The Wylie House on 40th Street

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog. 

In the late 1800s, Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan was lined with mansions designed and built for the wealthy. The turn of the century brought retail and office buildings to the area -- and soon, the New York Public Library -- redefining it as a predominantly commercial region of the city. Few of these residences survived the shift, though one still stands at 28 West 40th Street, in between the American Scientific and the Engineer's Club buildings.

The Wylie House at 28 West 40th Street, with the American Scientific Building on the left, and the Engineers' Club on the right, 1926. Image MCNY

The mansion was commissioned by Dr. Walker Gill Wylie (Bio: p. 8-12), designed by R.H. Robertson, and built in 1891.

Dr. Wylie was born in South Carolina in 1649, joined the Confederate Army at age 16, and graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1868 with an Engineering degree. In 1871, he received his medical degree from Bellevue Medical College in New York City, and spent the following year in Europe observing hospital construction and nursing instruction. While in Europe, he consulted and collaborated with British Reformist Florence Nightingale. After returning to the States in 1873, he helped form the first nursing school, the Bellevue Hospital School of Nursing, which is now called the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing.

Bellevue Nurses, 1880s. Image via

For a number of years Wylie assisted James Marion Sims in abdominal surgery. A monument of Sims was erected in Bryant Park after his death in 1883. It stayed there until 1928, when it was removed and placed in storage in preparation for the 1933-1934 Moses renovation. In 1933 the monument was taken from storage and installed on a pedestal in Central Park at 103rd Street and Fifth Avenue.

J. Marion Sims monument in Bryant Park, October 1894. The Croton Reservoir's west wall can be seen in the background.

In 1882, Dr. Wylie was appointed Visiting Gynecologist at Bellevue, a position he held for 25 years. That same year, he was also appointed Professor of Gynecology at the Polyclinic School of Medicine, lecturing there on gynecology and abdominal surgery for 20 years.

Bellevue surgeons, with -- I think -- Dr. Wylie front and center with the mustache [early1900s?]. Image via

Dr. Wylie lived with his family in the mansion until he died in 1923.

Bellevue Nursing graduating class, 1923. (Note the backwards print). Image via

The mansion's front facade has been (terribly) altered, and it's long been converted from a single family home into apartment housing, but it's a small indication of a pre-commercial 40th Street.

The Wylie House today. Photo: AK

Other Sources:
-"Relations of Hospitals to Pauperism," W. Gill Wylie. Popular Science Monthly. Volume 9, October 1876.
-Bellevue: a short history of Bellevue  Hospital and of the training schools. Alumnae Association of Bellevue, 1915. (link)
-Walker G. Wylie books, available on google books
-Bellevue School of Nursing Archives, housed at NYU.
-Daytonian in Manhattan blog post

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

N. Jay Jaffee

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog.

It's been over a month since my last post. I'm working on a bunch of small projects that will hopefully wrap up in the coming weeks. In the meantime, here's a short post featuring one of the city's many street photographers.  

These gentleman are leaning up against a fairly marked up William Cullen Bryant monument in Bryant Park. The photo was taken in 1953 by photographer N. Jay Jaffee.

Bryant Park, W.C. Bryant Monument, 1953. Photo by N. Jay Jaffee. Image: Brooklyn Museum

People still sit with Bryant on a daily basis in the park, though, since 1992, they've had chairs.

Jaffee is one of my favorite photographers right now, so here are a few more of his images:

Another park scene, not Bryant Park.

Woman in Black, 1978. Photo by N. Jay Jaffee. Image: Brooklyn Museum

Signage, two ways:

Who Has Three or Four Rooms (Brownsville, NY), 1950. Photo by N.J. Jaffee. Image: Brooklyn Museum

Kishke King, Pitkin Avenue (Brownsville, NY) 1953. Photo by N. Jay Jaffee. Image: Brooklyn Museum

A Tower Among Skyscrapers

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog.

