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
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
On a recent trip to Staten Island, my car was stopped unexpectedly by, of all things, wild turkeys. A group of at least 15 turkeys the height of my waist decided to cross the four-lane road and stop in the middle of it, refusing to move. A few cars piled up behind, but the turkeys stayed put, gobbling with one another as cars approached from every direction. It took a local resident on his walk to shoo the turkeys away over the course of a few minutes. A few people from across the street at Staten Island University Hospital crowded around taking photos of these disruptive turkeys, but for many local residents, these turkeys are a decades-long problem that has caused countless headaches and frustration.
Over the years, there have been attempts to curb the turkey problem, such as sending them to a wildlife sanctuary or tracking them more closely. However, some residents say that little has changed — some even think Staten Island‘s wild turkey population has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic, as city and state officials put their attention elsewhere. The Staten Island Advance reported that these turkeys have been disastrous for many in the community, from damaging cars and halting traffic to disrupting peace and quiet. One resident I spoke to who lived by Mason and Seaview Avenues said these turkeys are aggressive and “extremely annoying.” They make it difficult to do daily tasks like pulling the car out of the driveway or keeping the front lawn clean without these turkeys finding a way in.
The turkeys were mainly concentrated around the hospital and in nearby neighborhoods like Ocean Breeze, Dongan Hills, and Arrochar. However, they expanded in all directions to other parts of the borough, walking around the streets like pedestrians. This all began in the mid-1990s, according to the Staten Island Advance archives that date the first wild turkey photographs to 1996. Few people in the community tried to prevent their rapid population growth, so the turkey population grew to the hundreds by the early 2010s. The Department of Environmental Conservation conservatively estimated the population at just 100 in 2011.
Residents feared that unless something was done to get these turkeys under control, it would cost the borough thousands of dollars and lead some residents to move away. Strangely, turkeys were not the borough’s first animal pest. Staten Island has also been fighting a growing deer population, which damages the island’s plentiful greenery and seedlings. The borough has undertaken a deer sterilization program that reduced the deer population by 15% from 2017 to 2019 from 2,053 to 1,737. Still, deer cause dozens of accidents on the island each year, prompting some residents to advocate for deer culling, or killing some less-than-desired deer.
There were attempts over a decade ago to relocate turkeys found at the South Beach Psychiatric Center near the hospital, where many would congregate; in 1999, a local resident freed her nine pet turkeys at the center. In 2014, an agreement was reached between the Staten Island University Hospital, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture that permitted the capture and relocation of wild turkeys found on hospital grounds. Many considered this a step in the right direction, as the turkeys would be relocated to an animal sanctuary in Greene County. In 2018, Mid-Island Councilman and Minority Leader Steven Matteo secured $100,000 in discretionary funds to capture and relocate as many of these birds as possible.
Many of these initiatives were fairly successful; the Staten Island Advance reported over 150 turkeys were taken to And-Hof Sanctuary in Catskill from 2014 to 2018. These 150 (and 200 by 2019) were only a dent in the likely hundreds more turkeys still on the island. The relocation was paused since the sanctuary did not have enough room for any additional birds. Some even tried to escape the property! Because the turkeys were identified as hybrids between domesticated and captive-bred turkeys, it has been difficult to find a fitting home for them.
As of early 2022, there were still no clear solutions to resolving the turkey problem, and residents have been encouraged to let the wildlife be. Some have proposed more long-term solutions like reducing turkey food sources instead of relocation. In April of this year, Spectrum News reported residents encountering turkeys in West Brighton in northeast Staten Island. Until more concrete solutions and programs are put in place, Staten Island’s residents may continue finding wild turkeys in unexpected areas, such as on Forest Hill Road, Victory Boulevard, and Silver Lake Park.
PHOTO OF THE DAY WILL RETURN SOON.
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
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
THE MODERN ART FOUNDRY, A JEWEL HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT IN THE STEINWAY MANSION CARRIAGE HOUSE
Steinway Mansion Carriage House in Astoria, Queens, now The Modern Art Foundry
Take a trip around New York City and you will be surrounded by art and history, nearly everywhere you go. But what if we told you that within our city lives the beating heart of the art of sculpting? The roots of some of the most recognizable works of art –from the Alice In Wonderland sculpture in Central Park to the Fiorello LaGuardia statue in LaGuardia Place – are actually hidden in plain sight in Astoria, Queens.
Located in the former carriage house of the famous Steinway Mansion in northern Astoria, the Modern Art Foundry is a truly fascinating mecca for sculptors. Inside this hidden gem, artistic visions become realized in metal by a passionate team of craftsmen led by third generation owner, Jeffrey Spring.
The Past
The Modern Art Foundry was established in 1932 by John Spring in an prior location at the end of Astoria Boulevard. In 1947, the Foundry moved to its current location, a carriage house which used to serve the Steinway Mansion. The original structure is largely intact and we got to see bits of the original doorway, the ceiling and some of the decorative moldings on the exterior of the structure.
Jeffrey Spring of The Modern Art Foundry explains the processes that go on in the foundry The foundry moved to this location after another owner had used it through the 1930s and 40s. Over the course of time, the foundry has been managed by its founder John Spring, Robert Spring, John’s son and, currently, by Jeffrey Spring & his sister Mary Jo, John’s grandchildren. The entire setup had the feel of a family legacy which continues to contribute to the art world every day.
Alice In Wonderland sculpture in Central Park – cast at The Modern Art Foundry
What Goes On In A Foundry?
The Modern Art Foundry is essentially a service provider, a conduit, if you will, between the artist’s vision and the end product which is the actual art piece. For those unfamiliar with the process of creating sculptures, artists are usually partnered by foundries where their artwork is cast into metal using a multi-staged process that requires patience, time and an incredibly diligent eye for detail. Artists often spend time in the foundry, working with the team to make fine adjustments and corrections to the work as it gets closer to the stage of actual metal casting. We were fortunate enough to get a first-person look at everything that goes into turning art from concept into creation.
A wax “Positive” of a sculpture waits for final touches before being cast into bronze.
Lost Wax Casting
An artist would typically produce a sculpture in clay or in drawing form. The foundry then takes this work and builds a rubber “negative” mold which takes the exact shape of the object. This shape is then cast in wax to create a “positive” sculpture which is used as the final model to check for any errors and to make fine corrections to shapes, lines and details.
