The Highlanders play a game at Hilltop Park in 1912, photo via NYPL

Not unlike their current power-house lineup, the most dominant team in American sports got off to quite a rocky start. Not only did the New York Highlanders, now known as the Yankees, have a losing record for many years, the team’s first home field was a mess: it was located near a swamp, the outfield had no grass, and the ballpark sat mostly unfinished. In just six weeks, 500 men hastily built the stadium on Broadway and 168th Street in Washington Heights, known as Hilltop Park, in time for the Highlander’s first home game on April 30, 1903. Due to the unsavory, rock-filled conditions, the last big league game at Hilltop Park was played in October of 1912. Following its closure, the Highlanders changed their name to the Yankees in 1913, moved to the Bronx, and went on to become one of the most successful sports teams in the world.

The entrance to Hilltop Park (1912) photo via Wikimedia

The team that moved to Manhattan was originally the Baltimore Orioles, the franchise sold to Joseph Gordon, Bill Devery and Frank Farrell for $18,000 in 1903. After the team’s acceptance into the American League in 1903, the owners changed the club’s name to the Highlanders and quickly constructed the all-wooden stadium at Hilltop Park on the west side of Broadway between 165th and 168th Streets. Construction of the park, formally known as the American League Park, cost $200,000 with more than two-thirds spent for rock blasting and excavations.

Fans could stand in the outfield and down the foul lines at Hilltop Park (1908), photo via Wikimedia

With a seating capacity of about 16,000 fans, the ballpark was quite large for its time, measuring roughly 9.6 acres. During this era of baseball, overflow crowds were allowed to stand in the perimeter of the outfield and during important games, extra fans could stand down the foul lines and between home plate and the backstop. The overall capacity was most likely closer to 25,000 fans.

The Highlander’s lineup, photo courtesy of Ephemeral New York

Upon its opening, the stadium’s condition was poor. A swamp in right field had not been filled, the outfield lacked grass and players had to get ready in hotel rooms before the game because the clubhouse was not ready. Despite being incomplete, the location provided fans with scenic views of the Hudson River and New Jersey Palisades. An article in the New York Times described the process of turning hilly, rocky terrain into an effective ballpark: “As the property is today it will be necessary to blast all along the ridge, cutting off a slice eight feet or more. … There are about 100 trees to be pulled up by the roots.” Whenever New York was on the road during its first year, construction workers returned to Hilltop to complete additional renovations.

The team’s inaugural 1903 season failed to attract a solid fan base. Season home attendance totaled 211,808, compared with the established New York Giants, the Highlander’s hometown rival, who drew 579,530 fans. In 1904, the West Side subway station opened, attracting more fans as the stadium became more accessible. Plus, the field conditions improved. That year, about 438,919 fans cheered on the Highlanders at home, doubling the total attendance from the previous year.

A home-plate-shaped plaque commemorating Hilltop Park, photo via Wikimedia

The National League Giants played just south of Hilltop Park at the Polo Grounds, located between 155th and 159th Streets. The Giant’s stadium burned down in a fire in 1911 and the Highlanders offered to share the Hilltop stadium with their hometown opponent. Then, the following year, the Highlanders moved into the rebuilt Polo Grounds and changed their name officially to the Yankees. After ten years, the last game played at Hilltop Park was in October of 1912. Demolished in 1914, the site of Hilltop Park remained vacant until the construction of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.

The proposal for the Yankee’s own stadium in 1921, via Wikimedia

An aerial view of Yankee Stadium, photo courtesy of the NYPL

From 1913 to 1922, the New York Yankees played at the reconstructed Polo Grounds. During their time at this stadium, the Yankees acquired Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox and clinched its first American League pennant. The official Yankees Stadium opened on April 18, 1923, and the team dominated the AL for most of the ’20s, with help from Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

From 1920 to 1934, the Yankees played in the World Series six times, losing the championship twice. Then, with hits from all-star slugger Joe Dimaggio, the Yankees won the World Series four years in a row between 1936 and 1939. The Bronx Bombers continued to dominate, winning a World Series every year from 1949 to 1953.  Breaking their fifteen-year championship drought, Reggie “Mr. October” Jackson won Yankees another championship by hitting three home runs in game six of the 1977 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The new Yankee Stadium (2010), photo via Wikimedia

While they won the World Series in 1978, the Yanks did not take another title until 1996. With Joe Torre and future captain Derek Jeter, the Yankees won four World Series and six American League titles between 1996 and 2003, with three championship wins in a row from 1998 to 2000.

The 1923 Yankee Stadium was replaced with a new ballpark in 2009, located just one block north of the original park in the Bronx. Costing $2.3 billion, it remains the most expensive stadium ever built. With 27 world champions under their belt, the New York Yankees are the most successful team in American sports. As the young team enters the ALCS tonight, the Bronx Bombers are on the hunt for number 28.

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Photos courtesy the New York Public Library’s Digital Gallery

As the city currently tackles a plethora of issues with its public transit system, New Yorkers have been presented with no shortage of innovations to make commuting (hopefully) better. Take a look back at the turn of the 20th century, though, and the moving sidewalk was considered the future of urban transportation. According to Gizmodo, “The moving sidewalk represented a bold new vision for tomorrow… This idea of rolling pavement appealed to people in major cities who didn’t yet see the rise of the automobile as inevitable and were looking for an affordable alternative to more elaborate infrastructure like subway trains.” In 1903, an article in Harper’s Weekly said that moving sidewalks were the perfect solution for the city to tackle congestion issues that would arise with new bridge connections bringing people from Brooklyn into New York City.

These 1903 images, drawn by Sydney Adamson, were presented as the transit dream for forward-looking New Yorkers. The moving sidewalk was envisioned as a loop of moving platforms running from Bowling Green at the bottom of Manhattan and then up the east side, connecting with the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg bridges. The system was to run in subway-like tunnels about 30 feet wide, with stations every two blocks along a six-mile loop. As CityLab broke it down, roughly 10,600 platforms would be needed for the system, arranged with three separate tracks. The proposal was for two stepping platforms, one running at 3 mph and the second at 6 mph, and a main platform with seating, to run no higher than 9 mph.

After that first ambitious loop, planners proposed more would be constructed throughout the New York area. This network of moving sidewalks would address a key issue for early 20th-century transportation planners: new congestion caused by massive crowds of people newly able to cross the East River.

Here’s a snippet from the 1903 Harper’s article:

The newest proposition to solve this problem is now before the Board of Estimate, which has referred it to the Rapid Transit Commission. It is popularly known by the misnomer, “Moving Sidewalks.” It is really a system of moving platforms or continuous trains. Men like [railroad magnate] Cornelius Vanderbilt, Stuyvesant Fish [president of the Illinois Central Railroad], E.P. Ripley [president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway], and others are interested in the new plan, and the engineers not only pronounce it feasible, but extremely economical. The moving platform is simply the improvement of the continuous trains that were in operation at the Chicago and Paris Expositions, and that carried millions of people along at a good rate of speed and in absolute comfort without accident.

Later that year, the New York Times would go on to report concerns that constructing the moving sidewalks would be prohibitively expensive, requiring an unheard of 5-cent fare. Still, the rapid transit commission recommended: “immediate adoption” of the plan at a cost of $3 million. It obviously never happened–and there was suspicion that Brooklyn Rapid Transit helped bury the idea, as the company had a monopoly on the borough’s public transit.

The moving sidewalk eventually appeared at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, though it reportedly broke down often. An improved design showed up at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900, and from there the idea pretty much petered out. All that’s left of this grand vision of moving sidewalks shuttling New Yorkers from borough to borough? The underwhelming moving sidewalks at our local airports.

[Via CityLab and Gizmodo]

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Martin Luther King Jr. at the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. via Wiki Commons

Fifty years ago, on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. This ended the life of one of the 20th century’s most revered and influential figures. It also began a 15-year campaign to make Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday — the first-ever honoring an African American. That successful quest began with and was spearheaded by a native son of Greenwich Village, Howard Bennett. Bennett was one of the last residents of a Greenwich Village community known as “Little Africa,” a predominantly African-American section of the neighborhood which was, for much of New York’s history through the 19th century, the largest and most important African-American community in the city. That neighborhood centered around present-day Minetta, Thompson, Cornelia, and Gay Streets.

Minetta Street, the center of “Little Africa,” 1925; photo via NYPL

According to New York City records, Howard Bennett was born in 1911 in Greenwich Village, one of 16 brothers and sisters. It’s not clear how long Bennett spent in Greenwich Village; it is known that he spent most of his adult life living in Harlem.

It appears that Bennet and his family moved northward at around the time that the last vestiges of the African-American community in this part of Greenwich Village were disappearing. As European immigrants began to stream into the Village beginning in the mid-19th century, the African-American community was gradually pushed north. By the late 19th century, the Tenderloin section of Manhattan (now Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen) become the center of New York’s African-American community, though a significant black residential presence remained in the Village for decades.

Most of the last traces of that community were destroyed in the early 20th century. It was at this time that many tenements occupied by black Villagers and the main African-American church in Greenwich Village were demolished to make way for the construction of the IRT and IND subways and the southern extension of Sixth and Seventh Avenues, today’s Sixth Avenue below West 3rd Street and Seventh Avenue South. It was at this time that the center of New York’s African-American life also shifted to Harlem.

While we don’t know exactly when Howard Bennett moved from the Village to Harlem, we do know that as he grew up he became deeply embedded in the civic life of Harlem and in civil rights efforts. After serving in the Pacific Theater during World War II, Bennett became a leader of the 369th Veterans Association, the organization for members of the famous “Harlem Hellfighters.” He also served as Labor Chairman of the New York Branch of the N.A.A.C.P. and was a consultant and confidant of labor leader A. Phillip Randolph.

Bennett and several friends conceived of the idea of making Martin Luther King’s birthday a national holiday while returning from his funeral in Atlanta. After renting a storefront in Harlem, Bennett enlisted the help of a few dedicated grassroots activists and began gathering signatures on petitions.

In April 1970, along with William Byrd and other members of the 131st Street Block Association, Bennett presented six million signatures to Brooklyn Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm and Detroit Congressman John Conyers. Chisholm and Conyers introduced a bill to make King’s birthday a national holiday in Congress. According to Bennett’s writings, there was much resistance to the idea for many years, and not just by those who did not share Dr. King’s beliefs — he claimed that supportive members of Congress were hesitant to lend their names to the bill as well.

After a more than 10-year campaign, in 1979 Congress voted upon the proposed holiday, but it fell a few votes shy of passage. Unfortunately, Bennet died in 1981 before he got to see the full fruits of his labor. Though President Ronald Reagan initially opposed the bill, when it was passed by a veto-proof majority in both houses of Congress in 1983, he signed it into law on November 2 of that year. That made January 15 a national holiday in honor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; since 1986, the holiday has been observed on the third Monday in January.

