Saturday, June 30, 2001
Icons and other unrecognized Russian folk-art collectibles
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis:
One of the pleasures of country living is the weekly antiques and books fair, held on the green or in the school house of some pretty town in NY or Mass. We go there for books, and neat things that will enhance the ambiance of our existence, at negotiable prices. Meanwhile, we have acquired a new taste, for Staffordshire 9 1/4 inch historical porcelain plates of local subjects, a thing that the wily Brits made a pretty penny off of, from the 1700s until WWII. .Our few pieces are largely early 20th Century blue Wedgewood plates of Albany, van Rensselaer mansions and such. There are no sleepers here, only decorative values. The rare ones have been bought up long ago, or are out of our reach.
Scarcity of goods, in the face of growing collector interest has brought new kinds of country rarities into the market - old furniture and household goods from the former USSR Huge armoires with carvings and painted pictures from Belorussia abound. But the truly interesting items are Russian icons, paintings of saints and patriarchs, once used in churches and for family prayers.
We had seen fine icons in Sitka, Alaska, settled by Russians before the US bought it for pennies per acre. (Seward’s Folly was the smartest move US made). The wooden and metal images were worn down by kisses of the faithful, an had been covered by glass (plastic, in modern days). Finding old icons in the Sheffield, MA antiques fair was a new experience .
There we mer Dennis and Penny Easter of Palm Beach (www.russianstore.com), knowledgeable dealers in Russian art who have been making buying trips to Eastern Europe for 12 years. Many icons, painted since the 10th Century, were destroyed during the anti-religious Communist era, when houses of worship in the former USSR were burned down or turned into social clubs, therefore church-quality art is scarce. What typically survives is the 18th-19th Century family icon, hidden in the home, a small (8 ½ x 11 paper size) wooden block, 1-2 inches thick, of two heavy hardwood rectangles joined by a wooden crosspiece or strap in the back, and warped, nevertheless. Created mostly in the Golden Circle of some four villages an hour away from Moscow, the Byzantine portrayals of haloed saints and holy persons were strange presences in Sheffield, among the pieces of country furniture , Empire chairs and Victorian glassware that most dealers show.
Old and beautiful, icons are hard to come by. Russia controls the export of these national treasures. Consequently, smugglers bring them out of the country, much the same way as the Etruscan grave and Egyptian pyramid robbers of yore moved the relics of classical antiquity to Western Europe and America. [Actually, the rulers of the USSR had done their share of pilferage too, selling the treasures of the Tzars to the West before WWII, through Armand Hammer, subsequently the Tzar of Occidental Oil.] An icon, bought in Lithuania, where it was brought in from Russia through Belorussia, will carry legitimate export documentation from the Baltics - the Lithuanians don’t care, it is not their national treasure.
Icons rich in art are costly. A 19th Century household icon seen recently, priced at $1,900 had five Metropolitans in the center frame, surrounded by eight little pictures illustrating events in saints’ lives, the detail drawn with with a thin squirrel-hair brush, much of it in gold paint, covered with many layers of lacquer. The four villages produced good art - Fedoshino artists painted in oil, while egg tempera was predominant in Palekh, Khouli and Mstera - and they still do. You see, under the repressive USSR regime the village artisans switched their main effort from icons to manufacturing miniature lacquered boxes, also a Russian tradition of several centuries.
The boxes are of paper-mache, layers of paper and glue, sandpapered, painted black on the outside and red inside, receive 20 layers of lacquer before they are turned over to the painters, who decorate them with miniature paintings, mostly scenes of Russian mythology and village life. The artists work under large magnifying glasses with small brushes, some of them holding only one or two squirrel hairs. The artists (there are around 200 of them in the "factories") must have college degrees and 10 years of apprenticeship The boxes, which cost upwards of $300, are signed in bottom right, in tiny Cyrillic script, with the town identified on the left and the scene in the middle. "Street boxes," made of wood and painted by lesser artists, known as "the school of..." type, sell for $30-50 in the streets of Moscow.
The boxes were popularized in the US starting 1966, when Lucy Maxym, an entrepreneur and writer, discovered them, then began importing and selling them. Besides her "History and Art of the Icon" (1986), the two volumes of "Russian Lacquer; Legends and Fairy Tales" (1986, 1989) are the standard works on the topic. Her collection of over 100 boxes resides in the Toy and Miniature Museum in Kansas City, MO.
The Matryushka nesting dolls, a Russian tradition since the mid-1700s, have become popular in the US.. As many as 30 hollow wooden dolls, like eggs cut in half at the waist, are placed inside each other. They too come from the Golden Circle, originating in the prestigious art center within the Sergei-Posan monastery in Zagorsk. Nowadays the shells are machine-lathed and the joining edges that twist into each other are reinforced by heat before they are turned over to artists. Traditional scenes are either painted or burned with a glowing burin into the polished surfaces. The hand-painted subjects are the real objects of art: faces, figures, architectural scenes. Since America became aware of Matryushka dolls, U.S. presidents, members of the Chicago Bulls and other sports figures have become popular, until the NBA got on the opportunistic smalltime manufacturers, accusing them of infringement of property rights. Weret the faces of Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen and Denis Rodman at stake? No, it was the NBA uniforms and insignia. The enterprising Russians desisted, but not entirely. Some 4,000 different varieties of nesting dolls are said to be available in the U.S.
Another form of Russian lacquer, small candy bowls with red and black intricate patterns, are good holiday presents to give. We discovered them in Alaska, where many Russian art shops lure the tourists. Beautiful and a good art value, all of these varieties of artistic handwork creations will stand up for a long time (you should not untwist and rejoin the Matryoshkas too frequently, and don’t try to force them in humid weather, put them in the freezer for a spell), the dolls, boxes and bowls are true collectibles, with value easily discernible by the artistry and care of execution of the paintings..But the values of works of art as collectibles depend on popular taste, ruled by name recognition, potential of appreciation in value and liquidity Today’s baseball cards, printed paper tickets manufactured in the millions, are the perfect collectibles. Beauty cannot compete with such popularity and appreciation potential..
One of the pleasures of country living is the weekly antiques and books fair, held on the green or in the school house of some pretty town in NY or Mass. We go there for books, and neat things that will enhance the ambiance of our existence, at negotiable prices. Meanwhile, we have acquired a new taste, for Staffordshire 9 1/4 inch historical porcelain plates of local subjects, a thing that the wily Brits made a pretty penny off of, from the 1700s until WWII. .Our few pieces are largely early 20th Century blue Wedgewood plates of Albany, van Rensselaer mansions and such. There are no sleepers here, only decorative values. The rare ones have been bought up long ago, or are out of our reach.
Scarcity of goods, in the face of growing collector interest has brought new kinds of country rarities into the market - old furniture and household goods from the former USSR Huge armoires with carvings and painted pictures from Belorussia abound. But the truly interesting items are Russian icons, paintings of saints and patriarchs, once used in churches and for family prayers.
We had seen fine icons in Sitka, Alaska, settled by Russians before the US bought it for pennies per acre. (Seward’s Folly was the smartest move US made). The wooden and metal images were worn down by kisses of the faithful, an had been covered by glass (plastic, in modern days). Finding old icons in the Sheffield, MA antiques fair was a new experience .
There we mer Dennis and Penny Easter of Palm Beach (www.russianstore.com), knowledgeable dealers in Russian art who have been making buying trips to Eastern Europe for 12 years. Many icons, painted since the 10th Century, were destroyed during the anti-religious Communist era, when houses of worship in the former USSR were burned down or turned into social clubs, therefore church-quality art is scarce. What typically survives is the 18th-19th Century family icon, hidden in the home, a small (8 ½ x 11 paper size) wooden block, 1-2 inches thick, of two heavy hardwood rectangles joined by a wooden crosspiece or strap in the back, and warped, nevertheless. Created mostly in the Golden Circle of some four villages an hour away from Moscow, the Byzantine portrayals of haloed saints and holy persons were strange presences in Sheffield, among the pieces of country furniture , Empire chairs and Victorian glassware that most dealers show.
