of Manhattan’s socio-political emergence. The house harbors a history of various functions that involved a diverse mix of tenants and occupants, reflecting the chaotic rise of the metropolis.
Edward Mooney House
Born in New York in November 1703 (his father was a French Huguenot refugee from Caen; his mother descended from the prominent Dutch-American Van Cortlandt family), James De Lancey (Delancey) was educated in England, attended Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, before studying law at the Inner Temple in London. Having been admitted to the bar in 1725, he returned to New York to practice law and enter politics. In the course of his career he served as Chief Justice, Lieutenant Governor and acting Colonial Governor of the Province of New York.
De Lancey was also a substantial property owner. Known as “De Lancey’s ground” it included a 300-acre estate on today’s Lower East Side. Having sided with the British during the Revolutionary War, his land and assets were seized by the city’s authorities after the end of hostilities.
Part of the estate was purchased by Edward Mooney, a wholesale butcher and racehorse breeder. He erected the townhouse there, close to the slaughterhouses, holding pens and tanneries where Mooney made his money. He occupied the house until his death in 1800.
In 1807, the size of the house was doubled by an addition to the rear. It was in use as a private residence until the 1820s after which at various times the building served a range of purposes, including as a brothel, general store, hotel-restaurant, and pool room.
In the early 1900s the Edward Mooney House functioned as a tavern that gained a notorious reputation; Barney Flynn’s Saloon was a hangout for pugilists, gamblers, gang members and political hacks in an area that by then was referred to as Chinatown.
Chinatown
Manhattan’s ethnic enclave of Chinatown was born of exclusion. First established by Chinese merchants putting down roots near what was then a multi-ethnic port area. By 1870 there was a population of some two hundred immigrants. Soon after, these numbers increased sharply. During the post-1873 Long Depression, blatant discrimination in California and elsewhere drove large numbers of Chinese workers eastwards in search of employment in New York’s laundries and restaurants.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (repealed in 1943), made it impossible for immigrants to legally enter the country. The law did not halt the flow of arrivals and their illegal entrance intensified racist prejudice in the wider society. In 1900, the US Census reported over 7,000 Chinese males in residence, but only 142 Chinese women. Chinatown was a “bachelor society.” The district was shared with various other groups of migrants. Its local funeral parlor served both Irish and Chinese customers.
George Washington O’Connor claimed that he was born in 1852 on Mott Street in Chinatown (he probably hailed from Providence, Rhode Island). Having changed his name to Connors to clear his presence of Irish associations, he became known as Chuck (for his love of chuck steaks which he cooked over an open fire in the middle of Mott Street). As a youngster he joined gangs that pestered Chinese citizens, but Chuck also learned to speak some Cantonese (which eventually endeared him to the local population). He subsisted on an Irish-Chinese diet of chop suey and potatoes.
Connors had a brief career as a professional prize fighter and then worked as a bouncer for James (“Scotty”) Lavelle, a gangster who ran several joints in Chinatown. He was a regular at The Dump, a saloon at 9 Bowery owned by Jimmy Lee and Slim Reynolds where criminal fraternities met and alcoholic ‘Bowery Bums’ gathered. Its clientele was described at the time as the ‘dirtiest species of white humanity.’
Inevitably Chuck got involved in criminality. His association with a thug named Big Mike Adams got him into trouble. Acting as an enforcer for local tongs (brotherhoods), Adams bragged he killed a slew of Chinese men by decapitating them. After the latter was murdered himself, a rumor spread that Chuck had been implicated in the attack. Having decided that Chinatown was too dangerous a place for him, he moved uptown, learned to read and write, and got married. Chuck took on a job on the Third Avenue El.
When his young wife suddenly died, Connors hit the bottle. Blind drunk one day, he was shanghaied onto a ship that set sail for London docks. He washed up in Whitechapel.
Spectacles of Deprivation
Deprivation in the Victorian period was associated with London’s East End. It was outside the Blind Beggar tavern on Whitechapel Road that William Booth founded the Salvation Army; it was here that social investigator Henry Mayhew researched his four-volume survey London Labour and the London Poor (1851); and it was in these slums that Arthur Morrison located his moving account of childhood suffering in A Child of the Jago. The East End was a nightmare, a gothic tale of distress that sparked deep indignation amongst social critics.
