The chalet-style elevated train station is long gone; the Ninth Avenue El, which ran along Greenwich Avenue, was demolished in 1940. (Though Berenice Abbott keeps it alive just as the painting does in this 1936 photo.)
The cigar shop in the little Federal-style house on the left has also bit the dust. The land is part of the churchyard of St. Luke’s, and the sidewalk is occupied by a row of Citibikes.
But otherwise, so much of Beulah R. Bettersworth’s 1934 depiction of Christopher Street looking down toward Greenwich Avenue is strangely unchanged more than 90 years later.
The three-story yellow building on the northwest corner of Greenwich is still there and still yellow. The two red-brick taller buildings to the north exist as well. The curvy awning at the entrance to the Hudson Tubes—aka, the PATH train—remains in place.
Beyond Greenwich Street, the Gothic steeples of St. Veronica’s enchant and delight. Far in the background, a sliver of the Hudson River lets us know we’re at the small-scaleend of this historic street in Greenwich Village.
I tried to capture the same view today, but my camera work is no match for Bettersworth’s eye. This was her neighborhood—she lived in an Art Deco high-rise on the corner of Bleecker Street—and she depicts her neighborhood with tenderness.
I’m not the only one so taken with this streetscape. “A wintry corner of Greenwich Village lives in this painting as Beulah Bettersworth knew it when she and her husband inhabited 95 Christopher Street, a block away,” explains the Smithsonian, which has the painting in its collection. (Before that, FDR had it hanging in the White House.)
“Closely observed details draw the viewer into the painting to join Bettersworth’s neighbors hurrying through the slushy snow, catching a whiff of tobacco from the cigar store in the foreground. Snow melts from the roof of St. Veronica’s Catholic Church, whose towers are visible behind the Ninth Avenue ‘L’ station. The elevated train station had been an elegant adaptation of a Swiss chalet when it was built in 1867, but by Bettersworth’s time it was an aging relic soon to be torn down.”
More about Christopher Street is known than about Bettersworth. Born in St. Louis, she studied at the Art Students League and became a WPA painter during the Depression. She exhibited portraits and still lifes; she painted a mural for the Columbus Ohio post office that by today’s sensibilities has been considered controversial.
She died in Tucson in 1968, and I like to think she’d be quite charmed to know that the contours of this part of Christopher Street are almost frozen in time.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Snowy day at the north end of Blackwell’s Island about 1915
CREDITS
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The holdings of the New-York Historical Society Library are vast and fascinating. It is always fun to open a box of photos or unroll a set of drawings to discover something new. Recently, a researcher was working with the Printmaker File (PR 58), a collection of aquatints, engravings, etchings, lithographs, and woodcuts, representing work by over 200 artists dating from 1730 to the present. That’s how the delightful etchings of Albert E. Flanagan caught my eye.
Ruth Marie Reeves (1892–1966) was an American painter, Art Decotextile designer and expert on Indian handicrafts.
1930 Place madeNew York, United States, North America Silk shantung Overall: 54 x 35 1/4 in. ( 137.2 x 89.5 cm )
Gift of Bella C. Landauer 1945.82 Designed by Ruth Reeves (1892-1966), the textile “Manhattan” was part of a series commissioned by the W. & J. Sloane Company in 1930. The series was exhibited later that year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition, “Decorative Metal Work and Cotton Textiles.” Reeves’s designs ranged from the abstract to more realistic scenes of contemporary life and reflected her interest in the urban landscape of soaring skyscrapers, expansion bridges, and sophisticated citizens. Description MarkingsPrinted along selvage: “Manhattan designed by Ruth Reeves” ClassificationsTEXTILES
In 1920, Reeves traveled to Paris and studied with Fernand Léger.[5] During her time in Paris, she pioneered the use of vat dyes and the screen print process for home fabrics.
Above Drawing, preliminary sketch for “Westpoint” from the Hudson River series, 1933–1934 by Ruth Reeves
Ruth Reeves working on a mosaic mural. Photographed for the Works Progress Administration. Identification on verso (handwritten and stamped): Federal Art Project W.P.A.; Photographic Division; 110 King Street; New York City Location: 628 West 24 St.; Date: 6/10/40; Negative No.: 4794-1; Photographer: Shalat. Identification on accompanying label (typewritten): Ruth Reeves, right, and an assistant at work on a large mosaic mural in the Stained Glass Shop, a unit of the New York City WPA Art Project, located at 624 West 24th Street, New York City. Miss Reeves, well-known textile designer, mural painter and Guggenheim Fellowship winner for 1940, has adopted the familiar theme of school activities for the mural which is to be installed in the William Cullen Bryant High School.
Career
Returning to the United States in 1927, her designs were influenced by modern developments in France like Cubism.
Reeves’s first exhibition was with the American Designers’ Gallery in New York, where she showed textiles.[8]Lewis Mumford called her wall hangings and dresses inspired by traditional Guatemalan designs shown in 1935 “probably the most interesting work any designer has offered for commercial production today.