It is often crucial for artists to be present at this stage to make sure that the wax model matches what they’re looking for. This model is then adorned with wax tubes that make it look almost tree-like with branches built around the sculpture. The entire wax structure is then covered in a silica based slurry that builds a cast around the world.
“That’s where the metal goes in” – A silica mold ready for baking to harden itself and melt the wax away
During the baking process, the wax melts away, leaving an exact shape of the intended sculpture in the silica mold. Finally, the metal of choice, usually bronze but sometimes aluminum, is poured into the mold to create the piece. Once poured and cooled, the silica cast is broken open to reveal the sculpture.
Brick ovens remain the method of choice for baking molds at The Modern Art Foundry.
Once it’s out, the branches are removed and the piece goes through a process of cleaning in an acid bath. Fine finishing then follows this process along with any modifications, usually related to the patina or shade of the metal work desired by the artist. The patina stage is yet another amazing step in the process where flames and chemicals are used to bring out the color in each of the works.
Using flames and chemicals, the sculpture being worked on will eventually share its color with the finished one in the foreground.
If all of this sounds painstaking and complicated, believe us, it is. It is in these many stages that the experience of the foundry staff and their care and attention that counts. Mr. Spring remarked that the process may last for up to a year depending on the size and complexity of the piece being created. Artists can often be quite demanding, something that forms a part of the daily challenge at the Modern Art Foundry.
The People
During our visit, we met with sculptor Anne Stanner who was working on an artwork that was being reduced in size for a client. Ms. Stanner herself was working on the wax copy of the sculpture, making fine corrections and adjustments. She has been working for several months on this project and is about halfway through. She commented on the process being laborious. Sculpting is certainly not for the faint-of-heart!
Jeffrey Spring & Anne Stanner discuss her artwork-in-progress
Further on in the tour, we met with Michael Bartolotta, a craftsman working with the foundry for nearly 40 years. We interrupted his process of polishing an aluminum artwork that had been cast in several different pieces. He told us that the process used in a foundry has been more or less the same for centuries and is a true classical art form. While finishing or polishing processes may have changed, foundry work remains a stepped process that takes time and passion.
Michale Bartolotta has worked for nearly 40 years at the foundry and calls himself a jack-of-all-trades
Mr. Bartolotta began working with the foundry “by accident” as he puts it. It was his first real job in his teenage years during a summer holiday and he has stuck with them in the many decades since. While speaking with him, we learned more and more that there are no short cuts in this process.
Tours, Education & The Future
The Modern Art Foundry does conduct tours, typically for clients of auction houses and art dealers such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s, essentially with the aim of educating customers about the rigors and challenges involved in sculpture making. Currently, a few students are working out of the foundry as a part of their studies. In an art form such as this, hands-on experience counts for a lot and Mr. Spring was keen to point out the benefits that students experience regularly visiting a facility such as his.
Hans Christian Andersen sculpture in Central Park – cast at The Modern Art Foundry
As with most traditional art forms, the future of sculpting is uncertain and Mr. Spring did not attempt to play oracle and predict where things will go. Along with producing new artwork, the foundry also provides restoration and cleaning services for existing sculptures, either in-house or on site. The advent of new technologies always challenges older methods, but in a field as individual and as complex as art, it would be hard to discount the possibility of the foundry going strong for three more generations and then some. For now, the focus remains on always improving and producing the most precise realization of an artist’s idea in metal form.
The former carriage house is now the production site for horse trophies used at the Breeder’s Cup
So the next time you walk past Hans Christian Andersen reading a book by a pond in Central Park or watch a race horse owner wave the bronze trophy at the Breeder’s Cup, remember that they have all come from a dedicated team in a quiet lane in Northern Astoria.
PHOTO OF THE DAY WILL RETURN SOON.
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
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Aside from its main role as a transit hub, the New York City subway system often serves as an unexpected repository for artifacts. From marine-themed terra cotta murals inside the Fulton Street Station to ornaments of demolished buildings at the Eastern Parkway-Brooklyn Museum stop, there are plenty of unlikely treasures embedded into station walls or presented along transit corridors. Yet, the come-and-go nature of the subway makes it difficult for commuters to take in what’s openly displayed to the public. The South Ferry station — serviced by the 1, R, N, W and 2 trains — is particularly noteworthy, as it harbors an 18th-century stone wall, one of four fragments discovered 10 feet below the eastern portion of Battery Park.
The four excavated segments — measuring roughly eight-feet thick, and varying in length and height — were uncovered in December 2005, when the Museum of the City of New York‘s archaeological team started excavating for the South Ferry Terminal Project, a $530 million endeavor to reconstruct the subway station and address “physical and operating deficiencies.” Those excavations have yielded tens of thousands of individual artifacts that provide insight into Colonial New York — from seeds, ceramic dishes and coin fragments to a wine bone of the Passenger Pigeon (a now-extinct species of bird), a medal bestowed to Admiral Boscawen by King George III, and a glass bottle seal belonging to Benjamin Fletcher who served as the British colonial governor of New York from 1692 to 1697.
Untapped Cities tour guide, Justin Rivers, shared this photo of the wall, seen with fossilized oyster shells
Widely reported to be the oldest man-made structure still in place in Manhattan, the Battery Wall was built as a fortification on the Southwestern tip of Manhattan around the 1740s and 1750s. Not only was it a defense against enemies, it also provided a barrier against the rough waves and relentless wind that slammed into New York Harbor. In the late 18th century, the wall became buried under landfill, and was subsequently lost when colonial fortifications were demolished and Battery Park was built in the early 19th century.
According to Robert Tierney, the chairman of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, the wall give rise to the park’s modern name. So, next time you head to the South Ferry Station, make sure to keep an eye out for this major segment of The Battery Wall, which is embedded into the tiled wall at the station’s entrance. Another L-shaped bastion segment is also on display at Castle Clinton in Battery Park.
PHOTO OF THE DAY WILL RETURN SOON.
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
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Steinway & Sons’ piano factory in Astoria, Queens is one of the city’s great hidden gems, where 250 workers are still meticulously handcrafting the world’s most acclaimed pianos since the 1870s. It is only one of two factories worldwide for Steinway, supplying all of the demand for the company’s pianos in the Western Hemisphere, following many of the innovations patented by the company over the centuries. Steinway is still regularly adding new innovations to the manufacturing process as well, necessary to maintain its place among the great instrument names in the musical world. Steinway is also innovating on the marketing end, with the opening of a secret vault that showcases its most exceptional pianos, including the limited edition John Lennon piano.
