History

The Museum of the City of New York on Saturday will launch King in New York, a photo exhibition that explores the relationship between Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and New York City. The collection, which commemorates the 50th anniversary of King's death, provides a look into the iconic civil rights leader's time spent in the city, starting in the 1950s and continuing through the aftermath of his assassination in 1986. New York, as the country's media capital, allowed MLK to broadcast his words and messages to both local and global audiences, hold national press conferences and speak to influential advocacy and political groups. He gave sermons at the Riverside Church in Morningside Heights and marched to the United Nations in protest against the Vietnam war. Following his death, thousands of New Yorkers marched in Harlem and Midtown to a Central Park concert to mourn together and the city named parks, playgrounds and streets in his honor. King in New York will be on view from Saturday, Jan. 13 to June 1, 2018.
Explore MLK's New York City connection

The Greenwich Village church that threw a presidential election

The Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church in 1902, courtesy of the New-York Historical Society, Robert L. Bracklow Photograph Collection

January 11, 2018

The Greenwich Village church that threw a presidential election

The stately church building at 141-145 West 13th Street in the West Village is the picture of serene elegance. Built in 1846-47 in the Greek Revival style, the classical balance and symmetry of the façade mask a history full of controversy, including the birth of a notorious slur in American politics, which arguably changed the outcome of a pivotal presidential election.
Find out about the scandalous story

History

Before it was a national monument, Castle Clinton opened as America’s first beer garden

Image courtesy of NYPL

January 9, 2018

Before it was a national monument, Castle Clinton opened as America’s first beer garden

New Yorkers today know Castle Clinton, in Battery Park, as a national monument and departure point to visit Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. But the circular sandstone fort dates all the way back to 1811--and has served as everything from an immigration station, exhibition hall, theater, and public aquarium since. One forgotten fact of the historic structure is that it's considered the site of America's first beer garden, which opened as Castle Garden on July 3rd, 1824. The illustration above shows the beer garden--which also had a grand theater--featured in Harper's New Monthly Magazine in the 1800s. The open-air space, which eventually got a roof, was considered one of the premier attractions in Manhattan.
Read a little more history

History

January 8, 2018

Behind the scenes at the Loew’s Jersey City: How a 1929 Wonder Theatre was brought back to life

"The wealthy rub elbows with the poor — and are better for this contact," said architect George Rapp of his Loew’s Jersey and Kings Theatres--two of the five Loew's Wonder Theatres built in 1929-30 around the NYC area. The over-the-top, opulent movie palaces were built by the Loew's Corporation not only to establish their stature in the film world but to be an escape for people from all walks of life. This held true during the Great Depression and World War II, but by the time the mid-60s hit and middle-class families began relocating to the suburbs where megaplexes were all the rage, the Wonder Theatres fell out of fashion. Amazingly, though, all five still stand today, each with their own unique preservation tale and evolution. The Loew's Jersey, located in the bustling Jersey City hub of Journal Square, has perhaps the most grassroots story. After closing in 1987, the building was slated for demolition, but a group of local residents banded together to save the historic theater. They collected 10,000 petition signatures and attended countless City Council meetings, and finally, in 1993, the city agreed to buy the theater for $325,000 and allow the newly formed Friends of the Loew’s to operate there as a nonprofit arts and entertainment center and embark on a restoration effort. Twenty-five years later, the theater is almost entirely returned to its original state and offers a robust roster of films, concerts, children's programs, and more. 6sqft recently had the chance to take a behind-the-scenes tour of the Loew’s Jersey Theatre with executive director Colin Egan to learn about its amazing evolution and photograph its gilded beauty.
Take a tour of this one-of-a-kind historic gem

