Saturday, August 29, 2009
Recession is on the run – J. C. Penney’s is here
Upon reading my earlier article about Nordstrom’s arrival in our neighborhood, rich in department store history, an eminent preservationist gently chided me about an important omission.
Well, here goes. At 22-26 East 14th Street, where the Duane-Reade drugstore occupies the storefront, you will find the newest local addition to the Landmarks designations, traces of the former Bauman Brothers & Co furniture store. I defy anyone to identify that company, an 1881-97 major player. It has since been Woolworth’s pride, to 1928, then H.L.Green’s, and McCrory's, until its present drugstore tenancy. The upstairs once served nobly as the Delehanty Institute for the training of police and fire department candidates (predates the Academy?), and Parson's Art School's annex. So, what's so preservable here? Well, it is a cast-iron age survivalist. The architects, David and John Jardine, working for realtor James McCreery, used cast iron from the West Side Iron Works, to create a most imaginative facade. You can see it above the ground level, amazing that in the modernizing of street-level fronts the upper levels still survived.
We do have a neighborhood of amazing commercial history. First, the Ladies’ Mile, starting in 1858 with R. H. Macy’s store at 14th Street and 6th Avenue. and the 1862 Cast Iron Palace of A.T. Stewart’s (subsequently Wanamaker’s) at what is now 770 Broadway, its southern boundary, and Stern Brothers on 23rd Street at its northern frontier. In between, Lord and Taylor’s, B. Altman and Arnold Constable opened elegant emporiums, with the Siegel –Cooper (now Bed, Bath and Beyond, Filenes’s basement and T. J. Maxx’s) the most imposing. Megamillionaire James McCreery had a palatial store at Broadway and 11th Street, and Tiffany’s was on Union Square. Cast iron abounded.
S' Klein's On The Square, where the Zeckendorf Towers now stand, once defined Union Square’s shopping image. Both Ethel Mertz of Lucy’s and Edith Bunker of All in the Family browsed there for fashionable bargains.
Klein’s became part of Meshulah Riklis’s incredible Rapid American conglomerate empire and went down with it. Riklis, Turkish/Israeli teacher turned stockbroker, while at Piper Jaffray’s in Minneapolis in the 1960s persuaded his clients to stake him to $750,000 for a printing business, starting to buy firms and pyramiding their assets. The urban legends abound: by 1980 he owned McCrory’s dime store chain, more department stores, and bought into an obscure E-II, a holding company, which involved ownership of Schenley Industries and maneuvers with Dewar’s and Guinness labels, Faberge/Elizabeth Arden Toiletries and Samsonite luggage. He acquired Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, the Pickfair mansion in L.A., once Douglas Fairbanks’s and Mary Pickford’s home, which he tore down and rebuilt to please his bride, Pia Zadora, whose portrait, dressed in nothing but a modest smile, reputedly adorned the entrance hall (divorced, she eventually sold the property for $17M), Riklis also owned the Carnival Cruise line, which he sold (or maybe didn’t} to shipping line operatorTed Arison for $1. This all collapsed in late 1980s-’90, losing the investors some $3B, and owing the tax collectors some $28M, but what a story! Sorry, Meshulam Riklis and his family trust are not talking.
On the theme of whether the openings of new department stores forecast an economic recovery, there is a new Miracle on 34th Street (okay, 32nd Street). Once upon a time, there were Macy’s, E. J. Corvette’s and Gimbels department stores, all in a row of blocks, on Herald Square south of 34th Street. Gimbels went out in 1987, and the space was occupied by Stern’s, then Abraham & Strauss, and last, Manhattan Mall. The recession caused the closings of many upscale fashionable tenants in the area, Golden Paradise jewelers, Benedetti’s shoe store, Know Style, Rags, Gold Panel and even a Conway’s branch. It was therefore a pleasant surprise to see J. C. Penney’s open its first New York branch in what used to be Gimbels Basement of fond memory, two floors of 151,000 sq. ft.
