Robert Moses

Today marks the thirtieth anniversary of the death, at age 93, of Robert Moses, probably the person with the single greatest influence on the shape of New York in the 20th century.

As we write in Inside the Apple, “There is perhaps no figure in New York City’s history more likely to set off a heated debate than Robert Moses. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion about the ‘Power Broker’ (as Robert Caro called him), and he is vilified and praised in equal measure—often in the same breath.”

A short blog entry is not enough to do Moses justice, but consider some of the projects that he had a hand in during his tenure:

• ·         Astoria Park
• ·         1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs
• ·         Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel
• ·         BQE
• ·         Central Park Zoo
• ·         Co-op City
• ·         Cross Bronx Expressway
• ·         East River Park
• ·         Jones Beach State Park
• ·         Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
• ·         New York Coliseum
• ·         Ocean Parkway
• ·         The Robert F. Kennedy (aka Triborough) Bridge
• ·         Shea Stadium
• ·         Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village

The list is endless and these are just a fraction of the projects that came about under his stewardship. At one point, Moses simultaneously held twelve different state and city offices, from being in charge of slum clearance to running the highways to overseeing the parks.

Of course, not every project was welcomed and many never came to fruition, such as his idea to run a Lower Manhattan Expressway across the Lower East Side and SoHo. As we note in Inside the Apple:

By the late 1960s, Robert Moses’ influence in New York was on the wane. His last big project in the city had been the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens, and he had retired from most of his official positions. What ended up as his last great fight was the battle of the Lower Manhattan Expressway (sometimes called LOMEX), a road that had first been proposed in 1929 and did not ultimately go down in defeat until 1969.

The purpose of the expressway was to relieve downtown traffic and connect the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges to the Holland Tunnel. By the 1940s, Moses was proposing an eight-lane elevated highway roughly following the paths of Broome and Delancey Streets across the island. To Moses and other urban planners, the area that LOMEX would traverse—not yet called “SoHo,” a moniker that would come into use in the late 1960s—was the definition of urban blight.

Had the expressway been built, a number of wonderful cast-iron structures would have been lost—indeed, the city was well on its way to tearing down SoHo in its entirety. Luckily, Jane Jacobs and the Joint Committee to Stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway convinced the city’s Board of Estimate not to move forward and SoHo was saved.

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Read much more about Robert Moses's influence in

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

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The Municipal Building

A reader and fan of Inside the Apple sent along the above photo and asked if we could delve a little into the history of the building. It is the Municipal Building, built 1909-14 by William Kendall, a junior partner in the venerable firm of McKim, Mead, and White. It was the first foray of that firm into skyscraper building, and it had a huge impact on the form--at least in the Soviet Union.

Despite its importance to New York City, many people aren't familiar with the Municipal Building, which sits at the intersection of Chambers and Centre streets. (Originally, Chambers Street actually went through the loggia and connected traffic to the Lower East Side; the construction of One Police Plaza in 1973 forced Chambers Street to dead-end.)

Starting in the last decades of the 19th century, the city began contemplating tearing down its 1812 City Hall, which was too small for the modern workings of government, and replace it with a grander building. They even went so far as to have a design contest, which was won by John Rochester Thomas. Meanwhile, a plan was concocted to move the old City Hall to 42nd Street and use it to house the New York Public Library. In the end, however, the American Scenic & Historic Preservation Society--one of the first preservation groups in the country--prevailed on the government to leave City Hall alone. Thomas's new City Hall was built, with modification, on Chambers Street, and became the Surrogate's Court.* This meant that the city was still in dire need of more office space for its workers--especially after January 1, 1898, when New York consolidated the five boroughs into one city.


With consolidation, New York was, without question, America's largest city, and many felt it needed a true Civic Center to match. Only fifteen years earlier, the city had began systematically destroying the old Five Points neighborhood, which lay just north of Chambers Street, and over the first three decades of the 20th century, the building of the Civic Center allowed the city to clear the worst blocks of the Five Points. In rapid succession, the city, state, and federal governments erected the Municipal Building, Supreme Court, U.S. Court, Department of Health, and what's now called the Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building, in the area that only a few years earlier had been teeming with immigrant families.


