Category Archives: New York

Old New York In Photos #30 – Cooling Off During Heat Waves

Heat Waves In New York And Children Cooling Off

As New York City endures a heat wave this week, realize that for the majority of the 20th century there was virtually no air conditioning in most homes. The streets provided the easiest and most accessible way for children to cool off.

In New York, it is only recently that a heat wave has been defined as at least three straight days with temperatures reaching 90 degrees or more. Who decided this I do not know. Every region of the world has their own definition of what comprises a heat wave. Years ago, any sustained combination of high heat and humidity used to qualify as a heat wave.

This undated photograph above from the mid-1940’s shows city children on a Manhattan street playing and wallowing in the water. I like the fact that some of the people are looking directly at the photographer who is perched high above the street capturing the scene.

This photo shows a Harlem street in 1933 with children gathering around a center stand sprinkler connected by a hose to the fire hydrant.

A four day heat wave in New York City that began June 7, ended on June 10, 1933 with a violent thunderstorm which dropped the temperature down to 86. The day before, the thermometer in the city reached the mid 90’s and reportedly hit 120 degrees in Hammonton, NJ, wilting strawberries right on the stem.

As unthinkable as it is now, for decades up until the 1970’s, to cool off many children would swim in the polluted East and Hudson Rivers. With the FDR Drive and the United Nations Secretariat Building in the background Joe Funranolla and Ray Bardini beat the heat by diving into the East River July 22, 1955. The temperature hit 96 that day.

It was the eighth day in July 1955 that the mercury went above 90 degrees. According to the New York Times, the record up to that time for 90 degree days in July was ten, which was accomplished in 1876 and 1952.

This 1937 photograph shows teen boys making daring dives into the East River. The Williamsburg Bridge is in the background. I wonder how long it took to get back up to where they were diving from?

One thing has remained the same over the years: if they can get to one, kids still flock to the city pools. In this 1937 photograph the Astoria Pool entices a huge crowd, while the Hell Gate Bridge looms in the background.

The current heat wave will soon be over and when winter arrives, you can bet your bottom dollar many New Yorker’s will be saying they can’t wait for the warm weather.

150th Anniversary Of The New York City Draft Riots

5 Replies

July 13, 1863 The Civil War Draft Riots Begin + Related Book Recommendations

“The Battle in Second Avenue” from John Shea’s 1886 book, The Story of a Great Nation

If you’ve watched Martin Scorcese’s 2002 film The Gangs of New York, you saw a vivid depiction of what the Civil War Draft Riots may have looked like. In reality the tumult was probably a lot worse than what was portrayed on the screen. It was the most violent civil disorder in 19th century American history.

Protesting the conscription act, mobs of citizens went on a multi-day rampage of killing and looting. The riots were quelled after four or five days. The estimated number of people killed was 105. The number of injuries was in the hundreds.

In a November 26, 1938 New Yorker story, journalist Meyer Berger wrote about combing through the original blotters at the West Forty-Seventh Street Police Station. Berger came across the station’s last riot related arrest which occurred on July 30, 1863. Fergus Brennan, 35 was charged with being a leader of the rioters. He was held on $2,000 bail by Justice Kelly.

There are several books which cover the draft riots in detail. Among the best are: July 1863 by Irving Werstein (Julian Messner, 1957); The New York City Draft Riots by Iver Bernstein (Oxford University Press, 1990); The Second Rebellion by James McCague (Dial Press, 1968); The Devil’s Own Work The Civil War Draft Riots of 1863 by Barnet Schecter (Walker & Co., 2006) and The Armies of the Streets: The New York City Draft Riots of 1863 by Adrian Cook (University of Kentucky, 1974).

Things You Didn’t Know About The George Washington Bridge

12 Replies

The George Washington Bridge Was Going To Have Its Steel Towers Covered In Stone

The George Washington Bridge seen here during construction in 1930, was built from 1927 until 1931. Architect Cass Gilbert intended its towers to be sheathed in stone. Still visible on the towers are the hooks for which the stone was to be attached.

