View Of Eighth Avenue At 110th Street – 1906
Our Detroit Publishing Co. photograph is from 1906 and shows Eighth Avenue looking north. It is at this juncture the Ninth Avenue elevated completes its turn from Ninth avenue to Eighth Avenue at 110th Street and proceeds uptown.
As usual there was a postcard issued that almost certainly came from this photograph. The advertising and perspective are exactly the same, but the postcard contains many alterations.
For dramatic effect an elevated train is running on the tracks. Several horse drawn vehicles have been added. Various pedestrians have been both added and removed. Horse manure has been airbrushed away. But it is the same photograph, though the postcard has cropped off the sides of the photo.
The postcard is copyrighted 1906 but is this really a 1906 view?
The Details
The advertisements to the extreme right show the Belmont racetrack racing dates for May 1905.
There is a theatrical ad for Hurtig and Seamon’s.
Hurtig and Seamon’s Music Hall was located at 211 West 125th Street off of Seventh Avenue.
This bill as seen on the sign above was for the week of May 15, 1905.
According to the New York Times, headliner Rose Coghlan & Co. was appearing in “A Modern Lady Gay.” In 1905 “gay” did not mean homosexual.
The supporting vaudeville acts were Cunning The Jailbreaker (magician/escape artist); Joe Welch; La Valle Trio; Hickman Bros.; Alice Lyndon Doll; Barr & Evans and Harper, Desmond & Bailey.
In 1913 Hurtig and Seamon opened the building at 253 West 125th Street that is now known as The Apollo Theater.
Another theater ad shows Frank Daniels starring in Sergeant Brue. This show would run from April 24 – September 2, 1905 at the Knickerbocker Theatre.
Even with all the evidence that it is 1905, it is more likely the photograph was taken in early 1906 based upon the heavy clothing the pedestrians are wearing. The ads were just left in place.
On the left there are standard ads for housekeeping products and a Bowery tailor and another poster that is a mystery.
There is no writing on this large poster and it almost looks like a trompe l’oeil. Beyond the fence is vacant land, so maybe an artist was hired to put up this realistic scene to break up the advertising monotony or give those strolling a moment of pause.
Almost everything seen in our photo is gone. The elevated tracks came down in 1940.
Today
Most prominently, the building on the northwest corner of 111th Street and Eighth Avenue (now Frederick Douglass Blvd.) still stands, minus cornice and billboards, but with cell towers.
Several other buildings on the west side of the block between 111th and 112th Street also remain.
When architectural cornices degrade and are not replaced (hardly ever): such tells you something about the negation of posterity. Late-stage Anglo-Saxon and Soviet utopianism are the culprits.
The name Joe Welch sounded familiar — perhaps from Fred Allen’s memoirs — so I looked him up. He was a popular “Hebrew” comedian (meaning gentile playing Jewish) who died in a sanitorium in 1919 a few weeks after a nervous breakdown, although other sources speculate the real cause was syphilis. His brother Ben lived longer. Audiences had no idea he was blind the last 20 years of his life.
Fascinating. Thanks. Welch was born Wolinski and was Jewish. Had Joe Welch died in NYC his death certificate would be viewable with the true cause of death. Welch was married with two children and was 49-years-old (not 45 as his obituary in the New York Tribune reported).
He passed “unexpectedly” during a 5 week stay at a sanitarium in Westport, CT. Previously Welch was listed in the trade papers as suffering from paresis for an extended time and being declared incompetent. Welch probably did die from syphilis as you read between the lines of his ongoing illnesses during the last three years of his life as tactfully reported by the papers. The funeral service was conducted by Rabbi Clifton Levy on July 16, 1918. Fellow vaudevillian, brother Ben Welch, died in 1926 and was blind since 1921 according to his Jewish Daily Bulletin obituary.
Photos of Joe Welch out of and in costume, 1913 and 1915.
