Lincoln, Cooper portraits hit the streets at Astor Place
Abraham Lincoln and Peter Cooper made history down near Astor Place, and the New-York Historical Society doesn’t want you to forget it.
Free-standing large-scale portraits of the two men have been installed in the Astor Place Triangle across from The Cooper Union, map, which is where Lincoln delivered the 1860 speech that made him a viable presidential candidate.
“In sharing the richness, diversity and stories of the New-York Historical Society’s permanent collection, this installation aims to teach visitors something new about their history and connect the past to their present-day lives,” Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of the New-York Historical Society, said in a statement about the portraits, which will be on display through August 24.
The installation of the 1860s and 1870s portraits (both replicas of paintings on display in the museum’s permanent collection,) is serving as a pilot program for a larger citiwide series the Historical Society hopes to mount next year to coincide with the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of New York.
A year ago, London’s National Gallery did something similar with its Grand Tour by placing reproductions of some of its most famous paintings in the streets of Piccadilly, Soho and Covent Garden.
More information about the New York project is online. The Historical Society is also planning two major exhibitions about the same era in U.S. history : “Grant and Lee in War and Peace” (opening October 17, 2008) and “Lincoln and New York” (opening October 2, 2009.)
Picture credits: Photos by LaPlaca Cohen, provided to NewYorkology by the New-York Historical Society.
Shea Stadium seats for sale Aug. 25, for $869 per pair
Before the Mets demolish Shea Stadium, they’ll be cleaning out the ballparkand putting things out for sale. Starting August 25 at 9 a.m., you’ll be able to buy a pair of stadium seats in orange, blue, green or red for $869.
Season-ticket holders get first dibs on their own seats prior to that date.
More Shea memorabilia — such as seat backs and 45-inch sections of bench seating from the left field picnic area — will go on sale at a later time.
What do Napoleon’s privates have to do with New York? Unfortunately for him, more than you might guess.
The fate of the French leader’s “baguette” is far from glorious. It turns out Napoleon’s penis was owned by a famous New Yorker, Dr John K. Lattimer of Columbia University — and it was displayed here in 1927 at the now-defunct Museum of French Art.
Watch the video of his trek to New Jersey — yes, New Jersey — to have a peak at the goods.
The book has plenty of other NYC references, including a critical look at the report that J. Edgar Hoover was seen wandering the Plaza Hotel in drag in the 1950s. There’s also a clever “Easy-Reference Chart to the Robber Barons” of Wall Street.
Perrottet’s book tour will have him at the Half King in Chelsea on Monday at 7 p.m. He’s sent over a couple New York-related excerpts for your historical reading pleasure:
THINK NEW YORK IS TOUGH FOR TENANTS? TRY FINDING A DECENT ONE BEDROOM IN ANCIENT ROME
Those of us who complain about the extortionate rents in New York should draw comfort from the fact that the real estate market was even harsher in the city’s classical alter ego, ancient Rome.
From the first century AD, over a million low-income citizens were crowded into the world’s first great Imperial city, and Roman property developers made a killing: Landlords threw up hundreds of six-story tenements called insulae or “islands,” which were broken into apartments of barely one hundred square feet each. And much like today, rates were always being pushed to the limit: “Ever-rising rent was the subject of eternal lamentation in Roman literature,” notes the historian Jerome Carcopino.
In fact, ancient living conditions will sound touchingly familiar to modern New Yorkers: the dwellings were notorious, one historian says, for “the fragility of their construction, the scantiness of their furniture, insufficient light and heat, and the absence of sanitation.” Roman writers like Juvenal and Martial were constantly whining about claustrophobic spaces, which had no kitchens, bathrooms or running water, and often had no windows. “Where has the purse of greed yawned wider?” Juvenal asked, wondering why Romans had not set up an altar to Mammon, the god of wealth.
