Postcard Thursday: Hans Haacke

Installation view; Whitney Museum of American Art. Photography by Ronald Amstutz

A few years ago, James wrote a story for Curbed about the artist Hans Haacke and one of his most famous artworks, Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A Real Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971.
This work was one of the controversial pieces that caused Haacke's 1971 solo show at the Guggenheim Museum to be cancelled. As James writes, Haacke

undertook to map out the holdings of prolific real estate investor Harry J. Shapolsky, who at the peak of his career had owned as many as 200 tenements in Harlem, the East Village, and the Lower East Side. Using public records, Haacke painstakingly unearthed the dozens of shell corporations that Shapolsky and his relatives had created to control properties around the city. Haacke then photographed each property and presented his findings—142 buildings in all—as gelatin silver prints, each accompanied by a dossier of facts: the building's address, block and lot number, lot size, and building type. Below that was information on ownership: corporate entity, date of acquisition, cost of the mortgage, the names of which of Shapolsky's associates were involved, and the assessed land value.

That same year, Haacke also researched and created a second piece: Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real-Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971. That piece is now owned by the Tate, but is currently on view at the Met Breuer as part of its exhibition "Everything is Connected: Art and Conspiracy," which is on view at the Met's Madison Avenue outpost through March 31, 2019. As New York spirals toward ever-increased gentrification, Haacke's sobering take on real-estate chicanery are well worth exploring.

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Postcard Thursday: The Death of George Washington

"First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in humble and enduring scenes of private life. Pious, just, humane, temperate, and sincere; uniform, dignified, and commanding; his example was as edifying to all around him.... [V]ice shuddered in his presence and virtue always felt his fostering hand. The purity of his private character gave effulgence to his public virtues. ... Such was the man for whom our nation mourns." -- Henry ("Light Horse Harry") Lee

On December 14, 1799, former president George Washington breathed his last at Mount Vernon. Washington was not the first Founding Father to pass away -- Benjamin Franklin had died nine years earlier -- but he was already widely acknowledged as the "Father" of his country and quickly transformed into a symbol of America. Dozens of cities, towns, parks, lakes, and boulevards are named from him across the country, and he is memorialized with countless statues and other monuments.

One of the most famous of these statues, by French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon, was completed during Washington's lifetime. Houdon was hired by the Virginia General Assembly in 1784 and traveled from France to Mount Vernon in the summer of 1785. He stayed at Mount Vernon that fall, measuring Washington limbs and taking a life mask (below) from which he could work once he was back in France. The statue was completed around 1792 and installed in 1796 in the rotunda of the Virginia state capitol.

Starting in the 1850s numerous casts of the Houdon statue were made, including a bronze copy that now stands in the rotunda of New York's City Hall. Prior to that (from 1883 to 1907), the work stood in Riverside Park between 88th and 89th Street near the Soldiers and Sailors monument. According to Peter Salwen's Upper West Side Story, the statue had been unearthed in the arsenal in Central Park by parks commissioner Egbert Viele. According to a contemporary guide to the city, "children of the public schools of the city" raised the funds to have the statue erected in the park, very near Viele's home. By 1907, it had been moved to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. According to a 1908 edition of the New-York Tribune, because the statue was only life size and not "heroic size, as statues have to be to look well out of doors," it was taken to the Met to be put on display. When, precisely, it then migrated to City Hall is unclear, though it seems to be sometime in the 1960s.

Of course, New York has many other Washington monuments, including Henry Kirke Brown's equestrian statue in Union Square, JQA Ward's standing figure on the steps of Federal Hall National Memorial, and the Washington Square Arch, erected to honor the centennial of Washington's inauguration.

 

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

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Postcard Thursday: Frank Lloyd Wright in NYC

In today's New York Post, reporter Lauren Steussy takes a peek inside Crimson Beech, the only home in New York City designed by celebrated architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

To accompany that article, James has written a piece about other ways to explore Wright's legacy in New York. You can read it at http://nypost.com/2017/09/13/experience-frank-lloyd-wrights-work-across-nyc-and-beyond/

And to read more of James's work on Wright check out:

• Roadtripping Frank Lloyd Wright’s greatest archi-hits
• Becoming Frank Lloyd Wright
• Is the world ready for Frank Lloyd Wright’s suburban utopia?

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

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Postcard Thursday: The Chicago Cubs

Baseball cards from the 1908-09 Chicago Cubs, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 

In honor of the historic win by the Chicago Cubs last night -- breaking a 108-year drought -- here are some baseball cards that date back to the last time the Cubs were national champions.

