The steps of St. Paul's Chapel, Broadway, looking towards Park Row, March 1937.

A PROPERTY IN Sniffen Court coming on the market is a rare event, but two up for grabs at the same time must be a first. Like Grove Court, MacDougal Alley, or Washington Mews, this little alleyway is one of the most desirable of those little nooks and crannies that hide amidst the hurly-burly of Manhattan. Tradition holds that Sniffen Court was built as stables by one John Sniffen around the time of the Civil War, but there is no record of any Sniffen ever having owned the properties (some therefore presume he was the architect). They were converted, like many mews around the city, from stables to residences in the 1920s and all have gradually adapted and changed since then.

“Give me rail travel, trans-Atlantic liners, and electric cars and you will have Taki on your side," writes our favorite Greek philosopher over on his online magazine. The invocation of rail transportation prompted one reader, Mr. Roland Maruska, to send in his response to Taki's call:

Previously: Grand Central Station at Night

Fr. Rutler preaches, illuminated by the midday winter sun, at the Church of Our Saviour on the Feast of St. Sylvester. And a fine sermon it was, too.

I THOUGHT THAT since we widened our window of opportunity, I ought to give you a wider view of this capture from the 1954 film 'It Should Happen to You!', previously displayed in our exposition on Columbus Circle and the Human Scale. The more recent rehabilitation of this grand public place was discussed in one of my diary entries.

Officers of the New-York Light Guard, an antecedent of the Old Guard of the City of New York. The City Guard and the Light Guard combined in 1826 to form the Old Guard.

Categories: The Old Guard | Militaria

Corpus Christi Church, West 121st Street, New York: perhaps my favorite Catholic church interior in all New York, and one which simply cries out for a traditional Mass.

THE ASSAY OFFICE was built in 1822 as the New York branch of the Bank of the United States, located at 15½ Wall Street. The (Second) Bank of the United States was the second attempt at a central bank for this country. Eventually, the central bank grew too powerful, trying to manipulate politics and master the economy itself, and so it was abolished in 1836. The building later became the Assay Office, an adjunct to the Customs House and Sub-Treasury next door, which itself is now known as Federal Hall National Monument. When the Assay Office was torn down, the façade was preserved and donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Robert W. de Forest in 1924. It is now presented in the glass-covered courtyard of the American Wing of the greatest museum of art in the New World.

THE TOLLBOOTH AT the Bear Mountain Bridge is built in a whimsical style meant to harken back to the Dutch patriarchs of old who roamed and ruled (and fell asleep in) these lands. The Bear Mountain Bridge spans the Hudson River between Bear Mountain and Anthony's Nose, and was the longest suspension bridge in the world upon its completion in 1924. (As of 2007, it is the 62nd longest suspension bridge). The South Gate of the Hudson Highlands is composed of Anthony's Nose rising from the east bank and Dunderberg (lit. thunder mountain) on the west, while Wind Gate between Breakneck Ridge and Storm King Mountain marks the northern reach of the Highlands.

POOR RIP van Winkle; I always felt bad for him. He falls asleep for twenty years, and returns to his own native village where is now unknown and taken for some strange vagrant. "I am a poor quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject of the king, God bless him!" he exclaims, in blissful ignorance of the Revolution which took place during his slumber. "A tory! a tory! a spy! a refugee! hustle him! away with him!" cry the by-standers.

I have long thought that Washington Irving was trying to make a subtle traditionalist point here: the definition of a good citizen has been arbitrarily changed. If a man was a good New Yorker in 1765 and hasn't changed, why is he a traitor in 1785? It's clearly ridiculous, except to proto-Jacobins and ideologues.

Anyhow, the lesson of the story: drink not from the flagons of odd-looking personages playing nine-pins amidst the Hudson Highlands.

Previously: Rip van Winkle

ONE OF THE great things about the Morgan Library on 36th and Madison was that it used to reflect (and indeed protect) the glories of European civilization. Since its recent renovation, however, it merely expresses the post-civilization status of the mother continent. One cannot help but feel bad for poor Mr. Morgan, who would surely frown upon the vulgarity which has been thrust upon his life's achievement: one of the finest collections of manuscripts, rare books, and drawings in the entire world.

In need of a little fresh air this morning, I went for a walk amidst the lush greenery of our fair county, and took a few snapshots to show you my explorations. Shall we?

UPDATE: It appears I had accidentally deleted a few of the photos with their captions before posting, so I have reposted them in their entirety.

No. 15 East Ninety-Sixth Street, New York

THE UPPER EAST SIDE is crossed by a number of wider cross-streets, of which 96th Street has long been agreed as the northern boundary of the neighborhood. (Overeager real estate agents have recently taken to advertising properties above that boundary as being located in the "Upper Upper East Side"). At number 15 on East 96th Street sits a splendid townhouse of superb design and execution often known as the Dahlgren residence. (Seen above, before and after complete restoration).

Lucy Wharton Drexel was of the Philadelphia Drexels, from which also came Saint Katharine Drexel, the founder of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, as well as the initiators of Drexel University in that Pennsylvanian city. Young Miss Drexel married Mr. Eric B. Dahlgren, son of Admiral John A. Dahlgren, inventor of the Dahlgren Gun used during the Civil War at a ceremony in the Philadelphia cathedral officiated by Archbishop Corrigan of that see, and the couple soon moved to Manhattan where Mr. Dahlgren had a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. The Dahlgrens themselves were a prominent Catholic family, with Eric and his brothers attending Georgetown University, where to this day the main chapel bears the Dahlgren name. (Well-to-do Catholics must have been in short supply at the time, because after Lucy and Eric's marriage, Lucy's sister Elizabeth was married to Eric's brother John).

EARLY YESTERDAY EVENING I found myself on the West Side and with a bit of free time, so I sauntered down Broadway to Columbus Circle to finally investigate in the flesh this great public place after its complete rehabilitation some two years ago. I am happy to report that the Circle's refurbishment is quite a successful one. My only reservations were minor details, but as these were all done in an extremely simple and smooth modern style, they are much less objectional, and perhaps serve to focus attention on the sculptor Gaetano Russo's splendid monumental column from which Cristóbal Colón, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Viceroy and Governor of the New World presides over the grand plaza consecrated to his memory.

Colón's name is rendered on the monument as 'Cristoforo Colombo', which seems appropriate since the monument was paid for by public subscription raised by Italian-Americans, and it is commonly assumed that Columbus was Italian. He may have been Genoese, Catalan, Portuguese, or Corsican, but he described himself as being from lands under the rule of Genoa, which lends significant credence to the Genoese and Corsican theories. In Spain, however, he is apparently Spanish, or so one daughter of Iberia, the wife of a frequent reader of this little corner of the web, informs us. The happy couple were strolling through Columbus Circle recently and the good lady was shocked to discover the purported Italian origin of the man who brought Christianity to the New World. After all, Spain's national day — the Día de la Hispanidad — is October 12, the day in 1492 that Columbus first set foot in the New World. (In woebegone Venezuela, the vulgar socialist dictator has proclaimed October 12 as the Día de la Resistencia Indígena, or Day of Indigenous Resistance, and the Columbus Column in their capital city of Caracas was toppled on that day in 2004).

