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
JUDITH BERDY
RIHS (C) FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
“Washington Market, New York, Thanksgiving Time” is the straightforward name of this hand colored wood engraving. Drawn by French artist Jules Tavernier, the richly detailed image ran in Harper’s Weekly in 1872.
Our Thanksgiving wishes to all, Share the day, weekend or time with your family and friends,. Eat well and be prepared to shop at the RIHS kiosk on Friday and the weekend.
A SPECIAL THANKSGIVING MEMORY
MIKE AND PAT SCHWARTBERG, THANKSGIVING 2011 MIKE PASSED AWAY ALMOST A YEAR AGO. HIS FUN LOVING SPIRIT AND COURAGE ARE FONDLY REMEMBERED
LAST THURSDAY’S PHOTO OF THE DAY
M. FRANK WAS THE ONLY PERSON WHO KNEW THE WISCONSIN CAPITOL.
WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
RIVERSIDE CHURCH NINA LUBLIN WAS THE EARLY BIRD WHO KNEW THE IMAGE. ALSO ARON EISENPREISS AND HARA REISER!
PENNIES FOR PRESERVATION
BRING YOUR PENNIES, NICKELS DIMES AND QUARTERS TO THE 531 DOORSTATION TO THE ATTENTION OF JUDY BERDY.
WE HAVE ALREADY COLLECTED $800+
THE PENNIES WILL BE SUPPORTING THE R.I.H.S. AND HELP RE-CIRCULATE COINS.
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) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
The Wild West-inspired apartment house designed for urban cliff dwellers
November 22, 2021
In Gilded Age New York, a new term popped up to mock a certain type of Manhattanite: cliff dweller.
“By about 1890 the growing number of residents in apartment houses were sardonically called cliff dwellers, after the image of the cliff-dwelling Native Americans in the Southwest,” wrote Irving Lewis Allen in his 1995 book, The City in Slang.
Inspired by the new slang term as well as Southwestern images and motifs, a new residential building opened its doors on Riverside Avenue and 96th Street in 1916: the aptly named Cliff Dwelling.
The 12-story Cliff Dwelling, situated on a flatiron-shaped plot only roughly eight feet deep on one side, opened as an apartment hotel high up over Riverside Park on posh Riverside Drive.
Unlike the restrained elegance that characterized similar new buildings on the Drive, the Cliff Dwelling had a playful, inventive facade unique in New York City.
Buffalo or cattle skulls, two-headed snakes, and mountain lions in terra cotta decorate the front of the building, along with images of corn, spears, and masks. Raised bricks form geometrical patterns and zigzags that mimic Aztec and Mayan design motifs.
The 12-story Cliff Dwelling, situated on a flatiron-shaped plot only roughly eight feet deep on one side, opened as an apartment hotel high up over Riverside Park on posh Riverside Drive.
Unlike the restrained elegance that characterized similar new buildings on the Drive, the Cliff Dwelling had a playful, inventive facade unique in New York City.
Buffalo or cattle skulls, two-headed snakes, and mountain lions in terra cotta decorate the front of the building, along with images of corn, spears, and masks. Raised bricks form geometrical patterns and zigzags that mimic Aztec and Mayan design motifs.
By 1932, the Cliff Dwelling was converted to apartments, according to Carter Horsely at cityrealty.com, with kitchens added to the already small rooms. Since 1979, the building—which lost its marquee at some point, visible in the above 1939 photo—has been a co-op.
I’ve never been inside the Cliff Dwelling, but I imagine there’s still a sense of living high above an urban canyon, with a view to the Hudson and perhaps the New Jersey Palisades.
One recent change, however, may make the Cliff Dwelling feel more like a typical squeezed-in city structure: In the early 2000s, a new residential building was built inches away from the Cliff Dwelling’s eastern facade.
At least the western facade still has those wonderful tongue-out faces at eye level.
[Third image: NYC Department of Records and Information Services]
ephemeralnewyork
Tags: 1916 Apartment Buildings NYC, Cliff Dwelling Apartment Building NYC, Cliff Dwelling Riverside Drive, Cliff Dwelling Upper West Side, Riverside Drive Apartment Buildings, Upper West Side Apartment Buildings
RIHS (C) FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
DAN KILEY NICOLAS QUINNELL/QUINNELL ROTHSCHILD ZION BREEN
(c) RIHS
Called Blackwell Island beginning in the 18th century, this 147-acre, two-mile-long island in the East River was sold to the City of New York in 1828. It became home for the city’s poor, housed within quarantined hospitals, alms houses, a lunatic asylum and a penitentiary, warranting the name Welfare Island in 1921. By 1961 the island was desolate, and Victor Gruen proposed an urban renewal scheme to transform the neglected island into a residential enclave.
In 1969 the city established a 99-year lease with the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC), who adopted a master plan devised by Philip Johnson and John Burgee. The plan envisioned a new town model of two medium-density residential clusters – Northtown and Southtown – interspersed with public spaces, and also addressed infrastructure, transportation, retail areas, civic institutions, schools, and hospitals.
The Office of Dan Kiley and Zion & Breen were hired to study roads and open space in the pedestrian-focused scheme. The plan was completed within eight years, and included mid- and high-rise apartment and commercial blocks designed by well-known architects.
