The Artists of 80 West 40th Street

This post will also appear on the Bryant Park blog.

The Bryant Park Studios building was one of the first buildings in the city constructed specifically to house artists' studios. Commissioned by painter Abraham Archibald Anderson and designed by architect Charles A. Rich, it was built in 1900-1901 and featured 24 double-height, north facing windows. The site chosen for the building was the SE corner of 40th Street and Sixth Avenue. With Bryant Park across the street to the north, the building's views were likely to stay unblocked by future additions to the city's skyline, providing the studios with much-coveted natural light. 

Anderson kept the lavishly decorated penthouse and an apartment in the building for his studio and living space. His personal touches included a suit of armor, imported Spanish tapestries, a bathroom tiled in whole abalone shells, and an ornately carved Venetian doorway.

Anderson's penthouse studio with many of its embellishments

The building became one of the centers of the city's art world and attracted a long list of famous tenants. In the early years there was painter, turned photographer Edward Steichen:

Edward Steichen, self portrait, c. 1917 or before. Image via

 From the 1930s until the late 1950s, illustrator and painter Thomas Webb occupied several different studios in the building, including Anderson's Penthouse.

Painter Thomas Webb in his penthouse studio with the Venetian doorway in the background. Image: McCormick family

Webb was an exceptionally talented painter and illustrator, well known for his Saturday Evening Post work.

One of Webb's Saturday Evening Post covers. Image via

Last summer I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Webb's daughter, who also lived in the building for a time during the 1930s. She has great stories about New York City, the park during that time period -- it was empty and not very safe -- and some of the artist who worked in the building at the same time. 

Fernand Léger was a "bear of a man" with a deep gravely voice and a preference for only speaking French.

Fernand Léger's Three Musicians, 1930. Image via

Russian artist Leon Gordon once started a small fire by leaving paint brushes soaking in turpentine.

Elegant Man in Mirror, Leon Gordon. Image via

And though she never met him, her father was friendly with the photographer Man Ray, who shot this photo of another early tenant, sculptor Jo Davidson.

Jo Davidson (in his Paris studio) working on the cast of the Gertrude Stein statue, as his subject looks on, c. 1922. Photo by Man Ray, image source: Getty Museum

The building continues to house creative tenants, each with an eye for beauty and an appreciation of  a park view and unblocked northern light.


Other sources:
-Gray, Christopher. NYT, October 6, 1991
-Landmarks Preservation Commission Report, Bryant park Studios Building, December 13, 1988

Reviving Tony Smith's "Presences"

This post also appears on the Bryant park blog.

In the early 1960s American artist Tony Smith constructed a number of sculptures from tetrahedral and octahedral shapes -- he called them "presences." In 1966 he was included in a critically acclaimed exhibit of minimalist and "reductive art" at the Jewish Museum called Primary Structures. Just one year later, several of Smith's sculptures were exhibited in Bryant Park as part of the first temporary display of contemporary art in a city park. Thankfully the tradition continues.

The Parks Commissioner at the time was Thomas Hoving. In March of 1967, just after the Smith exhibit was installed in the park, Hoving left that post to become the Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He oversaw a huge renovation and expansion project of the museum, and then wrote about it. But, during his 14 months as Parks Commissioner, he brazenly went about the city, collecting donations to make changes to the city's parks and igniting an interest in public art.

Tony Smith (wearing hat) and workers during the installation. Image: New York City Parks Photo Archive

Installation of Tony Smith's "The Snake is Out" Image: New York City Parks Photo Archive

Tony Smith with "Willy," "Amaryllis," "The Snake is Out," and "Spitball" (L to R). Image: Tony Smith Estate

Nineteen years later, in 1998, another of Smith's pieces, "Smug" (1969-1970) was exhibited in Bryant Park, this time on the fountain terrace. (I think this image may have been scanned backwards -- from this angle on the terrace you should see 40th Street, not 42nd with the Grace building. It's a beautiful shot of the sculpture though).

"Smug" on the Fountain Terrace. Image: Tony Smith Estate

Smith's work is incredibly recognizable and all over the place, but apparently not fully inventoried. There is, however, an ongoing effort by the International Network for the Conservation of Contemporary Art -- North America (INCCA) to compile a complete inventory of Smith's sculptures. The Tony Smith Sculpture Project South Orange has a good partial list along with a lot of supplementary information about the artist, his life, and work.

