Postcard Thursday: From Imbolc to Candelmas to Groundhog Day

Today, Punxsutawney Phil, the world's most famous rodent, saw his shadow, thus predicting six more weeks of winter. Now, for anyone paying attention, March 21--the first day of spring--is six weeks away, whether a groundhog sees his shadow or not.

But how did this tradition begin?

Ancient traditions not only marked the beginnings of the seasons (vernal equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox, and winter solstice), but also the midpoint of each season. For winter, that is approximately February 1 or 2, which was known in ancient Ireland as Imbolc, a word which literally means "in the belly." It referred to the time around which ewes and rams would mate. The date is also 40 days after Christmas, which in the Christian tradition is celebrated as Candelmas, the commemoration of Jesus' presentation in the temple and the end of the Christmas/Epiphany season.

In northern Europe, Candelmas became the day when farmers would begin to predict whether or not there would be an early thaw. As one early poem put it, "If Candlemas day be dry and fair/The half o' winter to come and mair [more]."

We don't know exactly how this then transformed into small animals predicting the weather. In France it's a marmot; in Germany, the animal is traditionally a badger. By the 1840s, the groundhog had been attached to the holiday in the United States. Since 1887, the town of Punxsutawney, in Pennsylvania, has hosted groundhog festivities. As celebrations of Candelmas became less important in American life, Groundhog Day took its place. There are now many competing groundhog prognosticators, including Staten Island Chuck who--for the record--did NOT see his shadow, thus predicting an early spring.

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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: 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: New York City's Oldest Buildings

If you did not see it, James has a piece at CurbedNY this week in which he tracks down the oldest buildings in all five boroughs of New York City. This postcard, above, shows the Britton Cottage, which today is part of Historic Richmond Town, and is the second oldest standing building on Staten Island.

You can read the full story at http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/01/12/the_20_oldest_buildings_in_new_york_city.php

Each borough also gets an honorable mention: a building that is old, but didn't quite make the cut. For Manhattan, that building is Fraunces Tavern, which, according to The New York Times, is celebrating its birthday today. On January 15, 1762, Samuel Fraunces bought the house from the heirs of Stephen Delancey to open what was then called the Queen Charlotte or Queenshead Tavern. While only a few fragments of the building Sam Fraunces bought are still there, the tavern is an important relic nonetheless.

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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.

Historic Richmond Town's Kruser-Finley House Gutted by Fire

This summer, we snapped the above photo during a visit to Historic Richmond Town, Staten Island's remarkable collection of colonial and early American architecture. That's the Kruser-Finley house, which was built around 1790 and is one of only four houses in Richmond Town built in the eighteenth century. The house, originally located in nearby Egbertville, was built as one room. Two additions were made in the nineteenth century, and it probably served as a house/shop/workshop for various craftspeople, including a cooper (barrel-maker).

Alas, on Wednesday around 4:30pm, the house caught fire. Though the blaze was extinguished in an hour, most the house was lost: the interior was gutted and roof is now completely gone. Though the investigation is still on-going, it has been deemed "suspicious."

courtesy of MARC A. HERMANN/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

If you've never had the chance to visit, Historic Richmond Town is well worth the trip. Located in the middle of Staten Island, it was the county seat of Richmond County before Staten Island was annexed into New York City. More than 25 significant historic buildings -- some relocated to the site, others original to the town -- are scattered around the property. Though you can walk the streets on your own, the only way to really see the buildings up close is on a tour, which will generally take you inside three or four historic houses.

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Read more New York City history in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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Area Code Blues

Norman Mailer called it "Probably the worst news to hit Brooklyn since the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles." No, he wasn't back from the dead to pronounce judgment on the new Nets arena -- he was talking about the 718 area code, which was introduced 25 years ago.

When area codes were first established in 1947, all of New York was given 212. Due to its large population, the city was assigned the area code that was considered easiest to dial on a rotary telephone. However, by the early 1980s, it was becoming clear to Public Service Commission that New York's continued growth would soon create the need for a new area code. (Not only was the population rising, fax machines were becoming affordable for the first time and the country's first 1G cell phone network had just been established.)

The commission decided to allow Manhattan and the Bronx to retain the 212 area code, assigning 718 to Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. Public reaction was swift and furious. Businesses complained about the costs of reprinting stationery and letterhead; residents kvetched about being pushed further into the realm of the "outer boroughs." As Brooklyn College's president, Robert Hess, remarked to the New York Times: "It's a giant step backwards. For 80-odd years we've been striving to make New York a single city out of the five boroughs. To solve a problem in New York where there are not enough lines by essentially evicting the outer boroughs is really an affront."

Today, of course, 718 seems old fashioned. In 1992, the Bronx (and the Marble Hill section of Manhattan) joined the other boroughs by switching to 718; that was the same year that the 917 area code was added to Manhattan. (Fun fact: originally, 917 was used more for beepers and pagers than for cell phones.) Area codes 646 and 347 were added in 1999 to further lighten to load, but there still aren’t enough numbers -- area code 929 will be introduced in early 2011 to provide more service in the outer boroughs.