Parks were integral to the overall plan, with Blackwell Park designed by Kiley, the Promenades designed by Zion & Breen, and Lighthouse Park designed by Nicholas Quennell Associates. Several nineteenth-century landmarks were also restored and preserved. In 1973 the island was renamed for Franklin D. Roosevelt, during which time Louis Kahn was commissioned to design a memorial park honoring Roosevelt’s four freedoms speech, which was not completed until 2012. Today, the island is home to more than 14,000 residents.
ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY CAMPUS LANDSCAPING BY DAN KILEY
DAN KILEY
BLACKWELL PARK RIVERCROSS LAWN
DAN KILEY
Kiley was born in Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, where his father was a construction manager, grew up in West Roxbury, Boston, and in 1930 graduated from high school in Jamaica Plain. In 1932, he began a four-year apprenticeship with landscape architect Warren Manning, working without pay for the first year, then at 50 cents per hour, during which he learned the fundamentals of office practice and developed an interest in the role of plants in design, sparking his later creative and innovative use of plants in the landscape.
From 1936 to 1938, Kiley was a special student in the design program at Harvard University, while continuing work with Manning for 30 hours per week. Among his classmates and friends were Garrett Eckbo and James C. Rose, who also became influential landscape architects. After two years at Harvard, upon Manning’s death and the dissolution of his practice, Kiley left without graduating. He worked briefly for the National Park Service in Concord, New Hampshire, and later the United States Housing Authority, where he met architect Louis Kahn. On Kahn’s advice, Kiley left the Housing Authority in 1940 to become a licensed practitioner of architecture.
From 1943 to 1945, Kiley served in the U.S. Army as Captain in the Presentations Branch of the Office of Strategic Services, becoming its director after architect Eero Saarinen stepped down. At the end of World War II, Kiley designed the courtroom where the Nuremberg Trials were held.
While in Europe, he visited Chateau de Villandry as well as the work of André Le Nôtre at Sceaux, Chantilly, Versailles, and Vaux-le-Vicomte, whose formality and geometric layout shaped his future Classical Modernist style. Following the war, Kiley found himself one of the only modern landscape architects in the postwar building boom. In California, his friend Garrett Eckbo, Thomas Church and others were developing and practicing the modernist style. Kiley re-established his practice in Franconia, New Hampshire, and later moved it to Charlotte, Vermont.
In 1947, in collaboration with Saarinen, Kiley entered and won the competition to design for the Gateway Arch National Park (then known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial), a high-profile job that launched his career as a landscape architect. Kiley’s first essentially modern landscape design was the Miller Garden in 1955, which is now owned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art and known as the Miller House and Garden. Among his other masterworks are the Fountain Place in Dallas, Texas; the NationsBank Plaza in Tampa, Florida; the United States Air Force Academy; the Oakland Museum; Independence Mall in Philadelphia; and the Dallas Museum of Art.
He completed more than 900 projects, which received countless awards. In 1997, he was presented with the National Medal of Arts. In his office, he hired and inspired designers such as Richard Haag, Peter Hornbeck, Peter Ker Walker, Peter Schaudt and Ian Tyndal. The unique geometric layout of allees, bosques, water, paths, orchards, and lawns characterize Dan Kiley’s design. To Kiley, regular geometry lay at the heart of his design. Like his predecessors, Le Corbusier and Le Nôtre,
Kiley believed that geometry was an inherent part of man. It was the structure man could use to gain comprehension and create stabilization of his surroundings. He also firmly believed that man was a part of nature, rather than being separate from it. Rather than copying and trying to imitate the curvilinear forms of nature he asserted mathematical order to the landscape. Kiley’s landscapes overstepped their boundaries rather than ending elements neatly on a suggested edge. He called this approach, slippage, or an extension beyond the implied boundary, creating ambiguous relationships in the landscape.
Dan Kiley was a landscape architect made famous by his hundreds of distinguished works of landscape design, and inspires many students and professionals in the field of landscape architecture
PLAY AREA OUTSIDE FORMER PS 217
BLACKWELL PARK FACING QUEENS
SEATING AREA BETWEEN BASKETBALL COURTS
MEDITATION STEPS OVERLOOKING THE RIVER AND MANHATTAN
As I walked around Blackwell Park recently with a RIOC staff member, we looked at the deteriorated state of the park in back of Blackwell house. After over 45 years of use, abuse, neglect and patching up the park is in sorry shape. The steps leading down the hill thru an arcade of ginkgo trees is paved with bricks that are falling out of the ground. Not a good place to step down.
The red covered shade area between the basket ball courts are rotted out and the pergola makes a great place to climb.
As you approach the sidewalk outside of the north of Blackwell House, be careful the pavers are lifting and hazardous.
On the west side of Main Street the Rivecross lawn is full of dips and bumps. The entire lawn needs to be rebuilt.
The good news is the Meditation Steps are in great shape. After years of rebuilding them with junk pine, they were rebuilt about 5 years ago with Brazilian wood that does not rot. The steps are great, but the brick walls next to them are deteriorating as are the railings.
Maybe in the near future the Blackwell Parks will have a thoughtful rebuild and not another Band-Aid patch.
Re-imagining Dan Kiley’s work will be a challenge for whomever will take on the chore. Read the adjoining article and see how many of Kiley’s landmark design ideas you can find in out parks.
