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Jane’s Walk NYC: Free Walking Tour of the Tenderloin and Tin Pan Alley this Sunday, May 6, at 12 Noon!

April 30th, 2012 by DavidFreeland
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The Tenderloin's "Tin Pan Alley," West 28th Street, circa 1902

As part of Jane’s Walk this coming weekend, I will be hosting a free walking tour through the visible remnants of New York’s forgotten late-19th century vice district, the Tenderloin, along with its most enduring cultural manifestation, the original “Tin Pan Alley,” birthplace of the American popular music industry.  I wrote extensively about the Tenderloin and Tin Pan Alley in AUTOMATS, so this is a chance to share with you some of my research, and the wild stories that made this area one of Manhattan’s most colorful neighborhoods.  We meet Sunday at 12 noon in front of Gilsey House at 29th and Broadway.  Details are attached – come join us!

http://mas.org/walk/in-search-of-the-tenderloin-and-tin-pan-alley/

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An Arbor Day Mystery

April 25th, 2012 by DavidFreeland
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Dear Gotham Lost and Found readers,

Today I was contacted by Aby Sam Thomas, a graduate student at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, who sent a piece he had written about a mysterious plaque at 120th Street and Broadway.  After discussing it with Aby (and in honor of Arbor Day, which is this Friday), I am publishing his article below.  To me, it says much about the emotional and physical imprints we as New Yorkers leave upon our city, and our desire to honor those imprints left by others.  It is also a beautifully done piece about survival and remembrance. 

David

An Arbor Day Mystery

By Aby Sam Thomas

Be it the morning rush to the subway, or the hurry to get back to one’s home in the evening, it is a rare occurrence to see New Yorkers stop simply to stand and stare at their surroundings. It seems such an entirely wasteful use of those invaluable seconds. But those few moments are necessary to notice certain curious things about New York City—for instance, the tree on the corner of 120th Street and Broadway on the Upper West Side.

With the imposing red exterior of Columbia University’s Teacher’s College behind it, the tree looks rather indistinguishable from the rest of the trees on the sidewalk. It is a callery pear, with spring blooms on its branches reaching toward the sky. But it isn’t the tree by itself that’s interesting—it is the small, green plaque affixed in the soil, at its base, that is surprising. It is imprinted with the following words:

On November 29, 2010

this tree saved the lives of

Emilia Victoria

and her mother, Sarah

***

The callery pear, an ornamental species native to China and Vietnam, has adorned many a New York City sidewalk since the early 1960s. While such trees are known for their tenacity and ability to survive in extreme conditions, the callery pear has a special link with the city’s history.

Now known as the “Survivor Tree,” a lone callery pear was recovered from the World Trade Center site in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Although it had sustained extensive damage, the tree was nursed back to health, despite its lifeless limbs, snapped roots and blackened trunk. After eight years, the tree was replanted in 2010 at the September 11 Memorial Plaza.

“The presence of the Survivor Tree on the Memorial Plaza will symbolize New York City’s and this nation’s resilience after the attacks,” said Mayor Bloomberg, in December 2010. “Like the thousands of courageous stories of survival that arose from the ashes of the World Trade Center, the story of this tree also will live on and inspire many.”

Like the Survivor Tree, the tree on 120th and Broadway also marks a story of survival—two human lives had, in some hidden, inexplicable way, been saved by this seemingly ordinary tree.

***

Philip Abramson, a spokesman for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, had no information about the plaque, but suggested that someone at the Broadway Mall Association, a non-profit organization maintaining the malls of Broadway, might know more. But Anne Linville, the association’s director of horticulture and landscape design, had no idea about it and said that the Association had no jurisdiction over this particular tree. She suggested going back to the city parks department.

The city parks department reiterated its stand that no one there knew who had put the plaque up. Another possibility was the MillionTreesNYC initiative, a city-wide initiative that aims to plant and care for at least a million trees in the city over the next decade. Andrew Newman, project co-ordinator at MillionTreesNYC, said that while they do allow residents to install tree signage, the callery pear’s plaque was not part of their Adopt-a-Tree program.

