May Day In Brooklyn -1919

10,000 Girls Celebrate May Day In Prospect Park, 1919

Brooklyn May Day celebration 10,000 girls at Prospect Park 1919

I may not be 100 years old, but I do remember being in public school celebrating May Day with a traditional maypole dance.

May Day in New York has other connotations and since the 1890’s May Day has been known for communists, socialists, union activists and workers marching (sometimes together, sometimes separately) around the city protesting and trying to bring attention to their causes.

But here we see a time when the world was finally at peace, a few months after the conclusion of the Great War (World War I). Soldiers with their hats on can be seen in the extreme foreground observing and enjoying the festivities.

10,000 Girls in Brooklyn, N.Y. May Day fete

Shouts of joy ring through Prospect Park as happy children dance, play games and sing. Photo shows a general view of thousands of girls of the Brooklyn Girls’ Branch of the Public Schools Athletic League in their annual May Day fete in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York. (photo credit: Central News Photo Service May 2, 1919)

At Death’s Door: Beautiful Mausoleum Doors & Gates At Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery

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An Artistic Treasure – Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery Mausoleum Doors And Gates

Frederick Kampfe mausoleum door Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn

Ambrose Bierce in his Devil’s Dictionary defined a mausoleum as “the final and funniest folly of the rich.”

Of course some of the mausoleums at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn are elaborate and cost as much as a nice house back in the day. But regardless of Bierce’s cynicism, many of the wealthy spent large amounts of money hiring top architects to design and build their final resting places in hopes of producing eternal shrines to themselves. While many names emblazoned on the tombs are now forgotten, their inhabitants ended up with some beautiful and memorable architectural work that because of their location, a cemetery, is not seen by many.

Thorne – Smith mausoleum door Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn

Here we are focusing on the doors and gates to these mausoleums which were done by artisans of the highest caliber. Some are ornate, some are ostentatious, and some are simple yet elegant.

While some of the decorations on the doors are purely artistic in form, others display symbols which have deeper meanings. Because these mausoleums were commissioned works, the symbolism displayed on the doors was usually well thought out by their owners.

In the 19th and early 20th century many people who visited cemeteries understood the subtle meanings of the icons. It is now mostly a lost art, with crosses, Stars of David, and other common symbols dominating newer funeral markers.

Let us pause and gaze at a few examples of mausoleum portals featuring old school craftsmanship at fabulous Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. (click any ph0to to enlarge)

Peter Moller mausoleum door Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn

Valentine Mott mausoleum door Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn

The large angel in relief is flanked on top by two smaller angels blowing trumpets representing the Call to the Resurrection.

Acea mausoleum door Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn

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Old New York In Photos #37 – Riverside Drive 108th Street

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Riverside Drive 108th Street – 1894

Riverside Drive 108th St Residence Samuel Gamble Bayne

Left – 360 Riverside Drive, Right -355 Riverside Drive corner of 108th Street, circa 1894- both designed by architect Frank Freeman, both, one time homes of financier Samuel G. Bayne

Viewing Riverside Drive today with its large apartment buildings lining the street, it’s hard to fathom the avenue with any open land and large private homes, but it was only a little more than 100 years ago when dwellings like this dominated the landscape. What is more amazing is that both of these ritzy houses were built for the same man.

Looking east on the south corner of Riverside Drive and 108th Street, the imposing house on the right in the foreground is the formidable residence of Samuel Gamble Bayne, an oil industry pioneer, financier, world traveler, author and President of The Seaboard National Bank.

Samuel G Bayne residence 108th St Riverside Drive rendering Frank Freeman architect

Architect’s rendering 355 Riverside Drive- Samuel Bayne Villa

The large Romanesque Revival villa residence located at 355 Riverside Drive was built from 1890-1891 by architect Frank Freeman who happily called the style “architecture at rest,” because of its massiveness and immobility.

Also built by Frank Freeman is the building to the left of Bayne’s large villa, which was Bayne’s original home at 360 Riverside Drive on the north corner of 108th Street. It was built in 1887 and Bayne lived here for a little over two years. When Bayne desired more space for his growing family, he moved with his wife Emily and their five children to the south side of 108th street to his new villa, selling his original home March 11, 1891 to the Pullman family for $105,000. Continue reading →

Book Advertisement From 1915: How To Make Love

The Simplicity Of The First Federal Income Tax

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The First Income Tax Form Of 1913 And How Much The IRS Collected

click to enlarge

It was 100 years ago that the 1040 individual tax form many Americans dread filling out was introduced.