George Washington Bridge Original Design

Proposed Original Design With Stone Arches

It was decided for practical reasons that the bridge towers did not need to be encased in stone. The Depression hit soon after construction started and the cost of procuring and installing the stone would have been prohibitive. The designers and builders reevaluated the whole look of the bridge and felt that there was a natural beauty in showing the function through the form of the exposed naked steel.

The bridge’s chief designer and engineer Othmar Ammann had incredible foresight. Though the bridge had only one level when originally constructed, the design he came up with allowed for the eventual addition of a lower level which was added in 1962. This increased the number of traffic lanes from eight to fourteen. Morning and evening rush hours can create delays of one hour or longer. Can you imagine what the delays would be like without the second deck?

12 other interesting facts about the George Washington Bridge:

1. When completed in 1931 the George Washington was the longest suspension bridge in the world. It was eventually displaced as the longest bridge by San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in 1937.

2. The bridge was completed eight months ahead of schedule and under budget.

3. To finance the bridge, the states of New York and New Jersey each advanced $5 million and $50 million in bonds were issued.

4. Tolls were set to pay off the bonds, which would mature serially starting in 1953. It was assumed after paying off the bond holders, the tolls would eventually be reduced or even eliminated. (Hah!) Continue reading →

Vintage 1978 Yankees Schedule Including Ticket Prices And Other Surprises

7 Replies

A Nostalgic Look At The 1978 Yankees Schedule Handout

click to enlarge

I attended about 25 games in 1978 at Yankee Stadium. I was a young lad with a minimal allowance. So how could I afford it? Mostly I would buy general admission tickets. The cost, $2.50.

When I would splurge, about six times a year, I could buy a box seat for $6.50. Anywhere in the stadium. Field box, mezzanine, upper box, it didn’t matter, they were all available.

The Yankees drew over 50,000 fans 13 times during the year. Seven of the large crowd games were against the Red Sox. The average home attendance for the season was only 28,838.

I pulled this tri-fold schedule from my collection. The ticket prices are displayed below: Box Seats $6.50; Reserved Seats $5.00; General Admission $2.50 and Bleacher Seats $1.50.

click to enlarge

There are several other things to notice here. First the schedule itself. Continue reading →

Old New York In Photos #29 – Times Square In Vintage Color Photographs

6 Replies

Advertisements & Scenes of Times Square In Vintage Color Photographs 1954

It’s been almost 60 years since these photographs were taken by an anonymous amateur photographer who was interested in the signage, ads and the streets surrounding a vibrant, now vanished Times Square.

The city began sterilizing all the flavor from the crossroads of the world in the late 1980’s. It was a few years later that most New Yorker’s began noticing the mall-ification of Times Square. True, Times Square had denigrated into a rather sleazy place from the mid-1960’s until the “revitalization” took place. But what has it become?

For anyone who lived through Times Square’s final heyday in the 1950’s, today the place must seem extremely distasteful with its countless tourist barkers, ill-planned pedestrian plazas and glass monolith buildings sheathed in gaudy LED light ads. It’s overcrowded with people moving slowly, chain stores, costumed kitsch characters and modern day hucksters hawking their products to tourists for a “real New York experience.” Give me the days of three card monte games and prostitutes over eight people wandering around in Mickey Mouse costumes any day.

As Nik Cohn said in 1997, ‘Times Square has always changed every 20 years. But this time it’s changed to a corporate, generic American city that doesn’t particularly express the uniqueness of New York.”

But let’s go back in time to 1954 when it was a better time for Times Square. Legitimate theatre was still great, movies offered up Cinemascope entertainment and real Broadway characters (not criminals and freaks) roamed the streets.

Enjoy these Kodachrome views of what you would have seen looking around Times Square on a sunny, warm July day in 1954.