Old and beautiful, icons are hard to come by. Russia controls the export of these national treasures. Consequently, smugglers bring them out of the country, much the same way as the Etruscan grave and Egyptian pyramid robbers of yore moved the relics of classical antiquity to Western Europe and America. [Actually, the rulers of the USSR had done their share of pilferage too, selling the treasures of the Tzars to the West before WWII, through Armand Hammer, subsequently the Tzar of Occidental Oil.] An icon, bought in Lithuania, where it was brought in from Russia through Belorussia, will carry legitimate export documentation from the Baltics - the Lithuanians don’t care, it is not their national treasure.
Icons rich in art are costly. A 19th Century household icon seen recently, priced at $1,900 had five Metropolitans in the center frame, surrounded by eight little pictures illustrating events in saints’ lives, the detail drawn with with a thin squirrel-hair brush, much of it in gold paint, covered with many layers of lacquer. The four villages produced good art - Fedoshino artists painted in oil, while egg tempera was predominant in Palekh, Khouli and Mstera - and they still do. You see, under the repressive USSR regime the village artisans switched their main effort from icons to manufacturing miniature lacquered boxes, also a Russian tradition of several centuries.
The boxes are of paper-mache, layers of paper and glue, sandpapered, painted black on the outside and red inside, receive 20 layers of lacquer before they are turned over to the painters, who decorate them with miniature paintings, mostly scenes of Russian mythology and village life. The artists work under large magnifying glasses with small brushes, some of them holding only one or two squirrel hairs. The artists (there are around 200 of them in the "factories") must have college degrees and 10 years of apprenticeship The boxes, which cost upwards of $300, are signed in bottom right, in tiny Cyrillic script, with the town identified on the left and the scene in the middle. "Street boxes," made of wood and painted by lesser artists, known as "the school of..." type, sell for $30-50 in the streets of Moscow.
The boxes were popularized in the US starting 1966, when Lucy Maxym, an entrepreneur and writer, discovered them, then began importing and selling them. Besides her "History and Art of the Icon" (1986), the two volumes of "Russian Lacquer; Legends and Fairy Tales" (1986, 1989) are the standard works on the topic. Her collection of over 100 boxes resides in the Toy and Miniature Museum in Kansas City, MO.
The Matryushka nesting dolls, a Russian tradition since the mid-1700s, have become popular in the US.. As many as 30 hollow wooden dolls, like eggs cut in half at the waist, are placed inside each other. They too come from the Golden Circle, originating in the prestigious art center within the Sergei-Posan monastery in Zagorsk. Nowadays the shells are machine-lathed and the joining edges that twist into each other are reinforced by heat before they are turned over to artists. Traditional scenes are either painted or burned with a glowing burin into the polished surfaces. The hand-painted subjects are the real objects of art: faces, figures, architectural scenes. Since America became aware of Matryushka dolls, U.S. presidents, members of the Chicago Bulls and other sports figures have become popular, until the NBA got on the opportunistic smalltime manufacturers, accusing them of infringement of property rights. Weret the faces of Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen and Denis Rodman at stake? No, it was the NBA uniforms and insignia. The enterprising Russians desisted, but not entirely. Some 4,000 different varieties of nesting dolls are said to be available in the U.S.
Another form of Russian lacquer, small candy bowls with red and black intricate patterns, are good holiday presents to give. We discovered them in Alaska, where many Russian art shops lure the tourists. Beautiful and a good art value, all of these varieties of artistic handwork creations will stand up for a long time (you should not untwist and rejoin the Matryoshkas too frequently, and don’t try to force them in humid weather, put them in the freezer for a spell), the dolls, boxes and bowls are true collectibles, with value easily discernible by the artistry and care of execution of the paintings..But the values of works of art as collectibles depend on popular taste, ruled by name recognition, potential of appreciation in value and liquidity Today’s baseball cards, printed paper tickets manufactured in the millions, are the perfect collectibles. Beauty cannot compete with such popularity and appreciation potential..
Icons and other unrecognized Russian folk-art collectibles
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis:
One of the pleasures of country living is the weekly antiques and books fair, held on the green or in the school house of some pretty town in NY or Mass. We go there for books, and neat things that will enhance the ambiance of our existence, at negotiable prices. Meanwhile, we have acquired a new taste, for Staffordshire 9 1/4 inch historical porcelain plates of local subjects, a thing that the wily Brits made a pretty penny off of, from the 1700s until WWII. .Our few pieces are largely early 20th Century blue Wedgewood plates of Albany, van Rensselaer mansions and such. There are no sleepers here, only decorative values. The rare ones have been bought up long ago, or are out of our reach.
Scarcity of goods, in the face of growing collector interest has brought new kinds of country rarities into the market - old furniture and household goods from the former USSR Huge armoires with carvings and painted pictures from Belorussia abound. But the truly interesting items are Russian icons, paintings of saints and patriarchs, once used in churches and for family prayers.
We had seen fine icons in Sitka, Alaska, settled by Russians before the US bought it for pennies per acre. (Seward’s Folly was the smartest move US made). The wooden and metal images were worn down by kisses of the faithful, an had been covered by glass (plastic, in modern days). Finding old icons in the Sheffield, MA antiques fair was a new experience .
There we mer Dennis and Penny Easter of Palm Beach (www.russianstore.com), knowledgeable dealers in Russian art who have been making buying trips to Eastern Europe for 12 years. Many icons, painted since the 10th Century, were destroyed during the anti-religious Communist era, when houses of worship in the former USSR were burned down or turned into social clubs, therefore church-quality art is scarce. What typically survives is the 18th-19th Century family icon, hidden in the home, a small (8 ½ x 11 paper size) wooden block, 1-2 inches thick, of two heavy hardwood rectangles joined by a wooden crosspiece or strap in the back, and warped, nevertheless. Created mostly in the Golden Circle of some four villages an hour away from Moscow, the Byzantine portrayals of haloed saints and holy persons were strange presences in Sheffield, among the pieces of country furniture , Empire chairs and Victorian glassware that most dealers show.
Old and beautiful, icons are hard to come by. Russia controls the export of these national treasures. Consequently, smugglers bring them out of the country, much the same way as the Etruscan grave and Egyptian pyramid robbers of yore moved the relics of classical antiquity to Western Europe and America. [Actually, the rulers of the USSR had done their share of pilferage too, selling the treasures of the Tzars to the West before WWII, through Armand Hammer, subsequently the Tzar of Occidental Oil.] An icon, bought in Lithuania, where it was brought in from Russia through Belorussia, will carry legitimate export documentation from the Baltics - the Lithuanians don’t care, it is not their national treasure.
Icons rich in art are costly. A 19th Century household icon seen recently, priced at $1,900 had five Metropolitans in the center frame, surrounded by eight little pictures illustrating events in saints’ lives, the detail drawn with with a thin squirrel-hair brush, much of it in gold paint, covered with many layers of lacquer. The four villages produced good art - Fedoshino artists painted in oil, while egg tempera was predominant in Palekh, Khouli and Mstera - and they still do. You see, under the repressive USSR regime the village artisans switched their main effort from icons to manufacturing miniature lacquered boxes, also a Russian tradition of several centuries.
The boxes are of paper-mache, layers of paper and glue, sandpapered, painted black on the outside and red inside, receive 20 layers of lacquer before they are turned over to the painters, who decorate them with miniature paintings, mostly scenes of Russian mythology and village life. The artists work under large magnifying glasses with small brushes, some of them holding only one or two squirrel hairs. The artists (there are around 200 of them in the "factories") must have college degrees and 10 years of apprenticeship The boxes, which cost upwards of $300, are signed in bottom right, in tiny Cyrillic script, with the town identified on the left and the scene in the middle. "Street boxes," made of wood and painted by lesser artists, known as "the school of..." type, sell for $30-50 in the streets of Moscow.
