PODCAST One of America's oldest cultural institutions, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (or BAM) has an unusual history that spans over 150 years and two separate locations. We trace the story from the earliest roots of a Manhattan-Brooklyn rivalry and a discussion of high-class tastes to the greatest stars of the performing arts, including a couple tragic tales and a bizarre event involving the mother of modern dance.
Featuring horse tricks, French balls, a 'flirtation' post office, a bit of ski jumping.and a cavalcade of BAM's greatest stars -- Enrico Caruso, Merce Cunningham, Edwin Booth and his brother John Wilkes Booth!
ALSO: We uncover what may be the very first foreign films ever shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, many decades before the opening of their movie theaters.
The first Brooklyn Academy of Music, on Montague Street, nearby Brooklyn City Hall. Among the decades of great events here were Brooklyn's Sanitary Fair, a speech by Booker T. Washington, an amusing lecture by Mark Twain and the final stage performance of Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth. (source)
The building was destroyed by fire in 1903, and not everybody was sad to see it go. Here's actual film footage of the flames atop the old Brooklyn building:
Compare this to New York's own Academy of Music, at 14th Street and Irving Place. Although this venue brought the American debuts of many famous operas (including Carmen), festivities deteriorated once the Manhattan wealth moved up to the Metropolitan Opera House. This building was demolished in 1926. [source]
Edwin Booth, in his signature role as Hamlet, 1870. If some at the original Brooklyn Academy of Music had had their way, Booth would never have performed there! [LOC]
Isadora Duncan, who brought modern dance to BAM, and it never left. (source)
BAM in 1978: After a few decades of hardship, the venue, at its new home on Lafayette Avenue, rebounded in the 1960s, serving the artistic passions of the neighborhood and fostering a provocative relationship with the biggest names in avant garde performance. (Pic by Dinanda Nooney, NYPL)
The fascinating directions that BAM executive direction Harvey Lichtenstein took the venue opened its stage up to new and exciting performances. And, often, a raucous good time as well, as with this 1989 rain forest benefit, featuring Madonna and Sandra Bernhard. (Photo by Albert Ferreira, LIFE)
MORE PICTURES ON THE WAY LATER THIS WEEKEND
For more information on their schedule, visit the BAM website. They also have a great history blog BAM 150 Years where we obtained some of our information.
New Yorkers greet the Queen with a tickertape parade in 1957. Courtesy jeffs4653/Flickr
What do you buy a queen on her Diamond Jubilee, celebrating 60 years on the British throne? Well, most royal figures are quite difficult to buy for, but luckily, Queen Elizabeth has already revealed her preference in local department stores. For back in 1976, the woman who never goes shopping found herself one late afternoon perusing the merchandise at Bloomingdale's department store.
Queen Elizabeth has been to New York three times during her sixty year reign over the Commonwealth. In a couple cases, she came specifically to address the governing body at the United Nations Headquarters but managed squeeze in a few extra activities each time, befitting her status as one of New York's wealthiest, most high profile tourists.
She first arrived in 1957, via Staten Island, riding over to Manhattan in an Army ferryboat. In the harbor, she caught sight of the newly built replica of the Mayflower (the Mayflower II), fresh from its completed voyage retracing the Pilgrims' course over the Atlantic. The Queen was nearly wide-eyed during the ticker tape parade in her honor, with over a million New Yorkers lining the streets to see the young monarch, from City Hall to the Waldorf-Astoria.
Her favorite moment arrived after the UN session, when she was whisked to the top of the Empire State Building to gaze out of the hazy city. Like any great New York trip, she was out too late, arriving at Idlewild Airport at 2 in the morning for her trip home. She shared her thoughtful take on her experiences here: "The mental pictures of New York are nearer reality than those of any other city."
Below: Queen Elizabeth on her second visit to New York, 1976, courtesy Madison Guy/Flickr
In 1976, she and Prince Phillip returned the city, a bit older and less desirous of scaling skyscrapers this time around. As part of the city's bi-centennial celebrations -- and perhaps inspired by the Mayflower on her previous visit -- the Queen decided to participate in a little historical reenactment herself. Most famously, the Queen graced the steps of Trinity Church to receive back rent owed the crown -- 279 peppercorns. (I wonder where they found peppercorns in 1976 Manhattan, this being the days before Whole Foods?) A bronze plaque presently marks the spot at Trinity where she accepted the peppercorns.