Minimal commentary has been added for identification purposes. Click any photo to enlarge.

Times Square looking south from 46th Street. Shown are: Times Tower Building, Bishop’s Crook Light, Hotel Astor with The Astor Roof Garden, Victoria Theater showing About Mrs. Leslie starring Shirley Booth and Robert Ryan, on the extreme left a portion of the statue for the giant block long Bond Clothes advertisement.

Looking west from Broadway and Seventh Avenue along 45th Street. Shown are: the Astor Theater with a large billboard for Indiscretion of an American Wife starring Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift, and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musicals Me and Juliet and The King and I, and the 26 story Hotel Piccadilly at 227 West 45th Street. Continue reading →

Beauties Of The Past – Annabelle Whitford

4 Replies

Annabelle Whitford Moore Buchan And The Original “Gibson Girl”

The epitome of feminine beauty at the turn of the century was captured in artist Charles Dana Gibson’s skillful drawings of women, that came to be known as “Gibson Girls.”

Annabelle Whitford was 15 years old when she achieved notoriety dancing at the Columbian World Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Annabelle appeared in movies performing her dances under the name Annabelle Moore from 1896 -1902. She went onto a successful stage career hitting the top as a star in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1908 playing one of the “Nell Brinkley Girls.” Brinkley (September 5, 1886 – October 21, 1944) was a female newspaper artist whose creations were very similar to the Gibson Girls. In 1910 Annabelle married Dr. Edward James Buchan and retired from performing.

In her obituary in the New York Times it was said Annabelle “was the symbol of beauty in her day. She was billed as ‘the original Gibson Girl’ because of her striking resemblance to the Charles Dana Gibson portrait.” The illustrations below are from Gibson’s 1902 book The Social Ladder.

Continue reading →

Objects Lost and Found At Grand Central Over The Past 100 Years

4 Replies

Fascinating Museum Of Memories Collection Displayed At Grand Central Terminal’s Transit Museum Annex

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the current Grand Central Terminal. Jane Greengold is one of a dozen contemporary artists taking part in an exhibition, On Time /Grand Central at 100. Her work is an installation of objects that have been lost and then found over the past 100 years by one family of conductors who worked on various train lines at Grand Central.

Greengold describes how the project came together:

“When I started working on a piece for the Centennial of Grand Central Terminal, I walked around the Terminal for days, looking for inspiration. I was lucky to meet a conductor, Joe Wenham, willing to chat. He told me his father, grandmother, and great-grandfather had all been conductors, starting before 1913. I said his family itself could illustrate the history of the Terminal and he told me that his great-grandfather had begun a family tradition of retrieving items he had brought to the Lost and Found and that had not been reclaimed, even buying items valuable enough to be sold. He began on a whim, but then decided to create a personal museum of memories of his passengers. The family has kept this up for 100 years.

They did not usually keep the kinds of objects most often lost — umbrellas, gloves, hats, glasses – but kept things that happened to strike their fancy. Neither Joe nor his father has been as enthusiastic about collecting as the first two generations, but they didn’t stop. So instead of creating a work for the Centennial, I persuaded Joe to share some of the family collection, and together we chose the objects presented here.”

This is the sort of thing that will bring a smile to your face if you go see it in person. I love the fact that the Wenham family contemporarily tagged each item with where and when the object was found, along with their astute and sometimes witty observations. Below is a sample of objects from the collection.

The photograph caption recaps what is on the tag: the date and train the object was found on and a remark from the Wenham who found it. You can click on any picture to enlarge.

May 20, 1920 – Twentieth Century Limited
“I saw the man pace up and down again and again, looking at the box worrying it (sic). I could not believe he lost it. Why didn’t he claim it? Was the marriage over?”

June 25, 1924 – Special
“These were the happiest bettors I ever saw”

February 13, 1931 - 20th Century Limited "I never saw anyone wearing this. I don't even know if it is a man or a woman."