Turning to the Web to find information on people and dated events is usually a good idea, but a Google, Facebook and Twitter sweep of the tags “Emilia Victoria,” “Sarah” and “November 29, 2010” didn’t provide an answer. While search results of the two names seemed mostly irrelevant, there was one report on an accident that occurred on the said date in Bwog, the blog version of Columbia University’s undergraduate magazine, The Blue and White.

The report said that two cabs had collided at the intersection, with one of the cabs swerving into a tree. While it’s hard to tell from the images in the story if the tree is the same callery pear, the editors of Bwog said that no one had followed up on the accident and they had no more information on the accident, the tree, Emilia or Sarah.

***

The city parks department, the Broadway Mall Association and MillionTreesNYC all suggested that neighborhood residents had probably installed the plaque. But finding inhabitants who knew about the tree turned out to be an impossible task.

“As much as I pass by that intersection, I have never taken the time to look at the tree,” said David Ronis, a long-time resident of the Upper West Side. His response was characteristic. Be it the coffee-seller who sold coffee everyday near the corner, or the Teacher’s College security personnel who monitored people walking in and out of the school, or even the hordes of Columbia University students who walked by the tree every day, nobody seemed to have noticed the plaque.

“What plaque?” said Corrine Campbell, who works at the Teacher’s College’s facilities department. “I’ve been here so many years, but I haven’t seen any such plaque,” said Campbell, shaking her head. She suggested a list of more than six people from various departments at Teacher’s College who could know about the tree—but none of them did.

Campbell, who had now become very curious about the plaque, approached Robert Schwarz a. k. a Rocky, assistant director for the business services center, one of the old-time faces at Teacher’s College. According to Campbell, “if Rocky didn’t know, nobody would know.” But Schwarz too shook his head on hearing the story about the tree.

“You need a better lead than me,” he said, smiling sadly.

***

In a fit of desperation, I left a paper note next to the plaque on the tree’s soil, strategically placing a few pebbles on top to prevent it from being blown away by the wind. In my hand-written message, I appealed to Emilia Victoria and Sarah to get in touch with me, throwing caution to the wind by leaving behind both my personal email and phone number on the note.

When I checked in on the tree a little later in the day, my hopes were raised. The note was missing.

But the elusive Emilia and her mother haven’t got in touch with me. Yet.

END

***

Know anything about the mystery plaque?  Please respond as a comment or contact Aby: | thisisaby@gmail.com | 201-238-8097 | @thisisaby

 

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An Italian Villa in Upper Manhattan Comes Back to Life

February 3rd, 2012 by DavidFreeland
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A shared post with Untapped New York.

The recently designated Audubon Park Historic District, an irregularly shaped area bounded by Riverside Drive and Broadway between West 155th and West 158th Streets, offers a rare glimpse of an earlier, bucolic Manhattan.  Although the remnants of the house of the famous 19th-century naturalist whose name graces the neighborhood have, in one of the city’s great architectural mysteries, disappeared, the sylvan landscape Audubon valued so highly is still visible in the area’s gentle hills and views of the Hudson.  Handsome apartment buildings such as the Grinnell, the Church of the Intercession (considered by its architect, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, to be his masterpiece) and the remarkable complex of Beaux Arts museum structures known as Audubon Terrace, only reinforce the elegant atmosphere.

809/811 Riverside Drive, "Berler Houses" (photo by Michelle Young)

The value of Audubon Park lies in its preservation of building types not visible anywhere else in Manhattan.  Chief among these is 809/811 Riverside Drive, an unusual duplex house that resembles an Italian villa looming over the multi-cornered intersection of Riverside, 158th Street, and Morgan Place.  Also known as the Berler Houses, the history of 809/811 Riverside has been well documented by historian and Audubon Park resident Matthew Spady.  Constructed by clothing manufacturer Nathan Berler in 1922, the house was intended as a model for a larger group of similar duplex houses; although, in the end, only 809/811 Riverside was actually constructed.  According to an article dated February 12, 1922 in the New York Times, the houses cost $70,000 to build (roughly $937,000 in today’s figures) and featured a built-in garage, still visible on 158th Street.

Berler Houses Rear, with View of Garage (photo by Michelle Young)

Spady has discovered that the houses also contained a Welte orchestrion (a large pneumatic music box filled with pipes and cymbals), built in 1920 and removed when a new owner bought the property in the 1960s.  Beyond these features, the houses boasted unique design elements which can still be admired, including a tiled roof (in Spanish mission style), Doric columns, balustrades, arched windows and single-story solariums on both sides, covered with patios.