Rome even had the first professional real estate agents. Called (appropriately enough) extractores, they were notoriously skilled at hiding an apartment’s defects and avoiding costly building repairs: “The agents would prop up a tottering wall,” observes one historian, “or painted a huge (ceiling) rift over, and assure the occupants that they could sleep at their ease, all the time that their home was crumbling over their heads.” As Juvenal wailed, sounding like a tenant’s advocate today: “All low-income citizens should have marched out of Rome en masse years ago!”
Free JFK AirTrain rides on Friday to mark airport's 60th
JFK’s AirTrain will operate entirely free on charge on Friday, July 25, to celebrate the airport’s 60th birthday, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced in a press release.
AirTrain rides between terminals, parking and rental car lots are always free, but a $5 charge kicks in (except this Friday) when you stay on to connect to the NYC subway system or the Long Island Rail Road.
A bit more JFK Airport history from the press release:
The first passenger arrived at what was then known as New York International Airport on July 9, 1948, on a Peruvian International Airways DC-4 from Santiago, Chile. The airport was dedicated three weeks later, on July 31, 1948, in a ceremony attended by more than 200,000 people, including President Harry S. Truman.
The airport has undergone numerous transformations since then, including a name change in 1963 to honor slain U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Contrary to popular belief, the airport has never had any other official name, although it was commonly referred to as Idlewild.
In the 1960s, the airport became home to several new passenger terminals, including one of the icons of modern American architecture - the TWA Flight Center, designed by renowned architect Eero Saarinen. Rehabilitation work is currently under way in the building, and it is expected to reopen to the public later this year, as is a new passenger terminal under construction directly behind the Saarinen terminal.
On August 1, JFK will host the first scheduled flight of the A-380, the largest passenger aircraft in the world, as it arrives at Terminal 4.
In fact, he probably had no connection to the Mercedes that was recently pulled out of the Erie Basin in preparation of the June 18 opening of the Ikea that will offer a new mile-long waterfront park and free Water Taxi service - even to people who don't intend to shop.
The neighborhood is hardly the "Red Hook Riviera" the Post called it last week, but the additions of a cruise ship terminal and a Fairway market in the past two years have at least made cab drivers less afraid to travel to the neighborhood long isolated by the lack of good public transportation.
"We are introducing Red Hook to the rest of the city," Joseph Roth, the U.S. director of public affairs for the Swedish furniture maker told NewYorkology on Wednesday during a tour of the new Erie Basin Park.
Although the Municipal Art Society and others have decried the loss of Brooklyn's working waterfront, Ikea's new park makes great efforts to celebrate what remains and actually allows the public some of the closest access short of a hidden harbor cruise.
Not only will park goers get full views of the tugboats and barges that call Erie Basin home port, but Ikea has incorporated many remains from the Todd Shipyards into the 6.5-acre park -- including four gantry cranes, a spectacularly rotted pier, the WWII-era floating dry-dock gate, tools that have been painted red and are on exhibit (including on red hook,) as well as concrete chocks that Ikea intentionally left covered with the original graffiti but added the names of ships that were repaired in the yards since the Civil War.
Video of the new park:
The grassy park will be open from dawn to dusk and it will have its own 50-cent hot dog stand. The new Water Taxi dock will offer free shuttle service to Pier 11/Wall Street daily through the summer. And yes, you can use the free Water Taxi even if you intend to bypass the store and head to the soccer field food carts, Roth said.
The now-legendary weekends-only Central American food carts, which are scheduled to reopen sometime soon, aren't the only reason to venture out into the rest of the neighborhood.
Here's the 2008 Red Hook summer rundown:
July 3 will see the grand opening of home/made, the new Van Brunt Street venture of tini wine bar's chef/designer Monica Byrne and metal artist Leisah Swenson. "We've collected some unique antique, artisan crafted and new contemporary items to adorn your home and your body. When home/made is not operating as a retail establishment, we will host private parties in our garden," Swenson told NewYorkology by e-mail this week. They're located at 293 Van Brunt St. between Pioneer and King (in a storefront made famous when local real estate diva Barbara Corcoran bought the building a few years ago and proclaimed Red Hook the "it" neighborhood of the season.)
