Monday, April 27, 2020
Friday, April 24, 2020
Wonder Wheel
In the beginning of March, I somehow wound up having a day off on a Monday. It was that rarest of rarities . . . A free weekday that was also a school day, so I really was free for most of the day! It was also sunny and unseasonably warm, so I took a trip down to Coney Island. Coney Island is one of my favorite places, and I actually like it better during the off-season, without the crowds. Some workers were in the amusement parks, starting to get them ready for a summer season which we now know will probably not happen. There were still plenty of people around, but it was pretty quiet and peaceful. Quiet and peaceful, with the exception of an old man sitting on a bench near me, ranting to someone on his phone about how Coronavirus was a hoax, it was just the flu, and it was all thought up by "the government, the military, the corporations, the Arabs . . . They're all in on it!" Four days later, the whole city was shut down.
Friday, April 17, 2020
The Future of Upscale
An interesting thing sometimes happens when buildings are torn down. The backs and sides of the buildings on the other side of the block are revealed. Sometimes you can see a ghostly outline of the demolished building on the face of the adjacent property. Sometimes you see decades-old painted advertisements for long-gone businesses. At this lot on West 55th Street, next door to the Peninsula Hotel, you can see the backs of some of the mansions of "Millionaire's Row" on 54th St. Most of what's exposed is the rear of #11 West 54th St., designed by McKim, Mead and White. It had been home to James Goodwin, a cousin of J.P. Morgan, and later was home to the Rhodes Preparatory School. To the left, you can see the back of the Lehman House. Who knows how long those big bay windows were facing the back of some other buildings?
The lot was previously occupied by four turn-of-the-century townhouses, also designed by McKim, Mead and White. The architectural details of the buildings were stripped away, which is a sneaky trick real estate people pull to keep buildings from being designated landmarks, clearing the way for them to be demolished. In 2017, Skyline Developers, which also owns the Rockefeller townhouses on 54th, purchased the lots for $83 million. In recent weeks, before the pandemic shutdown, construction crews were in there, seemingly preparing to start building something. It's unclear what is going to go up there, but the giant signage out front promises it will be THE FUTURE HOME OF UPSCALE.
City Realty: "Skyline Developers Unfurl Banners for Prime Midtown Site"
The Real Deal: "Skyline Developers Scoop Up Vacant Site for $83M"
Saturday, April 4, 2020
Millionaire's Row
During the latter part of the 19th Century, as New York City expanded northward, the wealthy class of Manhattan started to fill Fifth Avenue with their homes and businesses. The land on 54th and 55th Streets between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue was occupied by St Luke's Hospital. When the hospital moved its facilities to Amsterdam Ave. in 1896, the old building was demolished and those lots became prime available real estate. There are six extant houses on West 54th St. - numbers 5 through 15 - built between 1896 and 1900, that are the remains of this "Millionaire's Row." Across the street from them stood the brownstone mansion of John D. Rockefeller Sr., founder of the Standard Oil Company. The MoMA sculpture garden now occupies that spot. On the corner of Sixth Ave. stands the exclusive University Club.
I've been working at MoMA since last year, right across the street from these houses, so I've become very familiar with them. These drawings were done last month, during lunch breaks and downtime, before everything was locked down due to the Coronavirus Pandemic and I was sent home. As I finished them up and scanned them, I hesitated to post them. Posting drawings of luxury mansions at this moment seemed a bit frivolous, as the rate of infection increases, the death toll rises, the economy collapses, and the Federal government continually fails in ways that would be laughable if it weren't so horrifying. But as I did my research on these buildings, my mind changed.
These mansions were built just a decade or two before the 1918-19 Spanish Flu pandemic. 33,000 died in New York City alone; 500 million were infected worldwide, with at least 50 million dying from it. There was quarantine and closures and mass suffering, all with far less scientific knowledge and technology than we have today. The inhabitants of these houses lived through that, and maybe some of them didn't live through it. But the city survived. I came to see these buildings as a symbol of survival, a physical reminder that some day - despite the death and suffering we're seeing now - life will go on. The city will continue. Stores and restaurants and theaters and museums will re-open. People will be able to gather, and hug, and eat meals together, and cram into subways, and walk within six feet of strangers without fear. And hopefully we will not see this again in out lifetime, and if we do, we will know better how to survive it.