Alas, not a pleasant surprise for all of us. The NY Times Thursday Styles fashion writer wants to know how this dowdy Middle American entity dares to waddle into the slickest, scariest fashion capital, in its flip-flops and old oversize shorts, without rebranding itself . Penney’s logo in Helvetica is old, their knockoffs of styles in cheap polyester are laughable, their Halston, Ronson and Liz Claiborne offshoots of styles, especially created for Penney’s, are pitiful nonsuccesses in mass-producing prestige wear (“masstige”), and the prevailing sizes are humongous large, cut even larger, with few size 2 items. Little does the Timesee consider that generations of Americans have found comfort and dignity in wearing Penney’s shirts and suits, and the same applies to their ladies garments (e.g. Cross Your Heart bras). There are tourists and people in the boroughs who wear large sizes, eat French fries and burgers and Cokes for lunch, and will be glad to find the comfort of the familiar logo in the middle of the fashion capital, among the somewhat tarnished go-go gear. Brace yourself, dear (good writer, btw), more mall chain stores are coming! Maybe the Times weekend fashion supplement should trim its space age styles, mostly unsuitable for any woman and man with self-esteem, and get nearer to home. Fashion NYC is getting too close to apocalyptical 1920’s Berlin.
Well, here goes. At 22-26 East 14th Street, where the Duane-Reade drugstore occupies the storefront, you will find the newest local addition to the Landmarks designations, traces of the former Bauman Brothers & Co furniture store. I defy anyone to identify that company, an 1881-97 major player. It has since been Woolworth’s pride, to 1928, then H.L.Green’s, and McCrory's, until its present drugstore tenancy. The upstairs once served nobly as the Delehanty Institute for the training of police and fire department candidates (predates the Academy?), and Parson's Art School's annex. So, what's so preservable here? Well, it is a cast-iron age survivalist. The architects, David and John Jardine, working for realtor James McCreery, used cast iron from the West Side Iron Works, to create a most imaginative facade. You can see it above the ground level, amazing that in the modernizing of street-level fronts the upper levels still survived.
We do have a neighborhood of amazing commercial history. First, the Ladies’ Mile, starting in 1858 with R. H. Macy’s store at 14th Street and 6th Avenue. and the 1862 Cast Iron Palace of A.T. Stewart’s (subsequently Wanamaker’s) at what is now 770 Broadway, its southern boundary, and Stern Brothers on 23rd Street at its northern frontier. In between, Lord and Taylor’s, B. Altman and Arnold Constable opened elegant emporiums, with the Siegel –Cooper (now Bed, Bath and Beyond, Filenes’s basement and T. J. Maxx’s) the most imposing. Megamillionaire James McCreery had a palatial store at Broadway and 11th Street, and Tiffany’s was on Union Square. Cast iron abounded.
S' Klein's On The Square, where the Zeckendorf Towers now stand, once defined Union Square’s shopping image. Both Ethel Mertz of Lucy’s and Edith Bunker of All in the Family browsed there for fashionable bargains.
Klein’s became part of Meshulah Riklis’s incredible Rapid American conglomerate empire and went down with it. Riklis, Turkish/Israeli teacher turned stockbroker, while at Piper Jaffray’s in Minneapolis in the 1960s persuaded his clients to stake him to $750,000 for a printing business, starting to buy firms and pyramiding their assets. The urban legends abound: by 1980 he owned McCrory’s dime store chain, more department stores, and bought into an obscure E-II, a holding company, which involved ownership of Schenley Industries and maneuvers with Dewar’s and Guinness labels, Faberge/Elizabeth Arden Toiletries and Samsonite luggage. He acquired Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, the Pickfair mansion in L.A., once Douglas Fairbanks’s and Mary Pickford’s home, which he tore down and rebuilt to please his bride, Pia Zadora, whose portrait, dressed in nothing but a modest smile, reputedly adorned the entrance hall (divorced, she eventually sold the property for $17M), Riklis also owned the Carnival Cruise line, which he sold (or maybe didn’t} to shipping line operatorTed Arison for $1. This all collapsed in late 1980s-’90, losing the investors some $3B, and owing the tax collectors some $28M, but what a story! Sorry, Meshulam Riklis and his family trust are not talking.