In literature and painting scenes of poverty and criminality were used in narratives to stir up a Cockney playhouse of images and emotions. Viewing the street as theater encouraged artistic license and misrepresentation. Sentimentalism and sensationalism were part and parcel of the process. Excursions into London’s poorest districts provided both scenes of bitter social hardship and accounts of crude merriment. There was an additional element.
Following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 a wave of pogroms swept across Russia and neighboring countries leading to mass migration to Britain and America. London’s Jewish population rose in the course of the next quarter of a century from some 47,000 to approximately 150,000, of whom some 100,000 lived in the East End.
These new immigrants formed tight-knit communities. Yiddish was used in signs, newspapers and in theaters. Local shops sold bagels, salted herrings and pickled cucumbers; kosher butchers provided brisket and salt beef. Itinerant Jewish hawkers dealt in second-hand wear and discarded household articles. It offered an urban spectacle never witnessed before in Britain. By the 1890s “slumming” in the East End had become a pastime for the rich. Colorful myths about Cockney life and familiar stereotypes about Jewish culture and people were expressed there and then.
It was in these harsh urban surroundings that Connors found safety and a sense of comfort. East End eccentricities appealed to him. Working for and with local costermongers, the itinerant traders who cried their trade lines (London Cries) to attract customers, he absorbed Cockney culture.
Mayor of Chinatown
Once returned to his Manhattan haunts, Chuck presented himself in an East London costermonger attire of bell-bottom trousers, blue stripped shirt, yellow silk scarf and a blue pea coat with big “pearly” buttons. He even adopted a Cockney song he had learned:
Pearlies on my front shirt, Pearlies on my coat,
Little bit of dicer, stuck up on my nut, If you don’t think I’m de real thing, Why, tut, tut, tut.
Instead of an East End flat cap, Connors wore a derby (a “dicer”) that was two sizes too small with a nod to Bowery traditions.
A sharp observer of life in Whitechapel, he was well aware of the weird vogue by which sightseers paid good money to be escorted through the city’s slums and witness “picturesque” sites of local and migrant deprivation. He exported the idea to Chinatown.
Connors was able to rebuild his life after meeting Richard K. Fox, publisher of the Police Gazette. The latter owned several properties in the district and offered his protégé free accommodation at 6 Doyers Street in exchange for magazine tales about the exploits of “The Great Chuck Connors.” He would enthral New Yorkers with lively stories (in a colorful dialect) about his neighborhood. In 1904 Fox assisted Connors in producing an autobiography Bowery Life where the author is introduced as the “Mayor of Chinatown.” The label stuck.
Doyers Street was, according to contemporary guidebooks, a seriously crooked street. Connors exploited that reputation. The Bowery Boy became the Godfather of Manhattan’s slumming industry, a phenomenon that was described in The New York Times (September 1884) with the headline “A Fashionable London Mania Reaches New York.”
One of his favorite stop-overs was The Pelham Café at 12 Pell Street, headquarters of Mike Salter, a Russian-Jewish gangster known as the uncrowned “Prince of Chinatown.” Every single night, his saloon hosted a crowd of visitors who came to hear pianist “Professor” Nicholson play ragtime, accompanied by a seventeen year old waiter named Izzy Baline who belted out raunchy versions of various popular songs. For the young singer this was the start of a glittering career. He would soon change his name to Irving Berlin.
Although he did have macho and no-nonsense competitors in the Bowery, Connors – with the blessing of local tong leaders – made Chinatown his exclusive territory. No other “lobby-gow” (Chinese slang for tour guide) would dare to bring his clients into the district.
Slum Tourism & Stereotyping
Chuck made Barney Flynn’s Saloon the headquarters from where he organized his “vice tours.” He sat his customers down for an “authentic” Chinese dinner; he took them to the Chinese Theatre at 5/7 Doyers Street (with reserved seats for “Americans”). There was the standard introduction to a temple, known in local jargon as a “joss house” (a corruption from the Portuguese Deos for God).
The tour’s climax was a visit to an opium den where his clients encountered the “terror” of drug dependency. It was pure theater. Connors employed Chinese actors to create illusions of addiction and drug-induced stupor.
To add a street element of imminent danger, fights with hatchets and knives between rival gangs were staged whilst in the distance gunfire could be heard. Shocked visitors were neither shot nor robbed in Chinatown. They safely left the area to re-join their respectable families under the impression that they had witnessed a glimpse of “primitive” life in the depraved and seedy margins of society. Slumming had been an adventurous day trip.