If you like Red Hook, you may find Metal & Thread is one of those I-want-to-buy-everything type of stores that mixes new craftsmanship in with funky antique finds (including lots with a working waterfront theme.) The store opened in March.
Both the Liberty Sunset and Chelsea garden centers have significantly expanded since opening last year.
For more Van Brunt shopping, check out Saipua for handcrafted olive oil-based soaps and flowers, Erie Basin for vintage jewelry and Atlantis for used books and furniture. Brooklyn Farm Table is open by appointment.
Food in Red Hook
Good Fork is still the star here, (especially since 360 shuttered and a "for rent" sign remains in the window.) Quality local food with a menu that changes monthly. Dinner only, reservations a must on weekends.
Tini wine bar, at 414 Van Brunt St, directly across the street from Good Fork, catches its overflow on its comfy couches and bar stools. They serve wine, craft beer and excellent bruschettas, cheeses, pates and fondues that make a meal or snack. They also do weekend brunch. On June 18th (Ikea Day) they're pouring "Swedish Cocktails" & "Big Box Seltzers" from 5 to 11 p.m.
Gothamist has pictures from inside the former Lillie's bar across the street from Ikea. Chef Neil Ganic has reopened half the space so far -- Annabelle's, with a garden and full bar with Six Point on tap and a short menu featuring crab cakes and other seafood. There's also a stage for bands. The other side of the enterprise, La Bouillabaisse restaurant, should open soon. He told NewYorkology he'll be open 365 days a year; and for now, it's dinner only.
The website for Anselmo's Bakery says it's shooting for a July 4 opening of its new Coal Brick Oven Pizza & Bread restaurant at 354 Van Brunt. They've already got a second location in the works for 204 Van Dyke Street at Pier 41.
Ikea will have food options as well, including a 450-seat restaurant with some spectacular views. Here's NewYorkology's video of the view taken during Wednesday's press preview:
The Ikea restaurant will be open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. (that's half an hour before the store itself opens/closes.) Breakfast = 99 cents, and the regular menu is cheap as well, in part because, as the signs state, the store would like you to bus your own tables. They're big on Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce and other Swedish foods, but there's also a kids menu and American-type fare on offer. Downstairs, you can buy their foods to-go at the Swedish Foodmarket, including gummy Swedish fish and Abba-branded seafood pate.
Elsewhere, Viva serves a free margarita with every entree, DeFonte's will give you old-school sandwiches to go, Fairway has a sandwich counter and indoor/outdoor waterfront deck and Hope & Anchor is still going strong.
On July 5, the Added Value farmers market opens for the season across the street from Ikea.
The Cheyenne Diner is also schedule to move to Red Hook, but it's not here yet.
Under "coming soon," the Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corp. brochure also lists Grindhaus "beer & sausage house with outdoor garden" at 275 Van Brunt.
Drinks
Six Points Craft Ales is still offering free brewery tours by appointment only. They ask you e-mail them at tours@sixpointcraftales.com. However, on June 14 the brewers will be at Carroll Gardens' Bar Vendetta from 3 to 8 p.m. with $4 dollar pints of their Apollo, Bengali Tiger, Righteous Ale and Brownstone.
Rocky Sullivan's has replaced Liberty Heights Tap Room, but they still host bands and kept the roof deck. They've added a full Irish breakfast for weekends and occasional book readings.
Brooklyn Ice House has opened in the old Pioneer bar space on Van Brunt. It's directly next door to the Bait & Tackle bar still going hipster strong.
The granddaddy of them all, Sunnys, is only open a few days a week, and also hosts book readings, concerts, and plays.
LeNell's liquor store is still open at the same location and offering frequent tastings and classes. (But the Brooklyn Paper reported she's getting forced out because the building's owner
"who works for the Balucchi’s Indian restaurant chain — said he did not intend to renew her lease because he wants to use the ground floor himself.")