On the theme of whether the openings of new department stores forecast an economic recovery, there is a new Miracle on 34th Street (okay, 32nd Street). Once upon a time, there were Macy’s, E. J. Corvette’s and Gimbels department stores, all in a row of blocks, on Herald Square south of 34th Street. Gimbels went out in 1987, and the space was occupied by Stern’s, then Abraham & Strauss, and last, Manhattan Mall. The recession caused the closings of many upscale fashionable tenants in the area, Golden Paradise jewelers, Benedetti’s shoe store, Know Style, Rags, Gold Panel and even a Conway’s branch. It was therefore a pleasant surprise to see J. C. Penney’s open its first New York branch in what used to be Gimbels Basement of fond memory, two floors of 151,000 sq. ft.
Alas, not a pleasant surprise for all of us. The NY Times Thursday Styles fashion writer wants to know how this dowdy Middle American entity dares to waddle into the slickest, scariest fashion capital, in its flip-flops and old oversize shorts, without rebranding itself . Penney’s logo in Helvetica is old, their knockoffs of styles in cheap polyester are laughable, their Halston, Ronson and Liz Claiborne offshoots of styles, especially created for Penney’s, are pitiful nonsuccesses in mass-producing prestige wear (“masstige”), and the prevailing sizes are humongous large, cut even larger, with few size 2 items. Little does the Timesee consider that generations of Americans have found comfort and dignity in wearing Penney’s shirts and suits, and the same applies to their ladies garments (e.g. Cross Your Heart bras). There are tourists and people in the boroughs who wear large sizes, eat French fries and burgers and Cokes for lunch, and will be glad to find the comfort of the familiar logo in the middle of the fashion capital, among the somewhat tarnished go-go gear. Brace yourself, dear (good writer, btw), more mall chain stores are coming! Maybe the Times weekend fashion supplement should trim its space age styles, mostly unsuitable for any woman and man with self-esteem, and get nearer to home. Fashion NYC is getting too close to apocalyptical 1920’s Berlin.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Collecting signed Ernest Hemingway books
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Collecting signed Ernest Hemingway books
In a recent trip, chatting with fellow-passengers about the books we carry, an Ohio schoolteacher denounced paper reading material as obsolete, and non-green. He only reads Kindle books and free newspapers on Internet (NYTimes was mentioned). His wife chimed in that library books spread germs.
All that made me sick, no fault of germs, and turn green (nothing personal, fellow environment cherishers... Old books have been part of my life, and libraries were my playgrounds. People collect old porcelain for its beauty and old paintings for their grace and history, and old books because that’s where knowledge resides. A New Yorker writer recently examined Kindle-available titles against his library and found very few meaningful authors electronically represented. A matter of time, you say? Eventually the libraries will be superfluous and un- necessary? Maybe, and so will be brains and thought processes, since all knowledge and opinions (qualified by polls or ayatollahs) will be retrievable from data bases and TV.
I admire books, old, particularly those signed, touched by the author. It is like shaking hands with the mind I admire. My particular mental puzzle is Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), a man with a consistent handwriting, easily recognizable and forgery prone. What was in his mind when he turned the gun on himself in lonely Ketchum, Idaho? Whenever I visit a rare book show, I study the copies of his titles. He seemingly inscribed many books to unidentifiable friends and casual way companions, but had only one , his best remembered book, A Farewell to Arms, published in a 510 copy limited signed first edition, encased in a tight box, guaranteed authentic .
Speaking of boxed limited signed editions as a whole, they are pernicious to the survival of the book in a pristine condition; taking the copy in and out is destructive of the vellum or cloth spine. I never dare to do it without permission, for fear of making an inadvertent perilous move.
Speaking as a collector, of the 510 Hemingway’s 1929 first edition Farewell to Arms limited signed copies only a few have survived in fair condition, and only one in pristine condition, with the box fully complete, an important point. It is for sale at Glenn Horowitz’s book emporium in New York. I have wondered whether the book’s condition survived because the owner broke the edges of the pristine box and restored them more loosely, to gain access to his own treasure without damaging it. (Glenn Horowitz, incidentally, is an internationally known dealer who finds homes for Presidents’ and authors’ personal collections, accessible by appointment).
