Fernando Botero Angulo (born 19 April 1932) is a Colombian figurative artist and sculptor. Born in Medellín, his signature style, also known as “Boterismo”, depicts people and figures in large, exaggerated volume, which can represent political criticism or humor, depending on the piece. He is considered the most recognized and quoted living artist from Latin America, and his art can be found in highly visible places around the world, such as Park Avenue in New York City and the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Self-titled “the most Colombian of Colombian artists” early on, he came to national prominence when he won the first prize at the Salón de Artistas Colombianos in 1958. Working most of the year in Paris, in the last three decades he has achieved international recognition for his paintings, drawings and sculpture, with exhibitions across the world. His art is collected by many major international museums, corporations, and private collectors. In 2012, he received the International Sculpture Center’s Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award.
Fernando Botero was born as the second of three sons to David Botero (1895–1936) and Flora Angulo (1898–1972) in 1932. David Botero, a salesman who traveled by horseback, died of a heart attack when Fernando was four. His mother worked as a seamstress. An uncle took a major role in his life. Although isolated from art as presented in museums and other cultural institutes, Botero was influenced by the Baroque style of the colonial churches and the city life of Medellín while growing up.
He received his primary education in Antioquia Ateneo and, thanks to a scholarship, he continued his secondary education at the Jesuit School of Bolívar. In 1944, Botero’s uncle sent him to a school for matadors for two years. In 1948, Botero at age 16 had his first illustrations published in the Sunday supplement of the El Colombiano, one of the most important newspapers in Medellín. He used the money he was paid to attend high school at the Liceo de Marinilla de Antioquia.
Botero’s work was first exhibited in 1948, in a group show along with other artists from the region.
From 1949 to 1950, Botero worked as a set designer, before moving to Bogotá in 1951. His first one-man show was held at the Galería Leo Matiz in Bogotá, a few months after his arrival. In 1952, Botero travelled with a group of artists to Barcelona, where he stayed briefly before moving on to Madrid.
In Madrid, Botero studied at the Academia de San Fernando. In 1952, he traveled to Bogotá, where he had a solo exhibit at the Leo Matiz gallery.
In 1953, Botero moved to Paris, where he spent most of his time in the Louvre, studying the works there. He lived in Florence, Italy from 1953 to 1954, studying the works of Renaissance masters. In recent decades, he has lived most of the time in Paris, but spends one month a year in his native city of Medellín. He has had more than 50 exhibits in major cities worldwide, and his work commands selling prices in the millions of dollars. In 1958, he won the ninth edition of the Salón de Artistas Colombianos.
Fernando Botero ‘Guerrilla de Eliseo Velásquez’.jpg
This painting by Fernando Botero depicts guerrillas led by Eliseo Velásquez in the early stages of “La Violencia”, a ten year period of violence/civil war that plagued Colombia. 1988
SCULPTURES
Barcelona. Raval cat. By Fernando Botero..jpg
This piece used to be on Park Avenue and 79th Street.
A famous ‘Sphinx’ sculpture is now on display in NYC
The piece is by iconic artist Fernando Botero. This one’s worth a trip to the Meatpacking District: renowned artist Fernando Botero’s visually-striking, eight-foot-tall Sphinx statue is now on display at 14th Street Square through April 19.
The outdoor installation is part of “Fernando Botero,” a new exhibit presented by David Benrimon Fine Art in celebration of the artist’s upcoming 90th birthday on—you guessed it—April 19. The showing of Sphinx is presented by the gallery in partnership with the New York City Department of Transportation’s Art Program and the Meatpacking Business Improvement District (BID).
“With characteristic wit and joyous play of volumes, Botero interprets the classical creature with a head of a human, body of a lion and wings of a falcon, common to Egyptian, Greek, and Central Asian traditions,” reads an official press release. “In his ‘Boterismo’ exaggerated form, the astonishing eight-foot tall Sphinx looks down at the viewer below.” The artist re-imagines the classical creature with a head of a human, the body of a lion and the wings of a falcon in an exaggerated—and remarkable—form. The sculpture has traveled the world. It has been on display in Medellin, Berlin, the Netherlands and more. Botero’s life story is just as enthralling as his work has been throughout the years. He was born in Medellín in 1932 and actually initially went to school to become a matador until discovering his passion for art. In 1952, he moved to Spain, then relocated to France and eventually settled down in Italy (Florence, to be precise) where he was really able to nurture his talent. New Yorkers who wish to learn even more about Botero should head to the Museum of Modern Art, where more of his work resides.
ED LITCHER, ANDY SPARBERG, 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 IVAN BRICE ARCHITECTS
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Southeast Florida grew slowly. In 1830, after Florida became a US territory, Richard Fitzpatrick established a slave plantation. But the bloody Second Seminole War drove off Fitzpatrick and other settlers. A small army force replaced civilians with the establishment of Fort Dallas on the north bank of the River. Population grew slowly, and even at the turn of the century, what would become today’s Dade County contained fewer than 1,000 persons.
But, as we saw in the first part of this article, Florida had begun to attract the attention of wealthy Northerners, and new railroads grew a tourist industry. Southeast Florida would follow, driven by several remarkable individuals – names which anyone who visits Miami will recognize.
Julia Tuttle’s parents had come to Florida where her father became a state senator. When he died, Julia, widowed, purchased land where the city of Miami is now located. She converted the house built by Fitzpatrick’s slaves into her home, with sweeping views of the river and Biscayne Bay. William and Mary Brickell arrived in Miami at the outset of the 1870s and were successful Indian traders as well as shrewd real estate investors. They lived across the river from Julia Tuttle.
Tuttle knew that transportation was necessary to attract development. She persuaded Henry Flagler to extend his railway to Miami in exchange for hundreds of acres of prime Tuttle and the Brickell real estate. He agreed to build a magnificent hotel near the confluence of the river and Biscayne Bay. On April 22, 1896, the Florida East Coast Railway arrived. On July 28, 344 registered voters, many of whom were black laborers, voted to incorporate a new city, Miami.
Going was tough. Miami suffered from a devastating fire in 1896 and a yellow fever epidemic a few years later. Miami survived largely because of Flagler’s magnificent Royal Palm Hotel. Five stories tall (its rotunda in the center added another story), the yellow frame building was topped by a red mansard roof and counted among many prominent features a 578-foot-long verandah. The hotel had 350 guest rooms and accommodated 400 – 600 guests. The hotel had electric lights, two electric elevators and 200 bathrooms and an additional 100 rooms were available for maids and servants.
In the years before WWI, The Royal Palm became a popular winter resort for America’s Gilded Age princes. John Jacob Astor was the first of many distinguished guests arriving for the opening. Others included Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, Cyrus H. K. Curtis, JP Morgan, Edward F. Hutton, Charlie Schwab, and Gerard Lambert. The Royal Palm was the center of Miami social life.
The hotel’s season ran from January to March, but some visitors decided to make Miami a home or second home. Mansions were raised along Brickell Avenue, known as “Millionaire’s Row.” The most prominent was the Villa Serena, built by William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democrat presidential candidate. Bryan taught Sunday Bible classes at the Royal Palm hotel attracting, it is said, as many as 5,000 people.
