The Vanishing Woolworth Building

 

Say goodbye to most views of the landmark Woolworth Building.  Over the last couple of years, what was once the tallest skyscraper in the world (1913-1929), has been getting lost in the skyline.

The Woolworth was one of the only buildings New Yorkers could use as a frame of reference in images of Lower Manhattan after the attacks of September eleventh.  With the towers gone, the Woolworth was one of few buildings that told us what was north, what was south, what was up, what was down.

One of my favorite shots of the Woolworth was from the plaza of the World Trade Center (i.e., from the southwest).  That picture can no longer be taken.  See that boring new apartment tower above, to the right of the Woolworth? 

 

Here's that tower from the south.  Voila.  No more Woolworth. 

Here's the Woolworth from the west again, but notice the empty lot in the foreground...soon to host an obstruction.

At least the front of the building will remain visible...but only in the near vicinity, because as you can see below...

...8 Spruce Street, or the massive Beekman Tower by Frank Gehry, is climbing into the sky above the Newspaper Row and blocking the iconic view of the Woolworth from most of the Brooklyn Bridge. 

Ah, well.  Almost 100 years.  It had a good run.

NYC Decade by Decade--1920-1929

Before I began this series, this is the decade I most wanted to visit--the Roaring Twenties, the era of Gatsby and speakeasies, Babe Ruth and the Harlem Renaissance.  At this point in the series, I've changed my mind.  Not only have I found a few other decades that would be intriguing, but I feel we're living in the Twenties right now--both decades opened with a bang and ended with a crash, a terror attack and a financial meltdown. 

ALSO DURING THIS DECADE:

1920--A Wall Street bombing on September 16th kills thirty-eight and injures 400.  It remains the most deadly terror attack in New York until 2001.  Evidence of the blast can still be seen around one of the windows of 23 Wall.

1923--Yankee Stadium, the House that Ruth Built, opens in the Bronx.

1923--Abyssinian Baptist Church is completed in Harlem.

1923--Following up on the resolution of 1916, the Setback Law restricts how skyscrapers are configured, giving the city its famous skyline. 

1923--Unable to withstand Prohibition, Demonico's, America's first fine dining establishment, closes its last restaurant.

1924--Robert Moses, the Master Builder, who will become one of the most powerful New Yorkers in history, begins to build.

1924--The American Radiator Building (New York's first modern skyscraper) at Bryant Park and the Federal Reserve Bank on Liberty Street are both completed.

1924--Hudson View Gardens, one of America's first cooperative apartment complexes, built in a Tudor style, opens in Washington Heights.  (Tudor City will open in the East Forties four years later.)

1925--The most beautiful Madison Square Garden is demolished to make room for Cass Gilbert's New York Life Insurance Building...which will, fortunately, turn out to be a beautiful structure. 

1925--The Great Gatsby is published. 

1926--The Paramount Building in Times Square and the Standard Oil Building near Bowling Green are completed.

1927--The Holland Tunnel opens.

1928--The International Magazine Building is "completed" on Eighth and Fifty-seventh.  ("Completed" in quotes, because that building was designed as a base of a skyscraper that was never built until Norman Foster reimagined it in the twenty-first century as the base of his forty-six floor Hearst Tower).

1929--The Museum of Modern Art is founded.

1929--The Beresford Apartment Building, the Daily News Building and the Williamsburgh Savings Bank are all completed.

1929--The Race to the Sky between the Manhattan Bank Building and the Chrysler ends when the Chrysler locks its classic spire in place, becoming the world's first manmade structure to exceed 1000 feet. 

1929--The day after that spire is lifted out of the Chrysler Building, the stock market begins to crash.  Black Tuesday occurs five days later.  The Roaring Twenties comes to a close.

Sources:  The Historical Atlas of New York City by Eric Homberger; New York:  An Illustrated History by Ric Burns and James Sanders, with Lisa Ades; The Encyclopedia of New York City, edited by Kenneth T. Jackson;  Blue Guide New York by Carol von Pressentin Wright, Stuart Miller, and Sharon Seitz; Inside the Apple by Michelle and James Nevius; New York 1930 by Robert A.M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin, Thomas Mellins.

My October Season Comes to a Close

As a few close friends read the first draft of my new novel--about the world of student travel--I took the month of October to work, work, work with student groups from California, Oregon and Indiana, pictured below...

...with the bull at Bowling Green...

...on the High Line...

 

...and at the Pond in Central Park. 

