Image via New York Transit Museum

Is there anything more dad-approved than trains and tattoos to celebrate Father’s Day? Not much! This weekend, celebrate with pop at the New York Transit Museum’s 4th Annual Parade of Trains. Hop on and off six different types of vintage train cars, including the oldest train cars in the Transit Museum fleet, dating from 1904.

Visitors can also stop by the museum’s membership station to get a super cool, Father’s Day temporary transit tattoo while learning more about the New York Transit Museum’s ongoing exhibits. The event takes place Saturday (6/16) and Sunday (6/17) from 11 am to 4 pm at the Brighton Beach (B/Q) station. The Parade of Trains shuttle rides are free with the swipe of a MetroCard and will run continuously to and from the Brighton Beach station B/Q platforms.

A Brooklyn Union Elevated Car (1903 – 1907) will be found at Parade of Trains

Passengers will only be able to get on and off of the trains at the Brighton Beach (B/Q) station although the vintage trains will be traveling in both directions, making a short round trip to Ocean Parkway and a longer round trip to Kings Highway.

Some of the other trains on displays are the BRT Brooklyn Union Elevated Cars, which date from 1903 – 1969. The oldest cars in the Transit Museum’s vintage fleet, they were typical of the first motorized cars as their design featured a lightweight wooden body mounted on steel underframes. The BRT trains were known informally as “gate cars” as its passengers entered and exited through open-air vestibules at the front and back of each car.

Also on display are the BRT/BMT Standards, dating from between 1914 and 1969. These cars were modeled after Boston Elevated Railway cars and measure 67 feet long and 10 feet wide. Their large standing capacity of 182 people helped with the chronic overcrowding of the early subway years.

The BMT D-Type Triplex, dating from 1925 to 1965, moved away from wooden cars in favor of steel and their three-car articulated units allowed passengers to walk from one car to another.

With so many other cars displayed, stop by and take a ride. And learn more about New York transit history here.

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All images courtesy of NY Transit Museum 

Central Park, 1900 © Ray Simone

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Ray Simone shares vintage photographs of New York City he has lovingly restored to stunning quality. 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.

Born-and-raised Manhattanite Ray Simone has a native knowledge of New York, as well as an intimate understanding of its past lives. When he’s not taking current photos of the city, he’s in his Williamsburg studio, restoring its past, negative by negative to shocking quality. While some negatives take under an hour to restore, the more badly damaged ones can require more than 40 hours of painstaking work, going pixel by pixel. “You can only work at something a certain amount of hours at a time,” Simone reflects, “You get tunnel vision after a while; carpal tunnel.” Ahead, 6sqft talks to Simone about his photo restoration business and his thoughts on NYC’s history and future, and we get a special look at some of his greatest restoration works.

5th Avenue bus, 1915

How’d you get into the negative restoration business?

It’s been a long journey. How it all started was, I used to work out of a studio on 19th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. Before the ‘90s, 6th Avenue between 14th and 34th Streets on weekends was a dead zone. It was strictly a garment center and on weekends there wasn’t any business, and there were so many empty lots between those streets. I used to work at the studio on weekends, for free, and those empty lots were filled with people selling their housewares and goods at pop-up flea markets. I’ve been collecting photographs since I was 10; I always collected photographs. One day, I saw some camera negatives. I bought one, and then the addiction – whatever you want to call it – took off from there.

Cop on corner

Where’s the best place to find the negatives you restore?

Antique stores and garage sales. There are some professional auction houses – not Sotheby’s, too expensive – there’s one called Heritage, that are very high-end, for if you want to buy Jimi Hendrix’s guitar or Mick Jagger’s scarf. They’ll notify me if there’s something there. I’ve been collecting negatives for 25 years. I stopped collecting photos; I switched.

Most people don’t think about it. Most people want the finished product. You have to go to yard sales where people have a box of photos, and you’ll come across a negative or two in there.

Lower Manhattan, 1932

Do you buy negatives online?

It’s hard to buy negatives online because a lot of them are fake duplicates, or copy negatives. If you don’t trust the person it’s easy to get ripped off. I only print them and I only restore the original negative that was in the camera.

A tintype is a one of a kind. So, a tintype is kind of a negative and a photograph at the same time. It was the emulsion burning onto the tin. So, it’s like a little piece of metal.

Beach, 1900

Have you ever come upon faked negatives?

What a lot of people do is, let’s say there’s a very famous photograph, they’ll photograph the photograph and say that’s the negative. It’s never gonna print the same. My trained eye can tell if it was in the camera or a duplicate. It’s called a dupe in the photography world. I’m not gonna waste my time restoring something like that. I like old glass negatives from the 1800s.

Chinatown fireworks

How quickly can you tell if a negative is damaged?

In seconds. You have to see if you have the ability to make a print out of it. Sometimes [the negatives] are underexposed or damaged. There’s a lot of elements that are involved in that

Empire State Building

Flushing Meadow

When are most of your negatives from?

I don’t like much after the 1920s unless it’s something really cool.

Top: Yankee parking, 1947; Bottom: Babe Ruth

How much work is involved in restoring negatives?

It’s a lot of work. I have a negative which I think is very important and highly desirable: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in a uniform that’s not from the team, it’s their own design, they’re on the field. The negative is in terrible disrepair but I just couldn’t turn it down, so I’m trying my hardest. I don’t want to say I’m going to give up.

Times Square

How do you go about finding the vintage photos you use?

I like, of course, Times Square. I like things with cars in the backgrounds, a movie theater with the billboards or the marquee on it. The major actors. The film that’s being played. I really enjoy looking at those, and it also makes it a lot easier to date. If it’s not dated, you look up the movie and you basically have a one- or two-month window.

Greenpoint Avenue, 1930

Are you happy about the way the city has been changing?

No. Maybe 15 years ago but now it’s just as sanitized as anywhere else. It was gritty in the ’60s and the ’70s and ’80s. The city’s always changing, there’s always something going on. Look at the Meatpacking District: Everything’s commercial. All the small little mom-and-pop shops are gone – that breaks my heart when I see that. I want the city to be clean and safe but it has lost its intimacy in a way.

Lower East Side

Do you take photos yourself as well?

I’m a photographer but I don’t do that as much as I used to. I’m hoping it takes off one day, a show at a gallery somewhere somehow. I had a show in London that actually did quite well, and the people there enjoyed spending the money, but I don’t know if New Yorkers are tight. The English love that Americana.

Queens Boulevard

What is your process for restoring the negatives?

You have to go with, let’s call it a paintbrush, that’s made out of sable. You have to slowly dip the paint in, paint over stuff. I deep scan everything – they’re about a gig-and-a-half size file. I bring it down to a workable file, 300mg, and I digitally restore it using photoshop. It would be a tremendous amount of work. They weren’t taken by professional photographers so there’s a lot of scratches a lot of dust. A lot of negatives deteriorate even more.

Tompkins Square Park, 1930

Trolley car traffic

West 31st Street, 1931

Williamsburg Bridge, 1930

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All photographs © Ray Simone

PS General Slocum; photo via Wikimedia

On June 15, 1904, a disaster of unprecedented proportions took place in New York City, resulting in the loss of over 1,000 lives, mostly women and children. This largely forgotten event was the greatest peacetime loss of life in New York City history prior to the September 11th attacks, forever changing our city and the ethnic composition of today’s East Village.

It was on that day that the ferry General Slocum headed out from the East 3rd Street pier for an excursion on Long Island, filled with residents of what was then called Kleindeutschland, or Little Germany. This German-American enclave in today’s East Village was then the largest German-speaking community in the world outside of Berlin and Vienna.

Journal for the 17th annual excursion of St. Marks Evan. Lutheran Church (1904); via New-York Historical Society

About 1,342 people departed on the boat chartered by the St. Mark’s German Evangelical Lutheran Church, located at 323 East 6th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues, for an annual excursion up the East River and through Long Island Sound to Eaton’s Neck on Long Island.

While the church had made this trek sixteen times before without incident, the General Slocum, unfortunately, had a much more checkered record. The ship had run aground several times and been involved in several collisions. But none of these prior incidents matched the breadth of the tragedy which would take place that summer day.

Firefighters working to put out the fire on General Slocum via Wikimedia

Shortly after departing from the Lower East Side waterfront, a fire broke out in the lamp room of the boat as it passed East 90th Street. The fire spread rapidly, aided by ample flammable material and a lack of working fire safety features. The boat’s fire hoses had not been maintained and rotted through, falling apart when the crew tried to use them to put out the fire. The lifeboats were tied in place and unusable.

As the fire quickly spread and the ship began to lilt, more desperate measures were pursued by passengers and crew. Many jumped ship or, in the case of children, were thrown overboard in the hopes they could make it to shore. But for too many, this was a fatal mistake.

The wreck of General Slocum (1904); via George E. Stonebridge Photograph Collection, New-York Historical Society

According to survivors, the boat’s life preservers did not work. Some fell apart in their hands. Others were placed on children who found, when in the water, that they actually weighed them down rather than buoying them, hastening their demise. Many were more than 12 years old, and had been exposed to the elements and not maintained during that time. Some survivors claimed they had been filled with cheaper less effective granulated cork, embedded with iron weights to feel like they were made of appropriate materials – a deadly combination when actually used in the water in an attempt to stay afloat.

Unfortunately, other factors did not aid in the passenger’s chances for survival. In the early 20th century, many fewer people could swim than now, especially those who lived in crowded urban environments. Most were wearing the heavy wool clothing common at the time, which when wet further weighed them down. And the section of the East River where the tragedy took place, not far from the notorious ‘Hell’s Gate,’ was known for its swift and treacherous currents.

The ferry captain also made some tragic errors which deepened the tragedy. Rather than run the ship aground or stop at nearby landings, he continued onward into the headwinds along the river, thus literally and figuratively fanning the flames of the disaster.

Tending to the Slocum victims (1904); via George E. Stonebridge Photograph Collection, New-York Historical Society

Eventually, the boat began to come apart, and many passengers drowned when the floorboards collapsed. Others who tried to jump into the river were struck by the ship’s turning paddles. The boat eventually sank just off North Brother Island near the Bronx. All told, an estimated 1,021 people died, one of the worst naval disasters in American history.

The devastation had a profound effect on the German-American community of the Lower East Side. Nearly every family was affected in some way, losing members, neighbors, or both. Reminders were everywhere of the tragedy, and of those who died. And the loss of almost 1,000 women from this community meant that men seeking wives had to look elsewhere.

Rather quickly in the years that followed, the German-American community – once the largest of the many ethnic groups on New York’s Lower East Side – disappeared. Survivors sought to escape the sorrow attached to the neighborhood or to find new opportunities for families. Many of the former residents of this neighborhood moved to Yorkville on the Upper East Side, Bushwick in Brooklyn, or Ridgewood and Maspeth in Queens.

This was also around the time that Jewish immigration to New York City was peaking. Within a decade or so, nearly all of Kleindeutschland was occupied by Jewish residents; some from Germany, but mostly poorer Jews from the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires. By World War I, and the anti-German fervor that it raised, the German-American presence in this part of the Lower East Side all but disappeared.