The boxes were popularized in the US starting 1966, when Lucy Maxym, an entrepreneur and writer, discovered them, then began importing and selling them. Besides her "History and Art of the Icon" (1986), the two volumes of "Russian Lacquer; Legends and Fairy Tales" (1986, 1989) are the standard works on the topic. Her collection of over 100 boxes resides in the Toy and Miniature Museum in Kansas City, MO.
The Matryushka nesting dolls, a Russian tradition since the mid-1700s, have become popular in the US.. As many as 30 hollow wooden dolls, like eggs cut in half at the waist, are placed inside each other. They too come from the Golden Circle, originating in the prestigious art center within the Sergei-Posan monastery in Zagorsk. Nowadays the shells are machine-lathed and the joining edges that twist into each other are reinforced by heat before they are turned over to artists. Traditional scenes are either painted or burned with a glowing burin into the polished surfaces. The hand-painted subjects are the real objects of art: faces, figures, architectural scenes. Since America became aware of Matryushka dolls, U.S. presidents, members of the Chicago Bulls and other sports figures have become popular, until the NBA got on the opportunistic smalltime manufacturers, accusing them of infringement of property rights. Weret the faces of Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen and Denis Rodman at stake? No, it was the NBA uniforms and insignia. The enterprising Russians desisted, but not entirely. Some 4,000 different varieties of nesting dolls are said to be available in the U.S.
Another form of Russian lacquer, small candy bowls with red and black intricate patterns, are good holiday presents to give. We discovered them in Alaska, where many Russian art shops lure the tourists. Beautiful and a good art value, all of these varieties of artistic handwork creations will stand up for a long time (you should not untwist and rejoin the Matryoshkas too frequently, and don’t try to force them in humid weather, put them in the freezer for a spell), the dolls, boxes and bowls are true collectibles, with value easily discernible by the artistry and care of execution of the paintings..But the values of works of art as collectibles depend on popular taste, ruled by name recognition, potential of appreciation in value and liquidity Today’s baseball cards, printed paper tickets manufactured in the millions, are the perfect collectibles. Beauty cannot compete with such popularity and appreciation potential..
One of the pleasures of country living is the weekly antiques and books fair, held on the green or in the school house of some pretty town in NY or Mass. We go there for books, and neat things that will enhance the ambiance of our existence, at negotiable prices. Meanwhile, we have acquired a new taste, for Staffordshire 9 1/4 inch historical porcelain plates of local subjects, a thing that the wily Brits made a pretty penny off of, from the 1700s until WWII. .Our few pieces are largely early 20th Century blue Wedgewood plates of Albany, van Rensselaer mansions and such. There are no sleepers here, only decorative values. The rare ones have been bought up long ago, or are out of our reach.
Scarcity of goods, in the face of growing collector interest has brought new kinds of country rarities into the market - old furniture and household goods from the former USSR Huge armoires with carvings and painted pictures from Belorussia abound. But the truly interesting items are Russian icons, paintings of saints and patriarchs, once used in churches and for family prayers.
We had seen fine icons in Sitka, Alaska, settled by Russians before the US bought it for pennies per acre. (Seward’s Folly was the smartest move US made). The wooden and metal images were worn down by kisses of the faithful, an had been covered by glass (plastic, in modern days). Finding old icons in the Sheffield, MA antiques fair was a new experience .
There we mer Dennis and Penny Easter of Palm Beach (www.russianstore.com), knowledgeable dealers in Russian art who have been making buying trips to Eastern Europe for 12 years. Many icons, painted since the 10th Century, were destroyed during the anti-religious Communist era, when houses of worship in the former USSR were burned down or turned into social clubs, therefore church-quality art is scarce. What typically survives is the 18th-19th Century family icon, hidden in the home, a small (8 ½ x 11 paper size) wooden block, 1-2 inches thick, of two heavy hardwood rectangles joined by a wooden crosspiece or strap in the back, and warped, nevertheless. Created mostly in the Golden Circle of some four villages an hour away from Moscow, the Byzantine portrayals of haloed saints and holy persons were strange presences in Sheffield, among the pieces of country furniture , Empire chairs and Victorian glassware that most dealers show.
Old and beautiful, icons are hard to come by. Russia controls the export of these national treasures. Consequently, smugglers bring them out of the country, much the same way as the Etruscan grave and Egyptian pyramid robbers of yore moved the relics of classical antiquity to Western Europe and America. [Actually, the rulers of the USSR had done their share of pilferage too, selling the treasures of the Tzars to the West before WWII, through Armand Hammer, subsequently the Tzar of Occidental Oil.] An icon, bought in Lithuania, where it was brought in from Russia through Belorussia, will carry legitimate export documentation from the Baltics - the Lithuanians don’t care, it is not their national treasure.
Icons rich in art are costly. A 19th Century household icon seen recently, priced at $1,900 had five Metropolitans in the center frame, surrounded by eight little pictures illustrating events in saints’ lives, the detail drawn with with a thin squirrel-hair brush, much of it in gold paint, covered with many layers of lacquer. The four villages produced good art - Fedoshino artists painted in oil, while egg tempera was predominant in Palekh, Khouli and Mstera - and they still do. You see, under the repressive USSR regime the village artisans switched their main effort from icons to manufacturing miniature lacquered boxes, also a Russian tradition of several centuries.
The boxes are of paper-mache, layers of paper and glue, sandpapered, painted black on the outside and red inside, receive 20 layers of lacquer before they are turned over to the painters, who decorate them with miniature paintings, mostly scenes of Russian mythology and village life. The artists work under large magnifying glasses with small brushes, some of them holding only one or two squirrel hairs. The artists (there are around 200 of them in the "factories") must have college degrees and 10 years of apprenticeship The boxes, which cost upwards of $300, are signed in bottom right, in tiny Cyrillic script, with the town identified on the left and the scene in the middle. "Street boxes," made of wood and painted by lesser artists, known as "the school of..." type, sell for $30-50 in the streets of Moscow.
The boxes were popularized in the US starting 1966, when Lucy Maxym, an entrepreneur and writer, discovered them, then began importing and selling them. Besides her "History and Art of the Icon" (1986), the two volumes of "Russian Lacquer; Legends and Fairy Tales" (1986, 1989) are the standard works on the topic. Her collection of over 100 boxes resides in the Toy and Miniature Museum in Kansas City, MO.
The Matryushka nesting dolls, a Russian tradition since the mid-1700s, have become popular in the US.. As many as 30 hollow wooden dolls, like eggs cut in half at the waist, are placed inside each other. They too come from the Golden Circle, originating in the prestigious art center within the Sergei-Posan monastery in Zagorsk. Nowadays the shells are machine-lathed and the joining edges that twist into each other are reinforced by heat before they are turned over to artists. Traditional scenes are either painted or burned with a glowing burin into the polished surfaces. The hand-painted subjects are the real objects of art: faces, figures, architectural scenes. Since America became aware of Matryushka dolls, U.S. presidents, members of the Chicago Bulls and other sports figures have become popular, until the NBA got on the opportunistic smalltime manufacturers, accusing them of infringement of property rights. Weret the faces of Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen and Denis Rodman at stake? No, it was the NBA uniforms and insignia. The enterprising Russians desisted, but not entirely. Some 4,000 different varieties of nesting dolls are said to be available in the U.S.
Another form of Russian lacquer, small candy bowls with red and black intricate patterns, are good holiday presents to give. We discovered them in Alaska, where many Russian art shops lure the tourists. Beautiful and a good art value, all of these varieties of artistic handwork creations will stand up for a long time (you should not untwist and rejoin the Matryoshkas too frequently, and don’t try to force them in humid weather, put them in the freezer for a spell), the dolls, boxes and bowls are true collectibles, with value easily discernible by the artistry and care of execution of the paintings..But the values of works of art as collectibles depend on popular taste, ruled by name recognition, potential of appreciation in value and liquidity Today’s baseball cards, printed paper tickets manufactured in the millions, are the perfect collectibles. Beauty cannot compete with such popularity and appreciation potential..