TRIVIA QUESTION:  I also worked a number of corporate programs.  In the past, autumn was always busy with banks and car companies.  Not this year.  What two industries--thriving in the recession--did Robert work for this fall?  Answer after the jump.

It's Actually the Eighth USS New York

A Wikipedia search for USS New York brings up seven predecessors burned, sold, scuttled and sunk:

USS New York may refer to:

• USS New York (1776), was a gondola, built on Lake Champlain in 1776, that participated in the Battle of Valcour Island.

• USS New York (1800), was a 36-gun frigate commissioned in 1800 and burned by the British in 1814.

• USS New York (1820), was a 74-gun ship of the line, laid down in 1820 which never left the stocks, and was burned in 1861.

• A screw sloop named Ontario was laid down in 1863; renamed New York in 1869, and sold while still on the stocks, in 1888.

• USS New York (ACR-2), was an armored cruiser commissioned in 1893, in action in the Spanish-American War, renamed to Saratoga in 1911, renamed Rochester in 1917, decommissioned in 1933, and scuttled in 1941.

• USS New York (BB-34), was a battleship laid down in 1911, commissioned in 1914, in action in both World Wars, decommissioned in 1946 and sunk as a target after surviving two atomic bombs tests in 1946.

• USS New York City (SSN-696), was a Los Angeles class submarine launched in 1977 and retired in 1997.

• USS New York (LPD-21), is an amphibious transport dock, launched in 2007 and partly constructed with metal salvaged from the World Trade Center

USS New York Arrives in New York Harbor

The naval assault ship whose bow was made with 7.5 tons of World Trade Center steel arrived in New York this morning at the end of her maiden voyage from Louisiana.  The ship paused near Ground Zero where it was given a 21-gun salute.  The ship will be docked at Pier 88 where it will remain through Veteran's Day.  It will be officially commissioned this Saturday, November 7th.

The seal from the ship's website:

Seven rays of sunlight signify both the crown atop the Statue of Liberty and the seven seas

Central focus placed on the Twin Towers and the bow of the ship, forged from the towers' steel

Breastplate of the phoenix bears the colors of first responders from the New York Police Department, New York Fire Department, and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

Blood drops represent the fallen

Three stars for those earned by the battleship USS NEW YORK (BB34) in WWII at Iwo Jima, Okinawa and North Africa

Read the Associated Press article and visit the ship's site which includes a schedule of events and an interactive tour of the vessel.

The Leaves Are Beginning to Turn--Autumn Around the Pond in Central Park

 

  

 

NYC Decade by Decade--1910-1919

This was a decade of reform.  Work conditions were improved following the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and the country's first zoning resolution was passed in 1916 as new buildings began to block out the sun.  The city was divided into zones designated for commercial and residential purposes and the height and bulk of buildings began to be regulated.

ALSO DURING THIS DECADE:

1910--The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower on Madison Square becomes the tallest building in the world. 

1910--Pennsylvania Station opens to the public.

1910--Ships begin to dock at the Chelsea Piers.

1910--The first apartment building (998) opens on Fifth Avenue.

1911--The Winter Garden Theater replaces Vanderbilt's American Horse Exchange. 

1911--The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire kills 146 young women near Washington Square.

1911--The Brooklyn Botanic Garden opens.

1911--The home of New York Public Library is completed on Fifth Avenue.

1912--The Titanic, scheduled to dock at Pier 54 on the Hudson, sinks in the Atlantic.

1913--The Woolworth Building becomes the tallest building in the world.

1913--Grand Central Terminal is completed.

1913--The Pulitzer Fountain next to the Plaza begins to cascade.

1913--The famous Armory Show, a watershed in modern art in America, is held at the 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue.

1913--Four more of our greatest Broadway theaters are built--the Booth, the Longacre, the Shubert, and the Palace!

1914--The Frick mansion on Fifth Avenue is completed.

1914--The Municipal Building--one of the world's tallest city office buildings, and the first skyscraper designed by McKim, Mead and White--opens on Chambers Street.

1915--The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences (also by McKim, Mead and White) is completed opens on Eastern Parkway.

1916--The Lusitania leaves Pier 54 (the same pier where the Titanic was supposed to dock) and is sunk by a German u-boat off the coast of Ireland seven days later.

1916--New York City institutes the first urban zoning resolution in the nation.