Mid-century design constantly gets lambasted. Go across the river to Rockefeller University campus and see how wonderful the mid-century Dan Kiley landscape looks!
QUINNELL ROTHSCHILD
LIGHTHOUSE PARK NORTHTOWN PARK/CAPOBIANCO FIELD
NICHOLAS QUINNELL
Born in London in 1935, Quennell earned his diploma in architecture from the Architectural Association in London in 1956 and then worked for architect Leonard Manasseh and for the housing division of the London County Council.
In 1961 Quennell arrived in New York City, but soon settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he worked for Josep Lluís Sert (of Sert, Jackson & Gourley). One year later Quennell joined the San Francisco firm of Lawrence Halprin & Associates and was assigned to work on Ghirardelli Square almost immediately. While at the firm, he flirted with the idea of being an artist and returned to New York City in 1967,
living in the storied Chelsea Hotel. To support his artistic ambitions, Quennell took a job with Vollmer Associates and then earned his M.L.A. from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in 1969. He then established his own landscape architecture practice before teaming with Peter Rothschild to found Quennell Rothschild Associates in 1979 (renamed Quennell Rothschild & Partners in 1998).
Can you identify this and the location. E-Mail Jbird134@aol.com Winner will receive a book from the kiosk.
WEEKEND MYSTERY PHOTO
Did you guess this location? It is the entrance to the Queensbridge apartment houses. Just across Vernon Blvd. With over 3000 units, built in 1939 it has been called the largest public housing development in the U.S.
EDITORIAL
Maybe many of us will appreciate our green spaces,more than ever this year since we are all spending lot of time walking the island.
Today I visited the kiosk for it’s weekly check. Outside I found life in full bloom and about to burst forth.
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 Dottie Jeffries
Just completed, Blackwell Park from the corner south of the house to the NYPL has just received a long needed restoration. The plaza outside the house has preserved its linear tree patter with a new smaller paver design. The are looks and feels larger and more open.
A wide open sidewalk
The area in the back (originally the front of the house which faces Queens) has new paving a great approach to the disabled accessible ramp the to the house and new signage.
The ramp offers a seamless entry into the house.
The ramp has extended grab rails making it easier for persons using assistive devices.
A sign clearly indicates the ramp entry.
EDITORIAL
This project’s first phase has been completed. There are many more improvements needed in our almost 50 year old Blackwell Park. With the new area next to the library, open space has been preserved.
Even the fountain is working again, after a long hiatus.
There is another fountain next to Blackwell House that hopefully will be restored or removed in the next phase.
Hopefully, RIOC will maintain these areas and not let them become neglected.
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
A NEW FLEET OF TRUCKS HAS ARRIVED AT THE VISITOR CENTER NO DOUBLE PARKING FOR THESE, FROM CANDYLAB $18- EACH
WEEKEND PHOTO OF THE DAY
CITY, FORMERLY CHARITY HOSPITAL, DEMOLISHED IN 1992. GLORIA HERMAN AND ED LITCHER GOT IT!
TOMORROW ROOSEVELT ISLAND PARK DESIGNS FROM MAY 11, 2020 ISSUE
NOVEMBER 22, 1963
SOURCES
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 FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Let’s look at another architect who has shaped our Island.
The Octagon, the reconstructed Pauper Lunatic Asylum at the north end of our island, has been viewed as a singular achievement in design and construction. The developer and builder was Becker + Becker, founded in 1950 and directed since 1988 by Bruce Redman Becker. The firm’s website states: “Becker + Becker seeks projects that are social and environmental game-changers: restoring underutilized historic buildings and transforming urban sites to enrich and revitalize communities. We pride ourselves on finding creative interdisciplinary solutions to complex urban challenges through a fully integrated design and development process. We believe inspired design and sustainable development must result from a comprehensive understanding of how buildings should function, serve their users and impact the environment.”
We’ll look at the creation of The Octagon, but first, let’s talk briefly about the Lunatic Asylum.
Alexander Jackson Davis (1803–1892), widely considered America’s greatest mid-nineteenth century architect, designed the original Asylum. Davis is seen as an extraordinary figure in American architecture, introducing and developing new ideas and forms while producing some of the finest buildings of his time.
The Blackwell’s island Asylum was a new idea. It was the first municipal mental hospital in the country as well as the first in what became a large system of New York City Asylums comprised of hospitals on several New York islands. Before 1825, the City’s insane were housed in the city almshouse or at the Bloomingdale Asylum. Then they were moved to the basement and first floor of the General Hospital on Blackwell’s Island. Here the mentally ill remained in conditions described by the very commissioners in charge of the hospital as “a miserable refuge for their trial, undeserving of the name Asylum, in these enlightened days”. Only in 1834 did the city approve the construction of a separate institution for the insane on the island.
Designs for the Asylum were prepared by Davis in 1834-35, and the building was opened in 1839. Davis’ design was influenced by the Panopticon idea developed by Jeremy Bentham (1742-1832), a British philosopher interested in prison reform. In this design, jailers in a central structure would monitor inmates housed in radiating wings.