One of her best-known works was the carpeting and wall fabrics of Radio City Music Hall in New York City.[10] Her fabric and carpet designs along with those of her colleague Marguerita Mergentime can be seen there today. ]Donald Deskey, who won the competition to design the interiors for Radio City Music Hall, commissioned Reeves and Mergentime to design textiles for the hall.[12]
The Index of American Design, one of three main divisions of the Federal Art Project (FAP) was originally conceived by Reeves and Romana Javitz, the curator of the Picture Collection at the New York Public Library, as a way for the American artist to find authentic American everyday objects to use as visual references for their work. The Index was established with the FAP in January 1936 with Reeves as its national supervisor. She held the position until the spring when Adolph Cook Glassgold replaced her. Within the Index, Shaker works were highly prized as Reeves felt they emphasized the art of the American common man.[10][13][14]
She later taught at the Cooper Union Art School in New York [ She married engineer Donald Robert Baker and had three daughters. The couple separated in 1940
She often worked with narratives sourced from her life or friends live
South Mountain is one of her earliest narrative pieces designed as an autobiographical family portrait. It was named after the road she lived on in the artist colony in New City, New York. This piece was the start of her “personal prints” that were privately commissioned limited editions.
In 1930, Reeve was commissioned by the W. & J. Sloane Company to create a group of narrative textiles to be submitted to the American Federation of Art for their International Exhibition of Decorative Metalwork and Cotton Textiles that was to be held later that year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The company neglected to check in on her progress and in the end were horrified at the unconventional fabric she designed. Each pattern was printed on twenty-nine different types of cotton and depicted a series of rooms in an imaginary house. The fabrics also didn’t sell and the relationship ended unhappily. The most notable work from this collection is “American Scene,” a panorama that celebrates everyday American life: work, sports, and family.[15][17][18]
In 1933, Reeves created a series of textiles inspired by the Hudson River School. These textiles were funded by a grant from the Gardner School Alumnae Fund. In 1934, the textiles were shown at the National Alliance of Art and Industry.[6]
In 1934, she traveled to Guatemala through a sponsorship from the Carnegie Institution. The textiles she collected on this trip were exhibited at Radio City in New York. In 1935, she worked with R. H. Macy & Company to create five Guatemalan-inspired patterns that were some of her only works to be produced commercially.
Above DescriptionDesign for carpet for Radio City Music Hall. Repeating pattern of still life with musical instruments in tones of brown and beige. Repeat unit is rectangular; some feature instruments including the guitar, saxophone, and accordion, while others rendered with undulating abstract shapes; nine units shown.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
A Transit Art and Design mosaic at Times Square this morning.
CREDITS
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS ENCYCLOPEDIA.DESIGN WIKIPEDIA FROM THE STACKS NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The holdings of the New-York Historical Society Library are vast and fascinating. It is always fun to open a box of photos or unroll a set of drawings to discover something new. Recently, a researcher was working with the Printmaker File (PR 58), a collection of aquatints, engravings, etchings, lithographs, and woodcuts, representing work by over 200 artists dating from 1730 to the present. That’s how the delightful etchings of Albert E. Flanagan caught my eye.
Waterfront, New York, 1933
Morning Light, 1934
The Fountain, Central Park, 1933
Skyline, 1933
Flanagan was born in Newark in 1884. He graduated from Columbia University’s School of Architecture in 1910 and worked at several firms over the course of his career, including McKim, Mead & White. He taught at Columbia and was one of the original members of the Society of American Etchers. His work is in the collections of several other museums and libraries, including the Metropolitan Museum and the Library of Congress. He died in New York City in 1969.
Coenties Slip, New York, 1931
Plaza Group – Towers of Manhattan, 1930. The two buildings at center are the Sherry-Netherland Hotel and former Savoy-Plaza Hotel, which was demolished in 1965 to allow for construction of the present General Motors Building.
Jacob Street, New York, 1931. All the buildings on this street were razed in the mid 1960s and the street itself became part of the Southbridge Towers apartment complex. (Of interest to Bob Dylan fans: Jacob Street was the site of his photo shoot for the cover of the July 30, 1966 edition of the Saturday Evening Post and the 45 RPM release of “I Want You.”)
The detail in Flanagan’s etchings is what is most appealing. It is interesting to consider the time at which they were made, during what many have since referred to as a ten-year hangover from the Roaring ’20s. Though they depict a busy city in the throes of a financial crisis, a city subject to all manner of Modernist movements, and one on the brink of another war, there is a quiet aspect to them that suggests tranquility — a calm response to chaos.
Afternoon Light, 1930
PHOTO OF THE DAY
On as freezing Friday, CBN Older Adult Center celebrated January birthdays and after members Roma, staffer Joanna, Marilyn, Indira and Judy practice a future Conga Line.
