Happy Birthday, Teddy Roosevelt

Today marks the 152nd birthday of our twenty-sixth president, Theodore Roosevelt, the only U.S. president to be born and raised in New York City.

Roosevelt was born in a brownstone at 28 East 20th Street and today if you go to that address, you will find a double brownstone run by the National Parks Service as the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace. However, despite the plaque out front that claims that the house was "restored" in 1923, it is, in fact, not the house that Teddy grew up in.

Roosevelt lived in a home at this address from 1858 to 1872, when the family moved uptown. The original home was demolished in 1916. Teddy died just three years later and, as we note in Inside the Apple:

"The New York State legislature chartered the Woman’s Roosevelt Memorial Association a mere 23 days after Roosevelt’s death. By mid March, the organization had purchased the building that had gone up in place of T.R.’s boyhood home as well as the property next door, which had been owned by Roosevelt’s uncle, Robert. Their plan was to “restore” the houses as they would have looked in 1865, based on the “description written by Colonel Roosevelt in his autobiography.” What this meant, in practice, was tearing the buildings down and starting from scratch. In 1923, the newly built home was opened to the public and was praised as a “shrine to American patriotism.” But nice as the reconstructed home may have been, it was no match for Gutzon Borglum’s ultimate tribute to T.R., which would commence construction by the end of the decade: Mount Rushmore."

If you are down in the Gramercy Park/Flatiron area today, swing by the house--admission is free.  And if you in that neighborhood on Saturday, there’s a free concert at 2:00 p.m. celebrating Roosevelt’s accomplishments as a naturalist.

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Read more about Theodore Roosevelt in

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

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Remembering Opening Day at the Guggenheim

In all the brouhaha surrounding the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum's plan to place a food kiosk outside the museum (a request unanimously denied by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, despite Frank Lloyd Wright's love of hot dogs), there's been little or no mention of the fact that today is the Guggenheim's 51st birthday. The museum opened on October 21, 1959, to mixed reviews. From the conception to completion the project took 16 years, but alas, Wright--who died six months before its completion--never got to enjoy the finished space.

Planning czar Robert Moses--Wright's second cousin by marriage--did not always see eye-to-eye with the famed architect. (In his opening remarks he said, "We need not debate how much of cousin Frank was genius and how much was, let us say, showmanship." In another context, he referred to his cousin as the man "regarded in Russia as our greatest builder.") But Moses made sure the Guggenheim got built. When the Department of Buildings was dragging its feet on giving the museum the proper approvals, Moses called the commissioner and told him: "I will have a building permit on my desk at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow or there will be a new building commissioner."
Many of Wright's colleagues praised the new museum. Philip Johnson called it "Mr. Wright's greatest building. New York's greatest building." Edward Durell Stone, who had worked on the Museum of Modern Art and would go on to build Huntington Hartford's Gallery of Modern Art on Columbus Circle, noted "I personally think it's a wonderful museum.... Why can't people relax and enjoy a fantastic structure instead of continually carping and criticizing."

And carp and criticize they did. The New York Mirror compared it to a "ball of mud" and an "imitation beehive that does not fit in any New York environment." Others drew comparisons to a Jello mold or a washing machine. The biggest complaint was that it would be a terrible space to show art (a critique that still plagues certain shows at the museum.)
If you are on the Upper East Side today, swing by and admire Wright's greatest New York creation and wish it a happy birthday.

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Read more about Frank Lloyd Wright and the Guggenheim Museum in

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

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FREE Walking Tour of the Columbus Circle/Carnegie Hall Neighborhood

Greetings friends, fans, and faithful blog readers:

On Sunday, October 17, at 3:00PM, we will be leading a free walking tour of the Carnegie Hall area in conjunction with the Borders store at Columbus Circle. We’ll look at some of the most interesting architecture of the neighborhood, including the Hearst Tower, the Museum of Arts and Design, Carnegie Hall, and some beautiful pre-war apartment buildings.

We’ll meet in the Special Events area of the Borders store, which is located on the second floor of the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle. In order to start on time, please plan to be at the store by 2:50PM.

We hope to see you there!

The Drunkard at Metropolitan Playhouse

Now through October 17, you have the opportunity to see one of the most famous plays of the 19th century, The Drunkard, which is being performed at the Metropolitan Playhouse. Nimbly directed by Frank Kuhn, the play tells the story of Edward Middleton, a well-off country squire who falls prey to the evils of drink, moves to New York City, and nearly loses everything. It is a fascinating glimpse into the mid-19th-century temperance movement, and also a chance for modern audiences to experience a real antebellum melodrama, complete with a villain who comes as close to mustache-twirling as you'll see on the stage today.

