Flipping through an old book called ‘Magical City: Intimate Sketches of New York’, I came upon this sketch of the Gould Boathouse of Columbia University on the Harlem River by Spuyten Duyvil. I had never come across this little building before and had significant doubts as to whether it was still there, but to my pleasant surprise it does. I’m afraid I don’t know much about the boathouse nor its history, but here follows a number of photos and images of it, and of various Columbia boathouses of the past. (more…)

Having been duly capped on the head by the Rt. Hon. Menzies Campbell QC MP with John Knox’s breeks last Thursday I have returned to the land of my birth a Master of the Arts. Details of the various rites and festivities are forthcoming, but in the mean time I share with you these three travel posters from back in the day when they made proper travel posters. All three advertise our blessed Empire State, two of them West Point, the glorious gothic crown of the Hudson. Excelsior!

Click on the images for the full posters.

Meandering through the internet yesterday, I came across the above image from the 1954 film ‘It Should Happen to You!’ (via a New York Times article). The film capture shows Columbus Circle in 1954 and was I immediately struck by the superiority of the scale of the buildings to the street, especially compared to today when the Columbus Column is rather overshadowed by the AOL Time Warner Center. It’s not that I don’t like tall buildings; after all New York has some of the most beautiful skyscrapers in the world (though I can’t think of a single great one built after the second war). I don’t even object to the residential apartment buildings lining Central Park on Fifth Avenue and Central Park West, except for the fact that on Fifth Avenue they almost always replaced superior, smaller buildings. However, with a public square as small as Columbus Circle, it somehow seems as if lower buildings of only 3-10 storeys would be more appropriate.

The latest brouhaha concerns No. 2 Columbus Circle (the shorter, white building in the photo on the right), designed in the early 1960’s by Edward Durell Stone to house the art collection of Huntington Hartford. The current owners want to chic-ify the building by taking off the façade and recladding No. 2 in the more fashionable glass, akin to the neighboring Time Warner Center, and this has roused the ire of many of New York’s preservationist crowd. Though No. 2 has its charms, I’m not a huge fan of the building myself, but the redesign would only make it worse. The chief value of the building is its comparitively low height which, when viewed from the northwest, contributes to the feeling as if the midtown buildings are gradually lowering in height to meet the scale of Columbus Circle. Unfortunately the Time Warner Center doesn’t comply well with this lessening scale, though it at leasts goes through the motions by have a consistent, low base from which its two towers rise. The stone cladding of the Center, however, is rather too dark and gives a slightly gloomy feel to what ought to be a lovely, bright place. (more…)

Previously: The Great War Victory Arch | More Classical New York | The Dewey Arch

Thus wrote Francis Finnegan of the Ancient Order of Hibernians to H.R.H. Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, (above, in the uniform of the Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars) inviting him to partake in New York’s St. Patrick’s Day festivities in 1966 during his visit to North America. The invitation was made in recompense for the opprobrious breach of propriety in 1861 when Col. Michael Corcoran, Commanding Officer of the New York 69th committed an act of insubordination when he refused to order his troops to take part in the official festivities welcoming the Prince of Wales to New York. Corcoran was dropped from the Officers Roll of the New York State Militia for the offense, and was to be court-martialled but for the outbreak of the Civil War.

Finnegan, the public relations director of the New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade organised by the Ancient Order of Hibernians every year, assured the Duke of Edinburgh that he would not be mistreated as the Prince of Wales had been one hundred and five years previous. “Alas,” TIME magazine reported, “he arrived in Manhattan too late on St. Patrick’s Day to march in the Fifth Avenue parade, even though he did sport a fine green tie. Britain’s Prince Philip, 44, in a green tie? ‘Just a coincidence,’ chuckled the consort.” (TIME, 25 March, 1966).

The 1861 visit of the Prince of Wales to New York was a spectacular event, despite the insults of Col. Corcoran. A ball was held, just as for the Queen Mother during her 1954 visit to New York, as well as a parade and pass-in-review.

