Category Archives: New York

Classic Hollywood #41 – Marilyn Monroe In Acting Class

Marilyn Monroe At The Actors Studio

These three candid photographs of Marilyn Monroe at The Actors Studio in New York were taken by Roy Schatt (1909 -2002).

They are currently being offered at auction on April 15, 2015 by Doyle New York Auctioneers & Appraisers. The estimate for all three photos are between $800 – $1,200. The first two photos of Marilyn in the audience is being offered as one lot (lot 569). The other photo (lot 570) captures Marilyn eating lunch.

Because Actors Studio chief Lee Strasberg thought Schatt had real talent as a photographer he was given access to photograph the classes where actors could hone their craft.

Marilyn stands out in the first photograph Continue reading →

1925 Police Chief Suggestion: Pay Bounties To NYPD For Killing Criminals

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In 1925 A New York Police Chief Proposed Paying Cops Extra To Kill Criminals

Across the country complaints are rising against police officers using excessive force against alleged criminals. So it probably would not be politically correct today to make a suggestion that cops get paid extra to kill criminals. But that didn’t stop one top cop 90 years ago from making that proposal.

Second Deputy Police Commissioner George S. Dougherty c .1912

In January 1925 George S. Dougherty former NYPD Second Deputy Commissioner and Chief of Detectives wrote to the New York Times recommending that large bounties be paid to police officers who kill hold-up men.

Dougherty suggested that a police officer killing one hold-up man be paid $1,000, $2,500 for killing two and the astounding sum of $5,000 for killing three. This bounty would mean a regular patrolman could earn substantially more than the $2,500 annual base salary for killing a robber.

Though many citizens may have agreed and responded positively to the Chief’s populist proposal, it never gained any momentum. The New York Times commented that “of course no one goes into mourning when one of these land pirates meet the fate they deserve as enemies of the human race, and if a policeman in the exercise of his duty kills one of them it properly is regarded as a good job, well done. But Mr. Dougherty’s proposal is a very bad one.”

Several officials at the police department concurred with the Times opinion saying that if Dougherty’s suggestions were put into force, “they might incite indiscriminate shooting.”

Other positions advocated by Dougherty included: Continue reading →

A Forgotten 1915 Brooklyn Tragedy: Four Boys Die In An Accident, Shattering Two Families Forever

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Two Pairs of Brothers, Together In Life And Death

100th Anniversary Of The Forgotten Brooklyn Explosion That Killed Two Sets Of Young Brothers

While wandering the bucolic grounds of the Evergreens Cemetery on the Brooklyn – Queens border you come across many interesting monuments. There are Triangle shirtwaist fire victims, General Slocum memorials and many historic notables. And then there are the monuments like this one that are inexplicable on first inspection.

Zimmer inscription monument

Higgins inscription monument

Two sets of brothers each between 7 and 11-years-old all dying on March 13, 1915 and are buried together. This unique memorial has an angel, with a few fingers and toes missing, head bowed in sorrow, standing between the two columns that are connected at the top by a triangular stone with the Gospel of Luke quotation inscribed across it, “Suffer Little Children To Come Unto Me”.

My first thought was that the boys were probably cousins or related in some other way and died in a house fire.

But checking the news accounts from the following days reveals a senseless tragedy of two unrelated families children just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Zimmer boys, Henry age 11 and Herbert age 7, of 186 Warwick Street and the Higgins boys, Alex age 11 and Arthur age 8 of 174 Warwick Street were close friends and neighbors growing up a few doors from each other. Continue reading →

Street Signs New York City – 1962

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What Happened To Those Old Street Signs?

From the Look Magazine photo archive comes this photograph taken by Philip Harrington in 1962 showing the street signs at the intersection of Nassau and Pine Streets.

The humpback street signs which had served New York City for about 50 years were discontinued over the next few years and replaced by rectangular yellow signs with black letters. Those signs lasted until the early 1980’s when they were taken down.

The old elegant blue street signs with white serif lettering ended up being bought en masse by Stamford House Wrecking in Stamford, CT in the 1970’s Continue reading →

Old New York In Photos #47 – Before The Flatiron Building 1900

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Before The Flatiron Building

The Intersection of 23rd Street Where 5th Avenue and Broadway Meet – 1900

This view of 23rd Street at the intersection of Fifth Ave and Broadway was taken around 1900 by Robert Bracklow. The ornate street lamp and multitude of signs and advertising make this a great street level photograph. There is also something very interesting that I have rarely seen in any late 19th century photo of New York and that is another photographer taking a picture at the same time that this one was taken. He is directly to the left of the street lamp and the tripod is clearly visible while his head is under the covers to line up his shot.