The architecture of the Muncipal Building reflected New York's place in the world--and Manhattan's place in New York. The top of the building is crowned by Civic Fame by Adolph Weinman--the second tallest statue in New York after the Statue of Liberty, though no one can agree how tall it is: sources list it as 20 feet, 25 feet, and 30 feet. The figure represents New York leading the way into the future, a beacon for other cities to follow. (Being famous, in this instance, meant "setting a virtuous example for future generations" and not "being Kim Kardashian.") The statue sits atop a high tower that is surrounded by four smaller towers. The big tower is Manhattan--the four other towers are the outer boroughs, surrounding Manhattan like satellites.

The Municipal Building was evidently greatly admired by, of all people, Josef Stalin. Certainly copies of it soon began popping up all over Moscow and around the Soviet bloc, from Moscow University (pictured at right, on the school's crest) to the Hotel Družba in Prague.


Until 2009, many New Yorkers only knew the Municipal Building as the place to go for a civil marriage ceremony. However, that has moved to the Lefkowitz State Office Building, just a couple of blocks north, where, in just a few days, hundreds of couples will celebrate New York's marriage equality law.


* Thomas's Surrogate's Court building, based on the Opera in Paris, is the subject of a blog post we're working on right now. Don't change that dial!

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Do you have a picture of building in New York that you want to know more about? Send it to info@insidetheapple.net and we'll see what we can dig up!

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Read more about the Five Points and the Civic Center in

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

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July 11, 1804: Burr Shoots Hamilton

Today marks the 207th anniversary of the famous duel between then-Vice President Aaron Burr and former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. We blogged about the duel last year (and dedicated a chapter to it in Inside the Apple), but there have been a couple of new developments in the past year, most excitingly the imminent reopening of Hamilton's Harlem home, the Grange.

As the National Park Service notes:

The Grange has been closed to the public for nearly five years, going through a move and an "extreme makeover" designed to make Alexander Hamilton's "sweet project" look and feel as welcoming to us as it did to Hamilton and his family when they moved in in 1802.

The house was built by John McComb, Jr., the architect responsible for Castle Clinton in Battery Park and, along with Francis Magnin, New York's City Hall. Hamilton wanted to move his family to the heights of Harlem to get them away from the hustle and bustle--and disease--of the city. However, Hamilton only got to occupy his home, originally set in a vast, 32-acre property, for less than two years before being killed by Burr. In 1899, the house was moved about four blocks from its original location in Hamilton Heights to a lot owned by St. Luke's Church near the corner of Convent Avenue and 140th Street. Over the years, the house was surrounded by a church on one side and an apartment block on the other. As early as 1962, the National Park Service began thinking about relocating the home again.

That move finally took place in June 2008, when the house was jacked up off its foundations and rolled to a new site in St. Nicholas Park off 140th Street. The Grange's new location is more reminiscent of what Hamilton would have experienced when he lived in the house.

The house is set to reopen on September 17. It is worth noting that the other famous colonial house in Harlem, the Morris-Jumel Mansion, was the place where Aaron Burr got remarried in 1833 (to the home's owner, Eliza Jumel) and where he lived toward the very end of his life.

Read more about the history of Hamilton, Burr, and Colonial Harlem

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

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Richard Nixon's Bad Day: July 8, 1976

After he resigned from the presidency on August 8, 1974, Richard Nixon began to put the pieces of his life back together. Knowing that he would not be allowed to practice law, he resigned from the California bar, as well as the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court. However, when he attempted to resign from the New York bar, the New York Bar Association turned him down. If they were to accept his resignation, they argued, he would need to publicly acknowledge that he had obstructed justice in the Watergate affair. And since Nixon wasn't going to do that, they weren't going to just let him quietly resign. Instead, they disbarred him.

On July 8, 1976, in a 4-to-1 decision, the Appellate Division of the State Supreme court (in the words of The New York Times): "sustained five charges that Mr. Nixon had obstructed 'the due administration of justice' and thus violated the Code of Professional Responsibility, a set of rules that all lawyers are required to observe."

