In observance of Memorial Day, the newly renovated Lighthouse Tower will be illuminated red, white and blue from Saturday May 28th through Monday, May 30th. Enjoy a happy and safe holiday weekend!
FRIDAY, MAY 27, 2022
The 686th Edition
The Eternal Light
Flagstaff
Madison Square
from DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
Nearly two years after the end of World War I, New York Legislative Documents noted, “No progress has been made during the past year toward a conclusion as to the form of New York City’s great war memorial.” The two favored ideas being considered were a “Liberty Bridge” over the Hudson River, and the conversion of Madison Square Garden into Liberty Hall, proposed “to become the largest convention hall in the world, with a seating capacity of 20,000 people, containing a sacred Gothic Chapel and an organ that should be the greatest yet built.” The document added, “As a third alternative they recommended a Liberty Arch in the heart of the city.”
As it turned out, none of those ideas would earn the approval of millionaire department store mogul Rodman Wanamaker, Chairman of the Mayor John Francis Hyland’s Committee on Permanent Memorial. (Wanamaker almost undoubtedly achieved the position through his former employee, Grover Whalen, who had been appointed Commissioner of Plants and Structures in 1918.)
Wanamaker felt strongly that the monument “should stand out by its simplicity”–the very antithesis of the three popular ideas. It may have been that conflict that resulted in his personally footing the $25,000 bill for the project–more than $360,000 today.
Wanamaker’s committee eventually approved the design submitted by Thomas Hastings, of the esteemed architectural firm Carrere and Hastings. The Eternal Light Monument would take the form of a 125-foot tall wooden flagstaff formed from a century-old tree cut in “the virgin forests of Oregon and transported over the Rocky Mountains,” according to The NYC Department of Parks. Hastings designed a monumental pink granite pedestal that upheld the grand bronze pole base. Paul Wayland Bartlett, who had studied under Auguste Rodin, executed the sculptural elements.
Atop the flagpole was a seven-pointed electrified star. It was first illuminated on Armistice Day, November 11, 1923, and the m0nument was formally dedicated on June 7, 1924. The names of significant French battles were engraved on the east and west faces. On the north was carved, “In memory of those who have made the supreme sacrifice for the triumph of the free peoples of the world,” and on the south, in part, “Erected to commemorate the first homecoming of the victorious Army and Navy of these United States.”
The Eternal Light Monument was the terminus of the annual Armistice Day parades, when tens of thousands of veterans marched from City Hall to the Madison Square. (Armistice Day marked the day and hour World War I ended–the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11 months in 1918.)
photo via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services
The monument was also used by the city to honor distinguished guests. In June 1927 the Broadway motorcade of Charles Lindbergh stopped so the famous flier could lay a wreath at its base. And a month later, on July 18, The Daily Worker reported, “Clarence Chamberlin, Richard E. Byrd and the three men who flew with Byrd to Paris came back to New York yesterday…The fliers were met at the City Hall by Mayor Walker and received the city’s medals of valor. At the eternal light in Madison Square, William H. Woodin welcomed them to the state in the absence of Governor Smith.”
The Eternal Light Monument turned political around 1930, when socialists adopted it as their own symbol. It may have started with the May Day observations in Union Square that year. Army veterans planned a counter-protest. The Socialist newspaper The Daily Worker wrote, “If the Veterans of Foreign Wars can scrape together enough sluggers, boss-bellycrawlers and thugs they will start their march from the Eternal Light in Madison Square.”
Members of the Women’s Overseas Service League pose before the monument around 1924. from the collection of the New-York Historical Society
In 1932 veterans marched on Washington D.C. to demand government promised pension money. Two of them, Eric Carlson and William Hushka were shot dead by D.C. police. The deaths enraged Socialists, who organized “Huska-Carlson Day” the following year. On July 27, 1933 protestors assembled at Rutgers Square. The Daily Worker advised, “From there, a parade will leave for Madison Square (23rd St.) at the Eternal Light.”
Every year the antithetical groups would use the monument for their widely disparate purposes. The annual Armistice Day parades and subsequent ceremonies went on in November, while the Socialists embraced the memorial in the spring months. On March 6, 1934 The Daily Worker announced, “The youth section of the American League Against War and Fascism will hold an anti-war parade starting at the Eternal Light in Madison Square, where a wreath will be laid.” The banner on that wreath read, “We Will Not Support the Government In Any War It May Undertake.”
Ernst Thaelmann, the leader of the Communist Party of Germany, was arrested by the German Government in 1933. Reaction in the form of rallies and protests among the Socialist and Communist communities in America was swift. On the night of June 13, 1934 Jack Corrigan shimmied to the top of the Eternal Light flagpole and hung a massive red banner demanding “FREE ERNST THAELMANN.” He and his comrades assured that it would remain there as long as possible by greasing the pole upon his descent and cutting the pole ropes. On June 15 The Daily Worker reported, “While crowds gathered to watch the sight, police squads desperately tried to get up the pole, but it was greased too well for them.”
