Thursday, August 19, 2004
Local history that Republican conventioneers should visit
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
In conjunction with the Republican Presidential Convention, coming to New York Monday August 30 through Thursday, September 2, let’s review the historical treasures of ideological interest that T&V Country can offer our visitors for viewing. We do have them.
First, the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace at 28 East 20th Street, west of Park Avenue South, a National Parks site, open Tue-Sat 9-5.Roosevelt (1858-1919), sometime G. W. Bush’s idol, was a sickly asthmatic boy, and used a backyard gym to strengthen himself. Through self-discipline and character force he toughened both mind and body, played sports, graduated Harvard, studied briefly at Columbia Law, at 23 ran for state assembly and was elected, at 25 became a North Dakota rancher, at 27 ran for Mayor of NYC, at 30 was appointed to help reform US Civil Service, at 37 became the president of NYC Police Board, rode to work on a bicycle and prowled the streets looking for crooks and delinquent cops. Assistant Secretary of the Navy at 39, he organized the Rough Riders and rode up St. Juan Hill in the war with Spain. Elected Governor of NYS at 40, he fought the spoils system and installed taxation of corporations. Two years later (1900) he became the VP of US and a year later, the nation’s youngest President when McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz. He wrote 46 books, both for profit (the ranch went broke in the drought of 1886) and to express ideas. This site is not on the official tour list of the Convention, and neither are the other ones listed below; the radical Republicans in Washington would not approve of TR’s unyielding stance in conservationism and his unyielding fights against giant trusts (he dissolved corporations that violated anti-trust regulations), “malefactors of great wealth,” and corruption of politics by big business. TR also regulated railroad rates, secret rebates, established Pure Food and Drug Act and employer liability rules and, although militant in establishing America’s role as a world power, was able to accomplish it with little bloodshed, earning the Nobel peace price (specifically, for mediating in the Russo-Japanese War).
Less known is the Roosevelt Building, a great terra-cotta castle on the NW corner of Broadway and 13th Street, named after Teddy’s grandfather, Cornelius, the glass merchant, whose house was mid-block (Stephen Hatch, 1893). The posts on 2nd Floor are crumbling, and you can see what was underneath. Terra cotta and cast-iron were the building materials that made this neighborhood a preservationists’ laboratory and exhibit hall.
We also have at least two Lincoln memorials. First, the former St. Dennis Hotel, once one of New York’s finest, at 799 Broadway (11th Street), designed by the great James J. Renwick Jr. in 1851, after he built the Grace Church across Broadway, and before he received the St. Patrick’s Cathedral commission. It is now a much-remodeled office building, with a rather imposing entrance door. The staircases and handrails still speak of the lifestyle of years past. Abraham Lincoln met and addressed New York’s abolitionists in the 2nd Floor parlor in his 1860 visit, now a business office. President U.S. Grant is also known to have stayed there, and Alexander Graham Bell spoke the famous words "Come here, Watson, I need you" in the self-same room in 1877, introducing us to the telephone age. The interesting terra-cotta window decorations a long time ago, and only a few items and a poster in the manager’s office remind us of the past.
Lincoln actually came to address NY Republicans, 1,500 of them, at Cooper Union, on February 27, hoping to show that an ungainly ill educated Midwesterner can speak and reason as well as their candidate William Henry Seward. The peacemaker candidate succeeded in establishing his point that a majority of signers of the Constitution believed that Congress should contain slavery and not allow it to expand into the territories. Thus, his Republican party would be no threat to the Southern states. He received New York’s support and was elected, but the South attacked a few months later anyway, at Fort Sumter, and lost, with the world supporting the righteous position of the North.
In line with Washington’s efforts to co-opt the world community in pacifying Iraq, the delegates should also visit the United Nation’s headquarters, our neighbor to the north, and reacquaint themselves with the horrors of destruction that forced the nationalist nations of the world into giving up selfish principles in order to ban war. Unsuccessfully, but one must keep trying.
For general interest, the Convention is expected to bring 55,000 visitors to the city, with 18,000 rooms reserved in 40 hotels. The locale is Madison Square garden, with daily 10-1 and 8-11 sessions. First day speakers will be Mayors Bloomberg and Giuliani and Senator McCain, second day Laura Bush and Gov. Schwarzenegger, third - the Cheneys and Zell Miller, the Dem Senator of Georgia, fourth will bring on Gov. Patak, i introducing President Bush, who will accept the nomination. During the day the delegates are offered pricey tours of the city and environs, none of which include the Roosevelt and Lincoln sites.