However, while this public rebuke--the only time that a court of law found Nixon guilty of anything relating to Watergate--must have stung, the former president was probably paying little attention. The previous day, his wife Pat had suffered a stroke in their swimming pool at their home in California; on July 8, she was rushed to Long Beach Memorial Hospital.The stroke left her paralyzed on her left side (though she was able, through physical therapy, to regain much of her movement). The former first lady suffered a second stroke in 1983, and died in 1993. President Nixon died a year later.

Nixon's disbarment wasn't the only problem he faced in New York; in 1979, he attempted to purchase a condo apartment at 817 Fifth Avenue. Rarely do condo boards turn anyone down, but in this case, the board decided to buy the vacant apartment themselves rather than let the former president move in.

Read more about the history of the Presidency in New York in

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

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Reminder: July 3rd Revolutionary War Walking Tour

There are a handful of spaces left for our walking tour this Sunday, July 3, at 4:00 p.m., which examines the history of the Revolutionary War in New York. And, even though the price to the general public is now $15 per person, readers of this blog can still get the special, $10 discounted price if they reserve and mention the word MONTPELIER somewhere in their email.

To read more about the tour--including what you need to do to reserve a space--see our previous blog entry at: http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2011/06/revolutionary-walking-tour-sunday-july.html

Hope to see you Sunday! But hurry.... once the tour is full, we will have to cut off reservations.

(Bonus points if you know why Montpelier is the secret code word....)

Born Today: Judy Holliday

Word came down yesterday that the Broadway revival of Born Yesterday is closing next week. The play's Tony-nominated star, Nina Arianda, has been earning great reviews—and favorable comparisons to Judy Holliday, who originated the role in 1946. That spurred us to read about Holliday and, lo and behold, it turns out today would have been her 90th birthday.

Holliday was born on June 21, 1921, in Sunnyside, Queens. Her birth name was Judith Tuvim—Tuvim is a variant of the Yiddish word for holiday. She attended Julia Richman High School on the Upper East Side (a couple of years ahead of Lauren Bacall) and got her first job in show business working the switchboard at Orson Welles’s Mercury Theater.

Holliday’s first Broadway role was Alice in Kiss Them For Me in 1945. But her big break came in Born Yesterday—and it almost didn’t happen. The role of Billie Dawn had been written by Garson Kanin for his friend Jean Arthur. Arthur, however, was reluctant to take the part and during out-of-town tryouts in New Haven and Boston, Kanin was constantly rewriting the play to accommodate her needs—and to answer the critics, who were lukewarm, both in their response to Arthur and to the play.

When Arthur sat out a string of performances in Boston due to "ill health," Kanin began looking around for a replacement and found Holliday, who’d been recommended on the strength of her role in Kiss Them For Me. Kanin hired her to replace Arthur—but on the condition that she could learn the part in four days for the opening in Philadelphia. She did and it made her a star.

Holliday played Billie Dawn for 1,200 performances on Broadway and then reprised the role in the 1950 film version, winning both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award. The 1950s were rocky for Holliday: she was investigated for alleged Communism, and though cleared by the Senate committee, she found less work. In 1956, she returned to Broadway, winning a Tony for her role in Comden and Green’s Bells are Ringing.

Starting in 1953, Holliday lived at the venerable Dakota Apartments on Central Park West. She died on June 7, 1965, of breast cancer at Mount Sinai Hospital.

Read more about "The Great White Way" in

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

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General Slocum Disaster: June 15, 1904

One hundred and seven years ago, New York suffered the greatest tragedy in its history (up to that time), the sinking of the ship General Slocum in the East River.

We wrote about the ship in Inside the Apple and on our blog two years ago: http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2009/06/general-slocum-disaster.html

Revolutionary Walking Tour | Sunday, July 3, at 4:00 p.m.

As readers of our blog know, we like to think of America's birthday as not just taking place on a single day -- July 4th -- but over the course of week from July 2nd (the day we actually declared independence) to July 9th (the day New York finally got on board).

So, it's only fitting that as part of our week-long celebration of America's 235th birthday, James will be leading a walking tour of Revolutionary and early American sites in Lower Manhattan on Sunday, July 3, at 4:00 p.m.

Planned stops will include famous places, like Federal Hall, Fraunces Tavern, and Bowling Green (depicted above on night of July 9, 1776), but we’ll also talk about lesser-known sites, such as Archibald Kennedy’s house; George Washington’s presidential mansion on Broadway; Jefferson’s home where he brokered the deal to move the capital of the United States to Washington, DC; and many more. This will be a fast-paced, entertaining, and informative walk back in time.

