The Terrazzo Map: En Route to Recovery?

December 7th, 2009 · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York

Call it the perfect work of art for the era of pony cars, muscle cars, family vacations on the road, and gas at about 30 cents a gallon. In the 1964 World’s Fair, when the Tent of Tomorrow opened at the New York State Pavilion, its floor became an instant, and fascinating, hit. It was a 130-foot by 166-foot road map of New York State – a half-acre large — made of terrazzo.

A colorful replica of a Texaco road map of the state, the map showed land features in green, tan, and white; roads in black and red; and rivers and lakes in blue. You could stroll from Syracuse to Binghamton to Yonkers, walk through the Adirondacks, and trace the Hudson River in your own steps. At the time, it was largest-known map of any area of the Earth’s surface.

Making the mammoth map showing New York State’s 54,000 square miles required an amazingly elaborate process. Each of the grid components of the Texaco road map of the time, three-quarters of an inch, was magnified 64 times and then projected onto large paper templates. A group of Yale University art students carefully traced the magnified road network, symbols, numbers and letters, and even the Texaco station symbols by hand. Rand McNally provided assistance. All in all, the terrazzo map floor cost about $1 million to produce.

Terrazzo Road Map, New York State Pavilion, New York World's Fair

Photo Credit: Bill Cotter © All Rights Reserved

Like many creations of such one-time grand festivals, however, the pavilion and its storied floor became forgotten and neglected. After the New York World’s Fair closed, various parties used the site in New York’s Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens for a time but ultimately New York City no longer kept it maintained. Freeze-and-thaw cycles and other elements of the weather took a terrible toll over the decades. The pavement became full of cracks and rubble, weeds grew in, and vandals made off with parts of it. The original terrazzo surface is missing from large parts of it, and letters and symbols are gone from other portions. [Read more →]

→ 15 CommentsTags: ··

Terra Cotta Tales: Apostolic Church

November 20th, 2009 · Explore New York

An angel, calm and serene, is playing an instrument, perhaps heralding an arrival. Indeed, those worshiping inside the church where the angel is on the front exterior wall were awaiting a coming – the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. They believed it was going to happen imminently. The years of the 19th century came and went, however, without this event occurring. The denomination declined and finally gave up this church. Somehow a beautiful church building, on New York’s West 57th Street, survived.

Today, the red brick church at 417-419 West 57th St. in Manhattan – a New York City landmark – is host to another church of a different denomination. But the structure, especially its rich terra cotta decoration, tells the story of a branch of Christianity that first blossomed in America in the days of religious revival in the mid-19th century, looked for its inspiration to the early Christians, and ultimately waned in the 20th century.

Catholic Apostolic Church: Angel Playing Instrument

In its buildings, in the design, details, and other architectural expressions, humankind expresses its values and beliefs. So it is with the Catholic Apostolic Church, which was home to a New York congregation of a religious group first established in Europe in the early 19th century. Looking at the church building today, we can be mindful of the denomination’s beliefs and even of the “booms and busts” that oftentimes afflict seemingly otherworldly entities. [Read more →]

→ 8 CommentsTags: ······

Terra Cotta Tales: The Rodin Studios

November 6th, 2009 · Explore New York

f the artists who developed the Rodin Studios building on New York City’s West 57th Street or the architect who designed it had favorites among the structure’s terra cotta characters, we may never know. Was it the frog, the man reading his book, or the ancient character holding a palette? We do know that nearly a century after the building’s construction in 1916-1917 and long after the people who created the structure are gone, these figures remain. They silently gaze above the passersby today, witnesses to a time when this section of Manhattan was an artists’ mecca. Do many people stop to really look up at and appreciate these decorative terra cotta figures, I wonder?

Terra cotta is the material of a thousand different characters. The term terra cotta comes from the Italian words meaning “baked earth.” It’s made from a mixture of fine-grained clays, chosen for their particular qualities, that is fired in a kiln. It can be molded into something tiny and delicate or massive. Sometimes this material is formal, regal, and showy. Other times, it’s made into figures that are playful and inviting, or grotesque and scary. Buildings become quite personal and animated due to its flourishes, shadows, and expressions.

All of this is evident in the Rodin Studios, located at 200 West 57th St., at the southwest corner of Seventh Avenue. The structure has a splendid mix of fanciful mythic figures and cathedral-style motifs. A number of buildings constructed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in this part of Manhattan show why New York is a terra cotta lover’s paradise. These include the Alwyn Court apartments at 182 West 58th St., and the Church for All Nations, the former Catholic Apostolic Church, at 417-419 West 57th St. (See “Terra Cotta Tales: Alwyn Court” and “Terra Cotta Tales: Catholic Apostolic Church” on Mindfulwalker.com.)