1916--The Black Tom explosion in New York harbor--suspected to have been the work of German saboteurs preventing the use of munitions by Allied troops--damages the Statue of Liberty (the arm and torch henceforth closed to the public) and Ellis Island (immigrants were transferred to Manhattan and the roof of the Great Hall was replaced).

1916--The U.S. enters World War I.

1918--The 1918 Flu Epidemic kills between twenty and twenty-four thousand New Yorkers.  Spitters are fined and arrested.  (So are coughers and sneezers who don't cover their mouths.)

1919--The Treaty of Versailles is signed, ending World War I.  Parades of returning troops begin marching up Fifth Avenue.

1919--Emma Goldman is deported via Ellis Island during the Red Scare.

Sources:  The Historical Atlas of New York City by Eric Homberger; New York:  An Illustrated History by Ric Burns and James Sanders, with Lisa Ades; The Encyclopedia of New York City, edited by Kenneth T. Jackson;  Blue Guide New York by Carol von Pressentin Wright, Stuart Miller, and Sharon Seitz; Inside the Apple by Michelle and James Nevius; New York 1900 by Robert A.M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin, and John Massengale.

Statue of Liberty Turns 123

Two major NYC birthdays in a row!

Yesterday was the 105th anniversary of the opening of the first real subway line in the city and today is the 123rd anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty.

She still looks great, though she has had some work done--most notably the overhaul for her centennial and the repairs needed after she was wounded by a 1916 explosion that forever closed the arm and torch to the public.

"What explosion?" you might be wondering.

Tune into tomorrow for NYC Decade by Decade--1910-1919.

In the meantime, here are some more pics taken on a recent, beautiful autumn afternoon.

 

 

Trivia Question: Today in Big Apple History...105 Years Ago

If you were standing on 125th Street east of Broadway on October 27th,1904, what momentous event would you--and the crowd surrounding you--have witnessed?

Answer after the jump.

Theodore Roosevelt...from NYC to the White House

As mentioned in last week's Decade by Decade--1900-1909, Theodore Roosevelt was the only president born in New York City.  Roosevelt was also the youngest person (42) ever to enter the office, and the speed of his rise to power was astonishing.  He published a respected history of the War of 1812 shortly after graduating Harvard and was elected to the New York State legislature.  By the age of 30, he had retired from politics, moved out to the Dakota territory, failed in the cattle business and returned to New York where he built Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay. 

In 1889, he was appointed to the United States Civil Service Commission where he worked for six years.  By the end of the next six years, he would be leading the country:

1895-1897--Roosevelt serves as president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners.

1897--Roosevelt is appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

1898--Roosevelt leads the Rough Riders in Cuba during the Spanish American War.

1899--Roosevelt is sworn in as the governor of New York State.

1900--Roosevelt is elected vice president on McKinley's ticket.

1901--After McKinley's assassination in October, Roosevelt becomes president.

NYC Decade by Decade--1900-1909...The Subway, Roosevelt, and Construction on a Grand Scale

With the consolidation of New York in 1898, a series of massive construction projects began that were worthy of the world's second largest city and designed in part to connect the boroughs into one unit.

This was the decade of the subway--digging began in 1900 and the first line opened in 1904.  A municipal Staten Island Ferry began to run.  Three of the four East River bridges opened.  Four more bridges crossed the Harlem River.  The Steinway and East River subway tunnels connected Manhattan to Long Island and New Jersey was finally reached with the first tube underneath the Hudson.  Macy's moved to Thirty-fourth, Longacre became Times Square, several of our oldest Broadway theaters were erected, and motorized taxi cabs began to speed through the streets.  Ground was also broken for Penn Station, Grand Central and the New York Public Library. 

Not a shabby decade.

ALSO DURING THIS DECADE:

1900--The population of Manhattan reaches 1,850,093.  This is a larger population than Manhattan's population today.  (1910 [2,331,542], 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950, and 1960 will all have larger populations.)

1901--The "New Law" tenement is introduced.

1901--NYC's very own Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as vice president.  With the assassination of McKinley, Roosevelt will become president in September and remain in the White House until 1909.

1902--Macy's moves to Herald Square.

1902--Andrew Carnegie's mansion on Fifth (now the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum) is completed.

1902--The Fifth Avenue facade and the Great Hall of the Metropolitan Museum are finished.

1902--The beloved Flatiron Building opens where Broadway crosses Fifth.

1903--The Williamsburg Bridge opens.

1903--The New York Stock Exchange moves to its new building on the corner of Wall and Broad.