In 1965 the participants in the annual ceremonies–originally composed of thousands–had greatly diminished. photo via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services
In 1954 Armistice Day was changed by Congress to Veterans Day, in order to honor the deceased veterans of all wars.
In 1976 the wooden flagpole was replaced with a metal version. By then the once massive Veterans Day ceremonies had greatly diminished. On November 13, 1979 Judith Cummings, writing in The New York Times, said “Few New Yorkers marched in the annual Veterans Day parade yesterday on Fifth Avenue and almost as few bothered to watch it, deciding instead to take advantage of department store sales.” She went on, “Ceremonies at the parade’s terminus at Madison Square Park drew several dozen onlookers, who stood quietly in chill wind to hear the speakers in front of the graffiti-scarred Eternal Light monument near 24th Street.”
Part of the meager turnout was blamed on anti-Vietnam War sentiments. But numbers grew in 1981 when national patriotism swelled with the return of American hostages from Iran. Mayor Edward Koch announced, “Now we must not rest until they [the Vietnam MIA’s] are likewise returned.”
The Veterans Day ceremonies saw another increase of numbers in 1983. Gannett Westchester Newspapers wrote on November 12, “About 2,000 present and former servicemen marched under cloudy skies in New York City’s Veterans Day parade to pay tribute to America’s fallen heroes, especially those killed recently in Lebanon and Grenada. They stepped smartly down Fifth Avenue to the Eternal Light Monument in Madison Square where 32 wreaths were placed in memory of the fighting men and women of the United States.”
But the numbers had waned again in 1986, when The New York Times reported “The sparse crowds at recent Veterans Day parades in Manhattan were generous compared with the smattering that turned out yesterday.” It was, nevertheless, a groundbreaking event. The article noted, “for the first time, homosexual veterans joined the march under their own banner.” It was not entirely a welcomed change. The article noted, “As the Gay Veterans entered the parade from 39th Street, a man slashed the banner with a knife and fled.”
The luminaire, or lighted star, at the top of the flagstaff was refurbished in 2017. Thomas Hastings’s magnificent base, described in 1979 as “graffiti-scarred,” has been restored. And the Eternal Light monument continues to be the site of the annual Veterans Day ceremonies after nearly a century.
HOW TO FIND THE NEW 42 STREET/BRYANT PARK – TIMES SQUARE PASSAGE.
IT SEEMS A LITTLE COMPLICATED TO FIND THE PASSAGE AT TIMES SQUARE.
FOLLOW THE SIGNS TO THE SHUTTLE TO GRAND CENTRAL.
ONCE YOU ARE ON THE SHUTTLE PLATFORM WALK TO THE END AND GO THRU THE DOORS INTO THE PASSAGE.
IN ABOUT 5 MIUTES YOU WILL BE AT THE PLATFORMS FOR THE B D M & F TRAINS.
THE PLATFORMS AT BRYANT PARK/42 ST. ARE NOT DISABLED ACCESSIBLE.
THE PASSAGE IS GREAT AND WORTH THE WALK OR JUST TAKE IT TO THE THE GREAT MOSAICS.
Base of flagpole at Madison Square. ED LTICHER, HARA REISER AND LAURA HUSSEY GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated:
Sources
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN TOM MILLER, AUTHOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER
RIHS (C) FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Left, Cristina Iglesias, preparatory sketch of Landscape and Memory (2022) in Madison Square Park, from 2020. Right, detail from Egbert L. Viele’s “Sanitary and Topological Map of the City and Island of New York,”1865. (Left, courtesy the artist/Right, courtesy of The New York Public Library)
From THE ARCHITECTS NEWSPAPER
Landscape and Memory will bring Madison Square Park’s buried history to the surface
Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias, known for her large-scale, site-specific sculptures, will dig (literally) into the history of Madison Square Park in May of 2022. Manhattan is crisscrossed by streams and rivers that have since been buried but continue to flow, flooding their banks and the basements above when it rains. For Landscape and Memory, Iglesias will exhume an impression of Cedar Creek, which once flowed beneath where the park now stands today.
“Cristina Iglesias is renowned for sculpture and installation that engage closely with the spatial, cultural, and historical qualities of the spaces where they’re sited. With Landscape and Memory, Iglesias brings a new level of exploration to our commissioning program, creating sculptural cracks in the lawns that reveal an unseen element of the park’s natural history,” said Brooke Kamin Rapaport, deputy director and Martin Friedman Chief Curator of Madison Square Park Conservancy, in the announcement. “Visitors who encounter the work will do so almost as archaeologists witnessing a living artifact from a centuries-old New York City, untouched by the present-day urban landscape.”
Iglesias will, as Rapaport mentioned, dig into the park’s lawns to create five unique sculptural pools made of bronze, each with water continuously flowing over cracks and crags and into interpretations of what Cedar Creek could look like today. Each piece of Landscape and Memory will align in a sequence leading to the park’s central Oval Lawn, creating a continuous flow over the real path of the creek.