CREDITS
This post is by Jill Reichenbach, Reference Librarian,Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections. FROM THE STACKS NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The Jane Bannerman Travel Sketchbooks Collection in the New-York Historical Society’s Patricia D. Klingenstein Library consists mainly of freehand pen and ink or watercolor illustrations depicting “Jane’s jaunts,” as the artist called them, around the world. Presently on view in the library’s reading room is Jane Bannerman: New York City Freehand, a selection of Bannerman’s New York City scenes. Bannerman was an eyewitness to a changing city, and her sketches capture intimate views of a New York that is at times preserved and at others fleeting, a theme familiar to visitors of New-York Historical’s current Lost New Yorkexhibition.
As a native New Yorker, Bannerman clearly delighted in capturing sweet and simple vignettes of everyday life in the city. One in particular caught the eye of a colleague and sent me on a research journey; as it turns out, the illustration depicts a former “resident” of Central Park and beloved fixture of two city boroughs – Manhattan and Queens.
“Jonah’s Whale,” named after the Biblical story, was an installation in the Central Park Children’s Zoo for over 30 years after opening in 1961. It was not a real whale, but an interactive sculpture that children could walk into, and at various points housed a fish tank and other small, marine life-themed exhibits. In 1996, the Zoo decided to go in a more scientific and educational direction, and Jonah’s Whale — later named Whaley, and then Whalemina — was moved to Rockaway Beach, where it lived at Beach 95th Street. Though a local attraction, having been lovingly restored and decorated with mirrors and multi-colored tiles, it sadly washed away during Superstorm Sandy in 2012. In the years since there have been efforts to both construct a new whale and write a children’s book about it.
Flipping through Bannerman’s sketchbooks feels like a walking tour of a bygone New York City. The examples below evoke scenes from Lower Manhattan and the East River shore. To see more of her sketches in the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, visit Jane Bannerman: New York City Freehand, on view until July 28, 2024.
Properly known as the Ravenswood Generating Station, in Queens, along the East River, “Big Allis” is the City’s largest power plant, and plans are afoot to convert it into a renewable energy center.
Sketch of 72nd Street. Jane Bannerman Travel Sketchbooks Collection, PR 297, Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society.
Here Bannerman depicts the sidewalk knife sharpener, who came equipped with a home-made contraption: a grinding wheel turned by a fan belt, to sharpen knives. He carried a school bell to announce his presence.
Sketch of Fraunces Tavern. Jane Bannerman Travel Sketchbooks Collection, PR 297, Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society.
In 1785, this meeting hall and inn built at the corner of Queen Street (now Pearl Street) and Canal Street (now Broad Street) became one of the first buildings to be occupied by offices of the federal government, when New York City was the nation’s capital. The entire block housing the Museum (which opened in 1907) is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Lastly, Bannerman illustrated a haunting view of two neighboring buildings, St. Paul’s Chapel and the Twin Towers. “The Little Chapel That Stood” was a place of peace and rest for first responders (firefighters, police officers, doctors, and nurses) in the midst of unimaginable pain. Originally termed a “chapel of ease,” it was completed in 1766 at Broadway and Fulton Street. George Washington celebrated Thanksgiving there in 1789. Sketching most likely in the late 1970s, Bannerman titled the image “Past and Future,” juxtaposing the historical and modern eras that produced these two vastly different structures.
Jill Reichenbach is Reference Librarian at the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
The cold steel winter sunshine refines the smokestacks across the river.
CREDITS
FROM THE STACKS NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
This post was written by Luis Rodriguez, Collections Management Specialist
By 1897, New York City was well on its way toward being the roaring metropolis of steel and concrete that we know today. Elevator cars were carrying passengers up and down in the earliest skyscrapers, while the elevated rail lines stretched further and further uptown. It was then that James Reuel Smith embarked upon his quest to document a particular feature of the city’s vanishing pastoral life—its springs and wells. Traveling by bicycle, Smith explored the upper half of Manhattan and much of the Bronx looking for and photographing those places where New Yorkers were still obtaining water without the necessity of an aqueduct or faucet.
James Reuel Smith. Unidentified girl drinking from a spring on the east side of Broadway between W. 184th and W. 185th Street, New York City. September 19, 1897. Glass plate negative. New-York Historical Society.
Springs were very important to Mr. Smith. He made careful notes regarding each aquiferous site, and he always had in mind the publication of his findings. His interest led him to travel around the Mediterranean region in search of the springs mentioned in classical literature, and this work resulted in the 1922 publication of Springs and Wells in Greek and Roman Literature, Their Legends and Locations.
James Reuel Smith. Central Park spring opposite E. 76th Street, 75 feet east of Sixth Avenue, New York City. April 2, 1898. Glass plate negative. New-York Historical Society
His study of New York City’s springs, however, was only published posthumously. When he died in 1935, his will directed that the New-York Historical Society should receive his photographs and papers, as well as some money, on the condition that it publish his then unknown work. The arrangement resulted in the 1938 publication of Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx: New York City at the End of the Nineteenth Century.
