Hetty Green (1834-1916): The Witch of Wall Street

March 9, 2013 in Profiles by Barbara Cohen | No comments

Henrietta (Hetty) Green (image: Wikipedia)

A familiar figure garbed in an old black dress carrying a large black satchel on the streets of New York City and Hoboken, New Jersey invited attention and curiosity.  The odd person in question was Henrietta “Hetty” Howland Robinson Green, known for her vast wealth, who, ironically, wanted only to be unnoticed.

Green’s paranoia and eccentric behavior inspired many rumors, including some pretty outlandish ones.  Notably,  she was listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the “World’s Greatest Miser.”  Her frugality was legendary and derisive and  she was widely blamed for the amputation of her young son’s leg because she would not see a doctor to avoid medical fees.  She was also ridiculed for obsessively  relocating to small apartments in Brooklyn, Hoboken, New Jersey and New Hampshire, just to avoid paying New York City residency taxes and to guard her anonymity. Read the rest of this entry »

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Designing Tomorrow: The 1939 World’s Fair at MCNY

March 2, 2013 in Furthermore by Yukie Ohta | No comments

designing tomorrow bookDesigning Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s at the Museum of the City of New York is an exhibition about yesterday’s visions of the future.  Through the lens of six fairs, Chicago (1933/34), San Diego (1935/36), Dallas (1936), Cleveland (1936/37), San Francisco (1939/40), and New York (1939/40), we see what depression-era Americans imagined their nation would look like in the years to come, when financial hardships were overcome and prosperity once again reigned over our land.

Many of these dreams became realities, the spread of highways leading to outward suburban sprawl as well as the upward reach of skyscrapers that allowed Americans to live and work in the sky.  Modern conveniences such has toasters, washing machines, and televisions, introduced at the fairs, became everyday household items.  This exhibition, which originated at the National Building Museum in Washington DC, shows an optimism at odds with the general tone of its era but is characteristic of the ambition Americans have shown in hard times. Read the rest of this entry »

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Madame Restell: The Wickedest Woman in New York

February 23, 2013 in Profiles by Barbara Cohen | No comments

Drawing of abortionist Ann Lohman (a.k.a. Madame Restell) based on a photograph, 1888. (image: Wikipedia)

Madame Restell was the name Ann Trow Lohman gave herself, but to New Yorkers she was known as “The Abortionist,” “Madame Killer,” and “The Wickedest Woman in New York.” Vilified as she was, she and her husband built a mansion on fashionable Fifth Avenue, proof that many wealthy clients used her services.

Restell started her business in New York during the 1830s, and by the 1840s she had franchised women’s clinics that sold her “remedies”—concoctions in pill or powder form, across the country.  Abortion was not clearly legally defined and was not necessarily considered a crime.

Madame Restell advertised her medical services in penny presses and legitimate newspapers, spending an estimated $60,000 in one year alone.  One ad brazenly addressed the married woman : “Is it desirable, then, for parents to increase their families, regardless of consequences to themselves, or the well-being of their offspring, when a simple, easy, healthy, and certain remedy is within our control?”  Restell was unsuccessfully indicted six times between 1839 and 1845, as eyewitnesses did not volunteer to come forward. One case, however, finally went to trial and Restell was found guilty of a misdemeanor and sentenced to one year on Blackwell’s Island (today’s Roosevelt Island). Although she was provided with luxuries for her time in jail, Restell vowed she would never go back. Read the rest of this entry »

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Paul Balmer: Urban Impressionist

February 16, 2013 in Profiles by Yukie Ohta | No comments

 

Paul Balmer's New York studio (photo: Caitlyn Cabana)

Paul Balmer’s New York studio (photo: Caitlyn Cabana)

Often called “the city that never sleeps,” New York is alive, never resting, always in motion.  Like the city itself, Paul Balmer’s recent paintings buzz with a constant, irrepressible life force. His vibrant cityscapes are rendered with a tenderness that gives them palpable character, as if buildings were figures rather than towers of cold steel. His almost child-like fascination with the city is evidenced by his use of bold color and simple shape, while the textured surfaces of his works evince his unwavering devotion to craft.

Balmer in his New York studio (photo: Caitlyn Cabana)

Balmer in his New York studio (photo: Caitlyn Cabana)

After spending several years working in illustration and advertising in Africa, Australia, and America, Balmer’s passion for art took him to Europe.  He eventually found himself venturing clear across the planet to New York where he found a metropolis like no other he had ever experienced, bursting with endlessly intriguing juxtapositions of color, texture, scale, and form. “New York is all about contrasts,” he says. “Open areas versus congestion, small buildings up against tall skyscrapers, decayed surfaces suddenly taking on a sleek modern sheen.  It is the most exciting place I have ever been.” Read the rest of this entry »

Red Light Go! The Red Light District of Old New York

February 9, 2013 in Furthermore by Yukie Ohta | No comments

A drawing titled “The Genius of Advertising” from an 1880 issue of the National Police Gazette shows men outside a brothel gazing at pictures of some of the attractions awaiting them inside (photo via The New York Times)

A drawing titled “The Genius of Advertising” from an 1880 issue of the National Police Gazette shows men outside a brothel gazing at pictures of some of the attractions awaiting them inside (photo via The New York Times)

During the early 1800′s, the posh shopping and dining neighborhood in downtown Manhattan called SoHo (which stands for SOuth of HOston), enjoyed  its previous heyday as a commercial destination for well-to-do New Yorkers.  By mid-century, however, while Broadway around Prince and Spring Streets remained for some time the “Fifth Avenue” of its day, bordellos began popping up on side streets, and the area soon became New York’s first red light district: Read the rest of this entry »