Anyhow, not only was the good lady was shocked at our monument's proclamation of the Discoverer's Italian-ness but the combination of that with the presence in Columbus Circle of the beautiful U.S.S. Maine Monument led the observer to conclude that the public plaza should be instead be named "Anti-Spain Square". It was the disastrous sinking of the Maine, after all, which led to the Spanish-American War, the result of which was America's most unfortunate and regretful act of taking Spain's empire off her hands. (Contrary to Mr. Kipling's idealistic urging of America to take up the imperial mantle in his poem 'White Man's Burden', this turned out to be a fairly good deal for the Spaniards, and a very poor deal for the peoples of the United States).

Politics aside, I enjoyed the few minutes during which I ruminated in the square (or circle, if ye be pedants). I recall many years ago the debate surrounding how to improve Columbus Circle that there was a near-universal desire for there to be more trees but that the very shallow depth between the street surface and the subway below presented difficulties in this regard. The redesigners have solved this problem by encircling the center of the circle with a raised ridge, on which are planted a number of trees which, we trust, will be even more appreciated as they mature. The raised ridge, which features jets of flowing water around the inner circle, also serves to innoculate the center from the noise of the traffic which, the Circle being situated at the confluence of Broadway, Central Park West, Central Park South, and Eigth Avenue, is considerable.

And so, I judge the new Columbus Circle a success, and I am happy to the report that the American Society of Landscape Architects concur, having awarded it their General Design Award of Honor. Another random fact which surprisingly few people know is that Columbus Circle is the spot from which distances to New York are numerated, akin to Moscow's Red Square and London's Trafalgar Square (if I recall correctly).

LEAVING COLUMBUS CIRCLE, I sauntered back up Broadway to another of Manhattan's engaging places, Lincoln Center. Critics accused the architects of the performing arts complex of cribbing off of Rome's E.U.R., but one wishes the three halls facing Lincoln Center's plaza had the same crispness of those modern Roman structures. The thirty years between the E.U.R. of 1930s Italy and the Lincoln Center of 1960s New York were years in which the quality of modernism declined just as greatly as its supremacy increased. Despite this, the plaza of Lincoln Center is one of the most successful public places in Manhattan. I have often lamented the absence from New York of the open piazza so common on the Continent. This plaza competes with Central Park's Bethesda Terrace as the best example of the type in Manhattan.

The plaza is raised above the neighboring Lincoln Square (one of the many triangular squares created by Broadway's healthy disregard for the grid) and is reached by a gentle rise of stairs. Viewed from the square it appropriately seems like a stage upon which all our great dramas are played. The dance of the New York City Ballet in the State Theatre on the left, the music of the New York Philharmonic in Avery Fisher Hall on the left, and in the center, the Metropolitan Opera in the Metropolitan Opera House; the greatest opera company in the Americas, not to mention one of the best in the entire world. And from the hour of seven or so on the evening of performances, the three arts mix and mingle in the plaza as attendées wait to meet their companions and enter whichever of the respective halls they are to spend the evening. Some jealously preserve a seat of honor on the rim of the central fountain, while others hide from the elements (the beating sun, the heaving rain) in the shelter of the arcades, while still more meander slowly to and fro around this piazza dell'arte.

It's unfortunate, then, that the elders of Lincoln Center insist on erecting temporary stage structures in the middle of the plaza, partially obstructing the fountain, during the warmer months when, above all other times, it should be open for all to enjoy. The creators of Lincoln Center conceived of the obvious desire for outdoor performances during the summer, and so they built the bandshell in Damrosch Park in between the Opera House and Avery Fisher Hall, just diagonally adjacent to the plaza. Surely the plaza is meant to be an open space where all the events can mix, blend, interact, influence, before finally separating into their appropriate places. If there are to be outdoor performances, hold them where they were meant to be, and if that place suffers from some malfunction of design, then redesign that place rather than rudely interjecting a particular event into what was meant to be the public square for all.

THIS PARTICULAR EVENING it was into Avery Fisher Hall for a performance of the New York Philharmonic, now in its 165th year. The program was Rossini's overture to Semiramide and Schubert's Symphony No. 3 in D major (D.500), with Dvořák's Symphony No. 5 in F major (Op. 76). Riccardo Muti wielded the conductor's baton and the result was definitely less than was expected. I had only heard Muti's conducting on the radio in passing and, while admittedly not devoting much thought to it, he seemed a fairly capable conductor. In person, however, he left much to be desired. Rossini's overture was merely lackluster but Schubert's symphony was actually surprisingly poor. Perhaps the worst thing was observing Muti in action, for the man looked like an utter fool. His conducting seemed unnatural, choreographed, even foppish. And those ridiculous jestures towards the first violins! I wanted to slap the man, and I shouldn't be surprised if the violins wanted to themselves. Towards the middle of the Schubert symphony, I began to think of the man as a proper ass, the tails of his evening jacket acting the part of hind legs. My only solution to the St. Vitus's dance on the conductor's dais was to shut my eyes and imagine that I was there in the Austrian capital in that autumn of 1815, after the chancellors and ministers of the crowned heads of Europe had departed the Congress of Vienna when peace and order were plotted, in the home of Otto Hatwig where (scholars posit) the work was premiered.

The friend I accompanied that evening actually knows about the inner workings of music (I am actually an ignoramus on the subject, and simply like what sounds good to me) and agreed completely with me on the subject during the intermission. Luckily, the Dvořák fared better, but one had the niggling suspicion that this was the Philharmonic working its magic in spite of Mr. Muti, rather than at the command of his baton. My knowledge and appreciation of Dvořák has slowly grown, from that first passing fondness we all have for his Symphony No. 9 "From the New World". My appreciation for the Philharmonic grows, when I see they have printed in the program that Mr. Dvořák was born in Mühlhausen, Bohemia, rather than the more modish style of "Nelahozeves, Czech Republic" that would find favor elsewhere.

Perhaps I am too hard on Mr. Muti. Perhaps he and the Philharmonic were simply not a good fit for eachother. At any rate, I shouldn't complain as one doesn't often get box seats to a sold-out performance with every seat in the hall occupied (though, to be honest, the sound is better down in the orchestra seats). But how I wish I could have seen von Karajan while he was alive!

After the baton had finally fallen for the night, my friend and I had the same stroke of genius at exactly the same moment and decided to head up to good old Café Lalo, but unfortunately everyone else had the same idea (Saturday night? Lalo's? What did we expect?) so we comforted ourselves with a pint or two at the Parlour instead.

The Knickerbocker Greys, the Upper East Side corps of cadets, is celebrating its 125th year in existence. Both the Times and the Sun have featured articles on the Greys:

'Celebrating 125 With the Knickerbocker Greys' by Gary Shapiro (The New York Sun)
'Manhattan’s Littlest Soldiers' by Eric Königsberg (The New York Times)

Above: A mother mends a cadet's uniform.
Below: Cadets assembled in an Armory corridor. (Note the interior scaffolding due to the State's grievous neglect of the Armory).