The highlife: Architecture, spectacle and Art Deco New York

Photo of the 1931 Beaux Arts Ball courtesy of the Van Alen Institute

January 5, 2018

The highlife: Architecture, spectacle and Art Deco New York

By Lucie Levine

The architects who built the Jazz Age really knew how to get down. In January 1931, they turned the city’s annual Beaux Arts Ball into the ultimate Gatsby-approved bash. Instead of the stuffy historicism of years past, the party’s theme was “Fête Moderne -- a Fantasie in Flame and Silver." Advance advertising for the Ball in the New York Times promised an event “modernistic, futuristic, cubistic, altruistic, mystic, architistic and feministic," featuring the city’s most renowned architects dressed as their buildings, celebrating both themselves and the modern fantasy metropolis they had forged in flame and silver. Art Deco New York: the skyscraper city, glittering and strong, reaching ever higher – through technological advancement and American ingenuity – toward excitement, prosperity, enlightenment, and power.
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Fire Patrol House #2: From Benjamin Franklin’s fire prevention ideas to Anderson Cooper’s stylish home

Fire Patrol #2 in 2009, via Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation Image Archive

January 4, 2018

Fire Patrol House #2: From Benjamin Franklin’s fire prevention ideas to Anderson Cooper’s stylish home

The former firehouse located at 84 West 3rd Street in Greenwich Village is often noted for being the renovated and restored home of TV personality and journalist Anderson Cooper. But it’s just as noteworthy for an unusual history connected to Benjamin Franklin and insurance underwriters, and for not being the kind of firehouse you think it is at all.
The whole history and current use

History

The Urban Lens: Abandonment and decay along the 1970s Greenwich Village waterfront

Abandoned buildings along the Christopher Street Pier. Ca. 1974. © Jack Dowling Collection for GVSHP.

December 29, 2017

The Urban Lens: Abandonment and decay along the 1970s Greenwich Village waterfront

By Hannah Frishberg

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation shares a collection of archival images by Jack Dowling that documents the crumbling piers of Greenwich Village in the 1970s. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. The fetid smell of rotted wood and the Hudson River nearly rises from these photos of the sorry state of Greenwich Village's collapsing piers in the 1970s. The contrast is stark between the neighborhood's disinvested, abandonment, pictured here, and its current culture of high rents and pricey coffee shops. Among New York City's main concerns when photographer Jack Dowling created, "Decay and Rebirth Along the Greenwich Village Waterfront in the 1970s," were its murder rate and the looming threat of bankruptcy when these photos have taken; the city as a whole has changed drastically in the decades since.
The visible difference from the present is astounding

December 29, 2017

December 29, 1947 was the subway’s most crowded day ever

By Michelle Cohen

After battling the mad crush of pre-holiday shoppers on city sidewalks, frenzied honking and general rudeness on streets and highways and endless airport queues, it's a little scary to think the worst might be still to come in the normally quiet days between Christmas and New Year's Eve–and on the subway, no less. The New York City subway system racks up 1.8 billion rides a year. The average ridership tally in 2015 was 5.7 million people daily; that number is the highest it's been since 1948. The New York Times tells us, though, that the actual record-setting day for subway rides was December 29, 1947, when a staggering 8,533,468 riders were counted. So, what drove so many into the subway's multitudinous depths?
Find out more

VIDEO: Travel back to 1904 for the first New Year’s Eve in Times Square

A crowd in Times Square; screenshot via TheLazyCowOnUTube

December 28, 2017

VIDEO: Travel back to 1904 for the first New Year’s Eve in Times Square

In 1904, the New York Times moved from the City Hall are to the triangular piece of land at the intersection of 7th Avenue, Broadway, and 42nd Street. People thought they were crazy for moving so far uptown, but this was the same year the first subway line opened, passing through what was then called Longacre Square. Not only did their new Times Tower have a printing press in the basement (they loaded the daily papers right onto the train and got the news out faster than other papers), but it was the second-tallest building in the city at the time. To honor this accolade, the company wanted to take over the city's former New Year's Eve celebration at Trinity Church, and since the church elders hated people getting drunk on their property, they gladly obliged. So to ring in 1905, the Times hosted an all-day bash of 200,000 people that culminated in a midnight fireworks display, and thus the first New Year's Eve in Times Square was born. But it wasn't until a few years later that the famous ball drop became tradition.
Get the full history in this video

