Tag Archives: Manhattan

R is for Rockefeller

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Located at 45 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10111
Website:  https://www.rockefellercenter.com/

  Rockefeller Center 

Rockefeller Center is a commercial complex that currently consists of 19 buildings, 12 of them part of the original layout. It also provides a venue for events, art exhibitions, dining as well as shopping. Rockefeller Center has been referred to as a ‘city-within-a-city’.

In 1929, industrialist John D. Rockefeller Jr. signed a long-term lease for the site on which the Center stands, which was owned at the time by Columbia University. Once considered prime real estate, the site had deteriorated since the real estate boom of the late 19th century, and the building of the Sixth Avenue elevated train.

In the late 1920s Rockefeller sought to revitalize the area. The Metropolitan Opera House was expected to occupy a newly built home for it on the land, but the economic downturn, following the stock market crash of 1929, prevented the Opera House from going forward with the plans.

Rockefeller continued with the project, opting to create an exclusive commercial complex. In 1931, construction of Rockefeller Center began, and the 12 original buildings were completed in 1940. Throughout the Depression, the construction of the Center provided jobs for thousands of laborers and helped sustain the building industry in New York City.

The Center is laid out between the Fifth and Sixth Avenues, from 48th Street to 51st Street. Most noticeable about the Rockefeller Center is the beauty and harmony that is visible inside the buildings as well as outside. 

The pedestrian promenade area, the Channel Gardens, designed to lead visitors to a cascade of stairs that descend to the brightly colored, international flag-draped Sunken Plaza, is the most tourist-attracting and recognized locale in the Center. The Channel Gardens consist of six granite pools, each with bronze-cast fountainhead sculptures of Tritons, Nereids and sea creatures. Seasonal decorations adorn these pools and surroundings.

The plaza functions as an ice skating rink in the winter and an outdoor dining spot during the warmer seasons. 

The exteriors of all of the original complex’s buildings, as well as the interiors of the International Building’s and 30 Rockefeller Plaza’s lobbies, were granted landmark status on April 23, 1985.

The frieze above the main entrance to the front entrance of the Comcast Building, known as 30 Rock for 30 Rockefeller Plaza, was executed by Lee Lawrie and depicts Wisdom, along with a slogan that reads ‘Wisdom and Knowledge shall be the stability of thy times’, a biblical quote. The central figure represents Wisdom, who rules over man’s knowledge and interprets the laws of nature. Wisdom grasps a compass that points to the light and sound waves carved on the cast pyrex screen below. Made of 240 glass blocks, the screen is a technical and artistic masterpiece.

The Rockefeller Center is full of symbolic mythological characters who exemplify power and strength, and willfulness. There is Prometheus, who steals fire from heaven for mankind, presiding over the skating rink and there is Atlas, the Titan who taught man astronomy, a tool used by sailors to navigate the seas, and one used by farmers to measure the seasons, in front of the International Building. If you look around there are many more such icons inside and outside the Rockefeller Center buildings.

The dominating sculpture of Atlas, designed by Lee Lawrie, weighing 14,000 pounds, is the largest sculptural work in the Center. He stands 15-feet tall atop a 9-foot high pedestal. The exaggerated physical features cast in bronze are a fine example of the Art Deco style. What’s odd about Atlas is what he’s supporting on his shoulders -not the earth, as in the original myth, but a representation of the heavens.

The murals showing the evolution of machinery, the eradication of disease, the abolition of slavery, and the suppression of war, by José Maria Sert are displayed in the lobby on the 50th Street side, on the walls and the ceiling. The center ceiling mural is called Time.

No mention of the Rockefeller Center will be complete without a few words about Christmas at the Center. The Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center is THE Christmas Tree for most New Yorkers, signaling the start of the season. An estimated 500,000 people visit Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas tree each day during the holiday season.

In 1931, men working on the excavation for Rockefeller Center put up the site’s first Christmas tree. The workers decorated a 20-foot balsam fir using garlands made by their families and the tinfoil ends of blasting caps. The site of their celebration was situated on the same area of the plaza where the tree is now raised each year.

