Horace Greeley Turns 200!

This is somewhat of a shameless plug for an upcoming event that I helped organize. It's a bicentennial, complete with a mini historical reenactment of sorts. Should be fun. My Berkeley roots, and Jr. High goth history are both evident in the cast of characters (Karl Marx and Edgar Allen Poe make appearances). I'll be there too, most likely without the black lipstick and communist flag.

Anyway, here is the post and event info. It also appears in the Bryant Park blog.

Local historians might be aware that Horace Greeley  --  newspaper publisher, abolitionist, and presidential candidate (he lost to Ulysses S. Grant) – turns 200 this Thursday, February 3rd.  Greeley  is the namesake of Greeley Square Park in the heart of the 34^th Street District, a few blocks south of Bryant Park. What's his connection to Bryant Park?  In 1851, while traveling in London, Greeley attended, and was blown away by, the Great Exhibit of 1851, housed in the Crystal Palace at Hyde Park. Amazed by the breadth and content of the work, when he returned to the states, he met with friend, entertainer, and promoter P.T. Barnum and New York City officials to form a committee to bring a similar exhibition to the City. 

The Crystal Palace, also known as the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, was situated next to the Croton Reservoir (now the location of the New York Public Library), where Bryant Park is today.  You can read more about the Crystal Palace and the Croton Reservoir,  here.

Interior of the NYC Crystal Palace exhibit, opened on July 14, 1853

To celebrate Greeley's birthday, our sister BID, the 34^th Street Partnership, has planned a fun and informative program celebrating his life, with a musical performance from the Horace Greeley High School Madrigal Choir, and a re-dedication of the Horace Greeley monument by NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. A number of Horace Greeley’s friends and collaborators will be in attendance, including Edgar Allen Poe, Margaret Fuller, Abraham Lincoln, and Karl Marx, among others – played by members of the Horace Greeley Drama Department – to reminisce Greeley’s numerous accomplishments and contributions to New York journalism. Also in attendance, will be a number of Greeley’s living descendants, introduced by “Horace Greeley” himself.

Early 1900s postcard showing the Greeley monument in Greeley Square Park

This special celebration begins at 11:00am and is free and open to the public. Hot chocolate will be provided by ’wichcraft.   

Event:  Happy 200th Birthday Horace Greeley
Date:   February 3, 2011
Time:  11:00 a.m.
Place:  Greeley Square Park (Between 32nd and 33rd Streets; Broadway and 6th Avenue)

History Lecture + Bar = Good Way to Spend a Tuesday Night

These all look interesting, though I'm partial to the Garden Spot. A "useless lecture series" at Union Hall in Park Slope. Here's their link.

And Union Hall's.


ADULT EDUCATION PRESENTS: "Brooklyn"
Tuesday, February 1, 2011 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover


BETSY BRADLEY, "Dreamland is Burning: A Coney Island Centennial"
In 1911, the most expensive amusement park at Coney Island burned to the ground overnight. Bradley explains how the Dreamland Circus Sideshow rose from the park's ashes, and ushered in a century of truly "curious peoples" on Brooklyn's southernmost shores.

HEATHER QUINLAN, "The Brooklyn Accent: Freakin' A"
Other than cursing and hand gestures, Quinlan considers the components of the Brooklyn accent.

HOWARD EISMAN, "The Garden Spot of the Universe: Greenpoint, Civic Virtue, and The McGuinness"
Eisman details the career and legacy of Peter J. McGuinness, the last of New York's Irish political bosses.

MIKE MISCIONE, "Up With the Flag of Brooklyn!"
Miscione revisits the battle over Brooklyn's annexation by New York City in 1898 -- and reintroduces an anti-consolidation anthem of the day.

With host CHARLES STAR

Looks Familiar, Doesn't It?

Winter in  NYC, circa yesterday, I mean, 1934.

42nd Street and 7th Avenue

Tunnels Under Bryant Park, Part 1

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog, and is the first of a two part entry on NYC subway trains near the park.

