Postcard Thursday: 1939 World's Fair

At some point, we will examine the New York World's Fair of 1939-40 in greater depth. Today, let's just enjoy this picture of the Electrical Products Building, which housed, among other things, the exhibits from Remington who introduced the electric ("dry") shaver at the fair that year.

courtesy of http://www.worldsfaircommunity.org/

The building was designed by Walker & Gillette, whose work in New York City includes the Fuller Building on 57th Street and the Jacob Riis Houses, a public housing project on the East River that we talk about in Footprints in New York.

Speaking of which....

Explore more NYC history in

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Footprints yet,

you can order it from your favorite online retailers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.) or

from independent bookstores across the country.

And, of course, Inside the Apple is available at fine bookstores everywhere.

Postcard Thursday: Soliders' and Sailors' Monument

Today's postcard shows the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Riverside Park; the card was mailed February 13, 1905, less than two years after the memorial had opened.

Based on the Lysicrates monument in Athens (as are many Beaux-Arts structures in New York, including the towers atop the San Remo apartment building), the memorial was designed by Charles and Arthur Stoughton, who won a public competition for what was to be the city's major memorial to the Union Army. (It has, however, always been eclipsed by that other Civil War monument in Riverside Park: Grant's Tomb.)

The monument was opened Memorial Day 1902. A parade of Union Army veterans marched up Riverside Drive, where they were greeted by President Theodore Roosevelt who presided over the dedication. Yet, just two years after this postcard was sent, the monument was already in bad shape. On March 27, 1907, the New York Times reported the structure was "in such bad repair" that marble was in danger of falling at any time. Indeed, three marble slabs had already crashed down. Renovations were made in the 1930s, again in the 1960s, and today the Riverside Park Conservancy is hoping to raise $5.5 million for additional repairs.

As you can see, the message is crammed into the narrow white border on the card's right side. This reads:

Dear Amy,

Your card received. Glad you are improving in health. Hope you will continue to do so and that we will see you again sometime. Did your sister get my card? How is she? Let us hear from you again.

With kindest regards from 

Georgianna Rice

As we've noted before, postcards sent before 1907 could only have the address on the back, so whatever white space was left on the picture side was used for the message. In this case, a relatively wide border allowed Georgianna Rice to fit in a message longer than the usual, "Received your card."

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Explore more NYC history in

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Footprints yet,

you can order it from your favorite online retailers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.) or

from independent bookstores across the country.

And, of course, Inside the Apple is available at fine bookstores everywhere.

Postcard Thursday: Thomas E. Davis

The stereo view above shows the Pavilion Hotel on Staten Island, which was originally built to be the home of 19th-century real estate developer Thomas E. Davis.

Who?

You're not alone: Davis -- who by some accounts was the third-largest land owner in the city -- has been almost totally passed over by history.

To rectify that, James wrote a piece for CurbedNY that appeared yesterday. Read it at: http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/02/11/the_forgotten_developer_who_transformed_19thcentury_nyc.php.

The only picture James was able to dig up of a Thomas Davis shows this fellow:

Is that our Thomas Davis? Alas, we may never know.

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Explore more NYC history in

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Footprints yet,

you can order it from your favorite online retailers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.) or

from independent bookstores across the country.

And, of course, Inside the Apple is available at fine bookstores everywhere.

Postcard Thursday: The Evolution of the Metropolitan Museum

We recently added this early 20th-century view of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to our collection. This photo highlights two major additions to the museum's original floorplan: the 1888 Theodore Weston wing (in red at the back) and the Richard Morris Hunt Fifth Avenue entrance (in limestone at the front).

The Weston facade is often mistaken for the original entrance to the building. However, as the photo (below) shows, the squat 1880 Vaux and Mould building that was the original museum had a rather quaint staircase leading up to its main entrance, which in those days faced into Central Park.

courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Pieces of this Vaux and Mould building are still visible inside today's museum. The Central Park facade seen here in the left side of the photo is now where the Lehman Wing begins. The Weston addition was designed to harmonize with Vaux and Mould's work. You can judge for yourself by visiting the European Sculpture Court, where Weston's south facade is entirely preserved.

courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hunt's 1902 addition shifted the museum's entrance to Fifth Avenue. Notice in the postcard the blocks of stone atop the colonnade that spans the facade. Those were destined to become large statues that were never carved and the rough-hewn limestone blocks still sit there, unfinished, to this day. Also notice that at the far left of the postcard is Cleopatra's Needle, which was erected in 1881, and has recently been restored.

To see how the museum has grown over the past 135 years, the Met has put together this terrific 38-second video:

(Can't see the video embedded above? Go to http://youtu.be/7oJrJJoTSaI.)

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Explore more NYC history in

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Footprints yet,

you can order it from your favorite online retailers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.) or

from independent bookstores across the country.

And, of course, Inside the Apple is available at fine bookstores everywhere.