In the late 1960s the city began mounting art exhibitions in outdoor public spaces throughout Manhattan. Bryant Park's central location made it the perfect space for exhibiting large sculptures, and in the following years, several were displayed on the expansive lawn. One of the first was Kenneth Snelson's Needle Tower, as seen in the photo below with Sixth Avenue in the background. (This view is almost unrecognizable now, because the buildings that appear to be along Sixth now have larger buildings in front of them; the Bush Tower looks fantastic.)

Needle Tower in Bryant Park, 1967. Photo: Parks Department

Snelson's 60' x 20' tower was accompanied by three smaller pieces, and received positive feedback from the public as well as critics. Needle Tower is a "tensegrity" work -- the word is a combination of the terms tension and structural integrity. Compressed parts (in this case, bars or tubes) are attached not to one another, but to a network of cables. The tension of the cables dictates the structural shape and stability of the whole object. The term supposedly was coined by Buckminster Fuller, but Snelson argues that he came up with the underlying principle.  

Watch a computer animation of Needle Tower assembling itself along with several other examples of tensegrity on Snelson's youtube channel.

Snelson with several smaller models including Needle Tower (center). 

Today, the tower stands outside the Hirshhorn Gallery in Washington DC.

Photo: AK

New York City's commitment to public art continues today with the Art in the Parks Program.

Read more about public art exhibited in Bryant Park, including works by Mel Chin, George Rickey,  Alexander Calder, Kate Gilmore, and Sheryl Oring.

Big Retail Comes and Goes with Stern's

The photo below is one of the earliest I have on file of Bryant Park, and maybe one of the most interesting. It shows West 42nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, about where the W.R. Grace building is now, and a zillion benches lining paths inside the park. All of those buildings have been razed and replaced, and in many cases, their replacements replaced. It was taken in 1912, one year before the Stern brothers built a large flagship store in about the same place on the block.

Photo: BPC Archive

This postcard, most likely of the park between 1913 and 1917 (after Stern's was built, but before the Eagle Hut and Victory Garden), shows the same stretch of West 42nd Street, a pre-Chrysler building skyline, and offers further evidence of park bench enthusiasm.

 Postcard: Pisark's

The retailer had been growing steadily for several years by the time Stern's built the 42nd Street flagship store. It was founded in 1867 as the Stern Brothers Department Store in Buffalo, New york. Just one year later, the company operated out of a one room store on Sixth Avenue, As the store grew, they eventually moved from the Sixth Avenue location, and built built a six-story Renaissance Revival building on West 23rd Street in 1879. Here it is in 1899:

Image: NYPL Digital

And again in 1905, after a few renovations and additions:

Image: NYPL Digital

The building still stands, but now houses a Home Depot that only seems to stock house paint, potted plants, and light fixtures. (If you need actual tools or hardware, venture to the outer borough locations.) Still, it's a pleasure to shop in because of natural light afforded by the huge windows and open floor plan.

Mattron flickr

In 1913 the company moved from this location to build a new flagship store on West 42nd Street, across from Bryant Park, where it would remain for many years. That building was nine stores tall, with a separate entrance for those wealthy enough to be in the know. The new building was a big enough deal for the Indiana Limestone Company to use it and the neighboring Aeolian building in a 1921 advertisement for their product.

Image: NYPL Digital

As one of the larger department stores in the city, Stern's had a vast inventory of goods. Here are some entertaining bits from the store's directory:

Subway / Basement Level - buying offices, and among other things, something called the Bryant Park Shops
Street Level - impulse buys for women (jewelry, cosmetics) and convenience for men (shoes, suits, etc.), and umbrellas, which have their own department
Street Floor Mezzanine - "surgical aids," cameras
2nd Floor - children's, lingere (These always on the same floor in most large department stores, and usually not too far from linens and bedding -- an entire female existence centered around sex.)
3rd floor -- fashion, fur, leather
4th Floor - domestics - drapes, bedding, and linens
5th Floor - fireplace shop (I know it's relevant for the early 1900s, but in today's context it's hilarious.)

The Department Store Museum has a complete listing, and other useful Stern's info.