The RIHS article on the Asylum notes that construction had barely begun when disagreements with the City Council over the design halted work. In 1837, work resumed, but Davis’ signature “Tuscan Style” plan for two octagon structures within a U-shaped complex, ordered around a central rectangular pavilion was reduced to a single octagon joined to a single east-west wing. The upper portion of the octagon was altered to include a crenelated cupola and the architectural detail was changed to the Greek Revival style. In 1847-48, a north-south wing was built repeating the style of the earlier east-west wing. Architect Joseph M. Dunn was commissioned in 1879 to alter the Asylum. He raised the wings one story in height and, to retain the visual prominence of the Octagon, added a dome-like convex mansard roof with Neo-Greco detail. This is the structure that was later recreated by B+B.
In 1895, the Lunatic Asylum was renamed Metropolitan Hospital and became a general hospital with special emphasis on the treatment of tubercular patients, and the Metropolitan Hospital School of Nursing opened in 1902. The Metropolitan Hospital left the island around 1950 and, after that, the building was barely used. In the 1960’s, New York State took over much of what had become Roosevelt Island. The Asylum structure fell into disrepair and in the 1970s two 4-story wings flanking the octagon building were deemed too blighted for reconstruction and were razed. In 1982 and 1999, fires destroyed about 90% of the octagon building
After the first and second fires, 1982 and 1999
In 2004, after long negotiations, architect-developer Bruce Redman Becker started construction on a new 13-story apartment complex with 500 rental units, connected to a rebuilt octagon structure, which would be used for the main entry area, offices and common rooms. The firm replaced the 4-story wings with 14-story wings containing a total of 400 market-rate apartments and 100 affordable units and rebuilt the octagon structure using some of the original stone. This complex became The Octagon.
B+B conceived The Octagon to be eco-friendly from the start. The Octagon was to be 35% more energy efficient than New York State building code standards. With low-E argon-filled windows, insulated walls, high efficiency heat pumps and occupancy sensors in hallways and stairs and heat recovery units to capture energy from exhausted air and heat from waste water, it was constructed to consume far less energy than a traditional apartment building. The largest rooftop photovoltaic array of any Manhattan building was planned, producing 50 kilowatts of power – enough for all of the community’s common areas. It was to be one of the first in the world to be heated and cooled by a 400 kW fuel cell (which came online in 2011), and, contains low-VOC finishes, improved indoor air quality, and Energy Star appliances and lighting to help reduce utility bills.
Green Features promised by B+B
Over 50% of the construction materials were manufactured within 500 miles of the site, minimizing energy expended in transport; most construction waste was recycled.
400KW fuel cell provides green power and heat.
The Octagon and its sister building, 360 State in New Haven, CT are the first and only apartment buildings in the world to be powered and heated by a fuel cell.
Free of materials containing formaldehyde or volatile organic compounds
Regular testing of indoor air ensures strict quality standards
Manhattan’s largest array of photovoltaic panels
Energy Star appliances and lighting
Eco-friendly lifestyle and recreational atmosphere:
Five miles of bike paths, walking paths, and waterfront promenades
2-acre ecological park with indigenous plants
Underground parking keeps green space to a maximum
In 2008, the U.S. Green Building Council awarded The Octagon LEED-Silver Certification for excellence in sustainable design and environmentally conscious construction. Other awards include HGTV Restore America Grant; ABC 2006 Excellence in Construction Award for Historic Restoration; Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation Harlan Griswold Award for Historic Preservation; CEDAS – EDDY Award for Economic Development in a Community Project. The Octagon received the largest initial award of New York State Green Building Tax Credits and was recognized in the first New York City Green Buildings Competition with the “Green Apple Award” for leadership in applying sustainable design principles to residential development.
Thoughts: Design
First, for what it’s worth, The Octagon today embodies very little of what Davis first planned – but to be fair, the complex hasn’t retained much of Davis’ influence since the very first days. It recalls, instead, the 1879 rebuilding.
I’m not able to judge how green The Octagon is now. Hopefully, promises have been kept. The site has glorious river views, but the vaunted “ecological park” doesn’t exist. The Octagon sits on a very tight site. The interior decoration of the octagon building is modern, retaining little of the original style. The famous staircase has not been rebuilt but a good effort was made to create a modern version.
Stairway old and new
The 1879 mansard tower represents a brief romance with this style in New York architecture, and one wonders if an earlier version of the octagon building might have been more suitable in terms of Island history. But most of all, the huge 14 story wings overshadow the octagon building, including the mansard tower. Clearly, B+B had to build enough apartments to make the project viable, and an effort was made to tie the pieces together by using the same stone on the lower levels of the wings. But truly, it is a disagreeable compromise.
The apartment rooms are small – like everywhere else—and it’s a long haul to public transportation. But all in all, The Octagon has to be seen as a remarkable achievement on our Island.
HERALD SQUARE / GREELEY SQUARE LAURA HUSSEY AND ARON EISENPREISS GOT IT
SOURCES
BECKER +BECKER RIOC NY TIMES FULL LIST ON REQUEST
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. 2020 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
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
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
It happened on Broadway and 31st Street in room 84 of the Grand Hotel, in the middle of the Tenderloin—Gilded Age New York’s vast vice playground of brothels, dance halls, theaters, and gambling dens.
After knocking on the door several times on the morning of August 16, 1898, a chambermaid entered the room and found the corpse of a pretty young woman, her head in a pool of blood and her clothed body spread out on the floor.