1903--Three of our oldest and most beautiful Broadway theaters are built in the West Forties--the New Amsterdam, the Lyceum, and the Lyric.  These predate "Times Square."

1904--The trains running up and down Park Avenue convert from steam power to electricity.  This will allow the trains to be completely submerged and hidden. 

1904--The Ansonia opens on the Upper West Side.

1904--Longacre Square becomes Times Square.

1904--The first subway line opens.  (Pictured on left, the first line begins at City Hall, runs north to Forty-second, swings west to Times Square and then up Broadway to 145th.)

1904--Carrying 1300 picnickers from the East Village, the SS General Slocum catches fire on its trip up the East River.  Over 1000 passengers, mainly women and children, will perish.  This will remain the city's greatest loss of life in a single day until the attacks of September eleventh.

1905--The Municipal Staten Island Ferry begins operating with a five-cent fare.

1905--City College opens in Harlem. 

1906--Crazy Harry Thaw fatally shoots famous architect, Stanford White, on the roof of White's own Madison Square Garden.

1907--Motorized taxi cabs and the new Plaza Hotel commence operation on the same day.

1907--J.P. Morgan's Library is completed just in time for the Panic of 1907.  (Morgan hosts an all-night meeting with almost fifty bankers at the library.  At one point, he locks dozens of them inside the library to force them to come to an agreement that will help avert a crisis,)

1907--The elaborate Custom House by Cass Gilbert at Bowling Green is finished.

1907--The Steinway tunnels connect Manhattan and Queens.

1908--The East River subway tunnel connects Bowling Green and Joralemon Street in Brooklyn and the McAdoo Tunnel connects the west side of Manhattan and Hoboken, New Jersey.

1908--The Singer Building becomes the tallest building in the world.

1909--The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower becomes the tallest building.

1909--Both the Manhattan and Queensboro Bridges are opened.

1909--The beautiful Police Headquarters on Centre Street (between Grand and Broome) opens for business.  For fantastic pictures of one of my favorite buildings in the city, click here.

Sources:  The Historical Atlas of New York City by Eric Homberger; New York:  An Illustrated History by Ric Burns and James Sanders, with Lisa Ades; The Encyclopedia of New York City, edited by Kenneth T. Jackson;  Blue Guide New York by Carol von Pressentin Wright, Stuart Miller, and Sharon Seitz; Inside the Apple by Michelle and James Nevius; New York 1900 by Robert A.M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin, and John Massengale.

With the consolidation of New York in 1898, a series of massive construction projects began that were worthy of the world's second largest city and designed in part to connect the boroughs into one unit.

This was the decade of the subway--digging began in 1900 and the first line opened in 1904.  A municipal Staten Island Ferry began to run.  Three of the four East River bridges opened.  Four more bridges crossed the Harlem River.  The Steinway and East River subway tunnels connected Manhattan to Long Island and New Jersey was finally reached with the first tube underneath the Hudson.  Macy's moved to Thirty-fourth, Longacre became Times Square, several of our oldest Broadway theaters were erected, and motorized taxi cabs began to speed through the streets.  Ground was also broken for Penn Station, Grand Central and the New York Public Library. 

Not a shabby decade.

ALSO DURING THIS DECADE:

1900--The population of Manhattan reaches 1,850,093.  This is a larger population than Manhattan's population today.  (1910 [2,331,542], 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950, and 1960 will all have larger populations.)

1901--The "New Law" tenement is introduced.

1901--NYC's very own Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as vice president.  With the assassination of McKinley, Roosevelt will become president in September and remain in the White House until 1909.

1902--Macy's moves to Herald Square.

1902--Andrew Carnegie's mansion on Fifth (now the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum) is completed.

1902--The Fifth Avenue facade and the Great Hall of the Metropolitan Museum are finished.

1902--The beloved Flatiron Building opens where Broadway crosses Fifth.

1903--The Williamsburg Bridge opens.

1903--The New York Stock Exchange moves to its new building on the corner of Wall and Broad.

1903--Three of our oldest and most beautiful Broadway theaters are built in the West Forties--the New Amsterdam, the Lyceum, and the Lyric.  These predate "Times Square."

1904--The trains running up and down Park Avenue convert from steam power to electricity.  This will allow the trains to be completely submerged and hidden. 

1904--The Ansonia opens on the Upper West Side.

1904--Longacre Square becomes Times Square.