The Rodin Studios, a designated New York City landmark, is a building that several artists – organized together into a company – created as a functional and elegant residence for other artists. Here, they could have living quarters and studios in one space. Their quest for living space resulted in a fine piece of art left for the ages.

Rodin Studios, New York

[Read more →]

→ No CommentsTags: ·····

Lamartine Place: Saved for Posterity

October 16th, 2009 · Explore New York

One hundred years from now, most of those who walk on West 29th Street in Manhattan may not know what Fern Luskin, Julie Finch, and a small group of local citizens did to preserve the block between Eighth and Ninth avenues. But in all likelihood they will see, largely intact, the mid-19th century row houses that possessed an important role in the struggles of African-Americans for freedom before and during the Civil War.

Thanks to the tenacious efforts of these preservationists, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on Tuesday unanimously voted to accord this block landmark protection, designating it as the Lamartine Place Historic District. The LPC designated 12 row houses, from 333-355 West 29th St., as a historic district.

These row houses have a distinctive and remarkable history, both in the life of New York City and the United States. They are connected with important events in the 1850s and 1860s, and one house is linked to the Underground Railroad. The home, 339 West 29th St., was a documented “safe house” on the Underground Railroad where noted Quaker abolitionists Abigail Hopper Gibbons, known as Abby, and her husband, James Sloan Gibbons, lived. Runaway slaves found sanctuary in the Gibbons’ home on their escape route to Canada.

The Gibbons’ house was also a meeting place for abolitionists, who were fervent in their desire to bring an end to slavery. The block became one of the settings of violence and seething tensions during New York City’s Draft Riots of 1863, in which mobs opposed to the Union Army’s conscription rioted for four days during July.

“This 19th century enclave was an eyewitness to the dramatic events that shook New York City during the Draft Riots of 1863,” said Landmarks Preservation Commission Chairman Robert Tierney in the LPC’s announcement of the historic district. “One of the houses that was directly attacked was also a haven for fleeing slaves, and a home to the abolitionists who assisted them.”

A Contrast With Midtown

If you walk in the North Chelsea neighborhood now, it’s hard to believe that this quiet block of row houses has survived, a fairly intact 19th century oasis amid development and much change occurring nearby. It’s located just two blocks south of the southern perimeter of Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. [Read more →]

→ 8 CommentsTags: ····

The “Fairest” Land: The Lake District

September 28th, 2009 · Beyond Gotham

Beautiful landscape calls us to dream and to wander, to take paths unknown. In it, we fix our eyes both on the distant horizons and on the tiniest details at our side. It reaches into our souls, rewards and soothes us. It is the Earth’s embrace.

Standing in an open field in England’s Lake District recently, I felt the Earth share its gifts of timeless beauty, wonder, and mystery. On a vacation trip with my partner Janne in August and early September, I sensed that it’s a place where humankind and the land have lived fairly well together for many generations, and where – in the words that a friend once said to me – “the land is happy.” Were the Lake District around the corner, I would go out to walk its fells – the mountainous landscape – and fields every day and show reverence. Though this space in England’s northwest corner is 3,200 miles away, its images are clear and alive in my mind.

For generations, the Lakeland has been the home of farmers and sheepherders and has drawn poets, writers, artists, and philosophers. Its landscape helped shape William Wordsworth, who lived here for much of his life. Capturing a moment overlooking the lake of Windermere, he wrote of his “exultation” at seeing “lakes, islands, promontories, gleaming bays, a universe of Nature’s fairest forms.” John Ruskin, the preeminent art critic, writer, and philosopher on society and the environment in the 19th century, made his home in Coniston. Brantwood, Ruskin’s home and gardens, is preserved and open to the public, as are two of the houses where Wordsworth lived in his adult years.

Author Beatrix Potter spent much of her early life here on holidays and became enthralled with the Lake District’s natural beauty and with its animal creatures. When proceeds from her books later provided the means toward independence, she bought a 17th-century farmhouse in the village of Sawrey, Hill Top (still preserved and open to the public). She became accomplished at sheep breeding, especially Herdwick sheep.

Passionate about conserving the Lake District, Potter bought up working farms and tracts of land. Upon her death in 1943, she bequeathed 14 farms and more than 4,000 acres altogether to the National Trust. As we took in the pathways, dales, mountains, lakes, and forest, the world of Wordsworth, Ruskin, and Potter felt very much alive around us, a direct line to the artists and thinkers of today. [Read more →]

→ 10 CommentsTags: ······

Summer Day’s Meditation at the Ashokan

August 25th, 2009 · Beyond Gotham

It’s the very essence of calm, a still surface of blue-silver water reflecting billowy cumulus clouds above. Large shafts of light pour down through the clouds at angles on the shoreline, creating swaths of light-green trees in the middle of darker pines and bejeweled light on the water.