STEALING A GLANCE at the photo above, the viewer would easily be forgiven for mistaking the vista for that of a subway entrance in turn-of-the-century Siena, Italy. The proud medieval tower lurks over a comely metal-and-glass structure of continental flavor. However the city fathers of that ancient Italian municipality never deigned to erect an underground railway. The precise locus of the vista is far removed: it is the corner of Park Avenue and 33rd Street, and the building behind the subway entrance is not the town hall of Siena, but rather the armory of the 71st Regiment, New York National Guard.

When the earlier Romanesque Revival armory of the Seventy-First Regiment burnt down in 1902, it was decided to build the new armory on the same, though slightly enlarged, site. The 1905 construction was built to the design of the architectural firm of Clinton and Russell, and was clearly inspired by the Palazzo Pubblico (the town hall, photo at right) of Siena, on that city's Piazza de Campo. While the Seventh Regiment Armory contains the finest interiors of any military building in City, and probably the entire Empire State, the exterior of the Seventy-First's armory was far superior. Even though the interior was not to the same lofty standard as the Seventh, it was by no means lacking, for it had all the wood-panelled rooms filled with military regalia from times gone by which one expects of New York's armories from the period.

Clinton & Russell's design for the 71st Regiment Armory.

Soldiers enjoined in a game of cards in the E Company chambers of the Seventy-First Regiment Armory.

January 1, 1917: A soldier of the 71st bids farewell to his sweetheart as he prepares to leave for Camp Wadsworth, S.C. and then on to Europe, and war.

The subway beneath Park Avenue had a station adjacent to the armory on 33rd Street, which was architecturally signified by the faience eagles, made by Heins & Lafarge, which bedecked the station walls. Whenever you see a subway station's street number held on a shield by an eagle, it means that a National Guard armory was once located above, or nearby. The eagles and shields from a closed platform of the Union Square-14th Street station have been reassembled elsewhere in the large station.

Despite the grandeur of the armory, the building was still somewhat unloved. Only thirty years after it was erected, Time magazine rather unfairly called it "Manhattan's ugly old brownstone 71st Regiment Armory". It was, of course, a place of history. True to its original purpose, it was not only the home of one of the more prominent regiments of New York's National Guard, but also served as the headquarters of the state's reknowed 27th Division — "O'Ryan's Roughnecks" — which included the 71st, the 7th, and other New York regiments. The massive drill hall was not only a functional site for military training but also a prominent civic meeting place. Exhibitions, expositions, labor rallies, fairs, and meetings were held in the hall, which had a capacity of 11,000 people. For example, it was here, in 1964, that the carpetbagging son of a bootlegger named Robert Kennedy won the nomination to the U.S. Senate from the state Democratic caucus. A year later, during the Great Northeastern Blackout, the armory took in 2,500 stranded souls until the lights came back on.

With it's efficacious design, high standard of construction, and architectural beauty, the 71st Regiment Armory was singled out for destruction by the 'monotony monitors' (as my old Latin teacher used to call them). During the 1960s, they demolished this little corner of Siena on Park Avenue. The site lay fallow for a decade before it was redeveloped with a skyscraper, containing a public high school as part of the developer's deal with the City. To add insult to injury, the Board of Education named the school after the pacifist and socialist Norman Thomas; salt in the wounds of New York's fading military heritage. So if ever you're strolling down Park Avenue in Murray Hill and you come upon an ominous modern skyscraper where socialism and capitalism combine, try to think of better days, and pray they soon return.

Category: New York Militaria

My favorite statue in Central Park is that of King Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland, by the Turtle Pond.

Credit for last photo: Bridge & Tunnel Club

I crossed the Harlem River into Manhattan today just as Patrick Leigh Fermor traversed the Danube in his brilliant book, A Time of Gifts, which has immediately become one of my favorite reads of all time. Settling into my seat on the train yesterday, I opened my knapsack to utter shock and surprise—I had left my reading at home. The Leigh Fermor and P.G.W.'s Cocktail Time were resting somewhere in my bedchamber while I stared into the compartment of my bag, bare but for a photocopied page from the Art Newspaper and two (already-read) issues of the Hungarian Quarterly. These are the times that try men's souls. Getting out of the city late in the evening proved even harder, as the bridge carrying the railway over the river was actually up for once ("First time in my life, folks," the conductor informed us), leaving a steady backlog of trains awaiting their northerly destinations.

But this morning there were no bridge-raising complications, and the sky was a delightful, clear blue (soon to change) as we entered Manhattan. Thankfully, I had my two books; a bit of Wodehouse while waiting in Bronxville station and then Paddy Leigh Fermor on the train. After crossing the river, the train stops at 125th Street (Harlem) before submerging at 96th, taking the passenger down to Grand Central, that well-kept remnant on 42nd Street, reminding us that we too were once civilized. There, after taking a stroll through the market (Nürnburger sausage! Kaiser ham! Norwegian salmon!) you switch to the subway and hop down just one express stop on the 5 train.

Just half a dozen steps after emerging from Union Square station I saw a speck of white fall from the sky, and then another, and another. So it began: the first snowfall of the year. And, I might add, a New York record for the latest snowfall. (January 10th? No, there was no white Christmas for us this year). Two children on the swings in the playground ecstatically proclaimed their approval at the opening of the heavens. Wandering through the farmer's market in the square, I picked up an herb focaccia bread I thought might be particularly enjoyable, and it complimented the exceptionally tasty Tuscan vegetable soup I had for lunch. The snowflakes swirled above the square and fell down on all the market-goers and the folks walking on Broadway as I marched up to work. And yet, how fleeting! In the few steps from the front door to the elevator, the white snow had already melted and merged into the green of my loden coat. Very well, Mother Nature. Very well.

EVERY ONE OF the myriad plans put forth for the 'redevelopment' of the venerable old Governors Island in New York Harbor has so far either stalled, been neglected, or otherwise poo-pooed. In this, we have something to rejoice. As I have often said, realistically speaking there is little that can be done to it which will not neglect or disgrace the island's long military heritage. The officially-approved ideas put forth so far have been horrific: an amusement park, a casino, a 'technology park', as well as a number of other vapid proposals.

Naturally, we'd be enthused if it returned to its former role as swankiest post in the entire Army and the home of Army polo, but don't hold your breath. West Point being the single exception, if it has even a touch of history, tradition, or class, Congress and the Department of Defense will do their best to get rid of it. After all, the National Guard has been pulled out of the Seventh Regiment Armory, the Navy has withdrawn all but a few institutions from Newport, and the Army has left the ancient Presidio of San Francisco; how long will it be until Fort Leavenworth's foxhounds are brought out back and shot by the Monotony Monitors?

Gen. James H. McRae greets polo players on the island, 1927.

The Veteran Corps of Artillery on the Parade Ground, Governors Island.