I HAVE NEVER been inside New York’s City Hall, though I have walked or driven past it on a number of occasions. With tall skyscrapers of various ilks towering over it, it always seemed rather small and inconsequential, and I knew nothing of the interiors save the Blue Room in which the Mayor usually gives press conferences and the rotunda which is fairly well-known as well.

I was delighted, therefore, to stumble upon the above photo of the recently-restored Governor’s Suite in City Hall, which shows it to have a rather handsome interior. Since the state government embarked upon an up-river journey to Albany, I presume the purpose of the Governor’s Suite is to provide a place for New York’s head of state to receive and entertain important dignitaries visiting the Big Apple. The current green color of the walls seems much preferable to the previous and rather dull white. I must endeavour to visit City Hall when I next return to the metropolis. (more…)

In 1954 Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (n.1900, m.2002) visited New York to accept an educational fund raised by Americans in memory of the late King George VI. On the evening of November 1 of that year, the Seventh Regiment entertained Her Majesty with a special ball held in her honor at the Armory on Park Avenue (view above). Her Majesty also visited the Cathedral of St. John the Divine where she was received by the (Episcopal) Bishop of New York, the Dean, and the clergy of the Cathedral. The three stone blocks on the façade seen in the view below have since been sculpted.

GOVERNORS ISLAND IS one of New York’s hidden gems. Not only is it a place which has a long and storied history, but it remains, however underappreciated, a place of great beauty, not to mention a place of great potential. The fact that this island in New York Harbor has been the property of the government for the preponderance of its existence has shielded it from the destructive forces of commerce which have savaged so much of what is beautiful and historic in the remainder of the city.

Let us explore this intriguing isle… (more…)

A very happy and blessed St. Nicholas Day to you all. St Nicholas is, as you all know, the patron saint of New York owing to our Netherlandish forefathers. Above you can see Lumen Martin Winter’s mural of St. Nicholas leading Peter Stuyvesant’s legion on their way to attack and take the Swedish fort of Christiania in New Sweden. The account of the battle by Washington Irving is hilarious and counts among my favorite selections of comic writing.

If you’d like to learn more about St. Nicholas, the St. Nicholas Center is a good place to start, as well as the holy bishop’s entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

It’s also Sofie von Hauch’s birthday. Tillykke med Fødselsdagen!

Previously: The Feast of St Nicholas

Windy Hollow, Millbrook, Rombout, Smithtown — doubtless these words mean nothing to many but to the huntsmen (and -women) of New York they are immediately recognised as the names of some of the Empire State’s hunts.

These four hunts are just some of the survivors but there were once many more packs of hounds across the state. Long Island before the second war was excellent hunt country but thanks to rapid suburbanisation and cultural changes only the Smithtown Hunt survives there.

Still, hunting loomed large enough in the imagination that it featured on the front cover of The New Yorker with some regularity.

Indeed the very week of the Kennedy assassination, houses up and down Manhattan and the whole East Coast would have had their copy of the magazine with a hunting scene front and centre. (President Kennedy did ride, but of the two of them it was the First Lady who was keener on the hunt.)

Here are just a few of the covers I’ve found.

Roll over the covers for the date of the issue to appear.

BERTRAM GROSVENOR Goodhue considered the Church of the Intercession at 155th Street and Broadway in New York his masterpiece. Being one of the greatest American architects ever, Goodhue knew what he was talking about, and the Church is undoubtedly one of his best. He was one of the last great American creators, a modern architect working within the great tradition. (Art deco, the style in which Goodhue’s award-winning Nebraska state capitol was built, was perhaps the last style within the tradition until a few post-modernists took their stab at reconnecting with the past). (more…)

The above photograph shows a 1963 service in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York. Closest to the sanctuary are four members of the Veteran Corps of Artillery, State of New York, but behind them can be scene a member of the Old Guard of the City of New York. The VCA, of which my Uncle Matt (a frequent commenter upon this site) is a member, is older, being founded in 1790. The Old Guard dates from 1826, and Uncle Matt’s father (my grandpa) was Commadant of that august group. There’s a great photo of my father as a small child gazing up at his father in Old Guard uniform including the tall bearskin busby. Perhaps Pop will scan it sometime, else I will get around to it when I’m back in the States.

