New York is a city defined by its neighborhoods, and in Manhattan, there is one district that stands out for its heritage of unique architecture. In downtown Manhattan lies the SoHo district, whose name is an amalgam describing the area “SOuth of HOuston.” The moniker was first coined by city Planner Chester Raskin in a 1963 city planning report.
Photo by Marc Gordon
The neighborhood has had many incarnations since its early beginnings in the 17th century as New York’s first free Black settlement, granted to former slaves by the Dutch West India company. By the 1660s, the land was acquired by Nicholas Bayard, the nephew of Peter Stuyvesant, Director General of Dutch New York. The area maintained its rural character until the mid-18th century, but as the city’s population grew and development inched northward, the local marshes and streams were drained and hills 2343 leveled for development. Once Broadway was paved, it ushered in the construction of Federal and Greek Revival-style row houses and developed into a middle-class enclave.
Canal Street circa the 1700s. Image in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons user SteinsplitterBot.
By the mid-19th century, the area became the heart of Manhattan’s burgeoning shopping, hotel, and entertainment district. This growth led to the development of more substantial buildings. Retail establishments such as Tiffany & Co. and Lord & Taylor got their starts in SoHo. Theaters, music halls, and bars sprang up along Broadway, with less respectable establishments located along the side streets. Brothels, primarily located on Greene and Mercer Streets, formed the city’s first red-light district. With the decline of the neighborhood’s residential character, many middle-class residents chose to relocate uptown. By the end of the Civil War, factories, mills, and warehouses started moving into the area, driving the need for larger industrial structures to accommodate machinery and storage needs.
For many years, cast iron had been used in bridge construction, building beams and columns, and decorative elements. Developed in New York, the timely innovation was to use cast iron not only for the structure but also for the façade. The primary advantage of cast iron was its ability to span longer distances than masonry, thus allowing for larger window openings to bring in more natural light. It also afforded more open floor space, important for arranging equipment and unfettered storage space.
The earliest example of a complete cast-iron building façade erected in New York City was introduced by James Bogardus, recognized as a pioneer of cast-iron architecture. The Edgar Laing Stores (1849) in the Washington Market District was the first self-supporting, multi-story structure with iron walls and served as the prototype for all cast-iron buildings that followed. It was designated a landmark in 1970 by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. When urban renewal all but cleared the district, the building was carefully dismantled and stored for subsequent reconstruction; however, the pieces were stolen — presumably to be sold for scrap metal.
Edgar Laing Store, Washington & Murray Streets (James Bogardus 1849). Photo via the Library of Congress.
Casting building façades was cheaper than the typical masonry construction of the day. The castings were fabricated in local foundries, usually located near the East or Hudson Rivers where shipments of coal and iron could be received. Some were located only a few blocks from SoHo, which sped up delivery and construction. Many foundries offered stock building designs that could be selected from catalogs, streamlining the design process. The process of making cast iron started with wood patterns, which were pressed into sand molds to form a negative of the casting. Molten iron would then be poured into the mold filling all the voids. When cooled, the sand mold was broken, and the casting emerged to be finished by removing any overcasting and smoothing and priming it before shipping it to a site.
Some of the local cast iron foundries included Aetna Iron Works, James L. Jackson Iron Works., Badger’s Architectural Iron Works, Long Island Iron Works, S.E. Ferdon Iron Works, and Cornell Iron Works (still in business), to name but a few.
FOUNDRY PLAQUES
While many clients opted to choose designs right out of a catalog, many prolific architects of the time (Henry Fernbach, Ernest Flagg, Griffith Thomas, John B. Snook, John Kellum, and Richard Morris Hunt) designed cast-iron buildings for their clients.
Castings could be customized with elaborate designs, and elements could be replicated uniformly as many times as needed. Cast iron could be produced much faster than cutting and carving stone, and it imitated the look of masonry façades once painted. New castings could easily be fabricated from existing patterns to replace damaged pieces. If needed, a façade could be disassembled and reassembled at a different location. Elements were lighter than their masonry counterparts, which made them easier to ship and handle. Cast iron façades were designed with an eclectic mix of primarily neo-Grec, Italianate, Renaissance Revival, and French Second Empire features, popular styles at the time.
Cast-iron buildings were the forerunner of the skyscraper, presaging innovations such as curtain wall construction, standardized prefabricated building elements, and repeating bays. Another innovation that was introduced in a cast-iron building was the world’s first public passenger elevator, installed by Elisha Otis at the E.W Haughwout Department Store in SoHo.
Despite all this, the era of cast-iron architecture was relatively short-lived. Although the buildings were touted as incombustible, floor joists and girders, usually wood and unprotected, were susceptible to fire. With the decline of urban manufacturing after World War II, many industrial businesses started moving out and the neighborhood deteriorated into an industrial slum. After a devastating fire on Wooster Street in 1958 that claimed the lives of six firefighters, the FDNY commissioner, Edward Cavanagh, called the neighborhood “Hells Hundred Acres.”
By the ’60s, the fate of the neighborhood was in jeopardy. Robert Moses proposed ramming a federally funded highway project, the Lower Manhattan Expressway (LOMAX) through the heart of SoHo.
Luckily there was vocal opposition from a coalition of community groups headed by the activists Jane Jacobs and Margot Gayle. The project was ultimately defeated in 1969. Due to the efforts of preservation groups like the Friends of Cast Iron Architecture (founded by Margo Gayle), a large portion of SoHo was designated as a historic district by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1973 and as a national historic landmark in 1978. While there are cast-iron buildings scattered throughout lower Manhattan, SoHo has the largest collection of full and partial cast-iron buildings in the world, with about 250 existing examples.
Pioneering artists in the 1960s seeking studio space realized the open floor plates, high ceilings, and large windows of these buildings were ideal as live-work studios and started occupying the abandoned industrial lofts even though they were zoned for commercial and manufacturing uses. Since occupancy was technically illegal, the artist community banded together to form the Artists Tenants Association to petition the city to allow live-work occupancy in non-residential zoned areas. The city agreed as long as tenants could prove they were an “artist in residence.” Galleries soon followed the artists and SoHo was transformed into the city’s premier art district. Since it’s heyday in the 1990s and 2000s, many of the district’s galleries have been displaced by high-end boutiques and restaurants. In addition, the onset of gentrification has turned artist’s studios into million-dollar residential lofts.
While the next chapter in the life of SoHo is yet to be written, the heritage of New York’s cast-iron district will remain a unique example of a stylistic and technological moment in time for fans of architectural design to appreciate and enjoy for generations to come.
VICKI FEINMEL, GLORIA HERMAN, NANCY BROWN ALL RECOGNIZED THE BENCHES OUTSIDE THE SUBWAY STATION.
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
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Edward Henry Potthast was born on June 10, 1857 in Cincinnati, Ohio to Henry Ignatz Potthast and Bernadine Scheiffers.[2] Starting in 1870 he studied art at the McMicken School in Cincinnati and in 1873 he started working at the Strobridge Lithography Company.[3] From June 10, 1879 to March 9, 1881,[citation needed] Potthast studied under Thomas Satterwhite Noble, a retired Confederate Army captain who had studied with Thomas Couture in Paris.[4] Potthast later studied at the Royal Academy in Munich with the American-born instructor Carl Marr. After returning to Cincinnati in 1885 he resumed his studies with Noble. In 1886, he departed for Paris, where he studied with Fernand Cormon. In 1895 he relocated to New York City and remained there until his death in 1927.[citation needed]
Until the age of thirty-nine Potthast earned a living as a lithographer. The purchase of one of his paintings by the Cincinnati Museum of Art may have encouraged him to abandon lithography for a career as a fine artist.[5] His paintings retained the subdued colors and strong contrasts of the Munich school until he adopted the Impressionist palette late in his career.[citation needed]
After his arrival in New York Potthast worked as a magazine illustrator, and exhibited regularly at the National Academy of Design, the Society of American Artists and the Salmagundi Club, winning numerous prizes. By 1908 he was installed in a studio in the Gainsborough Building. Thereafter he painted sun-saturated images of Central Park, New England landscapes, and the Long Island beach scenes for which he is best remembered.[6]
His work is included in many major museums in the United States,[7] including the Orlando Museum of Art,[5] the Brooklyn Museum,[8] the Cape Ann Museum,[9] the Delaware Art Museum,[10] the University of Michigan Museum of Art,[11] the Phoenix Art Museum,[12] the Nasher Museum of Art,[13] and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.[14]
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from the collection of the New York Public Library
Dr. James Knight arrived in New York City from Baltimore in 1842 at the age of 32, and became associated with the famed Dr. Valentine Mott. The New York Times later said, “While thus engaged he conceived the idea of establishing a hospital for the relief of the offspring of the poor, who by reason of deformity and malformation were rendered helpless.” The need was severe, as the New-York Tribune later recalled. “The majority of the [crippled] children died. The rest were thrown out on the world to become beggars, and to trade on their deformities.”