In 1933, Rockefeller Center decided a tree would be the perfect way to celebrate the Center, and an annual tradition was born.

And the skating rink comes to life with the backdrop of Prometheus and the Christmas Tree!

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21 Apr 2023

N is for New York

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Main location: Stephen A. Schwarzman Building Tours
Library Website:  https://www.nypl.org/ 

New York Public Library

To many people, the landmark Stephen A. Schwarzman building, with its famous lions facing Fifth Avenue, symbolizes The New York Public Library. But the Library is actually a vast network of libraries, organized into two distinct parts, The Research Libraries and The Branch Libraries.

The New York Public Library is the country’s second biggest public library system (second only to the Library of Congress) and the world’s third biggest (coming in behind the British Library). When it was completed in 1911, New York Public Library was the largest marble structure in the country. At that time it contained 1 million books and more than 50,000 people visited on the first day. The library spans two full city blocks. 

The New York Public Library originated from the consolidation of the early libraries Astor Library, Lenox Library and the New York Free Circulating Library. 

Every part of the building is richly decorated. Astor Hall, where you first enter, and the McGrow Rotunda on the third floor are prime examples of this. The building itself is placed on an elevated platform so it can stand out even when there are many other buildings nearby. Along the top of the building are situated sculptures of allegorical characters representing the fields that the library will cover… History, Romance, Poetry, Religion, Drama and Philosophy. 

There are over 52 million items in the collections of The New York Public Library today, the manuscript archives and over 18 million books making up the core of the collections. 

Millions of items in other formats, ranging from 4,000-year-old cuneiform tablets to CD-ROMs, are also part of the collections. Films, maps, photographs, prints, magazines, government documents, menus, newspapers, sound recordings, and other artifacts of human communication are all gathered and preserved.

The library stacks under the main library are seven layers deep and built with steel and cast iron. Books are requested and delivered from these stacks using a mini rail system going up and down.

To hold more material on-site, a storage center that can hold 4 million items was built below Bryant Park. 

The first thing you notice as you approach the library are the majestic lions in front of it… Patience and Fortitude, named so by Mayor La Guardia to exemplify the city’s characteristics during the depression era. (I have always thought that the names should have been Patience and Perseverance. Better rhyming!). 🙂  The lion’s head is the logo of the library and lions’ heads can be seen throughout the building, suggesting the power and stability of the institution, and the idea that the lion is the protector of the building.

A blog post cannot even touch upon the vastness of the material in the library. Just to touch upon them…

Manuscripts

Personal papers, literary manuscripts, original correspondence, company records – all are the raw material of the historian. The Research Libraries hold some of the most important of such manuscript collections in the world.

Photography Collection

Contains more than 200,000 images from the mid-19th century to the present, including the 72,000 items of Stereoscopic Views.

Videos

There are a half-million audiovisual items in the collections of the library. The many special video collections include oral histories of civil rights leaders and live dance and theatrical performances.

Map Division

This is the largest public library collection of its kind in the United States, with more than 420,000 maps and 20,000 books and atlases dating from the 16th century to the present. Shown here is an 18th-century map of Ireland.

Magazines

Original comic books, including many examples of Classics Illustrated, form one of the Library’s caches of ephemeral material for research on 20th-century popular culture. Other materials in magazine format – general interest and scholarly periodicals, for example – are collected extensively throughout the Library.

Government Documents

Collection includes official gazettes and other publications issued by the United States, New York State, and international bodies like the United Nations.

Vital Records

Millstein Division for local history provides people interested in genealogical research access to New York city’s vital records – birth, death, and marriage certificates; census materials, ships’ passenger lists, city directories etc. 

Braille Books

The New York Public Library holds more than 11,000 braille books. Every day the library delivers thousands of braille books for home use throughout New York City and Long Island.

Cuneiform tablets. The Library’s collection of approximately 700 cuneiform tablets from the third millennium B.C., which are among the earliest written records, are housed in the Manuscripts and Archives Division. Cuneiform tablets were written by scribes, usually on soft clay that was then either baked in an oven or left to dry in the sun.

