History
Ellis Island preservation group desperate for donations
Save Ellis Island, the non-profit that’s been methodically stabilizing 30 abandoned buildings at the country’s most famous immigration center, is in dire need of $500,000 in donations by April 2 in order to keep its own doors open, Judith McAlpin, President of SAE, today told NewYorkology.
 The small group has already cut staff, delayed projects and put employees on furloughs. But if it’s unable to pay rent and salaries, unspent grants must be returned and no more buildings will open to the public.
Before Save Ellis Island started work a decade ago, two-thirds of the island was in serious disrepair, with crumbling staircases, broken windows and trees sprouting indoors. The deterioration has been on the public radar since 2005, when free hard-hart tours of the old hospital were first offered as part of the annual Open House New York event.
So far, 29 of the 30 abandoned buildings have been stabilized but only one has reopened as part of the museum. In 2007, SAE and the National Park Service opened the “new” ferry building, an art deco, WPA-era buidling used by immigrants who cleared customs and were waiting for the boat to Manhatttan. The renovation includes a functioning fan and bench both original to the room, as well as exhibits.
The one still-exposed building — the giant baggage and dormitory building that faces north to the Hudson River — last year received U.S. stimulus funds. The National Park Service, which runs Ellis and Liberty islands, is overseeing that project and the initial phase of stabilization has begun, NPS spokesman Darren Boch said .
While funds are available to prevent more damage to the baggage building, without Save Ellis Island, there would be no plans to reopen any more buildings.”It’s not going to happen in their absence,” Boch said in an interview this morning. “We have to work with a partner.”
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March 19, 2010 11:55 AM Comments (0)
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Manhattan Bridge time capsule date stamp: 2109
NewYorkology contributor Moses Gates is an urban planner, part-time tour guide, and full-time Gothamphile. He reports on the high up, the low down, and the out-of-the-way in New York City.
On the last day of the tenure of Mayor George B. McClellan the Manhattan Bridge opened for the very first time. One hundred years later (give or take a few months,) the bridge is in fantastic shape carrying bikes, pedestrians, four subway lines and almost 100,000 vehicles a day.
 This is due to the efforts of many people, not the least “Gridlock” Sam Schwartz, (pictured at left) former chief engineer/first deputy commissioner of the Department of Transportation. During his tenure in the 1980s, Schwartz and the DOT embarked on a major capital campaign to rehabilitate and stabilize the East River bridges, which were suffering after more than a decade of deferred maintenance. One of the bridges in the worst shape was the Manhattan.
“When I was chief engineer in 1986, I had to shut half the bridge. It was so dire we almost lost the entire bridge,” Schwartz told Streetfilms.
This past Friday, Schwartz joined DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn, along with Ironworkers, Engineers, Painters, Electricians, and other bridge workers and aficionados at the bridge’s Manhattan Colonnade to place a time capsule — to be opened on the 200th anniversary of the bridge - inside a small nook in the grand archway that crowns the entrance.
The time capsule includes newspapers from Dec. 31, 2009; DOT Bridges safety vest, hard hat and ironworker gloves; the NYC Transit Authority Subway Map; the DOT’s annual Bridge Report; present-day electronic devices (flash drive, CD, DVR;) and a program from the Bridge Centennial Commission event Oct. 4, 2009. The contents were compiled by members of the Bridges Division of the NYC DOT.
“We’re here to deliver a message to the people 100 years from now,” Schwartz said.”And that message is that we’re all links - that if we don’t continue to maintain our bridges we’re going to lose them.”
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March 10, 2010 12:57 PM Comments (0)
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Subway archaeology to go on display at Transit Annex
After a renovation, the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex at Grand Central Terminal will reopen March 18 with a free exhibition of New Amsterdam artifacts discovered while building a subway extension in Lower Manhattan.
“Archeology at the South Ferry Terminal” will include more than 100 of the 65,000 artifacts — ceramic sherds, shells, coins, tobacco pipes, and architectural materials — found at the site before it reopened in February 2009 as the South Ferry subway station.
“Among the most important finds of the excavation were pieces of two 18th century landmarks — the Battery Wall and Whitehall Slip,” museum officials said in announcing the exhibition. “Stones from the Wall are on view, as are photographs of a section of the Wall that was reinstalled in the new South Ferry station. Whitehall Slip was built in stages from the 1730s to 1790s using landfilling and dredging. It allowed boats to dock and spurred the commercial and military use of lower Manhattan. Excavation of the Slip uncovered stone, construction material, 19th century English ceramics, household goods, refuse, and animal bones, furthering our knowledge of the city’s commerce and its residents’ lifestyles.”
The exhibition will be on display through July 5.