I saw one recently at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC called "Moondog" (1964). It was inspired in part by composer and street performer Louis Harding. Harding was also known as Moondog and the "Viking of Sixth," for his chosen location (usually) at Sixth Avenue and 53rd Street.

Smith's "Moondog" at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC

Here is the muse "Moondog" in his Viking garb. He was pretty amazing, and no doubt, one of the city's more interesting "presences."

In conjunction with the Tony Smith Centennial Celebration this year, Smith's works "One-Two-Three" (1976) will be on view in Bryant Park from March 13 - April 10, on the upper terrace. Come check it out!

Read about previous public art exhibits in the park:
Kenneth Snelson (1967)
Mel Chin (1984)
George Rickey (1986)
Alexander Calder (1993)
Kate Gilmore (2010)
Sheryl Oring (2003, 2011)

The Lost Generation Occupies Some City Green

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog.

At this time of year, the life-sized bronze Gertrude Stein statue is somewhat buried behind the holiday shops in Bryant Park. She is one of ten made from a cast by friend and sculptor Jo Davidson in Paris, in 1922, and possibly the only one displayed outdoors year-round. Davidson had a long list of commissioned busts, including Charlie Chaplin, Hellen Keller, and Frank Sinatra. Many of them can be seen here. The photo below, taken by friend and surrealist photographer Man Ray, shows Davidson working in his Paris studio, with his subject Gertrude Stein looking on.

Photo: Man Ray, 1922, Getty Museum

Stein was connected to the ex-pat art and literary scene of the times, coining the term "lost generation," later used by Hemingway to refer to that generation of authors: "You are all a lost generation," epigraph, The Sun Also Rises. Though most well-known for her writing and personal relationships, Stein, along with several members of her family, amassed an impressive art  collection, on display at the Grand Palais now until mid-January.Time to use up those miles!

The Bryant Park statue was donated by Dr. Maury Leibovitz, psychologist and art dealer, and unveiled in a small ceremony on November 5, 1992. In addition to the sculpture, Mr. Leibovitz owned an estate formerly belonging to Jo Davidson. Davidson has another Bryant Park connection -- for a time, he worked out of a studio at the Bryant Park Studios, on the corner of 40th Street and Sixth Avenue. So it's fitting that she found a home in the park.

Photo: BPC, Marco Castro

As for the other nine statues, I tracked down a few of them: one at The Met (they also have a beautiful Picasso portrait of her), supposedly one each at The Whitney and The Carnegie Museum of Art, and possibly one at The Smithsonian (it was on view last Spring, but could have been on loan).
  
Other Sources:
**The Parks Department has a monuments catalog available online. You can read about most every statue you've ever seen in the park system until your eyes bleed.
**Now you can settle all of those arguments about when the Post Modern ends and Contemporary begins with this handy chart.

Fall Colors in Black and White

This post also appears (or will soon) on the Bryant Park blog.

Just in time for fall, Bryant Park horticulturists plant Chrysanthemums in the park. Here is a flashback to another time when the flowers made a regular appearance in the gardens.

Leftover from the Robert Moses / 1934 renovation, the tall hedges became a corral for an assortment of Chrysanthemums in October 1943.

A closer view

And a super close-up. As my high school photography teacher Mac (short for McInyre, and he looked like a gold rush prospector w/ a penchant for flannel shirts and a beard) would have complimented the nice film exposure -- not too dark or light, with a wide range of grays.

**All photos: New York City Parks Photo Archive

September Dedication

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog.

Seventy-seven years ago today Bryant Park re-opened after an aggressive redesign and renovation led by NYC Parks Commissioner Robert Moses.

Lifted straight from an older post, which has several in-process construction photos: "Assisted by consulting architect Aymar Embury II, and landscape architect Gilmore D. Clarke, Moses transformed the grounds of Bryant Park from a Victorian greensward to a French Classical landscape very similar to today’s design."

Here are a few photos from the dedication ceremony held on September 14, 1934. First, the ceremony. It almost looks as if no one is there listening to Robert Moses, and the fountain water is very still.

But it was well attended. Everyone is clustered behind the fountain, recently moved from its prior location at the other end of the park, just behind the library.

A bird's eye of the lawn, including the hedges, Bryant Park Place along the left on 40th Street, and the Union Dime Savings Bank building at the corner of 40th and Sixth Avenue.

**All Photos, copyright: New York City Parks Photo Archive

Civil War in Midtown

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog.