However, even to this day, reminders remain, particularly of the General Slocum disaster. St. Mark’s German Evangelical Lutheran Church still stands on East 6th Street, though in 1940 it became the Community Synagogue. A plaque on the building memorializes the victims of the General Slocum disaster.

General Slocum disaster memorial in Tompkins Square Park; via Wikimedia

In Tompkins Square Park, the Slocum Memorial Fountain was dedicated in 1906 to the victims of the disaster and remains to this day. The pink Tennessee marble fountain was donated by the Sympathy Society of German Ladies and shows two children looking seaward, over a lion’s head which spouts water.

And on St. Mark’s Place west of 2nd Avenue, in the heart of what had been Kleindeutschland, the Deutsch-Amerikanische Sheutzen Gesellschaft (German-American Shooting Society), or Scheutzen Hall as it’s more commonly known, still stands at No. 12.

Here met the Organization of General Slocum Survivors, founded by the Liebenow family. Anna Liebenow was a young mother whose face was permanently scarred by burns she received on the Slocum while seeking to save her six and a half-month-old daughter Adella. Anna was able to save Adella but lost two of her other daughters, two of her nieces, and two of her sisters.

Adella lived to 100, passing away in 2004. She was the last living survivor of this unspeakably tragic and often-overlooked episode in New York City history.

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 Kirti Poddar/Flickr

Chocoholics all over the country know Brooklyn blackout cake, a three-tiered devil’s food cake with layers of chocolate pudding and chocolate frosting topped with cake crumbs. In recent years, the rich cake has become re-popularized from its heyday in the first half of the 20th century. But most of us who gluttonously indulge in this tasty dessert have no idea where its borough-centric name came from or just how long this confectioner’s delight has been around. It all started in 1898 at a German bakery called Ebinger’s on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, but it wasn’t until World War II that the moniker took hold.

Ebinger’s locations: 86th Street between 4th and 5th Avenues in Bay Ridge (L); 129-131 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights (R). Via Brooklyn Historical Society.

Ebinger’s grew in popularity for its cakes and pies and, at its height, had 50 locations throughout Brooklyn and Queens, selling more than 200 varities of German pastries. This was the time when other German bakeries like the now-famous Entenmann’s and Drakes were also making their path in New York. Though other bakeries tried to imitate Ebinger’s popular chocolatey cake, they couldn’t compete with the original. Everyone in the borough knew Ebinger’s, and the lines often stretched around the block.

Now what about that name? As writer and cookbook author Leah Koenig recounted in her column Lost Foods of New York City, “According to a 1969 New York Times article, the cake’s name was solidified during World War II when blackout drills were performed in homes around the borough to avoid silhouetting battleships leaving from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Blackout, black cake—it was a no-brainer.”

But despite its fame, Ebinger’s closed in 1972 due to bankruptcy. While they were still baking everything locally (the blackout cakes were handmade for a 24-hour shelf life), companies like Entenmann’s had taken to mass production and Ebinger’s couldn’t compete. The family has never revealed the original recipe, but there are plenty of super tasty versions out there today. Some of the most sought-after are at Ovenly in Greenpoint, Lady Bird Bakery in Park Slope, and Two Little Red Hens on the Upper East Side.

* Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on July 20, 2015.

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On June 24, 1936, thousands of Lower East Siders turned out for a spectacle the likes of which New York had never seen. They jammed Hamilton Fish Park, filled Pitt Street, and perched on surrounding fire-escapes and rooftops to get a glimpse. With great fanfare (and the swim stylings of the Jones Beach Water Troupe) Mayor La Guardia and Parks Commissioner Robert Moses officially opened Hamilton Fish Pool. The dedication kicked off New York’s “Summer of Pools.” One by one, for each week of the summer, 11 gleaming outdoor pools, financed and built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), opened in underserved neighborhoods across the city, providing recreation and relief to millions of heat-addled, Depression-strapped New Yorkers.

Police control the 10,000 attendees at the opening of Thomas Jefferson Pool on June 27, 1936. Via NYC Parks

Each unveiling featured parades, water carnivals, blessings of the waters, swimming races, diving competitions, appearances by Olympic stars, and performances by swimming clowns. At the opening of the Colonial Park Pool (now the Jackie Robinson Pool) in Harlem, tap dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and tenor Roland Hays sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic to a crowd of 25,000; the opening of Red Hook Pool drew 40,000 people and was called Red Hook’s event of the year; a cool 75,000 turned out from Greenpoint and Williamsburg to celebrate the opening of McCarren Pool.

Every one of the pool complexes really was something to celebrate. They were so impressive, the Landmarks Preservation Commission places all 11 pools “among the most remarkable facilities ever constructed in the country.” Designed to accommodate 49,000 people across the city, each pool was larger than several Olympic-sized pools combined, and all were technologically extraordinary.

The dramatic opening on Sunset Park Pool, complete with underwater lights. July 1936. Via NYC Parks.

The massive pools featured under-water lighting, floodlighting, and a host of promenade lighting for night swimming. They each had heating systems, and innovations that set new standards in pool construction, such as “scum gutters” that allowed sunlight to naturally kill bacteria, and footbaths that kept all swimmers in squeaky-clean repair. Most important, the water was changed 3 times a day: every 8 hours, city water was filtered through charcoal beds and sanitized with chlorine, so it could be aerated and pumped into the city’s sparkling new pools. Mayor La Guardia preened, “here is something you can be proud of. It is the last word in engineering, hygiene and construction.”

Bird’s eye view of Astoria Pool with bathers and Hell Gate Bridge in the background, August 20, 1936. Via NYC Parks.

With all these amenities, the pools offered a safer, cleaner and more exciting swimming experience than one would find in the city’s rivers, where New Yorkers traditionally swam and where drowning and disease born of pollution were real threats. In fact, the thrill of cool clean water brought over 1.7 million New Yorkers to the pools that first summer, when temperatures spiked to 106 degrees by July.

But, the pools did more than keep New Yorkers out of the river, they also offered a ticket out of the tenement, and around the world. The pools became the city’s first staycation hot spots. They were imagined as “palaces for the poor,” that gave New Yorkers a glimpse of architectural styles they might never have seen before, and access to beauty on a grand scale that the city’s sweltering tenements certainly couldn’t provide.

Jackie Robinson Park Pool in 1937. Via NYC Parks. 

While all 11 pools shared a common plan comprised of a bathhouse and a central swimming pool flanked by two smaller semi-circular diving and wading pools, each pool was designed to be unique and architecturally distinctive, serving up styles ranging from Romanesque Revival to Art Deco. Crotona Pool in the Bronx featured an Art Moderne bathhouse complete aquatic animal sculptures courtesy of the WPA art program, and Jackie Robinson Pool came complete with turrets and buttresses befitting a medieval castle.

Bathers at the Hamilton Fish Pool on August 19, 1936, less than two months after it opened. Via NYC Parks.

Beyond giving New Yorkers an architectural Grand Tour, and providing relief from the summer heat, these complexes represented another kind of relief: steady employment in the depths of the Depression. Together, the city’s WPA pools put 80,000 New Yorkers to work. During construction, the pools employed architects, draftsmen, engineers, laborers. After they opened, each pool needed instructors, lifeguards and maintenance workers. Even WPA artists found a place at the pools, designing posters for the agency’s “Learn to Swim” campaign.

Red Hook Pool in 1936, via NYC Municipal Archives.

As centers of recreation and relief that helped improve the quality of social and professional life in neighborhoods most squeezed by the Depression, the pools stood as a citywide network of monuments to the New Deal. In fact, when President Roosevelt’s name was invoked at the opening ceremonies for Red Hook Pool, the New York Times reported, “there was an outburst of cheering that drowned out the sirens of near-by factories and the husky whistles of the harbor craft.”

New Yorkers had such positive feelings for Roosevelt and his relief projects because this city benefited so deeply – perhaps more than any other – from New Deal spending. In fact, the city was known as the 51st state, because it garnered 1/7 of all WPA funds in 1935 and 1936, and Robert Moses $113 million on parks and recreation during the first two years of the New Deal.

The pools were the centerpiece of all this spending, and the project as a whole was reported to be the most expensive of New York’s WPA projects in terms of total cost. Moses lavished such care, attention and funding on each of his million dollar pools not only because he himself had been a swimmer at Yale and captain of the Water Polo team at Oxford, but also because the pools represented his dedication to “recreation and active play.”

Moses’ passion for play and playgrounds grew out of the Progressive Era when reformers argued that children should play in parks rather than in streets or tenement backyards and that their health, safety, and happiness were contingent on outdoor play facilities.

For that reason, Moses believed the pools were vitally important. He told the New York Times, “it is an undeniable fact that adequate opportunities for summer bathing constitute a vital recreational need of the city. It is no exaggeration to say that the health, happiness, efficiency, and orderliness of a large number of the city’s residents, especially in the summer months, are tremendously affected by the presence or absence of adequate bathing facilities.”

Highbridge Park Pool being used for shuffleboard, volleyball, and other sports in the off-season. October 1, 1936. Via NYC Parks

But the pools weren’t just perfect for swimming and bathing. They were built to be excellent in all kinds of weather. In the off-season, the pools would be adaptable for paddle tennis, shuffleboard, volleyball, basketball, and handball. Wading pools would become roller skating rinks, and indoor locker rooms and changing areas could host boxing lessons and dances.

Colonial Park Pool in 1939 with Sugar Hill in the background. The band shell is visible in the distance. Via MCNY.

As massive all-weather projects, each pool project made tremendous improvements to its surrounding park. For example, in addition to its pool, Jefferson Park got new baseball diamonds, playgrounds, and bocce courts. Colonial Park got playgrounds, athletic courts, a band shell and a dance floor. McCarren Park got playgrounds, floodlights, and spaces for roller-skating.

But, all these amenities came at a price. Moses wanted his pools to be self-sustaining, so he charged admission: 20 cents for adults, and 10 cents for children after 1pm. The fee caused protest, which led the mayor himself to jump in, saying that the fee was “experimental.” La Guardia promised, “After the experience of this summer, we will know just how to arrange things next year.”

The pools were not officially segregated, but Robert Caro alleges in his biography of Moses that the Commissioner tried to discourage black New Yorkers from using pools in white neighborhoods by manipulating the temperature of the water.

While Caro’s claim has been challenged, it is true that the pools had no place for children living with polio, at a time when there was no vaccine for the disease, and hydro-therapy was considered to be the leading treatment. In a letter to Mayor La Guardia dated March 5, 1936, Moses wrote, “you cannot mix facilities for crippled children with those for healthy people. The new outdoor pools cannot be used…they need special facilities.” For that, Moses suggested the East 23rd Street baths, where the bathhouse could be adapted accordingly, and outdoor pools could be built with WPA funds.

McCarren Park pool today, via NYC Parks

Today, the remarkable pools are free and open to all. They’ll open for the season in late June when the city schools let out for the summer, and kids across New York can finally dive in, and chill out.

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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.

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Statue of Eleanor Roosevelt on Riverside Drive is just one of a handful of monuments to women in NYC; via Wikimedia

City officials announced on Wednesday an initiative aimed at bringing more commemorations of historic New York City women to public spaces. First lady Chirlane McCray and Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen are seeking ideas of women or events in women’s history that should be honored with monuments. The Department of Cultural Affairs has committed up to $10 million for the program, called She Built NYC!. “This is a first step to creating a public art collection that more accurately represents the diversity of New York City’s history,” McCray told NY1.