After a luncheon at the Waldorf ("relaxed, animated and fairly hungry"), the royals fit in a couple unusual stops. The first was a spot of afternoon tea at the Morris-Jumel Mansion, accompanied by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Afterwards, they sped downtown for a tour of Bloomingdale's, not only stopping traffic, but reversing it, to allow the Queen to exit her vehicle from the right side.
She quietly moved from floor to floor, admiring the many displays of products of British make, particularly the pottery and furniture. She was also greeted to a private fashion show, Her Majesty led through a room of mannequins garbed in the latest stylish trends from 1976. Along the way, a few American designers made appearances to greet Queen Elizabeth, including Calvin Klein.
What accounts for such an unusual detour in the Queen's itinerary? Apparently, bedazzled by her 1957 trip, she wanted to do as New Yorkers do. Or, as a representative of Bloomingdale's remarked, "we thought -- and the Queen agreed -- that it would be a very American experience for her to go amidst all the crowds and just pretend she might be shopping." [source]
If the entire event seems a tad surreal to you, this was then reinforced by the presentation of a Sioux peace pipe to the Queen, meant to "symbolize the peace that has existed between Great Britain and the United States."
This would be her lasting memory of New York for 35 years, until 2010, when she returned again for a few hours to address the UN and to visit Ground Zero. Given the sobriety of her visit, she did little sightseeing but braved the 100-degree weather with her trademark stolid grace.
Coney Island's Bowery strip, the most notorious area of the amusement district. In the center of the postcard, you can make out the sign for Wacke's establishment.
What's New York in the summertime without a free outdoor movie? Or for that matter, a regular film night in any New York bar? Believe it or not, this carefree pleasure has its roots in a small but significant decision that was made one hundred years ago this week.
In May of 1912, people were still reeling from the Titanic disaster and sorting through a messy presidential election between four viable presidential candidates (Woodrow Wilson, William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt and Eugene V Debs). But most left their worries behind once they stepped off the train at Coney Island, where the amusement parks were just opening their doors that month, making way for the summer crowds with an even wilder array of rides and shows.
Most of the amusements at Steeplechase Park were totally new, as a fire in 1907 had decimated most of the park. Nearby sat the ruins of Dreamland, destroyed in a fire in 1911 and never rebuilt. Luna Park also expanded in 1912 with many new rides, including one that seemed to mock the misfortunes of its rival parks -- the Great Fire Show, which presented a Western town ravaged in flame.
But a brand new entertainment was making itself known in Coney Island -- moving pictures. For instance, when Luna Park threw open its doors on May 25, 1912, the park contained a theater which presented some of the world's first color short films in the British-invented Kinemacolor process. (Here's an example of one of the films that may have exhibited here)
The popularity of motion pictures, which were often exhibited between vaudeville acts or in continuous runs in theaters called nickelodeons, soon exposed the fallacy of one particular New York law. For operators had to have a theater license in order to present a free show, even though, technically, a film could be easily displayed in a non-theatrical environment -- namely, a saloon.
Coney Island theater proprietor Herman Wacke, no stranger to the moving image, is touted by some as the first commercial exhibitor of a motion picture at his Trocadero Hotel in 1893. Wacke's hotel, a stalwart from Coney's early years located along a strip of cabarets and beerhalls affectionately called the Bowery, was nearly destroyed in the fire that consumed Steeplechase in 1907. In 1912, Wacke fanned a few new flames.
He began showing films for free in the saloon as a way to entice people to come in and purchase food and beer. Wacke's was probably the best known of many along the Bowery to exhibit films in this fashion. But the proprietor didn't have a license to do so, and during one particular sting, Wacke was arrested -- "charged with conducting a free show in connection with his bar" -- and fined $5. Not a huge sum of money for a successful saloon owner, and Wacke went willingly, becoming a test case for a law that many certainly thought was rigid and overly meddling.
The charge was eventually overturned by a Kings Country Supreme Court judge who announced that such incidental performances were not subject to the law. The decision was announced in a headline in the May 28, 1912, edition of the New York Evening World: Free "Movies" Are O.K. It Is No Crime If They Accompany The Beer And Hot Dogs.
The law would be challenged again a few years later by the owners of posh Manhattan cabaret Maxim's, who also presented so-called 'free' performances.
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As one of America's premier leisure destinations, Coney Island was so closely associated with films of this period that it even starred in a few of them, including Mack Sennett's 'At Coney Island' in 1912. There's even an Edison film from 1903 called 'Rube and Mandy at Coney Island'.