Nonetheless, while meandering through a book on the history of Governors Island from the 1637 to 1922, I came across a rather excellent depiction of one of the early plans for the improvement of the island, devised just after the First World War. Owing to landfill from subway and tunnel excavations, the island expanded during the period, and it was thought that something proper ought to be done with it rather than just fill it with utilitarian military huts and barracks.

Eventually, a whole complex of neo-Georgian brick buildings was constructed, including Liggett Hall, the longest building in the world at the time of its completion, and the only single building which could house an entire regiment. Before that plan was finalized, however, someone thought of surrounding old Fort Jay, a Revolutionary-era star fortification, with a similarly shaped castellar structure in that particular American military style of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The result was brilliant.

Click [here] for a larger image of the castle depiction. Just imagine what it would have been like to sail into New York Harbor and to be greeted by a castle and a little village on an island, right smack dab next to the towering skyscrapers of lower Manhattan. Genius.

My only qualm with the plan is that I would orient the main gate towards the rest of the island, rather than towards the sea. Then, a little main street could roll from the castle on its height to a parade ground at the other, lower, end of the island. It would give the units stationed there an excuse to march from their barracks in the castle down to the parade ground—and really, shouldn't life be organized so as to have more parades and military marches? I certainly believe so.

Regardless of how enjoyable that would have been, what actually did end up getting built on the island after the war was certainly commendable nonetheless, as you can see in my previous post giving an overview of Governors Island.

Previously: Governors Island | Old Guard on Governors Island | The Old Guard | New Globe Theater

From the Windy Hollow Hunt, up a ways, across the Hudson, and over a little. Of course, by now (in December) all the leaves are gone.

Previously: The New Yorker Hunts | Tally Ho, Empire State!

A photo of the Old Guard of the City of New York on Governors Island, with Manhattan in the background, taken on St. George's Day, 1933. [Click here for larger photo]

Previously: Evacuation Day | Marshal Foch and the Old Guard | A New York Funeral | Old Guardsmen | The Old Guard | Grandpa
Category: New York Militaria

To the old Whitney Museum down on 8th Street, now home to the New York Studio School, which held a panel discussion to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the New Criterion. An interesting chat between Hilton Kramer, who left the New York Times to found the magazine in 1982, Karen Wilkin, one of our regular art critics, and James Panero, managing editor and art critic, all moderated by Michael J. Lewis of Williams College. The panel discussion covered myriad subjects related to art, from art criticism to the impossibility of an avant-garde in today's culture of anything-goes to whether the New Criterion's 'view' of art can be considered part of any particular school of thought. Hilton had some particularly choice moments.

The building is a particularly nebulous one with many strange nooks and crannies, which can perhaps be explained by the fact that it is actually four townhouses gradually combined over a period of time. The Whitney Museum of American Art, of course, was founded in the 1930s by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and was housed in these merged townhouses until moving to the specially-designed home at Madison and 75th in 1966 — widely agreed to be the ugliest building on the entire Upper East Side.

Among the nooks and crannies previously mentioned, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's former studio in the old mews building provided an excellent location for the dinner held afterwards, to which the participants, organizers, and a number of hangers-on (including yours truly) were invited. I sat between Gabbe, the New Criterion's former Editorial Assistant now working for the Studio School, and Joseph, an art student from outside Canterbury in Kent whose grandmother and grandfather both taught at the Studio School. Joseph and I discussed the beauty of the Somerset countryside, and I confessed I'd buy a cottage and move there in a second were it possible. The inimitable David Yezzi sat across the table and guided much of the conversation on our leg of the three tables, which had been arranged in a U-formation. A little later, I chatted with the artist seated to Gabbe's left, who had been born in Latvia, with childhood spent in Baghdad, Italy, and England, before settling down in New York at the age of seven. We discussed the glories of Eastern Europe and the linguistic intricacies thereof. During dessert, however, I got on to architecture with the amiable Michael J. Lewis. I sung the praises of Audubon Terrace, one of my favorite spaces in all New York, which he (a Philadelphian) had only stumbled upon for the first time a month ago, and also of the nearby sculpted tomb of Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, the greatest of all American architects.

Time waits for no man, however, and I managed to catch a late train back home from Grand Central. Alighting at Bronxville, I walked through the misty streets where the spherical streetlamps cast an eerie glow against the limestone façades of the shops. Home before midnight, and time for rest. Tommorrow, aside from being the feast of Saint Andrew, is Stefan Beck's last day at the New Criterion. Needless to say, commemorative festivities are in order, and an alcoholic concoction known as 'batch' is to be brewed. It will not, I imagine, be for the faint of heart.

Elsewhere, the Austrian navy is no more.

The Old Guard of the City of New York, raising the flag at the Battery on Evacuation Day, 1897. The day commemorates November 25, 1783, when the last royal troops left New York in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Paris.

Previously: Marshal Foch and the Old Guard | A New York Funeral | Old Guardsmen | The Old Guard | Grandpa
Category: New York Militaria

THE BRIDGE AND TUNNEL CLUB site often features photographs of myriad places, scenes, and things all around New York and beyond. Recently, the Bridge-and-Tunneller made a sojourn to various sites up the Hudson, and thankfully decided to share his photos. We bring you a selection of them, which you can find in their original form on the B&TC website.

ONE HAS TO feel a certain amount of sympathy poor old Abraham de Peyster. The city fathers, in their infinite and unending wisdom, sought fit to erect a statue of Bram in Bowling Green, the old town square of New York down at the beginning of Broadway, many moons ago. However, having set Bram very nicely upon that green, the first public park in all New York, the city fathers have of late refused to let old Heer de Peyster rest. In 1972, the park was 'renovated' which entailed the statue's forced removal. He ended up four years later in Hanover Square, a quite suitable though less prominent location, where he gazed across the square towards India House. It was then that old rivalries flared anew.

The good old days in Bowling Green.

In a situation quite similar to that of the Year of Our Lord Sixteen-Hundred-and-Sixty-Four, when New Amsterdam became New York at the sight of English warships in the Bay, the British began eyeing old Bram's place of comfort, and they wanted it for themselves. Poor Old Bram could only sigh as the city fathers decided to move him yet again, this time to make way for the British Memorial Garden. As a consolation, however, it has been decided to move him to a place of greater prominence, namely City Hall Park, or 'the Commons' as it was known in de Peyster's day. He has taken advantage of the move to go on holiday though, as he currently sits on Randalls Island enjoying a little rest, relaxation, and refurbishment. We look forward to his arrival at City Hall, and hope they give him a good spot. Still one can't help but think he'd prefer to be back in Hanover Square, where he could keep to himself with naught but a few bankers and businessmen to bother him, and he could peacefully watch the old men slipping in and out of India House for luncheon.

Berenice Abbott took this famous photo of de Peyster in Bowling Green.