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Read more about New York's role in the creation of the telephone
in Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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The Opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge

Saturday, November 21, marks the 45th anniversary of the opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which was at the time the longest suspension bridge in the world.

The bridge was the brainchild of Robert Moses, who had more influence on New York City that perhaps any other individual in its history. The bridge, connecting Staten Island to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, was the last major arterial road in Moses's grand plan to connect all of New York by automobile. (Among Moses's many other projects included the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, Robert F. Kennedy (nee Triborough) Bridge, and the Cross-Bronx Expressway.) The bridge was the last project designed by engineer Othmar Ammann, who had started his career in New York working with famed Beaux-Arts architect Cass Gilbert on the George Washington Bridge in 1927.

Though the bridge promised to slice commuting time to Manhattan in half, it was not without controversy. Many residents in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, were displaced for the bridge's massive footing. And on Staten Island, residents worried that such easy access to their island would encourage a building boom and ruin its rural charm. As former resident Tom Goff told the New York Times on opening day: "It was all woods. I picked my first potato on Staten Island."

There was also controversy surrounding the name. The Italian Historical Society of America suggested the Verrazano Bridge to honor Giovanni da Verrazzano, the Italian explorer who first sighted Staten Island in 1524. (Somewhere along the way the second z in Verrazzano's name got dropped from common usage.) Governor Nelson Rockefeller agreed and on Verrazano Day in April 1959, he publicly backed the name for the as-yet-to-be-constructed span.

Immediately, there was backlash. The Staten Island Chamber of Commerce fired off a letter to Governor Rockefeller questioning the wisdom of honoring "a foreigner who made a navigational mistake." They suggested calling it the Staten Island Bridge instead in order to allow their island to get a little bit of the limelight. Though the controversy raged for some time, Robert Moses quietly stepped in and named the bridge the Verrazano-Narrows, thus honoring both the Italian explorer and the body of water it spans. The name of the bridge today is so well-known that many don't realize that the body of water that flows underneath it is simply called the Narrows--the Verrazano part applies only to the bridge itself.

When the bridge opened it cost $0.50 to cross; combined with the $0.35 toll on Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel meant that for $0.85, one could drive from Staten Island to Manhattan. Adjusting for inflation, that same trip should cost $5.85 today. Instead, at full fare it costs $16.50 (for cash users) or $13.71 (EZ-Pass). Staten Island residents get a further break on the bridge tolls and car poolers get an even bigger discount, but even so the cheapest that drive can cost in 2009 is $7.13.

There has been some talk recently of adding pedestrian and/or bike paths to the bridge, but until that happens the only way to access the bridge on foot is as part of the annual New York City Marathon.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE LIFE MAGAZINE ARCHIVE AT GOOGLE IMAGES.

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Read more about Robert Moses and his effect on New York in
Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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New York's many 9/11 anniversaries: the Staten Island Peace Conference

As we approach the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, it can be easy to forget that long before 9/11, the date September 11 held an important place in New York City's history.

Probably the most important event is September 11, 1609, when Henry Hudson began his voyage up the Hudson River. While he didn't find what he was looking for (a northwest passage), his exploration led to European migration and, thus, to the founding of New York City. We'll write more about Hudson and his momentous voyage in later posts; this week, we thought we'd concentrate on 9/11/1776 and the Staten Island Peace Conference.

In late August 1776, the first pitched battle of the war--then known as the Battle of Long Island and now mostly known as the Battle of Brooklyn--had taken place. It was a decisive victory for the British under General William Howe. Indeed, if Howe hadn't held back, it could have been a war-ending victory for the British troops. However, the British didn't press their advantage and George Washington was able to evacuate thousands of American troops to Manhattan under the cover of thick fog.

Howe's brother, Admiral Lord Richard Howe, was in charge of the British navy and it was put to him to approach the rebellious American about a peace accord. The British wanted to give the Americans one last chance to come back into the fold as loyal colonists before, presumably, taking harsher measures.

The conference was held on the south shore of Staten Island in a house owned by Colonel Christopher Billopp, a Loyalist. The Americans sent a delegation of three from Philadelphia: Edward Rutledge from South Carolina, the youngest signer of the Declaration of Independence; John Adams of Massachusetts; and elder statesman Benjamin Franklin. 

The meeting lasted less than three hours and accomplished nothing. Howe was shocked that the three Americans rejected out of hand the idea of rejoining the mother country. More to the point, he had no authority to negotiate. For Adams and Rutledge, the diplomatic show must have seemed a waste of time. When Howe told Adams he thought of him as a "gentleman of influence," Adams retorted that Howe could "consider me in what light you please... except as a British subject."

The Billopp house, today known as the Conference House, is open April through mid-December on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. More information about visiting can be found at http://www.theconferencehouse.org.

(More information on Henry Hudson and the Battle Brooklyn can be found in our forthcoming book, Inside the Apple.)