James Reuel Smith. Unidentified man drinking from the spring at E. 63rd Street, Central Park, 100 feet west of Fifth Avenue, New York City. October 26, 1897. Glass plate negative. New-York Historical Society.
In Smith’s introduction to the book, written around 1916, he reflects on the rapidly changing city and on the practical and aesthetic pleasures offered by the remaining springs: “In the days, not so very long ago, when nearly all the railroad mileage of the metropolis was to be found on the lower half of the Island, nothing was more cheering to the thirsty city tourist afoot or awheel than to discover a natural spring of clear cold water, and nothing quite so refreshing as a draught of it.”
James Reuel Smith. Unidentified woman drinking at Carman Spring, on W. 175th Street east of Amsterdam Avenue, New York City. undated [c. 1897-1902]. Glass plate negative. New-York Historical Society.
Many more of James Reuel Smith’s photographs can be found online at New York Heritage, where they are part of our “Photographs of New York City and Beyond” collection.
James Reuel Smith. Unidentified boy seated beside a spring on the Hudson River shore, east of the railroad tracks near the foot of W. 177th Street, New York City, September 25, 1897. Glass plate negative. New-York Historcal Society.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
LUNA has joined MOMO as a visiting dog at Coler. She is looking forward to her new career. MOMO had no comment but was glad to share her treats with the newcomer.
CREDITS
FROM THE STACKS NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
What happened to the 104 bronze figures that once lined NYC’s famous thoroughfare?
The bronze statuette of Mercury now standing atop Helicline Fine Art proprietor Keith Sherman’s kitchen island once stood atop a traffic light on Fifth Avenue. Over 100 of these statuettes formerly lined the famous thoroughfare from Eighth Street to 59th Street, but the figures vanished from the streetscape over 60 years ago. What happened to these gilded gods and how did Sherman get a hold of not one, but four of them?
To trace the appearance and disappearance of Fifth Avenue’s Mercury statuettes, we need to look at the earliest days of vehicular traffic on Fifth Avenue. They were a mess. To help ease the flow of traffic, five elevated signaling sheds were constructed in 1920. A patrolman at each post manually operated the tri-colored signal lights. These signals were effective in cutting down travel time along the avenue.
The first signaling sheds were built simply for function and painted with black and white stripes for visibility. A couple of years after their installment, the Fifth Avenue Association offered to pay for more ornamental and permanent versions. A design competition was held and the victor was American sculptor Joseph H. Freedlander
Freedlander designed a series of ornate bronze towers that stood 23 feet tall on a granite base. The towers were adorned with neoclassical ornamentation such as eagles, torches, and foliage. An illuminated clock sat at the center of the tower below the glass-enclosed space where the patrolman operated the signal, a space heated by an electric stove according to the New York Times.
As traffic signal technology advanced, the bulky manually operated towers became obsolete. Freedlander was tasked with designing traffic light poles to take their place along Fifth Avenue. He topped these slender bronze poles with a figure of Mercury, the Roman god of commerce and travel.
Freedlander’s depiction of Mercury stands atop a globe wearing a World War I-style helmet and a sash draped around his waist and arms. One arm is outstretched while the other holds a winged wheel at his side. The figure stood atop a rectangular traffic light with just two colors.
Two Mercury statues were installed at 41st Street and Fifth Avenue in 1931 and more were added until they stretched all the way from 8th to 59th Street.
The Mercury statuettes stood watch over Fifth Avenue for over thirty years until more innovations in street lighting and signaling were made. Many of the ornate lampposts of the early twentieth century began to be replaced by sleek modern posts in the 1950s. By 1962, the changes hit Fifth Avenue.
Christopher Gray wrote in theNew York Times in 1997 that Traffic Commissioner Henry A. Barnes had the Mercurcy statues removed in 1964 “to stop souvenir hunters.” The paper reported that the removal process was complete by Christmas of that year.
Another article in theNew York Times from 1971 states that the statuettes were briefly reinstalled due to public demand after Michael B. Grosse, executive vice president of the Fifth Avenue Association at the time, had the statuettes refurbished. It’s unclear when the statues were taken down again, but they were gone by the time Gray wrote about them in the 1990s.
Throughout the coverage in the Times the disappearance of the statues was attributed to traffic accidents, vandalism, theft, and destruction. Gray wrote that the statuettes were “junked for scrap.” He was able to track down just three of the 104 statues that once existed. He found two in the collection of the Museum of the City of New York and one in the office of the Fifth Avenue Association. Untapped New York reached out to those institutions to check on the tiny Mercury figures.
MCNY confirmed that the museum has one in its collection, while the representative we corresponded with for the Fifth Avenue Association said they were unable to turn up any photos or information about a statuette in their possession.