Who was the old codger, you ask? De Peyster was born in old New Amsterdam, but spent nine years working on the family farm in the old Netherlands. He returned in 1684 to what had already become New York, becoming a loyal British subject and a prominent citizen of the Province. He was of a thriving mercantile clan, and any significant position which existed in the colony, it was more than likely that Abraham de Peyster held it at one time or another. He was an alderman, mayor of the city, colonel of the militia, member of the King's Council (the upper chamber of New York's provincial legislature), and even acting governor at one point. De Peyster was a wealthy man, and founded a New York dynasty. It was his great-great-great grandson, one John Watts de Peyster, who commissioned the statue of the ancient patriarch from the American sculptor George Edwin Bissell. Bissell depicted de Peyster "sporting a lavish cloak, wig, army boots, and sword in hand denoting his political and military roles in the colonial government". De Peyster was quite proud of his swords, leaving his favorite to his eldest son and dividing the rest among his descendants. The de Peysters are still around, actually, though I suppose it depends on your definition of 'around'; I believe they are currently based way down in Palm Beach.

We neglected to mention Prince Andrew's recent visit to New York in commemoration of the anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center. Sixty-seven British subjects died in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and eleven more were non-citizens with British ties. A ceremony was held in Hanover Square, where the British Memorial Garden is being built, followed by a reception at India House, which is located at No. 1 Hanover Square (the brown edifice in the photos above and below).

THIS PAST SATURDAY was the anniversary of the birth of King James II and VII of England and Scotland. The third son of Charles I, he was baptised into the Anglican church six weeks after his birth and was created Duke of York at eleven years of age. In 1660, James married Anne Hyde, the daughter of the Earl of Clarendon, by whom he fathered eight children, though only two survived past childhood. In 1664 the Duke of York equipped an expedition to relieve the Dutch of responsibility for their colonies in North America, and henceforth New Amsterdam and New Netherland were known as New York after their new Lord Proprietor.

A miniature of James, Duke of York, c. 1660.

Sometime during the year 1670 both the Duke and Duchess of York were received into the Catholic Church and stopped attending Anglican services, though the conversion did not become public knowledge until the Test Act (requiring officeholders to receive communion in a Church of England service and take an oath against Transubstantiation) was passed three years later. James was forced to renounce his offices, such as Lord High Admiral of England, though not his titles. At any rate, Anne, the Duchess of York had died in 1671 only a year after her conversion. He married Princess Maria of Modena in 1673.

The Protestant oligarchs felt threatened by the prospect of a Catholic king and thrice tried to pass laws barring James from succeeding to the throne. However his elder brother Charles II, the reigning king, dissolved parliament each time before the bill was to be passed. King Charles II died in February 1685, (having reconciled himself to the Catholic faith before his end) and thus the Duke of York was proclaimed James II of England and VII of Scotland. A private Catholic coronation was held at Whitehall Palace on April 22 before the public coronation the following day on the feast of Saint George, which was performed according to the rites of the Church of England.

James II's seal for use in New York, in which a colonist and a native show their loyalty to the King. James had appointed the Catholic Thomas Dongan, 2nd Earl of Limerick, Governor of New York in 1682.

The Protestant oligarchs' fears that James would end their hegemonic grip on Scotland and England proved well-founded as in 1687 he issued a Declaration of Toleration as King of Scotland, allowing Catholics, Episcopalians, and other non-Presbyterians to hold public office and the right of public worship, and a Declaration of Indulgence as King of England removing the laws penalizing non-attendance or non-communion at Church of England services, permitting non-Anglican worship in private homes or chapels, and abolishing religious oaths for public offices. Furthermore, James had allowed Catholics to hold positions at the University of Oxford for the first time since the Protestant Revolution. More provocatively, he tried to transform Magdalen College Oxford into a Catholic seminary. He had already reckoned with the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth who proclaimed himself king two years earlier but had been captured, tried, and executed for treason. With the birth of a Catholic son and heir, Prince James Francis Edward, in 1688 a cabal of seven Protestant nobles issued an invitation to William of Orange, the Protestant Stadtholder of the Netherlands. A few months later, William of Orange duly arrived and usurped the throne, having already married James' daughter Mary from his first marriage. The two ruled jointly as William and Mary.

Unwilling to create a popular martyr as had happened with the executed Charles I, William allowed James to escape and fled to France where Louis XIV gave the exiled monarch the use of a palace and an ample pension. James was intent on returning to his birthright, however, and took advantage of the Irish parliament's refusal to recognise William's usurpation of the throne. The King landed in Ireland in March of 1689 at the head of a Franco-Irish army but was defeated by William in the famous Battle of the Boyne in July 1690, and returned to his place of exile in France.

There, Louis allowed him to live in the château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and offered to get James elected King of Poland but James felt this would prevent any chance of a Stuart again holding the throne of England. From that time onwards, James led a simple life of penance in reparation for his sins (he had had a number of mistresses in his younger days) and finally died in 1701. He was entombed in the Chapel of St. Edmund within the English Benedictine church on the Rue St. Jacques in Paris, while his brain was sent to the Scots College in Rome, his heart to the Visitandine Convent at Chaillot, and his bowels divided between the College of St. Omer (the exiled English Catholic school, now Stonyhurst in Lancashire), and the nearby parish church of St. Germain where they remained until they were desecrated by a Revolutionary mob and lost forever. His monument at Saint-Germain, however, was rediscovered in 1824 and is proudly displayed there to this day. There is also a monument to James and the Stuarts in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome (c.f. Roma - Caput Mundi).

While I am told that Padre Pio asserted that either Edward VII or George V had a deathbed reception into the Church, so far as it historically verifiable James II was the last Catholic king (and as neither Edward nor George reigned over New York, James is even more certifiably so for us). There is a lovely coronation ode to James which I just might bring to your attention someday. But for now, reflect and remember our monarchs of old and pray that God in His mercy might grant us good Catholic rulers in stead of the shabby lot we elect today.

An old Dutch gable complete with old Dutch vrouw gazing miserably from the window. Albany County, New York, 1930's. The form of brick course on the gable is known as 'mouse-tooth' and is found primarily in Holland, East Anglia, and the Hudson Valley of New York, though also here and there in the American South.

Chumley's Launch Party for 'Forgotten New York' Book

AS I GROW more and more cantankerous, my tolerance for evening trips down to Mannahatta declines, but on occasion there's an event which would be a crime to miss. Last Thursday, Dawn Eden and I popped down to Chumley's, the old speakeasy on Bedford Street in the West Village, for the shindig launching Kevin Walsh's brilliant book, Forgotten New York: Views of a Lost Metropolis. (Kevin reports on the party here). I've been following Kevin's Forgotten New York website for years now, and it has earned an unquestionable rank as one of my favorite sites ever (though, shamefully, I've never been on one of his legendary 'Forgottentours'). The author himself was on hand, naturally, and I also enjoyed meeting a number of very kind people who are as fond of Forgotten New York as I am.

The Man of the Hour himself: Kevin Walsh (in glasses).