BIG NEWS Today marks the launch of She Built NYC, where we’re asking you to nominate the woman or women you’d most like to see celebrated with a public monument in NYC! Margaret Sanger, Shirley Chisholm, Frances Perkins, Ella Baker, Billie Holiday, the possibilities are endless! Click the link in our bio to submit your nomination now through August 1st! NYC will then commission at least one new work of art dedicated to a woman by the end of 2018. Happy voting! #SheBuiltNYC #nycpowermove #newyorkcity #nyc #women #monument #publicart #vote #girlpower #womenincharge

A post shared by Women NYC (@women_nyc) on Jun 20, 2018 at 8:22am PDT

Nominations can be submitted here and should follow stated criteria: the person, group or event must have a significant connection to NYC, the event must have happened at least 20 years ago and the person must no longer be living. Groups or categories of women will be taken into consideration, such as single mothers, immigrant women, etc.

She Built NYC! comes after Mayor Bill de Blasio convened a Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments and Makers last year to review symbols of hate and “develop guidelines on how the City should address monuments seen as oppressive and inconsistent with the values of New York City.”

There is a lack of representation of women among statues in New York City; 90 percent of the city’s monuments are men Last November, on the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to vote in the state, the parks department announced plans to bring the first-ever monument to women in Central Park. After an artist is selected, a monument to suffragettes Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony will be placed in the park’s mall.

Nominations will be accepted at women.nyc until August 1. After reviewing the nominations, an advisory panel will consult with the cultural affairs department on the new monument and choose an artist to create it. The city expects to commission at least one monument by January.

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Grand Central Terminal Lobby via Wikipedia

On June 26th, 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a momentous decision that wouldn’t just save a cherished New York landmark, it would establish the NYC Landmarks Law for years to come. This drawn-out court battle was the result of a plan, introduced in the late 1960s, to demolish a significant portion of Grand Central Terminal and erect a 50-story office tower.

Though the proposal may seem unthinkable now, it wasn’t at the time. Pennsylvania Station had been demolished a few years earlier, with the owners citing rising costs to upkeep the building as train ridership sharply declined. The NYC Landmarks Law was only established in 1965, the idea of preservation still novel in a city practicing wide-scale urban renewal. Finally, Grand Central wasn’t in good shape itself, falling apart, covered in grime, and home to one of the highest homeless populations in New York City. But a dedicated group of preservationists–aided by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis–took the fight to the highest levels of the court. Keep reading to find out how, as well as learn about the celebrations planned by the MTA surrounding the anniversary.

The original Pennsylvania Station via Wiki Commons

The 1960s was not a good decade for the great train stations built in cities across the county in the early 20th century. Travelers were not taking long-distance trains, opting to drive or fly instead. Lavish train hubs were difficult to maintain as money drained out of them. And so, developers looked for opportunities to redevelop.

In 1963, McKim Mead and White’s Pennsylvania Station was one of the first train hubs to be lost to the wrecking ball. It was replaced by Madison Square Garden on top and current-day Penn Station below –hardly worthy replacements for one of the grandest train stations in New York. The devastating architectural loss prompted then-Mayor Robert F. Wagner to create the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1965. Just two years later, the commission designated Grand Central a landmark.

Protecting Grand Central would not be so easy. Stuart Saunders, who spearheaded the demolition of Pennsylvania Station, had merged the former rivals, the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroad, to form Penn Central. He became the CEO of the nation’s biggest real estate corporation at the time — and Grand Central Terminal was among Penn Central’s holdings. Unfazed from his experience demolishing Penn Station, Saunders looked to make this second historic train hub as profitable as possible.

Marcel Breuer’s proposals to add a tower atop Grand Central

Not long after GCT became a landmark, Saunders began soliciting bids for an office tower to be built atop the terminal. Marcel Breuer’s design proposals, pictured above, were widely circulated as possible outcomes. To build the tower, however, would require significant demolition of the terminal’s Beaux Arts structure.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission denied any proposal to demolish the terminal and plop a tower on top. Saunders wouldn’t take no for an answer, suing the city with the argument that the ruling was unconstitutional in that it went “beyond the scope of any permissible regulation and constitute[d] a taking of plaintiff’s private property for public use without just compensation.”

In 1975, a New York State Supreme Court judge agreed with Penn Central. They ruled that the terminal elicited “no reaction here other than that of a long neglected faded beauty.”

That’s when local preservations sprung into action — they didn’t want the same fate for Grand Central as Pennsylvania Station. The Municipal Art Society created a “Committee to Save Grand Central Terminal.” One surprising member: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who graciously lent her voice to make a case for preserving the terminal.

On January 30th, 1975, the group announced its mission at the Oyster Bar. Onassis told reporters, “We’ve all heard that it’s too late… even in the 11th hour, it’s not too late.” Mayor Wagner added that “the battle against the thoughtless waste of our manmade environment is farther from being won than many of us had thought.” He knew that if Penn Central succeeded with their case, New York’s entire landmarks law would be in danger: “What is at issue here is the very concept of landmark preservation,” he told the crowd.

Legal back-and-forth ensued: the city appealed the New York State Supreme Court judge’s ruling and won, then Penn Central appealed to the highest court in the state and lost. Finally, the case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1979.

The Committee To Save Grand Central Terminal on the Landmark Express, courtesy Wikipedia

To build support for the cause, Onassis and other prominent preservationists organized the “Landmark Express,” a one-day Amtrak trip from Penn Station to Washington, D.C. on the day the Supreme Court began hearing arguments. The train picked up passengers in Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore. McDonald’s hamburgers and fries were offered, not to mention entertainment by fire-eaters, mimes, clowns and musicians. Passengers even came up with their own song: “Let’s make a grand stand to save Grand Central, the greatest landmark of all. It’s a great part of New York City like the lights of old Broadway, Let’s make a grand, grand stand for Grand Central, for the good old U.S.A.”

Two months after the momentous trip, on June 26th, 1978, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of New York City’s Landmark Law. Penn Central, which had been bankrupt for eight years, was defeated. Grand Central Terminal was officially saved. The landmarks law, too, withstood the test of the courts and would go on to protect thousands more historic buildings across New York.

Ownership of Grand Central would eventually transfer to the MTA, who still owns and operates the terminal today. In 1998, the MTA kicked off an ambitious restoration of the building after suffering from years of neglect. This October marks the 20th anniversary of a renovation that restored the landmark and transformed the terminal into a popular retail and dining destination.

If you feel like celebrating, the MTA is offering a few opportunities. There will be an exhibition this September by the Municipal Art Society of New York, in partnership with the New York Transit Museum, inside the terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall. It’ll tell the story of the Committee to Save Grand Central’s historic advocacy campaign alongside before-and-after photographs of the 1998 restoration.

A series of tasting events will take place all summer long, starting with Taste of the Terminal June 26 through June 28 where the public can enjoy free food and product samples, a 40th-anniversary photo installation, and live music in Vanderbilt Hall. Additional tasting events will take place in Grand Central Market in July and the Dining Concourse in September.

There will also be a lineup of musical acts featuring 1990s tunes (to honor the 1990s terminal restoration) in a lunchtime music series taking place weekly on Tuesdays in July and August.

For all the details, go here.

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Via Wikimedia

Did you participate in the Stonewall Inn Riots of 1969 and the period of LGBTQ activism in New York City between 1968 and 1971? Do you know someone who did? If so, consider contributing pride memorabilia from that moment in history to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, which is compiling a collection to preserve the history of Stonewall. The project, Stonewall Forever, launched last year after Google granted the LGBT Center $1 million to preserve oral histories and experiences of those present during the riots.

Stonewall Inn in 1969 via NYPL

While the protests outside of Stonewall following violent police raids during the summer of 1969 have long been recognized as one of the catalysts for the national gay rights movement, it took 47 years for the area to be recognized as a national monument. In 2016, President Barack Obama formally recognized Stonewall Inn and surrounding area as a National Historic Monument, the first National Park Service unit dedicated to the gay rights movement.

The following year Google’s $1 million grant to the LGBT center helped jumpstart the Stonewall Forever project. And another half-million granted this month by tech-giant will help preserve this important history even further.

Submitted photographs, letters, diaries and protest material will be considered for an online collection, available publicly at Google Arts & Culture and the center’s national history archive. If you would like to contribute your historical materials, fill out a form found here.

Ultimately, the project will culminate in a digital archive in time for Pride 2019, the 50th anniversary of the riots. Focusing on the time before the riots and the impact of them on the LGBTQ community today, the collection will be an interactive extension of the Stonewall National Monument.

If interested in learning more, sign up for this walking tour by the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, aimed at uncovering the city’s lesser-known LGBT history. The hour and a half tour takes you through Greenwich Village, starting at Christopher Park and ending with a drink at Julius’ Bar, considered the oldest operating gay bar in NYC. Sign up here.

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Clear Comfort, the Alice Austen House, photo by Alice Austen, via NYPL

When most people think about gay New York, they naturally think about all the historic sites located in Greenwich Village and its surrounding vicinity. In fact, the LGBTQ community has long lived and made history citywide from the Bronx to Staten Island. To mark the 2018 NYC Pride Celebration, which will take place from June 14 to 24 with the famed Pride March happening this Sunday, 6sqft has compiled a list of just a few historic gay residences located well beyond Greenwich Village.

1. Mabel Hampton Residence, Claremont Village, The Bronx

Google Street View of 639 East 169th Street

Mabel Hampton first took center stage as a singer and dancer during the Harlem Renaissance. By the time of her death, however, she would also be remembered as a pioneering African-American LGBT activist and as one of the founding members of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. Hampton occupied many different apartments during her lifetime. While her early homes were in Harlem, including a now demolished residence at 120 West 122nd Street, in the 1940s, Mabel Hampton moved with her partner, Lillian Foster, to 639 East 169th Street in the Bronx. The residence remains intact.

2. Andy Warhol Residence, Carnegie Hill, Manhattan

Google Street View of 1342 Lexington Avenue

Moving further south, but not as far south as one might expect, you’ll arrive at Andy Warhol’s former Upper East Side residence. While one might assume Warhol spent the 1960s to 1970s living, partying and making art downtown, in fact, the iconic artist produced most of his work while living in a townhouse located at 1342 Lexington Avenue in the Carnegie Hill area of the Upper East Side. Warhol lived in the house from 1960 to 1972 and starting in 1974, rented it to his business manager. The artist’s former residence is still standing and most recently sold for just under $9 million dollars.

3. Franklin E. Kameny Childhood Residence, South Richmond Hill, Queens

L: Tax photo of Kameny’s childhood home in Queens (taken at the time he and his family lived there), c. 1939. Courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives; R: Google Street View of the house today

Long before LGBTQ rights were an open topic of discussion, Franklin E. Kameny was challenging the public and federal governments to grant equal rights to the gay community. Kameny became an activist out of necessity not choice in 1957 when he was labeled a “sexual prevent” and subsequently fired from the Army Map Service. Rather than retreat, Kameny challenged his dismissal before the Civil Service Commission and eventually sued the government. Despite losing his initial battle, Kameny kept fighting and two years before his death returned to Washington to sign a memorandum guaranteeing benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees. Kameny’s childhood home is located at 103-17 115th Street in the South Richmond Hill neighborhood of Queens.