Of course the best Coney Island-themed silent film is the Buster Keaton/ Fatty Arbuckle comedy from 1917.
The recent trailer to Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby, aka 'Moulin Rouge in Manhattan', seems to have left everyone in a state of awe (and horror) in its vivid, hyper-electro-glossy depiction of Prohibition-era New York. And it left many feeling slight panic, even apoplexy, especially considering the entire spectacle will be rendered in 3D when it's released in December. Oh God. Will flappers kick whimsily towards the camera?
So how accurate was Lurhmann in his glamorous take on Times Square of 1922? How accurate was it supposed to be? Many have already taken note of one glaring and unforgivable error -- misspelling the name of Florenz Ziegfeld on the sign for the 'Ziegfeld Follies'. That ridiculous mistake overshadows a possibly smaller error, that the Follies were actually performed down at the New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street in 1922. However, the Follies from the year before were hosted at the Globe Theater on West 46th Street (today's Lunt-Fontanne Theatre), quite close to this sign. So perhaps they just kept it up.
Here's the entire trailer:
Clearly, Luhrmann is interpreting New York, not emulating it. 'Moulin Rouge', after all, was Paris through a hazy scrim. He's filtering the glitz of F. Scott Fitzgerald's work through his own dreamlike aesthetic and doesn't need to fact-check every sign and street corner. Still, the trailer does feature some interesting obscure details, and I can't help myself. If you saw a different detail, please post about it in the comments section:
-- Queensboro BridgeThe trailer opens with a spectacular look at the Queensboro Bridge, a potent symbol in the Fitzgerald novel. "Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money."
The bridge opened in 1909, and it's a defining image of the Jazz Age, not least of which because the population of Queens almost tripled during the 1920s. There were certainly trains on the Queensboro -- it was built to accommodate them -- but I'm not sure about that particular train. Below it sits grimy old Blackwell's Island, renamed Welfare Island in 1921 and certainly looking the part.
-- SkyscrapersOh Lord.I don't think this depicts New York at all but is a composite view of various buildings of the age. Far to the left in the trailer I see structures that look like the Singer Building and the Woolworth Building, but they would not be seen from this angle. Besides, the Woolworth would be taller than the Singer. See below for a size comparison, in a picture from 1922, looking northeast.
There are some vaguely Flatiron Building/Met Life Tower type structures, but they look like they're on 42nd Street. And why do I think I can see something that clearly looks like the New York Central Building (later the Helmsley Building) which wasn't finished until 1929?
-- Times Square Signs An array of illuminated products logos -- in various colorful hues foreign to Times Square in 1922 -- gives the Crossroads of the World a mystical glow. The tony Hotel Astor adorned in lights dominates the plaza to the left. Nearby is an ad for Douglas Fairbank's 'Robin Hood', released in October 1922. It played at the Lyric Theatre. Fairbank's rival Rudolph Valentino and actress Norma Talmadge created a buzz when they attended the film's premiere together here.
It's next to the advertisement for Hydrox (the sandwich cookie which debuted in 1908) and the Capitol Theater, a movie palace which opened in 1919. The tire ad is a nice touch, recalling Times Square's status as the center of automobile sales and repair during the early 20th century.
Below the Zeigfeld [sic] Follies sign is an advertisement for Sonora, a phonograph company that began producing radios in 1924. Their slogan 'Clear As A Bell' harkens back to the company's original product line -- clock chimes.
Later on in the trailer, an ad can be seen for Arrow Collars, the detatchable shirt collar company that went on to spawn America's first male model type, the 'Arrow Collar Man', the sort of debonair type who populates the world of Gatsby. Of course, the demand for collared shirts pretty much killed of this industry by the end of the decade.
-- Grand Central Oyster BarThere appears to be a brief scene at this lush location with its vaulted ceilings. The Oyster Bar would have indeed been a thriving spot in 1922 and an ideal place to mix business with pleasure. A few years later, so goes the legend, David Sarnoff formed RKO Pictures over a few oysters here with Joseph Kennedy. In 1922, Tin Pan Alley lyricist Al Lubin met his music partner Harry Warren here. They went on to create the film musical 42nd Street in 1933.
-- Yellow Cab Co.? There are many brief glimpses of taxicabs, including those of the Yellow Cab fleet, which would later be purchased by the Checkered Cab company in 1929. In 1922, the Yellow Cab successfully won a ruling barring other paid-ride automobiles from being painted yellow. '1,000 Cabs Face Change of Paint.'