Thursday, June 28, 2001
Energy
The lit-up New York skyline has always been a charming and reassuring sight. Today, though, in view of the energy crises that have affectred California and may also affect us in the Northeast, it becomes a witness to the huge wastage of energy resources and the atmospheric pollution that we , citizens of the richest country in the world, have indulged in since the energy crisis of the 1970s. Even President Bush speaks of (or at least did speak, as recently as April) "the privilegexxxx>"
We are about to get our comeuppance, the short-term one for not building more energy plants to cope with increasing population and technology needs, and the long-term one, when the earth’s oil resources run out in 38 years (my conclusion based on US government statistics), and we have not developed alternative sources and will have to rush into building atomic energy plants.
First, though, about those lit-up buildings, store windows, 24/7 climate control HVACs in business environments. Huge waste, controllable by simple flick of the switch. An architect friend tells me that many commercial buildings turn off the lights, and maybe air-conditioning, at 11 PM, and put them bac on at 6 AM or thereabouts, with the same schedule on weekends. To save money, many buildings are directly tied to breakers (panels) with 277 volt 3-phase lines, and cannot be interrupted with ease.
Security - need to ease access for the periodic night visits by guards - is another reason for the lit-up premises. Need for security on streets accounts for street-lights, controlled by timers or "electric eyes.".
NYS (Fed govt??) does do energy audits and provides some tax benefits for energy savings.Ther is no code, though, that punishes abuse of electric current. Federal government encourages employment af alternate sources.
What are they? First of all, photovoltaic panels, that convert solar energy into electricity, heat or air conditioning. Fuel cells or batteries save some of this perishable stuff. Fox and Fowle, a "green architecture" proponent firm, built the Conde Nast 48-story tower at 4 Times Square with PV panels in the walls, two fuel cells, gas-fired absorption panels, a network of recycling chutes throughout the building. Imagine, if all the future tall buildings could have PV panels in their walls? A small F&F structure, 9K sq ft Black Rock Forest consortium office, by use of the above, plus a heat pump system (which????), projects 45 percent less energy costs than a traditional building. They exemplify a new standard.
This standard is being legislated. In Massachusetts the use of glass walls may be history. Glass surfaces, even with double panes, are wasteful of energy, since they provide very limited insulation. Pre-cast PV panels may become the standard for curtain-wall buildings, lightweight, energy-generating and good insulants. There will be a complete revolution in architectute.
The US Department of Energy office of energy efficiency is promoting a Million Solar Roofs, with the expectation that such roofs by the year 2010 will reduce emissions equivalent to those of 850,000 cars, not to speak of energy savings. Installing PV cells, solar hot water and related systems will also generate 70,000 new jobs. Tax incentives exist already, 10 percent for home installations, 35 percent for businesses.
With all these efforts on hand in burbing energy waste in the business world, let us not forget the things that we the individuals can do. If President Johnson could walk through the White House turning off lights, whe could easily do the same in our smaller home environments. We can also install less electricity consuming light fixtures, such as ????. We can turn off our computers when not in use. We can lower thermostats and wear sweaters in cool periods - the Brits have been doint it for centuries
We are about to get our comeuppance, the short-term one for not building more energy plants to cope with increasing population and technology needs, and the long-term one, when the earth’s oil resources run out in 38 years (my conclusion based on US government statistics), and we have not developed alternative sources and will have to rush into building atomic energy plants.
First, though, about those lit-up buildings, store windows, 24/7 climate control HVACs in business environments. Huge waste, controllable by simple flick of the switch. An architect friend tells me that many commercial buildings turn off the lights, and maybe air-conditioning, at 11 PM, and put them bac on at 6 AM or thereabouts, with the same schedule on weekends. To save money, many buildings are directly tied to breakers (panels) with 277 volt 3-phase lines, and cannot be interrupted with ease.
Security - need to ease access for the periodic night visits by guards - is another reason for the lit-up premises. Need for security on streets accounts for street-lights, controlled by timers or "electric eyes.".
NYS (Fed govt??) does do energy audits and provides some tax benefits for energy savings.Ther is no code, though, that punishes abuse of electric current. Federal government encourages employment af alternate sources.
What are they? First of all, photovoltaic panels, that convert solar energy into electricity, heat or air conditioning. Fuel cells or batteries save some of this perishable stuff. Fox and Fowle, a "green architecture" proponent firm, built the Conde Nast 48-story tower at 4 Times Square with PV panels in the walls, two fuel cells, gas-fired absorption panels, a network of recycling chutes throughout the building. Imagine, if all the future tall buildings could have PV panels in their walls? A small F&F structure, 9K sq ft Black Rock Forest consortium office, by use of the above, plus a heat pump system (which????), projects 45 percent less energy costs than a traditional building. They exemplify a new standard.
This standard is being legislated. In Massachusetts the use of glass walls may be history. Glass surfaces, even with double panes, are wasteful of energy, since they provide very limited insulation. Pre-cast PV panels may become the standard for curtain-wall buildings, lightweight, energy-generating and good insulants. There will be a complete revolution in architectute.
The US Department of Energy office of energy efficiency is promoting a Million Solar Roofs, with the expectation that such roofs by the year 2010 will reduce emissions equivalent to those of 850,000 cars, not to speak of energy savings. Installing PV cells, solar hot water and related systems will also generate 70,000 new jobs. Tax incentives exist already, 10 percent for home installations, 35 percent for businesses.
With all these efforts on hand in burbing energy waste in the business world, let us not forget the things that we the individuals can do. If President Johnson could walk through the White House turning off lights, whe could easily do the same in our smaller home environments. We can also install less electricity consuming light fixtures, such as ????. We can turn off our computers when not in use. We can lower thermostats and wear sweaters in cool periods - the Brits have been doint it for centuries
Union Square Greenmarket will lose some space
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The Union Square Greenmarket, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this month, was, to my mind, one of the important XX Century’s innovations (along with such as the creation of the Landmarks Commission) that protected New York City’s integrity. More specifically, it protected Union Square from turning into a daytime business district and a nighttime drug users’ jungle.
Invented by Barry Benepe, an idealistic urban planner with a strong practical streak and good organizing ability, the Greenmarket involved the cooperation of many interests, some of them conflicting. The family farms in the tri-state area around NYC had been suffering for decades, unable to compete with the low-cost agribus production methods. While dairy farmers in some states have been partially saved by the recent Northeast Corridor Dairy price support Compact, fruit and vegetable growers have no such protection. The ability to drive into NYC and sell produce at retail prices was a godsend for them. Consumers, although paying a premium, were assured of home-grown produce, interesting specialty items not available in the mass-product agribus environment, and hand-picked quality. Not just moms and dads ; there are also major restaurant chefs who selected items for menu specials, rather than having crates of standard mass production goods delivered from Hunts Point, ordered by phone.
All of a sudden the drug-infested Union Square had a residential ambiance. And residences followed, Zeckendorf Towers added more of a residential density, quality restaurants opened to serve local customers. Union Square Park went through a reconstruction, the drug dealers were booted out, and the neighborhood experienced the often mentioned nevertheless true miraculous rebirth.
Now the Union Square area is a quality high-price mixed use district, and growing. But the Greenmarket, bringing trucks and market stands that occupy prime space four days a week, seems to have made the Parks and Recreation Department edgy. A Union Square redevelopment that would shrink the market space by putting three dense rows of trees and something of a promenade at the Southwest corner (Gandhi Park) was proposed by Parks in 1998. Barry Benepe, then an official of the Greenmarket organization, saw this as bad design that would overwhelm the park, and offered a reduced scheme. His protest was supported by the Fine Arts Federation of New York people..