One Christopher Street, via CityRealty

Based upon research conducted by GVSHP, we believe that Mr. Bennett and his family lived in a tenement at 11 Greenwich Avenue, just west of 6th Avenue. That and several neighboring buildings were demolished and replaced with the pre-war apartment building constructed at 1 Christopher Street in 1931, which remains on the site today. The location of 11 Greenwich Avenue was just north of Gay Street, which was known to have a large African-American population, and several blocks from Minetta Street and Lane and Thompson Street, which in the 19th century were the heart of Greenwich Village’s African-American community.

In spite of the significance of Bennett’s accomplishment leading the successful drive for the King Holiday, tributes to his work are scant. A small playground in Harlem, which was named in his honor, is one of the few public memorials to his efforts.

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This post comes from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. Since 1980, GVSHP has been the community’s leading advocate for preserving the cultural and architectural heritage of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and Noho, working to prevent inappropriate development, expand landmark protection, and create programming for adults and children that promotes these neighborhoods’ unique historic features. Read more history pieces on their blog Off the Grid.

RELATED: 

• Black history in Greenwich Village: 15 sites related to pioneering African-Americans
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• New York City’s 8 tributes to Martin Luther King Jr.

Photos © James and Karla Murray 

The new exhibition at the Brooklyn Historical Society, “The Business of Brooklyn,” celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and tells the fascinating story of the borough’s 100 years of business, detailing its industrial past, large companies, as well as its preponderance of mom-and-pop shops. It also showcases many objects and artifacts, which have their origins in Brooklyn, demonstrating the significant “role that Brooklyn has played in American consumer culture.” The exhibition is on view at the Brooklyn Historical Society’s landmark building in Brooklyn Heights located at 128 Pierrepont Street until Winter 2019. From those iconic yellow pencils to Brillo pads to Cracker Jack, you may be surprised to see what has been made in Brooklyn.

1. Eberhard Faber Pencils

One of the largest American pencil makers, Eberhard Faber, had a factory in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. John Eberhard Faber, an immigrant from Bavaria whose family had been making pencils for nearly a century, founded one of the first lead pencil factories in the United States in 1860. After a disastrous fire in his midtown Manhattan plant, he moved his company to Greenpoint in 1872 and expanded to include manufacturing colored pencils. The exhibition at BHS includes vintage Eberhard pencil sets, including the famous Mongol, a yellow pencil named for his favorite soup, pureé Mongol. In 1956, the company sold its Brooklyn factory and buildings, with its distinctive pencil-shaped adornments, and it now houses studios for illustrators and designers.

2. Cracker Jack 

The iconic American confection consisting of molasses-coated popcorn and peanuts, which was immortalized in the song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” was made in Brooklyn. Although the product originated in Chicago and was trademarked in 1896, Rueckheim Brothers & Eckstein founded a plant at Bush Terminal in Brooklyn in 1914 to serve its East Coast and overseas customers. Cracker Jack’s mascots Sailor Jack and his dog Bingo first appeared in 1916 and were registered as a trademark in 1919. Bingo was based on a stray dog adopted by Henry Eckstein, who insisted that the dog be displayed on the packaging. The Cracker Jack package seen at the exhibit is from 1964.

3. Locally Brewed Beer

Brooklyn was once home to 45 breweries, including 11 within a 12-block radius in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. On display at this exhibit is a collection of vintage beer bottles, including (as seen in photo) an 1860 beer bottle from Henry Hecht, a Minck Bros. & Co. beer bottle, and a Derenthal & Schalk beer bottle from 1890. Also on display is a “Save Jobs Drink Local Beer” bumper sticker which references three local beer brands, Schaefer, Rheingold, and Knickerbocker. By 1976, none of the breweries were still in business in Brooklyn as national brands took over the industry. Thankfully, craft beers have been making a comeback and Brooklyn currently has 20 brewing companies.

4. U-Bet Chocolate Syrup

The Brooklyn-based company, H. Fox & Co., has manufactured its signature syrup since 1895. Fox’s flavored syrup is an essential ingredient in the classic New York soda-counter beverage, the egg cream. Contrary to its name, the egg cream does not contain eggs or cream but is a mixture of very cold milk, seltzer water, and flavored syrup. The jar that the Brooklyn Historical Society has on display is from 1987.

5. Gage & Tollner Restaurant

Charles Gage and Eugene Tollner founded their famous restaurant in 1879 and moved into an opulent new address on 372 Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn in 1889 when electric lighting was still quite new and not very reliable. They hedged their bets and installed 36 fixtures that could be powered by both electricity and gas, so that they could stay open during a blackout. The 1919 incandescent lightbulb, restaurant matchbooks and wrapped toothpicks on display at this exhibit are from the Edward and Gertrude Dewy collection of Gage & Tollner records. The restaurant with its romantic Victorian interior remained open until 1995 and was reputedly one of the city’s most popular spots for marriage proposals.

6. Brillo Cleanser Soap

The Brillo Manufacturing Company was founded and headquartered in Dumbo in 1917 by a cookware salesman and his brother-in-law, a jeweler. Together, they developed a cleaning product made from soap, jeweler’s rouge (a powder used to buff precious metals), and steel wool imported from Germany. After teaming up with an attorney, they patented their product as Brillo, a variant of the Latin word for “bright.”

7. Virginia Dare Extracts

The Virginia Dare Extract Company in Brooklyn has manufactured and supplied flavors and premium extracts for food, beverage, nutritional products, dairy, bakery, sweet goods, confectionery, wine, and other industries in Brooklyn since the 1920s. Virginia Dare is the name of the first English child born in the territory of Virginia in 1587 and the Virginia Dare Extract Company sells its products with the image of her as a fresh-faced girl who symbolizes “wholesomeness and purity.” On display is a Virginia Dare Extract Co. bottle circa 1945 and an almond extract package from 1987.

8. Domino Sugar

The American Sugar Refining Co., which later became known as Domino Sugar, operated its Williamsburg waterfront plant from 1857 to 2004. By 1870, Domino Sugar refined more than half of the sugar consumed annually in the United States. The refinery is currently being developed into an office-and-residential complex by Two Trees Management. On display at BHS are vintage Domino Sugar boxes.

9. Sahadi’s Importing Co. Halva

Sahadi’s is a Middle Eastern grocery store on Atlantic Avenue, which opened in 1948, and produces its own line of halvah, a 3,000-year old Middle Eastern confection traditionally made from sesame seeds and sugar. In the Middle East it is always eaten as a dessert alone, but it is very versatile, with an excellent shelf life as it is gluten and dairy free and has recently gained popularity for its use as an ingredient in ice cream, cookies or as a pastry and cake filling. The exhibition features two antique Sahadi Importing Company halvah tins.

10. E.R. Squibb & Sons Pharmaceuticals

The pharmaceutical company, E.R. Squibb & Sons, was founded in Brooklyn in 1858 by Dr. Edward Robinson Squibb. Dr Squibb, a U.S. Navy doctor who according to the company’s history, “was so unimpressed by the quality of medicines available on ships that he threw the unfit drugs overboard” insisted on higher quality controls than those required by the American Medical Association. The original Squibb factory building in Brooklyn ceased operations in 1956 and in 1969 it was purchased by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, a nonprofit corporation founded by Jehovah’s Witnesses. A vintage E.R. Squibb & Sons mineral oil bottle and sodium bicarbonate tin are exhibited.

+ Mom-and-Pop Brooklyn

Many traditional “mom and pop” neighborhood businesses, including ones that have prevailed for a century or more, are rapidly disappearing in the face of economic pressures, cookie-cutter franchises, and rapidly changing demographics. This process is happening with extraordinary speed in Brooklyn, and the once unique appearance and character of the neighborhood’s colorful streets are suffering—as is the community that the businesses once brought together. Many shops are lifelines for their communities, vital to the residents who depend on them for a multitude of needs.

When these small independent businesses close, the whole look and feel of the neighborhood changes, often losing its individuality and charm. These neighborhood storefronts have the city’s history etched in their facades. Of the 15 mom-and-pop storefront photos from our book, Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York, selected for the exhibition on view in both the Giuseppe Fransioli Gallery on the first floor and the Gina Ingoglia Weiner Gallery on the third floor, nine of them have closed.

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James and Karla Murray are husband-and-wife New York-based photographers and authors. Their critically acclaimed books include Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York, New York Nights, Store Front II- A History Preserved and Broken Windows-Graffiti NYC. The authors’ landmark 2008 book, Store Front, was cited in Bookforum’s Dec/Jan 2015 issue as one of the “Exemplary art books from the past two decades” and heralded as “One of the periods most successful New York books.” New York Nights was the winner of the prestigious New York Society Library’s 2012 New York City Book Award. James and Karla Murray’s work has been exhibited widely in major institutions and galleries, including solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Historical Society, Clic Gallery in New York City, and Fotogalerie Im Blauen Haus in Munich, Germany, and group shows at the New-York Historical Society and the Museum of Neon Art in Glendale, CA. Their photographs are included in the permanent collections of major institutions, including the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the New York Public Library, and NYU Langone Medical Center. James and Karla were awarded the 2015 Regina Kellerman Award by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) in recognition of their significant contribution to the quality of life in Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. James and Karla live in the East Village of Manhattan with their dog Hudson.

All photos taken by James and Karla Murray exclusively for 6sqft. Photos are not to be reproduced without written permission from 6sqft.

Via NY Transit Museum

Before the Woodlawn station opened a century ago, the surrounding area of Norwood in the Bronx was mostly rural with lots of farmland. While residential development began with the opening of the Woodlawn Cemetery, the neighborhood’s transformation really took off when the subway was extended to reach this part of the city. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first train pulling into the northern terminal of the IRT Jerome Avenue Line, the New York Transit Museum is giving guests the chance to travel on World War I-era cars to relive this important part of subway history.

Photo of IRT Jerome Avenue Line via Wikimedia

Built in 1917, Woodlawn station was designed by the subway’s chief architect, Squire Vickers. Vickers covered the station with ornamental concrete due to its location at the intersection of a major boulevard. It connects passengers to either side of the streets and the interior features classic ceramic tiles.

Woodlawn station, named after Woodlawn Road but more known for its association to the cemetery with the same name, officially opened on April 15, 1918. The subway extension spurred development and turned the former rural area into a suburban enclave.

Photo courtesy of Woodlawn Cemetery 

During its Nostalgia Ride on Sunday, April 15, the museum will take guests uptown to Woodlawn via Lo-V subway cars, the same method in which 19th-century New Yorkers traveled. The event includes a three-hour tour of the historic Woodlawn Cemetry, a designated city landmark, to learn about the famous residents buried there. Plus, the tour details how the arrival of the subway changed the demographics of both the neighborhood and the cemetery.

Tickets are $50 for adults and $25 for children. Museum members pay $35 for adults and $20 for children. Find more information about the event and buy tickets here.

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• What it was like the day the NYC subway opened in 1904
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• This Map Explains the Historic Tile Color System Used in NYC Subway Stations

Photo by Chris Goldberg/Flickr

This post is part of a series by the Historic Districts Council, exploring the groups selected for their Six to Celebrate program, New York’s only targeted citywide list of preservation priorities.