The Vault is so off-limits that it is opened by biometric fingerprint, and only four people in the company have access. We recently had the opportunity to go inside the vault with Anthony Gilroy, Senior Director of Marketing and Communications at Steinway & Sons. and once his fingerprint was approved, an automated female voice announced “Access granted. Welcome Mr. Gilroy” in a very James Bond-esque way. The vault door, hand wheel and all, is not visible from anywhere on the floor, but located behind another door. Inside, there is space for six pianos displayed to their most optimal conditions.
Each piano is presented as a “vignette” which is, fittingly, merchandised more as performance art than how it would be in a standard show room. The lighting, which can only be controlled by app by the four who have biometric access to The Vault, is custom-designed for each piano, all of which retail for at least $200,000. One rather unusual piano, inspired by Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition goes for $2.5 million. “You’re going to light a wood finished piano differently than you would light an ebony piano with silver accents,” explains Gilroy.
The John Lennon Imagine piano
The most famous of the pianos in the Vault may well be the John Lennon Imagine Limited Edition, launched in 2010 with the partnership of Yoko Ono on what would have been Lennon’s 70th Birthday. It features artwork by John Lennon on the music desk, of which there are seven different versions. The piano is modeled after the piano Lennon bought for Ono in 1971 that sits in the apartment they shared together in The Dakota where Ono still lives today. The piano has Lennon’s signature at the right end of the keyboard and the words “You may say I’m a dreamer” on the inside of the rim. A portion of the proceeds of this piano go to John Lennon Educational Tour Bus, a non-profit mobile recording studio. There are only a limited number of these pianos left.
Power to the People by John Lennon
The Lang Lang Black Diamond Limited Edition piano is signed by the pianist and designed in conjunction with the furniture designer Dakota Jackson who is a pianist himself. Like most of the pianos in The Vault, this piano comes with Spirio, the program that enables the piano to play on its own. The Lang Lang piano comes with Spirio R, which allows you to record, edit and play back what you’ve been playing. Following Chinese superstition surrounding the lucky number 8, there are only 88 pianos available of the Lang Lang piano in the Model B size, and 8 in the Model D size that is generally used in concert halls.
The Lang Lang Black Diamond Limited Edition piano
Another piano is made from of one single flitch (or plank) of Santos rosewood, an exotic wood from East India — making it a particularly rare piano both in terms of the material and construction. Another piano has a Macassar ebony exotic wood veneer, while another called the Onyx Duet has the Macassar ebony only on the underside of the rim and lid. When the piano is closed, it looks like a classic Steinway piano. And one piano which has recently moved out of The Vault but is sitting just outside it is the Heliconia Designed by Lalique piano created in partnership with the Hamburg Steinway factory featuring crystals and silver-colored inlays from the famous French glassmaker.
Last but not least is “Pictures at an Exhibition”, the multi-million dollar art case piano with cuckoo clock legs. There’s only one available and it took four years to make. It was painted by notable Steinway artist Paul Wyse who has painted members of Parliament in Canada, a portrait of Billy Joel that was hung at Steinway Hall, and other works. The piano shows works of art referenced or inspired in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, a famous piece for the piano and was developed in conjunction with Steinway’s President who was looking for a piano that could meld art and music.
The Vault also has a soundproof lounge, with furniture designed by Christopher Guy and a mid-century Teague Steinway piano a design created for the 100th anniversary of the Steinway company. It too has Spirio, so if a VIP’s guests get bored of the testing of the pianos, they can sit in the lounge, peruse a copy of Christopher Payne’s incredible book Making Steinwaywhile listening to a pre-recorded piece. We are potentially planning a tour of the Steinway factory for our Untapped New York readers. If you’d like advance notice of this tour, sign up below!
PHOTO OF THE DAY WILL RETURN SOON.
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
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
With approximately 40 million annual visitors, Central Park stands as the most visited urban park in the United States. Navigating its long, winding paths across 843 acres can expectedly get quite tricky—even for the most seasoned New Yorkers. If you ever find yourself lost in a sea of green, there’s a way to reorient yourself without having to rely on dubious data networks or Google Maps: just head to one of Central Park’s 1,600 lamp posts, which serve as unlikely navigational devices.
Also known as “luminaires,” Central Park’s decorative lamp posts feature plaques with four numbers embossed onto them. The first two indicate the closest cross street, and the last two numbers indicate which side of the park the lamp is closer to: even numbers, in this case, mean the east side, and odd numbers mean west. The last two digits also indicate location, with the numbers increasing as you move closer to the center of the park.
Newer lamppost navigational devices in Central Park
A lamp post with the number “6202,” for instance, translates to a location on the east side aligned with 62nd Street.
“The last two digits increase as one moves toward the center of the park,” explained writer Susan Merrit in Works That Work. This numerical system was originally designed to help park employees locate lamps in need of service or repair, but it’s has since become a useful tool for in-the-know park visitors.
TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY WILL RETURN SOON.
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY WILL RETURN SOON.
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
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The Alexander Hamilton Custom House, now the National Museum of the American Indian, was built to impress. Designed by noted architect Cass Gilbert, the Custom House was the first building merchants and traders sailing into Manhattan’s Port of New York would visit to pay their duties, The building purposefully faces Broadway instead of the Port, so those entering could see the impressive thoroughfare and Bowling Green and be dazzled by the bustle of New York City. Massive sculptures and ornate stonework add grandeur to the facade, and inside, the building is just as magnificent. Walking into the landmarked building’s rotunda, a massive domed ceiling and skylight created by the masterful Guastavino Company are revealed.
When Cass Gilbert sent the Guastavino Company his 1899 plans for a 130 by 85-foot elliptical dome with a skylight in the center, he didn’t explain how it would be structurally supported. The Guastavino father and son engineering duo were often tasked with transforming vague and ambitious architectural plans into real structures. For Gilbert’s Custom House dome, Guastavino Sr. created a “double-tile dome with an elliptical steel compression ring at the top and a steel tension ring at the bottom,” as explained in Guastavino Vaulting: The Art of Structural Tile by John Ochsendorf. The skylight weighs 140 tons and is supported by the dome thanks to Guastavino’s innovative vaulting method. The recognizable Guastavino-style vaulting with its cross-hatch tile is hidden behind the dome you actually see!