 

It's common knowledge that throughout the city, below ground, there is an intricate subway tunnel system that includes used and abandoned tunnels, passageways, and stations. Mass transit efforts began in NYC many years before the underground subway system was constructed in the early 1900s. The grid system for the streets was laid out in midtown Manhattan in 1807, and the first elevated trains appeared in the early 1870s. With tracks laced across the city, these above ground trains heralded all sorts of urban development, expansion, and helped put New York City on the map as a cosmopolitan destination.

In fact, if you ride several trains within the MTA system (full list, I think: 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, A, B, F, J, M, N, Q, R) far enough into Brooklyn, Queens, or the Bronx, you can experience the glory of above-ground transit, except now there is the added annoyance of overheard yelling cell phone conversations from fellow passengers. Not so in the 1800s, though I’m sure those passengers had their grievances too.

Image: NYPL

The above image shows the elevated station at Sixth Avenue and 42^nd Street, looking east towards Fifth Avenue. The Croton Reservoir is visible on the right, as well as Bryant Park (then Reservoir Square), signified by that clump of trees just in front of the reservoir.

The train lines were owned and operated by several companies. The Metropolitan Elevated Railway Company built and ran the Sixth Avenue line; the New York Elevated Railroad handled the Third and Ninth Avenue lines; and the Suburban Rapid Transit Company took care of the Bronx section of the Third Avenue line. In 1902, a new company, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) was incorporated and soon after, built an underground 9.1-mile long line that stopped at 28 stations between City Hall and 145^th Street and Broadway. This was the City’s first official subway system, and opened on October 27, 1904, to much fanfare. 

Mid-section of the 1904 IRT subway map

Part of this line ran along the northern border of Bryant Park, along 42^nd street, and connected Grand Central to Times Square (now known as the S Shuttle). 

Photo: NY Transit Museum

The photograph above is a pedestrian-level view of the construction on 42^nd Street, looking east, with Bryant Park to the right, and 42^nd Street to the left. The monument on the right is J. Marion Simms -- "father of gynecology" -- who now stands across from the Academy of Medicine on Fifth Avenue at 103^rd Street in Manhattan.

For more historical subway facts, take a look at the MTA's fact's and figures page, and for pictures, check out this NY Times slideshow.

Happy Holidays!

Timeless holiday cat art.

Christmas Shopper, 1914, NYPL Digital



1910, NYPL Digital

Union Dime: Saved Dimes Turn into Prime Real Estate

In 1859, a group of thirty four business men founded and chartered a mutual savings bank. They named it Union Dime Savings Institute to show solidarity with the Federal Union as well as remind people that “dimes saved increased to dollars.”  They were also the first banking institution to use the word "Dime" in its title, though others soon followed. The bank first opened a modest office at Canal and Varick Streets. In 1867, they moved their headquarters to Canal and Laight Streets, and in 1876, to 32nd and Broadway:



photo: NYPL Digital Collection



This six-story white marble building was built in 1874, and in October of that year, Union Dime Savings Institute bought the title of the property from Rudolph A. Witthaus, for $275,000, nearly $70 per square foot. This was considered a fair amount of money for a neighborhood that hadn't quite achieved its desirable reputation.

Greeley Square, c. 1908, with the elevated 6th Avenue train station on the right.

The front façade faced Greeley Square and 32nd Street, and the building housed the Union Dime offices as well as apartments on its upper floors.  The bank remained there for the next 34 years before moving uptown eight blocks to the corner of 40^th Street and 6^th Avenue. The old building at 32^nd sold for a record high price of $1,000,000, or, about $250 a square foot. Aside from making news for its price tag, the deal aroused interest because the purchasers, City Investing Company, didn’t own any adjacent property, or have any plans for the space or building, suggesting to many, an intention to flip the property for a higher price.  

At around the turn of the century, the 34^th Street district was going through a massive transition. Improvements in mass transit led to the arrival of retail giants Macy’s, whose flagship store was built in 1901-1902, and Gimbels (1910).  The 6^th Avenue elevated train had been operating since 1878, but the early 1900s also saw the addition of the “Hudson Tubes” (New Jersey PATH train), and the completion of Pennsylvania Station in 1910. Additionally, the Hotel Martinique on 32^nd Street and Broadway finished its third phase of completion in 1910-1911, rounding out the district as a new hub for retail, transportation, and hospitality.