While Dawn and Kevin are familiar friends (she even gets a mention in the book's acknowledgements), I had never before had the privilege of meeting this great chronicler of quinqueboronian miscellany. He is very much like his website: simple and brilliant. Happily, I got my complementary copy of the book personally inscribed, though I quite presumptuously upbraided him for only mentioning Audubon Terrace in passing (c.f. FNY: 'I Can't Drive 155') while I believe it is worth a Forgotten page of its own. (Naturally, I have a post slowly developing on Audubon Terrace, which I believe is one of the most beautiful public spaces in all New York, as well as one of the most underappreciated).

No, the camera isn't smudged; an angelic haze follows Dawn wherever she goes.

But enough of the fun, how's the book? Well I love it. It's emphasis is on breadth rather than depth, since it'd be impossible to reproduce the entire contents of the encyclopedic website in a mid-sized paperback book. I view the book in two regards: first, as a handy basic guide referencing the variety of forgotten, unnoticed, and underappreciated sites around the Five Boroughs; and second, as a good jump-start companion to the more thoroughly informative website.

Take, for example, the Lent Riker Smith House out in Queens. Browsing through the book we see the entry on the 'Lent Riker Smith Homestead' which gives us two paragraphs of information. Enough to whet the appitite and plant the seed of intrigue, but when we check out the website's entry on the house we get much, much more… and in color, to boot. I hope readers not yet familiar with the website will use the book as a springboard, but I also hope that we will be gifted with updated editions of the book in years to come, with added features.

Buy the book. Aficionados of forgotten-ny.com will appreciate a version of the familiar in dead-tree form, while the uninitiated will find it extremely useful as a foundation for appreciating Gotham's numerous nooks and crannies. Kevin Walsh has done a great service to all those who have a love for the Big Apple.

The Manhattan Muncipal Building (topped by Civic Fame) with the Hall of Records to the left.

Previously: The Old Police Headquarters | The Dewey Arch II | The Governor's Suite, City Hall | New York in the Early Republic | The Great War Victory Arch | More Classical New York | The Dewey Arch | 'New Yorkism' | The Maine Monument | Brooklyn Borough Hall

ONE OF THE finest buildings in all New York is also one of the least-appreciated and most forgotten. The old Police Headquarters at No. 240 Centre Street was built in 1909 on a triangular lot in what was then solidly Little Italy. Arguably, it is today located in the ever-expanding Chinatown, but real estate brokers usually describe its location non-ethnically as Soho, just on the cusp of the area which is increasingly (and most irritatingly) known as NoLIta, 'North of Little Italy'.

From the basement shooting range to the rooftop observation deck, the building was designed in the monumental Beaux-Arts style by the firm of Hoppin & Koen, "to impress both the officer and the prisoner with the majesty of the law." The New York Times wrote that "its grandeur contrasted utterly with the little buildings and crooked streets around it."

The older old Police Headquarters, where reformer Teddy Roosevelt held court as Police Commissioner, was located nearby on Mulberry Street and when the nerve center of the N.Y.P.D. shifted to Centre St. between Broome and Grand, the gun shops, cop saloons, and police reporters followed suit. One restaurant across the street was simply called 'Headquarters'. With its oak bar and ceiling of carved wood, the 'Headquarters' restaurant became a particular favourite among the higher brass of the N.Y.P.D. According to popular lore, a tunnel was actually constructed connecting the restaurant with the actualy Police HQ, in which a number of the Boys in Blue used to enjoy a drink during the trying days of Prohibition.

The view from Cleveland Place.

The design, from the north.

The execution, from the south.

In 1973, the New York Police Department decamped to the brand new 1 Police Plaza, a red-brick modernist box behind the Municipal Building and next to the Church of St. Andrew. The large building then sat empty for a number of years while a series of proposals were mulled over (hotel, cultural center, museum, et cetera). Finally in 1983 the City accepted the proposal of developer Arthur Emil to turn the building into luxury condominiums. The plan agreed to called for fifty-five apartments as well as office space for non-profit organizations. Emil paid the City of New York $4,200,000 for the old Police Headquarters and then proceeded on a $20,000,000 renovation of the building. The grandiose entrance hall was preserved and restored, but most of the interiors, as police offices unamenable to residential use, were scrapped and redone.

This famous photograph of the Old Police Headquarters was taken by Berenice Abbott.

The new apartments featured high ceilings and simple interiors respective of the building's form. One apartment featured a vaulted living room in what was once a basketball court. Especially privileged is the owner of the single apartment at the northern end of the building which has a garden, while another apartment features a terrace overlooking the garden. While none of the units are small, Edward R. Downe (of media group Downe Communications) took one of the larger apartments to house his large collection of twentieth-century American art.

Rather interestingly, during the planning phase of the 1980's renovation it was discovered that the building did not fit the land allotted to it in municipal plans. "We were going to closing and we asked for a survey," Arthur Emil told the Times. "In every single, solitary direction, the building exceeded the lot line, sometimes by several feet." This put the developers in an awkward position. The sale required the preservation of the exterior as is, but the Building Department of the City would not allow a permit for work to begin unless the proposals fit the plans the City had. This would require the developers to push back the façade as much as seven feet on one side, a change which would never get the approval of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. It took a few months for the Catch-22 situation to resolve itself as the City finally decided to grandfather in the building in its current form.

The Old Police Headquarters is unquestionably one of the hidden gems of New York, but I can't help but have mixed feelings towards its current use as luxury residences for movie stars, investment bankers, and fashion designers. My gut instinct tells me it ought to have been preserved as a single unit, and there are any number of uses it could have been put towards (university, library, high school, or perhaps even an archiepiscopal palace). But at the very least its conversion to condominiums preserved the august structure and it still stands there proudly on Centre Street for all Knickerbockers to enjoy, while so many (perhaps even most) of our other monuments of architecture and taste have fallen to the wrecking ball.

More photos after the jump…

I recently stumbled upon this image depicting a militia regiment gathered in front of New York's City Hall. The unit in question is the Jefferson Guards, 38th Regiment, New York State Artillery, amassed in bearskin caps and red-plumed shakos (red being the traditional color of the artillery). I confess I'd never heard of the Jefferson Guards before, but this is not entirely surprising. The Armed Forces of the State of New York – today composed of the New York Army National Guard, the New York Air National Guard, the New York Guard, and the New York Naval Militia – was once composed of a vast array of assorted regiments, battalions, and companies (a quite literal example of the 'little platoons' praised by Burke). These militia companies varied greatly in form, from little more than glorified social clubs to the crack units of the day.

As strange as it may seem, considered as a whole they were an almost completely organic military and, while they would be ill-suited to the armed exigencies of today, I refuse to believe that our little realm is better off for their general disappearance. Certainly the V.C.A. and the Old Guard, among others, survive to this day (in a somewhat different form, naturally), but what of the Empire Light Cavalry and the German Horse Guards? The Ulster Guard, the Weschester Chasseurs, and the New York Highlanders? The gallant Seventh Regiment of New York survived even into the 1990's before its dissolution was ensured by the monotony monitors who now, fifteen years later, seek to destroy the great and blessed monument of an armory on Park Avenue which the Seventh built and guarded for over a century. We mourn their disappearance, just as we detest the continued and increasing disdain for the proud military heritage of the City and State of New York, but the entire culture which created and sustained them is gone, too.