Miami was booming when the Roaring Twenties began. The city’s population had climbed to nearly 30,000, a 440 percent increase over the figure for 1910. It represented the largest per capita increase of any municipality in the nation. Everglades Reclamation (or drainage) further stimulated a feverish real estate industry as speculators purchased millions of acres of reclaimed land from the State of Florida, then marketed it aggressively. The tactics of promoters who sold unwitting investors land that was underwater earned for Miami the reputation for marketing “land by the gallon.” When the property boom went bust, thousands of homes were destroyed, unfinished subdivisions were leveled, and the entire region was plunged into a severe economic depression three years before the rest of the nation.
Still, Miami fared better than many other communities. The advent of commercial aviation helped: Pan Am and Eastern put headquarters in the Magic City—and tourism resumed in the second half of the decade.
World War II in 1941 helped even more as the region became a huge training base for hundreds of thousands of members of the military. Many veterans who had trained here during the war had “sand in their shoes,” and returned as permanent residents. The post-WWII years saw a dramatic boom in population and commerce. Downtown Miami had become a world-famous destination, with shopping, entertainment, and a gorgeous waterfront. But the glow would face. Miami deteriorated as the Beach and growing suburbs offered more spacious living, as well as malls and shopping centers. Businesses closed and moved on to more lucrative neighborhoods, leaving the city core to mostly poor communities. Tourists avoided Miami City. But soon, that would change, and a new, more Latin city would emerge.
Miami Beach
What became Miami Beach was an uninhabited, 1600-acre, jungle-matted sand bar three miles out in the Atlantic, cut off from Miami by Biscayne Bay. The first structure on the oceanfront was the Biscayne House of Refuge, constructed in 1876 to provide aid for shipwreck survivors. When a plan to create ae a coconut plantation there failed, John Collins (soon linked with Julia Tuttle and Henry Flagler) bought out his partners.
Collins saw the potential in developing the beach as a winter resort and with several others, particularly entrepreneur Carl Fisher, began to promote the town. Until then, only day-trippers took a ferry from Miami, across the bay. The first hotel, Brown’s Hotel, was built in 1915 and, remarkably still exists at 112 Ocean Drive.
Miami Beach had grown to 2,800 acres when dredging and filling operations were completed. To connect Miami Beach to the mainland, Collins started work on a 2½-mile-long wooden bridge, the world’s longest wooden bridge at the time. When funds ran dry, Fisher provided financing to complete the Collins Bridge in return for land. That kicked off the island’s first real estate boom.
Opening of the Collins Bridge, 1913, then the longest wooden bridge in the world
Fisher promoted Miami Beach as an Atlantic City-style playground and winter retreat for the wealthy. By 1915, Collins and Fisher were living in mansions on the beach; three hotels had opened, an aquarium built, and an 18-hole golf course landscaped. Soon, grand hotels were built – the Flamingo Hotel, The Fleetwood Hotel, The Floridian, The Nautilus, and the Roney Plaza Hotel.
The Beach struggled through the bust and Great Depression, prospered during the War, and by the 1950s was enjoying rapid growth in summertime tourism, thanks to air conditioning and economy flights from northern cities. I remember well, each summer, a new top hotel opened – and finally, the last of the old Collins Avenue mansions, the Firestone Estate, was torn down to make way for the Fontainebleau. Air conditioning was ramped up so that summertime visitors could wear their fur collared sweaters comfortably.
Miami was a southern town and deeply driven by race. After incorporation, property deeds prohibited sale to Blacks everywhere except in one quarter, although Black Floridians comprised as much as a third of Miami’s population. From the late 19th century to the 1960s, segregation was the rule. In Miami Beach’s early days, the only Blacks allowed were hotels staff or servants. In 1936, Miami Beach required more than 5,000 seasonal workers at hotels, restaurants, and nightclubs, as well as domestic servants, to register with police and to be photographed and fingerprinted. Once registered, those workers, many Black, had to carry ID cards in the city.
Nonetheless, the Black community grew – but would decline sharply in the 1960s for various reasons, not least the construction of an extensive expressway system that ripped through the heart of the quarter and led to the displacement of 20,000 residents (about one-half of its population).
Early Miami and the Beach was also profoundly antisemitic. Carl Fisher, who developed the beach, prohibited Jews and blacks from staying in hotels or leasing apartments. Brochures advertised hotels and luxury apartments “Gentiles Only,” or “Always a View, Never a Jew,” or “Located near Protestant and Catholic Churches.” Jewish doctors were prohibited from working in hospitals. In 1947, religious discrimination was legally ended, but as late as 1953, on one of our drives from Pittsburgh to Miami, we were turned away from a hotel in Hollywood – “you would not be comfortable here.”
In fact, as Miami Beach became a summer resort, waves of Jews flowed in, many seeing it as perfect for retirement. Jews had been permitted to own land south of Fifth Street, which became the home of shabby-grand Art Deco apartment buildings and hotels, and then older Jewish retirees from the North and finally, one of the hottest resort centers in the US – South Beach. In 1980, more than 60 percent of Miami Beach’s population was Jewish, many in South Beach. During the 1980s, as Miami and South Beach underwent a profound transformation, many moved to newer Florida communities. In 1999, there were only 10,000 Jewish people living in Miami Beach. My mother complained that overnight the language in South Beach went from Yiddish to Spanish.
So much more to talk about. But the old clock on the wall says it’s time to go. Thanks for reading.
ARON EISENPREISS, GLORIA HERMAN, M. FRANK, ANDY SPARBERG, KIM BRUCE, LAURA HUSSEY & HARA REISER ALL GOT IT! ED LITCHER SENT US THIS: North East view of Madison Square Park that was taken in between 1909 and 1925, with: A statue of U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward in the foreground, which was dedicated in 1876, said to be the first New Yorker to be honored with a monument in the city.
Madison Square Garden II (1890 – 1925) The MetLife building that was built in 1909 on the right side of the image.
FROM A READER Thanks for the wonderful article on 186 Fifth Avenue. Stephen & I lived near there on 28th St. for 24 years & I always wondered the history of that building. I always found it very beautiful in an understated way–especially considering the many flashier buildings in the area. SO many mom & pop places have disappeared….. Have a great weekend– Best: Thom
Funding Provided by: Roosevelt Island Corporation Public Purpose Funds Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD Text by Judith Berdy
Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2022 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
Founded in 1851 The New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company immediately began gobbling up other financial services and communications firms. When it laid plans to extend telegraphic wires from the East to the West Coast, it changed its name to the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1856. It completed the first transcontinental telegraph line–the wires fabricated in iron–on October 24, 1861. Two days later the Government ceased operation of the Pony Express service. Individual users no doubt thought hard before using the cutting edge technology, though. Sending a telegram coast-to-coast could coast as much as $20–about $575 today.
The Western Union Telegraph Company continued its aggressive policy of acquiring competitive firms and by 1884 it had absorbed 500 telegraph companies nationwide.
Western Union was also zealously building in New York City. In addition to its massive headquarters building at No. 145 Broadway, designed by George B. Post, there were more than 130 branch buildings throughout the city. Two of them were completed in 1884–one on Broad Street and the other at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and West 23rd Street.
Completed in 1873, The Western Union headquarters sat downtown at Broadway and Dey Street. Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide, June 25, 1898 (copyright expired)
The uptown building, with the addresses of No. 186 Fifth Avenue and No. 10 West 23rd Street, was designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh, who had just recently designed the Dakota Apartments on Central Park West.