4. Walt Whitman House, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn

99 Ryerson Street, courtesy of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project

When 19th-century poet Walt Whitman published “Leaves of Grass”—by many considered to be a classic work of American and gay literature—he was living in an unassuming home located at 99 Ryerson Street in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. The home is well-known but remains largely uncelebrated to this day. In fact, in 2017, the Landmarks Preservation Commission turned down a request to recognize 99 Ryerson Street as a historic site. Despite the fact that Whitman wrote and published “Leaves of Grass” while living in the home, the commission ruled that he didn’t live in the home long enough to merit a designation. They also worried that the home has been renovated so many times over the past century that there is no way to restore it. Despite last year’s rejection, several arts groups continue to call for Whitman’s former home to be designated a historic site.

5. The Lesbian Herstory Archives, Park Slope, Brooklyn

Google Street View of 484 14th Street

The Lesbian Herstory Archives have always been located in a home. In fact, for the first 15 years, the archives were located in the Upper West Side apartment of co-founders Joan Nestle and Deborah Edel at 215 West 92nd Street. As the archive grew, however, it was clear that Nestle and Edel’s kitchen would no longer be an adequate storage site for the growing collection of lesbian materials. After an ambitious fundraising campaign, the Lesbian Herstory Archive Collective managed to persuade a bank to given them a mortgage and they purchased a townhouse in Park Slope at 484 14th Street. Although the archives are no longer located in a private home per se, in keeping with the archives origins, someone still lives in at the address, albeit now occupying a separate apartment on the top floor.

6. Transy House, Park Slope, Brooklyn

Google Street View of 214 16th Street

Just a few blocks away from the Lesbian Herstory Archives is a residence that was long known as Transy House. From 1995 to 2008, Dr. Rusty Mae Moore and Chelsea Goodwin operated Transy House. While first opened up to friends, over a thirteen-year period, their home would welcome friends and strangers alike. Eventually, Moore and Goodwin relocated to Long Island City, where they continue to live with other members of the transgender community. Their Park Slope home, located at 214 16th Street, continues to be remembered and celebrated as a safe haven for the trans community and key site of trans activism in the 1990s to early 2000s.

7. Alice Austen House, Rosebank, Staten Island

Alice Austen House via Wiki Commons

While Staten Island is not necessarily New York’s gayest borough, it still has a long and fascinating LGBTQ history. Among its notable attractions is the Alice Austen House at 2 Hylan Boulevard in the Rosebank neighborhood on Staten Island. Austen was born in 1866 and died in 1952. Despite dying nearly two decades before the first NYC Pride event, Austen is remembered as a groundbreaking photographer and important figure in early LGBT American history. While many of her celebrated images simply captured life on Staten Island, Austen is also remembered for her intimate portraits of lesbian life at a time when few such images existed. Notably, despite objections from her family, Alice Austen lived at 2 Hyland Boulevard with her long-time partner, teacher, Gertrude Tate, starting in 1917.

To learn more about historic LGBTQ residences, institutions, and public spaces both in and beyond Greenwich Village, also visit the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project.

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Photo via Dennis Fraevich’s Flickr

Located on the Hudson River adjacent to New York City’s northern border, Yonkers is the third-largest city in the state with nearly 200,000 residents. And with five major highways, two commuter train lines that are just a 28-minute trip to Grand Central, and the highest number of bus lines in Westchester County, it’s no surprise that many are going bonkers for Yonkers.

Phillip Gesue, chief officer of development at Strategic Capital, the developer of the Hudson Park residential project, told 6sqft that Yonkers is in transition. “Unlike Manhattan, which is, perhaps, over-baked, Yonkers is an affordable place to live and play,” Gesue said. “It has people who have been living here a long time and new transplants who largely want to work in New York City. There is a growing population, development momentum and job growth.” Ahead, find out how officials are working to attract millennials, get a breakdown of all Yonkers’ new developments, and learn why there’s a lot more to do here than you might think.

Yonkers has 4.5 miles of Hudson River waterfront. It has high- and low-rise housing, parks, marinas, fine restaurants and endless views of the Palisades. Westchester’s largest corporate park is in Yonkers, in addition to numerous retail and office locations. Yonkers also houses two major shopping malls, a central shopping corridor that runs the length of the town and the second largest casino and racetrack in the state.

Daylighting

Photos courtesy of City of Yonkers 

One of the most recent and exciting developments in the city is the massive “Daylighting” project. Daylighting is the practice of uncovering previously built-over rivers, a once common practice that many cities around the world and many cities are now reversing.

Cities developed around rivers for ease of transportation of people and commerce. As cities grow and need for space increases, rivers and streams get built over. Yonkers had many surface lots built over the Saw Mill River that was buried for nearly a century under downtown Yonkers. Now, thanks to a $19 million public works project nearing completion (it’s finishing phase three of a four-phase project), the Saw Mill River is now flowing through downtown with beautiful promenades alongside it.  Officials estimate the project will create 950 permanent jobs within five to 10 years.

And not only does uncovering this natural resource stimulates the economy, it also stimulates the creation of a natural habitat for migratory fish passage focusing on American eel, white perch, and herring that will then migrate into the open ponds. There is also an abundance of native vegetation that attracts insects and encourages food chains to sustain the aquatic life and, at the same time, maintains the water temperatures conducive to the life in the ponds.

There are a lot of happy residents, visitors and aquatic life in Yonkers.

Residential Development 

Photos courtesy of City of Yonkers: Hudson River Park Club

After recovering from the 2008 recession, there has been a flurry of building activity as Manhattan real estate heated up and Yonkers benefitted from people, mostly millennials and empty nesters, looking for better values. Many regional and national developers have also headed to Yonkers and are building luxury residences packed with amenities to make the 28-minute commute to Midtown seem inconsequential.

Wilson Kimball, the Commissioner of Planning and Economic Development, says Yonkers recent successes are all thanks to Mayor Mike Spano. In addition to his greenlighting the highly successful Generation Yonkers media campaign, his “concierge service” for development has been very well received.

Kimball says, “We don’t mind meeting with people on the front end to save on the back end. We will schedule for all the city officials to meet with developers, architects and engineers to streamline the process.” Kimball explains that rather than wait for issues to arise in the building process, city officials meet with the development teams, figure out what may be an issue and circumvent the problem by planning ahead.

Yonkers is actively targeting the millennial and empty nester populations from Manhattan and the surrounding area. Their dedicated efforts are paying off.

Hudson Park

Photos courtesy of Hudson Park

Hudson Park is a massive 16-acre development along the waterfront of Downtown Yonkers, which already has three existing buildings currently being updated and renovated by Strategic Capital, as well as a new fourth tower. Located in a resort-like setting, the apartments at Hudson Park boast spectacular views of New Jersey’s Palisades and the Hudson River.

The apartments include energy-efficient, stainless steel appliances, nine to 10-foot ceilings, wood-style flooring and tiled kitchen and bath, ensuite washer/dryer and walk-in closets and naturally lighted baths. Because of the scale of the development, there are a huge amount of amenities which include, multiple fitness centers, yoga and aerobics classrooms, an anaerobic workout room for spin, a conference facility, a co-working space, a resident lounge, a resident dining area, a rooftop lounge, an indoor lap pool with a 22-foot ceiling and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Palisades, onsite retail, a concierge service, fully staffed buildings.

Located on the waterfront, there are tons of green spaces, waterfront walkways, fountains and pedestrian bridges right out the front door. According to Gesue, Hudson Park “is going to set a new standard of luxury for Yonkers.”

Larkin Plaza 
Situated one block away from the Metro North, and directly across from the recently daylighted Saw Mill River, the RXR Realty four-building development includes a 25-story building, a 17-story building and two smaller two and three-story buildings. The Larkin Plaza development has a whopping 442 new residential units with 35,000 square feet of new restaurants and shops just a block from the City’s train station and fronting the newly-created Van Der Donck Park. Many of the apartments have views of the park, the Hudson River and the Palisades.

The buildings include a landscaped roof terrace with outdoor seating, an attended lobby and concierge services, a resident lounge with media center and billiards, a resident business center with Wi-Fi, on-site restaurants and retail along the park and on Main Street, and attached and covered attended parking garage with a private resident entrance.

Modera Hudson Riverfront Park

Photos courtesy of City of Yonkers 

Modera is a 24-story luxury apartment building offering studio to three bedrooms, with an average size of 950 square feet. Set on a 3.7-acre property, the building’s modern design and amenities integrate with the riverfront landscape. Modera Hudson Riverfront strives to balance relaxation and convenience. Building amenities include a clubroom, outdoor courtyard, sky lounge with a golf simulator, an outdoor pool.

66 Main

66 Main boasts spacious studio to two bedrooms with state-of-the-art kitchens and floor-to-ceiling windows to take in the spectacular Hudson River, New Jersey Palisades, and Manhattan views. Apartments have features like hardwood floors, washers and dryers, and walk-in closets. The building amenities include a basketball court, a rooftop club room and outdoor terraces, a media room with a 60” plasma TV, 24-hour security and concierge and in-building covered garage parking.

UNO

UNO

UNO is a conversion of the classic Otis Elevator Building into a combination of 50 Statesman Lofts and 50 Micro Flats. These Soho-esque industrial chic residences have 16-foot ceilings, oversized windows and cutting-edge apartment technology. Amenities include a rooftop deck, an outdoor patio, a community room and a co-working space. There is also free high-speed WiFi in every apartment, space-saving Murphy beds, a community room and bike storage.

Things to do

Yonkers Brewing Company

Photo via Yonkers Brewing

Yonkers Brewing Co. is the creation of two Yonkers’ natives John Rubbo and Nick Califano who really love beer. Located in downtown Yonkers, Rubbo and Califano wanted the brewery environment and culture to reflect how they see their hometown and be a place where the community can come together and enjoy a lively environment.

Xaviar’s X20

Photo via Dennis Fraevich’s Flickr

A stunning, glass-enclosed restaurant on a pier has globally influenced American fare with stunning Hudson river views. The menu at X20 offers a variety of surf and turf, like lobster, scallops and steak. A creation of restaurateur and chef Peter X. Kelly, whose Hudson Valley restaurants reign in suburbia, this restaurant really stands out for its location and architectural beauty as well as being super convenient to the commuter ferry dock.

Yonkers Paddling and Rowing Club

Photos courtesy of the Yonkers Paddling and Rowing Club

The Yonkers Paddling and Rowing Club, Inc. is a not-for-profit that rents equipment, leads tours, organizes event and educates. Their mission is to “encourage the growth of, and participation in, rowing and paddling sports.” In doing so, they educate and inform the public about the Hudson River’s present and future.