Side View with Solarium and Patio (photo by Michelle Young)

Due perhaps to their distinctive and striking appearance, the Berler Houses have been the subject of a number of neighborhood legends.  One, in particular, asserts they were the homes of the Gershwin brothers, while another claims that Irving Berlin once lived here.  Neither story is true, although the houses have sheltered at least one highly distinguished resident.  In 1947, according to an article in the Chicago Defender, “Miss Jewel Plummer” was residing at number 809 while working as a teaching fellow in biology at NYU.  As Jewel Plummer Cobb (born 1924), she is known today as one of the country’s most important biologists and an African-American pioneer (according to one source, she had initially been denied the NYU fellowship because of her race).  Cobb’s groundbreaking research on cancer cells has led to significant advances in the field of chemotherapy.

After being on the market for some years, 809 Riverside Drive was sold in 2010 and its new owners, according to Matthew Spady, have been engaged in a caring process of restoration.  According to Spady, it’s been a delight to see the house occupied again.  “At Christmas,” he recalls, ”they put their tree in the solarium where the whole neighborhood could see it, a lovely gesture signalling that a family is once again in residence.”

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What’s Left of the Sans Souci/Blank’s Winter Garden

April 17th, 2011 by DavidFreeland
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At 100 Third Avenue, buried within a row of low-level 19th century houses and tenements just southeast of Union Square (between 12th and 13th Streets), sits one of Manhattan’s oldest entertainment relics, the former Sans Souci.

The Sans Souci (center, in scaffolding), formerly Blank's Winter Garden

As a site devoted to various forms of popular entertainment, 100 Third Avenue lasted for more than 120 years.  From the 1870s to 90s it was known as Blank’s Winter Garden, a smaller version of the popular Atlantic Garden on the lower Bowery (a portion of which also survives today and which I discuss extensively in Automats, Taxi Dances and Vaudeville).  Blank’s was a combined saloon and concert hall with vaudeville performers, a popular spot for Tin Pan Alley songwriters and publishers seeking to “plug” their latest compositions.  In his fascinating memoir, They All Sang (1934), music publisher Edward B. Marks describes making the rounds at Blank’s:

“It was a quiet spot in the backwash of bright-lighted Fourteenth Street, where a girl could steer a bloke for a serious talk.  Blank, the owner, called it a family resort, but they were not the first families.  There were always a few acts working here that would otherwise have been laying off, and they were glad to get fifteen dollars a week.  Needing something new to help them catch on in the big time, they were always ready to try new material.  That, and its proximity to the popular center, made Blank’s a good plug” (p. 9-10).

As Marks suggests, Blank’s was never considered a top-tier entertainment resort.  But it was at precisely these kinds of places that our popular music culture was born.  In those days (before the advent of radio), songwriters needed easy access to vaudeville performers in order to popularize their work – and they got them at Blank’s.

Work-in-progress

Marks also intimates that Blank’s, as a recreational establishment, skirted the bounds of respectability.  Governmental forces certainly thought so.  During the 1891 hearings of the Fassett senatorial committee, established (like the Lexow Committee several years later) to investigate vice and police corruption, a police captain was grilled about Blank’s and what he might have seen there:

“Q: Have you ever heard of Blank’s place, 100 Third Avenue?

A: Yes, sir.

Q: What have you heard about it as to its character?

A: Somewhat mixed.

Q: What do you mean by somewhat mixed?

A: Respectable and women of doubtful character both go there.”

Then, the captain offers a wonderful summation of why places like Blank’s were so popular, and the role they played within the larger social fabric of the city:

“…I will say this, that a place where there is cheap, good music people go there and enjoy it that can’t go to the Metropolitan Opera House, respectable people go there with their families; the doors are open to anybody that comes along, and I have seen women of doubtful character go in and out of there; I have seen respectable people going in and out of there.”

Of course, these were exactly the kinds of places – sites of working-class organization and leisure – that were most threatened by city and governmental authorities.  Establishments like the Atlantic Garden and Blank’s, precisely because they were not the Metropolitan Opera (i.e., not “respectable” institutions patronized by the upper classes) had to fight to survive.

