The Classical Values blog had a post back in October ’03 entitled A Classical Arch in New York, which makes mention of the triumphal arch built to comemmorate Admiral Dewey’s victory over the Spanish in the eponymous war between our two nations round the turn of the century.

The Dewey Arch was only a temporary structure built of a plaster-like material, and thus did not survive. A previous temporary wood-and-plaster triumphal arch was built to commemorate General Washington in Washington Square, and proved so popular that it was decided to replace it with a permanent stone version. Unfortunately, the more attractive beaux-arts Dewey Arch, which also featured a colonnade, was not made permanent as its location in Madison Square would have obstructed the flow of vehicles and required a rethinking of the traffic flow.

The only existing reminder of the Arch near the site is a bar and restaurant called Dewey’s Flatiron.

Nonetheless, here are a few photos of the lost arch.

A view of the Dewey Arch, colonnade, and Madison Square, with Stanford White’s towered Madison Square Garden in the background. Broadway and its trolley line cross the colonnade’s axis. (more…)

A comment of Mr. Hiss on Fr. Sibley’s blog mentioned the Church of St. Jean Baptiste on the Upper East Side. There are few churches in New York, let alone all America, which are as beautiful as St. Jean Baptiste (or “St. JB’s” as people ridiculously call it). A restoration only a few years ago brought the church back to its full splendour.

It used to be the national parish of the French Canadians in New York, hence the French name, and is now home to the National Shrine of St. Anne, formerly further downtown in what became St. Anne’s Armenian Catholic Cathedral (one of a few beautiful and very active church buildings being pawned off by the wretched bureaucrats who run the Archdiocese of New York).

The church is open most of the day and definitely worth stepping into even if you only have a few minutes. Their parish website (link above) has a somewhat detailed history of the parish and the architecture of the church.

The parish and girls’ high school are now staffed by priests of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament as well as sisters from the Congrégation de Notre-Dame, and the Body of Christ is adored all day long except during Mass.

The Dutch Reformed Church in Kingston, New York.

The Maine Monument has always been one of my favourite monuments in New York. It’s dedicated to the dead of the U.S.S. Maine incident and the Spanish-American War. The Monument is beautiful, not only due to its intriguing massing and beautiful sculpted work, but also because its placement in relation to Columbus Circle. It moves upward, encompassed in the lush greenery of Central Park behind it, and the bottom half projects itself forward into the Circle and creates a pleasing visual arrangement.

Above, as seen through the window of the Allen Room of the new Frederick P. Rose Hall at the AOL Time Warner Center. According to the review of opening night in the Sun, the Allen Room’s acoustics are amazing, and it looks as if Rose Hall will be an important addition to the cultural world of the City. (Note to Lucas and Adam: pencil this into your schedules).

Above the Maine Monument is pictured with the base of the Columbus column in the middle of Columbus Circle. The Circle is currently undergoing a massive refurbishment to try to make it more accesible and parklike rather than just a glorified traffic circle.

Top photo by Corin Anderson

This photo of Albany, the capital of New York, from the 1950s shows a city that, if it weren’t for the straight streets, almost feels like a poverty-stricken Eastern European capital.

Unfortunately, it became even more like a poverty-stricken Eastern European capital when Big Brother decided to get rid of it all and replace it with a giant, heartless, government plaza.

I wonder if Governor Rockefeller visited Brasilia and thought “Gee, I ought to get me one of them!” Empire State Plaza (or Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza as it is now officially known) involved the displacement of thousands of poor people, hundreds of small businesses, bad architecture, and the humongous cost – partly owing to the omnipresent use of marble instead of more economic stones.

The result was the destruction of a large community built on a human scale in favor of an expensive, espansive, inhospitable Communist dreamland on the Hudson. A crime.

TODAY I WAS wondering how many daily newspapers there actually are in New York. I thought I knew all the English ones, the Spanish ones, and that there were a few Chinese ones as well. So my vague idea was somewhere around seven or eight.

After turning to the Encyclopedia of New York and the internet, by my count there are thirty-five dailies in New York, printed in nine different languages!

Eighteen English, five Chinese, three Korean, three Spanish, two Greek, one Italian, one Polish, one Russian, and one Ukrainian. That’s a very large number of newspapers for one city to sustain, though it ought to be remembered many of the language papers are purchased widely in other areas. Still, I wonder if Tokyo, Mexico, Seoul, Sao Paolo, Mumbai, and the other megacities out there have as many daily newspapers.

The eighteen English dailies by founding date are: (more…)

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