Hudson River Museum

Hudson River Museum exterior courtesy of HRM 

The Hudson River Museum is a multi-disciplinary cultural complex which also has a planetarium. The museum hosts exhibitions, teaching initiatives, research, collecting, preservation and conservation. Their goal is “to enhance people’s understanding of the art, history and science of our region. We support our communities and provide a museum window on the world at large. We serve our visitors well, so that they develop a sense of pride, allegiance and ownership— this is my Museum.” One current exhibit is “riverthatflowsbothways,” which is a four-channel video installation by artist Ellen Kozak and composer Scott D. Miller. Kozak and Miller’s unique collaboration blends three video channels with a single audio channel using non-synchronous loops that present viewers with ever-changing compositional combinations.

Empire City Casino

Photos courtesy of Empire City Casino

Billed as “Manhattan’s closest casino,” the Empire City Casino started as the Yonkers Raceway in 1899, originally called the Empire City Trotting Club. Seabiscuit was one of the many famous thoroughbreds that graced this track. In 1972, the Rooney Family acquired the Yonkers Raceway in 1972 and has maintained live harness racing for over 35 years. The casino boasts over 5,000 of the “hottest machines” available and the half-mile harness race track allows betting in person and online. Empire City Casino employs a significant number of women in executive and leadership roles throughout many departments on their 100-acre facility. And there are a ton of dining options will satisfy even the most discerning palate with Italian cuisine at Nonno’s Trattoria; Dan Rooney’s, a high-energy sports bar; Alley 810, a craft cocktail lounge with retro bowling lanes; and convenient delicious options at the International Food Court or Lil’ Cocina.

The Science Barge

Donna Davis

Docked in downtown Yonkers just north of the Yonkers Pier, the Science Barge is a prototype sustainable urban farm developed by NY Sun Works and acquired by Groundwork Hudson Valley. Winner of the Omega Institute’s Leadership in Sustainable Education Award in 2014, Groundwork uses its place-based approach to promote science, technology, engineering, and math skills, also known as STEM education. Through experiential classrooms, they make STEM concepts tangible and relevant to thousands of students each year.

The Science Barge is an off-the-grid education center/greenhouse, floating on the Hudson River. It grows fresh produce with zero net carbon emissions, zero pesticides, and zero runoff. All of the energy needed to power the Barge is generated by solar panels, wind turbines, and biofuels while the hydroponic greenhouse is irrigated solely by collected rainwater and purified river water, thus operating completely “off the grid.” It is the only fully functioning demonstration of renewable energy supporting sustainable food production in New York.

Untermyer Gardens

Yonkers is also home to the Untermyer Gardens, a 43-acre park considered to be one of the finest Persian gardens in the Western Hemisphere. Notable features include an amphitheater, a pavilion, the “Temple of Love,” and a “Vista” staircase. During its season that begins in April and ends at the end of October, the stunning garden offers events, including live dance, theatre and music events.

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Photo by Nicholas Knight

Marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, local artist Tauba Auerbach has transformed a historic fireboat into a modern “dazzle” ship. First invented by British painter Norman Wilkinson during WWI, dazzle camouflage patterns were painted onto ships to distort their forms and confuse enemy submarines. The Public Art Fund and 14-18 NOW, a U.K.-based art program, commisioned the painting of the John J. Harvey fireboat, which first launched in 1931 and helped the FDNY extinguish fires until it retired in the 1990s.

“With Flow Separation, I didn’t want to ignore the John J. Harvey’s identity, so I took the boat’s usual paint job and scrambled it. Dragged a comb through it,” Auerbach said. “The palette also exaggerates the fact that ‘dazzle’  was more about confusing and outsmarting, than about hiding.”

Auerbach created the design for the boat by marbling paper, floating inks on a fluid bath and combing the surface to create the visible wake patterns. The boat flies a flag that diagrams “flow separation,” which is when fluid in a wake moves backward, creating an eddy. Auerbach wanted to incorporate the behavior of water into the design while keeping the red and white theme of the original fireboat.

The boat will be on display from July 1 to May 12, 2019, docking at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 6 and Hudson River Park’s Pier 25. On the weekend, visitors will be able to board the boat and enjoy free, 45-60 minute trips around the New York Harbor. Reservations are first come, first served. Find out more and reserve a spot here.

During the winter and spring, the boat will move to Pier 66a in Chelsea and act as a floating sculpture.

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Photos by Nicholas Knight, courtesy of Public Art Fund

“The area seen in these views was later filled with sand from the Bay and the new circumferential highway.” 1930; via NYPL

In the curve of Brooklyn between the Narrows and the borough’s southwestern edge at Sea Gate, there is a lesser loved body of water called Gravesend Bay. The boundary of what was once Gravesend Town and is now simply Gravesend, among other nabes, was along a wetland of sandhill dunes before it became an oil-saturated trash marsh. Now, it’s home to a relatively scenic portion of the Belt Parkway, where the Verrazano Bridge emerges from around the bend or Brooklyn’s tip juts into your vision, depending on your direction.

Dated photos from the New York Public Library reveal–as old New York photos tend to– a Bay apart. In part it’s likely because the smells and oil sheens of today’s bay can’t be experienced in these vintage pics. The unimpeded openness of the water, kept from humans only by what appears to be a single giant tube, however, clearly belongs to a Brooklyn long past.

North from 20th Avenue, 1939; via NYPL

Belt Parkway, south from 20th Avenue, 1939; via NYPL

“Belt Parkway, south from 20th Avenue, showing the highway under construction on hydraulic fill. The fill was taken from Gravesend Bay and part of the Bay filled in,” 1939; Via NYPL

“Belt Parkway, north from 20th Avenue,” 1939; Via NYPL

The Semken Coal Company at Bay 32nd Street, 1939; Via NYPL

The Brooklyn Yacht Club, circa 1900; Via NYPL

The Royal Arcanum Yacht Club at the left and the Brooklyn Yacht Club at the right, circa 1900; via NYPL

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All photos via the NYPL Digital Collections

It’s not often that you’ll go to a New York restaurant and find “hot dog” on the menu. The meaty delight is typically reserved for baseball games (in the foot-long variety) and summertime jaunts on the boardwalk. And of course, when we say boardwalk in NYC, we’re talking about Coney Island, widely believed to be the birthplace of the modern American frankfurter.

The name Nathan’s has become synonymous with Coney Island, whether it be for the annual hot dog-eating contest or the childhood nostalgia of the boardwalk. It’s also become arguably the biggest name in the hot dog world in general. But, believe it or not, Nathan’s was not the first place to serve up franks in the seaside neighborhood. That distinction goes to Feltman’s, which was begun in 1867 as a pushcart by German immigrant Charles Feltman, considered the inventor of the hot dog on a bun.

Feltman’s via Boston Public Library

German butcher Charles Feltman arrived in America in 1856 at 15 years old, already familiar with the frankfurter from his home country. According to the Coney Island History Project:

Charles Feltman began his career in 1867 pushing a pie wagon through the sand dunes of Coney Island. Four years later he leased a small plot of land and began building an empire that by the early 1900s covered a full city block and consisted of nine restaurants, a roller coaster, a carousel, a ballroom, an outdoor movie theater, a hotel, a beer garden, a bathhouse, a pavilion, a Tyrolean village, two enormous bars and a maple garden.

By the 1920s, Feltman’s Ocean Pavilion was considered the largest restaurant in the entire world, serving more than five million customers a year and selling 40,000 hot dogs a day.

Placemat from Feltman’s via Green-Wood

The gardens of Feltman’s

The Frankfurter stand at Feltman’s, via Boston Public Library

Legend has it that Feltman decided to put his pork sausage on a bun as a way to avoid providing plates and cutlery. The hot dogs, which were known as Coney Island red hots, sold for ten cents each, but interestingly, it was the restaurant’s shore dinner, a seafood platter of lobster, fish, and oysters, that was most popular at the restaurant. Feltman’s was such a success that even President Taft and Diamond Jim Brady stopped by.

Nathan’s Famous in 1939 via MCNY

But in 1916, a Polish-American employee of Feltman’s named Nathan Handwerker changed the course of hot dog history forever. Handwerker sliced rolls and ran hot dogs to the grilling stations. Two of his buddies, performers Eddie Cantor and Jimmy Durante, encouraged him to start his own business, so for the next year he ate free hot dogs and slept on the kitchen floor to save his $11/week paycheck. Once he saved $300, he opened his own restaurant just a few blocks away on Surf Avenue. Before long, Nathan’s Famous became the go-to spot on the Coney Island boardwalk, gaining fame for its hot dogs, which Handwerker sold for five cents, half the price of Feltman’s.

Astroland via Wiki Commons

It should be noted, though, that Feltman’s lasted until 1954, so it’s not quite fair to say that Nathan’s put it out of business, but rather that it outlasted it as a very different type of establishment. Feltman’s was a complete amusement paradise, often catering to the upper class, whereas Nathan’s was a place to grab a quick, tasty, and affordable bite. Charles Feltman died in 1910, but his family ran the business until selling it in the 1940s. In 1962, Dewey Albert and his son Jerry bought the site and transformed it into the Astroland Park, home to the famous Coney Island Cyclone. Sadly, Astroland ceased operations in 2008, and two years later, the last remaining structure of Feltman’s, the kitchen, was torn down.

Via Feltman’s of Coney Island

But Michael Quinn, a Coney Island historian and lover of the Coney Island red hot, is determined to bring Feltman’s back. Three summers ago, he started a pop-up Feltman’s that moved around the city. The following year, Quinn began crowdfunding to supply the Feltman’s label to local restaurants, and he’s since taken them into local grocery stores, including Fairway, as well as mail order, where they retail for $12 for a six-pack. Quinn also opened Feltman’s Kitchen on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village

But the biggest news is that this past Memorial Day, Quinn’s Feltman’s of Coney Island Restaurant replaced the Cyclone Cafe and a White Castle on West 10th and Surf Avenue–the original Feltman’s location. He also opened a hot dog kiosk at Luna Park.  There will also be a Feltman’s hot dog kiosk located inside Luna Park. According to the Coney Island blog:

Michael Quinn has worked out a licensing agreement with Luna Park to bring the legendary name back to Coney Island which includes his company investing in the new signage and supplying the park with Feltman’s of Coney Island brand hot dogs. Quinn will also train the staff in how to prepare the original Coney Island hot dog.

Many local blogs have voted Feltman’s as the best in NYC, but the truest honor comes via hot dog eating contest champion Kobayashi who said eating one of their franks is like “eating steak!” Find out where you can get your hands on some Feltman’s hot dogs here >>

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Shown in the Carrier plant in 1922, the first centrifugal chiller opened the door to large-scale comfort air conditioning. Image courtesy of United Technologies/Carrier.

It figures, but history shows us yet another way Brooklyn was cool, like, forever–though this particular example is a bit more literal. A classic New York City heat wave was just enough to turn up the Brooklyn ingenuity in a junior engineer named Willis Carrier, who devised a system of fans, ducts, heaters and perforated pipes that became the world’s first air conditioner. The problem: blistering temperatures that were literally melting the equipment in a Williamsburg printing house. The solution was one that had eluded centuries of inventors through sweltering summers. The system was installed in the summer of 1902, according to the New York Times, and Carrier went on to found Carrier Corporation. He had hit on the idea while walking in the fog.