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The house at No. 7 was commissioned by financier Philip Lehman, whose father had co-founded Lehman Brothers. It was designed by architect John H. Duncan, who was also the designer of Grant's Tomb and the Soldiers and Sailors' Memorial Arch in Grand Army Plaza. Completed in 1900, it was built in the Beaux Arts style. It is notable for its distinctive slate-covered mansard roof and the trio of round windows called oculi.
The house remained in the Lehman family until the 1970's. Philip's son Robert amassed a collection of over 3000 works of art, and the home became his private gallery. Upon his death in 1969, the collection was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and several rooms were dismantled and installed as part of the Robert Lehman Wing. Lehman had wanted the whole house moved to the museum, but apparently that wasn't practical. The building went through series of owners until it was purchased by a hedge fund firm in 2006, which hired Belmont Freeman Architects to restore the house as much as possible to its original appearance, including returning some artifacts (stained-glass windows, fireplace surrounds, doors, etc) from the Met and replicating details of other elements from casts.
I've been working at MoMA since last year, right across the street from these houses, so I've become very familiar with them. These drawings were done last month, during lunch breaks and downtime, before everything was locked down due to the Coronavirus Pandemic and I was sent home. As I finished them up and scanned them, I hesitated to post them. Posting drawings of luxury mansions at this moment seemed a bit frivolous, as the rate of infection increases, the death toll rises, the economy collapses, and the Federal government continually fails in ways that would be laughable if it weren't so horrifying. But as I did my research on these buildings, my mind changed.
These mansions were built just a decade or two before the 1918-19 Spanish Flu pandemic. 33,000 died in New York City alone; 500 million were infected worldwide, with at least 50 million dying from it. There was quarantine and closures and mass suffering, all with far less scientific knowledge and technology than we have today. The inhabitants of these houses lived through that, and maybe some of them didn't live through it. But the city survived. I came to see these buildings as a symbol of survival, a physical reminder that some day - despite the death and suffering we're seeing now - life will go on. The city will continue. Stores and restaurants and theaters and museums will re-open. People will be able to gather, and hug, and eat meals together, and cram into subways, and walk within six feet of strangers without fear. And hopefully we will not see this again in out lifetime, and if we do, we will know better how to survive it.
********************************************************************************
The house at No. 7 was commissioned by financier Philip Lehman, whose father had co-founded Lehman Brothers. It was designed by architect John H. Duncan, who was also the designer of Grant's Tomb and the Soldiers and Sailors' Memorial Arch in Grand Army Plaza. Completed in 1900, it was built in the Beaux Arts style. It is notable for its distinctive slate-covered mansard roof and the trio of round windows called oculi.
The house remained in the Lehman family until the 1970's. Philip's son Robert amassed a collection of over 3000 works of art, and the home became his private gallery. Upon his death in 1969, the collection was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and several rooms were dismantled and installed as part of the Robert Lehman Wing. Lehman had wanted the whole house moved to the museum, but apparently that wasn't practical. The building went through series of owners until it was purchased by a hedge fund firm in 2006, which hired Belmont Freeman Architects to restore the house as much as possible to its original appearance, including returning some artifacts (stained-glass windows, fireplace surrounds, doors, etc) from the Met and replicating details of other elements from casts.
These twin residences at Nos. 13 and 15 were built in 1896-97 by businessman William Murray. Murray never resided there; it was just a real estate investment for him. The architect was Henry J. Hardenberg, who also designed the Waldorf, the Astoria, the Plaza Hotel and the Dakota. The matching homes are in Renaissance style. No. 13 is actually slightly larger. In 1906, No. 13 was purchased by John D Rockefeller Sr., who then resold to his son. The property remained in the Rockefeller Family until the 1980's. It currently houses offices and a restaurant on the lower floor.
Fun Fact: It was here, in 1979, that Nelson Rockefeller, son of JD Rockefeller Jr, former Vice President and governor of NY, died of a heart attack in the middle of sex with his secretary!
Finally, this grotesque head that I did during last year's Inktober challenge. You can see them poking out below the rounded facade at the bottom of the building.
Sources:
Monday, March 30, 2020
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
One Week 100 People
Last week, I participated in the One Week 100 People challenge. It's a challenge created by urban sketchers Liz Steel and Marc Taro Holmes, and it's exactly what it sounds like. To set a goal of drawing 100 people over a period of five days. People did it however they wanted, in whatever medium they wanted, some working off photographs or television. I decided they would all be done from life, using the same pen (a Sharpie fine marker) in a 5.5 X 8.5 Canson sketchbook I had around.
I wound up with a total of 103. They are all very fast sketches, a few minutes at most, mostly done on the subway or around the museum. The challenge occurred the week before Coronavirus shut down the city. I wonder how many of this 103 will make it through the coming weeks unscathed.