From the approximate direction his camera is pointing, it looks like he is shooting straight up Broadway toward the Worth monument. I’d like to imagine that behind the camera is Joseph or Percy Byron of the famous New York Byron Company.

The famous Fuller Building, better known as the Flatiron went up in 1902 Continue reading →

New York City Subway Advertising 1912

Old New York In Photos #46 – The History of New York’s Shot Towers

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Birds-eye View Of The City From The Shot Tower At Centre Street

And A Brief History Of New York’s Shot Towers

This view of lower Manhattan looking north is from the top of the Centre Street shot tower and was taken in approximately 1870 by E & H.T. Anthony, providers of some of the best 19th century stereoviews of New York.

The view confirms that New York was a low profile city in the 1870’s. The tallest structures in the metropolis were generally churches and their steeples. This view is dominated primarily by three and four story dwellings (some with laundry on clotheslines drying on the roof) as far as the eye can see.

The shot tower was 175 feet tall and was built in 1855 by James Bogardus, a pioneer of cast iron building for James McCullough.

Located at 63 Centre Street and bounded by Pearl Street, Worth Street, New Elm Street and Centre Street, the shot tower was operated for many years by the Colwell Lead Company who acquired it from McCullough after the Civil War.

The Centre Street shot tower was octagonal in shape and constructed of brick with 10 iron pillars reaching from the foundation to the top. The base of the tower was 25 feet in diameter, tapering off to 11 feet in diameter at the summit.

Shot towers were among the tallest structures in 19th century New York. They served a necessity in the manufacture of shot ammunition. Molten pig lead would be mixed with arsenic and dropped from the top of the tower through a sieve. The semi-liquid cooled as it fell through the air into a globular shape, and it was caught in a basin of water below. The process would form perfect spherical shot. It was estimated that the tower could produce 15 tons of shot in a day.

As you approached the shot tower the cacophony of sound was described by a contemporary reporter “as if 1,000 sewing machines were at full play.” If you stood just outside the room where the shot was produced the noise level jumped incrementally to the sound of “100,000 sewing machines now put in full motion.” And if you entered the production room, it was as if “1,000,000 sewing machines were at work for all they were worth.”

In a strong gale of wind workers described how the tower would sway, not backward or forward but “like a man full of liquor desirous of taking in all the points of the compass at one and the same time.”

According to the superintendent of the lead company, considering the view which could be obtained from the top of the tower there were few requests from visitors to ascend it.

The Centre Street shot tower was razed in 1908. On its site is Thomas Paine Park.

Shot Towers In Manhattan

All the other shot towers that existed in New York are now gone as well.

They included:

A shot tower was located at 261 & 263 Water Street operated by Continue reading →

Worst Snowstorms In New York History – January 1925

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January 2015, Not As Bad January 1925

Trolley stuck in snow during storm

It was bad for Suffolk County, NY and Boston, MA, but New York City’s 2015 “worst blizzard of all time” did not live up to its billing.

Official records for the city have been kept since 1869, and so far this January, New York City has received a relatively small amount of snow with 14.3 inches accumulating.

January 1925 arrived and departed like a polar bear and New York City was the unwelcome recipient of 27.4 inches of snow, the most ever recorded for any January up to that time. (This record was finally eclipsed in January 2011 when the city recorded 36 inches of snow.)

But it was not only New York City that got hit multiple times in January 1925 with lots of snowstorms, but upstate New York got slammed as well.

The tally for the city read like this: A relentless snowstorm that lasted two days occurred from January 2-3. On January 12 the city required 12,000 shovelmen to tackle another snowstorm that clogged the streets. January 20 New York City got hit with two blizzards in one day. January 27 more snow fell and then the coup de grace; the giant storm on January 30 that affected the metropolitan area.