Left: Drawing, the result of Willis Carrier’s groundbreaking design for the first modern air conditioning system. Right: U.S. Patent 808,897  for an “Apparatus for Treating Air.” Images courtesy of United Technologies/Carrier.

The first occupant of the the newly-constructed building that housed the Sackett & Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company plant at Metropolitan and Morgan Avenue in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn was an illustrated humor magazine called Judge. The paper that was used to print the publication would soak up so much moisture from the humid Brooklyn air that it would expand, and the colors used in the printing process wouldn’t line up correctly. Also, the ink on the pages wouldn’t dry. The situation was causing major deadline issues for the paper’s subscription schedule.

Willis Haviland Carrier built his machine in Buffalo, according to blueprints dated July 17, 1902. He had studied at Cornell University, and had just graduated in 1901 with a BSE degree–which really makes a lot of recent grads look bad.

An artist’s conceptualization, from the August 1954 edition of Steelways magazine, in which Willis Carrier starts the engine that will drive the world’s first modern air-conditioning system at the Sackett & Wilhelms printing plant in Brooklyn, New York. Image courtesy of United Technologies/Carrier.

As the story goes, while walking through the fog in a Pittsburgh train station, Carrier had the idea that getting rid of the humidity was the way to cool the air. The key was to dry the air by producing artificial fog. The original plan was to force air across pipes filled with cool water drawn from a well between buildings (In 1922, Carrier added a refrigeration machine–the “chiller”–to speed up the process). The 1902 installation in Brooklyn marked the birth of modern air conditioning because, as it does today, Carrier’s invention did these four basic things: It controlled temperatures, humidity, air circulation and ventilation and cleaned the air.

Left: Willis Carrier. Right, top: a 1902 schematic drawing shows the likely air-conditioning system installed at Sackett & Wilhelms. Right, bottom: Willis Carrier (left), is interviewed by NBC Radio about his company’s wartime operations. Images courtesy of United Technologies/Carrier.

Beating the heat at the Sackett & Wilhelms plant was the move that put miserable summers on ice for good. Carrier was called “a Johnny Icicle planting the seeds of climate control all across America.” Where humidity had made indoor work in high summer unpleasant if not impossible, it was now completely chill. Gothamist notes that the New York Stock Exchange snapped up Carrier’s system in 1902, becoming the first building to be air-conditioned just for comfort. Carrier improved on the system with every new application, from the Rivoli movie theater on Broadway (air-conditioned in 1925) to Madison Square Garden.

After a few more years of tweaking and testing, on January 2, 1906 Carrier was granted U.S. Patent 808,897 for an “Apparatus for Treating Air.” In 1913 Carrier developed the Carrier Air Humidifier designed to humidify the air in just one room. It was the first self-contained unit with the fan and motor, eliminator, and sprays all combined into a single, packaged product.

Unlike many inventors, Willis Carrier was well rewarded for his cool contributions. He and a group of seven fellow engineers pooled their life savings of $32,600 and started the Carrier Engineering Corporation in New York on June 26, 1915. In 1930, the company merged with Brunswick-Kroeschell Company and York Heating & Ventilating Corporation to form the Carrier Corporation, with Willis Carrier named Chairman of the Board. The company became a subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation in 1980 and remains a world leader in commercial and residential HVAC and refrigeration.

At the 1939 New York World’s fair, Willis Carrier’s igloo gave visitors a glimpse into the future of air conditioning, which enjoyed tremendous growth in popularity in the 1950s postwar era. The invention had revolutionized modern life in countless ways, including helping a huge migration to the Sun Belt states.

Somewhat ironically, though the Sackett & Wilhelms compound still stands, the current occupants reportedly could use a bit of that Brooklyn ingenuity. Now the HQ of the International Studio and Curatorial Program and home to 100 foreign artists and curators in residency programs, the building is plagued with a lack of A/C in the summer heat, with what little there is coming from window air conditioners rather than Carrier’s cool central air invention.

Photos courtesy of Mary French

In a city as tight as New York, it’s no surprise we’ve long struggled to figure out what to do with our dead, from acres-wide cemeteries to those wedged into forgotten slivers of city blocks. The city now boasts 140 cemetery sites, and Mary French has visited them all. Mary is the author of the New York City Cemetery Project, a chronicler of “the graveyards of this great city.” Though cemeteries may come with dark connotations, Mary sees them as prime opportunities to understand the history of New York. As she explains on her website, “For those with a passion for culture and history and a curiosity about the unknown, cemeteries are tantalizing spots that provide a wellspring of information about individual lives, communities, religions, and historic events.”

On NYC Cemetery Project you can read the histories of existing and long-gone cemeteries and the interesting New Yorkers living six feet under, alongside a trove of historic photos and maps. It’s a labor of love (and intense research) for Mary, who has a background in anthropology and library science. With 6sqft, Mary explains what first attracted her to the cemeteries of New York and what it’s like delving into their past. She also explains why she thinks many might be lost to the pressures of development in New York.

A hillside Chinese section at Cypress Hills Cemetery, photo by Mary French

Let’s talk about your background — I know you’ve worked at museums.

Mary: I have masters degrees in anthropology and library science. My first jobs were in cultural resources management, management of archeological sites and historic properties. Then I worked in museum curation and research. I’ve done the library and archive thing, too.

I came to New York for a position with the Museum of Natural History, where I worked for a couple of years in the anthropology departments.

So what sparked your curiosity in New York cemeteries?

Mary: I have some experience managing archaeological resources and historic properties, but I also understand the museum side of things. Everything you look at, you kind of want to catalog it. When I moved to New York, I started to see remnant cemeteries and wondered, how did these survive? I also spent a lot of time in Queens, seeing many of the cemeteries there still in operation.

All cemeteries have their own character, their own personality, and community to them. People always know about Green-Wood or Woodlawn and are mostly interested in where the famous people are buried. I was interested more in what cemeteries teach us about social history, land use, how land use has changed over time, and the ones that disappeared. I couldn’t find anyone writing about that.

It started out as my own personal interest, and I thought I’d write a book about this. But I started putting stuff on the web as things captured my interest. The blog is meant to be an encyclopedia of cemeteries, and eventually, hopefully, someday, I’ll write a book that captures the whole picture of what New York cemeteries are about.

Mount Zion Cemetery, photo by Mary French

For New Yorkers who don’t think much about cemeteries, what would you tell them about the wealth of information that you can find inside?

Mary: There are lots of times I look at a cemetery, tucked into a neighborhood, and people who lived there their whole life never knew a cemetery was there. It would be nice to have historical markers to tell people [the significance].

The first cemetery that sparked my interest is Mount Zion, a Jewish cemetery in Queens. A lot of people buried there — Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the late 1800s, early 1900s — had been living in the tenements in the Lower East Side and Brooklyn. The cemetery is so crowded, burial conditions that are very reflective of the life these people had. Groups from the same village would buy plots together, or unions or different social groups they belonged to. They’re buried next to these people in the same crowded conditions they lived in.

The Jewish and Catholic cemeteries of New York hold some of the most important Jewish and Catholic people in the country. It’s reflective that this is where a many of the immigrants were coming first.

What does your research process look like?

Mary: I try to go and see what the cemetery reveals to me, and then I do the research afterward. From the research side, I go through old maps to see how the land has changed. I go through old newspaper articles, I’ve also gone to some archives. I do a lot of photographic research as well, like the New York Public Library’s photo archives.

An 1836 map showing B’nai Jeshurun’s cemetery on the current Hotel Pennsylvania site, via NYC Cemetery Project

What are some interesting stories on how New York has lost some of its cemeteries?

Mary: There was one under the Hotel Pennsylvania, one of the early Jewish cemeteries. To imagine, the first Ashkenazi Jewish cemetery in New York City, under the hotel.

Most were removed in the mid to late-1800s, and there were no laws protecting cemeteries and historic properties back then. There were no controls for it. What’s shocking to me is that even churches could be reckless with remains — you read about them piling [bodies] into carts and dumping them in the river. Unless it’s their own family members, I don’t think people feel a sense of duty to the bodies, especially dealing with the pressures of economics or trying to sell the property.

Are there particular discoveries inside cemeteries that have stuck with you?

Mary: Well, we think we have this idea that Europeans are more respectful to European remains, as opposed to other ethnic groups, and it’s just not true. There’s a lack of respect in general, for the dead, under those pressures I mentioned before.

New York is a city that’s always rebuilding, and then we have to think about how preservation fits into that story as well. What’s your opinion on the preservation of cemeteries in a city like this?

Mary: I obviously think it’s very important, or I wouldn’t be doing this. But I’ve given a lot of thought to whether some of the big cemeteries in Queens will be built over one day. Honestly, I think probably so. History shows the needs of the living outweigh the needs of the dead. It’s not uncommon for cities to remove their cemeteries from the cities, actually. The idea of a final resting place being final is not borne out by history. Still, I think it would be a huge loss.

Photo of Queens’ Calvary Cemetery by James Sengul, via NYC Cemetery Project

What’s your latest work with the site?

Mary: The newest thing I’ve been doing are stories about really unique individuals, writing about individuals and not just the cemeteries. I’m calling it “Lives Unearthed.”

How do you pick those individuals?

Mary: The first one I did was a person who was so astounding, with a unique story I didn’t see covered anywhere else. It also linked very strongly to the cemetery she’s buried in.

Another one is an artist who committed suicide in City Island in a very public fashion. These are stories that were in the paper the time they happened, but they’ve been forgotten. I think they’re just touching stories that deserve to be mentioned today.

What are the areas you’ve been spending a lot of time in around New York?

Mary: Last summer, I finished all the cemeteries on Staten Island. That was interesting because I got to see all of Staten Island by foot. Lately, it’s been revisiting some of the cemeteries in Queens.

So is the book actively in the works?

Mary: It’s always on my mind, but I’ve been focused more on gathering and putting stuff on the website right now. I don’t think people realize the hours of research that goes into one of those blog entries. I come from a scholarship background, where you have to verify your information and document your sources. I know the Landmarks Preservation Commission reads the blog, and I keep in mind the different kinds of people who use the information. I feel a sense of responsibility that goes beyond writing a clever blog entry.

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1912 World Series at the Polo Grounds. Image via Wikimedia Commons

Baseball games may be a tradition in NYC, but not so very long ago that seemingly innocent pastime was illegal on Sundays. As one of the infamous “blue laws” on the state books–that other beloved New York City pastime, shopping, was illegal as well–the ban was part of a sweeping statute from colonial times called the Statute for Suppressing Immorality. Enacted in 1778, it was the first state “Sabbath law.” Section 2145 of the revised New York State Penal code of 1787 outlawed all public sports on Sunday–so as not to “interrupt the repose of the Sabbath”–and wasn’t repealed until 1919.

Image courtesy of cnyhistory.org

Not all states opted to keep the law on the books; Sunday baseball games were legalized in Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati in 1902. In New York City, however, it took some doing in the form of protracted political and court battles to get Sunday ball games legalized. In 1907 the city’s Democrats unsuccessfully introduced two bills in Albany to change the law prohibiting baseball on Sundays. State Assemblyman Al Smith spoke out against the ban of Sunday Baseball with the argument that it was “better for young men to be playing baseball than to be driven to places where they play ‘Waltz Me Around Again, Willie.'”