The Bronx’s Belmont community can date its history all the way back to 1792, when French tobacconist Pierre Abraham Lorillard opened the Lorillard Snuff Mill as the first tobacco firm in the country, and possibly the world. European influences continued to proliferate in the area, and at the turn of the 19th century, flocks of Italian immigrants moved to Belmont to take jobs in the newly opened Botanical Gardens and Bronx Zoo. By 1913, the neighborhood was referred to as the Italian “colonies” in the Bronx.

Today, Belmont’s main artery, Arthur Avenue, still thrives as a bustling Italian center, with countless restaurants, pastry shops, butchers, and more. But there’s a lot more to Belmont than just spaghetti and cannoli. From the origins of a pasta shop’s sign that’s now featured on Broadway to a Neapolitan restaurant that was born in Cairo, Egypt, the Belmont BID shares six secrets of this saucy neighborhood.

Photo via Gary Stevens/Flickr

1. The storefront sign of Borgatti’s Ravioli & Egg Noodles, a long-time business on East 187th Street, is now featured on the set of the Broadway musical “A Bronx Tale.”

Thanks to their upbringing, Lindo and Maria Borgatti were both skilled pasta makers, and in November of 1935, they pooled less than $300 (all the money they had) and rented a storefront on East 187th Street. They gathered pastry boards, rolling pins, wooden benches, and knives from their home and started making egg noodles. Lindo, Maria, and their six sons took turns making the noodles from 6:00am to 8:00pm, and their first pound of egg noodles was sold for 15 cents. Business was slow at first, but eventually, they saved enough money to buy a hand-operated dough press and noodle cutter. Their now famous ravioli was created after their son George made a wooden ravioli board, and six months later they were able to purchase an electric pasta machine, which resulted in increased noodle production.

This enabled them to move to a different (and their current) storefront, and in 1949 they expanded into the adjacent store because business was flourishing. Borgatti’s has been written and raved about in highly accredited publications, but Mario remained humble and shared that it is most rewarding to see many of his customers return year after year. Today, egg noodles and ravioli from Borgatti’s have traveled across the globe, and Mario’s son, Chris, shares that a recent special moment occurred when Chazz Palminteri visited the store. Chris thought that he might want some ravioli for his restaurant, however it turned out the actor wanted to know if the Borgatti’s Ravioli sign could be used in his Broadway musical “A Bronx Tale.” Chris, of course said yes, and the sign can now be seen on stage at the Longacre Theatre in New York City.

Inside Teitel Brothers, photo by Chris Goldberg/Flickr

2. Even though the neighborhood is known as an Italian community, one of the oldest businesses on the world-famous block of Arthur Avenue is owned by a Jewish family.

Upon entering Teitel Brothers you will see the Star of David in the tile work placed there by Jacob Teitel in the 1930s. Jacob and Morris Teitel settled in the Belmont area from Austria around 1913. The brothers were tailors in their homeland, but opted to make a living in the deli business and opened Teitel Brothers in April of 1915. Their strategy was to provide their customers with a variety of the finest products at the lowest prices. For over 30 years, they’ve been starting their 18-hour days by constructing a variety of their products on the sidewalk surrounding their store, which is still done to this day.

Before determining the daily cost of the merchandise, they sent a worker to research the competition and adjusted their prices accordingly (this was a common practice). Their families lived in the upstairs apartment, and if the store was ever too busy, Jacob would bang on the pipes signaling for his wife, Esther, to come down and help. Before there was refrigeration, the deli stayed open late (until at least midnight on Fridays and Saturdays) to satisfy their customers’ after-dinner shopping needs. Slowly but surely, Jacob recruited his sons, Louis, Ben and Gilbert to work on Sundays, however they all started by first learning how to push a broom through the store. Once that was mastered, the boys were allowed to sell nuts, figs and dates outside during the holidays, and they worked their way up to balancing school and deli work, full time. With the changing times, business had to keep up, as well, and electronic scales and slicers were introduced. Today the family and team, currently in their third generation, still provide a variety of the finest products at the lowest prices.

Mario’s via Wiki Commons

3. Mario’s Restaurant was one of the first restaurants on Arthur Avenue and has been serving first-rate Neapolitan fare since 1919, but did you know that the restaurant has roots in Cairo, Egypt?

Joe Migliucci’s great-grandfather and grandfather left Naples in the early 1900s and opened the first-ever Italian restaurant in Cairo. The restaurant was a success, but his grandfather became restless and decided to come to America. Mario’s Restaurant was opened on Arthur Avenue by Joe’s father, grandfather, and grandmother nearly 100 years ago, and while it is much bigger today, it still operates on the same site. Over the years, many well-known people have dined here, including Governor Rockefeller, Anna Moffo, Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher. The restaurant is even mentioned in the film “The Godfather.” In fact, the filmmakers reportedly wanted to shoot scenes in the restaurant, but the Migliucci family refused, fearing bad publicity.

Google Street View of Madonia Bakery

4. Peter Madonia, Sr., of Madonia Brothers Bakery, was literally born into the family business!

Mario Madonia arrived in the United States in the early 1900s from Monreale, Sicily, and settled in the Arthur Avenue neighborhood in the pursuit of a better life for his family. He started baking bread as part of a co-op known as the Reliable Bronx Italian Bakers. The building, located at 2385 Arthur Avenue, still bears the name. His son Peter’s entry into the neighborhood, however, is a bit more unique.

During Prohibition, the streets of the neighborhood were made one-way because the police wanted to make it harder for bootleggers to escape. During a car chase on May 15, 1924, a local bootlegger’s car crashed through the window of Madonia Brothers Bakery. While Mario was in the back baking, his wife Rose, who was seven months pregnant, was working in the front and the shock from the crash sent her into premature labor and she delivered her son in the bakery. The baby’s survival was doubtful, however, his parents persevered. They lined a shoe box with cotton and placed the baby in it by the oven for warmth, which effectively acted like an incubator. Each day he grew stronger and 11 days later, on May 26th, Mario and Rose finally registered their child with the Department of Health. Peter went on to run the family business, which is still family-owned and operated today.

Pushcart vendors on Arthur Avenue in 1940, courtesy of the Library of Congress

5. The Arthur Avenue Retail Market at 2344 Arthur Avenue was the first enclosed retail market in the Bronx.

Joseph Liberatore was born in Connecticut in 1919 but spent his formative years in Italy. Upon his return to the United States in 1936, he chose the Bronx’s Little Italy as his home, establishing himself as a neighborhood pushcart vendor of fruits and vegetables. His days began at 2:00am when he would take the train to the South Street Seaport to order the day’s merchandise. Once everything was gathered, he would return to Arthur Avenue where he retrieved his cart from a basement warehouse.

Arthur Avenue Retail Market via Wiki Commons

This six-day-a-week routine continued until 1940, when the Arthur Avenue Retail Market was established, enabling Joseph and more than 100 other street vendors to rent indoor stands to sell their products for a fee. Some vendors were afraid of the change and thought customers wouldn’t want to come inside to shop, but Joseph always had pride in the quality of his products, which kept his customers coming. At the age of 80, Joseph decided it was time to pursue a less strenuous business and began selling plants, flowers and vegetable seeds from Italy in the Market instead. Because of his 75 years of working in the neighborhood, Joseph was aptly named the “Mayor of Arthur Avenue” and he continued his plant business until his death in 2011. Today, the business is run by one of his five children.

The Bronx Beer Hall, courtesy of the Belmont BID

6. The Bronx Beer Hall, located in the Arthur Avenue Retail Market, celebrates Bronx heritage; its tables are even made from reclaimed wood from a farmhouse upstate owned by Jonas Bronck himself.

When Anthony Ramirez II and Paul Ramirez started promoting the Bronx over a decade ago with the launch of their borough-branded apparel and accessories business, FromTheBronx.com, they never thought it would lead them to open a bar in the heart of Little Italy. After a particularly long day, the brothers were in search of a place to relax and enjoy a beer, but couldn’t find such a place. They then set out to establish a bar that would showcase their love of the Bronx while fostering a sense of community pride within the historic Arthur Avenue Retail Market.

An instant classic when it opened in 2013, the Bronx Beer Hall features new age beer and an original menu sourced from their Arthur Avenue neighbors, many of whom were initially skeptical of the idea. Yet, two years later, in 2015, the Bronx Beer Hall was voted as the Readers’ Choice Best Bar in NYC by Time Out New York. Patrons appreciate how the bar celebrates and honors the Bronx in its many details, including tables made of reclaimed wood from a farmhouse that Jonas Bronck owned upstate and a logo that includes a deconstruction of the Bronck Family crest and the colors of the Bronx County flag.

About this Six to Celebrate group:

The Belmont Business Improvement District (BID) is committed to promoting and expanding the economic well being of the business community, and the community at large, by promotion of the “Little Italy in the Bronx” brand, the area’s strong ethnic heritage and leadership in the culinary marketplace, and by leveraging the mercantile, social, political and cultural assets within and around the community.

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This post comes from the Historic Districts Council. Founded in 1970 as a coalition of community groups from the city’s designated historic districts, HDC has grown to become one of the foremost citywide voices for historic preservation. Serving a network of over 500 neighborhood-based community groups in all five boroughs, HDC strives to protect, preserve and enhance New York City’s historic buildings and neighborhoods through ongoing advocacy, community development, and education programs.

Now in its eighth year, Six to Celebrate is New York’s only citywide list of preservation priorities. The purpose of the program is to provide strategic resources to neighborhood groups at a critical moment to reach their preservation goals. The six selected groups receive HDC’s hands-on help on all aspects of their efforts over the course of the year and continued support in the years to come. Learn more about this year’s groups, the Six to Celebrate app, and related events here >>

New York in the 1960s was a city of news junkies. Even though 10 newspapers fed that appetite, some New Yorkers who read two papers every morning were heard to complain that there was only one in the afternoon. Today, there are only three papers in New York—the Times, the Post, and the Daily News, (The Wall Street Journal is customarily considered a business publication, not a general newspaper.), but of course, one’s media appetite is fed digitally. Back in the 60s, though, there were few other options.

So in 1962, when 17,000 newspaper workers went on strike for 114 days, and then again in 1965 for a whopping 140 days, crippling print publications, the starvation was keenly felt. These two events are also what ultimately led to NYC going from 10 to three newspapers.

All the daily New York papers in the 1960s were members of the Publishers Association, which conducted union negotiations. They were the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, the New York Journal-American, the World Telegram and Sun, the New York Mirror, the Daily News and the New York Post. The News published in the morning, the Post in the afternoon, as they do today. Two Long Island papers, the Star Journal and the Daily Press, were also members of the Publishers Association and were counted among those serving the metropolitan area.

There were 10 unions and nine newspaper-members of the Publishers Association in New York. The unions broke down into two camps: the Newspaper Guild covered editorial and commercial workers, while the craft unions were printers, mailers, pressmen, stereotypers, engravers, deliverers, paper handlers, machinists, and electricians. As a rule, the craft unions bargained as a
group; the Guild bargained with each paper separately. Sometimes, however, only some
of the craft unions banded together for negotiations. Some but not all newspapers did, too. The remaining ones negotiated separately, one on one, or one on nine, or two on seven, and so on and so on into utter confusion. There might be a settlement with nine unions but not the tenth, requiring individual negotiations with that one before publication could resume.

