Joseph Mitchell possessed a lifelong fascination with New York City’s survivors, both its characters and its buildings, especially ones that often escaped notice. For some 26 years, from 1938 to 1964, his essays in The New Yorker portrayed the city’s inhabitants from the bearded Lady Olga of circus sideshows and the stout Germans carrying their […]
Entries Tagged as 'new york'
Pennsylvania Station: Its Glory and Death
February 18th, 2014 · 9 Comments · Explore New York
If ever a hallowed place existed for the travel of the common man and woman, it was New York’s original Pennsylvania Station. Yet a magnificent, soaring station that Alexander Cassatt and the Pennsylvania Railroad built for the ages and opened in 1910 lasted barely over a half-century. Two days after workers started tearing down the […]
Tags: architecture·Beaux Arts·historic preservation·landmarks·manhattan·new york
Art Deco Jazz in Brooklyn Heights
January 19th, 2014 · 19 Comments · Explore New York
Naomi Fatouros, one of three children of architect H.I. Feldman, once wrote that her father “had no pretensions about being artistic.” Still, architects and builders had high regard for Feldman for creating building plans that minimized construction costs and that provided renters and buyers with good views and high-quality apartment layouts, she said in the […]
Tags: architecture·art deco·Brooklyn·new york
The Art Deco Pleasures of 29 Broadway
November 15th, 2013 · 6 Comments · Explore New York
Their names are unknown, but the fine results of their craftsmanship remain today. On an evening in late February, 1931, the New York Building Congress gave awards and gold buttons to 26 craftsmen for their outstanding work in constructing 29 Broadway. The awards went to William John Delaney, a stonecutter; Louis Materossi, a cement mason; […]
New York’s Dark Days: The Draft Riots
July 18th, 2013 · No Comments · Explore New York
On July 13, 1863, Chief Engineer John Decker of the New York City Volunteer Fire Department stood before a mob that had ransacked a building and were now intent on setting it afire. It was known as the Colored Orphan Asylum, a refuge for hundreds of black children located on Fifth Avenue between 42nd and […]
Tags: civil war·historic preservation·landmarks·manhattan·new york·women
Silhouettes, Shadows, and the Solstice
December 27th, 2012 · 16 Comments · Beyond Gotham
Perhaps the days of shortest daylight create a more intense desire to savor the play of light and shadow. We have just passed the winter solstice on Dec. 21, experiencing the shortest time of daylight for each day. It’s our all-too-human tendency to not appreciate something when we have it in abundance, say, when a […]
Our Connection to the Prison Ship Martyrs
September 5th, 2012 · 4 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York
The thousands of Revolutionary War prisoners who died in horrible and inhumane conditions aboard ships moored in New York waters form one of the most neglected chapters of American history. Many New Yorkers and Americans do not know about or have forgotten these prisoners, even though a far larger number of those fighting for the […]
NYC’s Sunset Spots: Brooklyn Bridge Park
February 14th, 2012 · 2 Comments · Explore New York
In a city that is perpetually in motion, a sunset is an irresistible invitation to become still. Our days often have an agenda. Our walks are often preoccupied. But then it happens: At dusk the sun, sky, and water begin their dance of countless subtle movements. In New York’s open spaces edged by sky and […]
9/11: Still-Searing Images
September 16th, 2011 · 3 Comments · Explore New York
Every early September a day comes that is just beautiful – particularly sunny, bright, and gently warm. On such days, I’m sure many feel it again as clearly as if it was yesterday. That Tuesday 10 years ago, the morning was clear and warm, with radiant sunshine, the kind that makes you cup your eyes […]
Tags: landmarks·manhattan·meditations·new york·spiritual places
Meditation: Looking Mindfully At Details
August 5th, 2011 · 6 Comments · Explore New York
In the middle of a number of us playing soccer on a delightful summer evening, one of my partner’s grandchildren said, “Look at that sky!” The sky just before sunset was full of large pink, gray, white, and lavender swirling patterns above. How wonderful that she was aware of the beauty around us and shared […]
A Bit of the 19th Century on Lispenard
June 10th, 2011 · 20 Comments · Explore New York
Every once in a while I turn down a street in New York and suddenly think, “How have the bulldozers and the glass towers not obliterated this one?” Lispenard Street is one such place, a quiet street of a few blocks that is seemingly forgotten just one block south of the crazy, hustle-bustle free-for-all of […]
Tags: architecture·historic preservation·manhattan·new york·Tribeca
Details, Details: Greenwich Street
April 27th, 2011 · 2 Comments · Explore New York
“Manhattan” and “quiet” are two words that many people do not associate with each other and put together in the same sentence. Yet many pockets of Manhattan offer quiet, especially when we calm the mind enough to find the inner peace that allows it. As one of those Manhattan walkers whose mind often can be […]
A Tree Grows in Chain Link
April 15th, 2011 · 9 Comments · Explore New York
New York City has 5.2 million trees, and each one of them has a life story. For a very long time, a lovely European larch has marked the seasons for those walking in Central Park. It is a deciduous conifer whose needle-like leaves turn yellow in the autumn and fall off. A tulip tree in […]
Tags: manhattan·meditations·nature·new york
Honoring Triangle’s Victims in the Streets
March 24th, 2011 · 4 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York
A year after the tragic Triangle shirtwaist factory fire in 1911, sculptor Evelyn Beatrice Longman created a memorial, commissioned by the City of New York, to the seven female victims whose remains could not be identified. The city installed the sculpture with little public attention in the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn. This memorial […]
New York Recalls the Triangle Factory Fire
March 10th, 2011 · 8 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York
“Rose Mehl – 15 years old.” The words jump out from the flip side of a business card on which they are imprinted. Rose was a Jewish girl who lived on East 7th Street in New York, and she had a job as a factory worker. Her name and age are printed on the back […]
A Riveting Blue in the Lower East Side
January 21st, 2011 · 2 Comments · Explore New York
Sometimes a building just says “look at me” before you know it and your eyes are captivated in curiosity and wonder. It was an icy cold January afternoon with a brisk breeze, on a walk south of Grand Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The brick storefronts of the 19th century tenement buildings beckoned warmly, […]
Tags: architecture·manhattan·new york
Lost and Found in the West 40s
January 7th, 2011 · 16 Comments · Explore New York
Walking and loving a New York street is akin to a long-term relationship. It’s an experience of both exhilaration and dejection, of losses and gains, times of discovery and times of pain. Sometimes you feel all is lost, and during others you can’t believe your good fortune. New Yorkers who love the streets know this […]
Tags: architecture·manhattan·midtown·new york
Order Unheeded at Underground RR Home
December 13th, 2010 · 6 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York
One hundred and fifty years ago, escaping slaves found a safe shelter at the home of Quaker abolitionists who lived at 339 West 29th St. in New York City. The family risked their lives in harboring the slaves. During the Draft Riots that erupted in the city in 1863, the family came under attack for […]
Tags: architecture·historic preservation·landmarks·manhattan·new york·women
In Our Midst: The Prison Ship Martyrs
September 30th, 2010 · 38 Comments · Explore New York
To walk thoughtfully around the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park is to be asked to delve into a story of unspeakable horror that took place right in New York City’s waters during the Revolutionary War. It’s a story that many of us in the 21st century do not know or one […]
The Place Where the Draft Riots Erupted
July 16th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Explore New York
Only 10 days after the Union won a decisive victory in the Battle of Gettysburg in July, 1863, the city of New York suffered through its own brutal and bloody violence, amid the streets and buildings. Class, racial, and ethnic tensions had been brewing in New York for decades, finally brought to a head by […]