Dr. Knight (who developed his own methods to treat physical deformities) organized the Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled in 1863, with backing from R. M. Hartley, Robert B. Minturn and Joseph B. Collins. Knight was appointed its resident surgeon. But there was a problem. “It was not rich enough to purchase a site and build,” explained The New York Times, so Knight “offered the use of the upper story of his own private dwelling.” The make-do space could accommodate 28 beds, and received its first patient, a four-year-old boy, on May 1, 1863.
Twenty-eight beds would not be sufficient for long. The New York Times reported that the hospital had treated 2,000 patients in 1868. Its Board of Managers, therefore, acquired the plot of land on the northwest corner of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue as the site for a proper facility. In January 1869 architect E. T. Polland filed plans for a four-story and basement hospital “to accommodate 200 children.” The cost of construction was placed at $150,000. As it turned out, it soared to $250,000, more than $4.8 million today.
Designed in the Ruskinian Gothic style, the building was faced in brick and trimmed in “brown and Ohio stone.” The two colors of stone provided the alternating hues of the arches, obligatory in the style. Two massive turrets formed the corners of the 115-foot wide front, and a lacy iron balcony girded the fourth floor. Within a circular cartouche above the main entrance was a carved angel assisting a crippled woman on crutches. Below it was inscribed, “Then shall the lame man leap as an hart.”
The basement held the general dining room; the first floor contained the offices of the physicians, the matron, and the nurses. The boys’ dormitory engulfed the second floor, and the third held the girls’ dormitory. The entire fourth floor was used as a playground, classrooms, and gymnasium. It was not all fun and games there, however. In the gymnasium the children received physical therapy and treatments–often experimental.
A stretching exercise was part of this group’s physical therapy in 1902. New-York Tribune, November 2, 1902 (copyright expired)
The patients were also given schooling, The New York Times explaining that they “received in the hospital such an education as, under happier circumstances, they would get in the public schools.” There was a special focus on making them self-sufficient despite their disabilities. (As The New York Times reminded readers on April 3, 1869, “These children, except for charity, would be burdens upon the public, left to drag out their lives in hopeless suffering.”)
A “social reception” was held for supporters in “their magnificent new hospital,” as worded by The New York Times, on November 10, 1870. The article noted that since its organization the facility had treated 11,000 children.
The site which the Society chose was, perhaps, in danger from the beginning. Cornelius Vanderbilt was amassing land just to the west for his massive Grand Central Depot. The Sun described the block on December 14, 1869, saying, “The western portion of the east half is covered by the Croton Market, and the corner of Lexington avenue by an elegant new building for the hospital for the relief of the ruptured and crippled. It is understood that the Commodore designs a raid on these institutions in order to secure possession of the entire block for the purposes of his railroads.” It was a “design” the Vanderbilts would not give up.
An annex to the hospital, erected a few years later behind the main building, held employee bathrooms, sleeping rooms for servants, and storerooms.
Dr. Knight remained at the helm, with the title of Surveyor-in-Chief, despite a few rocky periods. In August 1887 he was forced to defend the nurses and teachers when complaints of what today would be termed child abuse reached the newspapers. An investigation, he said, did uncover one teacher who boxed the ears of a student, but “no patient was injured.” The teacher was fired. He was also accused of firing any physicians on staff who did not agree with his procedures or who wanted to try their own treatments. Knight died on October 24, 1887.
from the collection of the New York Public Library
Around 6:30 on the evening of January 29, 1888 a little girl was passing the room of resident surgeon Dr. Eli E. Joselyn when she smelled smoke. She ran to him and the small fire on top of his bureau was quickly squelched. The New York Times reported, “no damage except the destruction of the bureau cover and a pair of suspenders was done.”
The article continued, “After the fire was extinguished the doctor went to dinner. Ten minutes later fire was discovered in the bathroom at the bottom of the stairway running through the annex.” That fire was discovered by two girl patients who informed a nurse. “By this time,” said the article, “the fire had assumed threatening proportions.”
The 163 children were quickly and systematically evacuated. The New York Times reported that “calamity was averted by the courage and coolness of the doctors and nurses in charge of the little cripples and the ready help given by the police, firemen, and many citizens.” The children who were mobile were lead out, while those who could not walk “were aroused quietly, wrapped in their blankets, and carried down stairs.” Most of the children were taken in by the Vanderbilt Hotel, while homeowners “threw open their doors and were proud to have the privilege of sheltering and caring for the little unfortunates.” One patient, 18-year-old Alice Ramsey, had only one arm, but she “made good use of her remaining arm in carrying several children across the street to the hotel.”
The fire had broken out in the annex, occupied solely by the servants. Tragically, while the children were all safely evacuated, the head cook, Mary Donnelly, was asleep in her bed and died of smoke inhalation.
Investigators were at a loss to explain the origin of the blaze. A newspaper noted, “It started in a part of the building in which fire is not kept, and it is difficult to see how gas could have started the blaze.” Fire investigators dismissed the earlier fire in Dr. Josselyn’s room as “not worth mention as a coincidence.” As things turned out, however, it was anything but a coincidence.
The following day Dr. W. Travers Gibb noticed that someone had been in his room, which was uncomfortably hot. He discovered that a box of matches had been placed on the floor register, the heat turned fully up, and a reclining chair moved over the heater. The would-be arsonist intended for the matches to ignite. The same thing occurred the next day in another room. Once again the matches were found before they could ignite.
The Fire Marshall was notified and he was interviewing staff one-by-one on February 2 when yet another fire broke out. A maid entered the drawing room to find it filled with smoke. The Fire Marshal and doctors rushed to the scene, to find the pantry off the dining room “blazing fiercely.” Again the children were evacuated. The fire was quickly put out, but was “attended with great excitement and almost a panic among the children and nurses,” said The New York Times.
At the time May Wilson had been a patient in the hospital for three years. Affectionately called Mamie, the 11-year-old suffered from a “wry neck,” a condition known today as torticollis, a twisted or tilted neck. Because of that she wore “an iron frame” which forced her head into a straight position. Mamie was well-liked by the other children and the staff. She was highly intelligent and because she was totally ambulatory, was allowed to move freely throughout the building. She was often entrusted to go outside the hospital on errands for the staff and routinely answered the doorbell.
Now, as hospital employees talked to one another, suspicion began to focus on Mamie. One chambermaid remembered her coming out of the dining room and shutting the door behind her just minutes before the fire was discovered. The matron said that Mamie had “hurried” into her room, asking if she did not have an errand for her to attend to outside. And another servant recalled that Mamie had just come out of the ladies’ bathroom prior to the first fire.
Fire Marshall Sheldon called for her. Initially the girl denied any involvement, but finally broke down and gave a tearful confession. On February 4 the New Jersey newspaper The Patterson Morning Call reported, “Little May Wilson, the 11-year-old child who confessed to having on several occasions set fire to the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled, was arraigned in the Yorkville police court and turned over to the care of the Children’s society. Richard Wilson, the father of the young culprit, is entirely at a loss to account for the child’s conduct.”
Mamie’s plight was dire. Legally, because a death had occurred because of her actions, she could face execution. She first appeared before a judge on the day of her arrest, too traumatized to answered with anything more than “yes” or “no.” A trial before a coroner’s jury was held on February 8. The girl was not forced to take the stand in her own defense “on account of the highly-excited state she had been in every since the occurrence,” according to the Children’s Aid Society physician. Despite Mamie’s written confession, she was exonerated for a lack of evidence–an apparent act of compassion by the coroner and the jury. She was remanded to the custody of the Children’s Aid Society.
Activities taking place on the fourth floor in 1875. from the collection of the New York Public Library
On January 27, 1902 excavation work was underway for the subway trench below Park Avenue at 41st Street. At noon workmen attempted to dry rain-dampened dynamite by igniting loose powder. The imprudent idea resulted in half a ton of dynamite exploding. Eight people were killed immediately, four others died later, and several hundred were injured by flying glass and rocks. The impact was felt more than a block away at the hospital. The New-York Tribune reported that “beyond a small panic among the two hundred children inmates of the institution, there were no fatalities…Many of the windows on the Forty-second-st. side of the hospital were smashed, and the patients in these rooms had to be removed to other parts of the building.” Sixteen injured civilians were brought to the hospital, keeping the four house surgeons and nurses busy for more than two hours. On December 23, 1910 the New-York Tribune reported, “Even this afternoon the jingle of sleigh-bells will send the color to the cheeks of children at the New York Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled…Children will act in a play called ‘Santa Claus’s Visit.” It would be the last Christmas party in the building. A month earlier, on November 26, the Record & Guide had reported that the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company had finally acquired the property it had eyed for nearly half a century. “It is announced that a portion of the block will be improved with a high-class hotel building,” said the article. The Hotel Commodore–named for Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt–would be part of the new Grand Central Terminal complex designed by Warren & Wetmore. Demolition on the hospital began on June 1, 1911, while construction was underway for a new facility down the street at 321 East 42nd Street. The Commodore Hotel still stands, albeit completely unrecognizable after being gutted and refaced in the 1980’s for the Hyatt chain.