-- Blood And Sand A prominent movie marquee is shown near the trailer's end for Rudolph Valentino's 'Blood And Sand', a summer box office smash in 1922. This film debuted at the Rivoli, at 1620 Broadway, at 49th Street. From the New York Times film review on its debut: "Mr. Valentino has not been doing much acting of late. He's been slicking his hair and posing for the most part. But here he becomes an actor again." Let's hope the same can be said of Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Mr. Gatsby.
By the way, the 1974 version of 'The Great Gatsby', starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, premiered -- with attendees in full '20s regalia -- at the Loews State Theater at 1540 Broadway at 45th Street. "The guests, many of them in Teflon or Daisy white, whatever you want to call it, were greeted by hundreds of celebrity gawkers, reporters and photographers." [source]
Below: A clip from the Valentino film:
As I rewatch the trailer over the next few days, I may amend this article with further information. If there's something obvious that I've missed, please let me know in the comments below!
Thanks to Michael Raisch, whose Tweet to me last night inspired this article. Screenshots courtesy of Curbed and Entertainment Weekly.
These doors just won a lot of grant money. (Photo by Wurts Brothers, NYPL)
The votes have been counted, and Brooklyn (more specifically, Park Slope) and the Bronx ran away with the Partners In Preservation initiative, sponsored by American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
But for the others, there's good news! The grant proposals for the top four don't even add up to $1 million, and the initiative will now determine how to distribute the remaining $2.1 million among the other finalists. They will announce the choices in June.
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I recorded an interview with Andrew Johnstone for the Podcast Squared show (essentially, it's a podcast about podcasts), discussing the philosophies behind the Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast, as well as some information on how we got started as a look behind the scenes at our process. They also give us a great review!
You can find the show (Episode #99: Golden Age of New York) on iTunes or download it directly from their website.
Or listen to some of it here:
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Patell and Waterman’s History of New York
Meanwhile, over at Patell and Waterman's History of New York, they've posted my wrap-up interview regarding the Networked New York event from March which was held at New York University. The questions are specifically focused on the relationship of history writing and new digital media, but I talk about the challenges of producing a podcast and the relationship between blogs and newspapers. Check out that interview here.
With the quote: "History enriches peoples' lives abstractly, of course, but I argue that it does so practically as well. It’s about context. Your pizza tastes a whole lot better when you realize it’s been made in New York’s oldest pizza kitchen. (Whether it actually tastes good is besides the point.) This is the tourist perspective of New York. But to infuse that perspective into a daily experience here is profound. Suddenly, every street corner, every building, has a particular uniqueness. Everything talks back to you."
WARNING The article contains a couple spoilers about last night's 'Mad Men' on AMC. If you're a fan of the show, come back once you're watched the episode. But these posts are about a specific element of New York history from the 1960s and can be read even by those who don't watch the show at all. You can find other articles in this series here.
An unusual subplot takes Harry Crane, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce's smug television liaison, down to Second Avenue and the temple of the Hare Krishnas where he finds new recruit Paul Kinsey, a former agency employee. In his prior existence as a pipe-smoking gadabout, Kinsey always made note of his own hipness, and, in this case, as an acolyte of a religious thought only a few months old, we can confirm that he's ahead of the curve again.
The Hare Krishna movement, derived from Hindu philosophies and reformatted for the groovy '60s, was actually fostered and popularized here in the East Village.
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, a Hindu teacher and proponent of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, left India in 1965 to spread his religious teaching. Eschewing material possessions, he arrived in New York in 1966 and gravitated towards the East Village, the nucleus of cultural counter-culture.
His reputation preceded him and soon gathered a small group of followers, including artist Harvey Cohen, who soon set up Prabhupada in an apartment on 72nd Street on the Upper West Side and a small studio for religious practice on the Bowery. From here the swami formed the core of what would become the Hare Krishna movement, aka the International Society of Krishna Consciousness.
Given the location, most of his early followers were young people, fascinated by Hindu imagery in books and music and in particular by Prabhupada's expressions of religious thought, purifying secular consciousness expanding rhetoric into a simple spiritual regiment.
For many, he was as much a mystery as an answer. One early follower confessed later, "I didn't know what Prabhupada was about. I mean we understood about one-millionth of what Prabhupada was saying."