February 13, 1931 – 20th Century Limited
“I never saw anyone wearing this. I don’t even know if it was a man or a woman.”

May 5, 1945 – Pacemaker
“There are hundreds of these. But I never saw anyone smoke this much”

February 27, 1946 - "I'd be so sad if I lost my babies photos."

February 27, 1946 – Pacemaker
“I’d be so sad if I lost my babies photos.”

October 3, 1946 – Pacemaker
“Girls! were playing with cars! Maybe they’ll be race car drivers! It’s a German car!”

March 3, 1947 – Empire State
“The woman was as round as the bottle”

September 17, 1958 – 20th Century Limited
“Boring travel diary of a spoiled 13 year old. Went to Europe on Queen Mary, lost diary on a fancy train. Must be a brat.”

November 28, 1963 – Empire State
“I talked to the boy who had this. He’d planned to go to the game but then went home for comfort after the assassination. Wasn’t sure he’d go to the game now. I guess he didn’t.”

On Time /Grand Central at 100 is on view at the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex & Store at Grand Central until July 7, 2013.

Mutilating The Main Branch Of The New York Public Library

2 Replies

Who Cares That New York’s Landmark Library Is About To Be Marred As Part Of A Sweetheart Land Grab Deal?

Who cares? Apparently less than 100 people.

That is about the number of protesters who showed up on Wednesday, May 8 to try and bring about public awareness of the decision by the trustees of the New York Public Library to catastrophically alter one of New York’s greatest buildings, the main branch of The New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd street.

As the stoic group held up signs to the passing throng on Fifth Avenue, some pedestrians slowed or took photos, many just walked by without notice.

The group was protesting the closed door deal that will sell off the land and buildings of two libraries, the Mid-Manhattan branch at 40th Street and Fifth Avenue and the Science, Industry and Business Library at 34th Street and Madison Avenue. Their operations would be condensed and the main library would be remodeled into a circulating library in addition to being a research library. The main library would then store 3.5 million books off-site in New Jersey. This defeats the entire purpose of the building: to be a first-class, on-site repository of research materials critical to tens of thousands of patrons.

The small group of protesters was comprised of mostly older people. It is true that this was a weekday afternoon, but there were maybe ten people under the age of 40 in attendance and one or two in their teens. Continue reading →

May Day Parade New York City 1935

7 Amazing, Little Known Facts Surrounding President McKinley’s Assassination

33 Replies

The Assassin’s Body: Destroyed or Preserved?

Silence in New York City and The McKinley Islands

The McKinley Islands? It could have been, had Congress passed a bill to rename The Philippine Islands after the assassination of the 25th President of the United States, William McKinley.

The Assassination

On September 6, 1901 President McKinley was holding a reception in the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition held in Buffalo, New York. Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, was in the greeting line and he approached McKinley with hand wrapped up to his right wrist in a handkerchief. As McKinley extended his hand to shake Czolgosz’s left hand, Czolgosz fired two shots at nearly point blank range, one that glanced off McKinley’s breastbone and never entered his body, the other penetrating his stomach.

After initial grave concerns by attending doctors and an operation to remove the bullet, McKinley began showing signs of recovery after a couple of days. McKinley was declared in steady press releases by his doctors to be constantly improving in condition, when he suddenly took a turn for the worse on September 13 and died from his wounds at the home of John G. Milburn, in Buffalo in the early morning hours of September 14, 1901.

Seven little known, interesting facts surrounding McKinley’s assassination

1. Friday’s

Four Presidents’ have been shot to death: Abraham Lincoln (1865), James A. Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901), and John F. Kennedy (1963). Garfield was shot on Saturday, the other three were shot on a Friday.

2. The Mystery Bullet

An immediate operation was performed to remove the bullet that was lodged somewhere in McKinley’s body. Continue reading →

Stuff Nobody Cares About

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