The Newspaper Guild chose the Daily News for a preliminary action in November 1962, because of all the papers, it had the rockiest management-labor relations, one group baiting and provoking the other in a back-and-forth rhythm. So it was business-as-usual that when the Guild struck the paper, management retaliated by printing on the presses of another one, the New York Journal-American. A settlement was reached for an increase of $8 a week.

Computerized typesetting machines were already starting to be used, which most observers believe was the real reason behind the demand for more money. This made sense when, a month later, negotiators for the nine newspapers offered the unions the same deal and they rejected it, asking for $16 a week instead.

On December 8, 1962, the New York Typographical Union under their leader, Bertram Powers, walked off the job at four papers. In sympathy, the management of all the others shut out workers. It was an unprecedented news black-out, and it went on for 114 days, until March 31, 1963.

Without their daily infusion of news, New Yorkers felt stranded. Papers from Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington were trucked into the city and sold out as soon as they arrived, sometimes for scalpers’ prices. But they were short on local New York City news.

Jumping into the breach, a new paper called the New York Standard debuted on January 6, 1963, with a publication schedule of six days a week (no Saturdays). Its staff of 80 came from the struck papers, and it used various printers with the intention to continue for the duration of the strike and no longer.

Though the Standard was the most ambitious, other papers stepped up to the challenge as well, including English language editions of Il Progresso and La Prensa. The Brooklyn Eagle expanded its coverage, and in February the first issue of The New York Review of Books debuted to take up the slack from book review sections of the blacked-out papers.

Television stations also beefed up news coverage to fill the gap by hiring idle reporters and became more prominent as a news medium. WABC-FM radio changed to an all-news format (before 1010 WINS); and Cue and TV Guide stepped in for television viewers, including more feature material in addition to schedules and program information.

Holding its breath as long as possible, the Post announced its withdrawal from the
Publishers Association and resumed publishing on March 3, 1963. Theodore W. Kheel, lawyer and labor arbitrator and mediator, was called in five days later, negotiating a settlement that gave the typographical union a more generous contract than the other unions and the strike ended March 31.

But it was a costly strike. The Times reported that the newspapers involved lost more than $100 million in advertising and circulation and that 19,000 employees lost $50 million. Newspaper circulation in general was down on both weekdays and Sundays, and though the Times and the Herald Tribune soldiered on, the Daily Mirror went out of business seven months later on October 15, 1963. When the strike was over, both the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune raised their prices from five to 10 cents, and the upshot of it was that people now bought only one paper, not two, on their way to work.

The day after the strike ended, Bert Powers predicted that the strike would result in fewer papers. Shortly after that, Harry Van Arsdale, Jr., president of the New York Central Labor Council, predicted another strike in two years if attitudes didn’t change. Both men were right.

At the end of March 1965, contracts of 10 unions expired, affecting 17,000 employees. While automation had been sub rosa in all the 1962-63 actions, in the meantime newspapers nationally had installed nearly 120 computers to set type, so by 1965 the threat was seen in boldface.

Singling out the New York Times in June because it was strong enough to meet demands, the Newspaper Guild voted to strike if it didn’t get a settlement. By mid-September it had not, so a strike was called for two days later. Ted Kheel flew in from Denmark to help out. All other papers in the association said they would close in sympathy. That angered the Guild, which had intended to isolate the Times. Ultimately, the other papers were forced to suspend operations anyway because workers in the craft unions refused to cross the Guild’s picket lines.

The strike lasted three weeks and was over on October 7, 1965, with a two-year contract. The Herald Tribune resigned from the Publishers Association during this strike—Jock Whitney was apprehensive about the Tribune’s future—and Ted Kheel said he wouldn’t mediate for newspapers again, that papers needed to automate to survive and that workers would benefit more from the papers’ security than from contract guarantees.

But more problems were afoot. Weakened by strikes, suburban growth, and competition from radio and television, three newspapers agreed to merge in order to form an entity big enough to survive. They were the World Telegram & Sun, the Journal American and the Herald Tribune. As their names suggest, all of them were products of past mergers. The new paper was to be known as the New York World Journal Tribune, coming out morning, evening, and Sundays starting April 25. The announcement came about two weeks before publication date.

Caught by surprise, all ten unions threatened a strike against the not-yet- born paper, saying it would result in the discharge of about 35 percent of the 5,700 workers they represented. If the merged paper could not begin to publish, a newspaper spokesman said, the component papers would fold. One issue was whether contracts in force for the predecessor papers held good for the merged one. Publishers said they did. If so, said Bert Powers, head of the Guild, his workers would show up at the offices of the old papers, not the new one. His workers were ordered not to do any work until new contracts were arrived at.

Another issue was choosing which workers to keep, which to lay off. Unions said tenure had to be based on seniority; publishers wanted to select which ones stayed. How much the discharged workers would be paid in addition to severance pay was also being discussed.

Just before the scheduled publication date, all three of the merging papers printed good-bye letters in their papers, saying the merger would allow them to keep going. In response, the Guild promised a strike. Senators Jacob Javits and Robert Kennedy, Governor Rockefeller and Mayor Lindsay all offered to help. The president of the American Newspaper Publishers Association said the merged company might never produce a paper if the unions didn’t ease up, and Mayor Lindsay said he thought the papers would fold soon without a settlement.

Talks went on until finally, in September, after 140 days, there was a settlement. It was the longest strike in American newspaper history. The WJT, informally referred to as “Widget,” made its debut on September 12, 1966, with an initial press run of 900,000 copies of an 80-page paper. Mayor Lindsay pressed the button that started the presses rolling. Six weeks later, Bert Powers announced that he wanted “big, fat raises from big, fat papers,” and indeed when contract negotiations began in January he asked for a 20 percent increase in pay, generous vacations, and long sabbaticals up to a year off after 25 years.

Negotiations began, were broken off, resumed. Ted Kheel joined the talks even though he had said he wouldn’t. And then, on May 6, 1967, the New York World Journal Tribune announced that it was going out of business after just eight months. The day it died, Bert Powers took out a full-page ad in the New York Times saying it wasn’t his fault. And that is why we have only three daily newspapers in New York today.

RELATED:

• The Urban Lens: Vintage photos show the New York Times’ 1940s printing process
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Lead image: New York Times in 1942 via Pixabay

With baseball season back in full swing, talk at some point turns to the heartbreak of losing the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles. Modern Mechanix informs us that team owner Walter O’Malley had championed a Brooklyn dome stadium designed by Buckminster Fuller–and how the result is yet another reason to blame Robert Moses. O’Malley took the team to Cali, if you’ll remember, because he got a better deal on land for a stadium–better than he was able to get in the five boroughs. He had wanted to keep the team in Brooklyn, but Ebbets Field was looking down-at-the-heels by then and bad for morale. In 1955 O’Malley wrote dome-obsessed architect Buckminster Fuller requesting a domed stadium design.

Photo: Modern Mechanix

Fuller obliged, and, though his later Manhattan dome proposal is often associated with the futuristic or the farfetched, O’Malley called the architect’s stadium dome design “quite practical and economical,” so much so that state legislators were convinced it would be able to pay for itself. The dome, which would have been designed with assistance from Fuller’s Princeton University School of Architecture graduate students, was to be situated where the Atlantic Terminal Mall and Barclays Center are today, on a four-square-block area around Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues.

Houston’s Astrodome was still a decade in the works, so the dome would have been a first, at 300 feet high and 750 feet in diameter, with air venting, shadowless lighting fixtures, an underground parking lot and a promenade with shops and restaurants. It would have cost $6 million to construct and would have been privately financed.

Walter O’Malley and Buckminster Fuller examine the model for the stadium in November 1955; Ebbets Field (right)

According to Modern Mechanix, “The dome design makes feasible the demand for a ball park big enough to hold the enormous Dodger following. It would also be an all-weather, year-round sports palace capable of pulling in big money as a showplace for every kind of sporting event and exposition.” The state legislature “created a $30,000,000 authority empowered to create such a center.”

So where does Robert Moses butt in? As a powerful influence on development, he happened to be the one person whose backing O’Malley needed. Around the same time, Moses had proposed a stadium for the team in Flushing Meadows, Queens (where Shea Stadium ended up being built). He was dead-set against a stadium in downtown Brooklyn, saying that it would “create a China Wall of traffic.”

Robert Moses with a Battery Bridge model.

O’Malley reportedly told Moses, “If my team is forced to play in the borough of Queens, they will no longer be the Brooklyn Dodgers.” The two had a well-documented debate on the subject, never getting beyond what the press called a “scoreless tie.”

Sadly, the dome never progressed beyond its preliminary design stage. Reportedly, although O’Malley had lined up political support–including that of New York Governor W. Averell Harriman–Moses blocked the sale of the land necessary for the planned new Brooklyn stadium, and when L.A. came calling with land at the Chavez Ravine and the ability to own and control all revenue streams–Moses’s Queens proposal would have been a municipal stadium–the offer was too good to refuse. The Dodgers played their last Brooklyn game on September 24th, 1957–and their first Los Angeles game on April 18th, 1958.

[Via Modern Mechanix]

RELATED:

• Check Out This 1960s Plan to Cover Midtown Manhattan With a Giant Geodesic Dome
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• If Robert Moses Visited NYC Today, Here’s Where We’d Take Him

A ladies luncheon at Delmonico’s in 1902; photo via MCNY

Nearly five decades before women were granted the right to vote in New York State, a group of fed-up ladies decided to protest a symbolic law that prohibited them from dining in restaurants without men present. After journalist Jane Cunningham Croly was barred from entering a dinner held at the New York Press Club, she and a group of women founded Sorosis, the first professional women’s club in the United States. On April 20, 1868, Croly and her crew held a luncheon at the historic Delmonico’s Restaurant in the Financial District, which became the first to serve women independently of men. Following the groundbreaking meal, clubs for only women formed all over the country.

Photo of Delmonico’s in 1903; photo via Wikimedia

In the 19th century, it was not socially acceptable for women to be in public without a man to accompany them. While women were allowed to go to department stores to eat light fare, they were discouraged from eating dinner without any men present, especially at fashionable restaurants.

Delmonico’s, considered the first fine dining establishment in the country when it opened in 1837, did not turn the women away, giving the group a private dining room and a special prix-fixe menu of $1 per diner. For many years following that first meal in 1868, the Sororis club used Delmonico’s as its meeting spot.

To mark the 150th anniversary of that revolutionary meal, Delmonico’s is hosting a “Ladies’ Luncheon” event, featuring a special menu created by James Beard-winning chef, Gabrielle Hamilton of Prune.

“Probably 15 years ago, I came across the pretty famous photo of the women’s luncheon at Delmonico’s and have been jealous ever since that I couldn’t have attended in 1868,” Hamilton told amNewYork. “How exciting that 150 years later, I get to cook the damn thing!”