When you gaze up at the dome today, you see beautiful murals painted by Reginald Marsh. Those paintings were not part of the original design but were added in 1937. The murals were commissioned by the Treasury Relief Art Project, an offshoot of the Works Progress Administration. Marsh’s art covers 2,300 square feet of the vaulted ceiling. With help from eight assistants, it took only three months to complete the project. Marsh paid his assistants $1.50 an hour and took only ninety cents an hour for himself. The entire project cost $3,000, surely much less than just one of the paintings is worth today. The murals depict port scenes of various ships arriving and departing, with interpretive portraits of famous early explorers like Henry Hudson and Giovanni da Verrazzano in-between.
Mark Twain was also known, inside and outside the club, as an avid, obsessive billiard player. The famous billiard champion William Hoppe described Twain as “the most enthusiastic billiard fan” he ever knew. According to the website of the Amsterdam Billiards in New York City, Twain was more than enthusiastic, he was borderline obsessed: “Twain stipulated anywhere he lived, there must be a proper billiards table. As he grew older, billiards became an obsession for him; he was a recluse who would only accept callers if they were willing to shoot pool with him. Once, when his house caught fire, he was so invested in his game of billiards that he barely even noticed the flames.” Twain himself in a public speech declared, “The game of billiards has destroyed my naturally sweet disposition.”
You can find more of Guastavino’s work in the staircases of the Custom House. The spiral shape was inspired by the shells of the nautilus, an aquatic mollusk. This design feature is in-line with the decorative nautical theme found throughout the Custom House, where ornamental shell shapes, waves, anchors, dolphins, and ship bows are a common sight. The staircases employ the same innovative vaulting methods as the rotunda dome.
The Museum of the American Indian, which now occupies the building, is currently closed due to COVID-19. However, when the museum is open, you can visit for free and see the rotunda inside, as well as the museum’s exhibits! The Guastavinos were a prolific pair who left their mark on many of the city’s most iconic buildings.
TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
WILL RETURN SOON.
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
WILL RETURN SOON.
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
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
OOPS….ONE OF NEXT WEEK’S ISSUES WENT OUT EARLY. ON JANUARY 2 INSTEAD OF JANUARY 11. WE ARE WRITING IN ADVANCE AND PUSHED THE WRONG BUTTON. ENJOY THE ISSUES. SEE YOU ON THE 12TH!!!! JUDYB
FROM THE ARCHIVES
TUESDAY,JANUARY 3, 2023
ISSUE 876
TIDBITS FROM
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
LOCATE MARK TWAIN’S POOL CUE IN THE PLAYERS CLUB IN NYC’S GRAMERCY PARK
Above a portrait of Mark Twain hangs his pool cue at the Players Club
There are many treasures in the members only Players Club in Gramercy Park, whose membership consists of theater industry folks and enthusiasts. One of them is a pool cue used by writer Mark Twain (aka Samuel Longhorne Clemens), one of its most famous members who by all accounts, lived it up at the club.
He was present at the founding lunch at Delmonico’s where the club inaugurated, an event reported with gusto in the New York Times on April 18, 1888 as one of the “pleasanter lunches ever given” at the restaurant. (General William Tecumseh Sherman was also present, himself a big fan of the theater). He was also an avid attendee of the dinners hosted at the club itself, according to Lost Past Remembered, and signed the below menu from January 3rd, 1906 where each dish has an accompanying clever quote.
Mark Twain was also known, inside and outside the club, as an avid, obsessive billiard player. The famous billiard champion William Hoppe described Twain as “the most enthusiastic billiard fan” he ever knew. According to the website of the Amsterdam Billiards in New York City, Twain was more than enthusiastic, he was borderline obsessed: “Twain stipulated anywhere he lived, there must be a proper billiards table. As he grew older, billiards became an obsession for him; he was a recluse who would only accept callers if they were willing to shoot pool with him. Once, when his house caught fire, he was so invested in his game of billiards that he barely even noticed the flames.” Twain himself in a public speech declared, “The game of billiards has destroyed my naturally sweet disposition.”
The Library of Congress has a photograph of Twain standing over a billiard table holding a cue stick at Stormfield, Twain’s house in Redding, Connecticut that he lived in from 1908 to his death in 1910. Twain’s house in Hartford, Connecticut (where he lived from 1874 to 1891), designed by Edward Tuckerman Potter and Alfred H. Thorp, had a dedicated billiard room.
He was not an even-tempered player. When the game went steadily against him he was likely to become critical, even fault-finding, in his remarks. Then presently he would be seized with remorse and become over-gentle and attentive, placing the balls as I knocked them into the pockets, hurrying to render this service. I wished he would not do it. It distressed me that he should humble himself. I was willing that he should lose his temper, that he should be even harsh if he felt so inclined–his age, his position, his genius gave him special privileges. Yet I am glad, as I remember it now, that the other side revealed itself, for it completes the sum of his humanity. Once in a burst of exasperation he made such an onslaught on the balls that he landed a couple of them on the floor. I gathered them up and we went on playing as if nothing had happened, only he was very gentle and sweet, like a summer meadow when the storm has passed by. Presently he said:
“This is a most amusing game. When you play badly it amuses me, and when I play badly and lose my temper it certainly must amuse you.”
It is therefore not surprising that The Players Club would also have a billiard table and to this day, his pool cue hangs next to it above a portrait painting of Twain by Gordon Stevenson
PHOTO OF THE DAY WILL RETURN SOON.
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
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
THE RIHS VISITOR CENTER KIOSK WILL BE OPEN ON SATURDAY, DEC. 31, JANUARY 1, 2023 FROM 12 NOON TO 5 P.M. FOR YOUR SHOPPING.
NEW BIKE MAPS HAVE ARRIVED. WE ALSO HAVE SUBWAY MAPS AND MANHATTAN STREET MAPS.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
WEEKEND, Dec. 31, Jan. 1,2, 2023
THE 875th EDITION
240 CENTRAL PARK SOUTH
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
Urban Living Enhanced – 240 Central Park South
Brothers Joseph L. B., Charles and Albert Mayer, separately and together, were a force in Manhattan real estate and development. Joseph was an officer in the real estate firm Gruenstein & Mayer Corp; Charles held a master’s degree in engineering and helped found the construction firm J. H. Taylor Construction Co. of which he was chief engineer; and Albert was both a civil engineer and architect. In 1935 Albert partnered with architect Julian H. J. Whittlesey to form Mayer & Whittlesey.