Hardenbergh turned to the currently popular Queen Anne style for the Western Union Telegraph Company building. Seven stories high, including the peaked roof punctured by story-high dormers, it was faced in red brick and trimmed in brownstone and terra cotta. Hardenberg’s treatment of the two-story base was highly unusual. Its highly-unusual Fifth Avenue elevation included a protruding show window nestled within slightly recessed storefront, and a metal-framed oriel within a gaping arch on the second floor. Two-story arches along 23rd Street were separated by brick-and-stone piers.
Valentine’s Manual of New York City (copyright expired)
Hardenberg embellished what was other a somewhat reserved structure with elaborate terra cotta and stone decorations. Elaborate panels decorated the third and sixth floor piers, terra cotta Queen Anne-style motifs adorned the frieze below the cornice and filled the pediments of the dormers. Most striking was the panel above the 23rd Street entrance. Here an intricate panel announced The Western Union Co. and two profiles representing the East and West Coasts were connected by a telegraph cable.
Electricity sparks from the twisted telegraph cable connecting the East to the West, depicted by a Native American.
A creative innovation was included in the 23rd Street building. On February 20, 1883 The Sun reported that it would be connected to the Broadway headquarters by pneumatic tubes. “Within six months the pneumatic tubes are to be laid between the new up-town headquarters and the main offices at Dey street.” Their purpose was to “carry a large batch of dispatched. One tube will be used for distributing and one for collecting messages.” Messages could cover the two-mile distance within two minutes.
Hardenberg included delicate, subtle Aesthetic Movement decorations like the sprouting plants carved into the second floor arch.
The ground floor space became home to the branch offices of the New York Herald newspaper. The second floor housed the National Wood Mfg. Co., makers of parquet flooring and other architectural woodwork. Offices in the upper floors filled with a stunning number of architectural firms.
photo by Irving Underhill from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
The several architects were, most likely, attracted by the fact that the Architectural League installed its headquarters in the building. It was here that the League’s highly-anticipated annual exhibitions were staged. On December 15, 1887, for instance, the New-York Tribune reported “At the Architectural League’s rooms, No. 10 West Twenty-third-st., there was an exhibition yesterday of the forty-four entries for gold and silver medals to be exhibited at the League’s annual exhibition, to be opened on December 19.”
Not only did Henry J. Hardenbergh move his offices into the building which he had designed, but so did Berg & Clark, Walter C. Hunting, Charles L. Eidlitz, A. C. Jacobsen, William E. Young and Charles B. Gillespie.
Th Crown Perfumery Co. was a much different type of tenant. The stench of horse dung and other unpleasant odors on city streets, especially in hot months, prompted refined ladies to carry pierced silver vinaigrettes that held perfume-soaked pumice stones or smelling salts. The Crown Perfumery Co. melded the two with its perfumed pocket salts.
The American University Magazine, May 1897 (copyright expired)
Elegant glass containers were sold within kid leather “purses.” The company’s 1897 advertisements noted that their wholesale offices could be accessed by a “private elevator at 5th Ave.”
In 1901 Seth Low was elected Mayor of New York on the newly-formed Fusion ticket, defeating the Tammany Hall candidate. He immediately launched a hiring campaign to replace the civil servants of the former corrupt administration.
On November 9 The Evening World reported “Already the Army of Fusion is busy seeking jobs for the men who worked hard for the success of the ticket. Mayor-elect Seth Low has rented an entire floor at No. 10 West Twenty-third street…where his secretary, John C. Clarke, will open ‘application headquarters’ on Monday morning.”
In the first years of the 20th century the publishing firm Revell Company called the building home, as did offices of The Roovers Manufacturing Co., machinery makers.
In May 1905 the architectural firm of John B. Snook’s Sons remodeled the ground floor storefronts. The renovations would last only seven years. When the upscale Chicago-based silver manufacturer Lebolt & Company took the first and second floors in 1912 the show windows were updated by architect J. P. Whiskeman. His plans, filed on August 16, estimated the cost at $2,000, or just over $52,000 today.
Lebolt & Co.’s showroom included astonishing light fixtures. photo via chicagosilver.com
The upscale silver firm moved in just as the shopping district of the Ladies’ Mile was migrating northward. On June 10, 1916 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide commented on the plummeting property values in the Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street district. “The building at 186 Fifth avenue, southwest corner of 23d street assessed at $620,000 in 1908, stands now at the assessed value of $220,000.” The store nevertheless remained at least through 1918.
Lebolt & Co. installed a three-faced corner clock above the ground floor. J. P. Whiskeman’s new storefronts can be seen in this 1914 detail. from the collection of the New-York Historical Society
In 1919 the building became national headquarters for the Delta Upsilon fraternity. It published its Delta Upsilon Quarterly here for several years.
The Boy Rangers of America, a precursor of the Boy Scouts of America’s cub scouts program, was organized in 1913. By 1923 its national headquarters was at No. 10 West 23rd Street. Open to boys from 8 to 12 years old, it described itself in an advertisement that year as “An Indian Lore Organization” and said it offered a “most fascinating and developing program.” The organization would remain here at least through 1938.
As the neighborhood continued to change, so did the tenant list of No. 186 Fifth Avenue. In 1927 the headquarters of the Lord’s Day Alliance of the United States was here, a group determined to “make the modern Sunday conform with the old-time Sabbath,” according to The Evening Post.
And when a boy scout named Peter Briglin wrote to Boys’ Life magazine in December 1936 asking “Where can I get white quills, or duck feathers suitable for making a headdress?” the editor directed him to “Plume Sales & Trade Co., 10 West 23rd Street.”
Other tenants throughout the 20th century included the Allied Brief Case Company in the 1950’s and ’60’s; and Shake Records, The Viking Press, and the Pecos Valley Spice Company in the 1980’s.
In 1993 the ground floor space that had once exhibited costly sterling silver bowls, trays and tea sets became home to Isaac Mor’s Multi-Security Locksmith shop. But eleven years later the Ladies’ Mile neighborhood was being rediscovered by massive retailers like Bed, Bath and Beyond, Staples, and–most threatening to Mor–Home Depot. He was understandably nervous, telling The New York Times journalist Glenn Collins in September 2004 “This will affect the whole neighborhood. A lot of stores around here will go out of business.”
Mor was right. Mom-and-pop operations were nudged out by rising rents as trendy cafes and shops moved in alongside the behemoth retailers in what was now called the Flatiron District. On February 25, 2007 The Times reported “five floor-through condos are planned” for No. 186 Fifth Avenue, and Leah Goldfarb, its sales director, said that two had already been sold.
In 2018 Bank of America leased the ground floor and part of the second as a full-service branch. Plans were approved to redesign the ground floor storefronts at the time.
A rendering of the proposed storefronts was released in 2018 by Winick Realty Group. via commercialobserver.comHenry Hardenberg’s striking Queen Anne style building is greatly overshadowed by the magnificent attention-grabbing Flatiron Building directly across the street. It nevertheless deserves a pause to take in those glorious panels and overall design.
THE UNIQUE TOP TRACK TRAINS IN DORTMUND GERMANY GLORIA HERMAN AND ED LITCHER GOT IT!