On a 90-degree humid day, I can feel any momentary hint of cool off the water and even a small breeze. As the wind picks up a slight bit, it produces tiny ripples of movement on the water. Cicadas keep up their steady-buzz accompaniment, throbbing in high volume with momentary pauses.

This is an August afternoon at the Ashokan Reservoir, where things seem to all move slowly and one feels every stir of air. A world of blue-green mountains and water stands still. If you want to see the beautiful, deep fullness of the summer before its customary turn toward autumn and winter, the Ashokan Reservoir provides it. The very mountains, reservoir, and sky seem to say, “What’s the hurry? We’re not going anywhere.”

I’m walking the roadway that contains what locals know as the “Lemon Squeeze,” a crossing over a reservoir dam. The thin two-lane road has been closed to vehicular traffic since September 11, 2001, due to concerns about the security of the dam. The reservoir is a major one in New York City’s water supply system. Thus, the road is now a pedestrian-only place.

It’s an elevated walk that allows a grand view of the play of water, light, and the Catskill Mountains. To the northwest on this August day a light haze covers the most distant mountains, which are edged in slivers of blue. The rolling forest southeast stretches out in the opposite direction from the walkway, and it’s full, soft, and inviting.

Many of us hate August heat, while others thrive in it. Nature itself doesn’t hint of its preferences – it knows only being. So when I feel crabby about the afternoon’s stickiness, I know that the Ashokan will show me a way to be with the hot summer. [Read more →]

→ 4 CommentsTags: ····

Taking In the Subway’s Old Powerhouse

August 10th, 2009 · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York

It was on the perimeter of a legendary slum that back then fit its name, Hell’s Kitchen. Yet it was conceived and designed by men in suits who believed that fine, grand civic buildings served to reflect the great accomplishments and ambitious aims of a city crossing a threshold. The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) built and opened its gigantic powerhouse in 1904 to generate enough electricity to power New York City’s first subway system.

When it opened, it spawned praise and wonder far and wide, perhaps most from those who were knowledgeable enough to understand just how intricate and demanding a challenge it was to construct. The heaviest sections of steelwork for the powerhouse were of the same class as bridge girders, not ordinary building steel components, according to a 1904 article in The New York Times. The Scientific American observed in 1904 that the boiler room would ultimately house 72 boilers, with an aggregate heating surface of 432,576 square feet, and above the boiler house was a coal bunker able to hold 18,000 tons of coal. When fully constructed, it would be capable of producing more power than any electrical plant ever built, the IRT said.

But who knew that all of this industrial firing and generating went on inside? Its grand design and French Renaissance-style facade gave the feeling that the building housed paintings, books, or high courts of law, not boilers, engines, condensers, steam pipes, and coal bunkers. The IRT directors paid personal attention to the design of the plant’s exterior. Renowned architect Stanford White, whose designs of civic buildings and mansions included the second Madison Square Garden (demolished in 1925), the Washington Square Arch, the Judson Memorial Church, and the house of Charles Tiffany (demolished in 1936), volunteered his services and was responsible for the exterior design.

When it was completed, the powerhouse was a gorgeous, fine, and sophisticated building, with a facade of Roman brick and a prodigious amount of beautiful terra cotta decoration, on a granite base. It was a shining example of the Beaux Arts style employed in the City Beautiful movement. Moreover, the IRT building stands today as a remaining industrial witness to a time when New York City was energized by big dreams and desires to connect its far-flung parts and growing population and to use the latest technological discoveries to do so. [Read more →]

→ 4 CommentsTags: ······

The Glories of New York’s Stoopscapes

July 27th, 2009 · Explore New York

Like other city dwellers, New Yorkers follow the progress of the days and seasons on the details of the buildings and structures around them, from the rosy-pink and golden light of dusk upon the brick and stone to the melting of snow on window sills or the glint and angle of sunrise caught between two walls. New York’s iron railings and stoops offer one such place. Andrew Berrien Jones has cast his attuned eye to them and committed what he has seen and experienced to canvas, creating a visual poetry of light, shadow, color, and form.

To Jones, the ubiquitous “stoopscapes” are many things: the settings of daily and seasonal cycles, part of the city’s “urban ruins,” places where the spirits of the past accompany us as we traverse the steps, and embodiments of the legacy of the artisan, he writes. They are tangible proof of time’s advance. One can observe all of these aspects in Jones’ paintings, which are the subject of an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, located at 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, until Aug. 9.

The exhibit, “Stoops of Manhattan: Railings and Shadows,” is of more than 20 oil paintings of the decorative ironwork from homes of the 1830s and 1840s. Even a glance at these paintings makes one more aware and appreciative of a part of the streetscape that we touch, hold, and walk near but don’t always consider.