There's also news of a Red Hook winery, but that's not open yet.
Recreation and galleries
Valentino Park and Pier has actual water access where the local kids swim and the Red Hook Boaters offer free canoe and kayak rentals. There's also quite a view of the Statue of Liberty.
What's the Hook photo exhibition is moving through several locations in the neighborhood, documenting the swift-moving changes of the area.
While Pier Glass is infrequently open to the public (next dates are July 12 and 13 from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.,) they do offer one-on-one glass blowing classes.
If you're lucky, you may also find steel horses for sale on Van Brunt.
The Waterfront Museum Barge is open with free access on Saturdays from 1 to 5 p.m. and Wednesdays 4 to 8 p.m. On Sundays it hosts Circus Sundays at 1 and 4 p.m. through June.
Barney Greengrass turns 100 today and it's rolling back its prices to 1908 rates, no asterisk included. The family-owned, "Sturgeon King," is often cited as one of the best smoked fish purveyors in New York City.
The 4th of July hot-dog contest at Coney Island sponsored by Nathan's Famous may drop the epic eating fest down to 10 minutes from the 12-minute race it's been for at least two decades, the Brooklyn Paper reports. Evidence has surfaced that it started at 10 minutes. As Major League eating announces:
Major League Eating has elected to conduct all qualifying rounds of the 2008 multi-city Nathan's Famous circuit tour as 10-minute competitions and may shift to this duration permanently, making it the official contest length. More information will follow.
Read the brutal New York Times take-down of Ago, the restaurant in Robert DeNiro's much-hyped new Greenwich Hotel. It starts with the bartendaer's "Poseidon Adventure? of wine spills on the reviewer's date during the 52 minute delay for their table that was "little bigger than a bike wheel." Oh, there's more:
This restaurant isn’t in the hospitality business. It’s in the attitude business, projecting an aloofness that permeated all of my meals there, nights of wine and poses for swingers on the make, cougars on the prowl and anyone else who values a sort of facile fabulousness over competent service or a breaded veal Milanese with any discernible meat.
Gourmet magazine has weighed in with its ode to Florent, the much-loved Meatpacking stand-by that will close forever as of June 29. Hit eBay for its CBGB-style sale of its interiors.
In the same neighborhood, Lotus will shutter June 15 according to Eater.
Alexander Hamilton's house moved to St. Nicholas Park
The Hamilton Grange finally made its move Saturday, all 298-tons of the historic house.
The national monument was the home of Alexander Hamilton from 1802 - 1804 and the new location is within part of his original property line.
In May at its old home on Convent Avenue, the house was slowly lifted nearly 40 feet in the air on a jenga-like system of steel rails and wooden towers called cribbing. It was moved out into the middle of the street and this past Saturday, rolled around the corner and down the hill where it was slipped into Saint Nicholas Park among tall shade trees, grass and rocky outcroppings.
The next step is to slide the house over onto its new foundation and complete interior and exterior repairs.It will reopen to the public in 2009. (However, the The Friends of Hamilton Grange have filed suit in hopes of forcing the National Park Service to turn the house in another direction.)
NewYorkology toured the site in May with Stephen Spaulding, the chief of NPS’ northeast architectural preservation division.
Governors Island reopens with polo match, David Byrne
Governors Island will open for the season this Saturday with the island's first polo match in 70 years, a family festival and a music installation from David Byrne at the Manhattan ferry launch site.
Admission to the former military base and the ferry ride are again free every day the island's open, which this year will be every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. October 5 will be the last day of the season.
The opening day Veuve Clicquot Manhattan Polo Classic will pit North American Polo League's Black Watch vs. Skeeterville. The game is free and starts at 3 p.m. at South Island. There will be a champagne bar and picnicing will be allowed.