Music Manuscripts

The Music Division holds thousands of composers’ manuscripts from the 18th through the 20th centuries.

Audiocassettes

Outstanding collections of audiocassettes and CDs include nearly 35,000 recordings as well as talking books and magazines. 

Film

Some 8,500 circulating 16mm films are held in the media center.

LPs

The Archives has a vast collection of opera and classical music in the LP format and excellent LP holdings in American pop music, jazz, musical theatre, and European and Wester hemisphere folk music.

CD-ROMs

The CD-ROM, with its space-saving capabilities, is today a familiar format in the Library’s electronic reference collections. The English Poetry Full-Text Database on CD-ROM includes over 165,000 poems drawn from 4,500 printed sources. American Business Disc CD-ROM lists over ten million U.S. businesses.

Research Libraries

The Research Libraries include four centers:

  • Center for the Humanities located in the Stephen A. Schwarzman building
  • Science, Industry and Business Library on Madison Avenue
  • The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts located at Lincoln Center
  • Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem

Branch Libraries

The Branch Libraries include 85 neighborhood libraries (including five central service locations) located throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. These local libraries provide circulating and reference collections to users of all ages; more than 11 million items are available for borrowing by cardholders, including books, magazines, videotapes, pictures, audio recordings, and other items. The Branch Libraries also provide specialized services for children, young adults, for people with disabilities, for the elderly and new immigrants, for job seekers and inmates, in fact anyone in need.

All the Library’s locations are linked with each other, and with the outside world, through telecommunications networks. The entire Branch Libraries catalog and the online catalog of The Research Libraries can be reached from any location within The New York Public Library system, from other libraries around the world, and from home computers via the Internet.

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17 Apr 2023

M is for Maritime

Author: | Category: A to Z Challenge | Tags: , , ,

Located at 6 Pennyfield Ave, Bronx, NY 10465, within the SUNY Maritime College campus
Museum Website:  https://www.sunymaritime.edu/aboutpublic-programs/maritime-industry-museum

Maritime Industry Museum

Among my list for this A to Z Blogging Challenge, this will be the least known. Surprisingly, not even many native New Yorkers (Is there a word ‘New York Citian’?) are aware of this museum. 

The Maritime Industry Museum is a treasure trove of information about the seafaring industry, its origin and development in the western world, with specific reference to New York. The stated mission of the Maritime Industry Museum is “to collect, restore, preserve and interpret artifacts, photographs, art and writings celebrating all facets of the Maritime Industry ashore and afloat”.

The museum is located in historic Fort Schuyler, within the campus of the SUNY (State University of New York) Maritime College. Its location right below the Throgs Neck Bridge offers a unique view of the bridge and Manhattan further ahead.

The museum was established in 1986 as a true labor of love. It was an idea of Captain Jeffrey W. Monroe, then Associate Professor of Marine Transportation at SUNY Maritime College to provide a location to display the rich heritage of the maritime industry for the general public, in addition to a resource for the college’s cadets.

With the help and contributions from the college’s staff, alumni and student body the museum was filled with photographs and paintings of ships, and its passageways flooded with showcases displaying nautical artifacts from the seven seas.

Since then, steamship lines, related companies in the maritime industry, and private collectors have donated hundreds of artifacts to supplement the museum’s collection. Today, the Maritime Industry Museum has over 2,000 items on display, and thousands of other items in its archives, which will be preserved for future generations.

This is a hidden gem of a museum is a testament to the importance of shipping and the seafaring way of life to the modern global society.

The first European to settle in the lands that Fort Schuyler stands today was John Throgmorton, who obtained a license to settle on the peninsula which now bears his name on October 2, 1642, according to recorded history. The place gets its name, Throgg’s Neck, from this original inhabitant. Four sides of the fort’s irregular pentagon-shaped edifice face Long Island Sound and its juncture with the East River.

With the idea of constructing a fort to protect New York from attack by sea, a tract of 52 acres of land was purchased by the Federal Government in 1826. In December 1845, the fort was completed. It is named after for the Continental Army General Philip Schuyler, who commanded the Northern Army.