The stylishly dressed woman “had been bludgeoned with a lead pipe to the skull, her neck was broken, and one of her earlobes was torn by the violent removal of an earring,” wrote John Oller in Rogues’ Gallery:The Birth of Modern Policing and Organized Crime in Gilded Age New York.
“Her clothing was undisturbed, the bed linens fresh and unmussed,” wrote Oller. “On a table in the center of the room stood an empty champagne bottle and two glasses.”
Police in the Tenderloin were used to gruesome crime scenes, and they were summoned to the hotel to piece together evidence.
The details were intriguing. Though the woman had signed into the hotel as “E. Maxwell and wife, Brooklyn” and was then seen by hotel staff meeting a man in a straw hat, her real identity was Emeline “Dolly” Reynolds, a petite 21-year-old who two years earlier left her well-off parents in Mount Vernon to try to make it as an actress in Manhattan.
Reynolds wasn’t getting anywhere as an actress however. For a time she sold books, then met a married man named Maurice Mendham (above). This wealthy stockbroker helped set her up in an apartment on West 58th Street, bought her jewelry, and lived with her “as man and wife,” as a prosecutor later put it.
Just as interesting to detectives was the check that fell out of her corset during her on-scene autopsy. “It was made payable to ‘Emma Reynolds’ in the amount of $13,000,” wrote Oller. “Dated August 15, 1898, the previous day, it was drawn on the Garfield National Bank, signed by a ‘Dudley Gideon,’ and endorsed on the back by ‘S.J. Kennedy.’”
Investigators soon learned that Mendham had an alibi; he was in Long Branch at the time. They also discovered that ‘Dudley Gideon’ didn’t exist. But S.J. Kennedy did, and they began taking a closer look at this 32-year-old Staten Island dentist who practiced on West 22nd Street and was introduced to Reynolds by Mendham.
“Reynolds’ mother told police that about a week before the murder, Dolly told her that Dr. Kennedy (above) volunteered to put $500 on a horse race for her,” according to Strange Company. “She had drawn the money from her bank, and would meet him on the evening of August 15 to deliver what he promised would be a highly profitable investment.”
Police arrested Kennedy five hours after Reynolds’ body was discovered.
After denying he knew Reynolds, Kennedy then admitted to being her regular dentist, according to Oller, and that he saw her in his office the previous week. He insisted their relationship was professional and that he did not place any bets for her, had never been to the Grand Hotel, and his signature on the $13,000 check was forged.
Still, hotel employees ID’d him as the man in the straw hat they saw with Reynolds the day before her body was found. Kennedy also could not explain his whereabouts at the time of the murder, estimated to be at 1 a.m. He thought he’d been to Proctor’s Theatre on West 23rd Street (above), but he couldn’t recall the name of the play he’d seen, wrote Oller.
Police and prosecutors came up with a theory to connect Kennedy to Reynolds. “According to the theory, Dolly was just one of the ‘lambs’ that Kennedy, a feeder for a group of confidence men, was tasked with separating from their money,” explained Oller. But there were some holes, such as why the check was for $13,000, and why the dentist murdered her so viciously.
The March 1899 trial riveted New York City, and newspapers printed lurid front-page headlines with illustrations of the courtroom. Hotel staff and guests (like Mrs. Logue, above) took the stand; Kennedy did not. The jury quickly convicted Kennedy and sentenced him to die in Sing Sing in the electric chair.
But then, the convicted dentist got a lucky break, when in 1900 the Court of Appeals granted him a new trial due to “hearsay” that was used as evidence in the first trial.
The second time, the jury deadlocked, with 11 voting to acquit. At a third trial, Mendham testified, and “his evasiveness about the extent of his relationship with Dolly Reynolds fed the defense’s insinuation that he was somehow behind the murder,” wrote Oller.
While crowds sympathetic to Kennedy rallied outside the courtroom, the jury couldn’t agree on a verdict once again. The city declined to try the case a fourth time. Kennedy was released from the Tombs and returned to Staten Island to a hero’s welcome.
“He resumed his dental practice and lived quietly in New Dorp, dying at age 81 in August 1948, almost 50 years to the day after the murder of his patient Dolly Reynolds,” wrote Oller.
[Top image: San Jose Mercury News; second image: MCNY X2011.34.35; third image: New York World; fourth image: The Scrapbook; fifth image: MCNY 93.1.1.15639; sixth image: New York World; seventh image: New York Journal]
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY WISCONSIN STATE CAPITOL, MADISON
Construction of the present capitol, the third in Madison, began in late 1906 and was completed in 1917 at a cost of $7.25 million. The architect was George B. Post & Sons from New York. Because of financial limitations and the need for immediate office space to house state government employees, the construction of the new building was extended over several years and emphasized building one wing at a time.
The Capitol is 284 feet, 5 inches tall from the ground floor to the top of the Wisconsin statue on the dome.
The Wisconsin statue on the dome was sculpted during 1920 by Daniel Chester French of New York. Its left hand holds a globe surmounted by an eagle and her right arm is outstretched to symbolize the state motto, “Forward”. It wears a helmet with the state animal, the badger, on top. It is made of hollow bronze covered with gold leaf. Wisconsin is 15 feet, 5 inches tall and weighs three tons. The statue is commonly misidentified as Lady Forward or Miss Forward, which is the name of another statue on the capitol grounds.