It was a favorite topic in the newspapers of the day. A 1917 Sunday game at the Polo Grounds between the NY Giants and the Cincinnati Reds–the first Sunday major league game–resulted in both team managers—John McGraw and Christy Mathewson–being arrested.

Washington Park in 1915, via Wiki Commons

Washington Park in Brooklyn, where games were often played in the pre-Ebbets Field days of the early 1900s, became skilled in finding ways to host Sunday games without falling afoul of the laws that forbade “official” public contests: Instead of selling admission tickets at regularly established stands, programs were sold before reaching the turnstiles. “Contribution boxes” were offered for fans to drop in as much as they wished.

In 1917, the New York Giants and Cincinnati Reds played the first Sunday major league baseball game at the Polo Grounds. The managers of both teams were arrested for violating the blue laws.

It wasn’t until 1919 that the Sunday baseball ban was removed from the books. This progress was due in part to then-state-senator Jimmy Walker, who would go on to become New York City’s mayor. Walker shepherded a bill ending the ban through the legislature, and it was signed by Governor Al Smith on April 19th, 1919. The law change also made Sunday movies legal, so New Yorkers could indulge in two classic Sunday afternoon pastimes without becoming scofflaws.

On May 4th of that year the NY Giants played–and lost, to the Phillies–their first legal Sunday home game in front of 35,000 fans at the Polo Grounds. In Brooklyn, a crowd of 25,000 witnessed the first legal Sunday game at Ebbets Field, where Brooklyn triumphed.

[Via Gothamist]

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Image via Wikimedia Commons

A few international symbols of New York City–like the tough cabbie, the expensive apartment and the pizza-snatching rat–need no explanation and are too scary to think about except when absolutely necessary. Others, like the humble-yet-iconic bagel, possess New York City cred, but when asked, most people can’t quite come up with a reason. Bagels weren’t invented in New York, but the party line is that if they’re made here, they’re better than anywhere. Some say it’s the water; others chalk it up to the recipe, the method, ethnic preference or all of the above. What’s the story behind the New York bagel? Who are the true bagel heroes? What makes a great bagel great? And those frozen bagels? Blame Connecticut.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

In an interview with the New York Times, Maria Balinska, author of “The Bagel: The Surprising History of a Modest Bread,” said, “A New York bagel has a shiny crust with a little bit of hardness to it and a nice glaze. The inside is very chewy, but not overly doughy. It’s got a slight tang to the taste, and it’s not too big. But some people might disagree.”

Traditional bagels are made from wheat flour, salt, water, and yeast leavening. High gluten flours are preferred, as they yield the firm, dense bagel shape and chewy texture. Most bagel recipes call for the addition of a sweetener to the dough. Leavening can be accomplished using a sourdough technique (as with #1 rival, the Montreal bagel) or  commercially produced yeast.

The magic happens by:

• mixing and kneading the ingredients to form the dough
• shaping the dough into the traditional bagel shape, round with a hole in the middle, from a long thin piece of dough
• proofing the bagels for at least 12 hours at low temperature (40–50 °F = 4.5–10 °C)
• boiling each bagel in water that may contain additives such as lye, baking soda, barley malt syrup, or honey
• baking at between 175 °C and 315 °C (about 350–600 °F)

The result: bagel taste, chewy texture, and shiny outer skin.

In recent years a variation known as the steam bagel has added to the mix in which the boiling is skipped and the bagels are baked in a steam-injection oven instead. The result is fluffier, softer and less chewy–sacrilege to bagel purists who believe that eating a bagel should be a bit of a struggle–kind of like living in New York.

Where were the poppy-or-sesame seeds of this special recipe first sprinkled? Bagels were widely consumed in Ashkenazi Jewish communities in the 17th century. The first known mention was in 1610 in the Jewish community ordinances in Kraków, Poland. The boiled-and-baked bagel as we know it was brought to America by Polish Jews who immigrated here, which led to a thriving business in New York City that was controlled for decades by Bagel Bakers Local 338. The union had contracts with nearly all bagel bakeries in and around the city for its workers, who prepared bagels by hand.

Image courtesy of George Grantham Bain Collection via Flickr.

Untapped Cities tells us that by 1900, 70 bakeries existed on the Lower East Side; in 1907, the International Beigel Bakers’ Union had monopolized bagel production in the city. If their demands weren’t met, the bakers went on strike, causing what the Times called “bagel famine.”  In December of 1951, 32 out of 34 bagel bakeries closed, leaving shelves bare and sending lox sales swimming upstream. The strike was eventually resolved by the State Board of Mediation’s Murray Nathan, who had reportedly worked similar magic for the lox strike of 1947. With the dawn of the 1960s, the bagel’s popularity had spread to the far corners the nation (h/t atlas obscura). The New York Times dubbed New York City “the bagel center of the free world.

Then technology disrupted everything. New tech allowed for the simultaneous preparation of 200 to 600 bagels at a time. Daniel Thompson started work on the first commercially viable bagel machine in 1958. Bagel baker Harry Lender, his son, Murray Lender and Florence Sender leased this technology and pioneered automated production and distribution of frozen bagels in the 1960s. Murray also invented pre-slicing the bagel.

Murray Lender may be the nemesis of bagel purists, but he was a hero to NYC diaspora in bagel deserts like the Midwest, where a frozen bagel was definitely better than no bagel at all. For the first time, bagels were being sold right to customers. Lender’s bakery in New Haven, Connecticut started mass-producing bagels, and selling them bagged and frozen to supermarkets. By 1980, bagels were fully integrated into the daily lives of New Yorkers–and beyond.

Image: BarbaraLN via Flickr

Culture Trip reports that in the early 1950s, Family Circle magazine offered readers a recipe for bageles (their spelling): “Stumped for the Hors d’oeuvres Ideas? Here’s a grand one from Fannie Engle. ‘Split these tender little triumphs in halves and then quarters. Spread with sweet butter and place a small slice of smoked salmon on each. For variations, spread with cream cheese, anchovies or red caviar. (They’re also delicious served as breakfast rolls.)’ “

One writer opines in Slate that while bagels are ethnic in origin, they don’t declare their ethnicity with loud flavors, spices or appearances, which makes it not unusual that some of today’s most beloved New York bagel bakeries are not necessarily under Jewish ownership: A Puerto Rican family owns H&H Bagels, where a Cincinnatian of German ancestry bakes Cincinnati Red, tropical fruit and taco bagels; Absolute Bagels is owned by a Thai couple on the Upper West Side.

Euro cup pride bagels. Image via Wikimedia Commons

And New Yorkers, of course, can’t even agree on what makes a bagel sublime. The Times gets some input:

• It “should be crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside,” according to Melanie Frost, CEO of Ess-a-Bagel, in Midtown East. “And they should be hand-rolled.”
• “They should always be boiled, never steamed,” said  Bagel Hole of Park Slope’s Philip Romanzi.
• Niki Russ Federman, o-owner of Russ & Daughters on the Lower East Side, tells us what a New York bagel is not. “It should not be sweet and you should never find blueberries, jalapeños, or rainbow colors in your bagel.”
• According to Adam Pomerantz, owner of Murray’s Bagels in Greenwich Village, New York bagels have a hole and lots of of seeds on both sides and should also be slightly well-done. “A bagel should be a bit of struggle to bite into. That’s what a true New York bagel is all about.”

Are New York bagels better? One theory–which may have some truth to it–attributes their taste to New York’s water. New York’s water possesses a perfect ratio of calcium to magnesium, making it especially “soft.” This soft water bonds well with the gluten in the dough making for a perfectly chewy bagel.

Most New York bagel shops also do the two key things said to create the perfect bagel: They allow the dough to sit in a refrigerator to assist in the fermentation process before rolling it, which creates a richer flavor. They then boil the dough in a mixture of water and baking soda, which results in the bagel’s shiny outer layer and chewy inner layer.

Bagel squirrel. Image: Jesse Millan via Flickr.

When the flour settles, the bagel symbolizes a nourishing tasty snack that–like pizza, with a similar rep–can be piled high with favorite ingredients and taken to go. What’s more, bagels provide an opportunity to voice one’s passionate opinion about where to find the best one. And what do New Yorkers love more than that?

The contenders

Whenever talk turns to bagels, a few familiar names rise to the surface: H & H Bagels, Ess-a-bagel, David’s bagels, Kossar’s Bialys on the Lower East Side and Murray’s bagels of Greenwich Village. But to a bagel connoisseur, the landscape is far more geographically diverse.

According to Grub Street, Utopia bagels in Whitestone Queens holds the number one spot, followed by Absolute Bagels and Bo’s Bagels of–gasp–Harlem. Also on the list are relative newcomer Tompkins Square bagels, Sadelle’s and Terrace Bagels of Windsor Terrace among others. The Bagel Hole of Park Slope is also a list regular. Eater puts their picks for top bagel stops on a map.

Facts and figures

In the era of gluten-free and low-carb, one wonders if the doughy delight is destined to become ancient history–but the numbers suggest otherwise. According to the American Institute of Baking (AIB), 2008 supermarket sales (52-week period ending January 27, 2009) of the top eight leading commercial fresh (not frozen) bagel brands in the United States totaled to US $430,185,378 based on 142,669,901 package unit sales.

A typical bagel has 260–350 calories, 1.0–4.5 grams of fat, 330–660 milligrams of sodium, and 2–5 grams of fiber. Gluten-free bagels have much more fat, often 9 grams, because of the presence in the dough of ingredients that supplant wheat flour in the original.

Around 1900, the “bagel brunch” became popular in New York City. The bagel brunch consisted of a bagel topped with lox, cream cheese, capers, tomato, and red onion.

In Japan, the first kosher bagels were brought by BagelK from New York in 1989. BagelK created green tea, chocolate, maple-nut, and banana-nut flavors for the market in Japan. There are three million bagels exported from the U.S. annually.  Some Japanese bagels, such as those sold by BAGEL & BAGEL, are soft and sweet; others, such as Einstein Bro. bagels sold by Costco in Japan, are the same as in the U.S.

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Photo of Whitman via Wikimedia; Photo of 99 Ryerson Street via NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project

A coalition of preservationists, LGBT groups and literary experts is asking the Landmarks Preservation Commission to reassess their decision last year to not landmark Walt Whitman’s Brooklyn home, the last residence of the 19th-century poet remaining in New York. Located at 99 Ryerson Street in Clinton Hill, the home was where Whitman and his family lived between May 1, 1855 and May 1, 1856.

While living at the home, Whitman wrote “Leaves of Grass,” a collection of poems considered to be one of the most significant American works ever. The home is also one of the earliest extant buildings in NYC associated with a member of the LGBT community.

In 2017, the LPC rejected requests to designate 99 Ryerson Street because the house “does not rise to the level of an individual landmark,” a commission spokesperson told the New York Times. The commission had said Whitman did not live in the home long enough to merit a designation and that the home was substantially altered with new aluminum siding after he had lived there.

But after former chair of the LPC Meenakshi Srinivasan announced her resignation last April, preservationists are now asking the commission to reconsider its decision. Led by Brad Vogel, a group called the Coalition to Save Walt Whitman’s House has started a Change.org petition in hopes of convincing the LPC to landmark the building.