Key to religious practice is the ubiquitous mantra, rhythmically repeating the name of God. Said Prabhupada in a lecture in 2010. "[T]his sound, this Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare. Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, is the sound representation of the Supreme Lord."
Prabhupada and his followers would frequently be heard chanting their familiar mantra throughout the East Village, but they would be known for one particular destination. On October 19, 1966, Prabhupada led an outdoor chant underneath a elm tree in Tompkins Square Park that lasted for almost two hours, so transcendent that even the New York Times took notice: 'Swami's Flock Chants in Park to Find Ecstasy.' Today that tree (called the Hare Krishna tree) is one of the park's most popular spots and a mecca for current adherents.
Above: From the late October issue of the East Village Other, in front of the Hare Krishna tree [source]
By this time, Prabhupada had a new home, a former curio shop at 26 Second Avenue (between First and Second Streets). They kept the old sign 'Matchless Gifts' over door, while followers decorated the interior with handmade tapestries. This became the central New York temple and remains central to local worshippers to this day. "[I]n this small room on Second Avenue, guest found themselves transported into another dimension, a spiritual dimension, in which the anxieties and pressures of New York City simply did not exist." [source]
In that first year, 1966, Prabhupada had only a few dozen followers, but at least one famous one -- Allen Ginsberg.
Below: Video of Prabhupada and followers at Tompkins Square Park in 1966
Children gallivant and pose for pictures outside 265 Henry Street, date unknown (Courtesy Henry Street Settlement)
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATIONUntil May 21st, you can vote every day in the Partners In Preservationinitiative, a program that will award grant money to certain New York cultural and historical sites among 40 nominees. Having trouble deciding which site to support? I'll be featuring a few select sites here on the blog, providing you with a window into their history and hopefully giving you many reasons to visit these places, long after this competition is done. Read about other candidates here.
Without perhaps intending it, social services pioneer Lillian Wald, in her desire to help thousands of poor immigrant women and children in the Lower East Side, also saved a rare and forgotten part of New York City history.
The modern Henry Street Settlement is spread throughout several buildings in the neighborhood, providing health care, shelter, job training and a host of services to the community. But it started out in just three adjacent Federalist-style townhouses on Henry Street, recruited into duty by Wald and her benefactor Jacob Schiff to stem the tide of disease and harm that threatened families in the world's most densely populated neighborhood in the late 19th century.
A Different Lower East Side
As New York grew northward in the 19th century, wealthy landowners carved up their land with hopes of profit and a desire to foster New York's next great elegant neighborhood. Revolutionary War colonel Henry Rutgers, who lends his first name to the street where the Settlement makes its home, sold off his property near Corlear's Hook to businessmen with financial concerns along the Manhattan waterfront.
Below: An illustration from Forgotten NY, outlining the dividing line (literally, Division Street) between surrounding properties and Rutger's own (in yellow). The buildings discussed are at Henry and Montgomery.
Many of the great shipbuilders lived in today's Lower East Side (in the 1810s, it might have been called the Upper East Side) in fabulous residences within walking distance of the shore. Even by the 1850s, when the character of the neighborhood began to change, the mayor of New York Jacob Westervelt still resided at 308 East Broadway close to his shipyards. His neighbor at 281 East Broadway was city surveyor Isaac Ludlam.
Typical of the buildings that defined the neighborhood were 263 and 265 Henry Street, Federalist townhouses built in 1827. Its neighbor 267 Henry Street is a touch more ornate, with a different shade of brick in a Georgian Eclectic style.
Picturing these streets today lined with such buildings is requires a vivid imagination. That's because of the sudden mass of immigrants who arrived in New York by the 1850s, moving into poorer neighborhoods along the waterfront and in places like Five Points. Most of the homes along once-elegant Henry Street were torn down and replaced with tenements. Later, many of those tenements were themselves replaced with blocks of apartment complexes in the early 20th century.
These three Henry Street buildings have survived (as well as a few others, including Ludlam's old home) because they were repurposed by a woman of uncommon compassion, one of New York's most important figures in health and social services.
Settling Down Lillian Wald first came to the city in 1891 as a student of New York Hospital's nursing program. An intelligent and ambitious woman from Rochester, Wald quickly found purpose in one of the few respectable professions in the late 19th century where women could rapidly excel. She's marveled at today as a person of extraordinary compassion. But in many ways Lillian was a modern entrepreneur, able to latch onto the progressive instincts of the day to solve the immediate social ills facing New York with great imagination and a bold lack of prejudice.