Even more fascinating is the way the captain goes on to defend Blank’s against the efforts of anti-vice crusaders, observing that “those women [of doubtful character] will exist, they exist and will continue to exist.”  When asked to explain, the captain makes an observation that, apart from quantity, could be just as true in the New York of today:

“There is…in this town, New York, nearly 2,000,000 people, there is a demand and there has got to be a supply…There is 30,000 strangers in this town every night that sleep somewhere else to-morrow night.”

Blank's/Sans Souci in a later incarnation as the Lyric, as photographed by Berenice Abbott (1936)

By 1900 Blank’s had become the Sans Souci, referenced in Timothy Gilfoyle’s excellent book, City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex. Around 1910 it reopened as the Comet, one of the city’s early movie houses.  By 1936, when Berenice Abbott photographed 100 Third Avenue, it was known as the Lyric.  Still later, the theater operated as a venue for foreign and gay male erotic films, in which capacity it survived until the early 2000s.  Now, with extensive renovation work being performed inside and out, its long run as an entertainment venue appears to have ended.

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Last Chance to Save 35 Cooper Square

February 6th, 2011 by DavidFreeland
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35 Cooper Square, one of the oldest surviving houses on the upper portion of the Bowery (c. 1825), is in imminent danger of destruction.  Scaffolding – often seen as a prelude to demolition – is up, and the Asian restaurant occupying the ground floor has closed.

Photo Credit: Scouting NY

The Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, leading the fight to protect 35 Cooper Square, has suggestions on what you can do to help preserve this charming structure with a rich history that parallels the larger growth of early 19th century New York.  Please click on the links below, and join in if you can!

http://www.boweryalliance.org/

http://www.thevillager.com/villager_406/coopersq.html

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A Tour of Brownsville, Brooklyn’s Jewish Past

September 26th, 2010 by DavidFreeland
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Yesterday afternoon, a hot one here in the city, I was inspired to take a trip out to Brownsville, Brooklyn, once a hub of Jewish cultural life and now considered one of the most dangerous sections of New York.

Former Synagogue in Brownsville (note Star of David at top)

I was thinking of my late friend, George Sandler (father of my friend Rita), who was born in Brownsville in 1916 and grew up in the neighborhood.  While aware that many of Brownsville’s storied tenements were razed for public housing projects beginning in the 1950s, I was curious to see what might be left, in a physical sense, of Brownsville’s Jewish history.  Urban renewal seems to have impacted New York in a less overarching way than it did other U.S. cities, and, as it turns out, Brownsville still bears traces of its past.

I started with the old Loew’s Pitkin Theater on eponymous Pitkin Avenue, Brownsville’s commercial artery.  Opened in 1929, the Pitkin bears a remarkable similarity to the slightly later Loew’s 175th Street Theater in Manhattan’s Washington Heights.  George remembered coming to the Pitkin as a teenager, and, according to a 1932 New York Times account, the great Yiddish composer, Rumshinsky,  appeared here for a week’s engagement.  Outside the theater, a sign hints at plans for some sort of revitalization.

According to a 1951 book in my library on Murder, Inc., the infamous crime syndicate which grew in part out of Brownsville, “neighbors firmly believe Pitkin Avenue compares with Fifth Avenue…or any other promenade famed for its shops and shopping.”  Today, there is still much to be seen on Pitkin, including this terra cotta beauty.  It was once the Simon Ackerman department store.

Terra Cotta on Pitkin

And while we’re on the subject of gangsters, here’s a shot of Amboy Street, after which the notorious “Amboy Dukes” were named.

Amboy Street, home of the "Amboy Dukes"

While often cited as being a “fictitious” gang, George Sandler and others have claimed the Amboy Dukes were real.  In fact, as children George and some friends once got stuck in the Amboys’ clubhouse.  To frighten him into keeping quiet about what he might have heard, the Amboys smeared rotten eggs over his head!

Lovers of old signs will find much to savor in this remnant of what was probably a Chinese restaurant, on Pitkin.

Neon Survivor

Meanwhile, those interested in 1930s Deco will appreciate this Art Moderne-styled bank building, with Federalist touches.