Alas, the pleasures of collecting treasures are scary in a recession environment. People are looking for values that will resist the inflation lurking around the corner that certain economists warn us about. I have a neighbor who talks of relying on gold, incessantly, in elevators and in the building lobby. Old paintings and porcelain are part of the thinking; many modern pieces of art have not been time-tested, and some of the most avant-garde ones are made of organic materials that deteriorate, and should really come with a restorer’s guarantee, essentially an insurance policy. I will stick with the old values, old books from the 1600s and 1900s are surviving pretty well.
Collecting signed Ernest Hemingway books
In a recent trip, chatting with fellow-passengers about the books we carry, an Ohio schoolteacher denounced paper reading material as obsolete, and non-green. He only reads Kindle books and free newspapers on Internet (NYTimes was mentioned). His wife chimed in that library books spread germs.
All that made me sick, no fault of germs, and turn green (nothing personal, fellow environment cherishers... Old books have been part of my life, and libraries were my playgrounds. People collect old porcelain for its beauty and old paintings for their grace and history, and old books because that’s where knowledge resides. A New Yorker writer recently examined Kindle-available titles against his library and found very few meaningful authors electronically represented. A matter of time, you say? Eventually the libraries will be superfluous and un- necessary? Maybe, and so will be brains and thought processes, since all knowledge and opinions (qualified by polls or ayatollahs) will be retrievable from data bases and TV.
I admire books, old, particularly those signed, touched by the author. It is like shaking hands with the mind I admire. My particular mental puzzle is Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), a man with a consistent handwriting, easily recognizable and forgery prone. What was in his mind when he turned the gun on himself in lonely Ketchum, Idaho? Whenever I visit a rare book show, I study the copies of his titles. He seemingly inscribed many books to unidentifiable friends and casual way companions, but had only one , his best remembered book, A Farewell to Arms, published in a 510 copy limited signed first edition, encased in a tight box, guaranteed authentic .
Speaking of boxed limited signed editions as a whole, they are pernicious to the survival of the book in a pristine condition; taking the copy in and out is destructive of the vellum or cloth spine. I never dare to do it without permission, for fear of making an inadvertent perilous move.
Speaking as a collector, of the 510 Hemingway’s 1929 first edition Farewell to Arms limited signed copies only a few have survived in fair condition, and only one in pristine condition, with the box fully complete, an important point. It is for sale at Glenn Horowitz’s book emporium in New York. I have wondered whether the book’s condition survived because the owner broke the edges of the pristine box and restored them more loosely, to gain access to his own treasure without damaging it. (Glenn Horowitz, incidentally, is an internationally known dealer who finds homes for Presidents’ and authors’ personal collections, accessible by appointment).
Alas, the pleasures of collecting treasures are scary in a recession environment. People are looking for values that will resist the inflation lurking around the corner that certain economists warn us about. I have a neighbor who talks of relying on gold, incessantly, in elevators and in the building lobby. Old paintings and porcelain are part of the thinking; many modern pieces of art have not been time-tested, and some of the most avant-garde ones are made of organic materials that deteriorate, and should really come with a restorer’s guarantee, essentially an insurance policy. I will stick with the old values, old books from the 1600s and 1900s are surviving pretty well.
Friday, August 21, 2009
In memoriam Ray Roberts, editor, ex-Viking, Henry Holt and Little Brown
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Ray Roberts, 71, editor of John Fowles, Thomas Pynchon, Martha Grimes and many other authors, passed away on August 12, 2009. His friends at 201 East 17th Street, NY NY 10003 will long remewber him as a cheerful and urbane companion, and a genuine friend in need. Your condolences, addressed as above, will be forwarded.
Ray Roberts, 71, editor of John Fowles, Thomas Pynchon, Martha Grimes and many other authors, passed away on August 12, 2009. His friends at 201 East 17th Street, NY NY 10003 will long remewber him as a cheerful and urbane companion, and a genuine friend in need. Your condolences, addressed as above, will be forwarded.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
West African relief concert at Brotherhood Synagogue
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
On Wednesday July 22 Brotherhood Synagogue brought together a gathering of enthusiasts to hear African and local musicians perform a Village to Village concert, raising funds to connect kids to schools in Senegal and Liberia.
The project, sponsored by the African Center for Community Empowerment (ACCE), was founded in Queens nine years ago, in response to reports of gun violence taking youth lives (they also send classroom furniture to Africa when funds permit, and organize afterschool programs for African children in the US).