When Wald (at right) founded the Nurses Settlement in 1893, she was building upon the practices of altruistic Christian programs (like the Methodist missions into Five Points) that brought social services into the very heart of slum-filled, overcrowded neighborhoods. However Wald was Jewish, and her perspectives involving health care were profoundly nonreligious and 'universalist' for the day.
In that year she also met wealthy banker Jacob Schiff (who himself had immigrated to New York in 1865) who purchased the three Henry Street buildings for Wald to properly set up her nursing agency. From that moment, it became the Henry Street Settlement, housing a squad of nurses sent out into the neighborhood to tackle an ungainly number of health issues.
In an era where poor patients were often turned away from standard hospitals, Wald and her team of extraordinary women provided care for free, often risking their own lives to enter squalid tenements and exposing themselves to many illness that today have been completely eradicated. (One of her nurses, Margaret Sanger, would later become America's leading birth control advocate.)
The Settlement had no problem making the former Henry Street residences into working clinics. The rooms still felt like a home in its decor, a respite for many visiting patients. The nurses lived upstairs in rows of small bedrooms, most of which today have been turned into cozy offices. The most lively (and historically important) room at the Settlement was the dining room, with large mahogany tables where Wald entertained a wide variety of guests, from poor patients to the great thinkers and Progressive voices of the day.
Below: A knitting class in the famous Henry Street dining room, May 1910. The fireplace at left is still very much intact. [LOC]
Beyond Borders
The Henry Street Settlement soon expanded its mission statement to generally improve the quality of life in the Lower East Side. Concerned that neighborhood children had no place to play, Wald set aside her courtyard to become one of New York's first playgrounds in 1902.
Below: The location of the playground, just behind the Henry Street structures.
Wald frequently held meetings here for strikers rallying against the women's garment industry. In 1909, she invited both white and black guests for a dinner, organizing a group that would soon grow to become the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the NAACP).
An excerpt from her 1915 book 'A House On Henry Street' illustrates the racial politics of such a seemingly simple dinner party:
"At the time of the first convention of the organization, [the NAACP] formed to further better race relations in this country, the occasion promised to be almost too serious unless some social provision were made.
I suggested a party at the House, but even the organizing committee was fearful.
'Oh, no!' they protested. 'It won't do! As soon as white and colored people sit down and eat together there begin to be newspaper stories about social equality.'
'But two hundred members of the conference couldn't sit down,' I submitted. 'Our house is too small. Everybody would have to stand up for supper.'
'Then it would be all right,' they said with relief, and the party was successful."
Above: One of the two original dining tables. Wald hosted hosted dozens of intellectual luminaries in this room, including Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jacob Riis and Theodore Roosevelt.
Wald would become a leading figure for New York social programs, often enlisted by the city to bring improvement to the city's other public services. (In 1902, Henry Street's Lina Rogers become the very first school nurse.) The Settlement even become an important venue for the arts with the debut of the Neighborhood Playhouse theater in 1915. The tradition lives on at the Abrons Arts Center, another part of the Settlement that continues to be a critical part of the Lower East Side cultural community. (At right: A flyer for a WPA meeting, between 1936-41, LOC)
Wald died in 1940, but her Henry Street Settlement has only expanded in the years since her passing. Today they have facilities in over a dozen buildings throughout the neighborhood, expanding their focus to include job training, mental health services, adult education, a shelter for victims of domestic violence and even a computer lab.
Those original three buildings, housing mostly administrative offices today, are still a wonderful expression of an early era of New York history. Traces of that history sits next to the practicalities of office life; in one room, an original kitchen hearth and brick oven from the original tenants sit next to a couple photocopiers. Employees sit at laptops in Lillian Wald's original bedroom with its spectacular sleeping porch overlooking the former playground.
The Henry Street Settlement hopes to use the Partners In Preservation grant money to combat the challenges of keeping their nearly two-centuries old offices in working order, to upgrade and prepare these old rooms for many more decades of providing a little more life to the Lower East Side.
Disclosure: I have partnered up with Partners in Preservation as a blog ambassador to help spread the word and raise awareness of select historical sites throughout the tri-state area. Though I am compensated for my time, I have not been instructed to express any particular point of view. All opinions expressed here are strictly my own. And since writing about New York landmarks is kinda my thing anyway, I'm thrilled to share my love of these places!