To “raise” Cedar Creek, Iglesias studied antique maps of the area prior to Madison Square Park’s founding and overlayed it with modern surveys. Much of New York’s rocky landscapes and waterways were carved by the retreat of glaciers about 18,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age, and what took millions of years for nature to create was quickly terraformed by humans in the name of production. Cedar Creek is just one of the numerous waterways buried during the mass industrialization of the 19th century,
Landscape and Memory will attempt to, at least for a little while, bring that history to the surface. The installation will be on view throughout Madison Square Park from May 23, 2022, through December 4, 2022
Landscape and Memory Evokes Park’s Buried Topography With Five Large-Scale Bronze Sculptures Set into Landscape and Flowing with Water
Fala, President Roosevelt’s terrier HARA REISER, JAY JACOBSON, LAURA HUSSEY AND ALEXIS VILLAFANE GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
Sources
Madison Square Park Conservancy
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Recently, a crowd gathered on an Estonian island to pay tribute to Louis Kahn, a native son who was one of the twentieth century’s leading architects. As the ceremony unfolded, events past and present served as reminders that architecture does not operate in isolation from the world around it.
Those attending came from far and near to Kuressaare Castle, the childhood inspiration of an architect whose final built work, Four Freedoms Park, is located on New York’s Roosevelt Island.
Kahn was born in 1901 on Saaremaa, a Baltic Sea island, when Estonia was part of the Russian Empire. He lived in the town of Kuressaare with his family, until they emigrated to the United States when he was five years old for better economic opportunities and so that his father could avoid being recalled to military service.
KURESSAARE CASTLE ON SAAREMAA IN ESTONIA
They settled in Philadelphia, where Kahn lived the rest of his life and made a career as a practicing architect and professor at his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. He died in 1974 in New York’s Penn Station on his way home from a business trip to India.
He is remembered for reconciling Modernism with ancient influences and his notable works include the Salk Institute in San Diego, Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the National Assembly complex in Bangladesh. The latter, which many consider his masterpiece, serves as a cherished symbol of democracy in one of the world’s poorest nations.
Beginnings were an important theme for Kahn and on May 5th his own origins were celebrated. Officials from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the Louis Kahn Estonia Foundation, and the local municipality unveiled a historical marker with text in English and Estonian next to the castle.
Photo by Nic LeHoux, courtesy of the Kimbell Art Museum
The dedication ceremony was followed by a reception at a nearby cultural center which included the opening of “Silence and Light,” an exhibition about Kahn originally displayed in Zurich.
Besides architectural history, geopolitics provided a subtext that was implicit but unmistakable in light of present circumstances. Officials representing Estonia, the U.S., Norway, and Switzerland saluted Kahn but also highlighted ties among their countries.
“During the twentieth century, control of Estonia changed hands five times: Czarist Russia, the Republic of Estonia, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union again and then the restored Republic of Estonia,” noted Toivo Tammik, head of the Foundation. “Would Kahn have survived all those changes here as a Jewish architect, and been able to work even in the 1970s? Impossible. Are we in Estonia proud to claim him? Of course!”
Tammik also read a letter from Alexandra Tyng, one of Kahn’s three children, which tied her father’s work on Four Freedoms Park, a memorial to President Franklin D Roosevelt, to current times. “I know that my father, who revered Roosevelt and what he stood for, would in this moment be very proud of his birth country, Estonia: a small nation with a powerful voice for Democracy,” she wrote.
Photo by Elizabeth Felicella, courtesy of Yale University
Several others spoke during the day’s festivities, including Per Olaf Fjeld, a Norwegian architect who studied with Kahn at Penn a half-century ago and has written about Kahn and his Nordic connections in collaboration with his wife Emily Randall Fjeld.
The marker includes a quote from Kahn acknowledging his homeland’s influence on him. “I was born on an island with a castle on it,” which apparently planted a seed in a young child’s imagination that would flower into structures built around the world.
Photo by B. Koch, Four Freedoms Park Conservancy
This calls to mind another quote from Kahn about the impact of the built environment on the young. “A city should be a place where a little boy walking through its streets can sense what he would someday like to be,” he wrote in 1973.
In the same spirit, Nancy Moses, the Chair of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission observed, “we can imagine the grandchildren of our grandchildren stopping by this historical marker. They will read about Louis Kahn, a beloved son of Estonia and Pennsylvania. They will be inspired by his example.”
TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY ANDY SPARBERG AND ED LITCHER GOT IT RIGHT.
FROM ED: From 1918 to 1955 the Blackwell Island Elevator Storehouse was the island’s only means of vehicular access. The Elevator Building gave access to the island from the Queensboro bridge for cars, trucks and passengers of the QB bridge trolley. The importance of the elevator was overshadowed by the opening of the Welfare Island Bridge in 1955, which was the same year that Metropolitan Hospital moved to the upper east side. Shortly after the opening of the WI bridge, the trolley service ceased operation and the building was finally demolished in 1970.