For the week of April 23 to April 28, Hamilton will recreate dishes served at the restaurant around that time, including beef bouillon, Malakoff, soft shell crab and rice pudding. Make a reservation for the event here.

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• MAP: Explore the women’s suffrage movement through the lens of NYC landmarks

There’s no lack of artists deeply associated with New York. But among the many painters who’ve been inspired by our city, perhaps none has had a more enduring and deeper relationship than Edward Hopper, particularly with Greenwich Village. Hopper lived and worked in Greenwich Village during nearly his entire adult life, and drew much inspiration from his surroundings. He rarely painted scenes exactly as they were, but focused on elements that conveyed a mood or a feeling. Hopper also liked to capture scenes which were anachronistic, even in the early 20th century. Fortunately due to the Village’s enduring passion for historic preservation, many, if not all, of the places which inspired Hopper nearly a century ago can still be seen today – or at least evidence of them.

Early Sunday Morning (1930); courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art

One of the most evocative of Hopper’s paintings is Early Sunday Morning. The image oozes the sense of a lonely holdout, and around the time Hopper painted this classic in 1930, countless older structures like this were being or had been demolished across Greenwich Village to make way for street lengthenings and subway construction along Sixth Avenue, Seventh Avenue, and Houston Street.

Current street view of 233-235 Bleecker Street

But fortunately, it appears that for this particular image, Hopper apparently chose a building which still stands today – 233-235 Bleecker Street at Carmine Street. Constructed in the early 19th century as a coach house and residence, these wooden structures were landmarked in 2010 as part of the South Village extension of the Greenwich Village Historic District.

Drug Store (1927); courtesy of ibiblio

Current street view of 154 West 10th Street

Another beloved Hopper painting is Drug Store (1927). The image captures a solitary pharmacy whose light emanates in the darkness of evening on a shadowed corner. While Hopper never revealed what building he based this painting upon, considerable evidence points to 154 West 10th Street/184 Waverly Place as the likely inspiration. Not only the building but the slender cast-iron column raised above the ground, still remain. And fittingly the space is now occupied by one of the Village’s most treasured but frequently endangered institutions, the independently-owned bookstore –in this case, the beloved Three Lives.

Nighthawks (1942); photo via Wikipedia

Perhaps the painting most strongly associated with Hopper is 1942’s Nighthawks. The iconic image of lonely late-night denizens of a corner diner poignantly captures the sense of isolation and detachment Hopper highlighted in urban life. It’s often supposed that the buildings in the background behind the diner include 70 Greenwich Avenue, located at the southeast corner of the intersection with 11th Street and that therefore the Nighthawks diner once stood on the triangular piece of land just south of it between Greenwich Avenue and 7th Avenue South. That lot had been an MTA parking facility until a few years ago and is now the site of an MTA ventilation plant.

Current street view of 70 Greenwich Avenue

But while Hopper may well have been inspired by 70 Greenwich Avenue for the background building in Nighthawks, to which it bears a strong resemblance, in fact, no diner ever stood in that triangular piece of land just to the south. So if 70 Greenwich Avenue is the building in the background of Nighthawks, the inspiration for the diner, while possibly nearby, never stood on that exact spot.

Records show that metal, one story triangular diners stood nearby at the time Hopper painted Nighthawks just to the south of the site at 173 Seventh Avenue South, and at 1-5 Greenwich Avenue, near Christopher Street. These were likely the inspirations for the diner itself, but certainly, one can stand at the corner of Greenwich Avenue and 7th Avenue South, with 70 Greenwich Avenue behind you, and imagine those lonely late-night diner patrons being served at the neon-lit counter.

The Sheridan Theatre (1937); via WikiArt

Sheridan Theatre at Greenwich Avenue in 1922; photo via Wikimedia

Another Hopper location where one can only imagine the scene originally depicted is just up Greenwich Avenue on the triangular plot of land bounded by 12th Street, 7th Avenue, and Greenwich Avenue. Until 1969 the grand Loew’s Sheridan Theater movie palace stood here. Like so many of the movie palaces of the era, it was torn down, in this case, to make way for a vehicle maintenance facility and equipment storage center for St. Vincent’s Hospital, which stood across 7th Avenue. When St. Vincent’s closed its doors in 2010, these facilities were demolished to make way for St. Vincent’s Memorial Park and the New York City AIDS Memorial, which now stand in their place.

New York Studio School; photo via Wikimedia

Hopper’s big break came in 1920 when he was given his first one-person show at the Whitney Studio Club on West 8th Street, which had only recently been established by heiress and arts patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Appropriately enough that building now houses the New York Studio School, which (according to its website) “is committed to giving aspiring artists a significant education that can last a lifetime.”

Meanwhile, the Whitney Museum, the successor to the Studio Club, has now returned to Greenwich Village on Gansevoort Street after a more than half-century absence, and its collection (“arguably the finest holding of 20th century American art in the world” according to its website) prominently features many of Hopper’s most celebrated paintings, including Early Sunday Morning.

The most tangible connection to Edward Hopper which still stands in the Village is not the inspiration for one of his paintings, but his former studio located at 3 Washington Square North. Hopper lived and painted here from 1913 until his death in 1967, and the studio itself remains intact. While not generally open to the public, tours and visits can be arranged by appointment.

Roofs, Washington Square (1926); photo via Carnegie Museum of Art

There is, however, another reminder of Hopper’s years at his Washington Square studio that one can see without a special appointment; his 1926 painting Roofs, Washington Square, which captures the unique perspective of the houses of Washington Square North as they can only be seen by a resident.

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This post comes from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. Since 1980, GVSHP has been the community’s leading advocate for preserving the cultural and architectural heritage of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and Noho, working to prevent inappropriate development, expand landmark protection, and create programming for adults and children that promotes these neighborhoods’ unique historic features. Read more history pieces on their blog Off the Grid.

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Photo via Wikimedia

For two six-month seasons in 1964, the World’s Fair came to Queens, with exhibits featured from over 80 nations spread across 646 acres. The fair came at a time of mid-20th-century innovation and culture, at the height of the Space Age. It served as a moment of peace before the start of the Vietnam War, with its motto “Peace Through Understanding.” And while many New Yorkers attended the historic event, or have heard stories recounted by parents and grandparents, it’s hard to imagine what it was truly like to experience.

Making it easier to understand what the World’s Fair was really like, the city’s parks department is offering free, monthly tours of the park, allowing visitors to hear the stories behind the Unisphere, the New York State Pavilion and many more landmarks.

Photo of the Unisphere Fountain via Wikimedia

Led by Flushing Meadows-Corona Park volunteers, tours take place on the second Sunday of every month. The one-hour tours begin at 11 am and 1 pm and start at the Unisphere. No registration is required and the event is free. The next tour is scheduled for May 13.

And don’t miss the “World’s Fare,” a massive food festival coming to CitiField this weekend, April 28 and 29. The event will include more than 100 food vendors, representing over 100 cultures. There will be an international beer garden offering up a selection of 80 craft beers from 45 breweries and unique art exhibits. Before the event sells out, buy tickets here.

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Stanley Kubrick, from “Faye Emerson: Young Lady in a Hurry,” 1950. © Museum of the City of New York/SK Film Archive, LLC

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. This week’s installment comes courtesy of a new exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, “Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs.” Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at tips@6sqft.com.

Before he directed films like “A Clockwork Orange,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and “Dr. Strangelove” Stanley Kubrick worked as a staff photographer at LOOK magazine, where he developed a knack at storytelling through street photography. Kubrick “found inspiration in New York’s characters and settings, sometimes glamorous, sometimes gritty,” all of which is the subject of a new exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York.

“Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs,” tells the story of how a 17-year-old amateur photographer from the Bronx went on to become one of the most revered directors of the 20th century. The exhibit, on view from May 3rd through October, will display more than 120 photos taken between 1945 and 1950, during Kubrick’s time at LOOK, and examine the connections between his photography and film work. Ahead, the exhibit curators share with 6sqft a sneak preview of the photographs and discuss their experience working on the show.

Stanley Kubrick, from unpublished assignment “Shoeshine Boy,” 1947

As 6sqft previously reported:

Kubrick started out as an apprentice photographer for LOOK in 1946 and then shortly after was promoted to full-time staff photographer. During his stint at the magazine he became known for his story-telling in photographs. His residency lasted until 1950, and from there Kubrick went on to dabble in filmmaking.

Stanley Kubrick, from “Park Benches: Love is Everywhere,” 1946

Stanley Kubrick, From “Life and Love on the New York City Subway,” 1947

MCNY explains that Kubrick’s time behind the lens taught him to be “an acute observer of human interactions and to tell stories through images in dynamic narrative sequences.”

Stanley Kubrick, From “Leonard Bernstein,” 1950

Stanley Kubrick, Stanley Kubrick with Faye Emerson from “Faye Emerson: Young Lady in a Hurry,” 1950

Exhibit curators Donald Albrecht and Sean Corcoran were most intrigued by the fact that he was just 17 when he began. He “matured so quickly into a seasoned photographer of long-form narrative stories, like ‘Shoeshine Boy’ and ‘Life and Love on the New York City Subway,’ which was published in 1947,” they told us.

Stanley Kubrick, from “Rosemary Williams – Showgirl,” 1948

Stanley Kubrick, From “Johnny on the Spot: His Recorded Adventures Mirror the New York Scene,” 1946

The photographs on display in the exhibit are part of the museum’s extensive LOOK archive. They include views of everything from nightclubs to ordinary street scenes to sporting events. Because many of them have never been published, viewers are able to see Kubrick’s “personal interests and preoccupations, such as the bizarre and hyper-masculinity,” explain Albrecht and Corcoran.

Stanley Kubrick, from “Fun at an Amusement Park: LOOK Visits Palisades Park,” 1947

The show begins by introducing the key themes in Kubrick’s early work that reappear throughout his career. It then provides a chronological look at his LOOK assignments. The culmination is “an examination of the direct connection between Kubrick the photographer and Kubrick the director.” Near the end of his time at the magazine, Kubrick shot two feature layouts on the boxers Rocky Graziano and Walter Cartier. His later film “The Day of the Fight” was centered on Cartier, and the LOOK photos even became the movie’s storyboard.

Stanley Kubrick, From “Columbia University,” 1948

Though Albrecht and Corcoran weren’t able to choose a favorite photo, they say that they hope visitors will take with them “Kubrick’s precociousness and how the photos lay the foundation to the career of a great film artist.”

Stanley Kubrick, from unpublished assignment “Shoeshine Boy,” 1947

Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs opens to the public on May 3rd and will be on view through October.

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All photos © Museum of the City of New York/SK Film Archive, LLC, via Stanley Kubrick

Aerial view of the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair; via NYPL

On April 30, 1939, the New York World’s Fair opened in Flushing Meadows Park in Queens. The fair, which spread across 1,200 acres, commemorated the 150th anniversary of George Washington’s inauguration in Lower Manhattan, and had a central theme of “Building the World of Tomorrow.” Construction of the fair began in 1936, which involved turning the Corona city dump and tidal swamp into the fairgrounds. After the land was cleared, hundreds of architects, designers, engineers and construction workers came together to transform the dump into the site for the World’s Fair.