SOURCES
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
Funding Provided by: Roosevelt Island Corporation Public Purpose Funds Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD Text by Judith Berdy
Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2022 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
The #1 IRT Broadway-7th Avenue Local is unique in many ways. It encompasses a substantial portion of New York’s first subway route, opened 1904-8, which includes its entire northern segment above 96th Street. Here we find a whole collection of unique stations and structure that illustrate the challenges the early subway builders faced. The #1 line above 96th Street encompasses a high viaduct, a large bridge, shallow tunnels, deep tunnels, and a conventional elevated route.
From a point just north of today’s Times Square to 242nd Street and Broadway, the #1 is the west side portion of the first New York subway route. At 96th Street the #1 splits from the #2 and #3 routes, which veer to the east to serve Harlem and The Bronx. The #1 continues along Manhattan’s western spine into adjacent parts of the Bronx to 242nd St.
We’ll begin this trip at 96th Street, which has been rebuilt twice in its history. Like most #1-line stations it is cut and cover construction, meaning it is in a shallow tunnel right below the street level. The most recent rebuild here was about ten years ago and saw the installation of a large entrance building in Broadway’s median strip, to permit ADA accessibility from the street level. A photo of the new entrance building is below (Andy Sparberg collection).
Indianapolis circa 1905. “Knights of Pythias Building.” Last glimpsed here, 10 years ago! 8×10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company.
After 116th Street the #1 line goes outdoors for its 125th Street stop, and then goes back underground at 137th Street. 125th is on an arch bridge, about 50 feet high, necessary to carry the #1 across the steep Manhattanville Valley.
To keep the tracks level, the engineers decided to build a viaduct because a tunnel would have had steep grades and would have been susceptible to floods. Photo below is from www.nycsubway.org. It is a tribute to the original subway builders that the 125th Street viaduct is still in daily use after 118 years of daily use.
137th and 145th Streets are shallow cut-and-cover stations, but there is an unusual a five-track underground storage yard between the stops, completed in October 1904 because the original north terminal was 145th.
157th Street opened in November 1904, and then the next five stops, up to and including 215th Street, opened in March 1906 . A sixth stop, 191st Street, would be added in 1911.
This stretch includes the unique Fort George Tunnel, which few riders notice as the train rushes along. The topography rises steeply after 157th Street, which necessitated building the deep Fort George Tunnel to keep the tracks level and flat as they traverse the hilliest part of Manhattan Island. The engineers literally built a mountain railroad between the 157th Street and Dyckman Street stations. The result was three very deep stations, 168th,181st, and 191st Streets.
The first two opened in 1906 and are among the grandest in New York with their high, barrel=vaulted ceilings. In 1911, the 191st St. Station opened; it was not originally built because no one could have foreseen the sudden growth of Washington Heights caused by the new subway
All three stations require elevator access between the street and the platforms. An unusual feature at 168th Street is that the newer Eight Avenue IND A train subway is built above the older IRT tunnel. That’s because the #1 line tunnel is over 100 feet below street level and was built first.
The IND A train tunnel follows St. Nicholas Avenue on a high ridge and goes over the IRT tunnel. In most places on the NYC subway where two lines cross, the older route is on top.
It is necessary to use an elevator between the IND and the #1 at 168th St., as the #1 is 100+ feet below the street level. The original elevators were the construction shafts used to build the tunnel. When the IND was built (opened in 1932) those elevators were destroyed, and the current elevator shafts installed. New elevators were installed here very recently. Below is a 2017 photo of the #1 station at 168th Street. (Andy Sparberg photo).
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
ANDY SPARBERG
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Just prior to the Civil War commercial buildings began replacing the staid old homes of Broadway below Houston Street. In 1860 the two matching white marble structures at Nos. 591 and 593 Broadway were completed. With modified Italian Renaissance touches like robust arched pediments over the central windows of the second and third floors they rose five stories to a shared, bracketed cornice. Stone quoins ran down the sides of the buildings. Merchant tailors Alonzo R. and William H. Peck established their business in No. 591. While the brothers sold apparel to its well-heeled clients, two other brothers, Henry and Edward Anthony, were establishing themselves elsewhere as leaders in a new technology: photography. Although both of the Anthony brothers had been educated at Columbia College as engineers, neither was satisfied with his profession. Both men worked on the Croton Aqueduct—the engineering marvel that brought fresh drinking water to Manhattan. Before the completion of the project James Renwick called upon Edward to assist him in a survey of the northeastern boundary of the United States. There was, at the time, a dispute between Great Britain and the U.S. regarding the Canadian border. Edward Anthony had been for sometime fascinated with the “new art of making pictures with the aid of sunlight, just introduced by Daguerre,” as explained in “America’s Successful Men of Affairs” later, in 1895. During the survey Anthony took photographs of the terrain, documenting hills along the boundary line that England denied existed. The resulting proof ended the controversy and was the first example of photography being used to settle diplomatic disputes. Upon his return to New York, Edward Anthony went into the business of supplying photographic materials to the trade in 1842. Henry, all the while, bounced around trying to find himself. After the Croton project he entered banking, working in the Bank of the State of New York. He left that position to return to engineering, working on the New York section of the Hudson River Railroad. The American Bookseller recalled “Tiring of that, he again entered the business of banking, and remained in it until 1852, when he joined his brother in dealing in photographic materials.” Edward’s firm, which now became E. & H. T. Anthony & Co., had already become the largest manufacturer of photographic materials in the world. By 1870 the company took over the entire building at No. 591 Broadway and operated a chemical works in Jersey City, and had three factories for the manufacture of cameras and other apparatus in Brooklyn, Hoboken and New York. In addition, the firm published periodicals such as Anthony’s Photographic Bulletin.
The two buildings at Nos. 591 and 593 were mirror-images in 1895 — King’s Handbook of the United States (copyright expired)
The Bulletin was aimed at photographers. The Inland Printer said of it, “Every issue copiously illustrated. Practical articles on process work and on photography by practical men.” On a Wednesday afternoon in October 1884, Henry T. Anthony left No. 591 Broadway heading to his home at No. 108 Lexington Avenue. He decided to make a quick stop at 17th Street and 4th Avenue and, while crossing the street, had to bolt out of the way of an oncoming horse car. The 70-year old bachelor took a hard fall onto the pavement and was seriously injured. The doctors at New York Hospital had him taken to his residence as “it was known that his injuries were fatal,” said The American Bookseller the next week. With his death, Edward was once again the sole principal. It was a time when photography was for professionals only. Not only were the supplies expensive, but the equipment was ungainly and the process complicated. That was soon to change.
A fascinating view of Broadway and the twin buildings was depicted on a stereopticon slide produced by E. and H. T. Anthony. image courtesy of Ronald K. Edge On August 18, 1885 The New York Times reported on revolutionary developments.
“The progress which has been made of late years in the science of photography has been something remarkable—the modes of posing are as different as can possibly, while the apparatus employed have been changed and improved in a high degree. The photographer of the old school fixed the person to be taken in front of a sort of ‘bull’s-eye’ and requested him or her to ‘look natural.’ Then, after a half hour of fixing and twisting, the cap was taken off the bull’s-eye, and a minute or more of torture followed, in which the sitter gazed fixedly at nothing. The result is well known to all.”
But now, said the article, E. & H. T. Anthony’s “Detective” camera changed all that. The comparatively lightweight camera operated by means of a modern shutter, allowing photographs to be “literally taken ‘on the wing.’” The Times called it “the lightest, neatest, and most compact camera ever made.” The process of taking a picture was like nothing before. “When needed for use it is only necessary to insert a ‘plate,’ a little catch is raised, a ‘click’ is heard, and quick as the twinkling of an eye the view is secured. There is no trouble, and scarcely any mechanical skill is exercised.”