Jones’ subjects speak of the walking life: He paints primarily within walking distance of his home in New York’s West Village. His subjects are drawn from the time period, the 1830s through the mid-1840s, when the construction of grand townhouses on the north side of Washington Square heralded the establishment of the Greek Revival style in New York’s domestic architecture, according to the exhibit notes. It’s amazing and gratitude-inducing to consider how these iron railings have lasted, year in and year out, for a time that’s not that shy of 200 years. [Read more →]

→ 2 CommentsTags: ····

New York’s Great Sunset Spots: Pier 84

July 17th, 2009 · Explore New York

Several children splash through the dancing waters of an interactive fountain, a guitarist plays at P.D. O’Hurley’s bar, a woman points out a gargoyle in the flower garden to her toddler daughter, and dogs and humans socialize at the dog run. A man lies on a landing, with his khaki-dressed legs draping over the steps, as he looks straight up at an open sky. All along the pier, people lounge in the sun and grass, leaving the sweat of the streets behind to catch the evening breeze off the Hudson River. New York City’s Pier 84 is a tale of resurrection. Not so long ago a crusty, decaying though very interesting pier, it’s now a playground and a refuge.

It’s also my nominee for one of New York City’s great places to view a sunset. (This is the first designated “Great Sunset Spot”; Mindfulwalker.com plans other periodic explorations of both sunrises and sunsets through New York’s five boroughs.)

Pier 84 (located right off 12th Avenue near West 44th Street), opened three years ago after a restoration and renovation, is the largest public pier in Hudson River Park, and it offers a bunch of everything for those who love the city’s edges of water: a classroom and interpretive area; an interactive water play area with pumps and little canal gates; fishing; bike rental; water taxi stop; and more. The Circle Line boats are to the south and the Intrepid is to the north. The view west is the Hudson, an open sky, and the hills of New Jersey’s urban places on the Palisades, as fine a place as any to watch the sun dip nightly. The view east is of Midtown’s skyscrapers, a reflection of differing shadows and light as evening progresses.

Summer Sunset

On a warm, slightly muggy summer evening this week on Pier 84, this show is mine for not a cent. At the western end of the pier, the breeze cools, the Hudson’s waves roll easily, and the shorebirds flap in the distance. A lone kayaker glides by, rhythmically paddling at one with the river. You have the feeling of water all around. Often when I look across the river here, I get the sense of a whole land out there, America spreading westward just beyond that hill of the Palisades. Here the sky is as open a place as anywhere in the city.

The steeple of a church in Weehawken, with a flag flying, stands out in the evening silhouette across the river. The sun becomes a huge orangish yellow-gold ball, bathed in pink hues, as it moves lower toward the horizon. To the north, the willowy outlines of the George Washington Bridge lie, with faint pink clouds and misty fog around the bridge. Along the river ply the boats, ferries, and barges. Still, all seems to move in slower motion, even the jets flying low above the western horizon. As the sun dips below the horizon line, it leaves a red glow around the trees atop the Palisides’ cliff.

Sunset, Pier 84, NYC

As the sun sets, the streetlights punctuate the Hudson’s western shoreline. Light, shadow, and color play minute by minute in a varied symphony. The river’s surfaces have a silvery glow with blue speckles bubbling. In the distance, the western sky grows rosier and pink-edged clouds hold the sun’s remaining reflections of twilight. Pointing out a big cloud rimmed in such light, a woman says “that’s the God cloud.” The river turns all shimmery, and as time moves on, the western sky becomes streaked with blue-gray and purplish clouds in formations that invite childlike imagination (a profile of a face, a puppy dog).

Turning back east toward the city, I see the lights of the Chrysler Building and the rest of Midtown Manhattan coming up as the night darkens. The evening’s sunset is over, not quite like yesterday’s, surely not the same as tomorrow’s.

→ 4 CommentsTags: ···

A Summer Walk at the Irish Memorial

July 10th, 2009 · Explore New York

“Could it be possible that a landscape might have a deep friendship with you? That it could sense your presence and feel the care you extend towards it?”

John O’Donohue
Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

If we are blessed with such kinship, then the Irish Hunger Memorial is a place of its embrace. This small. lush pocket, off New York City’s Battery Park City Esplanade, calls to me. I breathe more deeply here.

On a summer day, the brilliant green landscape has a wildness not seen in other seasons. Vines overflow, yellows and oranges are bursting. Flowers grow out of seemingly inhospitable crevices in the stone walls. It always feels windy at the top of this quarter-acre, which is cantilevered above a foundation and tunnel, with a breeze coming off the Hudson River.

