For a brief period there was a park in the middle of Park Avenue. This is not it. When road lanes were widened in the 1920’s the pedestrian plaza with benches were removed and replaced with a park like median which is surrounded by fencing and has no public access.
Looking north from around 38th street, Grand Central Terminal is in the middle of this photograph and behind it is the New York Central Building (currently called the Helmsley Building.) Continue reading
An Unlikely Catalyst Causes a Baseball Strike – Other Players Rally Around the Unpopular Ty Cobb
On Wednesday May 15, 1912 The Detroit Tigers were playing the New York Yankees at Hilltop Park in upper Manhattan when one of the most infamous incidents in baseball history occurred.
Ty Cobb, the star outfielder for the Tigers was incited by a fan to go into the stands and pummel him.
The fan, Claude Lucker (alternately spelled by contemporary papers as Lueker or Leuker) worked as a page in the office of Tammany boss “Big Tom” Foley. From the onset of the game Lucker was being particularly obnoxious according to all accounts. Cobb and Lucker exchanged nasty barbs and Cobb warned Lucker to stop calling him names or he would come into the stands to take care of him personally. By the fourth inning Cobb had had enough and he jumped into the left field stands and started administering a beating and no one seemed to interfere.
Sticks and stones were probably not as harmful to Cobb as the names which could hurt him – especially when the racist outfielder was called a “half-nigger” by Lucker, which was what apparently drove him over the edge.
It should be noted that Lucker had a machine press accident when he was younger and was missing one hand and had Continue reading
The Oldest Man In New York
I’ve always had a problem with people saying, “I read it on the internet and therefore it is true.”
I am more of a believer in the accuracy of books, but I’ll admit it- bibliophile that I am, even books are wrong sometimes. Actually, more than sometimes. How often, I’ve wondered, does a mistake appear in a book, that book becomes the “authority” or “reference” material for other books and the mistake becomes gospel?
When something strikes me as unusual, amazing or inconsistent with what I know, I try and check the facts by going to the original or earliest source material. This is just my natural curiosity. This includes lots of history that is inconsequential in the greater scheme of things. But when I get fascinated and have to know more, I’ll take the time to look into it.
In an earlier post we noted we would return to the book, “The Secrets of the Great City: A Work Descriptive of the Virtues and the Vices, the Mysteries, Miseries and Crimes of New York City” by Edward Winslow Martin (pseud. James D. McCabe) published by Jones, Brothers & Co. 1868.
One short chapter entitled The Oldest Man in New York aroused my investigative instincts, two samples from that chapter are reproduced below (the full three page text can be found here)
Strangers visiting the Church of the Ascension, in New York, cannot fail to notice the presence of an old gentleman, who occupies an arm-chair immediately in front of the chancel, in the middle aisle, and who gives the responses to the service in a very loud and distinct manner. This is, perhaps, the oldest man of the entire million of New York City inhabitants. It is Captain Lahrbush, formerly Continue reading
Looking east from Fort Lee, NJ to New York City. June 25, 1935. Continue reading
Intersection of Canal & Chrystie Street, 1928. Note the humpback street sign and the policeman who is not directing traffic because there is none.
We are looking north along Central Park West then (known as Eighth Avenue), from 81st Street. Continue reading
SBS Should Stand for Stupid Bus System
It has been several months since the Metropolitan Transit Authority replaced Limited Stop Bus Service on First and Second Avenues in Manhattan with Select Bus Service to speed up trips.
Having used it for most weekdays since its inception in October 2010 I’m ready to offer a judgment – it still needs a lot of improvements.
Now remember, this is the MTA. This is the organization that cannot determine if it has a deficit or a surplus in a year. They are the organization that has announcements on the subways that say, “Thank you for riding with MTA New York City Transit!” As if we have any choice but to use this bureaucratic monopoly. If they were a business entity they would be out of business or the board members would have all been fired.
So I should not expect the MTA to do much right, but foolishly I believe they will figure out the shortcomings of the SBS system by observation or complaints and make adjustments.
Apparently they will not.
Narrow Aisles
First the buses themselves. The bus aisles were designed by a groper. The aisles are so narrow that two people cannot pass each other without rubbing into one another. Either that or Nova Bus, a subsidiary of Volvo, hired Japanese transit designers. From what I’ve seen of the Japanese transit system they pack them in like sardines and actually have “pushers” to squeeze everyone into the trains (if someone did this to me I’d freak out.)
The articulated buses can supposedly hold 60 passengers. Providing that they are under 120 pounds each.
Don’t Yell Fire in Here
The buses get so crowded that I have seen people actually Continue reading
A Longer Tour Around Old New York
Today we will look at the old hotels of New York. In some cases these buildings still stand. For others the names have changed. Some have been converted to apartments or other uses. And some are just a memory. Working our way from south to north let’s look at a dozen of the lesser known of New York’s hostelry’s.
Hotel Marlton just off of 5th avenue circa 1920. The center of Greenwich Village and now a street of endless cut price shoe stores, 8th Street was once a fashionable residential neighborhood. Many famous literary and artistic figures resided at the Hotel Marlton at one time. Starting in 1987 the Marlton was leased as a residence for students of The New School of Social Research. It is now closed as a hotel and a dormitory, and its future is undecided. Notice on the side of the hotel there is an advertisement for the hotel proclaiming it “absolutely fireproof.” There was a good reason for touting this feature. On St. Patrick’s Continue reading
Somehow or other this story did not make much of an impact in the news when it occurred in December 2010. This was done by a group of vicious, uneducated creeps. The words I would like to use to describe the vermin who did this I will not publish here.
The damage probably amounts to hundred of thousands of dollars. It also looks like more than 200 graves were harmed from the video posted below. With all the evidence Continue reading
How much has New York City changed? If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a postcard worth? These are all about 100 years old. Let’s start with these five views. We’ll be doing this feature regularly.
Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street looking North approximately 1915
Broadway looking North from Union Square circa 1910 Continue reading