With the new device E. & H. T. Anthony had made amateur photography possible. Tourists found the new plaything indispensable–to the point that the firm was unable to keep up with the demand. In 1891 The Illustrated American urged tourists to contact the company in preparation for their vacation. “For twenty-five dollars, Anthony, of 591 Broadway, can give you an excellent photographic equipment for your trip With the camera, tripod, and box of plates they sell the chemicals prepared for use, so that, by the aid of an instruction-book, you can gather enough information to teach you the camera’s use.”
Along with its cameras, the firm sold everything related to the field: portable dark rooms, photographic films, sensitized papers and “amateur photographic outfits,” among them.
Professional photographers could purchase the above stereopticon camera, for making three-dimensional slides –The School Journal 1897 (copyright expired)
On December 14, 1888 Edward Anthony died. His son, Richard A became secretary of the firm which continued under the presidency of Vincent M. Wilcox.
In 1895 “King’s Handbook of the United States” noted that “The universally popular interest in photographic art, which is so marked a feature of the present day, depends largely on apparatus and supplies devised or introduced by E. & H. T. Anthony & Co., preeminent in all the world as manufacturers and sellers of all photographic materials.”
While easier to transport, the cameras were still expensive in 1896. The $60 spent on a Marlborough would equal over $1,000 today–McClure’s Magazine (copyright expired) After three decades in the building, on December 15, 1899 E. & H. T. Anthony advertised its “removal sale” in the New York Tribune. Although the firm would continue to do limited business here until around 1904, the bulk of the building was taken over by The Strobel & Wilken Co., importers and dealers in toys.
In March 1900 No. 591 Broadway was sold at auction to William Cohen, of Cohen, Endel & Co., for a bid of $157,500. Three months later the new owners announced their intentions to “make elaborate alterations to the building, including an additional story,” as reported in The New York Times.
The report was not exaggerated. All traces of the old marble building above the ground floor—which had been modernized along with its neighbor around 1895—were wiped away and a fantastical, updated façade installed. Slender cast iron piers rose through the four central floors affording extensive expanses of glass.
The new sixth floor which sat above a decorated cast iron entablature was frosted with terra cotta ornamentation. Above the rows of arched windows rose a brick pediment covered in terra cotta.
The toy dealer would remain here for fifteen years, followed by apparel firms as the dry goods and millinery industry firmly implanted itself in the neighborhood. In 1916 Nelson, Siegel and Company was here manufacturing ladies’ hats. By 1920 shirt manufacturers Nibenberg & Saltzman had its offices here. The sizable firm turned out about 1,500 dozen shirts every week from its factory in Johnston, New York. At the same time Kalter-Cerf Mercantile Company operated from the building. The diverse company dealt in shoes as well as operating as jobbers and wholesale auctioneers. Today the handsome building is little changed. As is the case with its former twin next door, the late Victorian storefront at street level is miraculously intact. Art galleries replace shirt manufacturers and a Victoria’s Secret retail store occupies the ground floor where cameras and toys were sold. And passersby would never guess that the building once matched its more pious neighbor before a unique, near-whimsical remodeling of 1900.
108 LEONARD STREET ALSO KNOWN AS 346 BROADWAY, THE CLOCKTOWER BUILDING
SUMIT KAUR 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)
Sources
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Gurney worked in the jewelry trade in Little Falls, New York, but soon moved his business to New York City and shortly after turned to photography, having been instructed and inspired by Samuel Morse. He was one of the pioneering practitioners of the daguerreotype process, opening the first American photo gallery at 189 Broadway in 1840, and charging $5 for a portrait.
He created remarkably detailed portraits, using to the full the remarkable tonal rendition of the process. He selected his clients from New York’s society elite, calling them “Distinguished Persons of the Age” and eschewing the political and entertainment figures favoured by his rival, Mathew Brady. The quality of Gurney’s portraits soon ensconced him as the finest daguerreotypist in Gotham.[1]
Gurney’s photographic skills received numerous accolades, including a write-up in the Scientific American of 5 December 1846. The New York Illustrated News, in an 1853 article, wrote that his establishment at 349 Broadway “consisted of nine spacious rooms, devoted exclusively to this art.” In the 1840s Gurney showed his images at numerous exhibitions such as the American Institute Fair and later at the Crystal Palace in London, achieving international renown. His business flourished and in 1858 he built a three-story white marble studio at 707 Broadway to house his pictures, and it was the first building built for the sole purpose of photography in the United States.
Gurney played a leading role in the training of the first wave of pioneering photographers such as Mathew Brady, who made a name for himself as a Civil war photographer. Brady had been employed as a journeyman making jewelry cases for E. Anthony & Co., and also made display cases for Gurney’s daguerreotypes.
One of the things Gurney is best known for is having taken the only known photograph of Abraham Lincoln in death.[2][3][4]
Portrait of Jeremiah Gurney (1812-1895), New York daguerrotypist
Gurney’s Daguerreian Saloon at 349 Broadway, NYC
Wedding Party of Julia Parmly and Frederick Billings. Parmly and Ward Family and Friends, April 1862
Two Girls in Identical Dresses”, Daguerreotype, 4 7/16 x 3 1/4 in. (11.3 x 8.2 cm)
Lincoln in open casket by Benjamin Gurney
Bessie Sudlow is the stage name of Barbara Elizabeth Johnstone (22 July 1849 – 28 January 1928), who was active in New York as a burlesque performer from 1869 to 1873, then in Britain as an opera bouffe soprano from 1875 to 1880. This stereo photograph was taken in New York.
-Pair of Portraits of Man and Woman (Husband and Wife?)- MET DP700063.jpg
William Horace Lingard in Drag by J Gurney & Son, NYC.jpg
RIVERSIDE DRIVE VIADUCT FROM 115 STREET. NY CENTRAL RAILROAD BELOW AND G. WASHINGTON BRIDGE UNDER CONSTRUCTION
ED LITCHER, HARA REISER, ANDY SPARBERG, ARON EISENPREISS, JAY JACOBSON, CLARA BELLA, LAURA HAUSER ALL GOT IT!!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
RIHS (C) FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
As the 19th century became the 20th, Riverside Drive saw the erection of mansions that rivaled those along Fifth and Madison Avenues. Millionaires were lured by fresh area and the breathtaking views of the Hudson River from the high cliffs. Builder Joseph A. Farley got in on the action. The son of Terence Farley, a well-known builder for many years, Joseph went into business for himself around 1895 focusing on the rapidly developing Riverside Drive area. By 1900 he had erected more than 25 houses in the neighborhood between 105th to 108th Streets, and on West End Avenue. In 1901 he began construction on four magnificent houses designed by James & Leo on Riverside Drive between 105th and 106th Streets. They would be his undoing. Farley paid the staggering amount of $160,000 for the building lots alone—about $3.5 million in today’s dollars. The total cost of the project would rise to around $430,000. But the results, completed in 1902, were magnificent. The three mansions facing Riverside Drive were nearly identical—French-inspired townhouses fit for New York’s wealthy upper crust. But the corner house was the show-stopper.
photo by Ephemeral New York
Although the entrance was squarely on West 105th Street, the residence took the more prestigious address of No. 330 Riverside Drive. A grand Parisian mansion, it stretched eastward along West 105th Street and turned a shoulder to its less impressive neighbors. The architects blended exquisitely carved limestone with buff colored brick to produce a restrained and elegant design. Ornamentation was reserved, on the whole, for the window openings while large areas of façade were purposefully left blank. On October 4, 1902 the Real Estate Record and Builder’s Guide praised the homes. “These houses…represent all that is latest in fashionable dwelling construction, and are furnished with all the devices for insuring the convenience and comfort of their occupants, besides being designed with artistic correctness and finished with taste.”