The capitol ceiling, visible from the center of the building, features “Resources of Wisconsin”, a mural by Edwin Howland Blashfield. Due to the domed shape of the ceiling, the mural was painted in pieces and was assembled similarly to a jigsaw puzzle. It features a woman sitting on a throne of clouds, representing Wisconsin. Wisconsin is surrounded by other women, wrapped in a large American Flag, who are reaching for goods such as tobacco, lead, and fruits.
The capitol was constructed of 43 types of stone from six countries and eight states. The exterior stone is Bethel white granite from Vermont, making the exterior dome the largest granite dome in the world. The corridor floors, walls and columns are of marble from the states of Tennessee, Missouri, Vermont, Georgia, New York, and Maryland; granite from the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota; and limestone from the states of Minnesota and Illinois. Marble from the countries of France, Italy, Greece, Algeria and Germany, and syenite from Norway are also represented. Other Wisconsin granites are located throughout the public hallways on the ground, first, and second floors.
The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2001. A 1990 state law prevents any building within one mile of the capitol from being taller than the base of the columns surrounding and supporting its dome.[
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK Tags: Dolly Reynolds Murder Trial, Dolly Reynolds S.J. Kennedy, Gilded Age Murders NYC, Gilded Age NYC Murder Dolly Reynolds, Grand Hotel NYC, Murder of Dolly Reynolds NYC, Murder of Emeline Dolly Reynolds, Tenderloin Grand Hotel NYC Posted in Chelsea, Disasters and crimes, Sketchy hotels
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Abstract Landscapes and Scenic Depictions, Cubist Style.
Karl Knaths, Bach, 1953, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Katie and Walter C. Louchheim, 1970.328
Karl Knaths, 1930, Peter A. Juley & Son Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum J0020780
Joan Stahl American Artists in Photographic Portraits from the Peter A. Juley & Son Collection (Washington, D.C. and Mineola, New York: National Museum of American Art and Dover Publications, Inc., 1995)
Karl Knaths, who lived in Provincetown, Massachusetts, from 1919 until his death in 1971, was one of the first Americans whose work found its way into Albert Gallatin’s Gallery of Living Art. By virtue of his residence away from New York, Knaths was never an active member of the American Abstract Artists. Nevertheless, his affiliation brought distinction to the group. Knaths was older than many of the group’s members, and exhibited in New York to generally positive reviews from about 1930 on (although he once remarked that except for Duncan Phillips’s annual purchase, he did not sell a single painting for twenty-three years).(1) Recognized as an important modernist, he had the valuable support of Duncan Phillips. Over the years Phillips bought many of Knath’s paintings and frequently invited him to lecture at the Phillips Collection in Washington. In October 1945, Knaths exhibited in a group show at the Paul Rosenberg Gallery. The following January, he had the first of twenty-two solo exhibitions—almost one each year—until his death twenty-five years later.
Originally from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, in 1912 Knaths entered the school of the Art Institute of Chicago where he remained for five years. From there he went to New York, and later settled in Provincetown. In 1922, three years after his move to Cape Cod, he married Helen Weinrich, a pianist, whose sister Agnes was a Paris-trained abstract painter, and built the house that would be his home for the remainder of his life. During the winters, the Knaths and Weinrich usually spent a month in New York; but Europe, which attracted so many of Knaths, colleagues, failed to lure him from his beloved Provincetown.
Karl Knaths, Wisconsin, from the United States Series, ca. 1947, oil on canvas mounted on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Container Corporation of America, 1984.124.161
Karl Knaths, Water Valley, 1959, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., 1969.47.23
Yet, in his lecture notes, and in a manuscript for an unpublished book entitled Ornament and Glory, Knaths, thorough understanding of modernist tenets as well as the principles of Renaissance and subsequent European art is apparent.(2) His papers contain typescripts of Hans Hofmann’s lectures and writings by Mondrian, Malevich, Kandinsky, and other important theorists of modernism. Yet of all the artists whose work he knew well, the strongest parallels to Knaths, work come with Céanne’s late paintings. Both artists blended an intuitional understanding of structure with motifs drawn from observed nature. For his subject matter, Knaths drew repeatedly from his Provincetown surroundings: deer in landscape settings, clamdiggers returning from work, fishing shacks, boats in the harbor, still lifes of duck decoys and fishing paraphernalia. But Knaths also found inspiration in American folklore and literature, and did paintings of Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, and Herman Melville’s Ahab.
Knaths was one of the most theoretically inclined painters of his generation. He agreed with Kandinsky that “there are definite, measurable correspondences between sound in music and color and space in painting: specifically, between musical intervals and color intervals and spatial proportions.”(3) Knaths worked out intricate charts for color and musical ratios,which he used to determine directional lines and proportions in his paintings. Like Hofmann, he believed that “whatever is to be realized by the painting should arise through the use of pictorial elements in a thematic way. The surface being the prime element, it is possible to manipulate full spaciousness within its flat terms “(4)
At some point, Knaths discovered Wilhelm Ostwald’s color system. Based on color and not on light, the Ostwald system was devised as a way of ordering color, and was quite popular among American artists of the time. Knaths not only used this system, he harnessed it to a complex set of mathematical and geometrical relations—akin to musical proportions—so that the theoretical foundations of his art were both complex and highly worked out.