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
JEFF REUBEN
This entry was posted on May 16, 2022 at 5:07 am and is filed under Music, art, theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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Stereopticon view of the Grand Hotel shortly after completion – NYPL Collection
A year before Peter Gilsey completed his elaborate Gilsey House Hotel two blocks to the south, Elias S. Higgins had built the Grand Hotel at Broadway and 31st Street. Higgins, a highly successful carpet manufacturer, commissioned Henry Engelbert in 1868 to design the hotel. Located just ahead of the northbound urban migration, it would also be conveniently near the 23rd Street entertainment district. German-born Engelbert established a reputation for creating striking buildings in the French Second Empire style.
photo NYPL Collection
For the Grand Hotel he followed suit. Turning to the new, fashionable hotel particuliers that began lining the streets of mid-19th Century Paris, he created five stories of white marble, resting on a ground floor of slender-pillared cast iron with wide glass shop windows, and topped by a two-story mansard roof. Engelbert chopped the corner off his hotel, creating a chamfer with one window per floor that allowed guests a view up Broadway.
Unlike Gilsey’s hotel, Higgins intended The Grand to be a residential hotel or family hotel. These were, essentially, apartment houses for tenants who had no intention of cooking for themselves, but would eat in a large, communal dining room. There was, therefore, no need for kitchens nor dining rooms in the apartments. Later, as the theatre district moved north towards Times Square it became financially sensible to convert it into a guest hotel.
In 1870 Henry Milford Smith leased and managed the hotel. In his 1884 New York’s Great Industries, Richard Edwards praised Smith as “the popular and enterprising proprietor of the Grand Hotel” and added “His son, Mr. Dinwiddie Smith, is a thoroughly practical hotel man, and actively associated with his father in the management of this magnificent hotel which has two hundred and thirty-three rooms.”
In 1904 the Grand was renamed The New Grand Hotel under the ownership of George F. Hurlbert, who owned two other hotels, one in Jamestown and another in Sharon, Pennsylvania. His thorough redecorating of the interior reflected an updated “Moorish” décor.
In 1920 daily room rates were advertised as:
Room with Running Water (for one) $2.00-$2.50 Double Room with Running Water (for two) $3.00-$3.50 Room with Bath (for one) $3.50-$4.00 Double Room with Bath (for two) $5.00-$5.50
The updated “Moorish Lounge” — early 20th Century postcard view (author’s collection)
Around World War II, however, Broadway around 31st Street had changed. The once grand neighboring hotels became commercial loft buildings. The Grand was now The Milner Hotel with fleabag rates of $1.00 to $1.50 a night. In 1957 the entire ground floor was remodeled and the wonderful cast iron and glass entrance was demolished.
By the 1980s the once proud Grand Hotel was a single occupancy hotel owned by Mocak Enterprises. Despite its 1979 landmark designation the owners painted the marble façade and the slate roof in 1987 without prior authorization by the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission – which doubtlessly would not have been forthcoming.
Robert Tincher, vice president of Mocak explained to The New York Times in 1993 “we painted the building to protect it.” The problem now was how to correct the violation. Leaving the paint on the marble could seal in moisture, causing the face of the stone to pull away. On the other hand, removal of the paint could damage the marble and the slate. The Landmarks Preservation Commission retained Building Conservation Associates to supervise spot testing of the face to determine the extent of damage removal of the paint would cause.
Today Elias Higgins’ Grand Hotel is owned and managed by 1234 Broadway LLC as the Clark Apartments. In 2010 netting and scaffolding covered the building as KRA Associates headed up restoration efforts of the facade. Slowly, inch by inch, the white marble and the black slate of the roof are re-emerging and the Grand Hotel sits waiting for its former glory to be rediscovered.
Today a wonderful restoration shines and the hotel is in full operation.
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
Sources
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
FOR A FEW YEARS DEBORAH DORFF, OUR WEBMASTER, LIVED IN YONKERS AND I WOULD LOVE TO VISIT THE METRO-NORTH STATION. IT HAS A TOUCH OF THE PAST AND ALSO IS SO WELL PRESERVED, INCLUDING ITS’ GUASTAVINO CEILINGS!
As you pull into the Yonkers train station, you couldn’t feel farther from Grand Central Terminal. A few sleepy platforms greet you as you exit the train. Step down the stairs, however, and you’ll enter a vaulted space with arched windows and decadent chandeliers. Hiding beneath the two elevated platforms you’ll find an elaborate station that not only predates construction of Grand Central Terminal, but was built by the same firm, Warren and Wetmore. Renovated in 2003, you’ll see well-preserved features of the original 1911 construction, which some believe to be a “testing ground” for characteristics later incorporated into the renown Manhattan terminal.
Unlike its Manhattan counterpart, this station is low profile, with a portion of the station built under the very rail bridge used for the boarding platform. Areas of the station used for ticket machines, vending, the MTA Police Station, and the original location of the taxi stand are under the bridge, evident by the exposed steel beams in the ceiling. The front portion of Yonkers Station is the only roof to rise above the elevated track beds, offering arched ceilings, chandeliers, and double-pained glass windows, much like those found in Grand Central. The ticket windows are also designed in a similar style to those found in Grand Central, although more brick is used.