Chuck himself became a celebrity host and his tour was a ‘must’ for other prominent figures, including tea magnet Thomas Lipton, novelists Israel Zangwell and Hall Caine, actors Henry Irving and Anna Held. When Chuck Connors died of pneumonia on May 10, 1913, his passing was widely reported. According to the New York Times his funeral was attended by sporting friends, local businessmen, gangsters and Tammany Hall politicians, all paying their respect to the Mayor of Chinatown.
The procession, consisting of sixty three coaches of mourners and another six of floral arrangements, started outside Chuck’s room in Doyers Street. The cortège snaked through Chinatown, stopping for mass at the Catholic Church of the Transfiguration in Mott Street, after which it continued over the new Manhattan Bridge towards Calvary Cemetery in Queens. As the coffin passed by, Chinese merchants set off traditional funeral firework displays, honouring a white man they considered one of their own – and therein lies a painful irony.
Slum tourism consisted of typecast representations that were based on anti-immigration rhetoric and bigoted press reports linking urban deprivation to an ‘alien’ culture of addiction, debauchery and violence. Chuck’s Chinatown was a stage on which white stereotypes about ethnicity and color were either formed or confirmed. It contributed to the racial profiling that Asian-Americans would experience subsequently.
DO YOU LIKE TO GARDEN?
THE RIHS KIOSK NEEDS VOLUNTEER(S) TO MAINTAIN OUR GARDEN. DO YOU HAVE AN HOUR OR TWO A WEEK? DO YOU NEED COMMUNITY SERVICE CREDITS? CONTACT US AND HELP US MAINTAIN OUR WONDERFUL GARDEN ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM
QUEENSBORO BRIDGE SHOWING NY ARCHITECTURAL TERRA COTTA WORKS ON VERNON BLVD
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
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Illustrations, from above: the Edward Mooney House at 18 Bowery on the corner of Pell Street; Chuck Connor’s presentation card, 1900 (Museum of the City of New York); The Bowery Burlesquers presenting a satire on New York’s slumming craze, 1898 (Library of Congress); Chuck Connors’ autobiography; Doyers Street, Chinatown, 1909; Chinese Theatre entrance, 5-7 Doyers Street (date unknown); and Slumming according to Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper (Library of Congress).
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Soon the direct path to the promenade will be complete.
A crosswalk and stop sign would make a wonderful addition so our neighbors could cross the street safely.
Coler Administration has had a contractor repairing many damaged and dangerous sidewalks and paths today. Apparently the word got out and the path was being prepared!! What a great result to a long-standing problem.
This wonderful walk will now be accessible to all!!
THE RIHS KID’S BOOK GIVE-AWAY AT EARTH LOVE DAY. LOOK FOR OUR TABLE.
DO YOU LIKE TO GARDEN?
THE RIHS KIOSK NEEDS VOLUNTEER(S) TO MAINTAIN OUR GARDEN. DO YOU HAVE AN HOUR OR TWO A WEEK? DO YOU NEED COMMUNITY SERVICE CREDITS? CONTACT US AND HELP US MAINTAIN OUR WONDERFUL GARDEN ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM
MISHI, COLER’S THERAPY CAT
CAT FEEDER NEEDED FOR CATS ON THE EAST SIDE OF COLER
VOLUNTEER NEEDED TO FEED PLEASE CONTACT 1-646-246-2046 VIA TEXT THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE
NINA LUBLIN, GLORIA HERMAN AND ALEXIS VILLAFANE IDENTIFIED ONE OF THE LAST AND NOW LONG-GONE PARK BENCHES, LEFT OVER FROM OUR 1970’S DESIGN. THESE WERE EYESORES AND UNCOMFORTABLE FOR DECADES. (THE RIHS DID NOT PRESERVE ONE FOR HISTORY!)
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
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
JUDITH BERDY
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
ON MONDAY NO ROUTE, ON WEDNESDAY A ROUTE WAS UNDER CONSTRUCTION, SEE BELOW
When walking north past Coler Long Term Care on the West Promenade, notice that there is no access to the path from the area near Coler. This makes it virtually impossible for the Coler residents to enjoy the promenade and many have to use the roadway as the closest site to view the river and enjoy our fresh air. There is an area that could easily be configured into an accessible pathway.
Now, there is direct path to the building entrance.
There is even a curb cut. A crosswalk and stop sign would make a wonderful addition so our neighbors could cross the street safely.
