Postcard Thursday: The Cooper Union Address

Today, February 27, marks the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's famous 1860 Cooper Union Address (his "Right Makes Might" speech), which many credit with garnering him the Republican nomination in 1860.

The Cooper Union—depicted above in a postcard from ca. 1905—is a remarkable place. As we write in Inside the Apple:

Peter Cooper was one of the first generation of self-made men in America. In his early career, he was an apprentice coach maker and hat maker before moving on to earn his first fortune in glue. As he later commented: "I have always tried to do the best I know how, and then people have wanted what I made. I determined to make the best glue, and found out every method and ingredient looking to that end, and so it has always been in demand." 

In fact, Cooper was so determined to make the most out his factory that he figured out how to take a byproduct of the glue-making process and turn it into edible gelatin. (A few years later, a pharmacist would add cough syrup to the gelatin and give the world Jell-O.) 

Peter Cooper, sporting one
of the era's great beards.

The money Cooper made in the glue business allowed him to invest in an iron works (which later produced the first beams necessary for cast iron architecture.) He was hired by the Baltimore & Ohio railroad to design and build the first American-made steam locomotive, the Tom Thumb, which debuted in 1830. By the 1840s, Cooper was one of New York’s 25 millionaires, and he had done it all without the benefit of a formal education....In 1854, Cooper...endowed and built the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, a free institution emphasizing engineering and practical arts. (It is notable that practical arts included painting and sculpture; the handsome sculpture of Cooper that sits in front of the building is by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, a Cooper Union graduate.) The building went up at the junction of Third Avenue and the Bowery and contained a round elevator shaft—even though Elisha Otis had not yet installed any elevators—because Cooper felt that a round elevator would be the most efficient design. (The elevator shaft still peeks above the building like a chimney.) Using his own strong iron for the interior columns, Cooper also designed the single largest lecture space in the city, the Great Hall, which could accommodate over 2,000 people.

While you can't see the round elevator shaft in the above image, you can see, very vaguely, the Saint Gaudens statue in front of the building.

We take up the story in Footprints in New York:

[On February 27, 1860] Lincoln addressed a huge audience at Cooper Union... Industrialist and inventor Peter Cooper had built the school just a year earlier as a free institution of higher learning. The Great Hall remains one of the largest lecture halls in New York, and, as anticipated, Lincoln drew a standing-room crowd. 

The speech...was divided into three sections. In the first, Lincoln laid out a lawyerly argument that the thirty-nine signers of the Constitution—“our fathers who framed the Government under which we live,” he called them (quoting his antagonist, Senator Stephen Douglas)—were against the expansion of slavery. In the second section, Lincoln addressed Southerners directly, admonishing them for being the ones stirring up dissent:

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please. . . . You will rule or ruin in all events.

Lastly, speaking to the Republicans in the hall, Lincoln tried to hold to a moderate line. He was against slavery, but argued that “wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is” without allowing it to spread to the territories.  

Lincoln closed with the stirring lines that would soon be repeated in newspapers across the country—in all capital letters, as if he were shouting:

LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.

Though the Cooper Union itself still stands from Lincoln's era, much of the area has undergone radical transformation--and not all of it recent. In the 1870s, the Third Avenue El was built (in the postcard, it runs on the east side of the building), only to be torn down in the 1950s. Also, in place of the building at the far right of the postcard, Cooper Union constructed Thom Mayne's undulating academic building, just one of many modern structures remaking the Bowery. Of course, what has put Cooper Union more in the news recently is its decision, for the first time in its history, to begin charging tuition beginning with the 2014-2015 academic year.

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Read more about Abraham Lincoln and the Cooper Union Address in

Inside the Apple

and in our next book

Footprints in New York comes out April 15, 2014, but you can pre-order today.

Postcard Thursday: Walknyc.com

The Paramount Building, Times Square

Today's postcard is actually many postcards--we've completely revamped the website for our walking tours at www.walknyc.com, where each page is illustrated with a vintage card.

Even though the weather has been lousy lately, it's not too early to start thinking about scheduling a walking tour for the spring. For those who've taken walks with us before, we've recently added a Chelsea option if you are looking for something new, and many of the other tours have been modified to include stops that tie into our new book, Footprints in New York.

Check out the new site and let us know what you think!

Best wishes,
Michelle and James Nevius
www.walknyc.com
www.insidetheapple.net
www.footprintsinnewyork.com

President Arthur's Hasty Inauguration

Happy Presidents' Day!

While many United States presidents have called New York home over the years, only two were inaugurated in the city: George Washington in 1789 (when the city was still the American capital) and Chester A. Arthur, who took the oath in his home at 123 Lexington Avenue in Murray Hill.