HOSPITAL FOR SPECIAL SURGERY is the continuation of the work that began in 1863
The grandest speculative row houses to date in New York City, these houses were built for the mercantile elite, miles away from their places of work. Unlike the typical row house, this group is not brick, it is not a box with a door, and it doesn’t have an exterior stoop or dormer windows. Instead, it is a New York version of Regent’s Park in London, with columns built by Sing Sing prisoners.
Colonnade Row is among the greatest architectural treasures of the Village. Built on Lafayette St. in 1832, its official name is LaGrange Terrace, after Lafayette’s country estate in France, though this ensemble row is really a monument to fur trader and real-estate baron, John Jacob Astor.
The landmarked Colonnade Row on today’s Lafayette Street was built in 1833 by architect Seth Geer and originally consisted of nine houses, of which only four remain today. When first built the houses were occupied by social bright lights of the era such as the Astors and Vanderbilts.As Lafayette Street grew, ironically Colonnade Row shrunk!
Living in a landmark building like Colonnade Row may sound romantic — after all, the residences, built in 1833, once housed Cornelius Vanderbilt, Washington Irving, and William Makepeace Thackeray. But that imposing Neoclassical façade hid an elegant mess. When architects Clarissa Richardson and Heidar Sadeki, of UT, were called to renovate this duplex, they found floors that canted right like the deck of a ship, French doors that were crumbling to dust. Even the marble fireplace was falling apart. UT held on to the mantelpiece as a totem of the building’s grand past, but stripped the rest to its bones, creating a smooth, streamlined space. They kept the bedroom small and gave the bathroom — fitted with two oversize lilac tubs — a glass wall, to integrate it into the living space (yes, the glass turns opaque). The other design challenge was accommodating the owners’ two diminutive and obsessively loved dogs.
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In 1780, a young man traveled from his provincial hometown in Baden-Württemberg to London to meet his elder brother who had settled there two years previously as a wooden instrument maker. The many small states that constituted Germany at the time had a reputation for developing and producing musical instruments. The export of technology was an important feature of German design and many craftsmen had migrated to London (and eventually to New York and other American cities).
The seedy location of his brother’s workshop must have come as a shock to the youngster and he was eager to better himself. Four years later he left the capital for the docks of Southampton, carrying few belongings and a number of flutes with him, and set sail for America. Half a century later he owned large parts of Manhattan.
This remarkable tale could have served as one of the “rags to riches” stories that made Horatio Alger such a popular author in America during the later decades of the nineteenth century.
Tailors & Pornographers
Demolished in 1901 and now part of London’s lost history, Holywell Street was a narrow squalid alleyway with overhanging fronts, just off Westminster’s fashionable Strand. It was named after one of the local wells, the sacred waters of St Clements Church that still survives today, and gave Holywell Street its nickname of the “Backside of St Clements.”
The first homogeneous group of occupants in the district were Jewish immigrants. Many of them worked as tailors and for years one side of the street was almost entirely tenanted by second-hand clothes dealers who collected and repaired discarded garments, re-selling those as rags (or “clobber” in London slang). Holywell Street was referred to as Rag Street.
The opposite side of the alleyway housed a number of small independent printers and booksellers. In the aftermath of the French Revolution the area was a hideout for radical thinkers, publishers, spies, and informers. For a while, Holywell Street was a hotbed of rebellion. Increasingly, the nature of literature changed in content. Unregulated bookshops started flogging erotica and obscene books.
By the early nineteenth century Holywell Street had effectively become the center of London’s pornographic output. In 1834 there were an estimated fifty-seven porn shops in the street selling lewd novels, prints, catalogues on prostitute services, guides for homosexuals, and listings of erotic flagellation specialists. The nickname “Bookseller’s Row” was used as a euphemism for the smut on sale.
It was in this sordid environment that America’s first multi-millionaire started his career as a young immigrant from Germany.
Instrument Maker & Fur Dealer
Johann Jakob Astor (now remembered as John Jacob Astor) was born on July 17, 1763, in Walldorf (near Heidelberg). Aged seventeen, he moved to London to join his elder brother Georg (George) Peter who worked there as an instrument maker, specializing in flutes (he later also sold pianofortes on behalf of other manufacturers). Having been trained in his brother’s workshop, they traded as George Astor & Co.
George was the craftsman; John the sales manager. It was a mutual decision for John to move to America in order to explore the potential import market for flutes and other musical instruments. At a later stage he would also act as American agent for John Broadwood’s rapidly expanding British piano company. The plan was encouraged by Heinrich Astor (Henry Astor), the second eldest child in the family, who had signed up in 1775 as a Hessian mercenary to fight for the British in the American Revolution. Once in North America, he left the military and settled in the city of New York.
In November 1783 John boarded the North Carolina, reaching Baltimore in the spring of 1784 after a hazardous crossing. On board he befriended a dealer who made him aware of the potential riches of the North American fur trade. Soon after arrival in New York he worked several months for the prominent Quaker merchant Robert Bowne, learning how to buy and sell furs. He then began to purchase raw hides from Native Americans himself and had them prepared for export to London at great profit.
In September 1785, Astor married Sarah Cox Todd who descended from Scottish immigrants. She proved to be an astute partner who took her share in running the business, managing the firm when he was on work trips away from home. Four years later he became an American citizen. That same year John Jacob was accepted as a Freemason of the Holland Lodge no. 8 (part of the Grand Lodge of the State of New York), which gave him the opportunity to start building a network of contacts amongst business leaders and political power-brokers. In 1790, his name first appeared among other leading merchants in the New York Directory and Register.
Astor opened his own fur goods shop in the late 1780s. He initially traded from a rented property in Little Dock Street, Manhattan. In 1794, he and his wife bought a home and business property at 149 Broadway, right in the commercial heart of the city. Business was booming.
In 1808, he founded the American Fur Company, controlling the trade for the next three decades. His monopoly extended to the Great Lakes Region and Canada, and later expanded into the American West and Pacific Coast. He also remained involved in the music business, although his brother had died in London in 1813. Ruthless and efficient, he diversified his interests, becoming active in banking, shipping, and even smuggling opium into China.
After Astor sold his share in the American Fur Company in 1834, he used his vast wealth to buy and develop large tracts of real estate, having sensed that the city’s rapid expansion would move northward onto Manhattan Island. John Jacob became America’s first multi-millionaire merchant.
At the time of his death in 1848, he left money in his will to build Astor Library in East Village, Manhattan, which was later consolidated with other libraries to form the New York Public Library. The neighborhood of Astoria in Queens was named after him and so was Astor Place, a one-block street in East Village, beginning at Broadway Avenue around 8th Street and leading to Lafayette Street.
From 1852 until 1936, Astor Place was the location of Bible House, home of the American Bible Society. Not bad for a young man who had started his working life residing in London’s heart of profanity.
British Astors
Members of the Astor dynasty continued to play a dominant role in financial affairs and high-society for many generations to come. There would be an ongoing American and British family line.
William “Willie” Waldorf Astor, the only child of John Jacob III, was an arch-conservative with political ambitions. After three years as U.S. minister to Italy, he became increasingly disgruntled about his lack of political advancement, and moved himself and his fortune to England. In 1893 he acquired the country estate Cliveden in Buckinghamshire and became a British citizen six year later.
When in 1906 his son Waldorf married Virginia-born Nancy Langhorne (who, in December 1919, was the first woman to sit in the House of Commons, representing Plymouth), the couple received Cliveden as a wedding gift. They turned the estate into a center of political and literary life with guests that included Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Gandhi, George Bernard Shaw, Charlie Chaplin, and many others who arrived to enjoy the lavish hospitality.
During the late 1930s, the “Cliveden Set” came to be associated with more sinister socio-political developments. The estate was a meeting place for Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and supporters of his appeasement policy towards Adolf Hitler. The Astors themselves were accused of Nazi sympathies as they expressed support for the movement’s anti-Semitic and anti-communist ideology. Nazism was promoted as a way of quelling social unrest and political polarization in Europe.