With all its traditional pomp and circumstance, the Old Guard of the City of New York turned out to observe the one hundred and fifth anniversary of its organization. There was the usual parade with major generals, colonels, majors, and captains marching as privates under the banners of this battalion and proud of their place in its rank and file. After the parade church services were held in the old chapel on Governors Island.
(A bad copy from The Sun, Fort Covington, NY, 1931)

This photo shows the interior of the Dominican Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, designed by Goodhue, before it was fully completed. The stained glass has yet to be installed, and the same goes for the giant reredos which now graces the altar. A more current view is below.

During the past fortnight, I have been learning to row on the lagoon in Pelham Bay Park, a body of water with which I had no previous aquaintance. “Learning to row?” you ask. “But weren’t you in the University of St Andrews Boat Club during your bejant year?” Yes, dear reader, I was a full paid-up member of said body, but I was too busy avoiding lectures, failing courses, and other such frivolities of one’s first year at university to actually row, and only went to circuit training when Ezra Pierce irritated me enough that I felt obliged to give in and head on over. Nonetheless, at the suggestion of a good friend I decided to enroll in this program and have not regretted it at all. Rowing, in short, is addictive, and it is a grand shame that I shall have to wait until at least September in Scotland to get back on the water. (Above, the Travers Island clubhouse of the A.C. can be seen from the far end of the lagoon). (more…)

I’ve always somewhat admired Santiago Calatrava’s plan for the completion of the (Episcopalian) Cathedral of St. John the Divine here in New York. It was commissioned in the 1980’s by the über-dodgy Rev. James Parks Morton, dean of the Cathedral at the time. Morton was responsible for turning “St. John the Unfinished” into the hippie-trippy-ecumenical-syncretist-pagan-temple-cum-performing-arts-center it is known as today, and came up with this scheme to try to bring the cathedral to completion. (The plan has since been abandoned and all construction ceased a decade ago; scaffolding remains because the cost of removing it was judged to be too high).

The plan involved a ‘biosphere’ garden being planted atop the nave in the giant greenhouse formed by Calatrava’s lithely arches. Though I much prefer the crossing tower in the design by Ralph Adams Cram, I still think that Calatrava’s plan is rather exciting. It only succeeds, however, because Cram and (Heins & Lafarge before him) laid an ample beautiful foundation (well, obviously quite much more than that) for Calatrava to complete. The cathedrals which Signor Calatrava has designed completely himself have been completey devoid of aesthetic appeal, as well as conceived outside of the millenia-long tradition of church architecture.

The (Catholic) Diocese of Oakland commissioned Calatrava to design their new ‘Cathedral of Christ the Light’ after the old seat was greatly damaged in an earthquake. Despite the vacuousness of the design (model below), Signor Calatrava proved to be outside the Diocese’s budget, and his second-rate design was shelved and replaced with a third-rate design of a vaguely similar ilk. The third-rate design is the one which will be built, though a first-rate proposal in the vernacular style natural to California has been drawn up by Mr. Domiane Forte. Methinks Signor Calatrava should stick to his catchy bridges.

Plans are afoot for the construction of a New Globe Theatre in the middle of Castle Williams on Governors Island in New York Harbor. The theatre would be of the same concept as Shakespeare’s old Globe, now reconstructed close to the original site in Southwark, London. (more…)

I received such complaints regarding my opinion of the University Club that I offer up these images as a peace offering. Above, an elevation of the 54th St façade.

A view from Fifth Avenue.

The oft-praised library.

The NYPL digital gallery has provided me with yet another photo to add to my Dewey Arch collection.

One bit of would-be classical New York I can’t seem to find much information on is the 1904 plan by Thomas J. George for a beaux-arts civic center to be built upon what we now call Roosevelt Island (previous Bramwell’s then Welfare Island), an image of which you can see below. I inquired with the Roosevelt Island Historical Society, and all they could really tell me was the date, designer, and that it merits a mention in the book ‘Skyscraper Rivals’. I’m rather fond of it. Certainly better than what they’ve got on Roosevelt Island now.

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