A former chairman of the Fifth Avenue Association wrote a letter to the editor in 1997 in response to Gray’s piece, stating that he remembered the Association giving out the statues to “guest of honor at the annual luncheon, which took place at the Waldorf-Astoria for a great many years.” Clearly not all the statues had been destroyed. They are out there somewhere.
Art collector Keith Sherman, co-owner of Helicline Fine Art, has been lucky enough to find multiple Mercury statues on the antique market. “I pore through hundreds of auctions every week and at one point I was just fascinated by this gorgeous Art Deco Mercury,” Sherman told Untapped New York. He didn’t know the backstory at first but after doing research on the artist and learning about the statuette’s New York City history, he was hooked.
His first Mercury find was in the 1990s. In total, Sherman has found four of the statuettes. He has sold two, one is at his Manhattan home and another is at an upstate property.
Sherman’s Mercury statues have come from the families of former Department of Transportation workers who he surmises salvaged the statues when they were removed from their posts. His most recent Mercury find was during the pandemic and he always has an eye out for more. “Every time I look at an auction, in my head, I’m saying ‘When I flip to the next page, will there be a Mercury? Will there be another one?'”
If you remember seeing the Mercury statues on Fifth Ave or have ever come across one since they were removed, let us know by leaving a comment!
PHOTO OF THE DAY
A MACY’S ODDITY.
Back in the 1960’s when Macy’s was constructing their new store on Queens Boulevard there was a holdout homeowner. To satisfy the the problem the building has a notch in the structure to accommodate the neighbor. It is still visible on the western side of the building.
CREDITS
HELICLINE FINE ART- KEITH SHERMAN DYLAN BROWN
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
There’s a lot of white in this depiction of a blustery winter day in the New York City of 1911: white snow on the street, stoops, and light poles; white-gray skies filling with factory smoke (or smoke from ship smokestacks?) across a grayish river.
Then there’s the violent white brushstrokes of howling wind against the red brick buildings. The wind is painted so viscerally, you can almost feel the icy snow and biting cold (and sympathize with the woman shielding her face in her coat, holding on to her hat).
“City Snow Scene” is an early work of Stuart Davis, a Pennsylvania native born in 1892 who is much better known as a Modernist painter. As a 17-year-old launching a career in New York, he fell under the thrall of early 20th century Ashcan artists and their gritty depictions of urban life.
The painting was auctioned by in 2012 by Christie’s, which had this to say about it: “Through bravura brushwork and a simplified muted palette, Davis succeeds in rendering a dreary winter’s day in lower Manhattan.”
“With a generous application of whites, Davis works up the surfaces to portray the texture of the snow which is juxtaposed with the more carefully applied reds he employs to develop the architecture in the background,” per Christie’s website.
“Broad, heavily applied strokes of black are the only device Davis employs to represent the pedestrians with the exception of a few simple touches of orange that delineate the faces of the primary figures in the foreground.”
It’s how a New York City winter used to be—and is once again in winter 2025.
DYLAN BROWN SPOTTED ROSIE ENJOYING A STROLL IN THE SNOW
PHOTO OF THE DAY
The caption actually states that we’re on East 79th Street between Avenues A and B—a reminder that both avenues originally extended all the way through the Upper East Side. Avenue A is York, and Avenue B is East End Avenue, which starts at 79th Street.
What’s this little boy doing on the rock-strewn ground of a stoneworks business beside the East River—close enough to what was then called Blackwell’s Island that the octagon tower of the lunatic asylum is within view? The caption says he’s drinking water from a spring.
An actual spring on the north side of East 79th Street? It’s hard to believe, but in fact Manhattan used to have plenty of springs. Some remain buried underground, only appearing during building construction, per this New York Times article. Today, you can still find springs in Central Park.
It should be noted that the photographer, James Reuel Smith, made a name for himself at the turn of the last century taking photos of springs and wells in northern Manhattan and the Bronx, documenting these vanishing waterways and the people who still drank from them. A book of his photos was published posthumously in 1935.
Who is this boy, with his heavy cap and delicate lace-up boots? I’m guessing he’s part of a family that moved uptown to the new tenement rows of Yorkville, where working-class and poor parents, mostly immigrants, toiled in factories, breweries, and on the waterfront.
The East Side Settlement House would be built on East 76th Street in 1903, offering activities and educational support for kids as well as their parents. But for now, an undeveloped stretch of land near the East River apparently made do as a play space, at least for this boy.
East 79th Street looks pretty rough in this photo. But within a decade or so, undeveloped areas like this would soon be cleaned up and turned into housing lots. What would become of this boy? With no way to know for sure, we’ll have to assume that he grew up and made his way.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
A closer look at the art of Hisako Hibi and Matsusaburo Hibi
Hisako Hibi, Floating Clouds, 1944, oil on canvas, 19 1/16 × 23 × 1 1/2 in. (48.4 × 58.4 × 3.8 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the American Women’s History Initiative Acquisitions Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, 2023.6.1
In 2023, SAAM acquired exemplary paintings by two groundbreaking figures of American art: Hisako Hibi and Matsusaburo Hibi.