In his paintings, whether sketchy, experimental works like the Untitled gouache, circa 1939–40, or in more highly ordered canvases, Knaths remained true to the artistic principles he began to develop early in his life.
Karl Knaths, Geranium at Night Window, 1932, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1981.182
Karl Knaths, The Gale at Force Hollow, 1946, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Otto L. Spaeth, 1977.83
Karl Knaths, Clam Diggers, 1959, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation, 1986.6.49
Karl Knaths, Beach–1949, 1949, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Emil J. Arnold, 1967.56.23
JOAN OF ARC STATUE IN RIVERSIDE PARK ED LITCHER, GLORIA HERMAN, LAURA HUSSEY GOT IT RIGHT!!!
PENNIES FOR PRESERVATION
BRING YOUR PENNIES, NICKELS DIMES AND QUARTERS TO THE 531 DOORSTATION TO THE ATTENTION OF JUDY BERDY.
WE HAVE ALREADY COLLECTED $800+
THE PENNIES WILL BE SUPPORTING THE R.I.H.S. AND HELP RE-CIRCULATE COINS.
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) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
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There’s a lot of enchantment on Riverside Drive, the rare Manhattan avenue that deviates from the 1811 Commissioners Plan that laid out the mostly undeveloped city based on a pretty rigid street grid.
Rather than running straight up and down, Riverside winds along its namesake park, breaking off into slender carriage roads high above the Hudson River. (We have Central Park co-designer Frederick Law Olmsted, who also conceptualized Riverside Park and what was originally called Riverside Avenue, to thank for this.)
But the surviving row house at number 294 deserves a closer look. More precisely, it’s the beautiful wrought iron grille protecting the wide front parlor window that invites our attention.
Number 294 was originally a four-story, single-family home completed in 1901. It’s a wonderful, mostly untouched example of the Beaux-Arts style that was all the rage among the city’s elite at the turn of the last century.
“The most striking features of the facade of 294 Riverside Drive—the orderly, asymmetrical arrangement, the finely carved limestone detailing, the graceful Ionic portico, the slate mansard roof, the elaborate dormers, and the ornate ironwork—eloquently express the richness embodied in the Beaux-Arts style,” wrote the Landmarks Preservation Commission in a 1991 document, which designated the house, built in 1901, as a city landmark.
That unusual front window grille, however, seems to be the one part of the house that aligns more with the Art Nouveau style, which emerged in Europe in the early 1900s and wasn’t widely adopted in New York City. Take a look at the the graceful, flowing lines and curlicues that mimic flower stems, petals, and other forms found in nature. This grille is original to the house, according to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which called it “intricate and naturalistic.” The AIA guide to New York City pays homage to its Art Nouveau beauty, calling it “remarkable.” Why such a fanciful window grille (below on the house in 1939-1941) became part of the house likely has to do with the man who commissioned number 294 and was its first owner.
William Baumgarten, born in Germany and the son of a master cabinetmaker, was one of the most prominent interior designers in Gilded Age New York City. Baumgarten designed the inside of William Henry Vanderbilt’s Fifth Avenue mansion; along with his firm, Herter Brothers, he was responsible for the interiors of other mansions and luxury hotels.
He and his wife, Clara, occupied the Riverside Drive row house until first William and then his wife passed away. In 1914, their survivors family sold it off. It was soon carved up into apartments, as it remains today. (The photo above has a “for rent” sign on the facade, but I just can’t make out a price.)
Baumgarten was known for his creative genius and talent. He would certainly want to live in a row house mansion (now known as the William and Clara Baumgarten House) of his own that reflected the beautiful design touches of his era.
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16th, 2021
The 521st Edition
Harsenville to Carmansville:
The Lost Villages of the
Upper West Side
from 6 SQFT
Via NYPL
In the 18th century, Bloomingdale Road (today’s Broadway) connected the Upper West Side with the rest of the city. Unlike lower Manhattan, this area was still natural, with fertile soil and rolling landscapes, and before long, countryside villages began sprouting along the Hudson River. They were a combination of farms and grand estates and each functioned independently with their own schools and roads.
6sqft has uncovered the history of the five most prominent of these villages–Harsenville, Strycker’s Bay, Bloomingdale Village, Manhattanville, and Carmansville. Though markers of their names remain here and there, the original functions and settings of these quaint settlements have been long lost.
The Harsen house in 1888, via New-York Historical Society
Harsenville ran from 68th Street to 81st Street, between Central Park West and the Hudson River. It began in 1701 when Cornelius Dyckman bought a 94-acre farm at Broadway and 73rd Street. His daughter Cornelia then married a farmer named Jacob Harsen, and they built their homestead at Tenth Avenue and 70th Street in 1763. Other farming families began to follow suit, setting up what became a small village, complete with schools, churches, and shops. At its height, it had 500 residents and 60 buildings, thanks largely to the perfect-for-tobacco soil and waterfront views. Harsenville Road was the main street, and it ran through present-day Central Park.
Somarindyck house at 77th Street
The Somarindyck family, another great farming clan, took up residence next to the Harsens on land from Columbus Circle to the 70s. Their home stood at Broadway and 75th Street, and it’s believed that Prince Louis Philippe lived here while exiled from France. They also had a second home at 77th Street, which was purchased in the late 1840s by Fernando Wood, who lived there while he served as NYC Mayor.