The Real Estate Record & Builder’s Guide published this photograph on October 4, 1902 (copyright expired)
The writer made note of the pleasant location. The houses were “on the summit of a hill, from which the Drive slopes away both north and south. It commands magnificent views of the Hudson River and the Riverside Drive, and is, therefore, airy, cheerful and salubrious.” Financially Farley had stretched himself to the limit to construct the lavish homes. And by the end of the year, when none of them had sold, he was in trouble. On Christmas Eve 1902 The Sun ran the headline “Builder Jos. A. Farley Fails.” The blame for his bankruptcy was placed squarely on the new Riverside Drive houses. “Inability to sell the houses is given as the principal cause of the assignment,” said the newspaper. The mansions, of course, would eventually sell and No. 330 became home to Robert Benson Davis—founder of the Davis Baking Powder Company—and his wife and daughter. When the fabulously wealthy Davis was in his 40s, he had married the teenaged Jennie Weed. The couple had one child, Lucretia, born in 1886. In 1905, a few years after the family moved into the 25-room Riverside Drive mansion, Davis purchased their sprawling country estate “Hillcrest” in Cazenovia, New York.
photo by Alice Lum
By now Robert Davis was aging. The Civil War veteran was 62 years old in 1905 and his wife was 30 years younger. Jennie Weed Davis’s focus was turning away from her husband and to his money. In 1908 Jennie tried to have Davis ruled “of unsound mind.” She had three doctors examine him and she spread rumors to the Davis Baking Powder Company executives that he was mentally incompetent. The New York Times reported that “He objected to that step, and the trouble ensuing resulted in divorce proceedings.” Divorce was not on the agenda of Jennie Weed Davis. When her husband became ill that year, she grasped the opportunity to control him. According to newspaper reports in 1911, he told a judge that “when he was taken sick she ‘usurped’ his business in Hoboken and surrounded him with spies that made of his home a prison.” Jennie intercepted the mail and kept Davis locked in the bedroom on the fourth floor until September 1910. Jennie found Davis’s will and discovered he had amended the terms. She and Lucretia were allotted a yearly stipend from the estate and she was not pleased with the amount. She told Davis “Unless you change this I shall be compelled to allow Lucretia to go on the stage, and you will be responsible if she falls into the many pitfalls of that career and becomes a low woman. It costs $40,000 a year to run the New York house. You must let us have more money after you are gone.” Davis devised an escape plan by dropping a letter addressed to a friend from the bedroom window. As luck would have it, it was found by a passerby and, remarkably, delivered. The ally positioned a motorcar outside the residence and when the servants were taking the dinner dishes out of his room, Davis made his escape. Later The New York Times printed a more dramatic version of the escape. “Disguised as a physician and accompanied by two nurses in uniform, he eluded the hired caretakers.” Jennie initiated a search for her husband, whom she still maintained was incompetent. A special report to The New York Times on September 26, 1910, said “It is understood here that Robert M. Davis, a wealthy baking powder manufacturer, 70 years old, has eluded the efforts of relatives to detain him at his New York home, 330 Riverside Drive, but he has not appeared here [i.e., the country estate].” Davis had fled on a train to Los Angeles and immediately began divorce proceedings based on “cruelty.” On June 13, 1911 Robert Benson Davis took the stand. The Times wrote “Mrs. Davis, appearing at least thirty years younger than her husband, was in the court room. She has a daughter, Lucretia, aged 26. Mrs. Davis’s head wagged in indignant denial at several of her husband’s statements.” Two days after the shocking testimony of imprisonment, guards, spies and threats of his daughter losing her virtue, Davis was denied his plea for divorce because he was not a California resident and the court had no authority. Jennie, almost immediately, filed a suit for “separate maintenance.” She received a monthly allowance of $1,500 as well as $1,500 for costs. That was not enough for Jennie Weed Davis. She countered, asking instead for a $5,000 monthly allowance. An unsympathetic Judge Walter Bordwell, on September 27, 1912 ruled “that Mrs. Davis’s action in driving her husband from his Riverside Drive home…while he was ill, showed conclusively that she was not entitled to any allowance.” Somewhat unexpectedly, with everyone disappointed at their own rulings the family traveled back to New York and continued life in the Riverside Drive mansion. The Davises were seen at their customary box—Box H—at the Metropolitan Opera during Saturday matinees despite the many lorgnettes one might imagine were focused on Jennie. On September 8, 1915 Lucretia Weed Davis was married to George Shipman Jephson in St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Cazenovia. The newlyweds lived on in the Riverside Drive house and George was given a job at the R. B. Davis Company—as President. Ironically three months later Jennie Weed Davis died. The scheming wife of the millionaire—three decades his junior–did not live to inherit the estate. Her funeral was held in the Riverside Drive mansion on Tuesday, December 28 at 2:30 in the afternoon. Robert Benson Davis lived another five years. On Thursday, February 19, 1920 his funeral, too, took place in the house. Lucretia and George maintained the Davis lifestyle. They lived on in the Riverside Drive and Cazenovia mansions and kept Box H at the Opera.
At the time of Robert B. Davis’ funeral, the neighborhood was only slightly changed — photograph NYPL Collection
With the coming of the Great Depression the grand mansions of Riverside Drive began being divided into multifamily homes or razed for modern apartment buildings. Perhaps to protect the exclusive nature of his block, George Jephson bought the adjoining mansions on Riverside Drive as they became available. At the beginning of 1933 he already owned No. 331 next door (where, by the way, film actress Marion Davies had lived) and in February that year he purchased No. 332. “Mr. Jephson now controls a frontage of 78 feet in a block containing several private homes,” reported The Times on February 8.
On September 30, 1951 George S. Jephson died in the summer house at Cazenovia. Four years later, deciding to live solely in Hillcrest, the aging Lucretia sold the three Riverside Drive mansions to Fred H. Hill. If New Yorkers were concerned that the large parcel would mean the end of the lovely mansions, they heaved a sigh of relief when No. 330 was quickly resold in January 1955 to the Brothers of the La Salle Provincialate. The group, parochial school teachers, planned “to occupy the house for a residence in place of their present living quarters at 112 West Seventy-seventh Street,” reported The Times.
Lucretia Davis Jephson lived on in Hillcrest until her death in April 1979 at the age of 93. Meanwhile, the Provincialate remained on at No. 330 Riverside Drive until 1978. Unlike many of its neighbors, the Davis mansion has never been broken up into apartments. Its stately presence is a reminder of a time when millionaires rebuffed Fifth Avenue for the vistas of the Hudson River.
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
Sources
DAYTONIAN IN MANHATTAN IVAN BRICE ARCHITECTS
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
WE CAN EASILY ADD YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY TO RECEIVE THEIR OWN ISSUES DIRECTLY FROM US 6 DAYS A WEEK. SEND US THEIR NAMES AND E-MAILS. THEY WILL SOON BE ENJOYING THEIR OWN COPY AS EARY AS 6:15 IN THE MORNING!