A lawyer by training, Arthur had risen through the ranks of the Republican Party to become the Collector of the Port of New York, a job secured for him by powerful Senator Roscoe Conkling. When Rutherford B. Hayes became president in 1877, Arthur lost his patronage job—in part so that Hayes could show that he was cracking down on patronage positions. But in 1880, Arthur was tapped to be James A. Garfield’s running mate, and in March 1881, was sworn in as Vice President. (The presidential and vice presidential inauguration was still in March back then.)

Just four months after the inauguration, Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled civil servant. Garfield lingered until September 19, when he finally succumbed to his wounds.

Word was immediately sent to Chester Arthur, who was at home in Murray Hill. In the middle of night, New York Supreme Court Justice John R. Brady was fetched to come to the Arthurs’ home and administer the oath of office. A second, more formal inauguration took place two days later in Washington, DC.; evidently, some in D.C. weren't convinced that Arthur's late-night swearing-in on Lexington Avenue was the real deal, so he was asked to take the oath again once he got to Washington.

After his one term in office—marked by distinct efforts at civil service reform—Arthur retired to his Lexington Avenue home where he died on November 18, 1886. The house at 123 Lexington still stands, but the only part you can visit is the ground-floor retail section, which is the Indian grocery store Kaluystan’s.

Arthur is commemorated with a statue in Madison Square Park, within easy walking distance of his former home. Also in the park is a statue of his one-time mentor, Roscoe Conkling, who's best known today for dying after getting stuck in a snow drift during the great Blizzard of 1888.

This post was adapted from an earlier article on Arthur in January 2009.

* * * *

Read more about New York and the presidency in

Inside the Apple

and don't forget our next book

Footprints in New York comes out April 15, 2014, but you can pre-order today.

A History of Complaining about Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

Every year, when February 14 rolls around, there's a rush to buy candy, flowers, and jewelry to commemorate the feast day of the various Saint Valentines (at least three early Christian martyrs bear that name). And every year, people complain about it. But perhaps you'll be happy to know that the tradition of kvetching about the holiday is a time-honored one.

As early as February 14, 1853, the New York Times was sighing about how the once pastoral and courtly traditions of Valentine's day had "vanished before the advancing tide of so-called civilization." In a lengthy piece commemorating the holiday, the Times editorialized that "Saint Valentine has emigrated from the fresh, fair country, and abides in dull, fevered cities." (Presumably New York in 1853 was just such a "dull, fevered" city.)

The Times went on to criticize the "namby pamby" verses of modern valentines -- and their expense. "Thousands of dollars are annually expended in the United States on their purchase.... Every store at all connected with the stationary [sic] business has been blazing for the last week with pictures of hideous men and women...each with some lines of doggrel [sic] written underneath them." (Did the Times not have copy editors in 1853?)

At the American Valentine Company's offices on Nassau Street, the Times's author is shown elaborate valentines in boxes "possessing so many secret folds and unexpected disclosures of Cupids and verses and wreaths of impossible flowers" that it would take "a half hour to open and an hour to shut." Though some valentines cost as little as six cents, others--in ornate boxes--were priced as high as $130. In 1853, when an average laborer made just a dollar a day, this was an incredible sum.

* * * *

Read more about New York in 1853 in

Inside the Apple

and don't forget our next book

Footprints in New York comes out April 15, 2014, but you can pre-order today.

Postcard Thursday: Rockefeller Center's Lost Opera House

Happy World Radio Day!

In honor of this holiday, here are a couple of pictures of the original "Radio City," Rockefeller Center.

Notice the difference between these two shots? The top postcard depicts Rockefeller Center before it had even been built. The low building in the foreground had originally been designed to be the home of the Metropolitan Opera, the anchor tenant of the center. The building -- known somewhat affectionately as the "hatbox" -- was to have been a state-of-the-art theater, replacing the opera company's outmoded and cramped headquarters on Broadway just south of Times Square. However, internal struggles at the Metropolitan Opera, where the building and the performance company had separate boards of directors, squashed the deal. The Met would not find a new home for another three decades, when its current theater at Lincoln Center went up.

When the deal between the center and the opera company fell apart, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., had to scramble to find a replacement, ultimately choosing RCA, whose broadcasting arm, NBC, is still headquartered there today. This top postcard must have been produced sometime between the time the opera pulled out -- since it is labeled "Radio City," a nod to NBC's primary mode of broadcasting in those days -- but before the hatbox was removed from the plans.

The second postcard depicts the center as actually built. At the front are two of the center's international buildings, La Maison Francaise and the British Empire Building. These two short office towers are one of the topics of our Rockfeller chapter in Footprints in New York.

* * * *

Read more about Rockefeller Center in

Inside the Apple

and don't forget our next book

Footprints in New York comes out April 15, 2014, but you can pre-order today.