Mordecai Peter Centennial "Three-Finger" Brown was the Cubs' star pitcher. Born in 1876 (hence his second middle name), he had lost two fingers in a farming accident and as a result, pitched an incredible and rarely hittable curveball.

At the end of the 1908 season, it was Brown on the mound when the Cubs beat the New York Giants to win the pennant and thus advance to the World Series, where they beat the Detroit Tigers in five games. It was their second World Series win in a row, and little did the Cubs or their fans know how long it would take for them to be basking in the limelight again after another championship season.

This cards are part of a huge collection of vintage baseball cards held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There are almost always some of the cards on view in the American wing. You have less than two weeks to enjoy the current exhibition, "The Old Ball Game: New York Baseball 1887-1977."

Congratulations, Cubs!

* * * * Read more about NYC history in Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: The Vanderbilt Mansion and Plaza Hotel

Today's postcard again takes us back to the era before 1907 when messages had to be crammed on the front of the card because the back was reserved solely for the address. You can also date this card as being before 1907 because the building on the right is the original Plaza Hotel. It stood on the exact same spot as the current incarnation, but was only around from 1890 to 1905, when it was demolished so that Henry Hardenbergh's new hotel could be built.

The mansion at the left of the image is the most impressive of the many Vanderbilt mansions that formed a sort of "Vanderbilt Row" on Fifth Avenue south of 59th Street. This was the home of Cornelius Vanderbilt II (grandson of the famous Commodore); at upward of 130 rooms, it remains the largest private residence ever constructed in New York City. The house was built in two phases by George B. Post (architect of the New York Stock Exchange) and Richard Morris Hunt (one of the greatest Beaux Arts architects who also built The Breakers, Vanderbilt's "cottage" in Newport). Sumptuously decorated by artists like John La Farge and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the house was a showcase for Vanderbilt's wealth and taste, but he only enjoyed it for six years before dying. The house itself only lasted until 1927, when it was torn down for the construction of Bergdorf Goodman.

This card was mailed December 26, 1906, as a thank-you for a Christmas present. To maximize space, the sender wrote it like it was a telegram:

Dear Fannie. Thanks very much for my present, was so nice. Am real pleased. Have got through in the office. Am home. Come down if you can. Emily is here. Love from us all. Let me know if you come.

A few tantalizing remnants of the Vanderbilt house remain, including the entrance gates, which were repurposed for the Conservatory Garden in Central Park and the fireplace mantel, by Saint-Gaudens, now in the Met.

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.)

* * * *

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.

Happy Birthday, John Sloan

Today marks the 142nd anniversary of the birth of John Sloan, the great Ashcan school painter, who created vivid scenes of life in New York City. Sloan was born in 1871 in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, and after spending a number of years in Philadelphia, he moved to New York in 1904, settling in Greenwich Village. That same year he participated in a group show of "The Eight" at the National Arts Club on Gramercy Park, an exhibition that thrust him into the limelight and drew critical attention to the Ashcan school's realist art.

Sloan, like his friend George Bellows, painted life as it unfolded around him. Below are just some of his wonderful New York City scenes.

Sunday, Women Drying Their Hair, 1912, courtesy of the Addison Museum of Art.

Sloan exhibited this painting in the famous 1913 Armory Show.

Sixth Avenue Elevated at Third Street, 1928, courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Picture Shop Window, 1907, courtesy of the Newark Museum

The Lafayette, 1927, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Lafayette was a cafe in a hotel on University and Ninth Street where Sloan liked to hang out. Now gone, it was one of the last great literary and artistic meeting places in the Village.

Dust Storm, Fifth Avenue, 1906, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

McSorley's Bar, courtesy of the Detroit Institute of Art.

See our earlier blog post about McSorley's Bar here.

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George Bellows at the Metropolitan Museum

George Bellows (American, Columbus, Ohio 1882–1925 New York City). Forty-two Kids, 1907. Oil on canvas. 42 x 60 in. (106.7 x 152.4 cm). Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Museum Purchase, William A. Clark Fund

From now until February 18, 2013, you have the opportunity to see a remarkable exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "George Bellows." This retrospective of the artist's short career is filled with wonderful paintings of New York City, where Bellows lived and worked from 1904 to his death in 1925.

Bellows came to New York at the age of 22 to pursue his dream of becoming a painter. He studied at the New York School of Art under Robert Henri and was pushed -- along with classmate Edward Hopper -- to capture New York in its gritty realism.