The project went into abeyance during the Union Square subway station construction years, and seems to have surfaced again. .Parks Commissioned Henry J. Stern, when questioned by the NYTimes (June 6, 2001), indicates a pro-Greenmarket stance, but "when it comes to choosing between trees and trucks - big trucks - I’m for trees." As to the changes, his inconclusive statements ("We’ll design and then see what fits ...I don’t think ...any farmer will be forced out" and ".there will be room for 95, or 90 percent of the Greenmarket") are driving the friends of the farmers to distraction. This is particularly offensive when the commissioner neither discloses his plans nor seeks the cooperation of the community. Consequently, opposition abounds. One organization, Friends of the Greenmarket, collected nearly 20,000 signatures on a petition of protest in 1999, during a short two-week campaign. There is also a chefs’ group whose members are feeling threatened and have drafted letters of objection. The whole scene is particularly daunting when the farmers have repeatedly offered their cooperation in shrinking and readjusting their stalls, without receiving a definite proposal and the certainty of a continued relationship.
Currently the Union Square market supports 65 farmers, who set up shop on one or more of the four days a week along the North-West edges of the park, selling their farm produce, home-baked breads and flowers. On a typical Spring Saturday some 40,000 shoppers and tourists come through the area. Our market is a major tourist attraction and has been the prototype for 27 more Greenmarkets throughout the city, under the supervision of the Council on the Environment of NYC (a privately financed city agency, directed by Lys McLaughlin). Barry Benepe’s model is now studied and has been duplicated throughout the United States.
The Benepes, as a family, are environment people, and two of Barry’s sons are with the Parks Department. Ironically, Adrian Benepe, the Borough Commissioner of Parks for Manhattan, is at the forefront of the implementation of the changes in Union Square.
Having been a Union Square denizen and park watcher for 52 years, I have lived through all of its phases, with a window on the park for most of the seasons, good and bad, and can attest that the present time is the most cheerful. In the Square’s Hyde Park phase one could walk out at lunchtime into the park and participate in or be entertained by a debate with any one of a number of radicals who gathered people around them to expound their beliefs, theological, political or social, take your pick. Om May Day Harry Bridges and his cohorts would harangue the entire neighborhood, with Communist slogans blasting through loudspeakers, undaunted by the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy. On the day in 1952 when the Rosenbergs were executed, long lines of silent mourners formed along what is now the Greemarket line and into 17th Street, silently protesting and mourning.. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon rode along the parkside during the 1960 Presidential campaign. Mayor Robert F. Wagner campaigned in the park, bravely withstanding the attacks of wiseguy hecklers. The tradition continues, although less vehemently - Mayday orators still attack the market economy, and Edward Said can berate Israel at will on Muslim solidarity events. The market is closed on Mayday, and the South end of the Park is made available for special demonstrations on any day For my money, the Park is just fine as is. Any changes that the Commissioner wants to make should be presented to the community, early, though CB#5 and directly.
If you want to express your views, Commissioner Stern and Borough Commissioner Benepe can be reached through The Arsenal, 830 5th Ave, NYC 10021, 1-800-201-PARKS.
Executive Director McLaughlin of the Council is at 51 Chambers St., NY 10007. David Distler’s Friends of the Greenmarket have no listing.
.
I note with great interest that the City is making e-mail access to its agencies and officials very difficult. First of all you do not get to the agency by typing its name, or variants, or a NYC connotation term as the Yahoo or MSN search argument. They have deleted what are known as HTML metatags. To get to Henry Stern, click File, Open, type nyc.gov, enter and you will get the NYC home page. Under Directories in the column to the left of the Mayor’s message, click City Agencies, then Other Agencies, then L-P. It will give you the links to the agencies, you can go from there. Follow the same procedure for accessing Police, Fire or any other departments.. Tricky? As a citizen who wants to save taxpayers’ money spent answering frequently frivolous messages, I applaud; as the instigator of such (infrequent) messages, I’m annoyed.
The Union Square Greenmarket, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this month, was, to my mind, one of the important XX Century’s innovations (along with such as the creation of the Landmarks Commission) that protected New York City’s integrity. More specifically, it protected Union Square from turning into a daytime business district and a nighttime drug users’ jungle.
Invented by Barry Benepe, an idealistic urban planner with a strong practical streak and good organizing ability, the Greenmarket involved the cooperation of many interests, some of them conflicting. The family farms in the tri-state area around NYC had been suffering for decades, unable to compete with the low-cost agribus production methods. While dairy farmers in some states have been partially saved by the recent Northeast Corridor Dairy price support Compact, fruit and vegetable growers have no such protection. The ability to drive into NYC and sell produce at retail prices was a godsend for them. Consumers, although paying a premium, were assured of home-grown produce, interesting specialty items not available in the mass-product agribus environment, and hand-picked quality. Not just moms and dads ; there are also major restaurant chefs who selected items for menu specials, rather than having crates of standard mass production goods delivered from Hunts Point, ordered by phone.
All of a sudden the drug-infested Union Square had a residential ambiance. And residences followed, Zeckendorf Towers added more of a residential density, quality restaurants opened to serve local customers. Union Square Park went through a reconstruction, the drug dealers were booted out, and the neighborhood experienced the often mentioned nevertheless true miraculous rebirth.
Now the Union Square area is a quality high-price mixed use district, and growing. But the Greenmarket, bringing trucks and market stands that occupy prime space four days a week, seems to have made the Parks and Recreation Department edgy. A Union Square redevelopment that would shrink the market space by putting three dense rows of trees and something of a promenade at the Southwest corner (Gandhi Park) was proposed by Parks in 1998. Barry Benepe, then an official of the Greenmarket organization, saw this as bad design that would overwhelm the park, and offered a reduced scheme. His protest was supported by the Fine Arts Federation of New York people..
The project went into abeyance during the Union Square subway station construction years, and seems to have surfaced again. .Parks Commissioned Henry J. Stern, when questioned by the NYTimes (June 6, 2001), indicates a pro-Greenmarket stance, but "when it comes to choosing between trees and trucks - big trucks - I’m for trees." As to the changes, his inconclusive statements ("We’ll design and then see what fits ...I don’t think ...any farmer will be forced out" and ".there will be room for 95, or 90 percent of the Greenmarket") are driving the friends of the farmers to distraction. This is particularly offensive when the commissioner neither discloses his plans nor seeks the cooperation of the community. Consequently, opposition abounds. One organization, Friends of the Greenmarket, collected nearly 20,000 signatures on a petition of protest in 1999, during a short two-week campaign. There is also a chefs’ group whose members are feeling threatened and have drafted letters of objection. The whole scene is particularly daunting when the farmers have repeatedly offered their cooperation in shrinking and readjusting their stalls, without receiving a definite proposal and the certainty of a continued relationship.
Currently the Union Square market supports 65 farmers, who set up shop on one or more of the four days a week along the North-West edges of the park, selling their farm produce, home-baked breads and flowers. On a typical Spring Saturday some 40,000 shoppers and tourists come through the area. Our market is a major tourist attraction and has been the prototype for 27 more Greenmarkets throughout the city, under the supervision of the Council on the Environment of NYC (a privately financed city agency, directed by Lys McLaughlin). Barry Benepe’s model is now studied and has been duplicated throughout the United States.
The Benepes, as a family, are environment people, and two of Barry’s sons are with the Parks Department. Ironically, Adrian Benepe, the Borough Commissioner of Parks for Manhattan, is at the forefront of the implementation of the changes in Union Square.
Having been a Union Square denizen and park watcher for 52 years, I have lived through all of its phases, with a window on the park for most of the seasons, good and bad, and can attest that the present time is the most cheerful. In the Square’s Hyde Park phase one could walk out at lunchtime into the park and participate in or be entertained by a debate with any one of a number of radicals who gathered people around them to expound their beliefs, theological, political or social, take your pick. Om May Day Harry Bridges and his cohorts would harangue the entire neighborhood, with Communist slogans blasting through loudspeakers, undaunted by the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy. On the day in 1952 when the Rosenbergs were executed, long lines of silent mourners formed along what is now the Greemarket line and into 17th Street, silently protesting and mourning.. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon rode along the parkside during the 1960 Presidential campaign. Mayor Robert F. Wagner campaigned in the park, bravely withstanding the attacks of wiseguy hecklers. The tradition continues, although less vehemently - Mayday orators still attack the market economy, and Edward Said can berate Israel at will on Muslim solidarity events. The market is closed on Mayday, and the South end of the Park is made available for special demonstrations on any day For my money, the Park is just fine as is. Any changes that the Commissioner wants to make should be presented to the community, early, though CB#5 and directly.