Postcard Thursday: The Dorilton

Here's a charming shot of the Dorilton (171 West 71st Street), probably taken not long after its completion in 1902. Like the nearby Ansonia, the Dorilton was built to draw wealthy New Yorkers uptown in anticipation of the completion of the first subway line, the IRT (today's 1/2/3 trains). The fact that the 72nd Street station was going to be the first express stop on the Upper West Side made the Dorilton's location particularly enticing. It would be one express stop down to Times Square, two to Grand Central, and three to Union Square. (In those days, the IRT cut across 42nd Street and headed south from Grand Central along the 4/5/6 tracks.)

Not everyone was a fan of the Dorilton's overblown French Second Empire style. The Architectural Record complained that it was so ugly it would "make strong men swear and weak women shrink affrighted."

Also: what's with the inscription on the postcard? "Ed that little baby you sent me was just simply fine. Mary E." Hmmm.

* * * *

Read more about building of the first subway and New York's
luxury apartment buildings in

Inside the Apple

and don't forget our next book

Footprints in New York comes out April 15, 2014, but you can pre-order today.

Strip the City: New York

A couple of days ago, the second season of "Strip the City," debuted on the Science Channel. (We didn't even know there'd been a season one, but better late than never.) The new season began with a show on New York, focusing on the methods and infrastructure necessary for surviving another giant storm like Superstorm Sandy.

The most compelling segment is the first, where CGI allows the show to demonstrate how the new World Trade Center 1 (aka Freedom Tower) was constructed. The show then goes on to talk about resurfacing and strengthening the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, deploying subway plugs (for keeping water out of the system), maintaining the city's steam system, and the controversial proposal to build a sea barrier to keep storm surges away form New York harbor.

You can watch a couple of clips at http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/strip-the-city/videos/new-york.htm. The graphics are great and the content compelling, but the show does perpetuate at least one long-standing myth. Many people, including experts, believe that the reason Chinatown and Greenwich Village don't have tall buildings is because there isn't bedrock in those neighborhoods to build on. That's true--the bedrock is much farther from the surface--but this is what's known as a false causality. The lack of bedrock wasn't the reason the buildings didn't go up in those areas; instead it was socioeconomic factors which led these chiefly residential neighborhoods to stay low-rise.

The show is being repeated a number of times over the next week on the Science Channel, if you'd like to watch the whole thing.

* * * *

Read more about the infrastructure of New York

(like the famous street grid) in

Inside the Apple

and don't forget our next book

Footprints in New York comes out April 15, 2014, but you can pre-order today.

Postcard Thursday: Where Have All the Mansions Gone?

Andrew Carnegie's mansion (today the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum)

The news broke yesterday that the government of Qatar is purchasing the Wildenstein Gallery building at 19 East 64th Street for either $125 million (via the Post) or $90 million (via the Wall Street Journal). In either case, it's a spectacular amount of money to spend on an Upper East Side mansion.

However, while the price may be high, Qatar is following in the footsteps of nearly a century of others who've converted Gilded Age homes into museums, consulates, embassies, and schools.

The postcard above is a view, ca. 1910, of Andrew Carnegie's massive home that stretches the block from 90th to 91st Streets on Fifth Avenue. As we write in Inside the Apple:

In 1898, Carnegie acquired the lots on Fifth Avenue between 90th and 91st street—at that point much farther north than polite society deemed fashionable—so that he could build a large mansion in relatively isolated splendor. (In the rapidly growing city, the Carnegies were always concerned with light. When Carnegie’s widow, Louise, sold the lot next door to the Church of the Heavenly Rest in 1926, it was with the proviso that the Gothic towers have no north-facing windows and they be clipped so that no shadows would fall on her lawn.)

Carnegie reputedly told his architects, Babb, Cook & Willard that he wanted his retirement home to be modest, plain, and “roomy”; upon completion in 1901, the 64-room structure certainly had plenty of space. A grand first floor showcased the public rooms, including a conservatory and a music room featuring Carnegie’s gargantuan Aeolian organ. Above were the Carnegies’ private quarters on the second floor, guest rooms on the third, and servants’ quarters in the attic. Amenities included a passenger elevator (one of the first in a private home) and a prototype of central air conditioning.

Louise Carnegie lived in the house until her death in 1946; by that time, Fifth Avenue and the Upper East Side had undergone massive changes. Many mansions had been torn down (see Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr.'s Empty Mansions for the tale of one of the largest homes to be destroyed), but those that remained had been sold at greatly reduced prices. One Astor home had been purchased by the government of India; a Vanderbilt house had become the headquarters of a non-profit. When the French government moved out of Rockefeller Center's Maison Francaise, they scooped up Stanford White's Payne Whitney house just south of the Metropolitan Museum--because a mansion on Fifth Avenue had become cheaper than an office in Midtown. (What a contrast to the price that Qatar is paying today!)