I wound up with a total of 103. They are all very fast sketches, a few minutes at most, mostly done on the subway or around the museum. The challenge occurred the week before Coronavirus shut down the city. I wonder how many of this 103 will make it through the coming weeks unscathed.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
54th Street and Fifth Avenue
These days, most of my time is spent in Midtown, specifically around the Museum of Modern Art, where I've started a full-time job. And so, most of my sketching now takes place in that small area of Manhattan. These two buildings, the University Club and the Aeolian Building, are across from each other, on opposite sides of 54th Street and 5th Avenue.
The University Club of New York was founded in 1865 by group of recent Yale college graduates in order to maintain their collegiate association. Its charter stated its goals as being for the "promotion of Literature and Art by establishing and maintaining a Library, Reading Room and Gallery of Art, and by such other means as shall be expedient and proper for such purposes." While founded by Yalies, the Club did have "a determination to suppress in the University Club all college rivalries and to foster only a catholic spirit among the sons of all reputable educational schools." While it was not exclusive to Yale alumni, it certainly was exclusive: Initial dues were a $200 entry fee plus $60 annual dues. Today fees are $1,000-$5,000.
The Club met at various locations, finally settling at the Leonard Jerome mansion at 26th and Madison. However, its membership had ballooned over the decades, and its membership was capped at 1,500 New York residents and 600 non-residents, with nearly 600 people on its waiting list, and the Jerome mansion did not have the space to accommodate. The land at 54th St. and 5th was then occupied by St. Luke's Hospital, and when the hospital announced in 1893 that it would be moving to Morningside Heights and selling the property, the University Club purchased the plot.
The University Club commissioned architects Charles McKim, William Mead and Stanford White - all of whom were members - to design the new club building. The $1 million building, built in the Italian Renaissance style, opened in 1899. It is six stories tall, but high archways that span two floors give it the appearance of only being three. Seals of eighteen "reputable" universities are mounted to the facade. Competition to secure a space was fierce, and Annapolis created a seal specifically for the purpose. Some of the seals have errors in their depiction, but the Club never saw fit to correct and replace them.
A few years after its opening, Arnold Bennett, a writer for Harper's Magazine, recounted: "One afternoon I was driving up Fifth Avenue in the company of an architectural expert, who, with the incredible elastic good nature of American business men, had abandoned his affairs for half a day in order to go with me on a voyage of discovery, and he asked me, as as to get some basis of understanding or disagreement, what building in New York had pleased me most. I at once said the University Club to my mind a masterpiece. He approved, and a great peace filled our automobile, in which peace we expanded."
It was constructed from Milford granite, a cool pink granite. Over time, the granite became dark with soot. It was cleaned in the mid-1980's, but the original facade had aged to a charcoal gray. I found this color difficult to capture. It really changes over the course of the day, and depending on the weather. The day I worked on it, it had taken on a warm, yellowish cast from the direct midday sunlight.
In addition to promoting arts and literature, the club was a "bachelor house of refuge." Women were not allowed, not just as members, but even as guests, with the exception of a few days set aside for the purpose of showing off to wives. In 1987, the Human Rights Commission filed a gender-discrimination lawsuit, and membership was opened to women.
Now known only by its address, 689 Fifth Ave., this neo-Classical/French Renaissance building was originally known as the Aeolian Building and listed as such by Landmarks Preservation Committee in 2002.
The Aeolian Organ and Music Company was founded in 1887 by William B. Tremaine and manufactured automatic player pianos. Prominent pianists would have their performances recorded onto paper rolls to be played on these machines, the equivalent of a recording contract of their day. In 1912, the company constructed a large concert hall on 42nd St., and in 1926 commissioned architects Warren & Wetmore to design this building as the company's headquarters.
In 1926, during construction, a fire broke out on a wooden scaffolding. New Yorker columnist George S. Chappell wrote, "the recent fire woke up members of the University Club, who had not been roused in years." The building finally opened 1927, with five floors of showrooms and a recital hall seating 150. The Fifth Avenue Association awarded it gold medal for "the most beautiful building in the Fifth Avenue District in 1926."
The 1929 stock market crash and then the advent of radio killed player piano business. Aeolian merged with another company and left building in 1938. In 1930, Elizabeth Arden opened a store in ground floor; remaining there for decades, and the building eventually became popularly known as the Elizabeth Arden building. Another early tenant, shoemaker I. Miller, altered the corner facade. Later, in the 1970s, Gucci occupied space there, and the facade was altered again.