Art Moderne Bank on Pitkin

I ended my tour beside the Pitkin Theater at “Zion Triangle,” a small park dedicated to Jewish veterans of the First World War.

Zion Triangle

“There were no subways at that particular time,” George once told me.  “If there were, our part of the area didn’t use them”  Instead, George explained, trolley cars supplied Brownsville residents with their primary form of transportation.  Visiting Brownsville yesterday, I came to understand George’s assertion.  Even now, the neighborhood feels removed from the rest of the city, and I needed to walk many blocks before coming to an A train.  And, of course, the A was not completed until the early 1930s, well past George’s childhood.

With its capacity for outliving the humans who create it, architecture can bring back the verve and spirit of a place in ways a mere historical plaque cannot.  After yesterday I feel more in touch with George’s personal history, and, as a New Yorker, a piece of my own.

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Gallagher’s and Evelyn Nesbit

September 4th, 2010 by DavidFreeland
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There aren’t a lot of old buildings left in Times Square, but the few remnants of 19th century architecture that have managed to survive conceal a wealth of entertainment history (see my last post about Helen Morgan’s club on 54th Street).  Walking along Broadway the other day, I passed Gallagher’s Steakhouse at 228 West 52nd Street and stopped to admire the heft and solidity of the townhouse it has occupied since the late 1920s.

Gallagher's Steakhouse, 2010

Gallagher’s has been around so long that it’s hard to imagine a time when its neon sign wasn’t an indelible part of the Rialto landscape.  But I knew that, given the building’s age (according the NYC Department of Buildings, its construction permit was issued in 1874), it must hold some secrets.  What was it before Gallagher’s?

For the answer, we need to go back to the years just after the turn of the 20th century.  In October of 1904 Harry K. Thaw, young Pittsburgh millionaire, was rumored to have eloped to London with a chorus performer and artists’ model, Evelyn Nesbit.  Nesbit, who modeled for Charles Gibson’s famous drawing, “The Eternal Question,” possessed the kind of beauty guaranteed to inspire admiration in any age.  The pure symmetry of her features appears wholly contemporary, and if she were around today no doubt she would be just as celebrated.

Evelyn Nesbit, early 1900s

Despite the initial opposition of Thaw’s family, the two were later married in an official ceremony in Pittsburgh.  But Nesbit’s past romantic association with the ruggedly masculine Stanford White, celebrated architect (the two had met while Nesbit was performing in Floradora at the Casino Theater in 1901), grew to obsess the unstable Thaw.  What happened next is known to even the most casual followers of New York history: on the evening of June 26, 1906, Thaw shot and killed White at Madison Square Garden’s rooftop theater (which White had designed), in the middle of a song entitled, “I Could Love a Million Girls.”  During the trial that followed, details of Evelyn’s involvement with White, including putative sexual escapades on a swing in White’s 24th Street love nest, made her the heroine of the century’s first American sex scandal.  Forever after Evelyn Nesbit would become known as “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing.”

Despite promises of a healthy settlement, Evelyn got nothing after her subsequent divorce from Thaw.  She continued to perform, struggling for a career in movies and nightclubs, and by the 1920s was described by writer Stanley Walker (in his book, The Night Club Era) as “a tired, nervous little woman trying to make a go of a tearoom just off Broadway in the West Fifties.”  I am always skeptical of these kinds of pronouncements, especially when they fit so neatly into the “fallen woman” narrative which figures like Nesbit seem to inspire.  Perhaps she felt bitter, and no doubt her stability was hampered by suicide attempts and bouts with drug addiction, but nevertheless she must have retained enough charm and personality to function as a nightlife hostess – no easy job in those days of Prohibition.

Harry K. Thaw and Stanford White

This brings us back to our earlier question.  Where exactly was “Chez Evelyn,” Nesbit’s nightclub, located?  That’s right – 228 West 52nd Street, in the same building as the present-day Gallagher’s.  In November of 1927 the New York Times reported that Thaw made an appearance at the club, causing a scene in which he “violently pounded the table and swept from it all the bottles and glasses to the floor.”  Later Nesbit described it as “one of Harry’s mild tantrums.”  A side note here is that Walker’s characterization of the place as a “tearoom” is almost certainly inaccurate.  During the same article, Evelyn cites the size of the check (which, apparently, caused Thaw’s outburst), as “somewhere between $200 and $250.”  “Speakeasy” is more like it.