Waldorf-Astoria
One of the more intriguing members of the Astor dynasty was John Jacob IV, great-grandson of the immigrant fur and instrument trader who had founded the family fortune. Born on July 13th, 1864, in Rhinebeck, Hudson Valley, he was the only son of financier and race horse breeder/owner William Backhouse II and Caroline “Lina” Schermerhorn who had been born into a shipping family that was part of New York’s aristocracy of original Dutch settlers.
John Jacob IV was a real estate developer, a Colonel in the Spanish-American War, and a science fiction novelist. In 1894 he published A Journey in Other Worlds, a Romance of the Future. Set in the year 2000, the novel describes mankind’s first interplanetary voyage and visits to Jupiter and Saturn by brave explorers. He also patented a number of inventions, including a pneumatic road improver, but his name is above all associated with New York City’s most famous hotels.
The original Waldorf-Astoria was built in two stages, as the Waldorf Hotel and the Astoria Hotel (the world’s “most luxury hotel”), which accounts for its dual name. The site was situated on Astor family properties along Fifth Avenue. The complex was opened in 1893 and demolished in 1929 to make way for the construction of the Empire State Building.
John Jacob was also responsible for the Knickerbocker Hotel. Built in 1906 at the crossroads of 42nd Street and Broadway, the venue shook Times Square out of its slumber by hosting the biggest names in entertainment, politics, and high society. With its sophisticated Beaux-Arts design, European ambience and sumptuous parties, the hotel attracted both glitterati and dignitaries. It also served as the home of Enrico Caruso and others.
The onset of Prohibition marked the beginning of the end for the hotel. In 1921 the property was converted into offices, becoming known as the Knickerbocker Building.
Tragedy & Compassion
John Jacob’s career was cut short when he died after the Titanic sank on her maiden voyage in April 1912. His pregnant second wife Madeleine Force Astor survived the disaster. In the aftermath, ships were sent to search for the bodies of 1,517 passengers and crew who had drowned in the sinking. Only 333 of them were ever found.
At the time of the tragedy, the cable layer Mackay-Bennett was berthed at Halifax, Nova Scotia, as she was involved in maintaining the underwater line of communication between Canada and France. She was contracted by the White Star Line to recover bodies from the Atlantic. On completion of the gruesome task by members of the crew, first-class passengers were embalmed on board and placed in coffins; second-class passengers were embalmed and wrapped in canvas; and 116 third-class passengers were buried at sea.
Astor’s remains were recovered on April 22nd. Labelled body no. 124, he was identified by his diamond finger ring and the initials sewn on the label of his jacket. Inquiries into the calamity would later take place in New York. Location of the inquest was John Jacob’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
At times it takes a disaster to rattle political or moral belief systems. The sinking of Titanic made a deep impact on both sides of the Atlantic and forced a fundamental rethink of values and convictions. To many social commentators the sad event was more than a catastrophe, it was a warning against human pride and presumption. As Edward Stuart Talbot, Bishop of Winchester, preached in April 1912, the fate of the ship was a “mighty lesson against our confidence and trust in power, machinery, and money.”
(William) Vincent Astor, John Jacob’s son from his first marriage, was born on November 11, 1891. The pain of losing his father at a relatively young age may well have affected his moral compass. Having inherited a fortune, he dropped out of Harvard University, and ditched the family’s hard line capitalist practices. Vincent showed concern for New York City’s social inequalities by seeking compassionate solutions.
Over time, he disposed of the family’s notorious slum housing and reinvested in more ethical undertakings. Having sold properties under generous terms for conversion into homes, he was responsible for the construction of a large housing complex in the Bronx. In Harlem he transformed a piece of real estate into a children’s playground. In addition, he backed the New Deal and supported other reforms. Vincent was the first Astor to show a real sense of social commitment.
Between 1937 up until his death in 1959 Vincent headed the corporation that published Newsweek magazine. Fittingly, for a time the magazine’s headquarters was located in his father’s former Knickerbocker Hotel.
Illustrations, from above: Holywell & Wych Street (postcard drawing by F.L. Emanuel); John Jacob Astor IV in 1909 (Library of Congress); drawing of the Astor Library in 1854 (artist unknown); electioneering: Nancy Astor meeting fishermen in Plymouth, 1919; Knickerbocker Hotel seen from Seventh Avenue, circa 1909; sinking of Titanic as reported by The New York Herald featuring a photo of John Jacob Astor IV; and service led by Rev. Canon Hind aboard the Mackay-Bennett for the burial-at-sea of 116 third class passengers on the Titanic whose remains had been recovered from the North Atlantic.
WEEKEND PHOTO OF THE DAY NATIONAL WORLD WAR 1 MUSEUM, KANSAS CITY, MO. LAURA HUSSEY GOT IT!!!
SOURCES
NEW YORK ALMANACK
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Sometimes a story brings history to life and this is one. It is a story when the government did the right thing for mothers who had lost their sons in the Great War.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
WEEKEND, OCTOBER 30-31, 2021
THE 508th EDITION
GOLD STAR MOTHERS
VISIT SONS’ GRAVES
IN FRANCE
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES, 1999
World War I Gold Star Mothers Pilgrimages, Part I
Summer 1999, Vol. 31, No. 2 | Genealogy Notes
By Constance Potter
On the evening of August 14, 1930, Katherine Bell Holley, an African American schoolteacher from Hedgesville, West Virginia, boarded the train at the Baltimore and Ohio station at North Mountain, outside the small town. At Martinsburg, she transferred to a train to New York, where she boarded the SS American Merchant for France. She arrived by train at Les Invalides in Paris on August 26.1 Holley traveled to France as part of a Gold Star Mothers pilgrimage, a United States government program that paid the travel expenses to the grave sites for mothers and widows whose sons and husbands had died overseas as members of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during the war.
Katherine Holley made the journey to France to visit the grave of her husband, Pvt. Lewis A. Holley. Twelve years earlier, on October 4, 1918, Private Holley, Company B, 542d Engineers, United States Expeditionary Force, France, had died of pneumonia. Holley died at the Naval Base Hospital #65 at or near Brest, France.2 He had enlisted only two months earlier, on August 5, 1918, and had arrived in Brest just seven days before on the troop ship USS American. The troops debarked on October 1, just three days before Holley’s death.3 Holley was one of the 53,000 American soldiers who died in France during the First World War. He was buried on October 7 in the American Cemetery in Lambezellac, France, northwest of Brest. On June 10, 1920, the Graves Registration Service of the Quartermaster Office reburied Holley in a different site in the cemetery at Lambezellac, and on October 25, 1921, the GRS moved his remains to the American Cemetery in Oise-Aisne.4
The records that describe Katherine Holley’s trip to France and her husband’s death and interment are among the Burial Files and Graves Registration records in the Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General (Record Group 92).
“From 1930 to 1933, more than 6,000 women participated in the Gold Star Mothers and Widows pilgrimages to visit the graves of their loved ones who sacrificed
World War I Graves Registration
5 During the Civil War, the military first developed procedures to identify and bury the dead, both Union and Confederate. With the Spanish-American War in 1898, the first foreign war following the Civil War, the War Department expanded these procedures to include the return of the bodies of the men who died overseas.
The problem of burying the dead only expanded with U.S. entry into World War I on April 6, 1917. As soon as the AEF landed in France in June, the problem of caring for the dead became an immediate concern. On August 7, 1917, War Department General Order 104 authorized the organization of a Graves Registration Service.6 The first Graves Registration unit reached France on October 31, 1917.
The GRS was not responsible for the original burial. The individual combat units had the responsibility of burying the dead as soon as possible. Most men killed in battle were buried within twenty-four hours, although it sometimes took a week or longer. Battlefield conditions made immediate and proper burial difficult after the troops advanced, but great care was taken to ensure that the graves were properly marked.
The GRS eventually moved the bodies to an American military cemetery in Europe or shipped them back to the United States. France, in particular, asked that the burial sites be consolidated. Throughout the process, the GRS continued to care for the bodies and kept identification records.
The work of the Graves Registration Service continued until the summer of 1919. It was not until after the war that the Office of the Quartermaster General asked each family if it would like the body to be brought back to the United States for final burial in a family plot, nonmilitary cemetery, or National Cemetery (such as Arlington) or buried in an American military cemetery in Europe.