Coler Administration has had a contractor repairing many damaged and dangerous sidewalks and paths today. Apparently the word got out and the path was being prepared!! What a great result to a long-standing problem.
This wonderful walk will now be accessible to all!!
CAT FEEDER NEEDED FOR CATS ON THE EAST SIDE OF COLER
VOLUNTEER NEEDED TO FEED PLEASE CONTACT 1-646-246-2016 VIA TEXT
EARLY OPENING OF THE QUEENSBORO BRIDGE UPPER PEDESTRIAN LEVEL ON MARCH 30, 1909. OFFICIAL OPENING WAS IN JUNE.
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
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
JUDITH BERDY
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Designed by Philip Johnson for the 1964 World’s Fair, the NYS Pavilion is a concrete and steel structure, consisting of three observation towers, an open-air elliptical ring, and a theater.
The Tent of Tomorrow measures 350 feet by 250 feet with sixteen 100-foot columns suspending a 50,000-square-foot roof with multi-colored panels. The tent also held three towers, measuring 60 feet, 150 feet, and 226 feet, respectively.
The two shorter towers held cafeterias for the World’s Fair and the tallest held an observation deck. The Pavilion also included the “Theaterama,” a space that exhibited pop art by renowned artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, among others. The space was used as the Queens Playhouse from 1972 until 1985.
“Perhaps the most iconic landmark in our parks system, the NYS Pavilion in Flushing Meadows Corona Park is a reminder of our city’s historic past, and a beacon towards the future,” NYC Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue said. “As we light the Towers and Tent of Tomorrow ‘Parks Green’ in celebration of the completion of this stabilization and lighting work, we look forward to further renovations on the Pavilion to help ensure this landmark continues to inspire and delight visitors for decades to come.”
In addition to the dynamic lighting, the Pavilion received several structural and electrical improvements. Deteriorating suspension cables on all levels of the towers and Pavilion were replaced and the tower stairs were repaired to allow access for maintenance.
All of the original 1960s conduits were replaced along with the installation of new electrical equipment for a planned NYPD Mobile Command Center. The concrete towers and historic piers were replaced as well, and the tower’s blue globe lighting was restored to its original form.
In December 2018, the Pavilion received a $16.5 million FEMA grant for repairs after Hurricane Sandy. The funding would be used to replace electrical units at the Pavilion’s World’s Fair Park and to create new flood protection systems to prevent damage from future storms.
After years of plans to restore the Pavilion, work broke ground on the project in November 2019. The work was expected to be completed in March 2021, as 6sqft previously reported.
Work on the next phase of the restoration is still in its planning stages, but is expected to further bolster the structure’s stability and eventually allow for guided tours of the towers in the future, according to Untapped New York.
“This is a major milestone in the effort to once again make the NYS Flushing Meadows Corona Park Pavilion a popular public space,” Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr., said.
“Along with brightening our skies, the lighting of the Pavilion will brighten the hearts of Queens residents both young and old, especially those who have fond memories of attending the 1964 World’s Fair. Thanks to this important restoration work, new generations of residents and visitors will be able to make memories when they visit this iconic and brilliantly illuminated structure.”
EDITORIAL
I lived blocks from the 1964-5 World’s Fair and could never understand why the NYS Pavilion was preserved in a state of deterioration for years. It is now having more funding poured into it and never seems to be complete and even be a least bit attractive. There were many more worthy pavillions to preserve and we will watch this one become an example of incomplete and expensive “restorations.” Perhaps the green lights signify the funds being spent.
Judith Berdy
CORRECTION
THIS IS COLER RESIDENT VICTOR. HE WAS IMPROPERLY IDENTIFIED AS VINCENT YESTERDAY. OUR APOLOGIES.
MEMBERS OF THE EFFLER FAMILY SWIMMING IN THE EAST RIVER DURING 1914-1919 RESIDENCY ON THE ISLAND
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
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
6SQFT
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
When walking north past Coler Long Term Care on the West Promenade, notice that there is no access to the path from the area near Coler. This makes it virtually impossible for the Coler residents to enjoy the promenade and many have to use the roadway as the closest site to view the river and enjoy our fresh air. There is an area that could easily be configured into an accessible pathway.
This area is directly across from the Coler driveway.
There is direct path to the building entrance.
There is even a curb cut. A crosswalk and stop sign would make a wonderful addition so our neighbors could cross the street safely.
Vincent, a Coler resident, expressed frustration at not being able to access the promenade.