If you want to express your views, Commissioner Stern and Borough Commissioner Benepe can be reached through The Arsenal, 830 5th Ave, NYC 10021, 1-800-201-PARKS.
Executive Director McLaughlin of the Council is at 51 Chambers St., NY 10007. David Distler’s Friends of the Greenmarket have no listing.
.
I note with great interest that the City is making e-mail access to its agencies and officials very difficult. First of all you do not get to the agency by typing its name, or variants, or a NYC connotation term as the Yahoo or MSN search argument. They have deleted what are known as HTML metatags. To get to Henry Stern, click File, Open, type nyc.gov, enter and you will get the NYC home page. Under Directories in the column to the left of the Mayor’s message, click City Agencies, then Other Agencies, then L-P. It will give you the links to the agencies, you can go from there. Follow the same procedure for accessing Police, Fire or any other departments.. Tricky? As a citizen who wants to save taxpayers’ money spent answering frequently frivolous messages, I applaud; as the instigator of such (infrequent) messages, I’m annoyed.
Thursday, June 21, 2001
Madison Square North Historic District proposal - a walking tour
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
We do not have to visit London or Paris, there are sleeping architectural beauties right here in old New York that enthusiastic students and preservationists periodically discover and trot out for our view. There's now a proposal for a Madison Square North Historic District, for the area between 24th to 29th Streets, reaching East to Madison Avenue and West to midway between Broadway and 6th Avenue. It was a project at Columbia University's Historic Preservation Studio, 1998-99; then it reached receptive ears at the Landmarks Commission. There have been hearings, and sympathetic testimony has been given by the Historic Districts Council, the Ladies Mile crowd, Land Conservancy and the Municipal Arts people.
I joined small guided tour with Joyce Matz, George Kewin and Jack Taylor of CB#5's Landmark's Committee, given by one of the Columbia project leaders, Kate Wood.
First, about the neighborhood. As the wealth and society of Manhattan moved uptown, it passed through Madison Square and its park in the late 19th Century. Hotels, theatres, offices and restaurants were built. Fine tall buildings were designed on the classical orders, with a base, a shaft and an entablature, the latter made up of an architrave (like a lintel atop a door), a freeze (think of the flat fascia below the eaves of homes) and a cornice (or eaves) The gingerbread - turrets, dormers - reach out through the entablature, Pediments, the triangular Greek temple gable-end, can be found atop the entablature.Multitudes of styles mix here, since this was also the notorious Tenderloin..
The tour was easy, we walked from 24th Street, along 5th Avenue - stopping at corners to admire the side streets - to 29th, then West to Broadway and back to our starting point. First stop was the neat No. 204 (5th Ave, that is), the former Lincoln Bank and Trust building, designed by C.P.H.Gilbert, 1913 (not to be confused with Cass Gilbert). Next, No.210 (arch. John B. Snook & Son, 1908), former Mark Cross store, with a good bay window and balcony. At the NE corner of 26th Street, the 12-story Brunswick (No. 225) , a Beaux Arts office building by F.H.Kimball & H.E. Donnell 1904, is the baby successor to the ornate 15-story hotel of the same name, once extending nearly the length of the block, practically all the way to the former ASPCA building (50 Madison, by Renwick, Aspinall and Owen, 1897 - look into its dainty lobby).. Diagonally across, at the SE corner, was the Jerome Mansion, where Jenny Jerome, Winston Churchill's mother, spent her youth. Landmarked in 1965, it was torn down for want of owners willing to maintain it, and replaced by the black glass NY Merchandise Mart.
At 27th Street, looking East, on the West side the Chinese- looking cinnabar red Gershwin Hotel has peculiar .white fiberglass protruding lintels, called "flaming tongues" (so named by their Finnish sculptor, Stephen Lindfors) that light up at night. Hotels abound, in the tradition of the district, including the extension of Prince George (see 28th) and the Trapeze..
Continuing on 5th Ave to 28th Street, we stop at the NW corner, to look at the 1908 Broadway National Bank (No. 250), built as the 2nd National Bank, by W. Richardson of McKim Mead (White was shot in 1906).Tall No 245, under renovation, is an Art Deco design by Eli Jacques Kahn, as is No.261, also being redone. The latter has memorable interiors. An interesting structure is No 251, a small yellow building with four cornices. It seems to have three stories added at different times. No 256, a Moorish article with a terracota facade featuring foliated columns is an Alfred Zucker fantasy (1893; we know him from Union Square's Decker Building)
East, around the SE corner, is the venerable Latham, long a welfare hotel. Its neighbor, the huge Prince George (No. 14 E. 28th, by Howard Greenley, 1904), has had a costly restoration, with the cavernous lobbies looking quite princely. It is a sorely needed quality SRO hotel. On corner Madison the elegant Carleton, formerly the Seville Hotel (Harley Allen Jacobs, 1901) is still under renovation. Across, at 29 E. 28th Street, is another Renwick, a 1879 survivor.
Looking up to 29th Street we wave at the late Norman Vincent Peale's Marble Collegiate Church on the NW corner (of limestone, by Samuel A. Warney, 1851-54), a clean Gothic Revival. It is not on our District plan, don't ask me why; neither is the other 29th St sweetie, the Little Church Around the Corner, nor the Gilsey House at 1200 Broadway, All three are landmarked.
We now turn West, on 28th Street, walking towards 1181 Broadway, where Alfred Zucker's 1895 Baudouine (Boduin) Building with its little temple on top is practically signalling at us. Baudouine was a cabinet maker who turned to investing in real estate. Nearing the corner we note, in the sidewalk of 1170Broadway, just before the wagon of the schwarma and couscous seller, a brass plaque identifying the 5th to 6th Ave blocks as the original Tin Pan Alley (although Broadway to 6th Ave would be more accurate). It was thus, in the 1890s, when M. Willmark was the top publisher. In the 1930s it had moved uptown, to Times Square's Brill building, at 1619 Broadway.
Walking South on Broadway, past the shouting Arab and Korean merchants of perfumes, jewelry and electronic goods, we note that the upper floors beneath the 1950s store fronts conceal some treasures. At 1165-75, the former Coleman House aka Metropolitan Hotel (1900) the upper stories have vertically organized bay windows. The Johnston Building (at 1166-70, 1902) has a turret and a belvedere, all it lacks is a beautiful maiden. At No. 1149 (DeLemos & Cordes, 1886) the name of Walla ce & Co looks exotic, until we note that a keystone has been lost in the center space. Wallace, is the name.
The St James, at 1129, has a three-story decorated arcade, designed by Bruce Price, 1896. He designed the Tuxedo Park community, and his daughter Emily positively identified avoidable social faux-pas, such eating peas with a knife, for generations of Americans.. The Townsend Building (at 1123, by Eidlitz and Eidlitz, 1897, we know them from St George's on Stuyvesant Square) has high decorated architraves, and chamfered (meaning beveled or sliced -off) building edge. Stone-trimmed brick abounds. Returning to 24th Street, we note, at 1122 Broadway, the corner Commodore Criterion building, as a slightly Art Decco 1918 Buchman and Kahn design
This trip is stimulating. Someday soon we will do a complete Madison Square area tour, covering the big-time treasures around the park.
We do not have to visit London or Paris, there are sleeping architectural beauties right here in old New York that enthusiastic students and preservationists periodically discover and trot out for our view. There's now a proposal for a Madison Square North Historic District, for the area between 24th to 29th Streets, reaching East to Madison Avenue and West to midway between Broadway and 6th Avenue. It was a project at Columbia University's Historic Preservation Studio, 1998-99; then it reached receptive ears at the Landmarks Commission. There have been hearings, and sympathetic testimony has been given by the Historic Districts Council, the Ladies Mile crowd, Land Conservancy and the Municipal Arts people.