When park designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux regrouped after the success of Central Park to design another great park for Brooklyn -- encompassing Prospect Hill and the Revolutionary War site Battle Pass -- they preserved a greater amount of natural topography than they had in Manhattan. But that doesn't mean that Prospect Park hasn't gone through a few radical changes of its own since it opened between the years 1867 and 1873.
Their Grand Army Plaza has experienced few changes since it opened in those years, but the structures around it have certainly changed, presenting some surprising views at the mighty war monuments.
1. Women of the Wellhouse
The caption for this stereoscopic view (taken sometime in the 1870s-80s) calls this a 'well house', although it may have also been a a coal storage shed or even an outhouse! Brooklyn's main reservoir was on Prospect Hill, and the park was constructed partially to protect the water source from encroaching developers.
2. Prospect Park Dairy
As they had done in Central Park, Olmsted and Vaux infused the landscape with various romantic, fairytale-like structures, including this dairy house, providing guests with milk straight from the cow. Central Park still has a version of their dairy, but Prospect Park's was regrettably torn down in the 1930s to make way for the Prospect Park Zoo. (NYPL)
3. Brooklyn Sheep
Sure, you many know Sheep Meadow in Central Park once had actual sheep grazing -- they were considered a rustic design ornament and a natural landscaper -- but what happened to the animals after Robert Moses kicked them out in 1934? Like so many trendy things, they moved to Brooklyn! They joined Prospect Park's already thriving sheep colony (pictured below, from 1903) before moving on to other pastures. (Courtesy LOC)
4. Floral Steps, 1904
The manicured flora that grace these steps predates the Brooklyn Botanic Garden by several years. The stairs are still there today, of course, though unadorned.
5. Drinking Fountains
With water aplenty, Prospect Park has been dotted with drinking fountains since its inception. This rather unusual fountain, from 1938, may still be around, but I doubt you'll see anybody drinking from it. (Courtesy Dept of Records)
6. Deer Paddock
The zoo also replaced the rather extraordinary Deer Paddock, where the sometimes docile creatures were allowed to wander around. This despite some of them occasionally escaping and running into the surrounding neighborhood (as one adventurous buck did in 1906).
7. Stately Reservoir Tower
High atop Brooklyn's second highest point on Mount Prospect sits the reservoir tower, only a couple decades old (1893) but looking like a medieval ruin in this image. Date of this picture is unknown, although the ground for the Brooklyn Public Library main branch building was broken in 1912, so it was clearly sometime before then. The Brooklyn Museum is in the distance. [NYPL]
8. And, yes, the Reservoir itself
The reservoir was built here in 1856 and was meant to be included within the park designs. With Flatbush Avenue ultimately cleaving the hill from the rest of the proposal, Olmsted and Vaux left it out. This picture is from between 1910-1920. [LOC]
9. From high above
This bird's eye view from 1951 illustrates the plaza's similarities to that of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
10. Library vista
And this view is from two weeks ago! During the Partners In Preservation Open House, the staff at the Brooklyn Public Library main branch led guided tours to the rooftop, offering a very particular take on the plaza. And if my camera had been better, you would see off in the distance the Statue of Liberty, situated several miles away.
Fit for a queen: Cleopatra's Needle, Central Park's Egyptian obelisk, is one of the nominees in the PIP initiative (Picture by the Wurts Brothers, courtesy NYPL)
You've got just seven more days to vote in the Partners In Preservation initiative, sponsored by American Express in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. That's seven more votes that could change the fate of a New York City landmark.
Partners In Preservation is providing $3 million to be given away to historic sites who have submitted grants. Each place has a different need in mind -- basic maintenance, renovation, site expansion, you name it.
You can vote once a day for a particular site you want to support. Just click the button at left to go to the Partners In Preservation voting page. The four sites that get the most votes will have their grant requests fully funded, and the remainder of the pot will be split between other sites chosen by an advisory committee made up of civic and preservation figures here in New York.
We don't have a particular favorite in this contest. There are big places and very small places. Spread the love! The choice is yours.
Several of the nominees are represented in our back-catalog of podcasts. And most of the remainder would probably make for good future shows. Here's are the sites we've already covered. You can listen to the shows directly from the links below, or please go and download them from iTunes!