Written in 1844, the play was a vehicle for its author, W.H. Smith, who played the lead. It premiered in Boston and ran for 144 performances--then the longest running play in American history. P.T. Barnum, himself a strong believer in temperance, saw the show and imported it to New York (changing the setting of play in the process) and it ran for 100 performances at his American Museum, which stood near today's City Hall Park.


The energetic cast imbues this production with humor and real feeling--you never feel like you are sitting in a history lesson. It's well worth the journey to the East Village to see this fascinating slice of New York from 150 years ago.


More about the play, including ticket information, can be found at http://www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/

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Read more about P.T. Barnum's New York in

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

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Join us for "Now Circa Then" at Ars Nova

You're invited to join us at Ars Nova Theater (511 West 54th Street) on Tuesday, October 5, for a performance of the new play Now Circa Then by Carly Mensch. Inspired by a trip to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Mensch has written a play about a pair of costumed historical reenactors and their relationship with the 19th-century characters they play.

Following the show, the playwright will join us on stage for a talk back where we will be answering questions about the history of the Lower East Side and the play.

Tickets normally cost $25, but if you use promotion code NEVIUS20 when you purchase tickets (which you can do here), you'll save $5 per ticket.

We hope to see you there!

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Read more about the Lower East Side in

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

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The Great Fire of 1776

Today marks the anniversary of the beginning of the end of American control of Manhattan during the Revolutionary War – the Great Fire of 1776, which decimated Lower Manhattan on the night of September 21.

As we write in Inside the Apple:

The fire started on the evening of September 21, 1776—perhaps in the Fighting Cocks Tavern on the wharf, though that has never been substantiated—and quickly engulfed the city west of Broadway. The churchyard surrounding Trinity Church kept the fire from heading south, but neither Trinity was spared, nor anything between it and St. Paul’s Chapel. St. Paul’s, itself only ten years old, had a bucket brigade manning its roof and was saved. In all, over 400 buildings were gone—nearly twenty-five percent of the city’s structures.

The British immediately blamed the Americans. (One American blamed by the British was Nathan Hale, who was arrested for spying that same day. Hale, however, had nothing to do with the fire.) General Howe called it a “horrid attempt” by a “number of wretches to burn the town….” As most of the damage happened on “Holy Ground” and other Trinity Church property, some saw it as an explicit attack on the Church of England’s power and influence. In truth, the Americans had contemplated the idea of torching the city if it fell into British hands. One of Washington’s generals, Nathaniel Greene (the “Fighting Quaker”), had pressed Washington in that direction. However, when Washington floated the idea by John Hancock, the Continental Congress immediately nixed it and it is unlikely that either Washington or Greene disobeyed Congress.

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Read more about the Great Fire of 1776 and the American Revolution in

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

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40 Years Ago: The First New York City Marathon

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the inaugural running of the New York City Marathon. Now host to over 44,000 runners, the race is thought to be the largest spectator sport in the world, with over two million people lining the course. This is a far cry from the original race, run on September 13, 1970, which drew a field of just 127 people with the only spectators being family, friends, and bewildered passersby.

The race was organized by Fred Lebow and Vince Chiapetta and grew out of Lebow’s dissatisfaction with the Cherry Tree Marathon, run each February in the Bronx. The course had been picked due to the emptiness of  Sedgwick Avenue, which the entrants ran up and down from Yankee Stadium for 26.2 miles. The Cherry Tree Marathon had about 200 entrants and there were no spectators, aid stations, or road closures; Lebow—who ran the race for the first time in 1970—thought he could do better by moving the marathon to Central Park. He convinced the Parks Department that he had the backing of anonymous “millionaire joggers” who would help produce the race. He also pointed out that from a practical point of view, the city would not have to deal with any traffic issues—earlier in the year, Mayor John Lindsay had closed Central Park to traffic on weekends.

The entry fee was one dollar; all the other expenses had to come out of Lebow’s and Chiapetta’s pockets as Lebow’s rich backers turned out to be a fiction. To save three cents per can, Lebow bought sodas in Greenwich Village and took them up to the park to use at the aid stations, but he forgot a can opener. Lebow and Chiapetta both competed in the race and when Lebow got too thirsty to continue, he tried to beg a soda from one of the park’s vendors since he had no money in his running shorts. A nearby visitor took pity on him and bought him a drink.