By the late 1960s the sales in everything had declined significantly. The flagship store was moved to Bergen Mall in New Jersey, taking with it, West 42nd Street's status as a retail center. The building was sold and torn down to make room for the Grace Building, built by the W.R. Grace Chemical Company, and designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill Architects (SOM).

W.R. Grace Building, January 2012. Photo: A. Kumer

Construction started on the Grace building in 1971, and was completed in 1974. It is one of two buildings in the city to have a sloped facade. The other, also designed by Bunshaft is the Solow building. The design of the Grace building is rumored to come from the rejected sketches of the Solow building facade.

Though retail still exists on the ground floor of most of the buildings on this block, I doubt any have a fireplace department.

Other Sources:
Wikipedia
Emporius
To read more about The Stern Brothers' former locations, click here.

Climb High, Look Far

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog.

In 1853 the Crystal Palace was built on the present site of Bryant Park. It was big, glass, extremely fancy, and modeled after the one erected in Hyde Park, London a few years before. Similar to the Hyde Park CP, the New York version housed a vast exhibition of the world's industrial innovations, consumer goods and artwork. The exhibits spilled out beyond the palace and onto bordering streets. Sideshows, food kiosks, makeshift zoos, and other attractions lined West 42nd and West 40th Streets. One of the most notable of these attractions was the Latting Observatory, a 315-foot tall iron and wood tower.

Image: NYPL digital

Built on West 43rd Street with an adjoining structure that went through to West 42nd Street, the Latting Observatory was anticipated to be one of  the "chief curiosities" in the city during the CP exhibition.

Image: BPC

Named after Warren Latting, and designed by architect William Naugle, the observatory afforded paying guests views to Staten Island, Queens, and New Jersey from three separate observation decks. The faux fish eye lithograph below shows the view from the tallest observation deck of the tower. In the foreground, along West 42nd Street, is the Crystal Palace on the right, near Sixth Ave., and the Croton Reservoir (later the site of the NYPL) bordered by Fifth Avenue.

Image: NYPL digital

The Latting Observatory was the tallest building in the city from the day it opened on July 1, 1853 until at least one year later, when the Crystal Palace exhibit closed in November 1854. After the closure, the observatory was bought by Hydeville Marble Works, who then removed the top 75 feet of the tower. Exactly one year after that, on August 30, 1856, it burned down in a fire started at a neighboring shop on 43rd Street.

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

Alexander Calder Brightens up Some Midtown Green

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog.

It won't be long now until we have something fun and colorful dominating the lawn, but back in 1993, Alexander Calder's Big Crinkly did the trick. Following in the footsteps of earlier public art exhibits in the park, including Mel Chin in 1981, and George Rickey in 1986, Bryant Park Corporation (then, Bryant Park Restoration Corporation) installed a very colorful Alexander Calder mobile on the lawn in 1993.

Photo: BPC

It was only one year after the iconic bistro chairs and were added to the park, and the lawn is looking lush.This photo taken before photoshop and scanned from a slide, shows a very green lawn.

Photo: BPC

According to the Times, the sculpture was then owned by art collector Andre Emmerich, who was exhibiting it at a 150 acre sculpture park in Duchess County NY called Top Gallant.

To see more of Calder's work, visit the Calder Foundation website, or go to the open air museum Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, NY. I highly recommend going there. The have a few Calders in their permanent collection, including the one pictured below, and it's a very nice escape from the city. 

Photo: A. Kumer

If outdoor sculpture gardens are your passion, check out this detailed listing by region and state.

One for the Ladies: The Josephine Shaw Lowell Memorial Fountain

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog.

One of the park's oldest and most beautiful monuments is also the first public city monument dedicated to a woman -- the Josephine Shaw Lowell Memorial Fountain. Designed by architect, landscape designer, and painter Charles Adams Platt, the fountain was originally intended for Corlear's Hook Park in the Lower East Side -- where Shaw Lowell had done the majority of her work -- but was instead erected in Bryant park on the east side, near the William Cullen Bryant monument, and behind the New York Public Library.