Nuclear fallout shelter signs being removed around the city

Photo via Wiki Commons

December 28, 2017

Nuclear fallout shelter signs being removed around the city

New York City has started taking down the yellow nuclear fallout shelter signs slapped on thousands of buildings across the city in the 1960s. According to AM New York, city officials believe these metal black-and-yellow signs "are misleading Cold War relics that no longer denote functional shelters." But back in the '60s, they were considered emblematic of the era. President John F. Kennedy created a shelter program in 1961 across U.S. cities as anxieties grew high over the nuclear arms race between the United States and the former Soviet Union. By 1963, an estimated 18,000 shelters had been designated across the five boroughs, and the Department of Defense had plans to add another 34,000 shelters citywide. Most were no more than basements marked by an official government sign--and now the remnants of such signs are coming down.
Read more history of New York's fallout shelters

Winters during 19th century New York were so cold, the East River froze over

While New York City is getting hit by a blast of arctic temperatures this week, New Yorkers of the mid- and late-1800s experienced even colder conditions. During the 19th century, the East River froze over at least seven times, shutting down the Brooklyn Bridge and preventing any ferries from crossing over. But, like today’s New Yorkers, the frozen river never stopped commuters from reaching their destinations. Instead of staying home, people would walk across the frozen East River, skating and slipping along their way.
More this way

History

On this day in 1937, the Lincoln Tunnel opened to traffic

Photo by Jumpy via Wikimedia Commons

December 22, 2017

On this day in 1937, the Lincoln Tunnel opened to traffic

On December 22, 1937, the center tube of the Lincoln Tunnel opened to traffic. The $85 million project ($1.5 billion in today's dollars) linking Weehawken, NJ to Midtown Manhattan was hailed as a "new link of friendship between New York and New Jersey" and an "engineering feat." On that inaugural day, 7,661 cars drove through the 1.5-mile-long tunnel, paying 50 cents and likely not realizing they were 97 feet underwater.
Find out about the characters who made this day even more eventful

December 22, 2017

The Urban Lens: How Temple Court went from an abandoned shell to a romantically restored landmark

By James and Karla Murray

In 1883, one of NYC's first skyscrapers opened at the corner of Nassau and Beekman Streets. Known as Temple Court, the nine-story red brick and terra cotta structure was designed in the Queen Anne style by architect James M. Farnworth to attract accountants and lawyers who needed to be close to the city's courthouses. Its most impressive feature was its central atrium that rises the full height and is topped by a large pyramid-shaped skylight and two rooftop turrets. In the 1940s, this romantic atrium was walled in from top to bottom, and by 2001, the last commercial tenant moved out, ultimately sending the building into disrepair, a crumbling shell open to the elements. Plans to restore Temple Court into The Beekman hotel and add an adjacent 51-story condominium tower first surfaced in 2008, but before work got underway in 2012, we were granted the rare opportunity to explore the architectural gem in its eerily beautiful derelict state. And now that guests are filling up the 287 hotel rooms, the main floor is buzzing with restaurants from restaurateurs Tom Colicchio and Keith McNally, and the atrium's skylight and Victorian cast iron railings and ornamentation have been restored, we went back in to document how this one-of-a-kind landmark has been restored.
See the before-and-after photos and learn about our experience

What lies below: NYC’s forgotten and hidden graveyards

Zoom of the 1852 Dripps map of Manhattan, showing the proximity of downtown cemeteries, via David Rumsey Map Collection

December 21, 2017

What lies below: NYC’s forgotten and hidden graveyards

Most New Yorkers spend some time underground every day as part of their daily commute, but some spend eternity beneath our streets, and in a few cases occupy some pretty surprising real estate. Manhattan cemeteries are tougher to get into than Minetta Tavern without a reservation on a Saturday night because as far back as 1823, New York forbade new burials south of Canal Street. In 1851 that prohibition was extended to new burials south of 86th Street, and the creation of new cemeteries anywhere on the island was banned. But thousands of people were buried in Manhattan before those restrictions went into effect. And while some gravesites remain carefully maintained and hallowed ground, such as the those at St. Mark’s in the Bowery Church on Stuyvesant Street, Trinity Church on Wall Street, and St Paul’s Church at Fulton and Broadway, others have been forgotten and overlaid with some pretty surprising new uses, including playgrounds, swimming pools, luxury condos, and even a hotel named for the current occupant of the White House.
READ MORE