Coler Administration has contacted RIOC to no avail for over a year. Recently Borough President Mark Levine and State Senator Liz Kreuger inspected the site. We need community and political support to motivate RIOC to do a small construction project to make the promenade truly wheelchair accessible.
This wonderful walk has been denied to mobility challenged for years.
UPPER LEVEL OF HUDSON YARDS WITH VIEW OF MOYNIHAN STATION AND EMPIRE STATE BUILDING ALEXIS VILLAFANE 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
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
JUDITH BERDY
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Seth Wheeler was born in Chatham, Columbia County, NY on May 18th, 1838 to a successful and affluent family. His father, Alonzo Wheeler, owned Wheeler, Melick & Co. one of the foremost manufacturers of agricultural equipment; his mother was Harriet Hatch Wheeler. At the time, agriculture was the foremost industry supporting the Upstate New York economy and demand for agricultural equipment was strong. Begun in 1830, Wheeler, Melick & Co. moved to Albany in 1849.
Seth attended Albany Academy before going to work for his father’s company. Once at Wheeler, Melick & Co., Seth showed an aptitude for designing new agricultural equipment and improving on designs for equipment the company already produced.
On April 3rd, 1860, Seth married Elizabeth Alexander, daughter of William Alexander and his wife, Sarah Maria Boyd. The Wheelers had three sons and two daughters, all born in Albany.
In 1860, most Albany houses were built with an outdoor outhouse, usually located toward the back of the lot. On most city blocks a row of houses, stores or commercial buildings were lined up at the sidewalk; a row of outhouses was lined up at the rear of each property line.
The flush toilet had been invented in 1596 but did not come in to popular use until around 1900. In 1860, the word “toilet paper” would also have been unknown in most of the world, although it had been produced in two-foot by three-foot sheets for the Chinese Emperor for over 500 years.
In 1857, Joseph Gayetty produced the first commercially available toilet paper in the United States. His firm created packages of 500 individual sheets moistened with aloe. Each sheet had a watermark imprinted bearing Gayetty’s name. Gayetty’s package of 500 sheets sold for 50 cents. The product was sold as a medical product as Gayetty’s Medicated Paper, but did not sell well and Gayetty ceased production.
Brothers Edward, Clarence and Thomas Scott, (who are believed to have originally been from Saratoga County, NY), began selling some kind of toilet paper in sheets from a pushcart in Philadelphia in 1867. Again, as with Gayetty, this paper was not a big seller as most consumers felt that yesterday’s newspaper served the purpose just as well. The biggest obstacle to selling toilet paper in the early years was consumer resistance to paying for something they were used to getting for free.
In 1871, Seth Wheeler received the first U.S. patent for a machine able to manufacture perforated, rolled, wrapping paper. His machine could also imprint an insignia or wording on each sheet. Seth’s patent also mentioned that this wrapping paper machine could process manufactured rolled, perforated toilet paper.
In 1874, he organized the Rolled Wrapping Paper Company at 318 Broadway in Albany, for the manufacture of rolled paper under the patents that had been issued to him. In the days before paper bags, meat, fish, vegetables and groceries were frequently wrapped in large sheets of paper. APW Paper Company (Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper Company) made a stand upon which a large roll of brown paper could be held, together with a cast iron blade that suspended from the stand and could be used to tear off the paper.
In 1877, the Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper Company was organized with Seth Wheeler as president. An early ad for a medicated version of Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper said: “this paper will be found invaluable as a preventative and cure for hemorrhoids and is the only really medicated toilet paper ever produced. Manufactured only by the Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper Co., Albany, N.Y., USA. Price per roll of 1000 sheets, Fifty Cents. Patented July 20, 1871; Feb. 13, 1883, July 15, 1884, Medicated.”
As acceptance of toilet paper grew, Wheeler shortened and renamed the company: the APW Paper Company. Wheeler named his brand of toilet paper “The Standard.”
In 1879, Edward and Clarence Scott founded the Scott Paper Company to sell toilet paper. The Scott toilet paper was sold in rolls that were not perforated. Due to the continuing reluctance to discuss toilet paper in public, the Scott brothers did not use their family name on the paper. For a while, the Scotts used the name “Waldorf” on their toilet paper.
In 1880, the British Perforated Paper Company sold toilet paper, but their toilet paper was not sold in rolls. It was marketed to barbers to use to wipe shaving cream off razors as they shaved customers.