In 1932, military operations at the fort were ended and in 1934, it became the home of the New York State Merchant Marine Academy.

In cooperation with the Eastern Dive Boat Association, the Maritime Industry Museum at Fort Schuyler has artifacts from many local shipwrecks of different time periods, like from the Cunard liner Oregon.

The museum has many unique artifacts ranging from the Clipper Ship era to the present. 

The extensive collection of ship models, some up to 6 feet in length, is a major part of the museum. Some of the valuable large scale models include those of the liners S.S. Bremen, S.S. Reliance, S.S. Hansa ,S.S. Argentina Maru, and S.S. Saturnia.

The library has maritime industry books, periodicals, documents, papers, prints, photographs, and old steamship company records.

There are so many artifacts related to the history on New York and its seafaring environment. The museum is an excellent reminder that maritime trade is how and why New York City has grown into the international center of industry that it has.

The Maritime College has active classrooms inside the museum.

The Maritime Industry Museum is spread over two floors, with many galleries which are full with charts, historical documents, advertising posters from bygone times, paintings, ship parts, and shipping related instruments and tools.

In addition to browsing the artifacts and maps relevant to maritime trade from the earliest Atlantic fishermen to mid-20th-century supertankers, Fort Schuyler itself is an interesting place to visit.

The winding stone steps, of the spiral staircase going up the fort’s towers, are a real charm. 

Even the forgotten ship disasters like General Slocum, Morro Castle, Andrea Doria, etc. are not forgotten here.

Outside the museum, the grounds offer great views all around.

This museum is quite enjoyable, and one learns a lot in the process, even if you don’t have any knowledge of, or interest in ships and shipbuilding. There is so much history living in its galleries!

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15 Apr 2023

L is for Little

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Located at Pier 55 in Hudson River Park @W 13th St, New York, NY 10014
Website:  https://littleisland.org/

Little Island

Little Island is a new public park, jutting into the Hudson River, over what used to be piers 54 and 55. It is located within the larger Hudson River Park, which extends from Battery Park in the south to Pier 97 in the north. 

The park is held up by 132 funnel shaped structures called Tulips. These tulips vary in height, anywhere between 15 and 62 feet above the water.

The park opened to the public on May 21 2021. It has an area of 2.4 acres and is built on multiple levels. There are two walkway bridges connecting the island park to the Hudson River walkway on the mainland. (The word ‘mainland’ is used kinda loosely here as Manhattan itself is an island!)

There are several wonderful seating areas and lookout points throughout the park. If you can imagine the whole park in the rough shape of a bowl, at the rims will be the lookout points, with a lawn, lots of seating with umbrellas for sun protection, and children’s performance area in the center which is called ‘the play ground’. You will find food vendors in this area as well. 

You can walk up the various paths to get to the three overlooks with some of the best views in the city, of the neighborhood, downtown Manhattan and New Jersey.

To the southern end of the park is ‘the glade’ where small performances take place. Usually someone is reading to children sitting in close circles, with the parents a bit further on the benches. Various music, dance, poetry, and comedy shows take place here as well.

There is an amphitheater with facilities for professional performances in the park, called ‘the amph’. For these performances you will need advance tickets, which can be reserved online. If there is no performance taking place, this is a great place to stretch your legs and enjoy the view.

Only working dogs that assist patrons with disabilities are allowed in the park. Pets and emotional support animals are not allowed as it is not conducive to the wellbeing of the garden beds and lawns.

Looking at the up and down terrain of the park it is hard to imagine, but the whole of Little Island is ADA compliant. 

The park is open to the public starting 6 am in the morning and closes at different hours, depending on the season, anywhere from 9 pm to 12 am.

There is a wide variety of trees and flowering plants growing all over the park. These are natives that thrive in the local conditions. These are maintained to suit the changing seasons. 

During the 19th and 20th centuries the Hudson River waterfront was a busy port of entry. Between 1910 and 1935, Pier 54 operated the British Cunard-White Star line, serving as a point of departure and return for trans-Atlantic ocean liner voyages. 