-- The Apollo Theater (Episode #15)
-- The Guggenheim Museum (Episode #67)
-- Ellis Island (The South Side Hospitals are up for the grant) (Episode #88)
-- The High Line (Episode #135)
WARNING The article contains a couple spoilers about last night's 'Mad Men' on AMC. If you're a fan of the show, come back once you're watched the episode. But these posts are about a specific element of New York history from the 1960s and can be read even by those who don't watch the show at all. You can find other articles in this series here.
This week's episode was set in the week before Thanksgiving 1966, certainly a moment of great apprehension for many American housewives like the embittered Betty Francis (the artist formerly known as Betty Draper).
The cover of Time Magazine that week (11/25/66) featured a psychedelic portrait of Julia Child, framed in a chorus of saucepans with some kind of odd,decorated fish below her. Her Boston-based programThe French Chefhad been on the air over three years by then, bringing rich, savory delicacies into American homes. "Her fingers fly with the speed and dexterity of a concert pianist. Strength counts, too, as she cleaves an ocean catfish with a mighty, two-fisted swipe or, muscles bulging and curls aquiver, whips up egg whites with her wire whisk." [source]
Child made classic, wholesome dishes with generous portions of high-calorie ingredients. But the 1960s also shoehorned greater artificiality into American kitchens -- a barrage of food products loaded with preservatives, in unnatural shapes and presentations. The two food products most substantially featured on this week's episode were canned whipped cream and Hostess Sno Balls, pink mounds of firmly molded, processed cake coated in a gelatinous frosting of uncertain origins. Even as Child stressed classic meals with fresh ingredients, actual food production was moving further away from easily digestible ingredients.
Made available to American grocery stores between 1965 and 1967: Bac-Os bacon bits, Shake 'N' Bake, Doritos, Easy Cheese, SpaghettiOs, Tang, Cool Whip.
If eating patterns in the 1960s set the county on a path of future health problems, they also spawned America's first significant weight loss regiment. Betty, mortified by her extra pounds and judging herself against the lanky frame of her ex-husband's new wife, turns to a community group that would grow to become the most successful weight loss program of the 20th century -- Weight Watchers, a Queens-based company formed in 1963 that brought weight control to the mainstream.
Founder Jean Nidetch described herself in a 1971 biography as a "fat Brooklyn girl who grew up to be an even fatter Queens housewife." She graduated from high school in Bedford-Stuyvesant in the 1940s and worked for the Internal Revenue Service before marrying in 1947. By the 1950s, she found herself in the massive garden apartment complex Deepdale Gardens in northeast Queens raising two sons and developing a compulsive eating habit.
Trying every available fad diet to no avail, she eventually visited a city-run obesity clinic in the neighborhood of Kips Bay in Manhattan, where she was advised to eat a so-called 'prudent diet': "two pieces of bread and two glasses of milk a day, fish five times a week and a weekly meal featuring liver." [source] What they didn't prescribe was camaraderie.
Nidetch took the food plans back to her apartment complex and organized a small cluster of neighborhood women to support each other in their quest to shed pounds. By 1962, she had lost dozen of pounds and had gained valuable insight into the power of group support to control eating habits. Using the 'prudent diet' as a rough guideline, she moved her regular meetings into a loft above a movie theater in Little Neck, charging $2 per meeting -- the same price as the movie tickets being sold downstairs.
As depicted in this week's episode, set in November 1966, Weight Watchers was still very much a regional program. Nidetch's first Weight Watchers cookbook was released earlier in the year, debuting the regimented eating plan and structured point system.
A sampling: "Luncheon: 4 ounces fish or lean meat or poultry, or 2/3 cup cottage cheese or pot cheese or 4 ounces farmer cheese or 2 ounces hard cheese or 2 eggs.
All you want of unlimited vegetables. 1 slice bread."
As she confesses from the back cover: "Weight Watchers began when I invited to my house six overweight friends - have you ever noticed that most fat people have fat friends? - and much to the surprise of all of us we found that there were other people hiding cookies in the bathroom and eclairs in the oven."
By the end of the decade, Nidetch's new company -- incorporating its famous food-points system and a methodology of daily calorie targets -- would go worldwide. By 1972, Nidetch would invite 20,000 national devotees to a tenth anniversary party at Madison Square Garden, featuring guest appearances by Bob Hope and Pearl Bailey. (Ad below from Lubbock, TX, newspaper)
In 1978, Weight Watchers was acquired by the H.J. Heinz Company (which, in 'Mad Men' continuity, has been a most frustrating client for our favorite ad staff) who would mass produce Weight Watchers frozen foods.