Category: Militaria – New York

THE RECENT PURCHASE for the Neue Galerie of Gustav Klimt's 1907 'Adele Bloch-Bauer I' (above), alledgedly for a record-breaking price of $135,000,000, gives me the perfect opportunity to write a post on the eponymously recent addition to New York's coterie of art museums. Since its 2001 opening, the Neue Galerie has resided in the handsome 1914 beaux-arts mansion on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 86th Street, designed by Carrère and Hastings (of New York Public Library fame) for industrialist William Starr Miller and later inhabited by Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt III. In the time since the construction of No. 1048, the rest of Fifth Avenue has undergone a lamentable transformation from a boulevard of beautiful townhouses and mansions to an avenue predominantly consisting of apartment buildings. While one appreciates the inoffensive design of the pre-war buildings on Fifth, there remain a number of thoroughly opprobrious modern interlopers which offend the graceful avenue. One can't help but pine for Fifth Avenue before the mansions came down, but we can at least give thanks for holdouts like the Neue Galerie.

The Vanderbilts sold the home to the Astors in 1940, and in turn the Astors sold 1048 Fifth Avenue to the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Founded in 1925 as the Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut in Berlin, the YIVO was responsible for most early orthographic and lexicographic work on the Yiddish language. Though originally based in Vilnius after its foundation in Berlin, the combined Nazi-Soviet invasions of Eastern Europe forced the Institute to flee, centering their operations in New York and Buenos Aires. Much of the YIVO Institute's massive archives was carted to Berlin by the Nazis and managed to survive the war, moving to New York after the end of hostilities. A large portion, however, had lain dormant and forgotten in a Lithuanian records building (a converted Catholic Church, actually) until rediscovered in 1989 and eventually returned to the YIVO in New York.

A reading room in the YIVO Institute, contrast with today's Café Sabarsky.

The YIVO Institute, however, found itself somewhat cash-strapped faced with repatriating the rediscovered Vilnius trove to New York. In response, the Institute sold the air rights to 1048 Fifth to a company which was redeveloping the old Adams Hotel next door at 2 East 86th Street. The President of the Borough of Manhattan then granted the developers' request to redesignate 2 East 86th Street as 1049 Fifth Avenue, adding a chunk of value to the new apartments while infuriating address purists. After cashing in on the unused air rights, YIVO sold 1048 itself and moved to a more capacious abode. The building was bought by Ronald S. Lauder and Serge Sabarsky in 1994, who together conceived the Neue Galerie as a museum for German and Austrian art, almost entirely of the Expressionist school.

With the death of Serge Sabarsky in 1996, Ronald S. Lauder took the helm as the driving force behind the newest addition to Fifth Avenue's Museum Mile. The Neue Galerie hired German-born architect and designer Annabelle Selldorf to redesign the interiors before the opening exhibition in 2001, a task which was accomplished with taste and modernity, while keeping an eye towards preservation. Austrian chef Kurt Gutenbrunner was brought in to run the Café Sabarsky in one of the main rooms on the museum's ground floor. (The less-crowded Café Fledermaus can be found in the basement, with the same menu as upstairs).

Two views of the much-vaunted Café Sabarsky.

The museum wisely admits only three-hundred and fifty viewers at a time, at the price of $15 for adults and $10 for students and the elderly. Normally closed to the general public on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the management of the Neue Galerie had considered charging $50 per person for semi-private admittance on Wednesdays, but when a maelstrom erupted after the word got out, the plan was quietly placed to the side.

The ground floor of the Neue Galerie.

The first floor.

As with the purchase of Klimt's 'Adele Bloch-Bauer I', which Lauder has described as "Our Mona Lisa", the Neue Gallerie's collection continues to expand, and the institution has quite the prodigious benefactor in Mr. Lauder. We hope, however, that it remains a small museum, on the human scale which makes its home at the corner of Fifth and 86th so appropriate. The building which once housed the wealthy today is home to priceless works of art which, though of foreign origin, New York must be proud to call its own.

The fair-minded, independent observer would look at the figures above and think to himself "Interesting, the proportion of Asian students is on the rise, while that of White, Black, and Hispanic students is generally in decline". However the racialists (I will not use the more loaded term of 'racist', though the meaning is exactly the same) at the New York Times can only see the Black and Hispanic decline, captioning the chart 'The share of black and Hispanic students New York City's three most elite specialized schools has declined'.

And why no chart depicting the racial make-up of the also public selective Hunter College High School? Is it, by some unknown criterion, not in the same league or perhaps the proportion of black and Hispanic students there actually rose? The Times reader is left uninformed as to the greater picture, but suitably inculcated in racialist thinking.

Gothamist's Jen Chung notes the decline is "in spite of the city's best efforts to encourage [Black and Hispanic students] to apply and attend" while City Councilman Robert Jackson ponders ""Is it institutional racism or is it something else?".

Could it perhaps be that the racial makeup of the city's elite public high schools is subject to (quel horreur!) occasional fluctuations? What is the racial makeup of an elite public high school "supposed" to be? Here's a concept worth considering: how about giving the students in selective public high schools the best education on offer and admit students based purely on a meritocratic standard which does not descriminate by sex, race, class, or creed? Just a thought.

ONE OF THE splendid things about New York is that it's a land which continually manages to throw up a surprise or two, even to time-hardened devotées of all things knickerbocker such as yours truly. One of my most recent discoveries is the fabulously haunting and impressive Buffalo State Hospital out in the far west of the Empire State. The magnificent building was built to the design of Henry Hobson Richardson, the progenitor of the eponymous 'Richardsonian Romanesque' style, as one of a series of governmental asylums for the insane founded throughout the nineteenth century. Richardson also did a great deal of work on the Capitol in Albany, designing the south façade which, since the construction of Nelson Rockefeller's Little Brasilia, is now the main façade of the building and was inspired by the Hôtel de Ville in Paris.

Construction on the State Hospital began in 1870, and the central administration block with its two towers and a number of flanking pavilions housing patients were opened in 1880. Interestingly, the towers which so dominate the building are purely decorative and remain unfinished on the interior. The footprint of the building follows the V-shaped Kirkbride plan, conceived by Pennsylvania's Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride in his 1854 opus, On the Construction, Organization and General Arrangements of Hospitals for the Insane which revolutionized care for the mentally unstable in the nineteenth century. The location was a 100-acre parcel of property near the city of Buffalo, and the grounds were landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed Central Park with Calvert Vaux.

The grounds originally included farms which helped to feed the patients and staff, but in the 1920's this land was redeveloped as the Buffalo State College, now the University at Buffalo (State University of New York). The hospital, renamed Buffalo Psychiatric Center, moved out of the Richardsonian complex into a plain, ugly, modern building on the grounds in the 1960's, leaving the beautiful Victorian structure to rot and ruin. However recent efforts by Buffalo and New York state officials have led to the replacement of the roof and other work to ensure the continued integrity of the building. The latest plans would have the building serve an educational function under the auspices of the State University next door, an appropriate purpose for this majestic gem of New York architecture.