History

December 20, 2017

Interactive map shows how NYC’s waterways have evolved over the years

This map will delight any NYC geography buffs out there: The Changing Shoreline of New York City uses historical maps from the New York Public Library’s digital collection to explore how Manhattan has managed its waterways to expand its small city footprint. Created by Laura Blaszczak during her internship with NYPL, it's an interactive map that highlights waterfront locales around the city. Zoom in, and you can peruse historical maps and photographs that show how our rivers, creeks, brooks, and bays have been managed or built over. There's even an opacity control, so you can directly compare the historical map with the modern map and see how much Manhattan's landscape has changed.
Check it out

The history of the Rockettes: From St. Louis to Radio City

The Rockettes in 1925, courtesy of The Rockettes

December 18, 2017

The history of the Rockettes: From St. Louis to Radio City

For nearly a century, the Rockettes have been an icon of Christmas in New York. From humble St. Louis origins (no, the troupe was not formed in the Big Apple) to performing when Radio City Music Hall was in disrepair and shuttering for weeks at a time, they've managed to continue dancing throughout the decades. Not only that, they've emerged as America’s best known dance troupe. Here's the incredible history of this small team of female dancers, who have pulled off astounding, razor-sharp choreography while also fighting for higher wages and the landmarks designation of Radio City. The Rockettes are a New York icon, but only after a hard-fought battle to keep performing in the city.
Keep reading to learn more

The Urban Lens: The Museum of the City of New York looks back at NYC ice skating over the centuries

Skaters at Sara D. Roosevelt Park, 1935. Courtesy New York City Parks Photo Archive

December 15, 2017

The Urban Lens: The Museum of the City of New York looks back at NYC ice skating over the centuries

By Hannah Frishberg

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, we take a look back at New York City's ice skating history just days before the Museum of the City of New York's "New York on Ice" exhibit opens to the public. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. There are few New York winter activities more iconic than ice skating. The rink, the blades, the gliding people attempting to balance – the elements of the pastime are minimal, and so the pictures of it over the centuries are not so very different despite the decades. On view this Wednesday through April 2018, the Museum of the City of New York will be hosting an exhibit titled "New York on Ice: Skating in the City" featuring many of the images below of ice skating in NYC from the 1800s to the present day. In addition to paintings, postcards, and vintage photographs, the exhibit will also showcase costumes, posters, and more.
See the collection

NYC’s first elevated train and the world’s first streetcar began in Greenwich Village

The Ninth Avenue El near 14th Street c. 1914. Via Bain Collection, Library of Congress.

December 14, 2017

NYC’s first elevated train and the world’s first streetcar began in Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village is known as the birthplace of many things – the modern gay rights movement, Off-Broadway theater, the New York School of artists and poets, the “new urbanism” pioneered by Jane Jacobs, among many other trailblazing firsts. Less closely associated with the Village, however, are radical and transformative innovations in transportation technology. But while little known, the Village was in fact home to the first elevated rail line, and the first streetcar.
The whole history right this way

December 7, 2017

The Urban Lens: From Bob Dylan to Jack Kerouac, see rare photos of the Village’s Beat Generation

Perhaps no single photographer could be said to have captured the energy, the cultural ferment, the reverberating social change emanating from New York City in the second half of the 20th century as vividly as Fred W. McDarrah. McDarrah got his start covering the downtown beat of the Village Voice in the 1950s and '60s, as that publication was defining a newly-emerged breed of independent journalism. McDarrah penetrated the lofts and coffeehouses of Lower Manhattan to shed light upon a new movement known as "The Beats" and went on to capture on film the New York artists, activists, politicians, and poets who changed the way everyone else thought and lived. Through the generosity of the Estate of Fred W. McDarrah and the McDarrah family, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation was fortunate enough to add to its digital archive a dozen of the most epochal of Fred McDarrah’s images of downtown icons, including Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, Jane Jacobs, and Allen Ginsberg. And just in time for the holidays, you can purchase your own copy (with all proceeds benefitting GVSHP!).
Learn the story behind all the photos