The insight into the origins of Grand Central’s design is not the only significance of Yonkers Station. 62 years before its construction, the New York Central Railroad began operation. While quickly putting the local stage coaches out of business, it wasn’t until the 1880’s that steamboats fell to the railroads. Until that time, steam travel was reliable and comfortable, offering no major incentive for waterway passengers to change their habits. However, one particularly foggy morning, as commuters waited on the docks, the ship failed to port. The train would normally halt only briefly, but today, perhaps seeing the frustration on the faces of the lingering steamboat customers, he waited. One by one, the dock-bound customers grew impatient. Eventually, the entire crowd abandoned the dock in favor of the train. That morning, an hour after the New York Central train arrived at Grand Central, the steamboat made port in Yonkers. From that point on, steam travel in the area flatlined.
The station has more stories to tell, and has seen many famous residents pass through it, from Ella Fitzgerald, to the inventor of plastic, and the broadcaster of first FM radio transmission. For those looking for more on the station itself, take a tour through the photographs below.
The stairs to the Poughkeepsie-bound platform. The station area under the tracks offers moody, dim lighting, in stark contrast with the midday sun, as well as the main waiting area, which is flanked with large windows.
The rear entrance (exiting to the River) was only later added with the renovations, and exits to the recent housing developments, and ferry landing.
Just one of the many details around the station, offering the New York Central Railroad logo. Similar relics of this now defunct company can be found at other stations, including the Poughkeepsie station, the northern terminus of the Hudson Line.
The clock above the ticket counters. There is another clock above the exterior, which is more reminiscent of the iconic clock of Grand Central.
The two platforms of Yonkers Station, which service both Metro North and Amtrak trains. This photo looks North, with the Hudson River about 200 feet to the left. The smoke stack-looking tower in the background is mimicked by a smaller version at the rear entrance of Yonkers Station. Just visible in the rear right of the background is the Kawasaki Factory, where some previous subway cars are made for the MTA, as well as upcoming PATH models.
TOP OF IONIC COLUMN FROM METROPOLITAN HOSPITAL(OCTAGON ) ORIGINAL STAIRCASE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
BEN HELMER
Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2022 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
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I attended a wonderful Met performance of Madame Butterfly on Saturday, and when I read through the Playbill, I was surprised to learn that Puccini’s opera was based on a play written and directed by David Belasco. (I assume for many, dear readers, this is no surprise. It was to me.) The Met’s Program Note says, “In the summer of 1900, in London, Puccini saw the American playwright and director’s Madame Butterfly. He went backstage and begged for the rights. ‘I agreed at once,‘ Belasco wrote, ’[though] it is not possible to discuss business arrangements with an impulsive Italian who has tears in his eyes and both arms around your neck.’”
My thoughts turned again to the American theater, and I decided it would be fun to pursue Mr Belasco, whose name had come up in several pieces I recently wrote. Reader alert: a ghost appears in this article.
David Belasco was one of the outstanding personalities of the American theater. His career spanned the turn and rise of a new century – from the 1880s to his death in 1931 – and fundamental changes in American entertainment, in live theater, in radio and in films. Belasco, like Ziegfeld, was a theater builder and was also deeply involved in creating the modern “Broadway” around what would become Times Square (Longacre Square until 1904). From 1901 to 1920, forty-three theaters were built around Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, including the Belasco’s Stuyvesant Theatre (renamed the Belasco Theatre in 1910). The Belasco Theater is still there – on west 44th between 6th and 7th.
David J. Belasco Wikipedia
Born in San Francisco on July 25, 1853, to Portuguese-Jewish parents who had emigrated from England, Belasco, whose father had been on the London stage, began acting as a child. He acted and worked in theaters in San Francisco and then moved to New York in 1882 to manage the Madison Square Theatre. (At the moment, this was a big deal job – controlling every aspect of a theater.) Seeking greater freedom, he became a freelance playwright and director and by 1895, he was so successful that he was considered America’s most distinguished playwright and producer. During his long creative career, Belasco either wrote, directed, or produced more than 100 Broadway plays, making him the most powerful personality on the New York City theater scene. He also helped establish careers for dozens of notable stage performers, many of whom went on to work in films. (One line I particularly like: “I’m David Belasco! I can make a telegraph pole look good!”)
Belasco’s most important contributions to the theatre came in the field of design and technology. his elaborate, realistic scenic displays using the latest mechanical inventions and experiments in lighting. As Ibsen and Strindberg were gaining prominence as realistic playwrights, Belasco took this naturalism to the extreme, reproducing detailed, operational apartments, a Child’s restaurant, and a laundromat on stage – or sometimes going so far as to buy an actual room and place it on stage, one wall removed, as his set. Belasco wanted his theatre to be like a living room in which audiences could watch actors behaving onstage exactly as they would in real life, down to the barest detail.