Standing at certain places and looking up at the furrowing hillside and the stone walls, you can forget you’re in Lower Manhattan. It’s hard to believe that skyscrapers, hundreds of residences, and traffic are so nearby. I love its beauty and quiet.

Irish Hunger Memorial - Landscape

[Read more →]

→ 3 CommentsTags: ······

Wal-Mart: A Step Closer at the Wilderness

July 1st, 2009 · Beyond Gotham

If land where the Union and Confederacy fought the Battle of the Wilderness in the Civil War is to remain hallowed ground, now is the time to speak up. Within the boundaries of this historic battlefield in Orange County, Virginia, Wal-Mart proposes to build a 138,000-square-foot supercenter. Its plans for the commercial development received the go-ahead from the Orange County Planning Commission on June 25 by a 5-4 vote, and the proposal goes to the five-member Orange County Board of Supervisors for the crucial vote.

Not only is the plot within the historic boundaries of where one of the most important battles of the Civil War took place, it’s also just across the road from the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. The phased-proposal calls for ultimately constructing 240,000 square feet of big-box commercial development on a 52-acre parcel owned by JDC Ventures of Vienna, Va., including Wal-Mart’s supercenter and three other sites for stores or restaurants. Wal-Mart is pressing ahead despite an eruption of fierce opposition in the past year. (For background, see “Wal-Mart’s Threat to a Historic Battlefield” on Mindfulwalker.com.)

However, a coalition of local, state, and national groups – plus historians and celebrities such as David McCullough and Robert Duvall and concerned citizens – aren’t letting up in their campaign to persuade Wal-Mart to relocate away from the historic park and battlefield. Duvall is a descendant of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The coalition includes the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Civil War Preservation Trust, the Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, the National Parks Conservation Association, and five other nonprofit groups.

Wal-Mart has one major remaining local hurdle in its effort – receiving approval from the Orange County Board of Supervisors for a special-use permit for the project. It is required because the project is larger than 60,000 square feet.

An update: Two hearings are scheduled on this matter. The Planning Commission is doing its public hearing over on Aug. 20 at 7 p.m. in the Orange County High School, because of a discovery that the first “was not properly advertised,” according to an article in the Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg, Va.  The Orange County Board of Supervisors has slated its public hearing on the proposed Wal-Mart on Aug. 24.

“Gravely Concerned”

The National Trust for Historic Preservation and its allies remain “gravely concerned” about the proposed Wal-Mart development on this historic land, says Robert Nieweg, director of the National Trust’s Southern Field Office in Washington D.C. “Our analysis shows that Wal-Mart’s project would irrevocably harm the battlefield, undermine the visitor’s experience of the National Park, and open the door for more incompatible large-scale development at the gateway to Orange County,” Nieweg says in an e-mail to Mindfulwalker.com. [Read more →]

→ 6 CommentsTags: ·

Mindful Walker: A Chat With New Colonist

June 19th, 2009 · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York

We met through Twitter and had our first real conversation for a podcast. What a world! Eric Miller is passionate about creating great and healthy cities and other communities, and so am I. He is the editor/publisher of The New Colonist, a site where he and Richard Risemberg chronicle the return of many from life in suburbia and the resurgence and sustainability of city living, in the U.S. and globally. Like me, he is a New Yorker with roots near Pittsburgh who is constantly thinking about cities and suburbs.

A series of weekly podcasts at Newcolonist.com has been exploring arts and culture in various cities, bicycling and other transportation choices, what’s next for suburbia, walkable places, and other aspects of sustainable living. This week, Miller interviewed me for a Newcolonist.com podcast. We discussed the Mindful Walker, walking New York and appreciating architecture, what you experience when walking compared with driving, comparisons of New York and Pittsburgh, changes in Hell’s Kitchen, the challenges of “creative destruction” co-existing with historic preservation, Coney Island, and more.

It’s a conversation that touches upon everything from whether people are aware of their surroundings as they walk around the city to the wonderful, new lawn chairs in Times Square. If you’re so inclined, grab a cup of coffee or tea and give a listen:

A Conversation With the Mindful Walker

(Note: I listened to this podcast through Internet Explorer, which opened the Windows Media Player. This seemed to offer a better listening experience for me than through the Firefox browser, which I customarily use. You can listen to the Newcolonist.com podcasts from this page, or if you have iTunes installed on your computer, you may subscribe to this series through the iTunes store. The Newcolonist.com podcasts are free of charge.) [Read more →]

→ 2 CommentsTags: ······

Kingston Point’s Varied Lives

June 10th, 2009 · Beyond Gotham

Sometimes, surprising beauty lies behind a nondescript gate. At the end of a long street in Kingston, N.Y., and behind a wrought iron gate, lies a sparkling little park. It’s situated on the Hudson River near where the Rondout Creek flows into the wide river, so that water seems to surround the park. It has a backdrop of wooded trails and an inlet, a gentle place that Frederick Law Olmsted would have approved. Looking out at the Hudson, a dear friend and I watched the river lap quietly, walked the railroad tracks along the shoreline, and listened to the birds flying to and fro above the inlet.