The Lowell fountain seen here in it's first location at the east end of the park, just behind the NYPL, 1922. Photo: NYC Transit Museum

This pink granite fountain, with a 32-foot diameter base, and 13-foot diameter upper basin mounted on a classical pedestal was dedicated on May 21, 1912. As part of the 1934 Moses renovation of the park it was moved to its present location, at the west side of the park, near Sixth Avenue.

Bryant Park, seen from the elevated Sixth Avenue train facing east, 1936. Postcard: BPC

Josephine Shaw Lowell's life was devoted to helping those in need. (Oh, the digital age -- you can even "like" her on facebook!) Shortly after she married Charles Russel Shaw, she joined her husband on the front lines of the American Civil War in Virginia, tending to sick and wounded soldiers, and later, was the first woman appointed a Commissioner to the New York State Board of Charities.

The Shaw Lowell fountain, the day of Bryant Park's re-opening after the Moses renovation, September 14, 1934. Photo: New York City Parks Photo Archive

Embedded in the bluestone at the fountain's base, is a commemorative plaque.

Photo: Jacob Bielecki, BPC

THIS FOUNTAIN COMMEMORATES

JOSEPHINE SHAW LOWELL

1843-1905

WIFE FOR ONE YEAR OF A PATRIOT SOLDIER

WIDOW AT TWENTY ONE

SERVANT OF NEW YORK STATE AND CITY IN THEIR PUBLIC CHARITIES

SINCERE AND CANDID COURAGEOUS AND TENDER

BRINGING HELP AND HOPE TO THE FAINTING

INSPIRING OTHERS TO CONSECRATED LABOR

Ninety-nine years after its dedication, the Josephine Shaw Lowell fountain continues to amaze and inspire New Yorkers (watch carefully at the 1:30 mark), local news stations, and numerous park visitors, especially during colder months when the fountain is winterized and looks like this. In warmer moths it also serves as an ad hoc wishing well. Ever wonder what happens with the coins?

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.

The Victory of Vegetables

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog.

By 1917, the war efforts centered around World War I were creating significant strains on domestic food production. Food prices increased 200%, and people were hoarding what limited staples they could acquire.

In March 1917, the National War Garden Commission was founded by Charles Lathrop Pack. The Commission embarked on a massive advertising campaign, encouraging citizens to get more involved in food production, and utilize public spaces, fire escapes, and rooftops to grow their own produce. Most of the posters employed the use of clever slogans, while trying to serve as morale boosters during a devastating time in history. In some ways, advertising hasn't changed much.

 Pretty ladies in pretty dresses are often used to sell all types of things, even gardening and patriotism.

Uncle Sam works too.

My favorite, screaming (banshee) produce.


Library of Congress Digital Collection

In New York City, on February 21, 1917, just a month before the National War Garden Commission was formed, 150 housewives storrmed city hall, demanding the local government to get involved in the food crisis. The Mayor at the time, John P. Mitchel, responded by creating a food committee to regulate prices and educate the public on urban gardening practices. The War Garden Committee of Manhattan was a branch of the Department of Parks and Recreation, and overseen by Park Commissioner William F. Grell.

Bryant Park was home to one of New York's largest demonstration gardens. It opened on April 13, 1918, 93 years ago today, and was located on the north side of the park, about where the ping-pong tables and Reading Room are now, and near the Eagle Hut.

Library of Congress Digital Collection

This garden, along with a similar demonstration garden in Union Square, increased Manhattan's gardening activities by 70 percent.

Library of Congress Digital Collection

Here, people could be more involved in local gardening efforts, receive instruction on how and what to plant, and interact with like-minded neighbors. This small garden house was used as a depot for instructional literature, and as a sort of visitor's center in the park.

Thankfully, the practice of urban gardening is still alive and well in NYC, with several farmer's markets in all five boroughs, and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs all over. Click here to search for a CSA by zip code. Or, if you want to plant your own, GrowNYC has several open source publications on starting and maintaining your own urban garden.

Primary source. Hard to find in print, easy to find in Google Books:
The War Garden Victorious, Charles Lathrom Pack, 1919