In conjunction with the Republican Presidential Convention, coming to New York Monday August 30 through Thursday, September 2, let’s review the historical treasures of ideological interest that T&V Country can offer our visitors for viewing. We do have them.
First, the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace at 28 East 20th Street, west of Park Avenue South, a National Parks site, open Tue-Sat 9-5.Roosevelt (1858-1919), sometime G. W. Bush’s idol, was a sickly asthmatic boy, and used a backyard gym to strengthen himself. Through self-discipline and character force he toughened both mind and body, played sports, graduated Harvard, studied briefly at Columbia Law, at 23 ran for state assembly and was elected, at 25 became a North Dakota rancher, at 27 ran for Mayor of NYC, at 30 was appointed to help reform US Civil Service, at 37 became the president of NYC Police Board, rode to work on a bicycle and prowled the streets looking for crooks and delinquent cops. Assistant Secretary of the Navy at 39, he organized the Rough Riders and rode up St. Juan Hill in the war with Spain. Elected Governor of NYS at 40, he fought the spoils system and installed taxation of corporations. Two years later (1900) he became the VP of US and a year later, the nation’s youngest President when McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz. He wrote 46 books, both for profit (the ranch went broke in the drought of 1886) and to express ideas. This site is not on the official tour list of the Convention, and neither are the other ones listed below; the radical Republicans in Washington would not approve of TR’s unyielding stance in conservationism and his unyielding fights against giant trusts (he dissolved corporations that violated anti-trust regulations), “malefactors of great wealth,” and corruption of politics by big business. TR also regulated railroad rates, secret rebates, established Pure Food and Drug Act and employer liability rules and, although militant in establishing America’s role as a world power, was able to accomplish it with little bloodshed, earning the Nobel peace price (specifically, for mediating in the Russo-Japanese War).
Less known is the Roosevelt Building, a great terra-cotta castle on the NW corner of Broadway and 13th Street, named after Teddy’s grandfather, Cornelius, the glass merchant, whose house was mid-block (Stephen Hatch, 1893). The posts on 2nd Floor are crumbling, and you can see what was underneath. Terra cotta and cast-iron were the building materials that made this neighborhood a preservationists’ laboratory and exhibit hall.
We also have at least two Lincoln memorials. First, the former St. Dennis Hotel, once one of New York’s finest, at 799 Broadway (11th Street), designed by the great James J. Renwick Jr. in 1851, after he built the Grace Church across Broadway, and before he received the St. Patrick’s Cathedral commission. It is now a much-remodeled office building, with a rather imposing entrance door. The staircases and handrails still speak of the lifestyle of years past. Abraham Lincoln met and addressed New York’s abolitionists in the 2nd Floor parlor in his 1860 visit, now a business office. President U.S. Grant is also known to have stayed there, and Alexander Graham Bell spoke the famous words "Come here, Watson, I need you" in the self-same room in 1877, introducing us to the telephone age. The interesting terra-cotta window decorations a long time ago, and only a few items and a poster in the manager’s office remind us of the past.
Lincoln actually came to address NY Republicans, 1,500 of them, at Cooper Union, on February 27, hoping to show that an ungainly ill educated Midwesterner can speak and reason as well as their candidate William Henry Seward. The peacemaker candidate succeeded in establishing his point that a majority of signers of the Constitution believed that Congress should contain slavery and not allow it to expand into the territories. Thus, his Republican party would be no threat to the Southern states. He received New York’s support and was elected, but the South attacked a few months later anyway, at Fort Sumter, and lost, with the world supporting the righteous position of the North.
In line with Washington’s efforts to co-opt the world community in pacifying Iraq, the delegates should also visit the United Nation’s headquarters, our neighbor to the north, and reacquaint themselves with the horrors of destruction that forced the nationalist nations of the world into giving up selfish principles in order to ban war. Unsuccessfully, but one must keep trying.
For general interest, the Convention is expected to bring 55,000 visitors to the city, with 18,000 rooms reserved in 40 hotels. The locale is Madison Square garden, with daily 10-1 and 8-11 sessions. First day speakers will be Mayors Bloomberg and Giuliani and Senator McCain, second day Laura Bush and Gov. Schwarzenegger, third - the Cheneys and Zell Miller, the Dem Senator of Georgia, fourth will bring on Gov. Patak, i introducing President Bush, who will accept the nomination. During the day the delegates are offered pricey tours of the city and environs, none of which include the Roosevelt and Lincoln sites.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 5:27 AM 