Both were part of the vibrant and diverse art scene that thrived in San Francisco between the World Wars. Immigrants from Japan, they met in San Francisco in the late 1920s, when Hisako (née Shimizu) was studying oil painting at the California School of Fine Arts. Matsusaburo was already an established figure, having played a central role in organizing the East West Art Society, an association that brought together artists and art traditions from Europe and Asia. The couple married in 1930 and later moved to Hayward, California, where Matsusaburo opened a school for Japanese language and art. Even as they had two children, both continued to exhibit regularly, Hisako becoming one of only three Japanese American women to have work included in the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939-40.
However, little of the art Hisako and Matsusaburo Hibi created before World War II survives today. As with scores of other Japanese Americans, the events of the war sharply impacted the Hibis’ lives. In one of the worst civil rights violations in the history of the United States, the issuing of Executive Order 9066 in 1942, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, mandated the mass removal and incarceration of people of Japanese descent from the West Coast. Given about a week to prepare and told to bring only what they could carry, the Hibis had no choice but to leave their paintings behind. The Hibi family would spend more than three years in government detention, mostly at the Topaz Relocation Camp in the high desert of Utah. When the war ended, they moved to New York City. Matsusaburo died of cancer less than two years later, in 1947. By the time Hisako returned to California in 1954, their earlier artwork could not be found.
The Hibis’ story underscores the vulnerability of historic Asian American art. Although the Japanese were the first group of Asian immigrants to significantly participate in American modernism, their contributions have been largely invisible in scholarly and public conceptions of U.S. art and culture. Family members, a few committed collectors and art historians, and institutions dedicated to preserving Japanese American history and culture have been most responsible for protecting their work and bringing it to public attention. It remains now for large art museums such as SAAM to contribute to the recuperation and reintroduction of artists like Hisako and Matsusaburo Hibi to the history of American art—through acquisitions, exhibitions, and new scholarship.
Thanks to a crucial introduction provided by the scholar ShiPu Wang, I had the opportunity to meet Ibuki Hibi Lee, the daughter of Hisako and Matsusaburo Hibi, in 2022. In an apartment in San Francisco, I was astonished to see the number and variety of artworks cared for by Ibuki and her family members for decades. Four paintings, now in SAAM’s collection, stood out immediately, two of which were created while the Hibis were incarcerated at Topaz.
Matsusaburo George Hibi, Coyotes Came Out of the Desert, 1945, oil on canvas, 26 15/16 × 23 × 1 1/2 in. (68.4 × 58.4 × 3.8 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Catherine Walden Myer Fund, 2023.5
Matsusaburo’s Coyotes Came Out of the Desert (1945) depicts a group of animals roaming the camp barracks, seemingly in search of prey. The painting may relate to an actual event—the artist inscribed on its back: “It was a hard winter in Topaz the snow [lay] deep. Big [coyotes] came out of the desert right up to the camps and no one dared to go out of the doors.” But the work also masterfully conveys an atmosphere of dread and unease, emotions surely felt by the inmates as they lived under surveillance and grappled with the loss of their freedoms.
Hisako’s Floating Clouds(1944) is similarly both specific and universalized, grounded in observed reality yet transcendent in theme. While many of her camp paintings feature small figures in the landscape, here she omits the ground entirely, directing our gaze past the geometric rooftops of the barracks to the luminous clouds above. Hisako later inscribed on the back of the canvas: “‘Free, free’….I want to be free/ Free as that cloud I see up above Topaz.” Trapped in an oppressive environment and surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers, it is no wonder she turned to the sky for solace and mental escape. In its boundlessness, the sky suggests freedom as well as connection—it is shared by everyone on earth. The sky Hisako gazed at from Topaz was the same sky all Americans looked up to from across the vast United States.
Hisako Hibi, Peace, 1948, oil on canvas, 26 1/2 × 22 5/8 × 1 1/8 in. (67.3 × 57.5 × 2.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the American Women’s History Initiative Acquisitions Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, 2023.6.2
After the death of her husband, Hisako supported her family working as a seamstress in a garment factory. Despite financial hardship, she continued to paint and grow as an artist, her work becoming more colorful and driven by her imagination. Some of her New York paintings reflect the artist’s anxiety and isolation at the time, depicting the city as a frightening, nightmarish landscape. Others, such as Peace (1948) are more hopeful statements. The painting shows a beatific angel facing down weapons of war, subject matter that reflects Hibi’s deeply held pacificism and ongoing engagement with art as a means of personal and spiritual consolation.