The “Trylon”, a 700-foot obelisk, and the “Perisphere,” a 200-foot globe, stood in the center of the fairgrounds, soon becoming permanent symbols of the Fair. Many American corporations, including the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the Borden Company and General Motors, participated, as a way to introduce fairgoers to new products. With close to 60 nations and 33 U.S. states participating, and its own subway line, the 1939 World’s Fair remains one of the largest, and most iconic, international fairs in history. Ahead, check out some of the photos of the historic World’s Fair, found in the New York Public Library’s extensive collection.

By land, by sea, by air all roads lead to New York World’s Fair 1939; map via NYPL

American Jubilee chorus girl Lucy Monroe wearing the Trylon and Perisphere hat; via NYPL

Opening Day parade in 1939; photo via NYPL

Franklin D. Roosevelt speaking at fair’s Opening Day; photo via NYPL

Crowd forms around a statue of George Washington on Opening Day; photo via NYPL

General Motors Corp. at the World’s Fair; photo via NYPL

Publicity posters, last day to see Fair; photo via NYPL

Police in World’s Fair Police Car; photo via NYPL

Man with bull, horse and dog traveling to the fair; photo via NYPL

Attendant giving boy on bike directions; photo via NYPL

A hitchhiker with a mechanical hand coming out of his suitcase; photo via NYPL

Airline hostesses waving; photo via NYPL

American Jubilee chorus girls pose in front of the pool at Constitution Hall; photo via NYPL

Brenda Putnam’s sculpture, The Crest; photo via NYPL

Actor Jimmy Ellison and wife, Gertrude Durkin, riding the Parachute Jump; photo via NYPL

A bicycle number performed at the World’s Fair; photo via NYPL

Uncle Sam at Parachute Jump; photo via NYPL

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All images courtesy of the New York Public Library

While immigration, urban planning, and the forces of gentrification are certainly key factors in how NYC’s neighborhoods have been shaped, New Yorkers’ patterns of work, their unions, and in some instances, even their employers have also played a role in the development of several of the city’s established neighborhoods. To mark May Day, 6sqft decided to investigate two of the city neighborhoods that were quite literally made for workers—the Van Cortlandt Village area of the Bronx and the Steinway neighborhood in Astoria, Queens.

“The Coops” in Van Cortlandt Village, Bronx

The Coops today, via Wiki Media

The “Allerton Coops,” sometimes simply known as the “The Coops,” were originally built by the United Workers’ Association in the 1920s. The union was primarily composed of secular Jewish needle-trade workers with far-left political convictions who sought to improve the living conditions of their members by constructing affordable housing in a safe and engaged community setting.

While the United Workers are often credited with building all the workers co-ops in the Bronx, in fact, there were several labor organizations that drove the construction of co-ops in the Bronx in the 1920s. The Shalom Aleichem Houses, which were also known as the Yiddish Cooperative Heimgesellschaft, were driven by the vision of the Workmen’s Circle. The Shalom Aleichem Houses included 229 apartments as well as several common spaces dedicated to education and the arts, including artist studios. Notably, while “Shalom Aleichem” translates into “peace be upon you,” the name was chosen because it also happened to be the pen name of well-known late-19 to early-20th-century Ukrainian Yiddish writer Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, whose works included “Tevye the Milkman,” the source text for “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Amalgamated Clothing Workers Apartments in 1929, via MCNY

The largest housing initiative built by a union in the Bronx in the 1920s to 1930s was the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America complex at the edge of Van Cortlandt Park. The complex was designed by Springsteen and Goldhammer for 308 families and included an elaborate formal garden. Tenants were able to purchase their apartments for $500 a room and could finance most of the cost through a special fund set up to assist workers. Maintenance costs were $12.50 a room per month.

While providing workers with safe and affordable housing was the primary aim of the United Workers, Workmen’s Circle, and Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, the co-ops also offered other essential services. Indeed, to further support tenants, the Co-ops, the Shalom Aleichem Houses, and the Amalgamated also set up cooperative stores that offered groceries at a discount. By the late 1920s, the workers co-op movement had also rolled out another service for workers and their families that remains a New York City tradition—the upstate summer camp.

Steinway Village, Queens

Steinway & Sons piano factory in 1875, via Queens Borough Public Library

While workers in the Bronx were settling into new homes built with the support of their unions, in Astoria, Queens many workers and their families were already living in worker-designated housing but with a very different history.

Map of Steinway Village in 1896. G. H. Bailey & Co. Courtesy of Henry Z. Steinway Archive, Smithsonian

Steinway & Sons are most well known for their pianos but at one point, the family also had aspired to get into the real estate business. Originally, the Steinway’s piano factory was located in Manhattan, but given the difficult living conditions on the Lower East Side (and perhaps due to rising concerns about labor unrest), the family chose to relocate to Queens in 1870. However, in addition to moving their piano factory, they decided to also move their workers and their families. The Steinway’s intentional neighborhood would eventually include 29 two-story red-brick row houses located at 41st Street and 20th Avenue in Astoria, Queens. The houses were completed between 1874 and 1875.

In 1974, the Landmarks Preservation Commission attempted to establish a Steinway Historic District. In the end, the proposal was squashed by a majority of local residents who didn’t want their homes to become part of a historic district. Notably, at the time, the nullification of the Steinway Historic District was only the second occasion on which a landmark designation has been disapproved by the Board of Estimate.

Current Housing Initiatives for Workers

The newly restored Hahne & Company building in downtown Newark, where Audible workers could live rent-free. Via Hahne & Co. and Bozzuto

In New York City, housing continues to pose a major obstacle to workers, including essential workers from teachers to police officers to nurses. To help ensure that middle-income workers can afford to live in the city limits, the city continues to prioritize city workers (e.g., police officers and teachers working for the DOE) in housing lotteries. Several New York City hospitals also offer subsidized housing to staff, including interns, doctors, and nurses. Recently, however, the region has also seen a resurrection of the Steinway family’s approach to housing.

Last year, Amazon rolled out a housing initiative for workers at its Audible headquarters in Newark. The company offered 20 employees a chance to get $2,000 a month in free rent for a year on the condition that they sign a two-year lease in a recently restored building in downtown Newark. In the end, 64 of the company’s 1,000 employees applied with the lottery winners ending up with $500 a month apartments that generally substantially larger than their former homes in places like Brooklyn and Manhattan. Unfortunately, this seemingly too-good-to-be-true housing story isn’t a forever story: Audible’s housing lottery winners will eventually be expected to pay market rent for their units.

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An 1859 Harper’s illustration of Moving Day

It’s hard enough moving these days, between finding movers who won’t charge for every piece of tape and scoping out a spot to double park while you unload. But imagine dealing with that headache along with every other New Yorker moving on the same day? Believe it or not, this is how it used to be.

From colonial times up until WWII, May 1st was Moving Day, the one day a year when people in New York City moved. It’s said that the tradition came from the Dutch, who set out for Manhattan on May 1st and therefore celebrated each year by swapping homes on this day. Later, landlords had to notify their tenants of rent increases on February 1st, which would take effect three months later at 9am. Tenants waited until May 1st to move, and the streets would be filled with “moving vans,” Long Island farmers’ wagons led by horses, clogging up the city streets and creating complete pandemonium.

Via Baruch College Library

Now it’s a hassle to move on the 1st of a given month rather than somewhere in the middle, but in the time of Moving Day, or “Rent Day” as it was sometimes called, it was all left ’til May 1st (and in later years the days leading up to the 1st). Therefore, cartmen would raise their prices as high as they liked. But in 1890, the city started to regulate moving rates. As Apartment Therapy found in this great New York Times article, “it cost $2 per one-horse truckload within two miles and a whopping 50 cents per extra mile.”

The chaos of Moving Day in 1856

And aside from the cost, it was utter chaos. Ephemeral New York quotes an 1885 Times article about the day: “Everybody in a hurry, smashing mirrors in his haste, and carefully guarding boot boxes from harm. Sofas that go out sound will go in maimed … bedscrews will be lost in the confusion, and many a good piece of furniture badly bruised in consequence.” Even schools were closed on May 1st, as it was estimated that a million people moved simultaneously at the height of Moving Day.

By the end of the 19th century, many New Yorkers spent their summers in the suburbs and moved upon their return, making October 1st a second Moving Day. When WWII began, it was nearly impossible to find enough moving men on one day, so the tradition began to lose steam. And once rent control went into effect shortly after, the custom was erased completely.

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Photo via Wiki Commons

It’s usually the tours and events at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery that get people talking, but the national landmark has its own chatty group that’s attracting a lot of attention. The group happens to be a flock of lime green parrots from Argentina, appropriately named “Monk Parrots” since they are hanging out in the cemetery despite Green-Wood’s nonsectarian nature. But how did these loud and exotic birds get all the way from South America to Greenwood Heights?

Green-Wood’s main gate, where the parrots make their home, via Wiki Commons

Green-Wood Cemetery is located at the highest point in Brooklyn, making it an ideal stopover for migrating birds. There are almost 500 acres of trees and ponds and, it goes unsaid, not a lot of disruptive activity. In addition to the parrots, the other typical birds that gather at Green-Wood are herons, egrets, hawks, killdeer and many more.

Monk parrots are just under a foot long and stocky with dark blue wings, pink-tipped tails, and grey monk-like hoods. Their songs are described as “raucous and harsh” – not so calming for those eternally resting. They are native to Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina but this particular clan comes from the mountains of Argentina, according to Steve Baldwin, of Brooklyn Parrots, where the climate is quite similar to ours.

Baldwin is not an ornithologist but he is an enthusiast and leads free monk parrot “safaris” in Green-Wood. According to Baldwin, in the 1950s there were so many monk parrots in Argentina that they were devastating the agricultural harvest and the government unsuccessfully paid bounty hunters to get rid of them. When that strategy failed, they decided to sell these exotic birds. In 1968 alone, nearly 12,000 monk parrots were brought to the United States. Legend has it that these birds escaped in the 1960s when a crate of caged monk parakeet broke open at JFK airport but, most likely, they were just pets let free.

According to the New York City Audubon site, “Start your bird walk as you enter through Green-Wood Cemetery’s Main Gate. (You can’t miss the parrots).” So, however, the monk parrots came to Green-Wood and even though they’re raucous, we should go and enjoy their striking colors!

A typist wearsing a guaze mask in 1918.Via the National Archives and Records Administration

May 2018 marks the centennial of one of the world’s greatest health crisis in history—the 1918 flu pandemic. In the end, anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million people worldwide would die as a result of the pandemic. New York was by no means spared. During the flu pandemic, which stretched from late 1918 to early 1920, over 20,000 New Yorkers’ lives were lost. However, in many respects, the crisis also brought into relief what was already working with New York’s health system by 1918. Indeed, compared to many other U.S. cities, including Boston, New York suffered fewer losses and historians suggest that the health department’s quick response is largely to thank for the city’s relatively low number of deaths.