Holley’s burial was not typical. Because Lewis Holley was a noncombatant and died on a naval base rather than in a combat zone, he was buried within four days of his death in an American cemetery. When the GRS first reburied the body on October 25, 1921, they found it buried in a pine box but under a cross marked “Paul Schur.” The identification tag on the body, however, identified it as Lewis A. Holley.7 When the GRS moved Holley’s remains the final time, the unit found the correct identification disc on both his body and grave marker. The GRS also found a reburial bottle in the coffin that gave Holley’s name, service number, rank, and unit. Because the bodies were usually “badly decomposed, features unrecognizable,” the examination report included detailed dental records.8
In an undated telegram to the Graves Registration Service, Katherine Holley indicated that she wanted the remains brought back to the United States. In a letter dated April 20, 1920, however, Katherine asked that the “remains to Private Louis A. Holley Co. B 542 Engineer Corps [be] left in France.” There is nothing in the file that explains why she later changed her mind.9 In many cases, however, the family left the body as a reminder to the Europeans of the sacrifice their son or husband had made. Some families who originally asked that the body be brought back to the United States changed their minds when they received pictures of the graves of their sons or husbands and realized that they could visit the grave. Many families, however, could not afford the trip.
Whether a man was buried in Europe or returned to the United States, the GRS prepared a “Report of Disinterment and Reburial,” which listed the soldier’s name, serial number, rank, and organization.10 The form also showed where the soldier was originally interred and where he was finally buried. The GRS reburied the bodies as much as two to three years after the war, and report after report notes that the features were unrecognizable. No photographs of the bodies are in the reports. The GRS identified the bodies through dental records, identification tags, grave markers, or other means of identification.
Gold Star Mothers’ Pilgrimage
Description
A group of Gold Star mothers visits the St. Mihiel Memorial commemorating the capture of the St. Mihiel salient by the American First Army, the operations of the American Second Army on November 9-11, 1918, and other combat services of the American Division, located on the high isolated hill of Montsec, France. A. Robert Ginsburgh is in the group, along with other Army officers, who accompanied the group on their visit to the graves of their sons and several monuments. Date(s) June 11, 1932
Gold Star Mothers’ Pilgrimage
During the 1920s, the Gold Star Mothers’ Association lobbied for a federally sponsored pilgrimage to Europe for mothers with sons buried overseas. Although many of the women who belonged to the organization had visited their sons’ graves, they realized that women often could not afford the trip to Europe. In their testimony, these women placed great emphasis on the bond between a mother and son. The bond between wife and husband seemed almost secondary in the congressional debates. The bond between fathers and sons was barely considered–the association maintained that the maternal bond surpassed that of the paternal bond.
In 1929 Congress enacted legislation that authorized the secretary of war to arrange for pilgrimages to the European cemeteries “by mothers and widows of members of military and naval forces of the United States who died in the service at any time between April 5, 1917, and July 1, 1921, and whose remains are now interred in such cemeteries.” Congress later extended eligibility for pilgrimages to mothers and widows of men who died and were buried at sea or who died at sea or overseas and whose places of burial were unknown. The Office of the Quartermaster General determined that 17,389 women were eligible. By October 31, 1933, when the project ended, 6,693 women had made the pilgrimage. Once the quartermaster determined a woman was eligible, she was sent a questionnaire.
Katherine Holley was eligible because Holley’s mother had died May 12, 1919, and Katherine had not remarried. In a letter to the quartermaster’s office, she asked if her daughter, Louise Elizabeth Holley, born April 10, 1919, could accompany her. Capt. A. D. Hughes, replied:
As the Act of March 2, 1929, does not contain any provision for any member of the family to make the trip except the mother or unmarried widow, nor does it permit the mother or widow being accompanied by any member of the family, it is regretted to have to inform you that while your feelings with regard to taking your little daughter to her father’s grave are appreciated, she is not eligible to make the pilgrimage.
Once Katherine Holley accepted the offer to go on the pilgrimage, she received carefully written and detailed instructions on what to do and what to expect. The government paid all of her expenses. As Col. Richard T. Ellis, Officer in Charge of the American Pilgrimage Gold State Mothers and Widows in Paris, wrote, the quartermaster had to develop an organization that could create and operate simultaneously as a hotel, travel, steamship, and welfare bureau.11 In 1930 alone, the quartermaster general provided these services for 3,653 mothers and widows between May 16 and September 22, with each trip lasting approximately two weeks. Whenever possible, the quartermaster wanted to organize the pilgrimage with as little disturbance “to the way of living of the Pilgrims as possible” and considered both physical and psychological comforts.
The age of the women created problems. Their average age was between sixty-one and sixty-five, which “reduced the speed with which almost all operations of the Pilgrimage could have been conducted.” The methods of travel, the food, and everyday living conditions were different from those to which the women were accustomed. The pilgrims visited not only Paris, a large city with all modern conveniences and medical facilities, but also small country towns where many of the graves were located. To do this in a country with different laws and customs, the quartermaster needed to obtain special permission to do things that were not customary. Where the quartermaster general thought it would not be possible to get such permission, they tried to make such adjustments and compromises that would least disturb the women’s morale. The majority of the woman did not speak French, and provisions had to be made for bilingual field personnel. The nature of the visit also presented problems. Col. Ellis wrote that the trip “was in no sense a holiday or a pleasure trip but on the other hand it was necessary to prevent over-emphasis of the sentimental side in order to prevent morbidness or hysteria.”12
In Remembering War the American Way, G. Kurt Piehler writes that the pilgrimage united different women: “Socialites and farm women; Catholics, Protestants, and Jews; native born and foreign born.”13 There was one difference, however–race. Membership in the Gold Star Mothers Association was limited to white women. African American women who made the pilgrimage were segregated from the white pilgrims. For example, white women traveled on luxury liners; African American women, in commercial steamers.
The War Department and quartermaster general received letters of complaint, although the original letters do not appear to have survived in the records. In response to a complaint letter from Mrs. M. E. Mallette, president of the Keith Improvement Association in Chicago, F. H. Payne, the assistant secretary of war, wrote:
I regret that you protest against that part of the pilgrimage regulations of the War Department which provides for the formation of groups of colored gold star mothers and widows. The large number of mothers and widows who will make the pilgrimage, together with the necessity of providing suitable accommodations for all, made impracticable the sending of the pilgrims in one body, and made the organization of groups necessary.
Payne defended the War Departments decisions:
After thorough study, the conclusion was reached that the formation of white and colored groups of mothers and widows would best assure the contentment and comfort of the pilgrims themselves. No discrimination as between the various groups is contemplated. All groups will receive like accommodations at hotels and on steamships, and the representatives of the War Department will, at all times, be as solicitous of the welfare of the colored mothers and widows as they will be of the welfare of those of the white race. . . . It would seem natural to assume that these mothers and widows would prefer to seek solace in their grief from companions of their own race.14
By July 7, 1930, seven African American women had declined to take the pilgrimage because of segregation; however, Katherine Holley chose to make the pilgrimage to her husband’s grave.
Mothers traveled ocean liners to and from France
World War I Gold Star Mothers Pilgrimages, Part 2
Fall 1999, Vol. 31, No. 3 | Genealogy Notes
By Constance Potter
Between 1930 and 1933, many of the eligible mothers and widows of U.S. soldiers who died overseas during World War I sailed to Europe to see the graves of their sons and husbands. The federal government paid the expenses of these Gold Star Pilgrims. The Gold Star Pilgrimage files are among the records of the Graves Registration Service (GRS) in the Records of the Quartermaster General (Record Group 92).1 The GRS files, which contain information on men who died overseas during World War I, are arranged alphabetically by the name of the soldier. The records of each Gold Star mother or widow are in the folders of her son or husband.
Part 1 of this article in the Summer 1999 issue described how the Graves Registration Service cared for the bodies of the soldiers and told the story of how one woman, Katherine B. Holley from Hedgesville, West Virginia, prepared for the trip. This article describes her trip to Paris as well as how the Office of the Quartermaster General organized the pilgrimage.
Born in Berkeley County, West Virginia, on July 31, 1893,2 Katherine Brown married Lewis Holley sometime in 1918 in Berkeley County. Lewis Holley arrived in Cherbourg on October 5, 1918, and died of pneumonia on October 14. The World War I monument in Martinsburg, the county seat, lists Lewis Holley as one of the soldiers who served from Berkeley County. Louise, their daughter, was born on April 6, 1919, six months after her father died. By 1920 Katherine was teaching school in Hedgesville.3 Katherine Holley was the only woman from the area to go on the Gold Star Pilgrimage.4
The quartermaster’s intent was “to conduct the Pilgrimage with as little disturbance to the way of living of the Pilgrims as was possible.” The details of the trip survive both in the files of the individual Gold Star Mothers files and among the administrative records of the Gold Star Pilgrimage.5 Although the files do not contain letters that the women may have written to their families about their trips, researchers can get a good idea of what sites the women visited as well as how the army organized the trip.