Awhile ago at work I was half asked, half told to find a connection between the park and the American Civil War in order to commemorate its sesquicentennial. I'm not a Civil War historian, which makes finding non-obvious connections within this hugely dense topic of history difficult. Bryant Park, then known as Reservoir Square, was most likely used as an encampment for Union soldiers during the war, but I think that was true of most parks and public spaces in the city. Also, most of the confirmation of this comes from NYC guidebooks, not actual primary sources. I did find a small connection via one of my favorite monuments in the park.

At the east end of the reading room stands a monument to William Earle Dodge, founding member of the American chapter of the Y.M.C.A., New York 8th District Congressman from 1866-1867, and Native American rights activist, among many other things.

Photo: BPC

He was also the father of one of the youngest Brigadier Generals in the Union Army, Charles Cleveland Dodge, who aside from his commitment to public service, shares his father's stance.

Though Dodge left the service in June1863, he returned to volunteer with the U.S. Army to restore order in the city during the Draft Riots under Major General John Z. Wool. Transcripts of Wool's reports are available online. The Draft Riots, still considered one of the largest (and by day three) heinous acts of civil disobedience in the country, waged on for four days throughout the city from July 13 - July 16, 1863. The African-American community was especially targeted and horribly mistreated, leading to an exodus from the city by that community, which I'm sure had a huge impact on New York City's cultural and social development in the following decades.

George Rickey's Kinetic Art in Bryant Park

In 1986, kinetic sculptor George Rickey, installed six kinetic sculptures in Bryant Park. The exhibit was part of the Artists-in-Residence program sponsored by the Public Art Fund, Bryant Park Corporation (then, Bryant Park Restoration Corporation), and the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. Like other artists-in-residence, Rickey was present for the installation, worked during daytime hours, and had helpers. The installation began on June 25, 1986.

Photo: BPC Archive

Photo: BPC Archive

Placed in different parts of the park, all six sculptures were on view until October 17, 1986.

Postcard: BPC Archive

At the time, Rickey had two concurrent exhibitions at the Maxwell Davidson Gallery, and the  Zabriskie Gallery. To see more of Rickey's work, check out his video of an installation at the McNay Art Museum in  San Antonio,Texas from 2008.

Public art projects in Bryant Park also include this 1981 exhibit by Mel Chin.

Poetry in the Park

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog.

For me, poetry in the park usually brings to mind small, informal and intimate gatherings of people. Maybe a microphone is involved, but probably not necessary, because there is more listening, and definitely no cell phones. As far back as the late 1960s, poetry readings were staged in parks throughout the city as part of the Academy of American Poets program Poets in the Parks. Not surprisingly, American modernist poet Marianne Moore drew an huge crowd with her 1968 Bryant Park appearance. I don't know what works she read that day, but I like to imagine her poem "An Octopus" was one of them, with all of its incredible imagery and detail. And, I don't know what her voice sounded like, but I like to imagine it too, as full of body and authority as her words.

Pulitzer Prize winning poet Ms. Marianne Moore at the podium. Behind her is NYC Mayor John V. Linsday, and Mr. August Heckscher, Administrtor of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs.
Photo: copyright Academy of American Poets

Photo: copyright Academy of American Poets

The following year, the poetry season started out with this reading. I don't recognize the poet, but if you do (or even better, if you were there), please email me (Anne).

* 6/10/2011 update: Thanks to poet Mary Austin Speaker, for identifying activist and poet Muriel Rukeyser in the photo below. 

Photo: NYC Department of Parks

The park has a strong connection with poetry, starting with its namesake, American romantic poet and newspaper editor William Cullen Bryant, who is also memorialized on the upper terrace with a bronze monument. In 1884 the park's name  was changed from Reservoir Square to Bryant Park in his honor. According to some, he was the first American writer of verse to accomplish international fame.

A verse from Bryant's poem "A Summer Ramble," first published in 1826 is perfect for bringing in the poetry season and the warm weather:

But now a joy too deep for sound,
A peace no other season knows,
Hushes the heavens and wraps the ground,
The blessing of supreme repose

Public Art Transforms a Struggling City Park

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog.

Over the past year, Bryant Park has been the location of a few notable public art exhibits: Paul Ramirez Jonas' Key to the City, Kate Gilmore's Walk the Walk, and most recently, "Battle of the Brush." It's a long-standing tradition that many present-day park visitors may not be aware of. In 1980, the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation, Public Art Fund, and the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation collaborated to create an Artist-in-Residence program. The Artist-in-Residence program was one of several things park management did to infuse Bryant Park, then suffering from criminal activity and lack of use, with positive activity. The resulting spectacle increased pedestrian traffic and human presence in the park, and discouraged negative activity, such as drug use and vandalism.