Ninety years ago today on January 30, New York City was hit hard, but so was the entire region. How bad was it? Cattle in the streets? Ferry service ground to a halt? Here are a few excerpts of what Continue reading →

Part 2 – An Interview With Avery Corman “My Old Neighborhood Remembered A Memoir”

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Avery Corman Talks About: Dating, Restaurants, High School in The Bronx, The Advertising World, Getting Published and Having His Books Adapted To Film

We continue our interview with Avery Corman, author of the new book My Old Neighborhood Remembered A Memoir (Barricade Books) 2014, and his story of growing up in the Bronx during the 1940’s and 50’s.

Divided into 5 parts the first two parts of the interview can be seen here.

In part 3 Avery Corman discusses dating, blind dates, sex, going to the movies, the differences between eating out and restaurants, dessert havens like Krum’s, Addie Vallins and Jahn’s and the coming of television.

Part 4 Avery Corman recalls his high school years at DeWitt Clinton High School and his decision to go to New York University. Upon graduating Continue reading →

Old New York in Postcards #11 – Unbuilt New York

The New York That Was Never Built

New York City: plans are made, plans are scrapped. We’ve dug up postcards of unbuilt projects, variations of existing structures or other anomalies such as a lawn in front of the main branch of the New York Public Library.

Bridges

The postcard seen here is the West Jersey Bridge which predates the George Washington Bridge by a few years. In the 1880’s Gustav Lindenthal came up with a design for a large train bridge for the Pennsylvania Railroad that would have connected Manhattan at 23rd Street with New Jersey. The railroad opted for tunnels instead of a bridge. Lindenthal had a long career in bridge engineering supervising the building of the Queensboro and Hell Gate Bridges.

Over thirty years later, in 1920 Lindenthal drew up plans for the West Jersey Bridge. The West Jersey Bridge would have 20 lanes of traffic on its upper deck and a dozen on the lower level. Pedestrian walkways were to be part of the gargantuan bridge stretching from Weehawken, NJ to 57th Street in Manhattan. The master plan included cutting a highway completely across Manhattan connecting to the Queensboro Bridge. The West Jersey Bridge was never built. Instead, Lindenthal’s protege Othmar Ammann designed the George Washington Bridge which was constructed further north at 177th Street.

Which brings us to something we covered previously: that the George Washington Bridge was originally supposed to have its towers sheathed in stone. Architect Cass Gilbert’s stone arches were depicted in various early drawings and plans for the Hudson River Bridge. The stone plan was ditched. The arches retain the graceful steel skeleton and the bridge was formally renamed the George Washington Bridge.

With this illustration of the Williamsburg Bridge completed in 1903, the artist took some liberties in showing the completed towers. On the top of each of the towers we see what appear to be windowed rooms, possibly for observation or just decoration. They were never built.

The Manhattan Bridge completed in 1909 is accurately seen here. But the entrance is certainly not something that came to fruition. The bridge approach imagined is a veritable garden in a park-like atmosphere with neatly pruned trees, shaped into squares surrounding the entrance way.

1955 photograph of current Henry Hudson Bridge

For the Hudson-Fulton celebration of 1909 there were various proposals to build a bridge connecting upper Manhattan with the Bronx. Known as The Hendrick Hudson Memorial Bridge or Hudson-Fulton Memorial Bridge, both designs featured elegant approaches for an arch bridge over Spuyten Duyvil. Continue reading →

Stuff Nobody Cares About

A not so random collection of observations about things you should care about

Category Archives: New York

Classic Hollywood #41 – Marilyn Monroe In Acting Class

Marilyn Monroe At The Actors Studio

1925 Police Chief Suggestion: Pay Bounties To NYPD For Killing Criminals

In 1925 A New York Police Chief Proposed Paying Cops Extra To Kill Criminals

A Forgotten 1915 Brooklyn Tragedy: Four Boys Die In An Accident, Shattering Two Families Forever

Street Signs New York City – 1962

What Happened To Those Old Street Signs?

Old New York In Photos #47 – Before The Flatiron Building 1900

Before The Flatiron Building

The Intersection of 23rd Street Where 5th Avenue and Broadway Meet – 1900

New York City Subway Advertising 1912

Old New York In Photos #46 – The History of New York’s Shot Towers

Worst Snowstorms In New York History – January 1925

Part 2 – An Interview With Avery Corman “My Old Neighborhood Remembered A Memoir”

Old New York in Postcards #11 – Unbuilt New York

The New York That Was Never Built

Bridges