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March 8, 2010 11:10 AM Comments (0)
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Wales Week in NYC spotlights poet Dylan Thomas
Wales Week USA begins today in New York with a focus on the poetery of Dylan Thomas.
 Starting Tuesday, the Morgan Library & Museum will serve a special Welsh Tea and open the exhibition Dylan Thomas: Last Poems, featuring ” a characteristically playful and flirtatious letter from Dylan Thomas to Ellen Kay, a 22-year old aspiring poet with whom Thomas was enamored.” It will be on public view through Sunday.
On Sunday, a Dylan Thomas Walking Tour of Greenwich Village will cover the poet’s favorite downtown spots starting at 9:30 a.m.
Other events inlcude a Saturday concert led by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins, who will conduct his own work at Carnegie Hall including the U.S. debut of his Euphonium Concerto.
Wales Week, sponsored by the Welsh Assembly Government in the U.S., runs from March 1 through 7.
Image source: Morgan Library & Museum. Vernon Watkins (1906–1967) Photograph of Dylan Thomas and his wife Caitlin Macnamara, undated. Bequest of Edwin V. Erbe, Jr., 2007; MA 7172.1
March 1, 2010 10:50 AM Comments (0)
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African Burial Ground visitors center opens downtown
The National Park Service this weekened opened a proper visitors center for the African Burial Ground National Monument, illuminating one of the darker recesses of New York City history that many people would prefer remain forgotten
Located near the intersection of Broadway and Chambers streets, the 6.6-acre site contains the remains of an estimated 15,000 people, 40 percent of them children.
“It’s absolutely critical the history is not glossed over,” Tara Morrison, the National Park Service superintendent for the site, told NewYorkology during an interview before the site opened to the public on Saturday.
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February 28, 2010 3:16 PM Comments (1)
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Bar closes, Fraunces Tavern searches for new tenants
 Monday was last call for the bar at the Fraunces Tavern Museum, which shuttered its restaurant earlier this month as it seeks a new tenant.
However, the doors are still open to the upstairs museum, which features a re-creation of the room where a victorious Gen. George Washington bade farewell to his officers in 1783.
“This is a highly recognized and historic location. We don’t just want any tenant — we want the right tenant,” Charles C. Lucas, Jr., the president of the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York, said in a statement e-mailed to NewYorkology this morning. The Sons of the Revolution have owned the building since 1904.
“Discussions with prospective tenants continue and it is anticipated a final selection will be announced soon,” said Anthony Wellman, communications director for The Sons of the Revolution.
The Fraunces Tavern Museum is located at 54 Pearl St., map.
Earlier: Fraunces Tavern, proud American Whiskey Trail spot
February 23, 2010 11:46 AM Comments (0)
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Normandie's salvaged art deco at South Street Seaport
The short life of SS Normandie, one of the grandest ocean liners ever built, is receiving tribute at the South Street Seaport Museum, as many of its salvaged art deco interiors are on display through January.
“It was the most flawless of the ocean liners,” curator and cruise ship historian Bill Miller said at a preview of DECODENCE: Legendary Interiors and Illustrious Travelers Aboard the SS Normandie. “It was Fred and Ginger on the high seas.”
Built with a spare-no-expense attitude during the Depression, the French saw it as a grand showcase of its finest craftmanship, culture and cuisine. When it docked in New York, people paid 25 cents to tour its decks and at least notionally, visit France.
The names were big: designs by Lalique, Dupas, Patou and (probably) Hermes; and celebrities such as Cary Grant, Marlene Dietrich, Bob Hope, Joseph Kennedy, Ernest Hemmingway and Walt Disney. The target audience was absolutely first class. Fully booked, the ship could carry 1,952 passengers, of which 828 were in first class. A see-and-be-seen ship, Miller said Kitty Carlisle told him she needed three dresses per day and a trunk just for her shoes.
 So detailed, even the silver toothpicks were monogrammed for the French Line, Compagnie Générale Transatlantique.
The exhibition includes a video from 1939, which was rescued from a French basement only four years ago. In the video, which plays in a 30 minute loop near the start of the exhibition, the scenes could easily be mistaken for a Hollywood production: black-tie dancing in the Grand Salon, elegant dining, and swimming on the outer decks.
Like many of the artifacts in the exhibit, the film had nearly been lost to history due to the ship’s poorly-timed demise. That August 1939 sail turned out to be the ship’s last, as Hitler invaded Poland days later and the French opted to keep her here for safety.
But as the war dragged on, (and Hitler eventually demanded possession since he’d invaded France) the Americans renamed it the USS Lafayette and started to convert it for war-time transport. Docked at Pier 88 (still part of the Manhattan Passenger Ship Terminal) sparks from a welder’s torch made contact with life jackets on Feb. 9, 1942. She burned and came to rest on her side. By 1947, the ship was completely scrapped.