An emergency hospital during the influenza epidemic in Camp Funston, Kansas, via Wiki Commons

May 1918: The flu makes its first appearance

As reported in the New York Times on September 22, 1918, just as the flu was beginning to ravage the city’s population, the flu first appeared in May 1918 in Spain. While the flu would remain widely known as the “Spanish influenza,” it quickly spread to other countries across Europe, including Switzerland, France, England, and Norway. Already a global world, it wasn’t long before the flu started to travel overseas via ill passengers. As reported in the New York Times, “In August, this disease carried by ocean liners and transports, began to make its appearances in this country, and within the past two weeks the occurrences of the malady in the civilian population and among soldiers in the cantonments have increased so greatly in number that Government, State, and municipal health bureaus are now mobilizing all the forces to combat what they recognize to be an approaching epidemic.”

The Health Board urged New Yorkers to wear masks with the phrase, “Better ridiculous than dead.” Via the National Archives and Records Administration

A Quick and Effective Response from New York’s Health and Housing Authorities

As Francesco Aimone argues in a 2010 article on New York’s response to the 1918 flu pandemic, although newspapers reported that the first cases of influenza came via the port on August 14, 1918, roughly 180 earlier cases of active influenza arrived on vessels in New York City between July 1 and mid-September. Indeed, as Aimone reports, “Approximately 305 cases of suspected influenza were reported throughout the voyages of 32 ships’ port health officers examined from July through September, including victims who died while at sea or recovered from their illness.” However, health officials did not discover any secondary outbreaks of influenza until after August 14, 1918.

Aimone’s study further emphasizes that despite the fact that New York City was home to an active international harbor, the city ultimately managed to contain its influenza cases through a number of measures, which included those connected to housing. Most notably, the Health Department opted for a “two-tiered approach to isolating cases of influenza.” As Health Commissioner Royal S. Copeland told The New York Times on September 19, “When cases develop in private houses or apartments they will be kept in strict quarantine there. When they develop in boarding houses or tenements they will be promptly removed to city hospitals, and held under strict observation and treated there.” While most cases were moved to hospitals, as hospital spaces filled up, the city opened other designed spaces and at one point even turned the Municipal Lodging House, the city’s first homeless shelter on East 25th Street, into a care facility for those suffering from influenza.

However, the Department of Health was not solely responsible for helping fight the spread of influenza during the 1918 pandemic. When more public health inspectors were needed, inspectors were reassigned from the Tenement House Department. Among other tasks, housing inspectors undertook a house-to-house canvas to attempt to find previously undocumented cases of flu and pneumonia.

A NYC street sweeper wears a mask while working. Via the National Archives and Records Administration

The Goodwill of New Yorkers

While the city’s quarantining program was generally effective, it was ultimately contingent on the goodwill and cooperation of New Yorkers. Without the proper staff to enforce isolation orders, isolation remained a voluntary measure. In essence, enforcement of the isolation orders was either self-imposed by the ill or imposed on the ill by their families. New Yorkers also helped contain the spread of influenza by abiding with the myriad of other enforcements regulating everything from when they rode public transit to their handkerchief use. In fact, close to one million leaflets were distributed during the crisis aimed at educating the public on how their everyday practices could play a key role in containing the spread of influenza.

In the end, proportionate to the population, New York City fared better than most U.S. cities with a rate of 3.9 deaths per thousand residents. Indeed, compared to the twenty largest cities in the United States, only Chicago and Cincinnati reported lower mortality rates than New York City. A combination of a well-developed health department, understanding of the link between health and housing conditions, and the goodwill of New Yorkers all played a key role in combatting the pandemic.

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While recently cleaning out an office, a New York City parks employee discovered two old boxes. Inside the boxes were nearly 3,000 pictures taken in the city’s many parks during the summer of 1978. During a three-month newspaper strike, the department hired eight photographers from the New York Times to document the parks. Until this year, the photos, which had been hidden for 40 years, were never published. Now, as a collaboration between the Times and NYC Parks, a new exhibit called 1978: The NYC Parks/New York Times Photo Project, will feature 60 select photographs from the expansive collection. The exhibit opens Thursday at the Arsenal Gallery in Central Park and runs until June 14. Ahead, preview these stunning images from ’78, which highlight the uniqueness and vibrant flair of NYC during this era.

Group of Boys, Coney Island, Brooklyn, 1978; photo by Paul Hosefros for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Kids on Jungle Gym, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, 1978; photo by Gary Settle for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Park Revelers, Orchard Beach (?), Pelham Bay Park, the Bronx, 1978; photo by Joyce Dopkeen for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Woman at Unisphere, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, 1978; photo by Gary Settle for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Cats on Parade, Central Park, Manhattan, 1978; photo by D. Gorton, Tender Vittles for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Pig Roast, Prospect Park (?), Brooklyn,1978; photo by Neal Boenzi for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Family Salvages Picnic Table, Unidentified Park, 1979; photo by Ed Hausner for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Girls on Splintered Boardwalk, South Beach, Staten Island, 1978; photo by Neal Boenzi for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Resting Girl, Red Hook Pool, Brooklyn, 1978; photo by Paul Hosefros for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Boy at Abandoned Diving Area, Red Hook Pool, Brooklyn, 1978; photo by Paul Hosefros for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Handball, Seven Gables Playground, 1978; photo by Paul Hosefros for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Photo by Paul Hosefros for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Fiesta Folklorica, Bethesda Fountain, Central Park, Manhattan, 1978; photographer unidentified for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Photo by Neal Boenzi for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Photo by Larry Morris for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Photo by Paul Hosefros for NYC Parks Photo Archive

Photo by Paul Hosefros for NYC Parks Photo Archive

[Via NY Times]

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Images courtesy of NYC Parks Photo Archive and the New York Times

Washington Square Park via Wiki Commons; Jane Jacobs via Wiki Commons

Jane Jacobs’ birthday on May 4 is marked throughout the world as an occasion to celebrate one’s own city — its history, diversity, and continued vitality. “Jane’s Walks” are conducted across the country to encourage average citizens to appreciate and engage the complex and dazzling ecosystems which make up our cityscapes (Here in NYC, MAS is hosting 200+ free walks throughout the city from today through Sunday). But there’s no place better to appreciate all things Jane Jacobs than Greenwich Village, the neighborhood in which she lived and which so informed and inspired her writings and activism, in turn helping to save it from destruction.

Her Home

Google Street View of 555 Hudson Street today

Jane Jacobs’ home still stands today at 555 Hudson Street, just north of Perry Street. A modest 1842 rowhouse which had been substantially altered in 1950, it is here that Jane and her husband Robert raised their family and she wrote the epic tome “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.” In 2009, GVSHP got the block co-named “Jane Jacobs Way,” visible at the Bank Street end of the block.

“The Sidewalk Ballet” and “Eyes on the Street”

Grove Street in the West Village, via Wally Gobetz/Flickr

Jacobs was inspired by what she saw outside her door, on active, mixed-use streets like Hudson Street, to formulate her theories of ‘the sidewalk ballet’ and ‘eyes on the street’ as essential elements to the healthy functioning of cities and neighborhoods. Whereas the conventional wisdom of urban planning of the day was that only orderly spaces with segregated uses and wide open space could succeed, Jacobs saw how the dense, messy, mixed nature of people and activities on her doorstep kept her local shops well patronized, her streets safe with watchful eyes, her neighborhood vibrant, and her neighbors interconnected.

The West Village as “blight”

Crane with wrecking ball mounted on the trestle to dismantle the High Line. Photo by Peter H. Fritsch (1962). Photo courtesy of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation/Fritsch Family Collection. (MORE HERE)

Believe it or not, in the 1960s, Robert Moses declared the West Village west of Hudson Street blighted, and planned to tear it all down in the name of urban renewal. Of course, this was a very different West Village than today, and indeed the deactivated High Line, the crumbling West Side piers, the looming West Side Highway, and the somewhat decrepit waterfront warehouses, factories, and sailors’ hotels did not have quite the polish of today’s West Village. Nevertheless, this was Jane Jacobs’ turf, and where Moses saw blight, she saw diversity and potential.

Jacobs led the successful effort to defeat Moses’ urban renewal plan and preserve this charming and modest section of the West Village. Not long after, half of the area was landmarked in 1969 as part of the Greenwich Village Historic District, and much of the remainder was landmarked in 2006 and 2010 through preservation campaigns lead by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

Jacobs’ Design Hand

West Village Houses. Courtesy New York City Municipal Archives

The West Village Houses, 42 walk-up apartment buildings located on six blocks in the Far West Village west of Washington Street between Morton and Bethune Streets, are the only buildings anywhere that Jane Jacobs had a direct hand in designing. Located within the area Moses had designated for urban renewal, and in the path where the High Line once ran (it was dismantled here in the early 1960s), West Village Houses evolved from the community’s alternative plan for modest, walk-up, human-scaled infill housing, as opposed to the often faceless, interchangeable “towers-in-the-park” Moses propagated across New York City.

When Moses’ plan was defeated, Jacobs and her neighbors went to work devising a scheme for housing on the empty and underutilized lots cleared by the demolition of the High Line, which would embody the characteristics they loved about their West Village. In addition to the low scale, they opted for shared communal space in the rear and side yards, brown brick, and shallow setbacks from the sidewalk that approximated the small front yards or areaways of rowhouses and tenements. The buildings were placed at slight angles or pushed slightly forward or backward to create the variation in form one normally saw over time in the accretion of an urban neighborhood. They also ensured that the development would be affordable to the teachers, artists, shopkeepers, and civil servants that populated the then-modest neighborhood.

There was much resistance to the plan from the government, and many delays and roadblocks. When it was eventually completed in 1975, cost overruns meant the West Village Houses were a somewhat stripped-down, spartan version of what was originally envisioned. Nevertheless, they both fit in with the neighborhood and provided a much-needed stable residential community, in an area which was losing industry at a clip, and which many New Yorkers might have considered too seedy or raffish to live in.

Cars Out of Washington Square

Last car through Washington Square Park, 1958. Tankel Collection, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation

Today many are surprised to learn that cars and buses used to run through Washington Square for much of the mid-20th century. In fact, the large flat area of the park around the fountain and the arch is a vestige of the time when motor vehicles used the park as a turnaround.

Jane Jacobs was not a fan of the automobile and its impact upon cities and neighborhoods. Along with her friends and neighbors, she waged the fight to get cars and buses out of the square, staging protests, gathering petitions, and lobbying city officials. Not only did the City not want to ban cars, they wanted to build an extension of Fifth Avenue through the park which would serve as an access route to the Lower Manhattan Expressway planned at the time, thus making Washington Square little more than the greenery surrounding a highway on-ramp.

Jacobs and fellow activist Shirley Hayes would have none of it. The City tried to entice them with “alternative” plans for allowing cars to remain in the park, including building a pedestrian passageway over the cars. But Jacobs, Hayes, and company persevered, and in the late 1950s, cars were banned from the park on a trial basis, and in the 1960s the ban was made permanent.