The chief organizer, Andy Teirstein, a composer and Associate Arts Professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, joined this effort while visiting a musician family in Thiaroye, Senegal, near Dakar, as part of the family’s homeschooling semester. Andy’s daughter Zoya, 14, tells that the grandmother Niama Kona Cissoko was taking care of 30 children, and was most concerned about the schooling of her extended family. If a child can go to school, it means an opportunity to get a job and provide for a family. Children who cannot get jobs, the vast majority of the villagers, end up in dire straits. School there costs $4 a month, and a donation of $48, buys a year of education. The Teirsteins’ objective is to raise enough money to send all the kids in the Cissoko family’s compound to school for five years.
Another party to the education effort, the family of Kolu Zigbi- Johnson, is helping a war-torn village, Goyazu in Liberia, raise $4,200 to build a schoolhouse. During the 15 years of civil war, beginning in 1989, the village was attacked several times, both grownups and children lost lives and the remainder fled to refugee camps, When the warlord Charles Taylor was exiled and peace restored, in 2006 the village’s traditional chief Charlie Crawford brought a small group of people back, to encourage restoring dwellings and resuming a normal life. Using the gifts from a birthday party they built houses, and today a dozen families, including over 30 children and two accredited schoolteachers, live there. A building to hold classes for “Charlie’s children” is a necessity.
The concert was a success, and the admissions fees collected from the benefit will go a long way towards the fulfillment of the sponsors’ objectives. Brotherhood Synagogue, thanks to its enthusiastic Rabbi Daniel Alder, successor to the late Dr. Irving J. Block who gave the temple its significant name, and to a forward-looking board and supportive membership, has over the years initiated a number of outreach programs, not only locally but also abroad, and the projects continue.
The amazing musical event, assembled by Andy Teirstein, brought together many cultures. Fide Sissoko, son of Niama, played the kora, a West African harp (related to the lute) and told stories. Grandson of the “King of Kora,” he keeps up the goiot, or troubadour, tradition of his family. Basya Schechter, music teacher at Brotherhood’s Hebrew School, a gifted composer and lyricist who sings with a pop group, Pharaoh’s Daughter, presented Mideastern, Greek and Israeli songs, playing the oud and guitar, accompanied by Youcouba Cissoko a kora player from Mali Another instrumentalist, Max ZT (stet), whom the Teirsteins met at Thiaroye, where he studied kora techniques, played the hammer dulcimer. To add to the multiculturalism, Andy (playing the fiddle) and daughter Zoya sang, in Celtic, his composition of summertime dreams.
As to foreign travel, Prof. Teirstein took a six-month sabbatical in the Spring of 2008, to provide a homestudy experience for Zoya and her brother Max, 10., driving through the American South and West, with flights to Africa and Mexico in between. Zoya’s filmed interview with Grandma Niama, an elegant Senegalese lady, became a high point of the presentations. Andy, while traveling, was also working on a CD, titled Open Crossings, to be published in late August by Naxos Records. Another activist from Brotherhood was teacher Rachel Ishofsky, associated with Heart of Africa, an NGO that provides Israeli agricultural and solar technology for West African villages.
The Liberian side was represented by the sponsor. Kolu Zigbi Johnson, Charlie Crawford’s daughter, who spoke of the village’s history and the children’s needs. The modest expenses of the schoolhouse were explained as cost of 50 4x8s and 25 2x4s at $3.50 each, zinc roofing for $1080, 4 doors and 4 windows and 100 bags of cement, and $300 of nails. Land clearing, adobe brick making and construction will be communal activities. Her large family and friends also cooked a slew of chicken, West African style (kosher, via 2nd Ave Deli), served alongside a Mediterranean / Eastern buffet (via Village Crown). The master of resources who facilitated and coordinated the entire occasion was Phillip Rothman, Executive Director of Brotherhood Synagogue, and the event paid for by enthusiastic supporters, both congregants and visitors.
On Wednesday July 22 Brotherhood Synagogue brought together a gathering of enthusiasts to hear African and local musicians perform a Village to Village concert, raising funds to connect kids to schools in Senegal and Liberia.