By the 1870s, the Harsen family began selling their land when farming fell out of fashion. In 1893, the Harsen home was torn down, and by 1911, Harsenville was no more, as brownstones and grand apartment houses began to dot the Upper West Side. There is one remnant of the village, however. The condo building at 72nd Street is named Harsen House.
Strycker’s Bay maps via the Strycker’s Bay Neighborhood Council
From 86th to 96th Streets was the village of Strycker’s Bay, situated atop an elevated piece of land next to an inlet. The name came from Gerrit Striker, who built his farm at Columbus Avenue and 97th Street. At the southern end, John McVickar had a 60-acre estate at 86th Street, where his grand Palladian house stood. The enclave was a wealthy suburb, made possible by a ferry that took residents downtown. Striker’s farmhouse eventually became the Striker’s Bay Tavern in the late 19th century. It featured a lawn along the river, dance floor, and shooting targets.
Today the name lives on with the Strycker’s Bay Neighborhood Council, a group that supports affordable housing on the Upper West Side, as well as the Strycker’s Bay Apartments on 94th Street.
Bloomingdale Insane Asylum
North of Strycker’s Bay was Bloomingdale Village, which stretched between 96th and 110th Streets. The Dutch brought the name with them in the 1600s, as “Bloemendaal,” which translates to “valley of flowers.” The Bloomgindale District originally encompassed the entire west side from 23rd Street to 125th Street, made up of the farms and villages along Bloomingdale Road. But in 1820, this particular area got its moniker when the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum opened on what is today the Columbia University campus
The Clendening mansion, depicted in an 1863 edition of Valentine’s Manual
The physical outline of the village is defined by a natural depression in the land (hence why it’s today called Manhattan Valley), and in the 1800s, most of it was occupied by the farm of wealthy merchant John Clendening. His land ran from Bloomingdale Road to Eight Avenue, between 99th and 105th Streets. At Amsterdam Avenue and 104th Street was his personal mansion, so within Bloomingdale Village the area became known as Clendening Valley.
New York Cancer Hospital
The Village began to change course in the mid 1800s when the Croton Aqueduct was constructed above the valley. Later in the century, large institutions—the Hebrew Home for the Aged, the Catholic Old Age Home, and the New York Cancer Hospital, to name a few—were erected in the area. It was thought that their location resembled the bucolic countryside, and would therefore attract wealthy patients and patrons. In 1904, Bloomingdale Village’s fate was sealed when Columbia University purchased the insane asylum building and the IRT – Seventh Avenue subway opened.
Tiemann Estate depicted in an 1858 edition of Valentine’s Manual
Manhattanville was perhaps the most bustling of the West Side villages. It also sat within a valley, this one running roughly from 122nd to 134th Streets. It was officially incorporated as a village in 1806, thanks to its commercial waterfront, warehouses, and factories, as well as the fact that it had a rail station and ferry terminal. The area was laid out by wealthy Quaker merchants who owned nearby country homes.
One of Manhattanville’s most prominent residents was Daniel F. Tiemann, who owned D.F. Tiemann & Company Color Works, a paint and pigment manufacturer. The factory had originally been located in Gramercy, but moved uptown in 1832 when a fresh water spring was discovered. Tiemann would go on to become a founding trustee of Cooper Union and mayor of NYC from 1858 to 1860. In addition to wealthy industrialists like Tiemann, the neighborhood was made up of a mix of poor laborers, tradesmen, slave owners, and British loyalists. After the Civil War, Jewish immigrants moved into the area.
In 1847, the Academy of Convent of the Sacred Heart, which would become Manhattanville College, moved just atop the hill of the village, and in 1853 the Catholic Christian Brothers moved their school from Canal Street to 131st Street and Broadway, establishing Manhattan College. Unlike Bloomingdale Village, Manhattanville didn’t change when the IRT subway opened in the early 1900s, as it only enhanced the area’s industrial and commercial nature. However, after the stock market crash of 1929, the neighborhood lost its manufacturing base and jobs and residents began to move to Harlem proper and elsewhere in the city. Today, Manhattanville is best known for being the site of Columbia University’s controversial expansion plan.
The northernmost of the Upper West Side’s lost villages, Carmansville stretched from about 140th to 158th Streets (the exact location is up for debate), today’s Hamilton Heights. It was named after the wealthy contractor, Richard Carman, who founded the area and lived on 153rd Street. He was a box manufacturer who got rich in the real estate and insurance businesses after the Great Fire of 1835. He was also friends with naturalist John James Audubon, who had his estate called Minniesland at 156th Street.
Carmansville, from an 1863 edition of Phelps’ New-York City Guide; via NYPL
It was a popular neighborhood for socially prominent families. An 1868 issue of the Atlantic Monthly described the setting: “Trim hedges of beautiful flowering shrubs border the gravel walks that lead from the road to the villas. Cows of European lineage crop the velvet turf in the glades of the copses. Now and then the river is shut out from view, but only to appear again in scenic vistas.” By the end of the 19th century, the views had become obstructed with tenements and apartment buildings for middle-class families, and most of the wealthy residents moved out. Carmansville Playground today serves as a reminder of this lost hamlet.
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 FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