His new theater was outfitted with the most advanced stagecraft tools available including extensive lighting rigs, a hydraulics system, and vast wing and fly space. Tiffany Studio designed lighting fixtures throughout the theater. Belasco produced or directed almost 50 productions at the theater over the next two decades; the majority ran for at least a hundred performances
Belasco theater, Wikipedia
Historians are divided over his plays. “His writing, in a time when lbsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov were introducing realism, “one notes, “remained filled with sensational melodrama or maudlin sentiment. His plays have virtually no lasting value.” Another says, “As an author, Belasco was prone to use the stock format he had learned as an actor in San Francisco. The Hero, Villain, and Damsel in Distress were the characters of importance and any ‘scandalous’ situations which might arise in the telling of their story were always resolved with the highest of proper Victorian morals intact and in the melodrama of the day, there was always a little scandal. In all things, ’virtue’ must triumph.” A reviewer complained of seeing “the same sugary sentiment, the same hollow pathos, the same forced style…. “
Others praise his work: “What Mr. Belasco has done has been to write pieces for the play-house, not criticisms of life . . . he has bent his mind to devise them with all possible air of probability and with all possible fidelity of pictorial setting. Especially in the latter respect he has succeeded as no other man of our time has.” A more serious academic examination gives Belasco credit for “helping to refashion melodrama” by strengthening the role of women. He “redefined the traditional gender roles, so that the formerly innocent and ignorant ingenue gains strength and autonomy and, above all, a sexual identity of her own.” A recent biography says that the content of the plays Belasco produced mattered less to him than the quality of their presentation. And in any case, audiences loved it, and his shows ran for hundreds of performances. Many of his plays were transformed into films in the early era of the silents.
Belasco theater, Wikipedia Belasco is said to watch plays and rehearsals from the balcony.
His last two decades saw his influence decline, eclipsed by the rise of a new generation of American playwrights such as Eugene O’Neill, and a new kind of theater. But Belasco had brought a fresh realism to theater production and was the most successful man of the theater in turn-of-the-century America where spectacular and emotionally wrenching melodramas were in vogue.
Personally, Belasco seems to have been rather weird. He dressed in a black suit and collar like a priest – and was known as the “Bishop of Broadway.” It is said that he was an egomaniac who insisted on total obedience to his direction. On the other hand, in an era when productions were hurriedly patched together, Belasco took time to perfect his work; even his most severe critics admit a “tidiness” not often found on the American stage. He excelled in creating a mood and tension in his crowd and mob scenes. Moreover, whatever was seen on stage was Belasco and the other artists were the instruments of his will.
He was married just once, to Cecilia Loverich from 1873 until she died in 1925. They had two daughters, but none lived in the limelight.
In an era of palatial homes, Belasco lived above the store – although grandly. Belasco added a ten-room duplex apartment to the Belasco theater in 1910 – with a private elevator, and a living room with a 30-foot ceiling. The duplex contained eccentric items including a collection of ancient pieces of glass; a room containing Napoleon memorabilia, such as a strand of Napoleon’s hair; and a bedroom designed with Japanese furnishings. Belasco had a collection of erotica and medieval art in a hidden Gothic-style room. Scattered across the duplex were banners, rugs, books, and what one biographer called “a vast, confusing medley of collectors’ treasures”.
Unlike Ziegfeld, there’s little memory of scandal. Belasco liked women and was associated with many glamorous actresses.
It is said that “the Bishop…. certainly didn’t act the part in private,” that he was a serial seducer: “There are many lurid tales of the gothic canopied bed and the chamber that adjoined his office.” He is said to have had peculiar sexual tastes. Wearing his priestly garb, he would bring the leading lady to his apartment and usher her into a confessional in the front hallway. For each sin confessed, the actress would remove an article of clothing. Belasco may have invented the “casting couch” (Belasco’s “original casting couch” is now located at Ten Chimneys, the home of Broadway actors Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt at Genesee Depot in Wisconsin). But if so, the lurid tales remain fairly well hidden, and Belasco avoided the newspaper tumult generated by the indiscretions of peers Flo Zeigfeld and others.
But there must be a ghost. The ghost of impresario David Belasco has long been said to haunt the theater he built on West 44th Street, dressed in the same type of clothes he wore in life – a cassock and a clerical collar. Belasco’s ghost started to appear at the theatre immediately after his death. Sightings have been numerous and consistent in terms of what people describe. Over the years, actors have reported hearing moans in the wings after a particularly bad show. Dressing rooms have been ransacked during performances. Stagehands have sworn they’ve heard the chains rattling in a private elevator that goes straight to Belasco’s once-sumptuous apartment above the theater — even though the elevator hasn’t worked in years.” It’s no surprise that the Rocky Horror Show opened there in March 1975.
In the great history of arts, David Belasco for all that he did for the American theater, may be best remembered for providing Puccini with the play, Madame Butterfly.
LATE 1930’S IMAGE OF THE ISLAND SHOWING GOLDWATER HOSPITAL, QUEENSBORO BRIDGE, ELEVATOR STOREHOUSE, STEAMPLANT, CENTRAL NURSES RESIDENCE.