It’s a peaceful scene. Yet a look at the railroad tracks prompted other images, of crowds in Victorian dress arriving by the thousands on a Hudson River steamboat from New York City. They rode the carousel at its amusement park, danced at its big pavilion, stayed at the hotel on the hill, and viewed concerts and fireworks. From the landing, many connected with trains that would take them to the Catskills.

Both scenes above occurred in the same spot, Kingston Point, but a century apart. It’s a place today to explore and feel nature and to envision a prior life as a city escape and playground for thousands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, it’s called Kingston Point Rotary Park (photos). We found it quite accidentally, after walking at the nearby riverfront beach portion of Kingston Point Park. As we were leaving, my friend spotted the wrought iron gate with the words “Kingston Point Park 1897|1992.” Intrigued, we walked through the gate and along a path down to the park, discovering a small pedestrian bridge, cookout area, benches, and trails, much of it with a view of the Hudson River. Heaven! [Read more →]

→ 11 CommentsTags: ····

Teach-In Set at Underground RR House

May 26th, 2009 · Explore New York

In the mid-19th century, runaway slaves found protection in an Underground Railroad “safe house” on West 29th Street in New York, as they fled northward to freedom. A century and a half later, a group of Bronx high school students plan to take a journey of their own in defense of this house.

The students, from Bronx Lab School, have been training to bike a 250-mile stretch of the Underground Railroad in Ohio this summer. But the cause of the Underground Railroad safe house is prompting them to do a bike trek far closer to home. On Friday, May 29, they plan to cycle from the Bronx to Manhattan, to the Hopper-Gibbons House at 339 West 29th St. Nearby, they’ll participate in a morning teach-in about the house’s history and join a group of neighbors and preservationists who are seeking to halt and reverse a renovation project they maintain imperils the house’s history and architectural integrity.

Starting at 11 a.m. on Friday, the group – which is maintaining a blog called Save Abigail Hopper-Gibbons House – plans to conduct a teach-in and press briefing, alerting the public to the construction project that is heightening this row house at least a story higher than its neighboring dwellings. All of the houses were built in the late 1840s. Fern Luskin and Julie Finch, the event’s organizers, say that preservationists and political leaders will join them.

“The aim of this event is to alert people to the necessity of preserving this historic treasure from the disfiguring and illegal alterations that have been constructed there,” Luskin and Finch noted in an announcement.

The controversy over the house has been going on for several years. Since 2007, Luskin, Finch, and others have fought to stop the renovation. They maintain it damages the historical integrity of a place where Quaker abolitionists Abigail Hopper Gibbons and her husband, James Sloan Gibbons, provided safe passage to slaves before and during the Civil War and where Abigail Gibbons met with abolitionist John Brown. The home became a target of angry mobs during the Draft Riots of 1863. [Read more →]

→ 2 CommentsTags: ······

Sparks Over an Underground Railroad Site

May 11th, 2009 · Explore New York

Is the architectural and historical integrity of a New York City mid-19th century row house that served as a “safe house” for the Underground Railroad during the Civil War being imperiled again? Neighbors and local historic preservationists certainly believe so, and they’re again fighting to stop construction at the Hopper-Gibbons House, at 339 W. 29th St., in Manhattan. The row house was a sanctuary that runaway slaves used while making their escape to freedom along the Underground Railroad.

Work resumed recently on putting a rooftop addition on the building, which would enlarge it a full story higher than its neighboring row houses, according to Fern Luskin and Julie Finch in the Historic Districts Council (HDC) Newsstand blog, which shows construction photos.

Those supporting protection of the row house are trying to get to the bottom of whether construction is proceeding illegally. But a New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) inspection concluded on the morning of May 11 that the owners are proceeding according to DOB-approved plans (see update below). This fight has been ongoing for several years, as neighbors, preservationists, and some public officials have sought and succeeded at times in halting renovation of the historic house.

Ironically, this renewed renovation work is happening at the same time that this row of houses, including the Hopper-Gibbons House, is nearing possible landmark designation. But this may make no difference. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is considering possible designation of the Hopper-Gibbons House and 11 of its neighboring mid-19th century row houses as the Lamartine Place Historic District (photo). The Greek Revival-style houses were built in 1847 on the northern side of West 29th Street, from Eighth to Ninth Avenue. The block was known then as Lamartine Place. [Read more →]

→ 2 CommentsTags: ····

Thirty-Minute Tour: Bowling Green

May 3rd, 2009 · Explore New York

Stand in Bowling Green Park in New York City and look around at the park and the buildings on its perimeter. At one time or another over the centuries here, Native American tribes gathered in council, men and women bought tickets for ocean passage in a couple of the nearby buildings, and John D. Rockefeller oversaw his dominating oil company and his charitable work from an office in another. In the late 19th century thousands marching in support of workers ended their Labor Day parades in Bowling Green, and many grand ticker tape parades have started here. To get a compact experience of history, great architecture, and a peaceful respite, Bowling Green and the area adjacent to it in Lower Manhattan provide as good as any space in New York.