Like the building at 228 West 52nd Street, Evelyn Nesbit survived.  Later she became a ceramics teacher in California, and even moved for a time back into the spotlight when she was hired as a “technical consultant” for the fictionalized 1955 movie account of the scandal, The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, starring Joan Collins.

Evelyn Nesbit and Joan Collins in 1955

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A Remnant of Speakeasy Days on West 54th Street

June 11th, 2010 by DavidFreeland
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Again I’m offering apologies for going so long without a new post.  I have been busy preparing for book lectures and signings, leading seminars and walking tours (including one last Tuesday for NYU that was great fun), and thinking about new ways to look at and learn from this complicated but fascinating city of ours.  But there are two midtown buildings, sitting side by side, that have been on my mind now for some months.

54th Street west of Broadway

They sit just west of Broadway on a bedraggled stretch of 54th Street.  A large portion of the block’s northern side on the opposite Eighth Avenue end has been demolished for what I can only presume will be another high rise – but who knows when that will ever get built.  These days the only thing we’re guaranteed when a building is torn down is an empty lot.  The building on the left looks like it may have been an old automobile showroom (there was a time when this section of Broadway was lined with such showrooms).  While rundown, it retains much architectural detail, including a lovely row of pilasters along the fourth story.  Not long ago this building and its immediate neighbor to the east looked as if they were slated for demolition; then, the real estate bubble burst.  Last month I noticed a “for sale” sign in its window, touting it as an “architecturally distinctive” property.  I guess we shouldn’t gripe – we’ll take preservation any way we can find it, right?

But it’s that building to the immediate east (231 West 54th) that has really captured my attention.  Here is a closer look:

231 West 54th Street

Intrigued by the colored window panes on the third floor, and by what appears to be a rooftop extension, I did a little research and discovered it was once home to the Fifty-Fourth Street Club, a 1920s speakeasy run by Helen Morgan, the great “torch singer” whose tragic life epitomized the giddy excesses of the Prohibition years and the tough, lean times that followed.

Helen Morgan

As a nightlife fixture Morgan was peripatetic, and after the Fifty-Fourth Street Club was padlocked for violation of Prohibition laws in February of 1927, she moved to a different location.  231 West 54th, meanwhile, was converted into the Chateau Madrid, later known as one of the fabled nightclubs of the Roaring Twenties.  One morning in October of 1928, Joey Noe, a close associate of bootlegger/gangster Dutch Schultz, was gunned down in front of the club, with the Times reporting that the shots were “fired from the windows.”  Schultz was believed to have blamed his arch-rival, Legs Diamond, for the shooting, and was said to have ordered the killing of crime kingpin Arnold Rothstein in retaliation.

Dutch Schultz

231 West 54th Street’s association with entertainment did not end with the repeal of Prohibition.  By 1935, it was operating as Dan Healy’s Broadway Room, with music by the orchestra of Joe Venuti, described by jazz historian Scott Yanow as “improvised music’s first great violinist.”  More recently the building was used as an XXX-rated video parlor and lingerie store.  Perhaps, it can be hoped, future plans will include a return to the music and entertainment for which it was once known.

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The Heights Theater

March 20th, 2010 by DavidFreeland
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It’s been a while since my last post, mostly because I’ve been occupied with a move to a new apartment and neighborhood.  The neighborhood is one I expect to be writing about on Gotham Lost & Found in the months to come.  It’s a sliver of upper Manhattan perched above the banks of the Hudson in the West 180s and lower 190s, filled with wonderful Art Deco apartment houses, expansive parks and small family-owned businesses – many of which, like Gideon’s bakery, have been here for decades.  Once the enclave was known as Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson, on account of the German-speaking Jewish population who called it home during the 1930s and 40s.  Elements of that old-world culture remain, but the area is now being changed somewhat by an influx of younger people – migrants from the Upper West Side and points to the south.