When wealthy brewer George Ehret died in 1927 he owned 181 parcels of Manhattan property, among which was the entire blockfront on the east side of Broadway between 58th and 59th Street. The two-story store and automobile showroom building on the property had sat vacant for years as the Depression years drew to a close in 1939. The Mayers, working as a syndicate called 240 Central Park South, Inc., purchased the property from the Ehret family that spring for $500,000.
On May 18 Albert Mayer released a rendering of the proposed 26-story apartment building. The following day The New York Times remarked “A building operation recalling boom days soon will be under way at Columbus Circle.” Projected to cost $4.5 million (more in the neighborhood of $79.5 million today), the building had no shortage of innovations.
Mayer’s rendering showed the staggered storefronts on Broadway and the unexpected open spaces. The New York Times May 19, 1939The Times reported “Modern accommodations in the 350-family building will include wiring for television, living rooms with open fireplaces, outside exposure and balconies and terraces in nine lines of apartments.” The newspaper was taken with the “open-air dining balconies overlooking Central Park.” For the convenience of residences the Broadway stores had entrances inside the building as well as on the street. In the basement were two steam turbines and a diesel engine which composed the building’s own private electric plant.
Most surprising, perhaps, was that the structure occupied only 48 percent of the plot. A central landscaped courtyard provided open space, light and air to the two buildings which would be connected on the ground floor. The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide pointed out, “By sacrificing ground coverage, the builders have been able to incorporate a maximum number of corner suites.”
Albert Mayer explained “This building will introduce the philosophy of modern architecture, allowing the purpose of the structure and its location to dictate its style.” Indeed, 240 Central Park South, completed in 1940, was a model of modern architecture. It included elements of the waning Art Deco and Art Moderne while venturing into the Modernist style that would gain a firm foothold within the coming decade. Architectural Forum commented on the modernist lack of ornamentation, saying “The architectural character of these buildings stems directly from the plans as developed on different levels, and the fenestration. There is no applied ‘architecture.'”
Architecture critic Lewis Mumford, writing in The New Yorker in December that year, congratulated the design, saying “architectural imagination has not gone stale.”
Mayer & Whittlesey’s modern building was not totally devoid of decoration. Above the entrance was Amedee Ozenfant’s abstract mosaic mural entitled “The Quiet City.”
240 Central Park South was a departure from upscale pre-Depression Era apartment buildings in that its largest suites had only four rooms and none offered servants’ rooms. Instead, maid service was available through building management.
Residents signed leases well before the building was completed. The tenant list filled with a mixture of business leaders–like Louis M. Stern and William Steinway–and well-known figures in the arts. Opera singer Helen Jepson signed a lease in August and sculptress Catherine Barjansky moved in in September.
On December 5, 1940 Le Cafe Arnold opened. Partners Arnold Grass and L. C. Pani had run the Petroleum Roof on top of the Petroleum Industries Building at the 1939 World’s Fair. The men had commissioned Mayer & Whittlesley to design “the decorations and furnishings of the new restaurant,” said The Times on December 1. “The dominant motif will be plants and vines placed behind wainscoting.”
A postcard showed Le Cafe Arnold’s interior, where patrons dined on French cuisine.Arnold Grass would become known as the “host to the discerning” and Le Cafe Arnold would be a popular destination for decades.
French author and aviator Antoine de Saint Exupery moved in in July 1941. Two years later his most memorable book, The Little Prince, was published. Another resident, Samuel Solomon, alias Sam Boston, was equally celebrated, but for more nefarious reasons. For nearly three decades police knew he was the head of an illegal gambling ring, but were unable to get hard evidence.
His wife was involved in a terrifying incident earlier that year. A bungled burglary at the nearby New York Athletic Club on the morning of April 24 resulted in a policeman being shot. The three thugs involved scattered. One of them, San Quentin ex-convict Lyman Finnell, ran towards 59th Street where Mrs. Solomon’s car was stopped at a red light.
Flashing his gun Finnell jumped into the back seat, next to Mrs. Solomon, and ordered her chauffeur, Edward Horton, to drive fast, saying “no one will get hurt if I can get away.” Instead, Horton jumped from the car and ran. Finnell, according to The Times, “got into the driver’s seat” with the terrified Mrs. Solomon as his unwilling passenger.
Her ride would become even more horrific after the car inched through heavy traffic only a few feet. A policeman suddenly hopped on the running board and pointed a pistol at the crook. “At the sight of the patrolman Finnell raised his weapon to his head and killed himself,” reported The Times. “The machine careened on for about fifteen feet, sideswiping two other cars and injuring [pedestrian George] Gambon.”
Better known to newspaper readers by his alias, Sam Boston ran his betting operation with three partners. That organization came to an abrupt end when one of them, Max Fox, shot and killed the other two in August 1942. And yet despite his numerous arrests and Fox’s fingering him, Boston continued to evade conviction.
He quickly took on a new partner, Frank Silinksy. Boston installed four phone lines in what The New York Times described as “his luxuriously furnished thirteenth-floor apartment at 240 Central Park South,” and started taking bets.
Police, however, were one step ahead–they had tapped the apartment’s phone lines as they were installed. On Friday night, January 29, 1943 plainclothes officers arrived at Boston’s door. The New York Times reported “Boston tried to push them out…but they made their way into the apartment and found Silinsky at a long table, equipped with four telephone instruments.” Police found two sheets listing $16,000 in bets on sporting events. The article noted “Boston’s wife and daughter were in the apartment but were not taken into custody.”
Boston was found guilty on November 9, 1943. Newspapers called the 240 Central Park South apartment “central office” for his sports betting operation. On November 19, the day of his sentencing, his lawyer urged leniency, insisting “he always has conducted himself in a businesslike manner. He is a home man, and only mingles with the finest of people.”
The judge was not especially moved, saying in part that “the fact that he was able to enjoy a luxurious home did not mean he never maintained gambling there. He hoped the apartment would not be suspected by the police as a gamble resort.” He sentenced Boston to a year in prison.