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Old York in New York

February 2, 2013 in News by Yukie Ohta | No comments

3 The Old York Library, Seymour Durst’s collection of books and ephemera related to New York City and its history, has found a new and permanent home at Columbia University Libraries’ Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library.  Durst started his collection in 1962 after a trip to Germany where he purchased a scrapbook of ephemera from New York City.  The collection grew to include more than 10,000 books, 3,000 photographs, 20,000 postcards and assorted maps and pamphlets at the time of Durst’s death in 1995.  It comes as no surprise that the Old York Collection contains many documents related to real estate development in New York, as the Durst family is one of New York’s most respected commercial and residential real estate families. Read the rest of this entry »

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Bella Landauer: Ephemeral New York

January 24, 2013 in Profiles by Yukie Ohta | No comments

Poster from the N-YHS from the Bella Landauer Collection of Business and Advertising Ephemera

Poster from the N-YHS from the Bella Landauer Collection of Business and Advertising Ephemera (source: N-YHS)

Like all addictions, Bella Landauer’s taste for ephemera started small, with a scrapbook of bookplates she purchased in 1923.  She took up collecting after she was advised by a doctor to take it easy after her tireless work with the American Volunteer Field Service during World War I took a toll on her health.  This was the beginning of a lifetime of collecting printed ephemera.

A lifelong New Yorker, Landauer continued to collect ephemera until her death in 1960.  After acquiring the bookplates, she expanded her collection to include trade cards and advertising as well as lottery tickets, posters, sheet music, cameo cards, and matchbooks.  When she moved from a townhouse to the Drake Hotel in 1926, she no longer had the room to house her ever-growing collection and thus donated a portion of it to the New-York Historical Society.  Landauer continued to add to the N-YHS collection that she organized personally (though never as a paid employee), and The New-York Historical Society Bella C. Landauer Collection of Business and Advertising Ephemera now holds over 800,000 items that are an invaluable record of their times. Read the rest of this entry »

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Hellen Keller: She Went Adventuring

January 19, 2013 in Profiles by Yukie Ohta | 4 comments

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Helen Keller

In recognition of January as National Braille Literacy Month, I would like to salute Helen Keller (1880-1968), one of the great chroniclers of life in New York City, in braille or any other writing system.  Deaf and blind since early childhood, Keller wrote fourteen books and lectured widely with her teacher Anne Sullivan and was also a political activist who campaigned for women’s suffrage and labor rights.

Keller visited New York City many times, as she was drawn to its energy, palpable beyond what one can see or hear.  In  “I Go Adventuring,” from her 1929 book Midstream: My later Life, she writes:

Cut off as I am, it is inevitable that I should sometimes feel like a shadow walking in a shadowy world.  When this happens I ask to be taken to New York City.  Always I return home weary but I have the comforting certainty that mankind is real flesh and I myself am not a dream. Read the rest of this entry »

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From Shoe Rationing to Dick Tracy: Mayor LaGuardia Reads the News on WNYC

January 7, 2013 in Profiles by Yukie Ohta | 8 comments

Mayor Fiorello H. Laguardia reads the comics on the radio, 1945

In a slightly-belated celebration of Fiorello H. LaGuardia’s 130th birthday (December 11, 1882), I would like to remember one of the many things that made him a most memorable mayor of New York City during his 12 year tenure from 1934-1945.  Known as much for his strength and determination to stamp our corruption in New York City as his gentle kindness and compassion for New York citizens, LaGuardia is often remembered for reading the Sunday funnies on the radio.

Mayor LaGuardia had a weekly Sunday radio show on WNYC called “Talk to the People,” his own version of the FDR “Firesides Chats,” where he would discuss current events and the state of affairs.  He talked about national and international concerns, especially the war, and would also tell listeners where to get the best prices on vegetables and inform them that there would be shoe rationing.  Radio was the dominant electronic medium of the day, as television was in its infancy, and Laguardia had a large and diverse listenership. Read the rest of this entry »

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The New Year in New York

December 29, 2012 in Furthermore by Yukie Ohta | No comments

A drawing by F. O. C. Darley published in Harper’s Weekly on January 1, 1859 (image and text: HarpWeek via The New York Times) The caption for this untitled cartoon reads: Mrs. Pegu, and drawing-room, are all laid out in state to receive New Year’s calls. Thirty-two young gentlemen make a brief appearance at the door, and recite the following shibboleth: “How d’ye do, Mrs. Pegu. Happy New Year. Can’t stay a minute. Made seventy-six calls this morning; got thirty more to make. Adoo! Adoo!” The young gentlemen vanish, to be succeeded by others.

Although I’ve lived in New York City my entire life, I have never been to Times Square on New Year’s eve.  The idea of standing out in the cold with close to a million others to ring in the new year sounds dreadfully exhausting to me, but perhaps not quite as exhausting as the old New Year’s tradition of “calling” or “visiting.”

In 1907, Adolph Ochs, publisher of the New York Times, dropped the first illuminated ball from the flagpole on the recently constructed New York Times Building that was located in the newly renamed Times Square and started a tradition that would last over a century.  Predating this tradition, according to The New York Times Learning Network’s On This Day, nineteenth century New Yorkers practiced another ritual that seems to have been long forgotten:

New Year’s Day was traditionally considered the best time of the year for renewing, reviving, or reaffirming friendships. During the nineteenth century, it was the custom of urban gentlemen to pay formal visits to the households of friends and relatives on that holiday. Gentlemen were expected to dress appropriately in morning costume, consisting of a dark coat, vest and tie, dark or light pants, and somber-colored gloves. Receiving the gentlemen callers were the ladies of the house, dressed in their sartorial finery or, occasionally, in the costume of famous female figures in history or myth.

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