With National Mall Debut of 120 Statues Celebrating Women in STEM
Smithsonian Partners With IF/THEN
To Display the Largest Collection of Statues of Women
Ever Assembled
Credit: Courtesy of IF/THEN COLLECTION Joyonna Gamble-George stands next to her statue in the #IfThenSheCan — The Exhibit. Gamble-George is an American neuroscientist, innovator, and entrepreneur.
The Smithsonian will shake up Women’s History Month in March with a new Women’s Futures Month, a forward-looking celebration of the power of women and girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) to shape a better world. To kick off the month, the Smithsonian will present “#IfThenSheCan – The Exhibit,” a collection of 120 statues of women in STEM. On display in Smithsonian gardens and in and around select Smithsonian museums March 5–27, the exhibit is the largest collection of statues of women ever assembled together.
The 120 life-size 3D-printed statues are of a diverse coalition of contemporary women STEM innovators and role models leading a variety of fields, from protecting wildlife, discovering galaxies, building YouTube’s platform, to trying to cure cancer. From Jessica Esquivel, one of only 150 Black women with a doctorate in physics in the country, to Karina Popovich, a college student who produced over 82,000 pieces of 3D-printed PPE for health-care workers in the early days of the pandemic, visitors will come face to face with entrepreneurs, educators, scientists and conservationists who are building the future. Each statue will feature a unique QR code so visitors can learn about these inspiring personal stories.
“These striking 3D-printed figures of remarkable women in STEM careers help us celebrate the incredible impact women continue to make on vital scientific endeavors,” said Lonnie Bunch, Secretary of the Smithsonian. “This exhibition highlights how a more diverse, more inclusive workforce will strengthen our shared future.”
“‘#IfThenSheCan – The Exhibit’ provides the perfect opportunity for us to show that women have successfully thrived in STEM for decades, while also illustrating the innumerable role models young women can find in every field,” said Ellen Stofan, the Smithsonian’s Under Secretary for Science and Research. “Through this exciting collaboration with Lyda Hill Philanthropies, the Smithsonian is furthering our commitment to fostering an environment where all girls know they can make an indelible mark on our future.”
“We are excited to highlight the work of these game-changing STEM innovators and help expand the narrative about who is leading in these fields,“ said Rachel Goslins, director of the Arts and Industries Building. “These women are changing the world and providing inspiration for the generation that will follow them.”
IF/THEN is an initiative designed by Lyda Hill Philanthropies to activate a culture shift among young girls to open their eyes to STEM careers. From tagging sharks, searching for extraterrestrial life, fighting superbugs, to choreographing robots, these STEM innovators were selected through a rigorous process that identified them as leaders in their fields with a commitment to inspire the next generation. All were chosen by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Lyda Hill Philanthropies to serve as AAAS IF/THENAmbassadors: high-profile role models for middle school girls.
“#IfThenSheCan – The Exhibit” will be unveiled to the public March 5, kicking off the month-long Women’s Futures Month festival with a weekend of exciting programs at the Arts and Industries Building. Programming for the month will invite visitors of all ages and gender expressions to dream big and see themselves as scientists-in-the-making. They will be given the unique opportunity to meet the women scientists and inventors changing the world during a free “Work It! FUTURES Career Day” March 5, and they can enjoy inspiring activities for future-makers of all ages during a “Spark the FUTURES: Science Family Day ” March 6.
During opening weekend, visitors will be able to explore all 120 statues placed in the Arts and Industries Building, the Smithsonian Castle and the adjacent Enid A. Haupt Garden. Starting March 7, select statues will spread out to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and other locations along the National Mall through the end of the month.
This program is made possible by the support of Lyda Hill Philanthropies and the IF/THEN initiative.
“What inspires someone to dream big, reach further, leap higher?” asked Lyda Hill, entrepreneur and founder of Lyda Hill Philanthropies. “‘#IfThenSheCan – The Exhibit’ was a big idea that we created with the intention to reach young girls to spark their dreams and support their interest in science. We are deeply grateful to the Smithsonian to make these statues accessible to so many in our nation’s capital.”
Really enjoyed meeting Dr. Lataisia Jones, a neuroscientist with @NIH. She brought so much infectious enthusiasm, humility, and expertise with her!
Credit: Courtesy of IFTHEN Collection #IfThenSheCan—The Exhibit,2021
Times Square around 1904. The NY Times building, then brand new, is in the center. On right is the old Astor Hotel, since razed. Believe it was still Longacre Square at the time of the photo. HARA REISER AND ANDY SPARBERG got it right
Funding Provided by: Roosevelt Island Corporation Public Purpose Funds Council Member Ben Kallos City Council Discretionary Funds thru DYCD Text by Judith Berdy
Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2022 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
Indianapolis circa 1905. “Knights of Pythias Building.” Last glimpsed here, 10 years ago! 8×10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company.
This amazing triangular building was designed by Sir Thomas Tresham (father of one of the Gunpowder Plotters) and constructed between 1593 and 1597. It is a testament to Tresham’s Roman Catholicism: the number three, symbolising the Holy Trinity, is apparent everywhere. There are three floors, trefoil windows and three triangular gables on each side.On the entrance front is the inscription ‘Tres Testimonium Dant’ (‘there are three that give witness’), a Biblical quotation from St John’s Gospel referring to the Trinity. It is also a pun on Tresham’s name; his wife called him ‘Good Tres’ in her letters
New York Flatiron triangular building – panoramio.jpg
Gastown Buildings on Cambie Street – panoramio.jpg
Saint-Petersburg. Apartment house of V. A. Ratkov-Rozhnov. Embankment of the Griboyedov Canal, 71.jpg
Boat hause-Shimon Levi house-Tel Aviv.jpg
Shimeon Levi house, 56 Levanda St, Tel Aviv Built 1934-1935 commonly known as “Ship building” Architects: Shimon Hamadi Levi, Arieh Cohen. Bauhaus.
Rue Breguet & Rue Boulle, Paris October 2012.jpg Rue Breguet & Rue Boulle, Paris October 2012.
Triangular office block at London Wall – geograph.org.uk – 643161.jpg
http://P1330656 Paris VI rue de Rennes rwk.jpg
Gebäude Ecke Appelstraße – Herrenhäuser Kirchweg.jpg
Hay Building, Portland, Maine.jpg
Hay Building, also known as the Charles Q. Clapp Building, is a historic commercial building on Congress Square in downtown Portland, Maine. It occupies a prominent triangular site at the junction of Congress, High and Free Streets. Built in 1826.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
RIHS (C) FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Admittedly a bit of a trick. Anyone who travels knows about JFK, and LGA is known, too, not least for Joe Biden’s comment a “third world airport”. But did “Wrong Way Corrigan” fly out of JFK? How many world flight records were shattered at LGA? There’s only one answer: Floyd Bennett Field. Never heard of it. Stay glued. This is a good tale, and it ends with a mystery.
First, FBF is in Marine Park, Brooklyn, along the shore of Jamaica Bay. It was created by connecting Barren Island and several smaller islands to the rest of Brooklyn with sand pumped from the Bay.