Astonishingly, New Yorkers woke up on March 11, 1944 to find that the courts had overturned the conviction. The court of appeals ruled that because guilt was not established beyond a reasonable doubt, the “conviction of defendant Samuel Solomon should be reversed and a new trial ordered.” Sam Boston came home to Central Park South.
The family of Jack Wessel lived on the same floor at the time. In September that year a notice from the police department caught the attention of Mrs. Wessel.
On September 6 six youngsters were seriously injured when a bazooka rocket exploded in a Bronx apartment. Authorities issued a “strong request to holders of dangerous war souvenirs to turn them over immediately to the Police Department, which would ask no questions.” On September 10 The Times reported “It was mid-afternoon when Mrs. Jack Wessel of 240 Central Park South phoned. She had a bazooka rocket that had been occupying a prominent place in her living room…Mrs. Wessel explained that a soldier had given the rocket to her daughter, Gloria Anne, three months ago as a souvenir.”
Five months later the population of 240 Central Park South was reduced by one. On February 6, newspapers reported “Samuel Solomon, 58 years old, known among midtown gamblers as Sam Boston, was convicted yesterday.”
In the summer of 1950 240 Central Park South rose like a sculpture above the park. photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New YorkThe Wessels were still in their 13th floor apartment in 1952 when the building was the scene of a tragic incident. Regina Oblatt was 72-years old and an invalid. The widow of jewelry merchant Rudolph Oblatt, she shared her apartment with a nurse-companion, Anneliese Jargstorff.
At around 10:00 on the morning of March 21 Anneliese left the apartment. In her absence the elderly woman opened the five gas jets on the kitchen range. Whether she was confused or not will never be known, but quickly the apartment filled with gas. Then, at 10:40, just before Anneliese returned, it ignited.
The force of the explosion blew out plate glass windows for blocks and tore up wooden flooring in other apartments. The sound was heard as far away as 70th Street to the north and 57th to the south. Both apartments on either side of Regina’s were wrecked.
Nervously aware of Cold War tensions, some New Yorkers thought the city was under attack. Jack Wessel told police he “was sure the city had been bombed” and that he and his wife “grabbed their 12-year-old pet dog and headed for an emergency shelter.” Regina Oblatt, of course, was killed in the blast. Amazingly, while the occupants of the apartments on either side were slightly injured, no one was else was seriously hurt.
William R. Steinway, chairman of the piano firm, died in his apartment on September 22, 1960 at the age of 79. His widow, Marie Kiesler Steinway, survived him.
Another veteran resident at the time was Dr. Jack M. Greenbaum. His four-room apartment contained an impressive collection of modern art which he acquired through a most unusual means. Starting around 1938 he proposed to his artist patients (artists, he said, made up about ten percent of his clientele) that he would trade dental work for paintings.
Greenbaum’s patients were by no means amateurs–they included, for instance, Larry Rivers, Franz Klein, Milton Resnick and Willem de Kooning. By August 6, 1961, when the Museum of Modern Art’s associate curator of painting and sculpture William Seitz dropped in to do an appraisal, the collection numbered 125 paintings. (Although the doctor had insured the collection for $150,000, he found out that his best de Kooning, alone, was worth about $50,000.)
Seitz told a reporter “Certain of the pictures, notably those by Franz Kline, Mark Tobey and Jan Mueller, are major examples of the artists’ work.” Greenbaum recounted the story of doing “extensive work” on Franz Kline, after which the artist told him “you can have any damn thing in this place.” Greenbaum rode home in a taxi to 240 Central Park South with another rolled up canvas. The New York Times noted “An indication of Kline’s generosity is that his paintings can fetch as much as $35,000 each.”
In 1968 actress Sylvia Miles took an apartment on the 19th floor in the building. And interestingly enough, not long afterward Albert Mayer, the building’s designer, moved in with his wife, Clara.
In October 1977 The New York Times architectural critic Paul Goldberger put together his list of “The City’s Top 10 Apartment Buildings.” At the top of the list was 240 Central Park South. He said in part “this often-overlooked building at the edge of Columbus Circle contains not only good apartments, but also some splendid urban lessons.
“The apartment house is thoughtful, intelligent and unpretentious throughout–one of the last pieces of luxury housing in New York about which that can be said.”
In 1978 a news reporter lived at 240 Central Park South. Lois Lane received a celebrated visitor when Superman dropped onto her balcony that year. Well, at least that all happened in the movie, Superman. The building had earlier played an important role in the 1957 A Face in the Crowd. In a climactic scene, Andy Griffith’s character, Lonesome, screams into the night from his apartment near the top after his career as a radio celebrity crashed.
In 2001 State Senator Thomas K. Duane spearheaded efforts to have the building designated a city landmark. His concern, and that of several residents, was that a history of piece-meal repairs was damaging the architectural fabric. Replacement bricks, for instance, did not match the originals. Certain areas showed more than half a century of wear. “The courtyard is filled with shattered tiles and dry fountains,” wrote Kelly Crow in The New York Times on September 2 that year.
Sylvia Miles told Crow, “It’s upsetting to me to see the bricks aren’t the right color, because this is a truly great building. I think it’s one of the flowers of New York architecture, and we shouldn’t let anyone hurt it.”
Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council chimed in saying “As a modern design, it urbanistically tackles the jagged, receding edges of the circle;” and John Jurayj of the Municipal Art Society added, “It has a pedigree that is so important to New York. This building was among the first to have balconies, and it’s one of the best pieces of functional architecture we have.”
Within the year the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated 240 Central Park South a landmark. A subsequent $25 million rehabilitation and upgrade project included brick and terra cotta replacement. It received the 2007 Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award.
JUST ARRIVED!! PERFECT KIDS BOOK ON ROOSEVELT ISLAND $10- AT THE VISITOR CENTER
William Mumfakh, 7 years old enjoyed the book and was surprised with the many things that are on our island. He liked the book.
FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
MOTHER GOOSE STATUE, CENTRAL PARK
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
DAYTONIAN IN MANATTAN
NYU PHOTO (C) SUZANNE VLAMIS
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
In 1977, the New York City Council established a new agency, the Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) with three distinct divisions: Records Management, Municipal Archives and the Municipal Reference and Research Center. The agency is responsible for setting records policies, preserving and making publicly available City government’s historical records, and operating a library to provide information about trends in government. Eugene Bockman, who previously headed the Municipal Reference and Research Center, was named commissioner. One item that became very important in preserving and providing access to archival records was a four- volume folio titled Birds of America. Its story is preserved in the collection of Commissioner Eugene Bockman.
Trumpeter Swan, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 406, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.John James Audubon is renowned as an artist who created beautiful, detailed paintings of the birds and creatures of North America. The Double Elephant Folio, so called because the prints were enormous (26” x 40”) consisted of four volumes containing a total of 435 prints of American birds. The Birds of America was self-published in Scotland between 1826 and 1838. During that twelve-year span 87 different parts, consisting of five prints apiece, were published. In total, there were 200 copies produced and sold to subscribers. It was not possible to publish more editions because a fire destroyed the printing plates.
Carolina Parrot, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 26, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
A copy came into the City’s possession via a resolution initiated by the Board of Assistant Aldermen in 1850. Why Assistant Aldermen? That is unclear. At this point, the City of New York consisted solely of Manhattan and its Common Council was bicameral. The Charter placed the legislative power of the City in “a Board of Aldermen and a Board of Assistant Aldermen, which two Boards shall together form the Common Council of the City, and that said two Boards shall have concurrent powers and a negative on each others’ proceedings.” The Assistants had the power of impeachment while the Board of Alderman held confirmation power for certain Mayoral appointees.The President of the Board of Assistant Aldermen proposed that the City purchase, for the recently established City Library, a set of Birds of America from Audubon]s son in order to benefit Audubon who was “in his advanced and honored age, afflicted by the loss of sight—the sense by which his great achievements have been made.”Naming the folio “an American work, written in America, by a native born American, upon American subject,” the resolution stated, “No bird spreads its airy pinions over any part of the American continent, from the grey wing of that national emblem, the American eagle, to the gem-like elegance of that winged flower, the bright humming-bird whose lineaments, in all their peculiar characteristic form, color, expression and attitude, aren’t impressed in glowing life upon these ample leaves.… These lovely tenants of the wood, can only be thus perpetuated, for many of them will disappear with the forests which are falling before our advancing population.”In fact, Audubon was born in Haiti and the folio was published in Scotland.
Snow Heron, or White Egret, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 242, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.The Aldermen acknowledged that many copies of the folio were in European libraries, and one “to our honor reposes in the state collection at Albany. Let us have the other in the Library of the city of New York…. This is probably the only opportunity we shall ever have, at least in many years to grace the City Library with this celebrated book.”The resolution passed in both chambers and was approved by Mayor Caleb S. Woodhall. The Folio then was deposited at the City Library which was within the Office of the City Clerk.
Weeping Crane, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 261, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archive By 1914, the Municipal Reference Branch of the New York Public Library (NYPL) was created. Located in the Municipal Building, it provided reference services to the public and government officials. The folio was transferred from the City Clerk to the Municipal Library. In 1919 the set was retrieved from a sale of duplicate library items by the sharp-eyed E. H. Anderson, Director of the NYPL, who recognized its value. In a letter to the City College librarian, Anderson explained that the City Clerk who maintained the City Library turned over its collection which contained “a great many things that had no place in such a library, and all such material was deposited here in our Central Building at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street. The most notable thing in the collection which came up here was a not very perfect copy of the elephant folio edition of Audubon’s Birds. Recently in offering for sale a lot of duplicates from our collections here, this work was inadvertently listed in the catalogue.” The NYPL held four sets of Audubon drawings. The founders (John Jacob Astor, James Lennox and former governor Samuel Tilden) each purchased a folio that were later made part of the library collection when the Lennox and Astor libraries combined to become the NYPL, thanks to Tilden’s bequest. Anderson withdrew the City’s folio from the sale, with the intention of offering it to another City institution to hold, in this case, the Library of the City College of New York. In making the offer, Anderson wrote, “It is City property, and we really have no title to it ourselves, and are therefore not in a position to pass title to the College of the City of New York. But if you would like to have it as an addition to your library, we should be very glad to transfer it, where you would hold it on deposit and make good use of it.”
Yellow Crowned Heron, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 336, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.City College accepted the offer, and in 1919 contacted Anderson about making repairs which were estimated to cost $100 to put the folio “in better shape.” He replied, “I suppose that there is very little chance of the City’s ever asking for their return. If under these conditions you are willing to spend $100 in putting them into better shape, I can see no objection to your so doing.”
Catalog Cards, City College Library. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.In 1940, City College finally added the Audubon folio to their catalogue cards. Between 1940 and 1944, City College librarians purchased replacements for six missing plates, making purchases from Charles Scribners’ Sons and the Old Print Shop (just recently moved online from its longtime location in the East 20s). Prices for the replacements ranged from $40 to $550. Somehow, they bought two plates of no.125, the brown-headed nuthatch. The 1969 sale of a first edition of the Birds of America in London fetched the highest price for a printed work up to that time—$216,000, bringing a new interest in the folio. Financially strapped by the City’s fiscal crisis, the City College considered selling the folio in 1975. This triggered a review of ownership. Chief Librarian Virginia N. Cesario wrote the author of a book on Audubon, “the City University is suffering severely from the financial difficulties fo (sic) the City of New York. Partly for this reason and partly because City College does not have suitable facilities for displaying this treasure, the College administration has seriously considered selling our copy of the Birds. In order to do so it was necessary to clarify the question of ownership. To make a long story short, it now appears that the City as personified in Mr Eugene Bockman is very much interested in reclaiming the set.”