George Bellows (American, Columbus, Ohio 1882–1925 New York City). Why Don't They Go to the Country for Vacation?, 1913. Transfer drawing, reworked with lithographic crayon, ink, and scraping, 25 x 22 1/2 in. (63.5 x 57.2 cm). Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Fund

Among Bellows favorite subjects were the immigrants of the Lower East Side; one section of the exhibit chronicles the development of his image "The Cliff Dwellers," -- a chaotic Lower East Side street scene -- as a painting, watercolor, and lithograph. Bellows was also drawn to the edges of the island, and the show features many scenes of the East River, Hudson River, Battery Park, and Riverside Park, a locale the artist would return to again and again.

George Bellows (American, Columbus, Ohio 1882–1925 New York City). Blue Snow, The Battery, 1910. Oil on canvas, 34 x 44 in. (86.4 x 111.8 cm). Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio: Museum Purchase, Howald Fund

Seeing these images reproduced in two dimensions on a computer screen doesn't do them justice. If you are going to the Met this holiday season, do stop by the Bellows show. It's a compact exhibit and well worth your time.

George Bellows (American, Columbus, Ohio 1882–1925 New York City). Rain on the River, 1908. Oil on canvas, 32 x 38 in. (81.3 x 96.5 cm). Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Jesse Metcalf Fund

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Wall Street, 1820, at the Duncan Phyfe Show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

We're a little late to the game on this post -- in fact, you only have one more day to see the Duncan Phyfe exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The show closes May 6, 2012 (i.e., tomorrow), but if you are looking for something to do tomorrow, it is well worth a visit. Not only does it showcase the work of a great New York cabinetmaker, it is also your opportunity to examine a little-seen painting of the city, Wall Street 1820 by Johann Heinrich Jenny.

The painting (on loan to the museum from a private collection) is an amazing view of the city nearly 200 years ago. The above black-and-white reproduction does no justice at all to the vibrant colors of the original, which looks like it could have been painted yesterday.

Views of Wall Street were common in the nineteenth century, as it was not just the financial center of the city, but--prior to the move by the wealthy to Greenwich Village and Brooklyn Heights--its residential heart as well.

(The second view, below, shows the street in 1847, as more and more Greek Revivial banks came to dominate the area.)

If you do go see the show, there's a gallery talk at 10:00AM on May 6.

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Cleopatra's Needle: Is NYC Pollution to Blame?

As you may have seen reported in the Wall Street Journal, TIME, and many other news outlets, there's a bit of an archaeological dust-up happening in Central Park. Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, wrote a letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg complaining about the condition of Cleopatra's Needle, the 71-foot tall obelisk that resides in Central Park directly behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The obelisk, a gift from the Khedive of Egypt, has been in the park since 1881, when William Henry Vanderbilt paid over $100,000 to have it transported from Alexandria to the United States. The needle--one of a pair--was constructed ca. 1475 B.C. and originally stood up the Nile in Heliopolis. Both obelisks were moved to Alexandria ca. 13 B.C., perhaps in honor of Cleopatra and Mark Antony. In antiquity, one of the needles fell in an earthquake, and that one was transported in 1877 to London, where it still stands on the banks of the Thames. Four years later, New York's obelisk arrived; weighing over 220 tons, the needle had to be inched along a special railway from its West Side dock at 96th Street to Central Park--just getting it across the island took 112 days!

For years, visitors to the park have complained about the weathering of the granite and the loss of its hieroglyphics. Many--including Zahi Hawass--have come to the conclusion that New York is to blame. As Hawass wrote in his letter to Mayor Bloomberg, "I am glad that this monument has become such an integral part of New York City, but I am dismayed at the lack of care and attention that it has been given. Recent photographs that I have received show the severe damage that has been done to the obelisk, particularly to the hieroglyphic text, which in places has been completely worn away."

But is that "severe damage" New York's fault? In his insightful archaeological blog, Per Storemyr examines the obelisk in old photos and comes to the conclusion that the obelisk was already weathered by the time it reached America. In particular, his points to the photo (above) from the Library of Congress taken ca. 1856-60, which shows that twenty years before it came to New York, the needle was "only in marginally better condition than today. The weathering continues along part of the south face, whereas other photos taken before the transfer to New York show that the east face is in good repair, just as today."

Will this photographic evidence be enough to convince Egypt that we are good custodians of this monument? Or should objects like Cleopatra's Needle be repatriated for deeper reasons of cultural patrimony?

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Read more about the creation of Central Park in

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