The quality of early toilet paper could not have been very good as it was not until 1935 that Northern Tissue Company advertised its toilet paper as “splinter free.” The first two-ply toilet paper was marketed by St. Andrew’s Paper Mill in England in 1942.
The APW Paper Company became one of Albany’s largest and most successful manufacturing businesses. They licensed other manufacturing plants to operate under their patents. At one time over 100 manufacturing plants were operating under licenses with Seth Wheeler and the APW Paper Company.
One of Seth’s patents was for a cast iron toilet paper holder, designed for round rolls of perforated paper. This toilet paper holder was about four inches wide and about one inch high and consisted of a cast iron plate with the name “APW Paper Co.“ cast into it, with a hand cast on each side to hold a wire and wooden roller to go through the center tube of a roll of toilet paper. Another APW Paper Co. patent was for the “Wheeler Pocket Companion,” a roll of toilet paper to be carried in a container in a purse or pocket.
In 1885, the Morgan Envelope Company patented a roll of toilet paper and a toilet paper holder very similar to APW’s. The only significant difference in the new patent by Morgan was that the toilet paper roll was oval and not round. Morgan said that this made it easier to tear off the sheet. A lawsuit developed and Morgan’s patent was thrown out; the modification not being substantial enough to warrant a separate patent.
APW Paper Co. had plants in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Canada, London, Berlin, Paris, Cologne and Switzerland. Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper Company purchased the Sheet Harbour Lumber Company and over 100,000 acres in Nova Scotia to harvest trees for paper pulp in 1922. They later sold it to the Scott Paper Company, which had finally begun offering perforated roll toliet paper in the 1890s.
Back in the 1850s after succeeding his father as president of Wheeler, Melick & Co., Seth also formed the Wheeler Heat and Power Company of which he served as president. He was vice-president of the Cheney Piano Action Company of Castleton, Rensselaer County, NY, president of Albany County Savings Bank, and director of the State Bank of Albany. He was a member of The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Free and Accepted Masons and the Fort Orange Club.
One of his sons, Edgar, was described as “an enthusiastic wheelman, charter member of the Old Albany Bicycle and Comuck [possibly comic?] clubs and, with General Robert Shaw Oliver, owned and rode the first high style wheels ridden in the city.” Seth Wheeler died in 1925 and he was cremated, but he and his family members are memorialized at Lot 6, Section 11, of Albany Rural Cemetery.
ORIGINAL RED BUS THAT WAS HERE FOR ONLY A SHORT TIME.SINCE IT DID NOT HAVE ENOUGH POWER TO OPERATE FOR MORE THAN A FEW HOURS. IT ONLY HELD ABOUT 20 PASSENGERS. NINA LUBLIN AND ALEXIS VILLAFANE 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
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Illustrations, from above: Seth Wheeler’s “Wrapping or Toilet Paper Roll” Patent filed September 15, 1891; Wheeler, Mellick and Co. advertisement in The Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste (1861); portrait of Seth Wheeler; and the Liberty Paper Mills of the Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper Company, Erie Blvd, Albany, later the location of the Huck Finn’s Warehouse.
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The house at No. 510 Broadway which had been home to Thomas F. Cornell in the 1830s, was being used as a medical office by 1841. Dr. John H. Whittaker shared the building with Dr. Granville Sharp Pattison. In 1842 Dr. Whittaker agreed to testify to the good character of a friend who was looking for employment. An advertisement in the New-York Daily Tribune read “A married man wants a situation as Salesman or Clerk in a Wholesale Grocery, Wine or Spirit Store—has been at the business for fourteen years, and understands his business perfectly. For character and capability I refer to John H. Whittaker, Esq., M. D., 510 Broadway.”
Dr. Whittaker remained in the former house at least through 1845. That year Dr. Pattison was no longer here, but Dr. Arnold F. Wainewright listed his practice at the address. Another physician, John M. Swift, had his office in the building by 1869.
By now this stretch of Broadway—once a fashionable residential district—was being overtaken by commerce. In January 1866 Samuel and Abraham Wood paid about $115,000 for No. 510 and contracted architect “Mr. Alexander” to design a new business building.
But problems soon arose. Court papers from 1873 revealed that, first, “There was an objection by Abraham Wood to fronting the store with colored marble.” Alexander’s plans were rejected.
But before new designs by Isaac P. Duckworth could be made, neighbors stopped the process. “Four suits were commenced against Abraham and Samuel Wood, in regard to injuries arising out of the construction of this building.”