The pier then fell into disuse until the 1970s when it became the center of community activities in the area, especially for the city’s LGBTQ community. Starting in 1986, the annual Dance on the Pier event took place here for over 25 years.

In 2012, Pier 54 was heavily damaged by Hurricane Sandy which hit the New York City coastline. Instead of building it back up, the idea of an alternative use for it was envisioned.

Little Island was planned, designed and built under a private-public partnership. While $260 million came from private contributions, the rest of the cost was borne by the city and state of New York.

The best time to visit Little Island is early morning, just as soon as it is open. There is absolute peace and quiet and you have the whole place to yourself. And after you have done with Little Island, it just a short walk to the High Line, which will take you to the Hudson yards. So much to see, so much to do!

Tidbyte

In 1912, survivors from the Titanic disaster arrived to safety at Pier 54 where Little Island stands today, aboard the RMS Carpathia rescue liner.

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14 Apr 2023

J is for Jazz

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Located at 58 W 129th Street between Malcolm X and 5th Ave.
Museum Website:  https://jmih.org/

The National Jazz Museum In Harlem

The National Jazz Museum In Harlem is a center for jazz that reaches out to diverse audiences to enjoy this most quintessential American music. The museum aims to preserve, promote and present jazz by inspiring knowledge, appreciation and the celebration of jazz locally. nationally and internationally. 

The Museum was founded in 1997 by Leonard Garment, senior advisor to two U.S. Presidents, an accomplished jazz saxophonist and member of Woody Herman’s band, and by former U.S. District Judge, Abraham D. Sofaer, who launched the Museum with a grant in honor of his brother-in-law Richard J. Scheuer. Jr.

The Museum opened its Harlem office in 2002 and its Visitors Center a few years later. During the following decade, the Museum created several signature public programs, including the Curious Listeners series. Other highlights included exhibitions showcasing the Museum’s growing archives, most notably its rare record collections.

In 2015, the Museum developed a range of Harlem-based education and outreach programs.

A Smithsonian Affiliate, the Museum is committed to keeping Jazz relevant and exciting in the lives of a broad range of audiences. 

The museum organizers see it a living, evolving museum for the people, center for jazz and a place in Harlem where visitors gather to enjoy history and music, and where artists come to play, rehearse, create or drop-in, even when no one else is there, just to be in the space that so many others have passed through.

Tenor Saxophone of Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis, a 1982 Selmer Super Action 80. This tenor saxophone was the last horn that Davis played.

When I last visited in November 2022, the exhibition on display was The Soul of Jazz: An American Adventure. This exhibition first took the stage at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida in 2021.

The exhibit was created as an appreciation of the unforgettable people, places, and unwavering spirit that helped invent-and continues to re-invent-the American musical art form called jazz. During a national tour, it was on view at The New Orleans Jazz Museum in New Orleans, the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, and now the National Jazz Museum in Harlem.

Though small in area, the museum offers a wide array of jazz related artifacts enabling visitors to learn about a 100 years of jazz in Harlem and the contributions of jazz to American culture. These include musical instruments, posters, artist information and memorabilia.

The extensive record collections of the museum are truly a treasure trove. Chief among them is the Bill Savory Collection consisting of over 100 hours of live radio broadcasts made between 1935 and 1941 and never heard since their initial airing. It’s Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Coleman Hawkins and more, live in their prime and in high-fidelity recordings.

Other noticeable collections include the personal collections of Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis and author Ralph Ellison.

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem has released a series of never-before-heard concert recordings featuring the legendary Benny Carter, joined by such giants as Dizzy Gillespie, Hank Jones, Clark Terry, Richard Davis, Milt Hinton, Grady Tate, and many others.

The museum also has a constantly growing library of videos from interviews and concerts.

All these collections are available online at The National Jazz Museum in Harlem Collections.

The Museum offers year-round educational programs for students of all ages. And collaborates with schools, businesses, arts and other organizations to take innovative content to the community. It also offers a wide range of free online and in person programming to educate and entertain. Each year, over 100 free and highly subsidized jazz workshops are produced by the museum.

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12 Apr 2023