On October 1, 1929, Col. Richard T. Ellis, officer in charge of the Gold Star Mothers Pilgrimage in Paris,6 recommended that the Office of the Quartermaster General contact the French authorities responsible for various aspects of the trip. The American embassy in Paris contacted the French Foreign Office through Baron de Vitrolle, chief of the American Section of the Foreign Office. De Vitrolle subsequently agreed that direct contact with the various branches of the French government would be the most useful approach.7
The quartermaster made contact with the following French offices: Customs, Ministry of War, Administration of Public Hygiene and Assistance, Administration of Fine Arts, Prefect of Police and the Prefect of the Department of the Seine, Department of Touring, Quartermaster Corps of the French Army (which included the Ministry of Pensions), the Federation of Veterans’ Societies in France, French State Railroads, and postal authorities.8 These contacts show the breadth of issues that the quartermaster had to work with to make the pilgrimage run as smoothly as possible.
Before the women left home, the quartermaster sent each a list of what to pack and gave detailed travel arrangements.. The War Department warned the women to wear “somewhat heavier clothing” to protect them against “the cold and dampness.”9 Because of the lack of laundry facilities, the quartermaster urged them to pack “sufficient underwear, nightgowns, stockings, and handkerchiefs.”10 The travel arrangements included dates and times of travel as well as berth, seat, or room number for the ship, trains, and hotel rooms.
The Quartermaster assigned a letter of the alphabet to each party. Katherine Holley was assigned to Party Q, the Oise-Aisne group, which was composed of African American women. The white and African American women had the same itineraries; however, they were segregated. In many instances the accommodations were different. For example, white women traveled on luxury liners; African American women, in commercial steamers. Katherine Holley sailed from New York on August 16 on the American Merchant. Col. Benjamin O. Davis was the officer in charge.11 Mrs. B. J. Runner and Miss N. Bost, nurses, and Mrs. N. Brown, hostess, also accompanied the party.
Colonel Ellis, along with a staff of ten that included two nurses, met the ship when it docked at Cherbourg on August 15. The War Department had made special arrangements with the French authorities to get the women off the boats as quickly as possible. Although French law required that baggage be checked carefully, the director general of Customs issued instructions that reduced the customs formalities to a minimum.
The Operations Division worked with the International Dining and Sleeping Car Co. to provide meals for the women on their way to Paris. To avoid the congestion of the St. Lazare Station, special arrangements were made for the trains to arrive at Les Invalides, which was usually reserved for state occasions.12 The executive officer and his staff, nurses, and interpreters met the party at Les Invalides. Among the party that greeted the women of Q party were Noble Sissle and his band.13
The women stayed at the Hotel Imperator at 70, rue Beaubourg. The accommodations consisted of double rooms with twin beds and a bath. Traditionally, the police controlled registration at hotels in France and throughout Europe. Rather than have each woman provide the necessary information to the police, the Quartermaster’s Office was permitted to submit the forms containing the names and room assignments of each woman as well as home address, date of birth, nationality, occupation, and the authority and purpose of the visit.14
Each party selected an “honor pilgrim,” who laid a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe.15 Mrs. Louise Kimbro, the mother of Martin Kimbro, was Party Q’s honor pilgrim. The Ministry of Pensions arranged with the Federation of Veterans Societies in France to have representatives at each wreath laying. Following the wreath laying the women had tea and reception at the Restaurant Laurent at the other end of the Champs Elysees. Aside from a trip to Fontainebleau, the women were free to see Paris, or be with their thoughts, until they left for the cemetery on the morning of August 29.16
On the twenty-ninth, the party left at 8 a.m. for Soissons17 via La Forte, with a rest stop at Hotel de la Terrassee at the Chateau Thierry,18 where they lunched at the Hostellerie du Bonhomme. At Soissons the party had dinner and spent the night at the Lion Rouge hotel. The itinerary for August 30 notes the women were to have “breakfast at the hotel.” Even this apparently simple part of the day had required negotiations between the War Department and the French hotels. To provide an American breakfast, the hotel had to add kitchen staff. After negotiating with the seven hotels, the hotels and quartermaster agreed on a price per pilgrim per day.
The same day, the women visited Chateau Thierry. In the afternoon, they saw Belleau Wood,19 Aisne Marne Cemetery, Monument Hill 204, and the grave of Quentin Roosevelt (Theodore Roosevelt’s son). Before returning to Soissons for dinner, the women had tea at the Oise-Aisne Cemetery.
The towns near the Meuse-Argonne, Oise-Aisne, and St. Mihiel cemeteries did not have restrooms or cafes that could efficiently serve the groups. The quartermaster therefore built, within ninety days, rest houses at each of these cemeteries. The rest houses had tables, comfortable chairs, and restrooms as well as kitchen facilities. Each rest house had a shady porch for the hot weather and a large, open fireplace for the cooler days.20
On the morning of August 31 they visited the Oise-Aisne cemetery. The quartermaster very carefully planned the reception at the cemeteries. To make the visit as personal as possible, they did not permit any ceremonies but focused on each woman’s visit. The cemetery superintendent gave each pilgrim a grave locator card, and cemetery staff guided each woman to the grave. The guide then gave the woman flowers or a wreath to put on the grave and took a photograph.21
On September 1 the women were free to sightsee or visit the cemetery. After lunch at the hotel, they left for Reims where they spent the night at the Hotel Bristol Crystal.22 The following day they toured the cathedral as well as the Fort de la Pompelle. After lunch the party left for Compiegne, where they spent the night.23
The party arrived back in Paris the next day around 6 p.m. They had dinner at the hotel and spent the rest of their time in Paris visiting such sites as the Louvre, Versailles, Sacre Couer, Notre Dame, and Napoleon’s Tomb and took a nighttime tour of the city. Although the purpose of the trip was serious, the women were still permitted time to see and enjoy Paris.
On September 7 Katherine Holley and her party sailed for home on the American Merchant.24 Ten days later, on September 16, they arrived at the port of New York and then returned to their homes.
The Gold Star Pilgrimage provided the chance for 6,693 women who might otherwise not have been able to visit their loved ones’ graves to travel to France. Some of the women wrote to the War Department thanking them for the trip. Mrs. Kimbro wrote in part:
Dear Sir: . . . As for myself I never will get through talking about the grand time we had. Everyone was happy over the way Col. Maroney and his wife treated us so nice. Also Mr. Ellis and his wife. . . . How can anyone forget such a trip . . . we never can. . . . I want to thank the whole War Department and every one concerned for the courtesy and kindness shown to the Gold Star Mothers and Widows. Yours very sincerely Mrs. Louise Kimbro President of Party Q.25
Mrs. G. A. Buckley of Grand Rapids, Michigan, wrote to Col A. E. Williams on October 2, 1930:
Since my return home I have talked to six different organizations, and am writing for the Daily paper about my Pilgrimage. I am telling of the very excellent way in which it was carried out from beginning to the ver[y] end. I am going to write to our United States Senator of how the Gold Star Mothers appreciate this great thing the Government is doing for them. I feel that a gap has been filled, and that now that I have seen my dear son’s resting place, and know that it will for ever be kept beautiful, I am more contented. [emphasis added].26
FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY A PEAK INSIDE THE NEW VERIZON EXECUTIVE EDUCATION CENTER AT CORNELL TECH. ALEXIS VILLAFANE GOT IT!!!
CORRECTION
Good morning, this is Andy Sparberg.
If I may take the liberty, you need to correct the directions for riding through the old IRT City Hall Station. The #6 train (Lexington Ave. Local) goes through the old station when it turns around going from downtown to uptown. The #5 train never goes through City Hall. If you stay on the #5 after Brooklyn Bridge you’ll end up in Brooklyn! Please post a correction. Thank you.
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Edited by Deborah Dorff ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT RIHS. 2020 (C) PHOTOS IN THIS ISSUE (C) JUDITH BERDY RIHS
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “City Hall Subway Station, New York” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1906.
The Interborough Rapid Transit Subway, or IRT, was the first subway company ever in New York City. The company formed as a response to elevated train lines springing up around the city–it was time to go underground and build a rapid transit railroad to help combat street congestion and assist development in new areas of New York, according to NYCsubway.org. And so 117 years ago, on October 27, 1904, the first IRT subway line opened with the City Hall station as its showpiece. It’s no overstatement to say that after this date, the city would never be the same. And the day was one to remember, with pure excitement over the impressive feat of moving the city’s transit system underground.
The City Hall station under construction, via Wiki Commons
The first IRT subway line ran from the spectacular City Hall subway station–which is no longer open–to 145th Street. The route was trumpeted as “City Hall to Harlem in 15 minutes.” The day’s festivities centered around the City Hall station, decked out in Guastavino vaulting, as it was intended to be the ultimate showpiece for the IBT’s new subway line with its impressive architecture and curved platform. It was also the chosen place for hanging the commemorative plaques dedicated to those who designed, built, and financed the system.