1904--The first subway line opens.  (Pictured on left, the first line begins at City Hall, runs north to Forty-second, swings west to Times Square and then up Broadway to 145th.)

1904--Carrying 1300 picnickers from the East Village, the SS General Slocum catches fire on its trip up the East River.  Over 1000 passengers, mainly women and children, will perish.  This will remain the city's greatest loss of life in a single day until the attacks of September eleventh.

1905--The Municipal Staten Island Ferry begins operating with a five-cent fare.

1905--City College opens in Harlem. 

1906--Crazy Harry Thaw fatally shoots famous architect, Stanford White, on the roof of White's own Madison Square Garden.

1907--Motorized taxi cabs and the new Plaza Hotel commence operation on the same day.

1907--J.P. Morgan's Library is completed just in time for the Panic of 1907.  (Morgan hosts an all-night meeting with almost fifty bankers at the library.  At one point, he locks dozens of them inside the library to force them to come to an agreement that will help avert a crisis,)

1907--The elaborate Custom House by Cass Gilbert at Bowling Green is finished.

1907--The Steinway tunnels connect Manhattan and Queens.

1908--The East River subway tunnel connects Bowling Green and Joralemon Street in Brooklyn and the McAdoo Tunnel connects the west side of Manhattan and Hoboken, New Jersey.

1908--The Singer Building becomes the tallest building in the world.

1909--The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower becomes the tallest building.

1909--Both the Manhattan and Queensboro Bridges are opened.

1909--The beautiful Police Headquarters on Centre Street (between Grand and Broome) opens for business.  For fantastic pictures of one of my favorite buildings in the city, click here.

Sources:  The Historical Atlas of New York City by Eric Homberger; New York:  An Illustrated History by Ric Burns and James Sanders, with Lisa Ades; The Encyclopedia of New York City, edited by Kenneth T. Jackson;  Blue Guide New York by Carol von Pressentin Wright, Stuart Miller, and Sharon Seitz; Inside the Apple by Michelle and James Nevius; New York 1900 by Robert A.M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin, and John Massengale.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Turns 50

In April of 1959, one of America's greatest architects passed away.  Six months later, on October twenty-first, one of his most significant structures opened on Fifth Avenue.

Visit THE DAILY NEWS for fifty beautiful photographs of the landmark building, which include wonderful shots of the site during construction as well as pictures of the Gehry Guggenheim which Wright's imaginative freedom inspired.

Tonight the Empire State Building will be lit red in homage to its fellow icon--original plans for the Guggenheim featured a red exterior.

The interior of the Guggenheim in 1998 when the spiral was sheathed in chrome for its Art of the Motorcycle exhibit.
 

NYC Decade by Decade--1800-1899...The Third of Four Recaps

We're now thirty weeks into the project, NYC Decade by Decade.  Here's an abbreviated recap, highly compressed and distilled, of the third century.

1800-1809--Robert Fulton demonstrates his steamship on the North River and transforms maritime trade.

1810-1819--In 1811 two crucial reports are delivered--one divides Manhattan into a grid and the other proposes the construction of the Erie Canal.

1820-1829--The Erie Canal opens in 1825, connecting New York Harbor to the American interior.

1830-1839--With money pouring into the city, three upper class enclaves are built.  Two disasters follow--the Great Fire of 1835 and the Financial Panic of 1837.

1840-1849--Fresh water from the Croton River is brought to the city...thirty million gallons a day.

1850-1859--Central Park is approved and the construction commences.

1860-1869--The Civil War and the 1863 Draft Riots paralyze New York.

1870-1879--The corrupt Tweed Ring is broken.

1880-1889--Architecturally speaking, New York City starts looking familiar (the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty open along with several skyscrapers and housing stock).

1890-1899--The city grows overnight in 1898 with the Consolidation of Greater New York.

FOR GREATER DETAIL, SEE THE PROPER ENTRY...POSTED EVERY THURSDAY

COMING THIS THURSDAY:  THE TWENTIETH CENTURY BEGINS...1900-1909

Happy Birthday to Two Theatre Greats

A brief tidbyte from Cayce:

Today we celebrate the birthdays of Angela Lansbury

and Eugene O'Neill.

  

Without them Broadway would be a little dimmer.