And in the meantime, Alexander sued the Wood brothers for breaking his contract. No. 510 Broadway had become a major headache for the real estate developers. As the snarl of law suits continued, the “House and Lot” and plot were valued at $108,309. The assessment, more than $2 million in 2016 dollars, reflected the changing character of Broadway which now saw the rise of modern loft and store buildings.
The Woods leased the property to Heymann & Sons who succeeded where the brothers had failed. The developers commissioned architect William Bloodgood in 1878 to design a commercial building on the plot. In the 12 years that had passed since the Woods had bought the property, the last of the residential neighbors had moved on. There would be no lawsuits against Heymann & Sons.
Construction began on July 3, 1878 by builder Freeman Bloodgood (sometimes erroneously listed as “Freeman & Bloodgood”) and was completed on September 12 the following year. It is unclear whether Freeman and William Bloodgood had a family connection; but the men had worked together two years earlier in building the Academy of Medicine.
The commercial facade was similar to the many cast iron buildings going up at the time. But William Bloodgood clad No. 510 Broadway in stone above the cast iron storefront. The iron piers of the ground floor were duplicated in stone on the upper floors. Engaged columns separated the openings and an attractive balcony provided dimension at the third floor. A robust cast cornice sat above a carved corbel table and decorative panels.
The building filled with apparel and textile businesses, such as George R. Kennedy, silk merchant. On January 30, 1886 the estate of Samuel Wood sold the building to David Greenberger for $110,000. He would not keep it long, selling it in 1889 for $120,000. It was resold in June the following year to Charles A. Bandouine for $125,000. (A millionaire, Bandouine’s mansion was at No. 718 Fifth Avenue, at 56th Street.)
Among the tenants in the building in 1893 was Ketchum & Jonas, cloakmakers. In the fall of that year Saul Ketchum and Julius Jonas realized that the financial condition of the company was irreparable. But before they declared bankruptcy, they attempted to skim funds for their own use.
In November 1893, a few days before announcing their bankruptcy, “they prepared a false set of books, in which a considerable part of their assets was made to disappear,” reported The Sun. “The false books, it is alleged, are in the handwriting of Ketchum.”
Unfortunately for the devious pair, their bookkeeper, Charles J. Halfer, was more honest. He alerted authorities of the hidden $10,000. Julius Jonas was arrested in July 1894. He pleaded not guilty of “removing and secreting account books.” His partner, Saul Ketcham, was in even bigger trouble. He was charged with three counts: “alteration of books with intent to defraud, disposing of property with the same purpose in view, and grand larceny in the second degree.”
Others were arrested as well, including their attorney Abraham Josephs and clerk Harry Jacobs for “aiding and abetting the commission of crime.” When their scheme was uncovered and police on their tails, Ketchum and Jonas were first hidden for several days in the attorney’s house. They were then moved to Jacobs’s house in Brooklyn.
While Jonas sat in jail, investigators were still looking for his partner. On July 23, 1894 The Evening World reported “Mr. Ketchum avoided the detectives on Saturday night, and has since kept out of sight.” Later that same day Ketchum gave himself up.
Bloodgood considered the pedestrians passing below when he dressed the underside of the balcony with a carved panel.
One tenant not involved in the apparel trade was Hunninghaus & Lindemann, makers of window shades. In 1897 two Lower East Side retailers, Herman Rappaport, whose shop was at No. 124 Attorney Street, and Max Fishman at No. 430 Grand Street, concocted a plan to acquire window shades at a sizable discount.
Stephen Hart worked for Hunninghaus & Lindemann as a shipping clerk and Charles Wuest was the firm’s errand boy. They were approached by Fishman and Rappaport with a business proposition. The men offered to buy stolen window shades from the boys. To deflect suspicion, they had rented a basement on Attorney Street to receive the goods.
By the time Hnninghaus & Lindemann discovered the thefts, the firm had lost more than $2,000 in goods. Stephen Hart, 18 years old, and Charles Wuest, 19, were arrested on July 16, 1897 and charged with grand larceny. They were quick to blow the whistle on Rappaport and Fishman, saying they “induced them to steal and bought all of the goods from them.”
The retailers claimed innocence and said they had no idea that the goods were stolen.
Also in the building were Becker & Co., makers of women’s waists—the most popular piece of apparel in the country; and Weinelbacher & Rice who called themselves “the largest glove importers in the country.”