University Club Sources
NY Times: The Perfect Picture of an Urban Club
Daytonian In Manhattan
An extraordinarily detailed history of the University Club of New York
Aeolian Building
NY Times: Streetscapes
Daytonian in Manhattan
The University Club of New York was founded in 1865 by group of recent Yale college graduates in order to maintain their collegiate association. Its charter stated its goals as being for the "promotion of Literature and Art by establishing and maintaining a Library, Reading Room and Gallery of Art, and by such other means as shall be expedient and proper for such purposes." While founded by Yalies, the Club did have "a determination to suppress in the University Club all college rivalries and to foster only a catholic spirit among the sons of all reputable educational schools." While it was not exclusive to Yale alumni, it certainly was exclusive: Initial dues were a $200 entry fee plus $60 annual dues. Today fees are $1,000-$5,000.
The Club met at various locations, finally settling at the Leonard Jerome mansion at 26th and Madison. However, its membership had ballooned over the decades, and its membership was capped at 1,500 New York residents and 600 non-residents, with nearly 600 people on its waiting list, and the Jerome mansion did not have the space to accommodate. The land at 54th St. and 5th was then occupied by St. Luke's Hospital, and when the hospital announced in 1893 that it would be moving to Morningside Heights and selling the property, the University Club purchased the plot.
The University Club commissioned architects Charles McKim, William Mead and Stanford White - all of whom were members - to design the new club building. The $1 million building, built in the Italian Renaissance style, opened in 1899. It is six stories tall, but high archways that span two floors give it the appearance of only being three. Seals of eighteen "reputable" universities are mounted to the facade. Competition to secure a space was fierce, and Annapolis created a seal specifically for the purpose. Some of the seals have errors in their depiction, but the Club never saw fit to correct and replace them.
A few years after its opening, Arnold Bennett, a writer for Harper's Magazine, recounted: "One afternoon I was driving up Fifth Avenue in the company of an architectural expert, who, with the incredible elastic good nature of American business men, had abandoned his affairs for half a day in order to go with me on a voyage of discovery, and he asked me, as as to get some basis of understanding or disagreement, what building in New York had pleased me most. I at once said the University Club to my mind a masterpiece. He approved, and a great peace filled our automobile, in which peace we expanded."
It was constructed from Milford granite, a cool pink granite. Over time, the granite became dark with soot. It was cleaned in the mid-1980's, but the original facade had aged to a charcoal gray. I found this color difficult to capture. It really changes over the course of the day, and depending on the weather. The day I worked on it, it had taken on a warm, yellowish cast from the direct midday sunlight.
In addition to promoting arts and literature, the club was a "bachelor house of refuge." Women were not allowed, not just as members, but even as guests, with the exception of a few days set aside for the purpose of showing off to wives. In 1987, the Human Rights Commission filed a gender-discrimination lawsuit, and membership was opened to women.
Now known only by its address, 689 Fifth Ave., this neo-Classical/French Renaissance building was originally known as the Aeolian Building and listed as such by Landmarks Preservation Committee in 2002.
The Aeolian Organ and Music Company was founded in 1887 by William B. Tremaine and manufactured automatic player pianos. Prominent pianists would have their performances recorded onto paper rolls to be played on these machines, the equivalent of a recording contract of their day. In 1912, the company constructed a large concert hall on 42nd St., and in 1926 commissioned architects Warren & Wetmore to design this building as the company's headquarters.
In 1926, during construction, a fire broke out on a wooden scaffolding. New Yorker columnist George S. Chappell wrote, "the recent fire woke up members of the University Club, who had not been roused in years." The building finally opened 1927, with five floors of showrooms and a recital hall seating 150. The Fifth Avenue Association awarded it gold medal for "the most beautiful building in the Fifth Avenue District in 1926."
The 1929 stock market crash and then the advent of radio killed player piano business. Aeolian merged with another company and left building in 1938. In 1930, Elizabeth Arden opened a store in ground floor; remaining there for decades, and the building eventually became popularly known as the Elizabeth Arden building. Another early tenant, shoemaker I. Miller, altered the corner facade. Later, in the 1970s, Gucci occupied space there, and the facade was altered again.
University Club Sources
NY Times: The Perfect Picture of an Urban Club
Daytonian In Manhattan
An extraordinarily detailed history of the University Club of New York
Aeolian Building
NY Times: Streetscapes
Daytonian in Manhattan
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