The project, sponsored by the African Center for Community Empowerment (ACCE), was founded in Queens nine years ago, in response to reports of gun violence taking youth lives (they also send classroom furniture to Africa when funds permit, and organize afterschool programs for African children in the US).
The chief organizer, Andy Teirstein, a composer and Associate Arts Professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, joined this effort while visiting a musician family in Thiaroye, Senegal, near Dakar, as part of the family’s homeschooling semester. Andy’s daughter Zoya, 14, tells that the grandmother Niama Kona Cissoko was taking care of 30 children, and was most concerned about the schooling of her extended family. If a child can go to school, it means an opportunity to get a job and provide for a family. Children who cannot get jobs, the vast majority of the villagers, end up in dire straits. School there costs $4 a month, and a donation of $48, buys a year of education. The Teirsteins’ objective is to raise enough money to send all the kids in the Cissoko family’s compound to school for five years.
Another party to the education effort, the family of Kolu Zigbi- Johnson, is helping a war-torn village, Goyazu in Liberia, raise $4,200 to build a schoolhouse. During the 15 years of civil war, beginning in 1989, the village was attacked several times, both grownups and children lost lives and the remainder fled to refugee camps, When the warlord Charles Taylor was exiled and peace restored, in 2006 the village’s traditional chief Charlie Crawford brought a small group of people back, to encourage restoring dwellings and resuming a normal life. Using the gifts from a birthday party they built houses, and today a dozen families, including over 30 children and two accredited schoolteachers, live there. A building to hold classes for “Charlie’s children” is a necessity.
The concert was a success, and the admissions fees collected from the benefit will go a long way towards the fulfillment of the sponsors’ objectives. Brotherhood Synagogue, thanks to its enthusiastic Rabbi Daniel Alder, successor to the late Dr. Irving J. Block who gave the temple its significant name, and to a forward-looking board and supportive membership, has over the years initiated a number of outreach programs, not only locally but also abroad, and the projects continue.
The amazing musical event, assembled by Andy Teirstein, brought together many cultures. Fide Sissoko, son of Niama, played the kora, a West African harp (related to the lute) and told stories. Grandson of the “King of Kora,” he keeps up the goiot, or troubadour, tradition of his family. Basya Schechter, music teacher at Brotherhood’s Hebrew School, a gifted composer and lyricist who sings with a pop group, Pharaoh’s Daughter, presented Mideastern, Greek and Israeli songs, playing the oud and guitar, accompanied by Youcouba Cissoko a kora player from Mali Another instrumentalist, Max ZT (stet), whom the Teirsteins met at Thiaroye, where he studied kora techniques, played the hammer dulcimer. To add to the multiculturalism, Andy (playing the fiddle) and daughter Zoya sang, in Celtic, his composition of summertime dreams.
As to foreign travel, Prof. Teirstein took a six-month sabbatical in the Spring of 2008, to provide a homestudy experience for Zoya and her brother Max, 10., driving through the American South and West, with flights to Africa and Mexico in between. Zoya’s filmed interview with Grandma Niama, an elegant Senegalese lady, became a high point of the presentations. Andy, while traveling, was also working on a CD, titled Open Crossings, to be published in late August by Naxos Records. Another activist from Brotherhood was teacher Rachel Ishofsky, associated with Heart of Africa, an NGO that provides Israeli agricultural and solar technology for West African villages.
The Liberian side was represented by the sponsor. Kolu Zigbi Johnson, Charlie Crawford’s daughter, who spoke of the village’s history and the children’s needs. The modest expenses of the schoolhouse were explained as cost of 50 4x8s and 25 2x4s at $3.50 each, zinc roofing for $1080, 4 doors and 4 windows and 100 bags of cement, and $300 of nails. Land clearing, adobe brick making and construction will be communal activities. Her large family and friends also cooked a slew of chicken, West African style (kosher, via 2nd Ave Deli), served alongside a Mediterranean / Eastern buffet (via Village Crown). The master of resources who facilitated and coordinated the entire occasion was Phillip Rothman, Executive Director of Brotherhood Synagogue, and the event paid for by enthusiastic supporters, both congregants and visitors.