On October 31 1899 King’s Palace Dept. Stores boasted of a new line of Becker & Co’s waists — The Evening Times (copyright expired) In the first decades of the new century Goldwater Bros., “laces and embroideries,” was here; as was the American Trunk and Bag Company. And by 1922 41-year old Samuel Zuckerman had his office and tie-manufacturing firm on the second floor.
On the night of Saturday, March 18, 1922 fire broke out in Zuckerman’s factory. Among the first respondents was Lieutenant William Coles of the Fire Department Bureau of Investigation. When the blaze was extinguished, Coles set to work. And what he found was disturbing.
He reported that “he found two fires had been started in the factory, ten feet apart, and that he found the safe stuffed with paper and silk soaked in benzene. There was no money in the safe.”
Detectives went to Zuckerman’s home on South 4th Street in Brooklyn to question him about the suspicious evidence. The tie manufacturer claimed he “knew nothing about the benzene.” But he was then showed a receipt for two gallons of the liquid that was recovered from the site. Suddenly he recalled the purchase.
“When confronted with the receipt, he said he had sent an errand boy to get benzene one gallon to be used at his home, the other to clean silk at his factory,” reported the New-York Tribune on March 20. Unknown to Zuckerman, detectives had already interrogated the retailer who had “identified Zuckerman as the person who had bought the benzene.”
Samuel Zuckerman was taken from his house in handcuffs, charged with suspicion of arson.
The cast iron storefront has been returned to its 19th century appearance.
The handsome building at No. 510 Broadway survived the rest of the 20th century without major change. At some point the railing of the balcony was lost and although the cast iron storefront had been slightly updated, it has been recently restored. In 1976 the upper floors were converted to “joint living/work quarters for artists.”
After filing numerous requests with RIOC, a contractor was here on Thursday to clean out storm drains at the Chapel and 540 sides of Main Street. Hopefully, we will not have the aromas this summer.
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
BEAUTIFUL NEW PLAQUE OUTSIDE RIHS OFFICE IN THE OCTAGON THANKS TO BOZZUTO MANAGEMENT
NINA LUBLIN, ALEXS VILLAFANE, GLORIA HERMAN, CHRISTINA DELFICO AND VICKI FEINMEL 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
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The letters are large and elegant, but they’re easy to miss—set against an off-white facade above a rusty garage door on Lafayette Street. “Wanamaker,” the letters read. You’re forgiven if the name doesn’t ring a bell. This faint signage is just about all that remains of Wanamaker’s, a top department store that arrived in New York City in 1896 and became a leading retailer through the mid-1950s.
The story of Wanamaker’s echoes the story of so many of Gotham’s legendary dry goods emporiums, as they used to be known. These highly competitive stores made huge profits thanks to the riches of the Gilded Age and the introduction of modern consumerism.
Except Wanamaker’s got its start in Philadelphia, where namesake John Wanamaker opened his first men’s clothing shop in 1861. By the end of the century, Wanamaker began branching out into other cities as well as New York.
Wanamaker’s first occupied the former A.T. Stewart store on Broadway between 9th and 10th Streets (above, in 1901), then expanded its footprint by building a much larger store at 770 Broadway, between Eighth and Ninth Streets, in the early 1900s. A skybridge reportedly connected the two structures.
“Clad mostly in terra cotta, this grand shopping palace contained thirty-two acres of retail space, an auditorium with 1,300 seats, and a large restaurant to round out the shopping experience,” states Village Preservation’s Off the Grid blog.
Unlike other major New York City department stores, Wanamaker’s never moved to Midtown. The store stuck it out on Astor Place until shutting its doors in the mid-1950s. A fire then consumed the empty older building. An apartment residence called Stewart House sits there today.
The Wanamaker sign I found isn’t on the 770 Broadway building; you can view it on the Lafayette Street side of 730 Broadway, where the company had a warehouse, according to a 1982 New York Times article.
The only other remnant of this retail giant is on New York City maps—Ninth Street between Broadway and Lafayette is still called Wanamaker Place.
BEAUTIFUL NEW PLAQUE OUTSIDE RIHS OFFICE IN THE OCTAGON THANKS TO BOZZUTO MANAGEMENT
NINA LUBLIN, ALEXS VILLAFANE, GLORIA HERMAN, CHRISTINA DELFICO AND VICKI FEINMEL 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
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