Enter Mario J. Pulice, who has been fascinated with the ship for decades. Scouring flea markets, auctions and other places, he has acquired some of the ship’s original chairs, tables, silver, and an over-size model that likely sat in the Beverly Hills office of the French Line. It is Pulice’s personal collection that makes up the bulk of the Seaport’s exhibition. (He was recently profiled in the New York Times.)
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February 19, 2010 3:51 PM Comments (0)
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Museum of the American Gangster to open in spring
The Museum of the American Gangster will open in New York City this spring, Eric Ferrara, the executive director of the Lower East Side History Project announced this morning.
 “The Museum of the American Gangster (MAOG) presents an opportunity to gain insight into the hidden, inside world of the American gangster through artifacts and stories told by those involved. We are working with a team of criminal authors, historians and related institutions, as well as family members and estates of pivotal crime figures, to create a museum that both casual fans and invested scholars could enjoy and benefit from. Beyond exhibits and artifacts, MOAG will offer dedicated research facilities, access to original source documents and articles, oral histories, workshops, walking tours, live performances, historic reenactments, lectures, movies and presentations,” according to Ferrara, who is also the author of “A Guide to Gangsters, Murderers and Weirdos of New York City’s Lower East Side.”
There will be a speakeasy, gift shop and “a maze of hidden rooms and artifacts in the basement left over from Prohibition (which are all part of the exhibit).”
The museum’s website offers a sneak peak of the exhibits including The Early Life of “Lucky” Luciano, Gangster Lingo and Tools of the Trade.
The niche museum will be located at 80 St. Marks Place, map, inside the Theater 80 building.
The official opening is set for sometime in spring, but previews will begin March 7 from noon to 5 p.m. During previews, while not all exhibits will be in place, admssion will be $10.
The The Lower East Side History Project already offers Gangsters: Birth of organized Crime walking tours on Saturdays and Tuesdays for $25.
Elsewhere, there is a New York City Mob Tour, which was profiled earlier this week in the Daily News, and a bus tour of “Sopranos” sites.
Image source: Museum of the American Gangster.
Earlier: Sopranos tour re-routed: Satriale’s razed for condos
Italian American Museum opens in Little Italy remnants
Little Italy shrinks, making way for tourist version
February 18, 2010 8:33 AM Comments (1)
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Free admisison at NY Historical Society for Feb. 13 - 21
 The New-York Historical Society will waive its $12 admission for a full week in February to celebrate Presidents’ Day, the museum announced Tuesday.
The free admission will run from from Saturday, Feb. 13, through Sunday, Feb. 21, thanks to a grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.
On Presidents’ Day, Monday Feb. 15, the museum will open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. to host special events inlcuding Civil War re-enactment troops.
Current exhibitions ot the museum include “Lincoln and New York,” “FDR’s Brain Trust and the Beginning of the New Deal,” “John Brown: The Abolitionist and His Legacy,” and “New York Painting Begins: Eighteenth-Century Portraits.”
The N-Y Historical Society is among the NYC museums that offer free admission hours each week. NYHS offers pay-what-you-wish admission every Friday from 6 to 8 p.m.
The New-York Historical Society is located at 170 Central Park West, just across the street from the American Museum of Natural History.
Picture source: Mathew Brady; Abraham Lincoln, 1860; Carte de visite. Courtesy of The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. From the N-YHS “Lincoln and New York” exhibition.
January 13, 2010 8:51 AM Comments (0)
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Abandoned subway stop, bus depot on transit tours list
The New York Transit Museum today publicly opened its list of tours for the winter of 2010, including visits to a bus depot and the city’s oldest subway station.
The unused Old City Hall Station — which can be glimpsed through the dark if you stay on the 6 train as it loops from the end of the downtown run to the start of the uptown route — is an architectural gem with arching Guastavino tiles, a skylight and chandeliers. The tour offers a view, and the history of the 1904 station, that you can’t get from the 6 train.
The full list of transit tours may disappoint as it’s already been picked over by museum members, who get first dibs by mail. Five tours already sold out, including the Westchester Yard maintenance shop tour, the Linden Shop subway tour and a Staten Island food tour.
Update: Tours filled up exceptionally fast. Only the East New York Bus Depot and Corona Maintenance Facility still have openings.
Membership — $40 at the friend level; $30 for seniors or students — is also required if you want to take the tour of the Old City Hall Station.
Transit tours with availability:
The Jewel in the Crown: Old City Hall Station - Jan. 16 at noon, 1, 2 and 3 p.m.
Buses in the Brooklyn Division: East New York Bus Depot - Feb. 13 at 11 a.m.
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January 6, 2010 11:49 AM Comments (0)
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