NYC Decade by Decade--1890-1899...New York Gains Three Hundred Square Miles

After losing the World's Columbian Exposition to Chicago--a major ego blow--New York dedicated itself to restoring its primacy, an obsession that led to more cohesive urban planning (later known as the City Beautiful Movement inspired by the architecture of the very same Chicago World's Fair) and to the Great Consolidation of 1898 wherein Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the rest of the Bronx were joined with Manhattan to become Greater New York.  The city grew from twenty-three square miles to over three hundred, doubling its population (3.4 million) to become the second largest city in the world after London.  So there, Chicago!

ALSO DURING THIS DECADE:

1890--Jacob Riis publishes How the Other Half Lives, a photojournalistic call to arms.

1890--The New York Cancer Hospital (now condos) opens next to Central Park between West 105th and 106th Streets.

1890--Architecturally speaking, the most beautiful Madison Square Garden (the one designed by Stanford White) opens on Madison Square.

1891--Carnegie Hall opens.

1891--The Metropolitan Club opens.

1892--"The Circle" becomes Columbus Circle with the dedication of the Gaetano Russo sculpture. 

1892--The federal government begins processing immigrants on Ellis Island.

1892--The cornerstone is laid for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

1895--William Randolph Hearst acquires The New York Morning Journal and begins a circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer.

1895--The Harlem Ship Canal opens after a channel is dug south of Spuyten Duyvil. 

1895--Stanford White's permanent Washington Square Arch is completed.

1897--Columbia University moves to its fourth and current home on Morningside Heights.

1897--Grant's Tomb is dedicated.

1898--The Great Consolidation.

1899--The Bronx Zoo opens.

1899--The Park Row Building becomes the world's tallest building.

Sources:  Gotham by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace; The Historical Atlas of New York City by Eric Homberger; New York:  An Illustrated History by Ric Burns and James Sanders, with Lisa Ades; The Encyclopedia of New York City, edited by Kenneth T. Jackson;  Blue Guide New York by Carol von Pressentin Wright, Stuart Miller, and Sharon Seitz; Inside the Apple by Michelle and James Nevius.

Kosher Vending Machine

This shot is from new father, Walter Hershman, who found this kosher vending machine while his wife was getting her epidural.  24/6 I love.

NYC Decade by Decade--1880-1889...The City Starts Looking Familiar

Architecturally speaking, this was the decade that began to shape the physical landscape we know today.  So many of the icons we now associate with New York were built, opened or dedicated during this ten-year period--think of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, and the Metropolitan Museum's home in Central Park.  Much of how we live and work can also be traced back to this time when architects were devoting much of their careers to the design of apartment buildings, office buildings, and grand family homes.  A large number of "old" buildings we walk by today--from tenements on Ninth Avenue to brownstones in Harlem--were built in 1880's.

This was also the decade when skyscrapers began to lift the skyline.  In 1885, the Home Insurance Company, the first to use a structural steel skeleton, was built in Chicago.  (There are those who argue that because the Home Insurance Company relied partially on load bearing masonry, the first true skyscraper was built in New York in 1888--the Tower Building [see below].  There are also those who trace the first skyscraper to New York in 1870 when George B. Post used a primitive skeletal frame for the Equitable Life Assurance Company and also effectively incorporated elevators and utilities [see last week's entry].)  Regardless, by the second part of this decade, the city was rising into the clouds.

ALSO DURING THIS DECADE:

1880--There are 300 people per acre on the Lower East Side.  By the end of the decade, there will be 400 per acre.

1880--The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in Central Park.

1881--New York's most famous Egyptian obelisk, Cleopatra's Needle (1600 B.C.), reaches its new home behind the Metropolitan Museum.

1881--The groundbreaking Farragut Monument by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Stanford White is dedicated in Madison Square.

1882--The Eldridge Street Synagogue opens on...well, Eldridge Street.

1882--Sylvan Row--two rows of ten wooden houses--is built next to the Morris Jumel Mansion.

1882--Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act which will shape the demographics of Chinatown for more than half a century.

1882--The Edison Company illuminates part of Lower Manhattan (between Nassau, Pearl, Spruce and Wall) with electric light.

1883--The Brooklyn Bridge, the Eighth Wonder of the World, is completed and opens above the East River.

1883--The new Metropolitan Opera officially opens on Broadway between Thirty-ninth and Fortieth with Charles Gounod's Faust starring Chritina Nillson.

1884--The first long distance line is laid between New York and Boston.  (Philadelphia is reached in 1885 and Chicago in 1892.)

1884--The Dakota Apartment Building is completed at West Seventy-Second.