Why? One reason was that Charles Lindbergh did not take off from New York City on his historic solo flight to Paris. The City missed the reflected glow of Lindbergh’s triumph. Unlike other cities such as Atlantic City and Cincinnati, New York didn’t have a municipal airport. New York did have many private airfields, and, in the earliest days of few regularly scheduled commercial airflights, no one thought we needed a municipal field as well.
Several official bodies did recommend that NYC build its own airport, but this was ignored until the construction of Newark Municipal Airport. As the best equipped airport in the area, US Postal Service designated Newark as the airmail terminal for the New York City area. Recall that airline traffic was funded mainly by Washington’s airmail business rather than by passengers. So, we lost twice – the prestige of a new airport and postal funds to support airlines. (This is why the DC-3 was revolutionary, because it carried enough passengers to support a profit-making business.)
In mid-1927, a Washington committee identified six met area locations where an airport might be built. Debate followed, and Congressman (and future mayor) Fiorello La Guardia pushed for a commercial airport on Governors Island, as it was closer to Manhattan and located in the middle of the Harbor. He introduced a resolution in Congress to do this, but it was voted down.
Finally, Barren Island was chosen. Few people lived there, and it was owned by the City which had already spent $100 million between 1900 and 1927 to construct a seaport in Jamaica Bay – the project was abandoned, but land had already been dredged land for shipping channels. No obstructions existed nearby and being on Jamaica Bay would allow seaplanes to use the airport – and seaplanes were the leaders in commercial aviation at this time. Hopefully, the airport would spur development of Jamaica Bay, since the seaport had been dropped.
FBF would be a big deal, top of the line airport, accommodating airplanes and seaplanes. Planners wanted a best rating from the Department of Commerce. In order to secure an “A1A” rating, FBF had the country’s longest concrete runway, an 8-inch-thick layer of reinforced concrete, gravel drainage strips, 200-foot-wide, twice the minimum runway width mandated by the Department of Commerce. Its runways, at a time when most airports still had dirt runways and no night landings, made the airport among the most advanced of its day, as did its comfortable terminal facilities with numerous amenities. These amenities included an underground tunnel for passengers to make their way to the runway without getting wet or windblown
The airport was named after Floyd Bennett, a noted aviator who piloted the first plane to fly over the North Pole and had visualized an airport at Barren Island before dying in 1928. Bennett Field construction started the same year. The airport was dedicated on June 26, 1930, and officially opened to commercial flights on May 23, 1931.
As a commercial airport, FBF never got off the ground. Bennett Field suffered from its poor location in outer Brooklyn. There were no limited-access roads between Manhattan and the airport, and the only direct route from Manhattan to Bennett Field was Flatbush Avenue, a congested street with local traffic throughout its length. This was exacerbated by the fact that the bus-to-subway connection did not occur until 1940.
And airmail. LaGuardia pushed for Floyd Bennett Field to replace Newark Airport as the city’s main air terminal but failed. Since commercial passenger traffic followed airmail, no regularly scheduled commercial passenger airlines were based at FBF. So, in 1933, while Newark carried 120,000 airline passengers, 1.5 million pounds of mail, and 425,000 pounds of express mail, Bennett carried 52 airline passengers, 98 bags of mail, and 100 pounds of express.
But FBF was heavily used by civil aircraft. In 1932, it had become “the most desirable American Field as an ocean hop terminal”. At least four transatlantic flights had occurred there that year, and at least four more flights were scheduled for 1933. By 1933, Floyd Bennett Field accommodated more flights than Newark Airport: 51,828 arrivals and departures, compared to 19,232 at Newark. By number of flights, Bennett Field was the second-busiest US airport that year, behind only Oakland International Airport in California.
Floyd Bennett Field was a perfect spot for aviation pioneers and daredevils to launch their flights, and many trans-continental, trans-Atlantic and round the world flight records were set and broken here. Famous aviators flew here – Roscoe Turner, Wiley Post (the first solo flight around the world, took off and landed here in front of crowds of 50,000 fans), Howard Hughes broke the world record for flying around the world departing from FBF on his Lockheed Super Electra.
Howard Hughes arrives at Floyd Bennett Field. (Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images)
FBF was the finishing line for the Bendix Trophy Race a key transcontinental competition. Women were active aviators here and in the 1936 Bendix Race, women won three of the top five places. Beryl Markham, the Kenyan novelist, and Jacqueline Cochran were prominent women aviators who set records at Bennett field.
Contestants before the 1933 Annette Gipson all woman’s race
Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh took part in FBF events but perhaps the best remembered flight from FBF was Douglas Corrigan’s “mistaken” flight to Ireland on July 17, 1938. Long story, but Corrigan claimed that his planned non-stop cross-country flight in a $325 used plane went awry, and he found himself en route across the Atlantic rather than the continent. Forever, Floyd Bennett Field would be identified with “Wrong way Corrigan”.
In 1938, the Navy, which already occupied part of Bennett Field, began to expand its facilities there. As the Navy operation grew, all private airlines were ordered to leave, and all remaining residents on Barren Island would be evicted. On May 26, 1941, the airport was closed to all commercial and general aviation uses, and a week later, the Navy opened Naval Air Station New York with an air show that attracted 30,000 to 50,000 attendees. During the war, the miliary used FBF extensively.
NAS New York functioned as a support and training base for Naval and Marine units throughout the postwar period. With the Vietnam War over, the military said it would vacate the airport. Mayor Lindsay wanted to convert it to a commercial airport and Governor Rockefeller wanted to make it into a mall, industrial park and housing development. Long story short, Bennett Field became part of the Gateway National Recreation Area’s Jamaica Bay Unit and is managed by the National Park Service.
Now some mysteries. The City’s Department of Docks was responsible for construction. We don’t know who the architect was, but we are told that the admin building (now Ryan Visitors Center) was a masterpiece. The outside of the main building (ae the top) has some Art Deco elements, but on a colonial revival or Neo-Georgian base. The inside design was influenced by Art Deco and Egyptian art, which was an influence on art deco. But I could find no photo record.
The WPA was involved in construction. The City seems to have made some sharp deals. In 1936, the federal government contributed $4.7 million toward Bennett Field’s expansion, while the city spent only slightly more than $339,000.
The WPA was also central in the most interesting mystery. Four large murals with the theme “The History of Flight” were commissioned from the WPA’s Federal Art Project.
The murals were not delivered until May 1940, after the Navy had taken control of the airport. Civic and patriotic groups immediately attacked them as Communist propaganda. They argued, for example, that the murals show the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk in Russian peasant costumes, a likeness of Stalin, that people in another panel seem “strangely un-American in expression and garb” and that they “stand with upraised fists, the Communist salute”. Several reports say that one mural was created by Diego Rivera and that Arshile Gorky was working on another. These seem both highly unlikely.
Another report says that Colonel Brehon Somerveil, WPA Administrator, ordered them taken down and burned for being “socialist propaganda.” (Given Somerveil’s hard anti-communist views, this would not be surprising.) The Times says that Somerveil dismissed one artist on the project (Thomas Corwin) “for preparing Communist propaganda” and dismissed his supervisor for “incompetence” in submitting Corwin’s work.
Alas, we don’t know what the murals actually looked like. Several images can be found, but it’s not clear if these are the Bennett field murals. Both from Wikipedia.
NEW YORK CHAMBER OF COMMERCE YESHIVA UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON HEIGHTS 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 Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
Sources STEPHEN BLANK
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