In the 19th century, Brooklynites played baseball on ice

Baseball on Ice (1884) via Fine Art America

December 5, 2017

In the 19th century, Brooklynites played baseball on ice

For baseball fans, winter becomes an unbearably long season. In addition to the cold weather and early darkness, there are no games to watch. As a solution to this ball game drought, Brooklynites of the mid-and-late-1800’s began playing ice baseball. Getting its start in Rochester, N.Y. and later moving downstate to Brooklyn in 1861, the sport of ice baseball forced players to strap on skates and attempt to follow the rules of regular baseball on a frozen pond. Although ice skating remains a very popular winter activity in New York City to this day, baseball on ice eventually lost its charm before the turn of the 20th century, as players, and fans, complained about the freezing cold and slippery conditions.
More here

History

Former IRT Powerhouse on West 59th Street, once the world’s largest, gets landmark status

Image via NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission.

December 5, 2017

Former IRT Powerhouse on West 59th Street, once the world’s largest, gets landmark status

By Michelle Cohen

This morning, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the former IRT Powerhouse (now the Con Ed Powerhouse) at 12th Avenue and 59th Street an official New York City landmark. The Beaux-Arts style building, designed in 1904 by McKim, Mead & White, is considered a remarkable example of the style applied to a utilitarian building. It was bestowed with such grandeur to convince the public to embrace the subway, a newly-created transportation option at the time. The monumental building not only powered the city's the first subway line but upon completion 111 years ago it was the largest powerhouse in the world.
Find out more

New York City was home to America’s first-ever electrically lit Christmas tree

The first electrically-illuminated Christmas tree in 1882, courtesy of the Thomas Edison Museum

December 4, 2017

New York City was home to America’s first-ever electrically lit Christmas tree

At a townhouse on East 36th Street in 1882, the first Christmas tree to ever be adorned with electrical lights was lit, paving the way for the frenzy surrounding tree lightings around the world today. As an engineer and vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company, as well as Thomas Edison’s business partner, Edward Hibberd Johnson, was quite familiar with light bulbs. While festively decorating his apartment ahead of the holiday that year, Johnson had a very bright idea: wiring 80 red, white and blue light bulbs together around the tree and placing it in his parlor window.
More history this way

The long cultural and musical history of Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village

Jimi Hendrix, via Wiki Commons

November 30, 2017

The long cultural and musical history of Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village

Jimi Hendrix would have turned 75 this week. In his brief 27 years and even briefer musical career, Hendrix left an indelible mark upon guitar playing and rock music, permanently transforming both art forms. But perhaps in some ways his most lasting impact came from a project completed just three weeks before his death--the opening of Electric Lady Studios at 52 West 8th Street in Greenwich Village. On August 26th, 1970, the studio opened, the only recording artist-owned studio at the time. It provided Hendrix with affordable studio space that would also meet his personal technical and aesthetic specifications. Kicked off by an opening party near summer’s end, Electric Lady Studios was the location of Hendrix's last-ever studio recording--an instrumental known as "Slow Blues"--before his untimely passing on September 18, 1970. Fortunately, this was only the beginning of the studio’s incredible run recording some of the greatest rock, hip hop, and pop albums of the last nearly half-century and only the latest incarnation of one of the Village’s most unusual and storied structures.
The whole history here

History

Artists plan to install eight life-size sculptures of powerful women across New York

Rendering courtesy of Gillie and Marc

November 29, 2017

Artists plan to install eight life-size sculptures of powerful women across New York

The husband-and-wife sculpture team Gillie and Marc have an ambitious plan to install bronze sculptures of powerful women throughout New York City beginning next year. Over 25 years, Gillie and Marc have completed over 100 commissions for sculptures in public places and businesses in more than 40 cities. (In New York, their work has been everywhere from Rockefeller Center to the Fulton Center, and they plan to install the world's largest rhino sculpture in Manhattan next year.) But in all their commissions, they were shocked to find that only one was to celebrate a woman. To help narrow the glaring gender gap in public monuments, the artists plan to install eight life-size bronze sculptures of powerful women across New York City as a public art exhibition. It's set to debut in 2018, and until the public has a chance to vote on which women should be featured.
Learn more about the art project

November 17, 2017

The Urban Lens: Wayne Sorce’s vivid photos capture the spirit of 1970s and ’80s NYC