The winner of the race was firefighter Gary Muhrcke (pictured above), who had signed up that morning, with a time of 2:31:39. While two women had started the race, neither finished; indeed, more than half the field dropped out before the finish line. Muhrcke was awarded a $10 watch; other finishers received old bowling and baseball trophies.

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Read more about Central Park in

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

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Even Old New York Was Once New Amsterdam....

In honor of the anniversary of the Dutch surrendering to the English on this day in 1664, here's a link to our blog post from last year commemorating the handover.

And here's They Might Be Giants singing Istanbul (Not Constantinople):

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Read more about the Dutch colonial New York in

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

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Happy Birthday, Louis Sullivan

Today, September 3, marks the birthday of renowned architect Louis Sullivan—the “father of modernism”—who would be 154 years old today. Sullivan was born in Boston, the son of an Irish immigrant father (who’d come to America in 1847, the worst year of the Irish Potato Famine) and a Swiss mother.

Sullivan is most closely associated with Chicago, where he moved in 1873, just two years after the Great Chicago Fire decimated the city—thus providing ample work for young architects. Indeed, Sullivan has only one building in New York, but it is superb: the Bayard-Condict Building at 65 Bleecker Street.

Originally just known as the Bayard Building, the skyscraper was commissioned in 1897 by the United Loan and Investment Company and named for one of New York’s oldest families.* However, by the time construction was underway, the bank had sold a controlling interest in the project to Silas Alden Condict who used the space for offices and light manufacturing. There is an oft-told story that Sullivan strenuously objected to the angels below the cornice. Supposedly, Condict insisted on the sextet of angels because he wanted “every tenant and every visitor to the Condict Building to realize the true spirit of fair dealing among men can and should prevail during the six business days of the week, as well as on the Sabbath.” However, as Robert C. Twombly and Narciso G. Menocal point out in Louis Sullivan: The Poetry of Architecture, similar motifs were already a part of Sullivan’s vernacular and the plans for the building were complete before Condict bought into the project, so it is unlikely that Sullivan objected to anything or that Condict had much say in the decorative scheme.

The building, which emphasizes its strong verticality with unbroken columns and is clad in brilliant cream terra cotta, made East Coast architectural critics take notice (perhaps because it was Sullivan’s first major work near their editorial offices). The Architectural Record wrote that it was “the nearest approach yet in New York… to solving the problem of the skyscraper.” The building was substantially renovated in 2000 and is well worth a detour the next time you are in the Village. (Or watching The Wizards of Waverly Place.)

* The Bayards owned a great deal of land in what is now Chinatown and the Village;
not only is there a Bayard Street in Chinatown, nearby Houston Street is
named for William Houstoun, who married Mary Bayard in 1788.

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Read more about early New York skyscrapers
in Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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Around the World in 16-1/2 Minutes

Ninety-nine years ago today, the New York Times decided to find out how long it would take a commercial telegram to circle the globe. The record had been set in 1903, when President Roosevelt celebrated the completion of the Commercial Pacific Cable by sending the first round-the-world message in just 9 minutes. However, that message had been given priority status and the Times wanted to see how long a regular message would take -- and what route it would follow.

At 7:00 p.m. on August 20, 1911, the Times telegraph operator on the seventeenth floor of the newspaper's offices in Times Square sent a telegram that stated simply: "This message sent around the world." Sixteen-and-a-half minutes later, the same telegraph operator received his message back. In the intervening minutes the telegram had traveled from New York westward, stopping in:

• San Francisco
• Honolulu
• Midway Island
• Manila
• Hong Kong
• Saigon
• Singapore
• Madras
• Bombay
• Aden
• Suez
• Port Said
• Alexandria
• Malta
• Gibraltar
• Lisbon
• The Azores
• and then back to Times Square.

The Times was particularly struck by the portion of the route sent by the Indian Government telegraph from Madras to Bombay. "This line," they wrote, "traverses the domains of the Nizam of Hyderabad, the most powerful Prince in India, from the Coromandel to the Malabar coast, crossing the Indian peninsula and passing through great forests inhabited by man-eating tigers, panthers, boa constrictors, and pythons, and singing its way past the lonely residence of the American missionary, whose only gleam of civilization is the buzzing on the telegraph wires near his bungalow."

Today, the building where the Times dispatched their record-setting message is called One Times Square and is best known for its news zipper and the dropping ball on New Year's Eve. The Times moved out in 1913 and eventually sold the building in 1961.

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Read more about One Times Square and the history of the area
in Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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