If you hang out in Bowling Green for even a short while, you’ll notice that scads of tourists pose for photos at the northern tip in front of the famous “Charging Bull,” Arturo Di Modica’s statue placed here in 1989. The artist created the bronze sculpture following the 1987 stock market crash as a symbol of the strength of the American people. Given the market’s dizzying decline this past year, you might want to stop here and call on the bull’s spirit again.

You also may sense, as I have, that many come and go from the statue without even looking around them at the park or its surroundings, and they’re missing a lot. In that spirit, here’s a walking tour of Bowling Green and a number of the most noteworthy buildings around it.

International Mercantile Marine Company Building, 1 Broadway

Part of the allure of the corner of Broadway and Battery Place is one of this spot’s prior lives. The first Dutch fort of Manhattan, known as Fort Amsterdam, stood just south of here, at the time that the Dutch founded their settlement in the early 1600s. This is the place where Broadway begins, and as I look northward thinking of this long avenue I have a sense of so much of the city’s aliveness and history.

The name of the building at 1 Broadway is a mouthful, but it comes from the ambitious trust company, formed in 1902, that combined a number of American and British steamship companies in hopes of dominating shipping. J.P. Morgan backed it financially, and it struggled and ultimately failed, by 1932. This company owned the Titanic, since the White Star Line was one of its subsidiaries. [Read more →]

→ 2 CommentsTags: ···

Earth Day in New York: 1970 and 2009

April 22nd, 2009 · Explore New York

John Lindsay was mayor of New York. It was the spring of 1970, when the United States was bogged down in a far-off land in the Vietnam War and divided at home, labor strikes roiled the country, and the Beatles officially broke up. On April 22, 1970, 39 years ago, a spirit of passion, anger, and celebration came together on the first Earth Day: An estimated 20 million people took part in teach-ins, festivities, and demonstrations across the U.S. By 2009, Earth Day has spread to a global affair, with 180 countries marking it. New York City has plenty to see and do as part of Earth Week.

New York rarely does anything small, and so it was with Earth Day, 1970. The city was the site of one of the largest, most impressive Earth Day celebrations in the nation. On Mayor Lindsay’s orders, the city closed Fifth Avenue between 14th Street and 59th Street to vehicles for two hours. One horse-drawn buggy, carrying members of a neighborhood association, was the sole vehicle in the “autoless” space, as one reporter called it.

The New York Times gave front-page coverage to Earth Day, with the headline “Millions Join Earth Day Observances Across the Nation.” Underneath the banner headline, a photograph of Fifth Avenue showed the entire avenue filled with thousands upon thousands of people. On the street, a group of demonstrators carried dead fish in a net to call attention to the fish kills occurring in waters such as the polluted Hudson River. “You’re next, people,” they shouted, according to the Times.

Midtown Manhattan was part of a citywide convergence. Between Third and Seventh avenues, 14th Street, closed to traffic, became an ecological carnival. Teach-ins, demonstrations, and other events drew huge crowds to Union Square in the largest outpouring there since the socialist rallies of the 1930s. Governor Nelson Rockefeller rode his bicycle to Prospect Park and then gave a speech there. Schoolchildren, supplied with brooms, shovels, and rakes, cleaned up beaches and parks across the region. [Read more →]

→ 6 CommentsTags: ··

Springtime at the Irish Hunger Memorial

April 15th, 2009 · Explore New York

New York City may seem like a curious place to go looking to see gorse, the small shrub that thrives in rural fields and along hillsides, its yellow flowers rippling across the countryside in spring. But there’s at least one sure place I’ve enjoyed the sight of it in New York – the Irish Hunger Memorial in Lower Manhattan. Also known as furze, gorse is native to Western Europe. Fields of purple heather and bright yellow gorse flowers in Ireland and Scotland have thrilled and inspired many a painter and photographer.

Reading a verse about gorse inspired me to take a walk to the Irish Hunger Memorial, which is tucked just off the Battery Park City Esplanade at Vesey Street and North End Avenue, within view of the Hudson River. With April’s sunny, warm days beckoning, I was seeking a closer encounter with spring. Often even the smallest patch of green or courtyard offers a place of repose where one can go into the silence and enter another world, even in the midst of New York City.