I joined small guided tour with Joyce Matz, George Kewin and Jack Taylor of CB#5's Landmark's Committee, given by one of the Columbia project leaders, Kate Wood.
First, about the neighborhood. As the wealth and society of Manhattan moved uptown, it passed through Madison Square and its park in the late 19th Century. Hotels, theatres, offices and restaurants were built. Fine tall buildings were designed on the classical orders, with a base, a shaft and an entablature, the latter made up of an architrave (like a lintel atop a door), a freeze (think of the flat fascia below the eaves of homes) and a cornice (or eaves) The gingerbread - turrets, dormers - reach out through the entablature, Pediments, the triangular Greek temple gable-end, can be found atop the entablature.Multitudes of styles mix here, since this was also the notorious Tenderloin..
The tour was easy, we walked from 24th Street, along 5th Avenue - stopping at corners to admire the side streets - to 29th, then West to Broadway and back to our starting point. First stop was the neat No. 204 (5th Ave, that is), the former Lincoln Bank and Trust building, designed by C.P.H.Gilbert, 1913 (not to be confused with Cass Gilbert). Next, No.210 (arch. John B. Snook & Son, 1908), former Mark Cross store, with a good bay window and balcony. At the NE corner of 26th Street, the 12-story Brunswick (No. 225) , a Beaux Arts office building by F.H.Kimball & H.E. Donnell 1904, is the baby successor to the ornate 15-story hotel of the same name, once extending nearly the length of the block, practically all the way to the former ASPCA building (50 Madison, by Renwick, Aspinall and Owen, 1897 - look into its dainty lobby).. Diagonally across, at the SE corner, was the Jerome Mansion, where Jenny Jerome, Winston Churchill's mother, spent her youth. Landmarked in 1965, it was torn down for want of owners willing to maintain it, and replaced by the black glass NY Merchandise Mart.
At 27th Street, looking East, on the West side the Chinese- looking cinnabar red Gershwin Hotel has peculiar .white fiberglass protruding lintels, called "flaming tongues" (so named by their Finnish sculptor, Stephen Lindfors) that light up at night. Hotels abound, in the tradition of the district, including the extension of Prince George (see 28th) and the Trapeze..
Continuing on 5th Ave to 28th Street, we stop at the NW corner, to look at the 1908 Broadway National Bank (No. 250), built as the 2nd National Bank, by W. Richardson of McKim Mead (White was shot in 1906).Tall No 245, under renovation, is an Art Deco design by Eli Jacques Kahn, as is No.261, also being redone. The latter has memorable interiors. An interesting structure is No 251, a small yellow building with four cornices. It seems to have three stories added at different times. No 256, a Moorish article with a terracota facade featuring foliated columns is an Alfred Zucker fantasy (1893; we know him from Union Square's Decker Building)
East, around the SE corner, is the venerable Latham, long a welfare hotel. Its neighbor, the huge Prince George (No. 14 E. 28th, by Howard Greenley, 1904), has had a costly restoration, with the cavernous lobbies looking quite princely. It is a sorely needed quality SRO hotel. On corner Madison the elegant Carleton, formerly the Seville Hotel (Harley Allen Jacobs, 1901) is still under renovation. Across, at 29 E. 28th Street, is another Renwick, a 1879 survivor.
Looking up to 29th Street we wave at the late Norman Vincent Peale's Marble Collegiate Church on the NW corner (of limestone, by Samuel A. Warney, 1851-54), a clean Gothic Revival. It is not on our District plan, don't ask me why; neither is the other 29th St sweetie, the Little Church Around the Corner, nor the Gilsey House at 1200 Broadway, All three are landmarked.
We now turn West, on 28th Street, walking towards 1181 Broadway, where Alfred Zucker's 1895 Baudouine (Boduin) Building with its little temple on top is practically signalling at us. Baudouine was a cabinet maker who turned to investing in real estate. Nearing the corner we note, in the sidewalk of 1170Broadway, just before the wagon of the schwarma and couscous seller, a brass plaque identifying the 5th to 6th Ave blocks as the original Tin Pan Alley (although Broadway to 6th Ave would be more accurate). It was thus, in the 1890s, when M. Willmark was the top publisher. In the 1930s it had moved uptown, to Times Square's Brill building, at 1619 Broadway.
Walking South on Broadway, past the shouting Arab and Korean merchants of perfumes, jewelry and electronic goods, we note that the upper floors beneath the 1950s store fronts conceal some treasures. At 1165-75, the former Coleman House aka Metropolitan Hotel (1900) the upper stories have vertically organized bay windows. The Johnston Building (at 1166-70, 1902) has a turret and a belvedere, all it lacks is a beautiful maiden. At No. 1149 (DeLemos & Cordes, 1886) the name of Walla ce & Co looks exotic, until we note that a keystone has been lost in the center space. Wallace, is the name.
The St James, at 1129, has a three-story decorated arcade, designed by Bruce Price, 1896. He designed the Tuxedo Park community, and his daughter Emily positively identified avoidable social faux-pas, such eating peas with a knife, for generations of Americans.. The Townsend Building (at 1123, by Eidlitz and Eidlitz, 1897, we know them from St George's on Stuyvesant Square) has high decorated architraves, and chamfered (meaning beveled or sliced -off) building edge. Stone-trimmed brick abounds. Returning to 24th Street, we note, at 1122 Broadway, the corner Commodore Criterion building, as a slightly Art Decco 1918 Buchman and Kahn design
This trip is stimulating. Someday soon we will do a complete Madison Square area tour, covering the big-time treasures around the park.
Thursday, June 07, 2001
The Bush girls
Who can blame Jenna and Barbara Bush for going off the rail? After all if you are destiny’s children, with your future defined by four generations of strivers and achievers, it is hard to accept the dictates placed on your life when all you want to be is living as privileged teenagers having fun.
The privileged status was wished upon them by the three generations preceding, a Senator from Connecticut, a President of the US, and a Governor of the State of Texas now turned President. That’s a heavy load to shape behavior if you’re genetically rambunctious and a rebel. And with the parents occupied in striving for political success, parental neglect combined with edicts and commands - the kids had to show their independence. If the form it took was drinking and dating - well, there was some parental precedent to point back it. You never know what the kids will pick up.
Politicians’ progeny have always had trouble adjusting, and their political success un elected offices is exception rather than the rule. The Bushes are a notably spectacular, in three generations. Although the three Kennedys, children of Joe, were exceptional; their progeny have shown a full range of accomplishment and failure, from self-destruction to midrange success. The F.D.R. Roosevelts failed; the T.R. Roosevelts are solid citizens, with non=political accomplishments.. Randolph Churchill, son of Sir Vinston, went down in flames.
What made the Bushes so exceptional? Maybe it was the original W, the great-grandfather, whose name survives with both George Herbert Walker Bush, and George Walker Bush.
George Herbert. Walker was a young stockbroker with excellent British connections in St. Louis, not a major financial center. He was so good that the Harriman brothers asked him to come to NYC to form W. A Harriman Company, a private bank. W Averell was the son of E.H. . Harriman, who gained control of the Union Pacific RR in 1898. E. Roland the builder of So Pacific Railroad and xxx. He became the managerr of their Wall Street firm, and tied in with Brown Brothers, a Londotn banking family, merging the businesses in 1921. The resulting firm, Brown Brothers harriman, became an international force. They were well establisher wth Soviet Union and Germany, gained control of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, and had major dealings with Fritz Thyssen, with access to the Nazi government. Walker had truly world-wide connections,
As an aside, the Harrimans apparently lost their acuity in subsequient generations, and Walker kept the family business going. Averell Harrima, son of xx was elected the Governor of New York State. Well in his advanced years, he married the ambitious Pamela Churchill, the former wife of Randolph and the intimate friend of many important men, whose political skills earned her the appointment as Ambassador to France during the Clinton administration.