All summer, the island will host two exhibitions" "In Site" organized by the Sculptors Guild and "Emergence" by Figment, an installation from 30 artists and art collectives. The island will also be home to one of Olafur Eliasson's four NYC Waterfalls, which will run from June 26 to October 13.
Other Governors Island events for this summer include the New York Philharmionic's free July 5 concert, the Governors Island Concert Series with moe, (June 15,) the Dark Star Orchestra (July 11,) and the Saw Doctors (August 23;)and the Folks on the Island folk festival with Janis Ian (July 5,) Slaid Cleaves (July 12,) Bearfoot (July 19,) Eric Bibb (July 26,) and Ronny Cox (Aug. 2.)
The island's long military past will get some respect during Army Heritage Weekend (June 21 and 22,) as well as Revolutionary Weekend (August 2 and 3,) Civil War History Weekend (August 9 and 10,) Battle of Brooklyn Weekend (August 23 and 24.)
The Figment Festival arrives June 28 and 29, while the Pulse Theatre will take up a short residence the last days of August with Shakespeare’s "Twelfth Night? (Aug. 29-31.)
But even before you leave Manhattan, check out David Byrne's Playing the Building, a free, interactive musical installation in the landmark Battery Maritime Building.
The pitch:
The project consists of a retrofitted antique organ, placed in the center of the building's cavernous second-floor gallery, that controls a series of devices attached to its structural features—metal beams, plumbing, electrical conduits, and heating and water pipes. These machines vibrate, strike, and blow across the building’s elements, triggering unique harmonics and producing finely tuned sounds.
Hamilton Grange literally up in the air for June 7 move
Hamilton Grange is on the move -- and that's no easy task for a 298-ton, 206-year old house wedged between a Romanesque church and a 1911 apartment building.
The house -- Alexander Hamilton's house to be precise -- is currently jacked up three stories in the air on thick wood beams in such a way that "it looks like they're playing Jenga," as one amused gawker pronounced into his cell phone while watching the work Friday afternoon.
The gawkers are indeed welcome on Convent Avenue, map, as the crews slide the planks in and jack up the house, slide the planks in, and jack up the house, leading up to the point this afternoon where they will slide the house out into the street. The next step is a delicate move around the corner at 141st, down a short block and then a right turn into St. Nicholas Park, map. That move, around the corner and down the hill, is set for June 7, from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
This past Friday, NewYorkology was lucky enough to take part in a tour of the exterior of the site with Stephen Spaulding, the chief of the architectural preservation division of the National Park Service's northeast region.
Here's a video clip of Spaulding explaining part of the Jenga-like process:
The Federal-style house was designed by City Hall-architect John McComb Jr. though it's clear that Hamilton himself had a hand in the process Spaulding said, as there is evidence of changes made during construction. "The house really reflects Hamilton," Spaulding said.
Hamilton, a Founding Father, first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and co-author of The Federalist Papers also founded the Bank of New York and the New York Post.
The Grange, named for Hamilton's grandfather's estate in Scotland, was the only house Hamilton ever owned, and unfortunately he only lived there two years as his plans were interrupted by that infamous 1804 duel with Aaron Burr across the Hudson in Weehawken.
The current move, which will keep the Grange on Hamilton's original property, aims to return it to a setting that replicates the original, which had front and back porches surrounded by greenery. The house - which was originally located on West 143rd Street (about a block and a half away from its current site,) was first moved in 1889 to save it from demolition. Eleven years after that first move, there was already public pressure to move it back. "It's almost a traditional use of the Grange to try to move it," Spaulding joked to his tour group, which was thick with experts in Manhattan history and architecture, including Manhattan borough historian Michael Miscione who assembled the group.
The original location afforded Hamilton views of the Hudson and Harlem Rivers, and was situated on the main road linking Albany to New York City. By carriage, it would have taken Hamilton abut an hour and half to reach Manhattan, Spaulding said. (The new location offers no river views, but you can see the cranes constructing the new Yankee Stadium.)