1884--Yet another financial panic.  (This one involves former President Grant, his bubble-headed son, and a scam artist named Ferdinand Wood.)

1885--The Villard Houses are completed behind St. Patrick's.

1885--The first elevated railroad in Brooklyn is erected.

1886--Manhattan and Brooklyn are connected by elevated rail.

1886--The Statue of Liberty raises her torch in New York Harbor.

1887--Morningside Park is completed.

1888--The spires of St. Patrick's are completed.

1888--The Great Blizzard of this year drops twenty-two inches of snow in one day.  The eighty-five mile per hour winds create drifts up to twenty feet in places.  Afterwards, all wires formerly above ground are relocated beneath the streets. 

1888-1889--The first building with a structural steel skeleton--the Tower Building--is erected on Broadway just north of Bowling Green.

1889--The Educational Alliance is founded on the Lower East Side.

Sources:  Gotham by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace; The Historical Atlas of New York City by Eric Homberger; New York:  An Illustrated History by Ric Burns and James Sanders, with Lisa Ades; The Encyclopedia of New York City, edited by Kenneth T. Jackson;  Blue Guide New York by Carol von Pressentin Wright, Stuart Miller, and Sharon Seitz; Inside the Apple by Michelle and James Nevius.

We Never Stop Talking About the Middle Ages

My neighborhood is home to the city's Medieval Festival (see yesterday's post for pictures from this year's festivities), the Cloisters and the Tudor-influenced Hudson View Gardens.  At the top of Manhattan, as I claim in this video, we never stop talking about the Middle Ages.

Photos from the Middle Ages

The NYC Parks Department and the Washington Heights and Inwood Development Corporation have been co-hosting the city's Medieval Festival in Fort Tryon Park since 1983.  This year's events were held on Sunday and thousands came to the home of the Cloisters to celebrate feudalism, superstition, internecine warfare, and the plague. 

There seemed to be hundreds of vendors in stalls that lined Margaret Corbin Drive.  Almost all were in costume, including two men representing Manhattan Mini Storage which people don't realize started in Avignon in 1146.  Besides securing your storage locker, you could have your fortune read while shopping for talismen, incense and battle axes.   

And there was lots of entertainment.  A grand procession at 11:30 was followed by performances throughout the park, around every corner, by singers, dancers, instrumentalists, falconers, actors, knights, jugglers, magicians, and jousters.  The Cloisters also offered a garden tour, a highlights tour, and two costume demonstrations. 

I was impressed by how many people dressed up for this festival and by how long the lines were to partake in the grilled feast--massive drumsticks that would make a hobbit happy and golden cobs of corn...wait a second!  Corn?!  There was no corn in Europe in the Middle Ages!

More photos after the jump.

Yesterday in Big Apple History

What major NYC structure celebrated its centennial yesterday? 

Hint:  Technically, it opened on December 31st, but who wants to walk across this thing in winter?

Answer (and a fantastic photo) after the jump.

Little Bytes Recommends...Telling Stories and After the Storm

James Lecesne, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, performer, activisit and all-around inspiration, is one of my favorite New Yorkers, and if you're in the city next week, you have two chances to be changed and illuminated. 

The first event is Telling Stories, a six-hour workshop at Cap 21 designed to introduce you to the basics of story, whether your project is a play, a movie, a novel or T.V. pilot.  James is truly a remarkable teacher.  His early advice and encouragement after reading an early draft of my first novel were instrumental in making Suspension the book it became.

If you're free next Saturday, October 10th, do yourself a favor and sign up for your spot now.  For more information, click this link.

The second chance to be inspired takes place throughout next week.  After the Storm, the documentary about the successful post-Katrina effort to reopen the St. Mark's Community Center in New Orleans, will be screened at the Museum of Modern Art starting this Monday.  James Lecesne was one of the originators of the idea to travel to New Orleans and mount a production of the musical Once on This Island with thirteen teenagers from the neighborhood. 

Their production, as shown in the documentary, was later restaged in New York and I was honored to give the cast (and film crew) a tour of the city atop a double decker bus.  I will be eagerly attending Monday's screening at 7pm.  Come join me!  Click here to visit the MoMA page for screening times.

NYC Decade by Decade--1870-1879

1870--Construction on the Brooklyn Bridge begins.

1870--The Equitable Life Assurance Building is completed by George B. Post.  Considered the world's first office building, some trace the birth of the skyscraper to this structure--the first to cohesively incorporate an internal skeleton, passenger elevators and modern utilities.