Prescott Bush son of a Columbus OH rail car manufacturer, was a classmate of W. Averell Harriman’s at Yale.He met and married Walker’s daughter and joined the family firm. A booster of Eisenhower’s presidential candidacy, the wealthy young banker ran for the US Senate from Connecticut with Ike and was elected for for a part term in 1952, reelected in 1956 and retired in 1963, returning to Brown Brothers Harriman.
His son, George Herbert Walker Bush, who gets criticised as a product of the influential cabal at Yale called the Skull and Bones, actually earned his advancement in politics through service in the government. The list is extensive -Born 1924, youngest Navy pilot who earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and tree Air Medals, he graduated from Yale after 2 ½ years of studies, in 1948 and settled in Texas with family-owned Dresser Indistries, to be an oilman. He founded Zapata Off-Shore, an international drilling company. A supporter of zero population growth, in 1964 he later he ran for Senate (against liberal Ralph yarborough), lost, but won House seats in 1966 and 1968. He blew another Senate race in 1970 (against Lloyd Bentsen), won appointment to as Ambassador to the UN 1971-73, became a liaison head in Beijing, 1974-74 (after President Nixon’s trip in 1972), and Director of the CIA, 1976-77.. He tried to run for President in 1980, lost and accepted the Vice Presidency under Ronald Reagan, 1981-89. He was elected President, 1989, beating Michael Dukakis and inheriting and continuing the huge Reagan national debt. Although procclaiming a "kinder, gentler nation"he ended up fighting two wars, in 1988 overthrowing Manuel Noriega in Panama and in 1991 driving Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, after the dictator’s 1990 invasion. But he helped Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989 and 1990 in dissolving the Soviet Union.
The Bsh sons have been problems for George H.W. and the formidable Barbara. Jeb, Governor of Florida, xxxGeorge w. an unsccessful oil man and uccessful president of the Texas Rangers (he got the team a new ballfield space and stadium by using his influence in government, and sold out his share at as huge profit), when he ran for Gov in 19. Re-elected in 1998//he leveraged tis office into thr Presidency of the US in 20hs0u0Brixxu.By and large, the Bushes have been the most successful American political family, over four generations, to date. Whether this will hold is a questin. George w’s daughters are rebelling against the imposed regime, by not attending the Inaugural, an drinking and rebelling on campus, the drinking inherited from Dad, a happy alcohol user until wife Laura too matters in her hand. Ther may also have been more problems 27 years ago).
For perspective, note that the great TR’s daughter Alica was a problem. "I can run the country, and I can control Alice, but I cannot do both," he explained to his friend Owen Wister. She eventually bgrew up and became the grande dame of Washington, ruling the city’s social life for many decades.
These kids will grow up, too.I hate to see political capital being made out of kids. This column was prompted by a particularly repulsive radio interview show by Joan Rivers on WOR, in which she yucked up a comparison: ‘Clinton had his Monica Lewinsky, and Bush has Jenna and Barbara." Rivers, a bad move..
The privileged status was wished upon them by the three generations preceding, a Senator from Connecticut, a President of the US, and a Governor of the State of Texas now turned President. That’s a heavy load to shape behavior if you’re genetically rambunctious and a rebel. And with the parents occupied in striving for political success, parental neglect combined with edicts and commands - the kids had to show their independence. If the form it took was drinking and dating - well, there was some parental precedent to point back it. You never know what the kids will pick up.
Politicians’ progeny have always had trouble adjusting, and their political success un elected offices is exception rather than the rule. The Bushes are a notably spectacular, in three generations. Although the three Kennedys, children of Joe, were exceptional; their progeny have shown a full range of accomplishment and failure, from self-destruction to midrange success. The F.D.R. Roosevelts failed; the T.R. Roosevelts are solid citizens, with non=political accomplishments.. Randolph Churchill, son of Sir Vinston, went down in flames.
What made the Bushes so exceptional? Maybe it was the original W, the great-grandfather, whose name survives with both George Herbert Walker Bush, and George Walker Bush.
George Herbert. Walker was a young stockbroker with excellent British connections in St. Louis, not a major financial center. He was so good that the Harriman brothers asked him to come to NYC to form W. A Harriman Company, a private bank. W Averell was the son of E.H. . Harriman, who gained control of the Union Pacific RR in 1898. E. Roland the builder of So Pacific Railroad and xxx. He became the managerr of their Wall Street firm, and tied in with Brown Brothers, a Londotn banking family, merging the businesses in 1921. The resulting firm, Brown Brothers harriman, became an international force. They were well establisher wth Soviet Union and Germany, gained control of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, and had major dealings with Fritz Thyssen, with access to the Nazi government. Walker had truly world-wide connections,
As an aside, the Harrimans apparently lost their acuity in subsequient generations, and Walker kept the family business going. Averell Harrima, son of xx was elected the Governor of New York State. Well in his advanced years, he married the ambitious Pamela Churchill, the former wife of Randolph and the intimate friend of many important men, whose political skills earned her the appointment as Ambassador to France during the Clinton administration.
Prescott Bush son of a Columbus OH rail car manufacturer, was a classmate of W. Averell Harriman’s at Yale.He met and married Walker’s daughter and joined the family firm. A booster of Eisenhower’s presidential candidacy, the wealthy young banker ran for the US Senate from Connecticut with Ike and was elected for for a part term in 1952, reelected in 1956 and retired in 1963, returning to Brown Brothers Harriman.
His son, George Herbert Walker Bush, who gets criticised as a product of the influential cabal at Yale called the Skull and Bones, actually earned his advancement in politics through service in the government. The list is extensive -Born 1924, youngest Navy pilot who earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and tree Air Medals, he graduated from Yale after 2 ½ years of studies, in 1948 and settled in Texas with family-owned Dresser Indistries, to be an oilman. He founded Zapata Off-Shore, an international drilling company. A supporter of zero population growth, in 1964 he later he ran for Senate (against liberal Ralph yarborough), lost, but won House seats in 1966 and 1968. He blew another Senate race in 1970 (against Lloyd Bentsen), won appointment to as Ambassador to the UN 1971-73, became a liaison head in Beijing, 1974-74 (after President Nixon’s trip in 1972), and Director of the CIA, 1976-77.. He tried to run for President in 1980, lost and accepted the Vice Presidency under Ronald Reagan, 1981-89. He was elected President, 1989, beating Michael Dukakis and inheriting and continuing the huge Reagan national debt. Although procclaiming a "kinder, gentler nation"he ended up fighting two wars, in 1988 overthrowing Manuel Noriega in Panama and in 1991 driving Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, after the dictator’s 1990 invasion. But he helped Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989 and 1990 in dissolving the Soviet Union.
The Bsh sons have been problems for George H.W. and the formidable Barbara. Jeb, Governor of Florida, xxxGeorge w. an unsccessful oil man and uccessful president of the Texas Rangers (he got the team a new ballfield space and stadium by using his influence in government, and sold out his share at as huge profit), when he ran for Gov in 19. Re-elected in 1998//he leveraged tis office into thr Presidency of the US in 20hs0u0Brixxu.By and large, the Bushes have been the most successful American political family, over four generations, to date. Whether this will hold is a questin. George w’s daughters are rebelling against the imposed regime, by not attending the Inaugural, an drinking and rebelling on campus, the drinking inherited from Dad, a happy alcohol user until wife Laura too matters in her hand. Ther may also have been more problems 27 years ago).
For perspective, note that the great TR’s daughter Alica was a problem. "I can run the country, and I can control Alice, but I cannot do both," he explained to his friend Owen Wister. She eventually bgrew up and became the grande dame of Washington, ruling the city’s social life for many decades.
These kids will grow up, too.I hate to see political capital being made out of kids. This column was prompted by a particularly repulsive radio interview show by Joan Rivers on WOR, in which she yucked up a comparison: ‘Clinton had his Monica Lewinsky, and Bush has Jenna and Barbara." Rivers, a bad move..