Artists assembled their pieces on-site, where visitors were able to watch, ask questions, and in some cases, lend a hand with the installations. Exploring the theme of metamorphosis, visual conceptual artist Mel Chin, constructed his piece "MYRRHA P.I.A. (Post Industrial Age)" in the park, during the summer and fall of 1984.

Chin used  nineteenth century fabrication techniques to create a three-dimensional figurative sculpture of a female set on a wood pedestal, and placed in the center of the lawn.

The statue's two outer "skin" layers made of perforated steel, encased a skeleton made of polystyrene.

The piece was 30 feet tall, 6 feet deep, and 16 feet wide. "MYRRHA P.I.A." was completed, and unveiled on January 17,1985. It stood in the park until May 30 of that same year. 

In addition to Industrial Age fabrication techniques, Chin drew from  a nineteenth century engraving by French illustrator Gustav Doré. Chin's Myrrha is heavily based on Doré's engraving of Dante's portrayal of Myrrha in Divine Comedy. In Greek mythology, Myrrha disguised herself as someone else, tricked her father into an incestuous affair, as punishment was transformed into a tree, and, still as a tree, bore a son, Adonis. Doré's engraving shows Virgil leading Dante on a tour of the underworld, through the Eighth circle of hell, where Myrrha and other "falsifiers of others' persons" reside. For more on Dante, visit Danteworlds, an "integrated multimedia journey" through Dante's Divine Comedy.

Mel Chin continues to work and exhibit internationally.To see more of his work, click here, here, and here.

To learn more about Public Art projects in and around the city, visit the Public Art Fund, MAS NYC, and Creative Time. For more information of current public art exhibitions in New York City parks, click here.

A Hut Worth a Hoot in Bryant Park

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog.

New York City parks are home to many World War I memorials and monuments, including the plaque dedicated to former NYC Mayor John Purroy Mitchell on the front terrace of the NYPL, near Bryant Park. The park itself was the location of the first New York City Y.M.C.A. Eagle Hut. First built in London, the huts were constructed to provide a home away from home to soldiers and military personnel. This image, courtesy of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library (WWPL) flickr page, is identified as signage for the Eagle Hut in London. Click on the photo for more information, and to check out their vast digital photo archive.

The Bryant Park Eagle Hut was based on the London Eagle Hut, which opened on September 3, 1917. Similar in structure and services provided, the Bryant Park Eagle Hut was dedicated and opened in 1918, and stood in the northwest section of the park, about where Heiskell Plaza is now.

The Hut, still under construction, in 1917

The Hut, after it's completion, ca. 1918

The Y.M.C.A was first founded in London in 1844 by George Williams, a department store worker, formerly a farmer, who sought to create a safe place for the large number of young rural men moving to the city in search of work. London during the Industrial Revolution was pretty bleak -- living and working conditions were horrible, children worked long hours in factories, and labor rights hadn't been considered or established yet. Poet William Blake openly criticized the Industrial Revolution's effects on children, workers, and society as a whole, remarking on the collective departure from nature, and misery of city-dwellers living and working in oppressive conditions. Blake's first stanza, from his poem, "London" published in Songs of Innocence and Experience, 1794:

I wander thro' each chartere'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe

Read the whole thing here, and see one of the early published copies of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience here.

The Y.M.C.A's goal was to provide the men with resources, Bible study, and a sense of community in their new environment. The United States Y.M.C.A was founded on December 12, 1851 by retired sea Captain Thomas Valentine Sullivan to provide the same types of services to sailors and merchants in Boston.

Similarly, the Eagle Huts in London, Bryant Park, and gradually other locations, including a "Victory Hut" erected in New York City's Battery Park in 1919, provided out-of-town servicemen with a broad range of services and activities, including free circulating libraries, meals, movies, socials, and events; and convenience services like mending, check-cashing, post and parcel services, and discounted sight-seeing trips. Duties were mostly carried out by female volunteers, and headed by committees of the same.

The huts also served as gathering places (much like parks do) for relaxation or just hanging out, as seen here in this photo of the inside of the Bryant Park Eagle Hut, taken June 12, 1918.

Photo: Shorpy's. Click on the link for a high-res view

At some point, the Bryant Park Eagle Hut proved so popular, that two additional wings were added. You can sort of see them in the lower left corner of the picture below, taken around 1920.