Soon after Louise Carnegie's death, the Carnegie Corporation leased the mansion to Columbia University, who used it as the headquarters for their Graduate School of Social Work. (A nearby mansion owned by James B. Duke had similarly become the home of NYU's art history program.) The social work students used the home for nearly 25 years before relocating to Columbia's Morningside Heights campus when the Carnegie Corporation gave the mansion to the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the first branch of the Smithsonian to be located outside Washington, DC.

* * * *

Read more about the Carnegie Mansion in

Inside the Apple

and don't forget our next book

Footprints in New York comes out April 15, 2014, but you can pre-order today.

Pete Seeger and the Almanac House at 130 West 10th Street

The world woke this morning to the news of the death of legendary singer Pete Seeger at age 94. Anyone who's ever taken our Dylan-themed tour of Greenwich Village has probably been dragged by James to a small house on West 10th Street to listen to him wax rhapsodic about the Almanac Singers, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger.

Seeger was born in New York in 1919 and was exposed to folk music early, later recalling (as noted in the Washington Post obituary) that he heard artist Thomas Hart Benton play "John Henry" on the harmonica in Greenwich Village. After dropping out of Harvard in the late 1930s, Seeger became a full-time singer. In the autumn of 1941, he rented the house at 130 West 10th Street to be the headquarters of the Almanac Singer, a loose collective of singers and activists he'd founded with Lee Hayes. As John Strausbaugh writes in The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, a History of Greenwich Village,

At various points Almanac House was home to Leadbelly, Alan Lomax, Cisco Houston, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Burl Ives, the actor and activist Will Geer, and Woody Guthrie. They staged hootenannies and charged thirty-five cents admission.

Later, Seeger would recall: "People came and went all the time. The cuisine was erratic but interesting, the furniture and decorations almost non-existent, the sleeping done at odd hours.... [But] the output of songs was phenomenal."

The term "hootenanny" entered the lexicon in 1946 as a gathering of folksingers; Seeger later wrote that he and Guthrie had brought the term east from Seattle. When the folk revival of the 1960s was in full steam, ABC television launched a television show, "Hootenanny," but blacklisted Pete Seeger for his connection to the American Communist Party and his contempt citation by the House Un-American Activities Committee. In turn, the vanguard of the second generation folk movement--Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, The Kingston Trio--all refused to appear on the ABC show, stripping it of its credibility.

By 1942, the Almanac Singers had moved out of 130 West 10th Street, finding the $100 a month rent too high. Various other buildings in the Village were associated with the group, but it splintered during the war, with Seeger going on to form the Weavers, which found great success in 1948 with "Goodnight, Irene," selling over 2 million copies.

If you are in the Village today, stop by West 10th Street and tip your cap to Pete Seeger--a true American legend.

Here's Seeger talking about the Almanac Singers in a 2006 interview:

* * * *
Read more about the Greenwich Village folk scene in

Inside the Apple

and don't forget our next book

Footprints in New York comes out April 15, 2014, but you can pre-order today.

Postcard Thursday: Grant's Tomb

This great shot of Grant's Tomb is from sometime in the early twentieth century, and if you've toured with us, you may have seen this on our walk of Morningside Heights. (This scene has to be after 1907 due to the type of postcard, but we aren't car buffs -- can someone identify any makes or models?) As you can see in this picture, Riverside Park and Grant's Tomb were popular destinations for Sunday drives.

From its opening in 1897, Grant's Tomb became a magnet for tourists and New Yorkers alike who were coming not just to honor the memory of the great Civil War hero, but also to gawk at the country's largest presidential tomb. As we write in Inside the Apple:

Grant died in 1885, having lived the last four years of his life in New York. His tomb sits at 122nd Street and Riverside Drive, at one of the highest points in Riverside Park....[It is] a remarkable testament to the high esteem in which Grant was held after his death (despite two terms as president marked by scandal and perceived mediocrity) as well as to New York’s growing obsession in the 1890s with becoming the premiere American city. First, New York beat out other places Grant had lived—including Galena, Illinois, and St. Louis, Missouri—for the right to bury the president. Then, the Grant Memorial Association held two contests to determine who would design the structure, the second contest being held because none of the entries the first time around was deemed grand enough. The tomb, by John Duncan, is modeled on the mausoleum at Halicanarssus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In 1897, the tomb was officially opened and it fast became the leading tourist attraction in the city. Indeed, more people visited Grant’s Tomb in the early years of the Twentieth Century than went to the Statue of Liberty.

In the meantime, if you want to find out the answer to the old riddle, "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" you'll simply have to go check it out in person. The tomb is run by the National Park Service and is open for visitation.

* * * *
Read more about Grant's Tomb and Riverside Park in

Inside the Apple

and don't forget our next book

Footprints in New York comes out April 15, 2014, but you can pre-order today.