A NYC Department of Hospital’s postcard printed during the tenure of Dr. Sigmund Goldwater, MD (1934 to 1940) showing Blackwell’s Island around 1939, with the Central Nurse’s Residence, the Power House, the Elevator Building the Queensboro Bridge and The Welfare Hospital for Chronic Disease that was was renamed Goldwater Memorial Hospital shortly after the death of Dr. Goldwater in 1949. ED LITCHER GOT IT!!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
The Lighthouse Tower, designed by architect James Renwick, has been a prominent historic feature of Roosevelt Island since its construction in 1872. The Lighthouse was partially restored in the 1940s, complete with a low pitch 10 – sided lantern and was inducted into the National Register of Historic Places and designated a New York City Landmark in 1972 and 1976 respectively. In 2019, Thomas A. Fenniman Architects was hired to create construction documents to increase the useful life of the structure, eliminate potentially unsafe conditions, and reduce operating and maintenance expenses.
The exterior and interior restoration of the tower, included masonry restoration, concrete bracket and platform repair, railing restoration, replacement of spiral staircase, door and window restoration, as well as electrical and site work. These repairs remediated the many life and safety issues addressed for long-term use and will additionally decrease the operation and maintenance costs associated with the tower. “It is truly an honor to have rehabilitated this historic landmark for the Roosevelt Island community and visitors alike to enjoy. The Lighthouse Tower is a cornerstone and simply one of Roosevelt Islands treasures. I would like to thank our RIOC team, the architect and contractor for their work on this project.”, said Shelton J. Haynes, President and CEO of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC).
The restoration aspects and new lantern design were approved by the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and the Landmarks Preservation Commission. “I am thrilled for the community to see the colored up-lighting on the tower and enjoy this space again. The conclusion of this project marks the last phase of our renovations to the northern tip of the Lighthouse Park that began with the renovations of the foot bridges in 2019.”, expressed Prince R. Shah, Assistant Director of Capital Planning and Projects at RIOC.
With the implementation of the required design measures, the Lighthouse Tower becomes a transformative symbol that all of New York will be able to identify as Roosevelt Island. “Our goal in the restoration of this historic lighthouse was to balance two factors: The preservation of the original masonry structure and to pay homage to the long-lost unique lantern designed by Renwick and removed sometime in the 1930’s” said Thomas A. Fenniman, Project Architect. “I am extremely proud of the accomplishments and commitment to quality by the entire team in restoring what I believe will be a true beacon at the northern tip of the island.” The northern end of Lighthouse Park will provide safe outdoor space for all to enjoy for many years to come.
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All photos courtesy of MTA/Trent Reeves, unless otherwise noted
Two new mosaics by the artist Nick Cave were unveiled in Times Square on Monday, completing a permanent artwork and marking the largest mosaic project in New York City’s subway system. Commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s public art program, the artwork, titled “Each One, Every One, Equal All,” features Cave’s wearable sculpture works “Soundsuits” translated into 4,600 square feet of colorful mosaic. The new artwork is part of a larger revamp of the 42nd Street station, including a new entrance and upgraded mezzanine level.
Cave’s Soundsuits are wearable sculptures made of different materials, from twigs and fur to sequins and feathers, that are inspired by African traditions. As 6sqft previously reported, Cave created his first Soundsuit in 1992 in direct response to the police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles.
As part of the permanent artwork in the 42nd Street subway station, the Soundsuits have been translated into an expansive mosaic. The first part of the series, “Every One,” opened in September 2021 in the passageway that connects the B, D, F, and M trains to the 42nd Street shuttle.
“Each One” measures over 14 feet tall and features Soundsuits in “various states of vertical movement and suspension, accentuated by stripes that run floor to ceiling,” as the MTA described. The agency says the movement of the art is a reference to the famed New Year’s Eve ball drop.
The MTA on Monday opened a new entrance at the 42nd Street-Times Square station that allows riders to directly enter and exit Broadway Plaza. The entrance includes a new accessible elevator, upgrades to lighting, new information signs, and new security cameras.
There is also a new staircase that is 15 feet wide with a new canopy made of over 230 triangular glass frames. All said and done, the new staircase and mezzanine upgrades, which took three years to complete, cost a whopping $30 million, as the New York Post reported. Real estate developer Jamestown, which is redeveloping One Times Square above the station, contributed $10 million for the elevator.
“The unveiling of this new subway entrance couldn’t come at a better time for subway riders,” Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction & Development, said. “From the new ADA accessibility elevator to the ongoing rebuilding and expansion of the Times Square station, the new subway entrance signifies MTA Construction & Development’s successful approach to delivering capital projects through innovative public-private partnerships.”
FOR YEARS I HAVE ASKED RIOC TO REMOVE THIS BROKEN KIOSK FROM THE WEST PROMENADE. IT SEEMS PERSISTANCE PAYS OFF. THE KIOSK IS NOW GONE AND SO THE SIDEWALK WILL NOT HAVE AN UGLY OBSTACLE INTRUDING ON IT ! (OUR COMPUTER ATE THE NAMES OF THE WINNERS, THOUGH GLORIA HERMAN SAID IT WAS OUR OWN LEANING TOWER OF PIZZA.)