One thing is for sure, it was a lot simpler to file taxes in 1914 than today.

Pictured above is the 1913 1040 tax form which was due March 1, 1914.

With only three short pages to complete and one page of instructions, for most people who had to file, the average time to complete their taxes would take about an hour.

Had to file is an important term here, because the first $2,500 or $3,333.33 of income in 1913 for single and married couples respectively, was exempt. After 1914 the rate was $3,000 and $4,000 respectively. Considering very few Americans made more than $1,000 per year in income, the vast majority of Americans were exempt from paying any tax.

According to the Department of Labor in 1913, the average family household income was $827. Continue reading →

The Mystery Man Who Let John Wilkes Booth Escape

Ladies Day – Rowing On The Harlem River Circa 1905

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Ladies Get Ready For Rowing At An Annual Regatta On The Harlem River

At the turn of the century, the male dominated rowing clubs of New York City, Long Island and Hoboken would hold regattas and invite the fairer sex to participate in the rowing races.

Rowing Clubs with names like the Nassau Boat Club, the Harlem Rowing Club, the Nonpareil Boat Club, the Bohemian Boat Club and the Dauntless Rowing Club would hold a “Ladies Day” and open the festivities to women entrants. In some races the women would have assistance from the men as they stroked their four oared gigs or eight oared barges along the Harlem River from Sherman Creek to about 145th Street. This area of the Harlem River has excellent conditions for rowing and the Columbia Rowing teams still holds practices there.

Both sides of the river would be packed with large crowds to cheer the ladies on during these regattas which were usually held by the different rowing clubs in June and September in the the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

The Stress of Hank Aaron Breaking Babe Ruth’s All-Time Home Run Record

New York Of The Future As Imagined In 1939

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1939 Architects Visualize How New York Would Look In 1950

Over the years there have been many people who have tried to predict what New York City would look like in the future.

The architects who came up with this vision of Manhattan were way off. Considering that this drawing was made in 1939 and was showing what the city would look like only eleven years later, it is wildly inaccurate. That may be attributed in part to World War II which disrupted almost all building plans. The artist is V. Hagopian.

Here is the partial text that accompanied the release of this drawing in 1939.

Here’s the New York City of 1950, as prepared by the architects for their great Exposition of Architecture and the Allied Arts which opens April 15th and published today for the first time. And its not a stretch of the imagination at that, for almost every detail of the picture, though not so extensive a scale, can be found in New York today, even including upper terraces on which people may walk.

Starting at the bottom: All freight, trucks and subways will proceed underground. Pneumatic tubes will carry first-class mail at high speed as now, but will be extended to airplane landing stations over the Hudson River piers, and mail after passing through the post office, will be shot at great speed through pneumatic mail tubes leading into office buildings. Street at ground levels will accommodate passenger and other lighter type automobiles.

Elevated sidewalks even with the second story level in the buildings and crossing above the streets at intersections will forever remove the streets from our midst.

Graffiti As Vandalism, Not Art

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Museum of The City Of New York Graffiti Exhibition Doesn’t Show What The Majority Of Graffiti Is – Unintelligible Scrawls By Vandals

I caught the newest exhibit at The Museum of the City of New York entitled “City as Canvas,” which glorifies the practitioners of graffiti and their “work” during the 1970’s and 1980’s in New York City.

For anyone who thinks that graffiti is something to be celebrated in a retrospective by an exhibition at an important cultural institution, here is some evidence to contradict that viewpoint.

Iouri Podladtchikov, Olympic half-pipe king visits the lower east side with typical graffiti defacing a grand old building. photo – Casey Kelbaugh for the New York Times

A typical display of current graffiti “art” as seen in this building covered by spray paint on the lower east side really is a better representation of the so called graffiti artist. It pains me to see old handcrafted stone buildings covered with paint. The beautiful Queensboro Bridge girders and stonework are always being cleaned and re-painted due to these miscreants who attack our public property with their spray cans, markers and etching knives.

Subway graffiti photo taken Feb 8, 1982

The onslaught of graffiti began in earnest in the subway system in the 1970’s where riding a train was a demoralizing prospect. Almost every single car was covered in dripping unintelligible paint and marker scrawls, which obliterated any blank spaces. Continue reading →

Stuff Nobody Cares About

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