The Irish famine memorial is such a place. Designed by artist Brian Tolle, it combines two starkly different elements, a small plot of Irish pastureland with stone fences, rocks, and native plants, cantilevered above a modernist base, that together commemorate the famine of the 1840s and early 1850s in which more than a million people died of hunger and disease in Ireland. Hundreds of thousands of Irish left their homeland and emigrated to the United States.

Dedicated in 2002, the memorial is, in a major sense, a place to learn about the famine, how a potato blight and political failure resulted in mass starvation and death, and about hunger in the world today. It’s also a setting to contemplate how much the land in Ireland must have represented both nature’s splendor and its forbidding qualities.

My partner has Irish roots, and the sight of gorse takes her back to the land of beauty and spiritual sustenance that inspired and nurtured her on a trip in the 1990s. It’s almost like she is seeing an old friend. If you can’t get to Ireland this spring, you can experience a touch of it at the Irish memorial, in both its compact tranquil setting and in a landscape of indigenous plants and flowers that increasingly will come alive as spring unfolds. [Read more →]

→ 1 CommentTags: ····

The Place That Powered the Subway Lines

March 29th, 2009 · Explore New York

Its architecture and ornate decoration reflect the City Beautiful movement, in which public buildings were expressions of a city’s beauty, order, and harmony. Yet it had a belly-of-the-beast interior containing massive boilers, conveyors, engines, steam pipes, and seven bunkers capable of holding up to 18,000 tons of coal. The Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) Company Powerhouse was truly a structure of its time, originally built in 1904, a classically inspired place extolling magnificence along with technological innovation and industrial might. This building, which takes up an entire block from West 58th to West 59th Street and 11th to 12th Avenues in Manhattan, generated and supplied electricity for New York City’s first subway lines.

The Municipal Art Society is calling for the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate the IRT Powerhouse as a landmark. The MAS is hoping that the third time’s a charm since similar efforts failed twice before, in 1979 and 1990. Several other preservation and neighborhood groups, such as Landmark West and the Riverside South Planning Corporation, have joined MAS in urging the commission to designate the IRT Powerhouse as a landmark and in considering ways that the building could be adapted for other uses (e.g., a cogeneration plant, a museum). A not-for-profit organization, the Hudson River Powerhouse Group, has formed and is working to secure landmarking status.

To the MAS and others, it’s a matter of not only recognizing the powerhouse’s architectural significance but also its crucial role during an extraordinarily innovative period in New York City history and its place in the city’s industrial heritage.

In his book on the construction of the subway system, 722 Miles: The Building of the Subways and How They Transformed New York, author Clifton Hood called the IRT powerhouse “a classical temple that paid homage to modern industry.” I’ve walked and biked past this building countless times and always feel struck by just how huge and impressive it is. It has the dignified, richly detailed appearance that one often associates with a library, courthouse, or other similarly grand public building.

For much of this, one can thank Stanford White, whose firm McKim, Mead, and White provided New York with so many of its distinctive buildings from the Brooklyn Museum to the Morgan Library. White was responsible for the exterior design and the selection of its materials. The exterior is of the French Renaissance style with lightly colored buff brick and terra cotta Beaux-Arts decorative elements, such as wreaths and swags, along the pilasters and above large arched windows. [Read more →]

→ 4 CommentsTags: ······

Wanna Buy an Art Deco Gem? Ask AIG

March 20th, 2009 · Explore New York

When corporate kingdoms fall, they often lose their castles. That may well be the case with AIG. The bailout-dependent conglomerate that has made “bonus rage” a media catchphrase said Wednesday that it’s considering the sale of its legendary 66-story headquarters at 70 Pine Street in Lower Manhattan, Bloomberg confirmed. Like other assets that the American International Group is divesting itself of, this one would almost surely reap a far lower sales price in this depressed market than a couple of years ago.

Yet any price decline isn’t saying a thing about what an architectural and historical treasure this building is. The American International Building, if you have never checked it out or been inside, is one of the most dazzling Art Deco skyscrapers in New York, with an interesting pedigree. Completed in 1932, when the skyline around it wasn’t packed with towers, it stood out as the tallest building in Lower Manhattan and it was then the third tallest in the world. It’s known as one of the last great skyscrapers of the Jazz Age, the exuberant time after World War I during which Art Deco flourished.

Today, one thinks of Texas, the Gulf Coast, or the Middle East as the center of the oil industry, but not in those days. Henry Doherty, an oilman, founded the Cities Service Company in 1910. It became a highly profitable oil, gas, and electricity producer and supplier. Doherty, also a real estate developer, built the company’s headquarters in the prestigious heart of New York’s Financial District. [Read more →]

→ 11 CommentsTags: ···