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 Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
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MTA ARTS AND DESIGN
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St. Petersburg-born Nicolas Roerich was many things: an archeologist, philosopher, emigre due to the Russian Revolution, and Nobel Prize nominee many times over.
Nicholas Roerich
But it was his talent as a painter of colorful natural and mystical scenes that brought him to the United States in 1920, when a national tour of 400 of his works launched at the Kingore Gallery in New York City in December of that year.
After the tour and between treks to the Himalayas and India, the charismatic Roerich took up residence in 1920s Manhattan, working out of a 19th century mansion at 310 Riverside Drive, at 103rd Street. With financial help from a Wall Street moneyman and patron named Louis Horch, he founded the Master Institute of United Arts, a school that offered lectures by top painters like George Bellows.
The Master Apartments, Riverside Drive
The mansion also housed his own personal museum, where fans could buy copies of his art and writings and debate the merits of his talent. “Talk to his disciples and one encounters almost incoherent adoration,” wrote the Brooklyn Times Union in 1929. “That seems to be the precise word for it. Adoration. Artists are divided in their opinion of his talent.”
Roerich the artist and mystic fascinated Jazz Age New York, and his interest in Eastern philosophies found an eager audience. So when Horch proposed the idea of demolishing the old mansion and building a modern apartment tower on still fashionable Riverside Drive that would devote its lower floors to Roerich’s school, studio, and museum, the two men struck a deal
The Master Apartments, soon after the building was completed
The Master Apartments, also known as the Master Building, (above) made its debut in 1929. It was the tallest building on Riverside Drive, which was transforming from a street of single-family and row house mansions to an avenue of elegant and more restrained apartment houses.
This 29-floor Art Deco masterpiece was designed by Harvey Wiley Corbett, who himself belonged to the Roerich Society. With more than 300 income-generating apartments plus a theater, “the building’s distinctive Art Deco detailing, terraced setbacks, and stupa are easily identified from Riverside Park and the Henry Hudson Parkway,” states the building’s own website. “Its corner windows are reputed to be the first in Manhattan.”
“Guests From Overseas,” 1901
According to Anthony Robbins in New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz Age Architecture, the Master Apartments “rise to a single, tapered pinnacle, more like a Midtown skyscraper…. [Corbett’s] design relies on geometric patterns, angles, and colors.”
After Wall Street collapsed in 1929, however, fortunes quickly changed for Roerich and his Art Deco tower. “Roerich’s star in America plummeted,” wrote John Strausbaugh in the Observer in 2014. “The Master Building was hit hard by the Depression and went into receivership. Horch renounced Roerich and sued for $200,000 in unpaid loans. The IRS went after Roerich for tax fraud. By 1938 Horch had control of the skyscraper, shoved Roerich’s paintings in the basement and ousted his followers.”
The Roerich Museum was then replaced by the Riverside Museum, which was devoted to contemporary art until the 1970s, when the collection was absorbed by Brandeis University. A new space for Roerich’s artwork was found in 1949 in a brownstone at 319 West 107th Street. Roerich passed away in 1947, but the Nicholas Roerich Museum still exhibits his works today and may be the only museum in New York devoted to one artist. The Master Apartments went co-op in 1988. The many studio apartments have been combined into larger units, the lobby has been restored, and it remains the tallest building with the most recognizable Art Deco design touches on Riverside Drive.
Cornerstone, with the R and M
Two remnants of its earlier incarnations remain: a cornerstone bearing the initials R and M (for Roerich Museum, it seems) and the words “Riverside Museum” in small letters above the entrance.
MET LIFE STADIUM READY FOR A SUPER-CROSS COMPETITION
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:
EPHEMERAL NW YORK
Apartments Riverside Drive, Master Building Riverside Drive, Nicholas Roerich Museum NYC, Nicholas Roerich Riverside Drive
This entry was posted on May 16, 2022 at 5:07 am and is filed under Music, art, theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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SOME TIDBITS OF TRAM HISTORY. SEND US YOUR STORIES
1980 COMIC BOOK FEATURING THE TRAM
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BALLFIELDS FROM THE MONDAY ISSUE: POLO GROUNDS SHIBE FIELD, PHILADELPHIA RFK STADIUM , DC EBBETS FIELD SHEA STADIUM VETERANS FIELD, PHILADELPHIA ASTRODOME, HOUSTON YANKEE STADIUM ANAHEIM FENWAY PARK, BOSTON
THIS CARTS BIGGER EVERY YEAR AND IS AN EYESORE. PLEASE HELP US FIND A WAY TO GET IT RELOCATED OR REMOVED FROM THE TRAM PLAZA. APPARENTLY, RIOC HAS NO STANDARDS AS TO WHAT VENDORS THEY PERMIT ON THE ISLAND.
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Van Cleef & Arpels floral displays on each block of 5th Avenue for the month of May…..Magnifique! GLORIA HERMAN, ALEXIS VILLAFANE, LAURA HUSSEY ALL GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources
JUDITH BERDY RIHS ARCHIVES
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
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