One of the nice points about living here is that it has given me a chance to explore other sections of uptown Manhattan nearby.  Coinciding with this development was my receipt of an inquiry from reader Adrian Allen, who wrote about “a building on Wadsworth Av. between 180 & 181 St.”  Adrian wrote a nice description of the exterior:

The building appears to be an old movie theater or a vaudeville house. On the facade are several “gargoyles” with different facial expressions. The building also has an imprint of a marquee. It is now a clothing store. Please check this building out. It is totally amazing!

I took Adrian’s suggestion and went to the site, located not far from the massive RKO Coliseum movie palace on 181st; the facade is indeed striking:

Heights Theater

It turns out that this building was in fact built as a movie theater, the Heights, which opened in the fall of 1913.  According to my friend Thomas Rinaldi, who wrote a fascinating paper on another of the neighborhood’s surviving old theaters, the Empress (which still contains its original pipe organ!), the Heights’ location was significant: “A middle class neighborhood, Washington Heights was well-suited as a proving ground for the growing film industry, whose strategy was to provide inexpensive entertainment to a mass market.”  By the 1920s, Tom writes, at least five motion picture theaters had opened in the area; most have survived (albeit in altered form) into the present day.

Tom was also kind enough to provide me with a copy of Motion Picture News from 1913, which gives a description of the new Heights’ interior:

The “Heights” theatre is devoted to high-class motion pictures exclusively.  They are projected on a gold fibre screen and are accompanied by one of the Wurlitzer Unit orchestras.  The auditorium is lighted with the indirect lighting system and no side lights on the walls to shine in the eyes of the audience.  Six hundred of the most comfortable seats, carpets in the aisles, brass railings, etc., complete the arrangements of the auditorium.

As Tom emphasizes so well in his paper, the Heights’s history is inextricable from that of its neighborhood.  In later years, it showcased foreign and art films (including Tosca, in 1956), then, by the early 1980s, xxx-rated features.  Today it houses a shoe store.  Whatever is left of the original interior is hidden behind drop ceilings, but outside the decorative work remains intact.  Here’s a closeup:

Heights Theater 2

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A Small But Important Boost for Tin Pan Alley

January 19th, 2010 by DavidFreeland
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There is a bit of good news for those of us concerned about development threats to the 19th century row houses that once constituted Tin Pan Alley on West 28th Street, the birthplace of the American popular music industry.  These threats have been reported upon extensively during the past year and a half, in my book, on Lost City, Curbed and other websites, and by the Historic Districts Council.  The impending sale of several of Tin Pan Alley’s buildings wound up being forestalled by the real estate market’s downturn; otherwise, preservation efforts have lacked the kind of high-profile public support they’ve needed to really get momentum going.

Tin Pan Alley around the turn of the 20th century, courtesy of Getty Images

Tin Pan Alley around the turn of the 20th century, courtesy of Getty Images

Fortunately, historians and preservationists may now have more time to make their case.  My friend, tenants rights lawyer Robert Petrucci, who has been representing tenants in the West 28th Street buildings for a number of years, tells me that he has just received a favorable recommendation in his effort to establish the four buildings from 49 to 55 West 28th Street (which, incidentally, are among the most historically significant of Tin Pan Alley’s surviving edifices) as a single unit.  In a report dated January 15, 2010, Administrative Law Judge John B. Spooner explains the reasons for his recommendation:

“Constructed as townhouses in the 1860s, the four buildings have been under common ownership since 1903…Based upon the overwhelming number of factors establishing that the four buildings have been owned and operated together for over a hundred years, I find that the four buildings constitute a single horizontal multiple dwelling.”

Judge Spooner cites a number of features, among them a common fire escape and boiler, along with cellar openings between 49 and 51, in support of his decision.  Petrucci explains that the findings will still need to be adopted by the NYC Loft Board, but that in these kinds of cases “acceptance is the norm.”  What this means is that it would now be “very difficult,” according to Petrucci, for the individual buildings to be developed separately.  That, in addition to the fact that a portion of the lot upon which number 49 sits is still designated as M1-6, for manufacturing use (the now-famous 1995 rezoning which opened the area up to commercial/residential use only extends for a specific number of feet from Sixth Avenue), signifies an impediment to prospective developers.

Not the overarching victory we’ll need in the long run, but nonetheless an important development that may help vouchsafe the immediate security of the place where a teenage Irving Berlin worked as a song plugger, and where popular music came into its own as a marketable, hit-making force.

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