American Flamingo, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 431, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.The transfer was made by the City College President to Mayor Abraham Beame in the Blue Room at City Hall on December 13, 1976. The news release for the transfer stated that it was being returned in better shape than when the college received it and cited the Ephebic Oath, taken each year at commencement exercises by City College graduates, which pledges them to “strive to transmit this city not only not less, but greater, better, and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.” The release also said that the College planned to borrow the collection for future displays, as agreed to by the director of the Municipal Research and Reference Center, Eugene Bockman. That was not to be. Bockman arranged to transfer the volumes to safe, archival storage at the New York State Library where they remained until 1985. As it happens, 1985 marked the 200th anniversary of Audubon’s birth. Several events were scheduled, including an exhibit of personal items and paintings at the Museum of Natural History, a musical performance “Choral Music of Birds and Bees and Bugs,” also at the museum, the display of all known watercolors painted for the Birds of America study at the New York Historical Society, lectures and the unveiling of a commemorative stamp honoring him. And, on October 18 and 19, Sotheby’s scheduled the auction of City government’s copy of The Birds of America. The justification for the sale was that five cultural institutions in the City also had sets of the folio and that the folio was not representative of City government’s history.Proceeds from a successful 1984 DORIS auction of ephemera were deposited in the City’s general fund. The agency’s goal of using the auction proceeds to preserve archival records was thwarted. With a goal of holding additional sales, the agency proposed creating a special fund that would receive proceeds of further sales. The City Council established the Municipal Archives Reference and Research Fund (MARRF), in April, 1985. Funds raised from the current sale of “Gifts to the City” will be deposited in the MARRF and will support the work of the Archives.
Roseate Spoonbill, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 321, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.Soon after the MARRF was founded contract negotiations with auction houses began. The folio was retrieved from storage. A professional book binder took the sets apart so the 435 prints could be sold individually. Mayor Ed Koch announced the Sotheby’s sale at a City Hall press conference in August.The proposed sale generated controversy, much of which was spelled out in letters to The New York Times. The president of Lathrop C. Harper, an antiquarian book dealer, wrote that selling the folio was “poor stewardship.” Even more problematic was the plan to sell the prints separately, “The city has been extremely ill advised by Sotheby’s to embark on a course of destruction of historical and bibliographical evidence.” Commissioner Bockman responded in the Times that the merits of selling the folio had “long been discussed.“ Among the primary considerations was that seven other sets were accessible in public institutions in the metropolitan area. Security was another consideration: in recent years, because of the set’s escalating value, it remained unseen and unused in a vault in the New York State Library in Albany.”
Snowy Owl, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 121, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.Bockman wasn’t the only one who championed the sale of the folio. Then-Comptroller Harrison “Jay” Golden wrote to Mayor Koch in 1981 noting the folio “is a very special asset, one with an unusual potential to enrich and beautify our City.” Noting that it was worth $1 million, he suggested that the City seek pro-bono auction services from Sotheby’s Parke-Bernet or Christies. Proceeds would be deposited in a trust fund and the income would finance an annual “world-wide competition for an outstanding sculpture.” In conclusion, he wrote “that all New Yorkers” would “benefit in a special way from the wise $1,000 investment in the folio made back in 1850.”City College Associate Professor Jean L. Benson also took issue. She termed the folio a “showpiece much admired by faculty, students, alumni and visiting scholars” and laid claim to the six prints purchased by the Library. “Francis Goodrich, the college’s scholarly chief librarian and an authority on rare books, bought—with college funds—six prints to fill the gaps in the set. Three skilled City College cataloguers were then assigned to catalog the entire set, an effort that involved extensive research and several hundred hours of work.” She questioned the Department of Records’ authority to sell the set and asserted “the six added prints are the property of the City College Library. They should be excluded from the sale and returned to the library, so that they may continue to be enjoyed by the City College and University community.”Sotheby’s was alarmed and asked the City to “research the issue to be certain as to whether the city has title to these 6 prints.” This triggered a new review. At the behest of the Office of the Corporation Counsel, an attorney for the City University of New York’s wrote that “the University waives any objections it may have to the auction taking place as announced.” Although the letter also indicated that City College and the City would pursue an “equitable adjustment as to the six prints at issue.” A subsequent memo from the Law Department showed that the City College did not allocate funds to purchase the prints.
White Headed Pigeon, Birds of America, John James Audubon, Lot 177, Sotheby’s Auction Catalog, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.A New York Times column previewing the auction reported on how the drawings were created. “Audubon, who had insisted on reproducing the birds in life-size began his sketches in 1820 when, in order to follow the migrating birds to the Gulf Coast, he became a working passenger on a flatboat traveling down the Ohio and the Mississippi. The Mississippi River Basin had long served as a corridor for birds traveling from the Arctic to Patagonia. On this trip and over the next four years, Audubon came to know, among other specimens, whooping cranes, parakeets, woodpeckers, passenger pigeons, starlings and hermit thrushes and to capture their reality in his extraordinary drawings.”The week before the auction was to begin, councilmembers Herbert Berman and Ruth Messinger sent a telegram to Commissioner Bockman, urging him to reconsider the sale and suggesting that the Council, as the original purchaser, should review the proposed sale.
Western Union Telegram, October 16, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.In response, Bockman expressed surprise because the councilmembers had supported the creation of the MARRF. He attached his testimony from the Council hearing in which he explicitly discussed the possible sale of the Audubon folio “…the Department is holding certain materials which are both non-archival and non-essential for governmental research. Of perhaps greatest value is a complete Double Elephant Folio edition of John James Audubon’s The Birds of America. These materials have substantial potential interest to collectors. In no way would the integrity of the collections in either the Municipal Archives, the Municipal Records Center or in the Municipal Reference and Research Center be marred by the disposal of such materials.” Berman withdrew his objections. Messinger did not. The sale went forward. Three days after the auction concluded, Messinger reiterated her views, contending that the City Council should have been consulted.
John James Audubon, Birds of America, Auction Catalog, Sotheby’s, 1985. Commissioner Eugene Bockman Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.The auction yielded $1.441 million which was deposited in the MARRF. Over the years, the Fund has supported critical work in the Archives including salaries for conservators to preserve delicate records, reference archivists to help the public locate records and several special projects that have preserved significant archival collections.The Bockman collection contains a memo that reveals a new mystery. With his son, Audubon produced a volume containing pictures of the four-footed mammals residing in North America: Quadrupeds of North America. The City of New York purchased two volumes, one as a gift to the City of Paris in 1850 and another in 1855, to be placed in the City Library. “Is it possible,” the memo author queried “that the Quadrupeds, purchased in 1854, is at large?”
High Bridge aqueduct over the Harlem River at 174th Street, between Manhattan (right) and The Bronx. Construction is underway to replace five of the original stone arches in the picture with a single steel arch over the river. This work was completed in 1927.
WILLIAM SCHIMOLAR AND HARA REISER ALSO GOT IT RIGHT
Current bridge looks like this (from Google Street):
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
NEW YORK CITY MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
