Monuments And Odds & Ends
The focus for the final installment on Green-Wood Cemetery are monuments and some interesting things that I took note of.
Dogs
Dogs are not permitted to be buried in human cemeteries. Somehow though fourteen years after inventor Elias Howe’s death, a dog “Fannie,” was buried at the family plot in 1881. That is the exception.
For many people, their dogs were like members of the family. Continue reading
Do You Know That Name?
Continuing the journey through historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn the next set of photographs concentrates on some names from history, some remembered today, others forgotten.
DeWitt Clinton
DeWitt Clinton has many things named after him in New York including a town, a high school, and a park. Known as the father of the Erie Canal, Clinton was a ten term mayor of New York City. Under his stewardship in 1811 the grid plan for the streets of New York City were instituted. He was also a United States Senator and Governor of New York State. Clinton lost the Presidential election of 1812 to James Madison by less than 10,000 votes and 29 electoral votes.
Clinton was moved to Green-Wood in 1844, sixteen years after his death. Continue reading
A Different Way To Spend The Day In New York, Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery
When I’m asked by people visiting New York what are some of the things they should do while they are here, my answer usually results in incredulous looks. “Go see Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx or Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.”
Most people will never visit a cemetery unless their relatives are located there. Even then, most people dread going to a cemetery. This is a mistake from a cultural standpoint. Cemeteries, especially historic ones like Green-Wood, possess landscape and architectural treasures that you cannot see in any museum. They also contain a history told in granite, marble, bronze, slate and limestone through an array of monuments, mausoleums, crypts, sarcophagi and tombstones of the permanent residents of Brooklyn. As Green-Wood describes itself on its web site:
Green-Wood is 478 spectacular acres of hills, valleys, glacial ponds and paths, throughout which exists one of the largest outdoor collections of 19th- and 20th-century statuary and mausoleums. Four seasons of beauty from century-and-a-half-old trees offer a peaceful oasis to visitors, as well as its 560,000 permanent residents.
The rural cemetery movement began in 1831 with the opening of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Massachusetts, Continue reading
A Soda Tax Would Not Have Prevented Henry Koerner’s Death
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg doesn’t like soda and would like to tax people to discourage them from drinking it. But it wasn’t obesity or the root beer itself that caused Henry Koerner’s demise, it was a bizarre accident.
In the August 20, 1892 New York Times, a brief story appears about Henry Koerner, who worked for Lighte Brothers (a mineral water manufacturer) at 509 East 17th Street and how he was killed when the root beer he was loading on to a wagon exploded.
When Koerner slipped on a fruit peeling on the sidewalk, the ten pound pressurized tank of root beer he was carrying dropped on the stone pavement and exploded like a charge of dynamite. The tank shattered in all directions with one piece going right through Koerner’s head, killing him instantly. The explosion was so powerful, the top of the tank went 150 feet into the air and fell to the ground with a deafening crash. The poor man left behind a wife and three children.
I’m sure there was little if any compensation for his loss of life, as accidents like this were dismissed as being part of the hazards of working. Below is the original newspaper story.
Valentines Day has come and gone. I know love can drive you to do crazy things, but I can’t recall seeing a story like this.
The date was February 16, 1904, one hundred eight years ago, the thermometer read 0° with blizzard-like conditions raging in New Jersey. Continue reading
A Glut of Publishing
In 1907 there were 9,260 books published in the United States according to the New York State Library Bookboard.
Compare that to 2010 when there were 316,480 books published by traditional publishing companies according to Bowker.
Add to that another 2,776,260 on-demand titles produced by reprint houses specializing in public domain works and by presses catering to self-publishers and ”micro-niche” publications.
That is over 3 million books published in one year.
No wonder it is so hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Continue reading
What Was Happening On January 21, 1909
I picked a random day 103 years ago to see what was in the news. I read the entire New York Times newspaper for Thursday, January 21, 1909 to come up with the some interesting stories and unusual items. The paper was only 18 pages! The major differences compared to current newspapers: few photographs accompany any story and articles of different types are interspersed on the same page, so the news is not sectioned by category. I have put the article summary in blue and my comments are in black italics.
Crowds flocked to the Auto Show at Madison Square Garden. Lots of famous people showed up including Colonel John Jacob Astor and Mr. & Mrs. George J. Gould. There was a selection in gasoline powered and electric cars on display.
An advertisement for Renault showed they led all automobile companies in US imports with 214 in 1907 and 244 in 1908.
The Conference Committee of the Independent Telephone Officers to meet the following week on plans to build a long distance telephone line from Boston to Omaha. The cost: $5,000,000 immediate expenditure and $30,000,000 over the next four years! Continue reading
Equitable Building Jan. 10, 1912 – View From The Singer Building © Library of Congress
David Dunlap’s excellent story in The New York Times about the Equitable Assurance Building fire is merely a reminder about how great disasters are eventually forgotten over time. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911 took 146 lives and was remembered in various ceremonies on its 100th anniversary.
No such commemorations will be held this year for the Equitable fire which killed six people, including Battalion Chief William Walsh.
The fire took place on a brutally cold day and the water froze quickly and left macabre ruins resembling an ice palace. Continue reading
We continue our look at some of the advertisements from this issue of The New Yorker. To put the prices of goods and services in perspective: in 1951, a first class postage stamp cost three cents; a loaf of bread cost sixteen cents; the minimum wage was seventy five cents per hour and the average salary was $4,200 per year.
For The Men
Of course The New Yorker appealed to the well heeled man as well as the elegantly outfitted woman. (click on any ad to enlarge)
Freeman Shoes – Men’s shoes have not changed much in sixty years. If the Freeman Shoe is the footwear of the successful man, what is the footwear of the man who fails? Continue reading
Ads From The November 3, 1951 New Yorker Magazine
I really enjoy looking at old magazines. Those old issues of Life, Look, Collier’s, The Saturday Evening Post and especially The New Yorker uniquely capture the 1920’s-1960’s.
I like the articles, the cartoons and especially the ads. You read the copy, look at the typography and study the images. The salesmanship is very direct. Some ads are wordy and try and convince you of the merits of the product. Others let the product stand on its own with few or no words.
I picked a random issue of The New Yorker Magazine from over 60 years ago to look over and picked 30 ads that were indicative of the time. There are over 100 advertisements in this issue: some are very small, some are full page, some black and white others are in color.
Then, probably more than now, The New Yorker was read by and appealed to the upper crust of society and the ads definitely reflect that.
Here are the first fifteen ads. Click on any image to enlarge.
They Liked To Drink
Those post-war years meant if you were going out, coming home or even at the office you should have an alcoholic drink.
Booth’s House Of Lords Finest Distilled Dry Gin – Probably better than Booth’s House of Commons Gin Continue reading