“The house at 99 Ryerson Street is one of only two buildings directly associated with Walt Whitman that are still standing in New York City,” the online petition, which has over 3,100 signatures, reads. “It would be an unforgivable tragedy to lose this crucially important building to history.”

In May, a group of Brooklyn politicians, including NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson, penned a letter to the LPC urging them to designate the Whitman home.

“The significance of Whitman and his residence to world culture cannot be understated,” the pols wrote. “Needless to say, as one of the first Americans to express same-sex desire in literature, Whitman has a special place in LGBTQ history and designating the house would help address the dearth of landmarked LGBTQ sites.”

Although a hearing date has not been set, groups in favor of designation will continue to push the LPC to reconsider their decision.

“Through his famously homoerotic ‘Calamus’ poems, which he included in a later edition of Leaves of Grass, Whitman became one of the first people to openly express the concept of male-male love,” Amanda Davis of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project told 6sqft.

“It’s crucial for LGBT youth and the public at large to understand that LGBT people not only existed well before the 1969 Stonewall Uprising but that they also thrived and contributed significantly to our collective American history. We’re thrilled that City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and the LGBT Caucus are in support of landmarking the house, and we hope the LPC will follow suit.”

[Via NY Times]

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Historic Hunterfly Road Houses via the Brooklyn Historical Society

It’s a mighty sounding moniker, but the name “King’s County” also speaks to Brooklyn’s less-than-democratic origins. At the turn of the 19th century, the city of Brooklyn was known as the “slaveholding capital” of New York State and was home to the highest concentration of enslaved people north of the Mason-Dixon Line. But, after New York State abolished slavery in 1827, free black professionals bought land in what is now Crown Heights and founded Weeksville, a self-supporting community of African American Freedman, which grew to become the second-largest free black community in Antebellum America. By 1855, over 520 free African Americans lived in Weeksville, including some of the leading activists in the Abolitionist and Equal Suffrage movements.

 1839 deed of Sale for land in Brooklyn’s 9th Ward, which became Weeksville via the Brooklyn Historical Society

Weeksville was carved out of central Brooklyn when the Panic of 1837 moved wealthy landowners in the area to start liquidating their holdings. The Abolitionist and black community leader Henry C. Thompson purchased 32 lots from John Lefferts, whose family estate comprised most of what is now Bedford Stuyvesant and Crown Heights.

Map showing the historic borders of Weeksville, via Wiki Commons

Thompson began selling those plots to other free black Brooklynites, including James Weeks, who purchased two plots in 1838, built a home near what is now Schenctady Avenue and Dean Street, and lived in the community that bears his name. Weeksville grew until its borders ran approximately to what are now East New York, Ralph, Troy, and Atlantic Avenues.

 Sylvanus Smith, one of Weeksville’s original founders circa 1870 via the Brooklyn Historical Society

James Weeks, Sylvanus Smith, and the other original founders of Weeksville intentionally created a community, nestled among the slopes and valleys of Bedford Hills, that was geographically separate from the rest of Brooklyn. The seclusion helped ensure that community members would be safe and that Weeksville residents would have access to education, economic self-sufficiency, and political self-determination.

For free blacks in early 19th century New York, political self-determination and voting rights were directly tied to land ownership. In 1821, the New York State Constitution widened the franchise to include all white men regardless of whether they owned property but established a $250 property requirement for black men. Weeksville was the answer: a community of free black landowners.

Colored School No. 2 (PS 68) via the Brooklyn Historical Society

Weeksville not only boasted the highest rate of property and business ownership in any African American urban community at the time, but also the community supported the nation’s first African American newspaper, the Freedman’s Torchlight, and built Colored School No. 2, which, after the Civil War, became PS 68, the first integrated school in the country.

Other cultural organizations included Zion Home for the Aged; Howard Colored Orphan Asylum; Berean Baptist Church; Bethel A.M.E. Church; Citizens Union Cemetery and, the African Civilization Society, an organization that worked to establish a colony of free blacks in Liberia.

Residents were moved by the idea of a free black colony in Liberia because Weeksville was founded during the Back to Africa Movement, which has been called the “golden age” of Black Nationalism. While some Weeksville residents, including the clergymen Henry Highland Garnet and T. McCants Stewart, did emigrate to Liberia, most of the community’s efforts regarding freedom, emancipation, education, and self-determination played out closer to home.

For example, according to a notice in its first issue, published by the African Civilization Society on Dean Street in 1866, The Freedman’s Torchlight was “devoted to the temporal and spiritual interests of the Freedman, and adapted to their present need of instruction in regard to simple truths and principles relating to their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.” The paper contained reading lessons that were used to teach literacy to members of the community who had been denied that training under slavery.

 New York’s black community was targeted during the city’s 1863 draft riots via the Tenement Museum

Weeksville not only offered more opportunities for education, employment and political enfranchisement for African Americans than anywhere else in Brooklyn, but also the community functioned as one of the principal safe havens for black New Yorkers threatened by the 1863 draft riots.

When opposition to the Civil War prompted Irish New Yorkers to target African Americans during bloody violence that bested the city’s police forces, and could only be broken by the arrival of Union Soldiers, Weeksville residents helped keep other New Yorkers safe.

The community’s focus on both self-determination and social justice for other African Americans made Weeksville home to extraordinary pioneers and community leaders. For example, Junius C. Morel was principal of Colored School No. 2, and also a nationally recognized journalist, who wrote for the Colored American, North Star, Frederick Douglass’ Paper, and Christian Recorder. In his writing, he advocated for both African American independence and racial and gender integration in public schools.

Sarah Smith Garnet was one of Sylvanus Smith’s daughters. She grew up in Weeksville and became one of the nation’s foremost educators and activists via the Brooklyn Historical Society

The women of Weeksville were also some of the most accomplished women in the country. For example, Susan Smith McKinney Steward became the first African American female doctor in New York State, and her sister, Sarah Smith Tompkins Garnet, became Brooklyn’s first female school principal and was the founder of the Equal Suffrage League of Brooklyn, the first suffrage organization founded by and for black women. Together, both sisters founded the Women’s Loyal Union of New York and Brooklyn, another black women’s suffrage organization.

The community thrived and grew throughout the 19th century, but, by the 1880s, Brooklyn had grown up around Weeksville, and it ceased to be secluded. Instead, Eastern Parkway came roaring through town, and residents began to disperse. By the early 20th century, Weeksville was all but subsumed into Brooklyn and largely forgotten.

1970s era community preservation project via the Weeksville Heritage Center

Then came an airplane. In 1968, Pratt researchers James Hurley and Joseph Hays found references to Weeksville in 19th century histories of Brooklyn. Hurley was a historian, and Hays was a pilot. The two took to the air looking for remnants of Weeksville. They found four homes on Hunterfly Road, which are the oldest standing structures in Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights, and are the only homes left that were part of Weeksville.

Hurley and Hays began a campaign against time to save the homes, for the area had been targeted for a host of urban renewal projects. In 1969, Bed-Stuy resident Joan Maynard created the Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford Stuyvesant History in order to discover and preserve Weeksville’s past and to restore the Hunterfly Road Houses.

Hunterfly Road Houses today, via Wiki Commons

Thanks to her tireless advocacy, and the ardent support of the local community, the Hunterfly Road Houses were designated New York City Landmarks in 1970, and all four were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

The Weeksville Heritage Center’s modern new digs. Photos by Nic Lehoux for Caples Jefferson Architects.

The Society purchased the houses in 1973 and opened the Weeksville Heritage Center in 2005. In 2014, the Center expanded, adding a new, modern building. Today, the Weeksville Heritage Center offers tours, public programs, and research facilities to “document, preserve and interpret the history of free African American communities in Weeksville, Brooklyn and beyond.”

Through 2018, The Weeksville Heritage Center is partnering with the Brooklyn Historical Society and Irondale Theater to create In Pursuit of Freedom, exhibits, and programs designed to “celebrate & commemorate the rich Abolitionist and radical history of Brooklyn, from downtown (Dumbo, Brooklyn Heights, and Williamsburg) to historic Weeksville.” The exhibitions are now on view at both the Weeksville Heritage Center and The Brooklyn Historical Society.

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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.

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Photo by Tia Richards for 6sqft

Coinciding with the 170th Anniversary of the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention, members of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Statue Fund unveiled on Thursday the official design of the first statue of non-fictional women in Central Park. Designed by Meredith Bergmann, the sculpture includes both legible text and a writing scroll that represents the arguments that both women — and their fellow suffragists — fought for. There is also a digital scroll, which will be available online, where visitors are encouraged to join the ongoing conversation. The sculpture of Stanton and Anthony will be dedicated in Central Park on August 18, 2020, marking the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote nationwide.

Pam Elam, President of the Stanton and Anthony Fund, noted that this statue is “breaking the brass ceiling” in Central Park, and leading the way as the first of several planned monuments to real women around New York City. “Our goal is to make people aware of a history that fully, fairly and finally includes the vast and varied roles that women have played in it,” she said.

Current view of Literary Walk, via Wiki Commons

The statue will stand on Literary Walk, taking a place beside figures including Sir Walter Scott and Willam Shakespeare. Stanton and Anthony were both firebrand thinkers and prolific writers, and Bergmann’s winning sculpture design incorporates that legacy into the monument.

The importance of continued passionate civic dialog, and its potential for revolutionary, non-violent change, serves as the core inspiration for Bergmann’s design.

“I’m honored to have been chosen to make this monument to a movement that transformed our democracy so profoundly from within, and without bloodshed, and that began with two women writing together, composing the most powerful arguments they could imagine,” Bergmann said. “It’s a great subject for sculpture.”

Bergmann has designed a number of other memorials both in New York City and around the country, including the Boston Women’s Memorial, the FDR Hope Memorial on Roosevelt Island and the September 11th Memorial at St. John the Divine.

Her work was selected out of 91 total submissions to the statue’s design competition. Dr. Harriet F. Senie, a member of the Statue Fund’s design jury, and the Director of the MA Program in Art History and Art Museum Studies at City College said: “Meredith Bergmann has accomplished something that seems unique. She has seamlessly expanded the definition of a monument to consist of recognizable portraits; significant and legible texts; and an invitation to viewers to participate in the essence of democracy — the right to vote.”

When unveiling the winning design, members of the jury noted that “history takes time and many voices,” and that “no single powerful individual can change society by herself.”

With that wisdom in mind, the statue’s design will include the names of many other women who fought the long hard battle for suffrage and seek to honor all the women who fought for the right to vote.

Just as history takes many voices, so does the process of commissioning a memorial, and many groups contributed to the funding and realization of the Stanton and Anthony Statue. In addition to the hundreds of individuals who donated to the campaign, funding came from the Parks Department, New York Life (where Susan B. Anthony was a policyholder), and The Girl Scouts of Greater New York.

Three of New York’s girl scout troops raised nearly $10,000 for the statue. Meridith Maskara, CEO of the Girls Scouts of Greater New York explained that working as advocates for the project help the girls learn that history was “theirs to write, theirs to act on, and theirs to memorialize.”

RELATED:

• Parks Department approves Central Park’s first monument to historic females
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All photos by Tia Richards for 6sqft