Copies of Inside the Apple will be available for purchase at the tour.

To reserve, send an email to events@insidetheapple.net with

• Your name
• The number in your party
• A contact cell phone number
• A good email address where we can send you information about where the tour will start.

PLEASE NOTE that if you reserve no later than Tuesday, June 28, the cost is just $10 per person.

This tour will have only a limited number of spaces, so please reserve early to avoid disappointment.

Payment will be taken at the start of the tour by cash only. Directions to the tour’s starting point will be sent out after your reservation is confirmed. All reservations received starting Wednesday, June 29, will be $15 per person.

Hope to see you there!

Read more about New York's role in the Revolution in

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

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Temperature's Rising....

As temperatures rise and cooling centers open around the city today, it’s good to remember how wonderful air conditioners are. Our predecessors have weathered some terrible heat waves in New York.

The hottest June day on record is in some dispute, but June 29, 1934, June 27, 1966, and June 25, 1952, are each contenders, with the mercury perhaps reaching 101 degrees. The New York Times reported in 1934 that the official temperature reached 97 degrees (101 in Central Park, which was not then the official reading) and that temperatures soared to 137 degrees in the full sun in the park. To gain relief from the scorching heat, children frolicked in city fountains (including Civic Virtue, then still in front of City Hall), and perhaps as many as 8,000 people brought blankets to Coney Island to sleep at the beach.

Back in the 19th century, stifling heat waves were less frequent—but certainly more deadly. On September 7, 1881, the temperature reached 101 degrees and the Times wrote:  “Sept. 7, 1881, will long be remembered, not merely as the hottest day of the year, but as one of the hottest of the century.” The streets of the city were deserted except for those forced out in the heat, which unfortunately included the city’s many horses, some of whom died of heat stroke as they worked. The only crowds to be found were those “crowded all day long around the bulletin boards giving the news from the bedside of President Garfield.” (Garfield had been shot July 2nd and clung to life until September 19, when he finally succumbed to the assassin’s bullet.)

By far the worst heat wave to strike the city came in August 1896, when over 1,300 people died in the city, many of them stifled to death in tenement apartments that since 1879 were supposed to allow access to light and air, but many of which did not. As Edward Kohn points out in Hot Time in the Old Town: The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt, the heat wave was a test for Police Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt and an important moment in cementing his progressive credentials. Unlike in 1934, no one flocked to the beach during this heat wave: there was a ban on the public sleeping in public parks, and so many people crammed on to the roofs of their tenements, hoping to escape the brutal, stagnant temperatures. Among Roosevelt’s attempts to mitigate the disaster included hosing down the streets and handing out free ice. Alas, much of Roosevelt’s good work came too late: the city only began to address the heat wave in a coordinated way on its tenth—and last—day.

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Read more about Teddy Roosevelt--NYC's only homegrown president--in

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

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Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan!

 

Bow down to her on Sunday

Salute her when her birthday comes

Bow down to her on Sunday

Salute her when her birthday comes

For Halloween give her a trumpet

And for Christmas, buy her a drum.

“She Belongs to Me,” 1965

Today marks a milestone in American musical history – rock’s poet laureate, Bob Dylan (né Robert Zimmerman) turns 70 years old.

Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota, on May 24, 1941; after dropping out of college, he relocated to New York City in 1961 to pursue a music career and meet his idol, Woody Guthrie. (You can read much more about Dylan coming to NYC in our blog post about Dylan from a couple of years ago.)

Dylan lived a number of places in New York over the years – on West 4th Street (which gave rise to “Positively 4th Street”), on MacDougal south of Bleecker, in the Chelsea Hotel (whose coughing heat pipes are memorialized in “Visions of Johanna” and which gets a shout-out in “Sara”), and at that “crummy hotel overlooking Washington Square” that Joan Baez so poignantly describes in “Diamonds and Rust.”

If you are looking for ways to celebrate, Patell and Waterman’s History of New York has compiled a good list of Dylan-related links, including WBAI’s 23-hour Dylan marathon.

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Read more about Dylan in New York in

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

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