It was most likely torn down to make way for construction of the Flushing line subway, which began in 1922 and lasted through most of the decade.

Additional Sources:

Harper's Pictorial Library of the World War, volume 7

Service with Fighting Men, by William Howard Taft

Tunnels Under Bryant Park, Part 2

This post also appears on the Bryant park blog.

During its long tenure as a public park -- 165 years, if you go all the way back to 1846, when the City ordered construction of a public park, then called Reservoir Square, next to the Croton Reservoir -- Bryant Park has seen a lot of construction. 

In addition to the erection of a temporary structure now and then, usually for a public event or activity, such as the Crystal Palace in 1853, and Federal Hall in 1932, and more recently, the Citi Pond at Bryant Park, there have also been two large-scale reconstructive efforts: one in 1934 under the guidance of Robert Moses, which transformed the park from a Victorian to a French Classical design, and another in 1988, headed by Bryant Park Corporation, which in addition to giving the park a much needed facelift, included the installation of  NYPL stacks under the lawn. 


Photo: NYC Transit Museum

 


























The photo above, taken in 1924, shows a pedestrian view of 42nd street, on the north side of the park, during construction of the Flushing Line, now, the 7 train. Service began from Grand Central Terminal to Vernon-Jackson in Queens, on June 13, 1915. Over the next 13 years, the line extended to Flushing, Queens, and to Times Square. You can read more about it here, and of course, check out the more specific up-to-date 7 train line information here.


Running along 42nd Street, building the line turned much of the park into a construction site for about five years. 

Photo: BPC Photo Collection



Years later, while writing about the 1934 renovation of the park in the December 1, 1934 issue of the New Yorker, Lewis Mumford would recall " . . .those long dreary years, when it looked as if someone had struck oil there." Construction crews arrived in the park on June 2, 1922, and didn't leave until July 5, 1927. 



Happy Presidents' Day (Yesterday)!

February 22, 1732 marked the birth of our nation’s first President, George Washington. Now celebrated along with Abraham Lincoln's birthday as a federal holiday, Presidents' Day, on the third Monday of February. It's also an extra day off of work for many of us. 

In 1932, to celebrate the bicentennial of Washington's birth, the Washington Bicentennial Committee, headed by Sol Bloom  and Grover Whalen, was formed to erect a replica of Federal Hall just behind the NYPL, in Bryant Park. The original Federal Hall was located on Wall Street, and it was there that Washington took his first oath of office.

  

This building cost an estimated $8,000 to construct, and 25 cents per patron to enter. It stayed up for a little over a year after the celebration, mostly collecting dust and resentment. The faux Federal Hall stayed up for months, and was torn down in April 1933, at the urging of the Parks Department. The Commission was supposed to restore the park to its prior condition, but was thwarted by lack of funds. The often articulate barometer of widespread NYC sentiment, the New Yorker, referred to these as some of the park's "dreary years" in a December 1, 1934 article.

A much older, and slightly different version of this post is on the Bryant Park blog, posted around President's Day last year, and before I figured out what to do with pictures on blogs.

Bryant Park's Choice Seating

This post also appears on the Bryant park blog.

Bryant Park is known for many things, including an abundance of its iconic green chairs. Before the park had movable chairs, seating was much more limited. With only benches and a few picnic tables, people were often crowded together on the library steps, and perched on the balustrade (which is bad for the masonry).
 

northwest section of Bryant Park, 1983

Afternoon lunchers clustered around one of the NYPL flagpoles, 1991

During the restoration of Bryant Park, in the late 1980s, Park management heeded the advice of Urbanist William H. Whyte, and decided to introduce movable chairs into the park in time for its planned re-opening in 1992.

As Whyte aptly wrote in his book The Social Life of Urban Spaces: "Chairs enlarge choice: to move into the sun, out of it, to make room for groups, move away from them. The possibility of choice is as important as the exercise of it. If you know you can move if you want to, you feel more comfortable staying put."

During the summer of 1991, most of the park was not quite yet ready for the public. However, Park management, the NYC Parks Department, and Community Board 5, agreed to a partial opening of the fountain terrace on July 1, 1991. To prepare, the BPC (then called, Bryant Park Restoration Project) purchased 400 sturdy, white stackable chairs.

Park users enjoying the new seating on the fountain terrace, 1991



This trial run of movable furniture received ample positive feedback from the press, and more importantly, park users. By the time the entire park was re-opened to the public, on April 22, 1992, BPC replaced the white chairs with the now iconic, green Fermob chairs.