The New York City Mayor George B. McClellan was given the honorary duty of starting the first train at City Hall station. According to a New York Times report of the event, the mayor was eventually supposed to give the controls over to an IRT motorman. Instead, he took the train all the way to 103rd Street. When asked, “Don’t you want the motorman to take hold?” McClellan said, “No sir! I’m running this train!” In the Times article, McClellan is dubbed as “Mayor-Motorman” during the opening ride.
The Mayor was delivered a silver controller to operate the subway train; it was inscribed with the message, “Controller used by the Hon. George B. McClellan, Mayor of New York City, in starting the first train on the Rapid Transit Railroad from the City Hall station, New York, Thursday, Oct. 27, 1904. Presented by the Hon. George B. McClellan by August Belmont, President of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company.”
Turns out it didn’t fit very well on the motor, so the emergency brake lever was pulled in the first few minutes of the ride. According to the Times, it caused “a violent jolt, a sudden stop,” with passengers “thrown forward as though the train had struck an obstruction.”
Despite the initial error–which was quickly fixed for the rest of the trip–throngs of New Yorkers wanted in on the underground train ride. 200 policemen managed a crowd of as many as 7,000 people around City Hall, some of which pushed through the entrance underground. The New York Times recounted that “both the two sections [of the same train] were crowded uncomfortably. Many passengers stood in every car, and the total loads probably aggregated at least 1,100 passengers.” People were also trying to access the train from different stations. Some had gotten afternoon passes to ride, but the passes weren’t valid for that very first trip.
Some New Yorkers did get the chance, earlier in 1904, to inspect the underground line on wooden cars. Both of the MTA photographs above were taken in 1904. The left depicts an IRT inspection tour with Mayor McClellan in the center foreground and contractor John B. McDonald at the edge of the platform. The right shows an inspection tour for New York City officials.
After that initial ride with the mayor, the subway opened for paying fares at 7 p.m. that same day. Ultimately the first person to buy a green ticket was a “middle aged woman from Brooklyn,” according to the Chicago Tribune. She had waited at the front of the line for two hours. That conflicts with a report from the New York Times, which said the first ticket was sold to H.M. Devoe, a Deputy Superintendent in the Board of Education.
The third man to buy a ticket, Henry Barrett, was a resident of West 46th Street. He took the first train at 7:02 p.m., at the 28th Street station, and then at 7:03, he claimed his diamond horseshoe pin with 15 karats went missing. This marks the first crime in the NYC subway system.
The closed station is occasionally open for Transit Museum tours. Ride the #5 train to Brooklyn Bridge, do not get off at last stop and you will go thru the closed station and peek at its beauty.
THE ROOSEVELT ISLAND THE PANORAMA ROOM GRADUATE HOTEL NINA LUBLIN GLORIA HERMAN LAURA HUSSEY ARLENE BESSENOFF JOAN BROOKS SORRY IF I MISS SOME NAMES BUT THE WORK AT THE POLLSITE CALL!!
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)
6SQFT
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Created during the COVID-19 pandemic, Paul Hunter’s “Confinement Gardens” series was inspired by the artist’s walks through New York City’s public parks and gardens during lockdown. As he sought refuge from these restrictions in the city’s greenspaces, he experienced the restorative power of flowers in bloom, which gave him hope despite the surrounding pandemic and political turmoil. In this series, his non-figurative compositions combine floral and leaf forms with wholly abstract linear patterns. To achieve the paintings’ luminous power, he applies several coats of translucent acrylics over an under-layer of aluminum leaf which reflects and refracts light through the layers of semi-transparent paint.
Images: Paul Hunter, Confinement Garden #AA, 2021, aluminum leaf, acrylic on canvas
CENTRAL PARK, NY — For the first time in a year and a half, Central Park’s Arsenal Gallery has reopened to visitors — and has a new art exhibition to draw them in.
The gallery is located within the 1840s-era Arsenal, the imposing brick building just in from Fifth Avenue near East 64th Street, next door to the Central Park Zoo. It had been closed since March 2020, as COVID-19 hit New York.
On Monday, the gallery reopened with “Confinement Gardens,” a series of paintings by the artist Paul Hunter.
The works were inspired by Hunter’s walks through New York City’s parks and gardens during lockdown, where he “experienced the restorative power of flowers in bloom, which gave him hope despite the surrounding pandemic and political turmoil,” the Parks Department wrote.
« From the very beginning, my internal vision has been determined by my ongoing desire to express the emotional intensity of experiencing light and color. » Paul Hunter is an artist based in the United States whose paintings have been exhibited nationally and in Canada. In addition, his art is featured in the permanent collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Canada), the Art Museum of Princeton University (U.S.), etc. Hunter’s works endeavor to capture the poetry and drama of light. He most often creates using acrylics and gilding on canvas.
Hunter gave the paintings a “luminous power” by applying several coats of translucent acrylic paints over an under-layer of aluminum leaf, refracting and reflecting light through the semi-transparent paint.
Find out what’s happening in Upper East Side with free, real-time updates from Patch. Your email address Let’s go! The show will be on view through Nov. 18. Proof of vaccination and mask-wearing are required to enter the gallery, which is open Monday-Friday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on the Arsenal’s third floor.
“I am fully aware of the deteriorating natural environment, and the artifice of cultivated gardens, an ‘unnatural’ space where plants are protected,” Hunter said in a statement. “However, during this time, I was nonetheless seeking a vision of hope, and celebrated nature’s ongoing luxuriant beauty in these lush green paintings punctuated with colorful notes of imagined flowers.”
Parks Commissioner Gabrielle Fialkoff called the works “a timely reflection on the inspiration New Yorkers have found in greenspaces” during the pandemic. “For decades, the Arsenal Gallery has showcased artworks that explore nature, urban landscapes, and park history, and we are happy to reopen the space to visitors for the first time since the start of the pandemic,” she said. To attend in a group of more than five people, visitors must call call 212-360-8114 or email artandantiquities@parks.nyc.gov to pre-register.
THE RI LIGHTHOUSE UNDER RESTORATION NAMES OF THOSE WILL BE SENT TOMORROW. WE ARE WORKING AT EARLY VOTING THIS WEEK!!
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
UPPER EAST SIDE PATCH NYC PARKS DEPARTMENT
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
The unusual clock hands on a Third Avenue union sign
from: Ephemeral New York
There’s a little history on it: the current union came out of an original union of wood, wire, and metal lathers workers that was organized in 1897. But what really caught my eye was the street clock attached to the sign, with its streamlined, Art Deco look.
The clock hands could be tools of some kind, perhaps a tool a lather might use? (A lather installs the metal lath and gypsum lath boards that support the plaster, concrete, and stucco coatings used in construction.)
This lathe cutter looks something like the clock hands. Maybe it’s a stretch, but perhaps the clock reflects something about the work these union members do in an industry vital to the growth of the city.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
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FROM FACEBOOK: “FOLLOW PROMETHIUS ART-AMANDA MATTHEWS & BRAD CONNELL” ALL IMAGES (C) PROMETHIUS ART
THE REVERSE OF THE NELLIE BLY FIGURE
While working for the New York World, Bly also set a world record for circumnavigation of the earth in 72 days. When told by her manager that it was an impossible trip for a woman, Nellie Bly responded…“Very well, start the man, and I’ll start the same day for some other newspaper and beat him.”
Although her life and legacy include broad professional experience as a journalist, women’s rights advocate, suffragist, WWI correspondent, inventor, patent holder, industrialist, and humanitarian, a common thread for Nellie Bly was that she experienced the plight of those who suffered and powerfully transcribed this reality to the world, who had turned a blind eye.
She moved the needle toward equality and progress. Nellie Bly died on January 27, 1922. The following day, the Evening Journal newspaper carried a tribute by Arthur Brisbane, which read… “Nellie Bly was THE BEST REPORTER IN AMERICA and that is saying a good deal…
She takes with her from this earth all that she cared for, an honorable name, the respect and affection of her fellow workers, the memory of good fights well fought and of many good deeds never to be forgotten by those that had no friend but Nellie Bly. Happy the man or woman that can leave as good a record.”
Here we end where we began, with a quote from Nellie Bly. “I said I could and I would. And I did.
A young girl had been institutionalized in the Blackwell Island Asylum for 4 years. She spoke to Nellie Bly every morning and said, “I dreamed of my mother last night. I think she may come today and take me home.”
Bly’s quote from this young girl represents a palpable brokenness. Such pain and loneliness are apparent as this abandoned child kept clinging to a tinge of hope that her lot in life would change. This face is inspired by my daughter, Audrey, who as a teen, was the subject of an emotionally crippling court case in which she was marginalized.
Her personal story and expressions of incredible pain also fell on deaf ears. Neither protection nor solace could be found as she suffered, while begging to be heard within a flawed legal system.