1870--The Metropolitan Museum of Art is established with its acquisition of 174 paintings and a Roman sarcophagus.

1870--Grand Army Plaza is built on Fifth Avenue at the start of a decade that will see a sprouting of mansions in the area.

1870--Steinway begins buying up lots in northeastern Astoria.  He will construct factories and homes for employees, an entire town devoted to the manufacturing of pianos.

1870--Alfred Beach completes his pneumatic subway, built secretly beneath Broadway to prove the feasibility of a subway system.  Nifty, many people think, but elevated railroads will be the form of transit capitalized and expanded during this decade.  The city's first true subway line will not open for 34 years.

1871--The Tweed Ring is exposed and Boss Tweed is arrested.  He will escape jail in 1875, be returned in 1876, and die there in 1878.

1871--Grand Central Depot opens at Forty-Second Street.

1871--The New York State Legislature forbids the dumping of refuse in key waterways including the Hudson, the East River and the Upper Bay.

1873--Another financial panic.  (It wouldn't be a decade without a panic.)

1873--The Angel in the Waters, the famous Central Park statue by Emma Stebbins, first floats above Bethesda Terrace.

1874--A part of the Bronx is annexed to New York City.

1876--Liberty's hand and torch are displayed in Madison Square in order to help raise funds for the Statue's pedestal.

1876--The Tweed Courthouse is finally completed.

1876-1877--The never-ending and stolen election of 1876.  An election won by most accounts by New York governor Samuel Tilden (who prosecuted Tweed) is disputed for months.  Far worse even than the Recount Debacle of 2000, the crooked commission's decision to give the election to Rutherford B. Hayes is announced THREE days before the inauguration.

1877--The Museum of Natural History opens at its current site.

1877--Work on Riverside Park begins.

1878--One of the first telephone exchanges in the world begins operation in Lower Manhattan with a directory of 252 names.  Long before the White Pages, the directory is simply a double-sided card.

1879--St. Patrick's Cathedral is dedicated on Fifth Avenue.

1879--The New Tenement House Law is approved which aims to eliminate the dark rooms and provide more ventilation.

Sources:  Gotham by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace; The Historical Atlas of New York City by Eric Homberger; New York:  An Illustrated History by Ric Burns and James Sanders, with Lisa Ades; The Encyclopedia of New York City, edited by Kenneth T. Jackson;  Blue Guide New York by Carol von Pressentin Wright, Stuart Miller, and Sharon Seitz; Inside the Apple by Michelle and James Nevius.

Elevators That Force You To Take the Stairs

A feature in last week's New York Magazine called Step It Up by Alex Pasternack is filled with interesting trivia about our city's 54,806 elevators, the new health initiative to convince people to take the stairs, the theory behind the architectural trick that forces you to do just that (as seen in the Cooper Union's new building), and this byte to chew on:  "...Stair-climbing is a more efficient form of exercise than walking: Two additional minutes of stair-climbing per day (approximately three floors) can burn more than enough calories to eliminate the average adult’s annual weight gain."

Today in Big Apple History

Today, in 1916, a transplanted New Yorker became America's first billionaire.

Who was he?

Hint:  He is the only individual in the world who amassed a personal fortune (in today's dollars) that exceeded $300 billion.

Overheard on the Subway

After several minutes of sitting on a train that wasn't moving, we were told that it was being taken out of service.  It wasn't until we disembarked that most of us noticed the station was filling with smoke from an electrical fire beneath the front car.  We were hot, we were sweating, we were breathing through our shirts.  As we waited for another train, we were treated to this exchange from a mother and daughter who had apparently notified the station agents about the smoke.

MOTHER:  Two-twenty-five.  And this is what we get.  Nobody's doing anything. 

DAUGHTER:  Just sittin' there.  Don't even see the smoke.

MOTHER:  All these people working here and we got to be the ones to tell them the station's full of smoke.

DAUGHTER:  They woulda done nothin'.

MOTHER:  And nobody knows what this shit is.  Doesn't smell like smoke.

DAUGHTER:  Maybe it's not.  Did you see The Happening?

MOTHER:  Oh, Kim, shut your mouth!  Please!  Don't tell us that shit.

DAUGHTER:  I'm just sayin', if you see people breathing it in and then killing each other, you better run.

MOTHER:  STOP THAT!

DAUGTHER:  I'm serious!

MOTHER:  SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!