In 1953, after more than 30 years in the United States, Hisako Hibi finally gained American citizenship, thanks to the passing of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which made naturalized citizenship available to immigrants born in Asia. The following year, she returned to San Francisco, where she remained until her death in 1991. During the 1960s, her paintings became, in her words, “brighter and much freer” in expression. She experimented with materials and techniques, painting at times with twigs, pebbles and driftwood rather than using a brush. She also looked beyond European painting traditions, for the first time explicitly drawing on Asian aesthetics in her brushwork and compositions. Autumn (1970) is a stunning late work, an almost purely abstract composition whose magnetism hinges on Hibi’s delicate, gestural brushwork and canny activation of empty space. She renders the glory of fall foliage with intense color and touches of the brush that echo Asian calligraphy. Hibi exhibited actively during this period of her life, becoming an esteemed figure in Bay Area art communities. In 1985, the San Francisco Arts Commission granted Hibi an Award of Honor for her achievements.
Hisako Hibi, Autumn, 1970, oil on canvas, 39 1/8 × 32 1/4 × 1 1/2 in. (99.4 × 81.9 × 3.8 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the American Women’s History Initiative Acquisitions Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, 2023.6.3
SAAM is grateful to acquire these rare works from the Hibi family. By entering the museum’s collection, Hisako and Matsusaburo Hibi’s paintings will be discovered by new generations of admirers—whether on display in SAAM’s galleries, on the museum’s website and social media, in open storage, or on loan to other institutions. The impact of such encounters is intangible yet significant. A work of art previously unknown to the general public holds the potential of a revelatory perspective. It offers a window into another human being’s experience and vision and does so across expanses of geography and time. Despite the racial injustice and personal loss they confronted during their lives, the Hibis created lasting works of art in which beauty mingles poignantly with pain, resilience and hope.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
My morning view on a clear cold day about 7 a.m., 30 minutes before the sun rises.
CREDITS
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Fashion icon Ralph Lauren, who transformed a small necktie business into an international brand, joined elite company recently when he accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden.
Lauren, known for his “preppy threads,” but whose fashion empire extends to fragrance and furniture and beyond, said in a statement that it was an “honor of a lifetime.”
In bestowing the award, the White House cited Lauren’s philanthropy, “including fighting to end cancer as we know it,” and noted that “Ralph Lauren reminds us of our distinct style as a nation of dreamers and doers.”
And those who know their Sullivan County, New York, history know that in the case of Ralph Lauren, his own dreams started right there. That’s right, Ralph Lauren once lived and worked in Monticello.
Ralph Lifshitz, was born to Frank and Frieda Cutler Lifshitz on October 14, 1939, and grew up in the same Jewish neighborhood in The Bronx that produced Robert Klein, Penny and Garry Marshall, and rival designer Calvin Klein. His father made a living painting houses, and also dabbled in art, as well.
“The Lifshitz family had spent summers there for years,” Gross writes. “In the 1930s, Ralph’s uncle, Izzy Lifshitz, opened a produce store in Monticello and soon became a wholesaler, supplying fruits and vegetables to the many local summer camps and hotels. Eastern European immigrants had vacationed in the mountains since the turn of the century, converting farmhouses into boardinghouses, boardinghouses into hotels, and hotels into grand resorts like Grossinger’s, Kutsher’s, and the Concord.”
Several members of the Cutler family owned property there, too. One of Frieda’s brothers had a bungalow colony. Frank and Frieda had a kochalyn– a rooming house with a communal kitchen. Frank bought the Green Mountain House (aka Lifshitz Bungalows) but hated it because he had to commute every weekend while Frieda and the kids got to stay all summer.
“When he got there on Fridays, he’d be overwhelmed with repair and painting chores,” according to Gross. “The big white house atop a wooded rise had two bedrooms on its ground floor, three more upstairs, and two separate bungalows with five more bedrooms – every one with its own sink.
“Next door was the Hilltop Bungalow Colony, owned by the Pincus and Cohen families. All alone together on their hilltop, the two compounds were a world apart in the 1940s. ‘We were kept secluded and out of the mainstream,’ says a Cohen cousin, Barbara Levy. ‘We knew there was a war, but nobody talked about it.’
“They would all swim in the Hilltop’s unfiltered concrete pool, climb the apple trees, go berry picking, play punchball, sneak into the local hotels, and walk to the movies at the Rialto and Broadway in town.”
Frank Lifshitz used to frequent Gusar’s Pharmacy on Broadway in the village. He used to paint pictures and sell them outside, usually allowing drug store owner George Gusar to see them first.
One day during the summer of 1955, he asked Gusar if he might know where the two Lifshitz boys might find summer employment. Gusar hired them both.
“I don’t remember much about them,” he once related to a newspaper reporter. “They didn’t really stand out, but you have to realize, I’ve had a lot of people work for me over the years who went on to become famous, like George Cooke and Eddie Cooke.”
The boys – Ralph and his older brother Jerry – left the drugstore after a short time for jobs as waiters at Camp Roosevelt on Sackett Lake, where they worked for a number of summers thereafter. Their tenure there proved life changing.