Saving Soho, the South Village, and Little Italy

1959 brochure cover showing the proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway, looking east from above the West Side Highway. Courtesy MCNY.

Had Robert Moses had his way instead of Jane Jacobs, the neighborhoods of SoHo, the South Village, Nolita, and Little Italy would not exist today. That’s because in the 1940s and 50s Moses wanted to build a superhighway called the “Lower Manhattan Expressway” along present-day Broome Street, connecting the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges to the Holland Tunnel, thus making automobile access between Long Island and New Jersey easier via Lower Manhattan.

Moses saw the need to accommodate regional motor vehicle traffic as paramount. He also saw the neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan which stood in the way of his highway plan as blighted and anachronistic. And in some ways he was right – what we now call SoHo (which did not acquire that name until the late 1960s) was a sea of outdated and underutilized factory buildings, while the neighborhoods of the South Village and Little Italy were working-class neighborhoods formerly populated with Italian immigrants, whose children and grandchildren were moving to the outer boroughs and suburbs.

But Jane Jacobs and many of her neighbors saw something different. They saw a sea of potential, and neighborhoods which may not have been growing, but which were holding on, with residents who were invested in their communities and a diversity of activities and types of people that cities needed. She also saw what happened to the Bronx when the Cross-Bronx Expressway cut that borough in half to accommodate motor vehicle access from Westchester and Connecticut to New Jersey; previously stable working-class neighborhoods were destroyed, and the borough began a precipitous decline which lasted for decades.

And it wasn’t just the neighborhoods directly in the proposed highway’s path along Broome Street that were threatened; Moses envisioned a series of on and off ramps connecting the expressway to major Manhattan arteries along its length, slicing through the surrounding neighborhoods. One such connector would have stretched up along West Broadway and LaGuardia Place through Washington Square (see above), thus turning Greenwich Village’s Lower Fifth Avenue into a speedy accessway to New Jersey or Long Island (if you’ve ever wondered why LaGuardia Place north of Houston Street is so wide, with a swath of gardens along its eastern edge, it’s because Moses had planned to turn the entire width into a connector to the Lower Manhattan Expressway).

Jacobs and her fellow activists from Lower Manhattan fought the plan tooth and nail, shaming public officials, disrupting meetings, and organizing their neighbors. The plan remained active well into the 1960s, though it died a few deaths before the final nail in the coffin in 1968.

As the chairman of the Committee to save the West Village, Jane Jacobs holds up documentary evidence at a press conference at the Lions Head Restaurant at Hudson & Charles Streets in 1961. Via Wiki Commons. 

Jane Jacobs not only shaped the way we see our city but quite literally shaped how it worked and which areas survived. Greenwich Village and surrounding neighborhoods owe a great debt of gratitude to her for her writing and her unrelentingly effective activism, which is no doubt why she is sometimes referred to as “Saint Jane” in these parts.

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This post comes from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. Since 1980, GVSHP has been the community’s leading advocate for preserving the cultural and architectural heritage of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and Noho, working to prevent inappropriate development, expand landmark protection, and create programming for adults and children that promotes these neighborhoods’ unique historic features. Read more history pieces on their blog Off the Grid.

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A 1939 photo of an atom-smasher (cyclotron) at Columbia University. Via Wiki Commons.

Most people assume that “The Manhattan Project” is a clever codename, a misnomer for the famous test sites in New Mexico. But, with over 1,200 tons on uranium stashed on Staten Island, and a nuclear reactor whizzing away at Columbia University, the top-secret wartime program began in Manhattan, and fanned out across the island, from its southern tip to its northern reaches, from its dimmest docks to its brightest towers. Ultimately 5,000 people poured into New York to work on the project, so duck, cover and get ready for an atomic tale of scientists, soldiers, and spies.

270 Broadway, via Wiki Commons

When Franklin Roosevelt established the Office of Scientific Research and Development, by Executive Order, in 1941, he placed the nation’s nascent nuclear program under the auspices of the Army Corps of Engineers. The program kicked off in June 1942, on the 18th floor of 270 Broadway, home to the Engineers’ North Atlantic Division. Thus was born The Manhattan Engineer District, better known as the Manhattan Project. Eventually, the offices at 270 Broadway would not only run atomic research but also preside over the creation of entire nuclear cities in Tennessee, New Mexico, and Washington State.

Pupin Hall, via Wiki Commons

It was no coincidence that the Army headquartered the project on Broadway. Further north on the avenue, at 120th Street, in the basement of Columbia University’s Pupin Hall, John Dunning, and Enrico Fermi had conducted the first nuclear fission experiment in the United States.

The cyclotron built by Dunning in 1939 in the basement of Columbia’s Pupin Hall. Dunning is on the left with Enrico Fermi in the center and Dana P. Mitchell on the right. Via Wiki Commons.

The fission experiments at Columbia on January 25, 1939, confirmed the findings of German chemists Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann, who had discovered nuclear fission weeks earlier. But at Columbia, Dunning realized the practical applications of nuclear fission. He wrote on January 25th, “Believe we have observed new phenomenon of far-reaching consequences…here is real Atomic Energy.” Those consequences were the possibility of an uncontrolled chain reaction, and the creation of the Atomic Bomb. He noted two days later that he and his colleagues, “agreed to keep [their findings] rigorously quiet in view of serious implications of atomic energy release internationally.”

Einstein’s letter to FDR, via Wiki Commons

Well, they did tell someone. The Columbia scientists, led by Leo Szilard, sent a letter to FDR, dated August 2nd 1939, and signed by Albert Einstein, explaining that “the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future,” and that “this new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of…extremely powerful bombs of a new type.” Lest the Germans produce the bomb first, the scientists warned, the administration should “speed up the experimental work” on uranium already being carried out at Columbia.

With the support of the Federal Government now assured, Columbia University became chiefly responsible for the K-25 Gaseous Diffusion research program as early as 1941. By 1943, the University’s facilities were converted wholesale into the Manhattan Project’s Substitute Alloy Materials (SAM) Laboratories, with additional space in the Nash building at 3280 Broadway.

The Columbia scientists noted that the world’s “most important source of Uranium is Belgian Congo.” Lucky for the K-25 team, stockpiles of Congolese uranium had been sitting, undetected, on Staten Island since 1940.

Following the fall of Belgium, Edgar Sengier, a Belgian mining executive, knew he had to keep the ore away from the Axis. In a swift and decisive move, he surreptitiously shipped over 1,200 tons of uranium – half the supply available in Africa – to Staten Island. He himself then decamped to New York and took up offices in the Cunard Building, at 25 Broadway, just waiting for the right buyer. When the Army Corps of Engineers came knocking, he sold his stock for a song, doling out uranium for a dollar a pound.

With a heady supply of Sengier’s top grade ore, work at the Columbia SAM Lab reached its peak in September 1944, employing 1,063 people, including Atomic Spies. Klaus Fuchs, Codenamed “Rest,” “Charles” and “Bras” passed along nuclear intelligence so valuable to Soviets that the Atomic Heritage Foundation holds the USSR was able to develop and test an Atomic Bomb nearly two years earlier than otherwise expected. Fuchs arrived at Columbia in 1943 and would make his mark at either end of Broadway before moving on to Los Alamos in 1944.

Not only did Fuchs pass information from the SAM Lab to his Russian counterparts, but also the Socialist scientist infiltrated the Woolworth Building, New York’s “Cathedral of Commerce.” Floors 11-14 of Cass Gilbert’s neo-Gothic masterpiece housed the Tellex Corporation, a subsidiary of the chemical engineering contractor W.M. Kellogg, which outfitted Columbia’s Nash building, then built K-25 facilities at the Clinton Engineer Works, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. From inside the sweeping Woolworth tower, the science behind uranium enrichment made its way to Moscow.

The historian Richard Rhodes calls Klaus Fuchs the “most productive” Soviet spy on the Anglo-American atomic bomb, and the physicist Has Bethe, head of the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos, said Fuchs was the only physicist he knew who truly changed history. That would have been true even if his intelligence was useless because his arrest in 1950 led to the conviction of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

This brings us the era’s most famous Atomic Spies, who were both “guilty and framed.” As an engineer in the Army Signal Corps, Julius Rosenberg became a Soviet spy on Labor Day, 1942. While he is most famous for recruiting his brother-in-law, David Greenglass, to pass along atomic secrets from Los Alamos, Rosenberg himself spent a frenetic weekend in New York, copying secret Air Force documents from a Columbia safe, which he subsequently slipped to Soviet agents on the LIRR.

A swift hand-off this might have been, but Julius Rosenberg was by no means the most dexterous atomic spy in New York. That honor goes to Moe Berg, the major league catcher, linguist, lawyer and spy who (naturally) was deemed the United States’ best hope against Nazi nuclear warheads. In addition to playing 17 years in the majors, Berg, a native New Yorker, also spoke 12 languages, graduated magna cum laude from Princeton, studied at the Sorbonne, and earned a law degree from Columbia. His innate brilliance and facility with languages made him the perfect candidate to undertake an international assessment of the Nazi nuclear program.

That mission, codenamed “Project Larson” took him first to Italy to interview Axis scientists, then to Zurich where he came face to face with Werner Heisenberg, the Reich’s finest scientific mind. Berg had his orders: If it seemed the Germans were making headway on the bomb, Berg must shoot to kill. Berg concluded, correctly, that he needn’t waste the bullet; the Nazis had no bomb.

In short, Heisenberg wasn’t Oppenheimer. Before he became “the father of the Atomic Bomb,” as the head of The Los Alamos Laboratory, J. Robert Oppenheimer was a New Yorker. He grew up at 155 Riverside Drive, and attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School on Central Park West. That humanistic outlook shaped his worldview, his work and his scholarship for the rest of his life. On July 16, 1945, upon witnessing the Trinity Test, the world’s first nuclear explosion, he thought of the Bhagavad Gita, translating verse XI,32 from the Sanskrit, as “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

The Shinran Statue on Riverside Drive, via Claire Meyer/Flickr

Oppenheimer became a lifelong advocate of nuclear control and disarmament, deeply aware of the catastrophic power of the weapon he had built. Interestingly, a survivor of the bomb’s destructive force stands on the same street as Oppenheimer’s boyhood home. On Riverside Drive, in front of the New York Buddhist Church between 105th and 106th streets, stands the statue of a 13th-century monk, Shinran Shonin, who survived the bombing of Hiroshima. The statue was brought to New York in 1955. Accordingly, both the origins of the Manhattan Project and the legacy of its power are at home in New York.

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Lucie Levine is the founder of Archive on Parade, a local tour and event company that aims to take New York’s fascinating history out of the archives and into the streets. She’s a Native New Yorker, and licensed New York City tour guide, with a passion for the city’s social, political and cultural history. She has collaborated with local partners including the New York Public Library, The 92nd Street Y, The Brooklyn Brainery, The Society for the Advancement of Social Studies and Nerd Nite to offer exciting tours, lectures and community events all over town. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.