Advocates who choose to maintain the status quo often fail to protect the innocent. Bly spoke of another girl in the asylum who repeatedly cried, “They always said God made hell, but he didn’t.”
Bly spoke up and affected change. She put herself in danger on many occasions to fully understand those who were suffering. Absent this type of compelling representation, vulnerable members of our society will continue to be abused by those who use their privilege and power as leverage.
Asian American Woman – Original Artist Proof
On the wagon ride to the Blackwell Island Asylum, Bly states “I, as well as my comrades, gave a despairing farewell glance at freedom as we came in sight of the long stone buildings.”
Bly sees the “look of distress on the faces of [her] companions. Poor Women… They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life.”
My dear friend and studio assistant’s mother, Mioko, inspired this face. Of Japanese descent, she is an American by birth, and was only 18 years old in February 1942, when by Executive Order she was moved from her home in Gardena, CA, and taken to the Santa Anita Racetrack to live in a horse stall.
She was later interned to Rohwer—a 500-acre camp surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, and she was not reunited with her family for years. Mioko recounted this story to me in great detail when she was in her early nineties.
Bly describes “a woman taken without her consent from a free world…” and argues, “Compare this with a criminal, who is given every chance to prove his innocence.” I could not read this passage without thinking of Mioko. She knows the sting of racism, understands the dehumanization of immigrants in America, and the loneliness and alienation of being held against her will under dreadful circumstances by her own government.
Bly “watched patients stand and gaze longingly toward the city they in all likelihood [would] never enter again. It means liberty and life; it seems so near, and yet heaven is not further from hell.” Mioko understands freedom that seems so near, but could not be further from hell.
African American Woman
Nellie Bly resisted being harshly handled by an attendee while she was being admitted to Bellevue hospital. Once freed from his grip, she stated, “I walked with the grace of a queen past the crowd that had gathered, curious to see the new unfortunate.”
Bly describes defending herself against other assaults and with frightening imagery, she depicts the abuse of the helpless women and girls in the Asylum, who “were in the power of their keepers”. Bly says they “could weep and plead for release, and all of no avail, if the keepers were so minded.” These descriptions of anguish and control evoked images for me of the unthinkable treatment of many minority women and their children throughout American history.
My dear friend, Cutia, inspired this face. A strong, intelligent black woman who has dedicated her life to helping others, Cutia endured unimaginable grief when she lost her infant child. She understands deep and abiding loss and the agony of feeling helpless to change a dire situation.
Cutia also knows first-hand the structure of dominance in America and the urgent need to eliminate systemic racism. The emotion in her eyes speaks volumes about the 400-year arc of history, including the pain and trauma endured by generations of human beings.
Similar to Bly in many ways, Cutia transformed her sorrow into passion that ignites her drive for equality, justice, and healing.
Older Woman – in backrgound
The miniature version of the art is next to the large one so a blind prson can feel it and read the Braille description of each work,
While institutionalized in the Blackwell Island Asylum, Nellie Bly read a motto on a wall that said, “While I live I hope.”
Bly stated that “the absurdity of it struck [her] forcibly..” because so many women were unjustly stripped of their freedoms and rights with no hope of ever escaping their fate. They were convicted without “ample trial” for being different, or old, or an immigrant.
This face is inspired by my daughter, Natalie, who is a member of the LGBTQ community. Like many other Americans, she lacks equal representation under the law and lives in fear of being stripped of her freedoms, rights, and protections with every change to the US Supreme Court. This face portrays the hopeful trajectory of her life showing long-lived happiness and a perpetual desire for equality and acceptance of those who exist in the margins.
Nellie Bly witnessed these disparities; and moved by her experiences, she wrote, “Poor girl, how my heart ached for her! I determined then and there that I would try by every means to make my mission of benefit to my suffering sisters…”
Natalie’s likeness is aged forward 50 years, bearing a remarkable resemblance to my mother. It serves as a much-needed tribute to the queer community and to older women, sages who are rarely honored in sculpture for their beauty and wisdom.
SPORTSPARK SWIMMING POOL NOW CLOSED FOR RENOVATION THOM HEYER, ARON EISENPREISS, ALEXIA VILLAFANE, BRENDA VAUGHAN, LAURA HUSSEY AND NINA LUBLIN GOT IT RIGHT!!
YOU CAN VISIT SPORTSPARK THIS WEEK AND GET IN THE SWIM OF EARLY VOTING!!! THE POLL SITE IS IN THE GYM. ENTER ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE BUILDING OPPOSITE THE GRADUATE HOTEL.
Early Voting Schedule
Tuesday
October 26, 2021
10:00 AM to 8:00 PM
Wednesday
October 27, 2021
10:00 AM to 8:00 PM
Thursday
October 28, 2021
10:00 AM to 8:00 PM
Friday
October 29, 2021
7:00 AM to 4:00 PM
Saturday
October 30, 2021
8:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Sunday
October 31, 2021
8:00 AM to 4:00 PM
FACEBOOK: “FOLLOW PROMETHIUS ART-AMANDA MATTHEWS & BRAD CONNELL” ALL IMANGES (C) PROMETHIUS ART
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
Born in New York City in 1958, painter Diana Horowitz received her BFA from SUNY Purchase and MFA from Brooklyn College. She has had solo shows in San Francisco, Chicago and New York, and taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Tyler School of Art / Temple Abroad Rome, among other places. She currently teaches at Brooklyn College.
Horowitz’s work is included in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum; the Museum of the City of New York, the New-York Historical Society; Hunter Museum, Chattanooga TN; and the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, among others. In 2005, she was elected a member of the National Academy and she has received awards from the American Academy of Arts & Letters and grants from the Ingram Merrill Foundation and the Pollock Krasner Foundation. Horowitz has held residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s World Views program; and Ballinglen in Ireland. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, and is represented by Bookstein Projects.
Bridges Across the East River, 2015
Brooklyn Tech Backlight, 2006
Early Summer Gowanus Bay, 2013
Como from Above Perled 2016
Bellagio Afternoon 2015
Varenna from Fiumelatte 2017
Beginning with Green Blue Green Blue Core Red Prism
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
HINT: YOU CAN EARLY VOTE IN THIS BUILDING, THOUGH THE POOL IS CLOSED
ARON EISENPRESS, ANDY SPARBERG, LAURA HUSSEY, HARA REISER AND ED LITCHER ADDED THIS:
The American Radiator Building (since renamed to the American Standard Building) was conceived by the architects John Howells and Raymond Hood and built in 1924 for the American Radiator Company. Raymond Hood, rose to prominence in 1922 when he won the international competition for The Chicago Tribune’s new office tower. After the competition, the young architect received numerous offers, including one from American Radiator for an office building facing Bryant Park. The skyscraper would be built of black brick and topped it with gold-colored masonry units, the architects combined Gothic and modern styles in the design of the building. Black brick on the frontage of the building (symbolizing coal) was selected to give an idea of solidity and to give the building a solid mass. Other parts of the facade were covered in gold bricks (symbolizing fire), and the entry was decorated with marble and black mirrors. Howells and Hood employed the talents of their frequent collaborator Rene Paul Chambellan for the ornamentation and sculptures. The basic feeling of the skyscraper is Neo-Gothic but the general ornament is abstract and moving towards Art Deco, which would become important in the following years inspiring neighborhood buildings including the Empire State Building. In 1998 the building was sold, later the American Radiator Building was converted to The Bryant Park Hotel with 128 guest rooms. The conversion also included building a film studio screening room in the sub-basement, a cocktail lounge in the lower lobby space and a restaurant in the lobby. The exterior of the building is a National Historic Landmark building so none of the exterior features of the building could be changed when converted to a hotel. Only the interior space was changed during the conversion. The American Standard Building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building a landmark in 1974. The 26 story tower still stands out for its colors – black brick trimmed in gold – and unconventional shape.
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
John Jacob IV was a real estate developer, a Colonel in the Spanish-American War, and a science fiction novelist. In 1894 he published A Journey in Other Worlds, a Romance of the Future. Set in the year 2000, the novel describes mankind’s first interplanetary voyage and visits to Jupiter and Saturn by brave explorers. He also patented a number of inventions, including a pneumatic road improver, but his name is above all associated with New York City’s most famous hotels.
At times it takes a disaster to rattle political or moral belief systems. The sinking of Titanic made a deep impact on both sides of the Atlantic and forced a fundamental rethink of values and convictions. To many social commentators the sad event was more than a catastrophe, it was a warning against human pride and presumption. As Edward Stuart Talbot, Bishop of Winchester, preached in April 1912, the fate of the ship was a “mighty lesson against our confidence and trust in power, machinery, and money.”