“Camp Roosevelt opened up new possibilities for Ralph,” Gross writes. “It was his first real exposure to a world beyond the insular immigrant community his parents inhabited. Though most of the campers were middle class, some were rich – the children of hotel owners, real estate moguls, and newspaper distributors – and they were real preppies, not just dress-up wannabes.
“Their world, until then alien, suddenly seemed within his reach. ‘Even then,’ says one of Jerry’s campers, ‘Ralph knew where to mingle.’”
The Camp Roosevelt experience made a lasting impression on Ralph Lifshitz, and was largely responsible for instilling in him his renowned drive and insatiable ambition. As Gross points out, he became a sort of real life Jay Gatsby, “who sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.”
In keeping with this new image, he and his siblings legally changed their name to Lauren in the late 1950s, and the rest, as they say, is history, culminating in the nation’s highest civilian honor, whose previous winners include Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., President Ronald Reagan, Maya Angelou, and Mother Teresa.
Obviously, Ralph still “knows where to mingle.”
I wrote a few months ago about my relatives that were the owners of the Luzon Lodge, far from the later Catskill experience.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
No, it is not Sportspark! This is the greatest feature on the MSC MIraviglia, the cruise ship I sailed on last week. A great way to have basketball, soccer, tennis, pickleball while at sea. Keeping teens active this is the best attraction on board after unlimited food at the buffet. (During really rough seas, the gym is closed for safety).
CREDITS
NEW YORK ALMANACK JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
New York State Governor Kathy Hochul said she wants to spend $400 million to revitalize Albany, including committing $150 million to the State Museum and $35 million to move soon to be announced proposals to re-imagine some of Albany’s Hudson River waterfront into the design phase.
Hochul teased the history-related proposals in her State of the State address and in press materials on Tuesday. Plans for how that money would be spent will come when the Governor’s budget proposal is released later this month.
“If it all comes true, it will be the biggest damn Christmas present to Albany in decades,” State Senator Pat Fahy told the Albany Times Union. “It’s extraordinary.”
The $150 million the New York State Museum would receive comes years after unfulfilled promises of a $14 million Museum renovation, which was supposed to include new exhibits, a wall system for the exhibition space that would make it more versatile, and interactive technology and media displays.
This new investment will be used “to renovate the New York State Museum and upgrade the exhibits to be more inviting to visitors, including families,” according to the Governor’s office.
Hochul told the Times Union that her office would convene a panel of education and tourism experts. The panel “will focus on how to best preserve the museum’s cultural and educational heritage while modernizing the space to be more appealing,” she said.
Details of the State Museum proposals provided to the Times Union did not mention the involvement of the state Education Department, which oversees the Office of Cultural Education’s State Museum, Library and Archives.
“Instead, it suggests that the state ‘identify a new operating model for the museum, returning this world-class collection to its rightful place as a point of pride for all New Yorkers.’, the Times Union reported.
Education Department spokesperson JP O’Hare told the paper: “We look forward to reviewing the governor’s proposal and will provide our feedback once we have had the opportunity to assess the details thoroughly.”
Management has been at issue at the State Museum for at least a decade, and has recently gained support for structural change the Times Union reported.
“Last summer, past and current museum employees expressed frustration about what they saw as a lack of oversight from the education department, which they said contributed to stagnation and management problems at the museum,” according to the paper.
“At the time, Fahy discussed her 2023 proposal to create an advisory body — including those from the private sector — to oversee the museum as well as the other two entities under the Office of Cultural Education: the state archives and library.”
The Governor also supported plans to include Harriet Tubman as one of New York’s representatives in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall; more funding for community centers and playgrounds statewide; and more.
COMMENT
I have visited the Albany Cultural Education Building many times while in Albany.
The building contains the NYS Archives, where RIOC historic records were relocated a few years ago since RIOC was unable to safely preserve them.
The State Library has been used many times for historic research and is located in the building. These two institutions are a great resource for historians and everyone.
The problem is the NYS Museum, an enormous space on three floors of the structure. The exhibits are out of date, rarely changed, and the animals in the dusty dioramas are on death row. There are some areas, such as the 9/11 WTC exhibit, that are so realistic you can smell the smoke that still lingers in the vehicles exhibited. In general, the museum is sad and hopefully will finally be a shining exhibit of State history and not a dusty relic of the 1960s Rockefeller development of the Capitol.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Members of the Coler Auxiliary gathered together to celebrate 2024 and plan for 2025 projects to improve residents’ lives on Wednesday. from left to right: Jacqueline Kwedy, Theresa Chamberlain, Judith Berdy, Marie Marie, Glorias Swaby, Mary Coleman, Emilia Ciobanu, Emmanuella Chevalier. (not shown: Moriko Betz, Khady Sene, Alida Torres, Darlene Torres)
CREDITS
NEW YORK ALMANACK JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