Regardless of the rise of the 34th Street district, in 1908, Union Dime purchased the corner lot on 40^th Street and 6^th Avenue, across from Bryant Park, for $1,000,000. (Many also know the block between 5th and 6th Aves on 40th Street as the longtime home of the Tesla Society, named after the inventor of wireless communication and alternating current electricity, Nikola Tesla.) Five row houses were demolished to make room for what The Independent referred to as “one of the most imposing banking edifices in the city” (vol. 68, p. 664). The Italian Renaissance building was designed by architect Alfred Taylor, and featured a 96 x 85 foot main banking room with 48 ft. tall ceilings.

View from Bryant Park (known then as Reservoir Square) looking towards 6th Ave. 40th Street is along the left. Photo, NYPL



View of the South side of the Union Dime building on 40th Street, looking east toward the park and the NYPL building. Photo, NYPL



I'm not sure when this building was torn down, but it was still there in the 1930s (upper left, just behind the 6th Avenue elevated train line):

And, in the 1950s, when this subway map was published and distributed by Union Dime:

It was probably torn down sometime in the mid-1950s, to make way for a 34-story office building designed by Kahn and Jacobs, and Sydney Goldstone. The building was completed in 1957, and is still there, looking much the same as it did in 1959, when a photo of it was published on the cover of Union Dime's 100th Anniversary booklet.

**Special thanks to Mr. Boyd Lewis at Union Dime, Inc. for his insight and interest, and a copy of the Union Dime 1959 yearbook.

The New York Public Library Lays Its Cornerstone

This post also appears on the Bryant Park blog, and was posted on November 10, 2010, the same day it should have been also posted here. (oops. vacation brain . . . )

On November 10, 1902, a hundred and eight years ago (and twelve days), the first cornerstone of the New York Public Library's Central Building was laid. One of New York City's architectural treasures, the NYPL borders Bryant Park on the east, along Fifth Avenue between 42nd and 40th Streets. It is also the former location of the Croton Distributing Reservoir.



                A pedestrian level view of the Croton Distributing Reservoir at the corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Ave.                        Photo: NYPL Digital Gallery



Overview of the reservoir, seen from the corner of Fifth Ave. and 42nd Street, 1900. Photo: NYPL Digital Gallery

Plans for the formation of a grand public library began in the late 1800s, when a group of prominent New York citizens agreed that the city, growing rapidly in population and international importance, needed a library. The site of the Croton Reservoir was chosen as the location, and a competition was announced for the building's design. The winning architects, John Merven Carrere and Thomas Hastings of architecture firm Carrere and Hastings, submitted a Beaux-Arts proposal, with a raised terrace at the rear of the building, and two comfort stations along the east end of neighboring Bryant Park (then called Reservoir Square).




Cornerstone laying, 1902. Photo: NYPL Digital Collection



View of the west facade of the library during construction, 1903. Photo: NYPL Digital Collection





View from the construction site of the NYPL. Bryant Park, then called Reservoir Square, can be seen on the left, 1906. Photo: NYPL Digital Collection

It was the largest marble structure ever attempted in the United States, and took nine years to complete, with a cost totaling over nine million dollars. In 1906, the roof of the building was completed, and designers set to work for five additional years on the interior. Dr. John Shaw Billings, the first director of the New York Public Library, created a plan for an enormous reading room, seven floors of stacks, and an efficient retrieval system.



Interior construction, 1909. Photo: NYPL Digital Gallery



Carrere and Hastings furniture plans. Image: NYPL Digital Gallery



The main branch of the New York Public Library opened to the public on May 23, 1911.


Postcard of the NYPL showing the north and east facades. Postcard: Bryant Park Corporation / 34th Street Partnership



To read more about the history of the NYPL and its buildings, click here, and to search though historic photos on the NYPL's digital gallery, look here.