Wandering around the merry old world wide web I stumbled upon these stamps, which I bring to you for your own enjoyment. Above we have the Great Metropolis itself, the island of Manhattan in its swankier days. Below we have a view of the Crown of the Hudson, West Point, with the beautiful Cadet Chapel designed by that American Master, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue himself, presiding over the campus of the United States Military Academy.

The postage stamp was once a thing of beauty and composition, but it's heartening to see that some still design beautiful stamps. Just examine Elliott Banfield's stamp of General Washington, based upon the staute in Union Square. Mr. Banfield believes that the decline in the design of postage stamps is due to a "moral void" most readily shown when the Postal Service unveiled its famous 'Elvis Stamp' a few years back.

"Elvis was important in the popular culture, yes," writes Mr. Banfield. "But how important is the pop culture? Important only to those who can't see anything higher or better. It's scary to think that people like that are in charge of public policy. But they are, and the Elvis stamp proves it."

Hear! Hear!

An irrelevant stamp, after the jump.

25-Year-Old Buys the Salmon Siren of the Upper East Side

AN NYU LAW student of just twenty-five years of age has purchased the majority stake in the New York Observer. Jared Kushner (right), son of the currently jailed big-time donor to the New Jersey Democrats Charles Kushner, bought the biggest-piece-of-the-pie off of publisher Arthur Carter, who founded the insouciant weekly printed on salmon-tinted paper back in 1988. No official word on how much money changed hands during the deal, though the Times cites "one person familiar with details of the sale" claiming the amount was nearly $10 million. Carter will maintain a significant say in the paper's operations, and there are no plans to make any changes to the masthead as of the moment. Earlier in the year Robert de Niro was in talks to buy the Observer through his Tribeca Film Festival operation, but the negotiations fell through.

The Observer, with a small-but-influential circulation of 55,000, has undergone a miniature transformation recently with the hopes of turning around the current losses of about $2 million a year. The most noticeable of these changes came in May when the paper trimmed over an inch in width, moving from six front-page columns to five and giving it a taller, more narrow appearance. While the thinner size saves on rising newsprint costs it also means diminished space for advertising, and the newspaper lost its easy, leisurely feel, also moving from two sections to one. The Observer has also increased the volume of its internet operations on Observer.com, some might say at the expense of the quality of the printed edition. The new owner, however, will take a back seat in the content of the newspaper while concentrating on improving the bottom line, citing the Observer's strong brand despite its current financial woes.

Kushner's father, a well-known New Jersey real estate developer, was sentenced to a jail term last year after being found guilty of tax evasion, and is well-known for a number of other stunts which do not bear repeating on, er, family-friendly sites such as this. The younger Kushner himself has given over $100,000 to various (Democratic) political outfits since 1992, when he was a mere eleven years of age.

I used to read the Observer often (though not regularly) because it had the most style of all the New York newspapers. While its flighty spirit meant it lacked a certain depth, it still had zing and usually at least a handful of interesting articles each week. The quality of the content began slipping, however, and when I came home to New York I bought one copy while waiting for the train in Grand Central, was completely dissatisfied like the new size and feel, and decided to give it up. I will always have a certain fondness for the Observer though; in the age when Gannett-style corporate monotony is king, it has managed to maintain a certain classic swankiness (epitomised in its reporter-and-skyline emblem) and for that we can be grateful.

NEW YORK STATE ELECTIONS 2006

Governor	Lt. Governor	Comptroller	Attn'y General	U.S. Senate
John Faso (Conservative)	C. Scott Vanderhoef (Conservative)	J. Christopher Callaghan (Conservative)	Rachel Treichler (Green)	John Spencer (Conservative)

The Conservative Party line, except for Attorney General; Jeanine Pirro must be stopped! The most important races are for the United States Senate (back native John Spencer to dump the foreigner Hillary) and Governor, the race which determines the party's ballot status. Bill Kauffman says Rachel Treichler is a good localist so she's got my vote (and so should have yours, too!). And naturally, anyone who votes Demoblican or Republicrat is sowing their own perdition.

EDUCATION HAS been one of the long-standing traditions of the Christian faith, as has service, and what better expression of education and service is there than the Catholic military school. La Salle Military Academy in Oakdale, L.I. was just one of these institutions, founded by the de la Salle Christian Brothers in 1883. The school was actually founded here in Westchester as the Westchester Institute, but moved in 1926 to Indian Neck Hall on Long Island, built by F.G. Bourne (whose upsate shack was Singer Castle on Dark Island) and once one of the largest estates on the Island. The main building was a 110-room mansion overlooking Great South Bay, designed by Ernest Flagg who, coincidentally, was responsible much of the Naval Academy at Annapolis including the great chapel containing the tomb of John Paul Jones, sometime admiral of the United States and Imperial Russian navies.

The setting proved attractive to many wealthy Catholic families of New York and New England and elsewhere in the United States, who sent their sons to La Salle. Among its graduates are a number of congressmen, governors, and even a Latin American dictator. However, the popularity of military education waned during the latter half of the twentieth century and, while other northeastern academies like Valley Forge and New York Military Academy managed to stay the course, La Salle had dropped its military ethos in the mid-1990's and lacked a fundamental vision. The school closed in 2001; another name to add to the long list of defunct American military schools and – much like Governors Island and the Seventh Regiment Armory – yet another sign of the fading appreciation for the living military heritage of the Empire State.

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.

This calling card of Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Supreme Allied Commander during the First World War, was for sale in November of 2005. The text reads Le Maréchal Foch, Ancien Commandant en Chef des Armées Alliées, remercie le Major E.H. Snyder et la "Old Guard" de la Ville de New York or, in English, "Marshal Foch, Former Commander in Chief of the Allied Armies, thanks Major E.H. Snyder and the Old Guard of the City of New York".

Previously: A New York Funeral | Old Guardsmen | The Old Guard | Grandpa

I PROMISED MYSELF I'd wake up this 4th of July morning and head down to the Battery for the annual Independence Day artillery salute by the Veteran Corps of Artillery. However, the gods of slumber ordained that I remain in bed asleep and so in recompense I thought I'd bring you, dear readers, an informative post about the Corps itself. While this site has featured a fair amount on the Old Guard (c.f. here, here, here, and here) we mustn't let our readers be mistaken that we are somehow ignoring the VCA. After all, the Veteran Corps of Artillery, State of New York, founded in 1790, is more senior to the Old Guard, founded in 1826 (though in fact an amalgamation of the two older militia companies, if I recall correctly). While there is more of the Old Guard available from online research, I am more familiar with the VCA owing to my Uncle Matt's membership thereof. And of course, like the Old Guard, the VCA operates on a seperate ranking structure, so that one could be a Major General in the Army, National Guard, or New York Guard, and yet be a mere private in the Veteran Corps of Artillery.

The VCA was organised on Evacuation Day (November 25) in 1790 at the City Arms tavern by the corner of Broadway and Thames Street, to provide a corps of artillery to guard New York against any potential attempt by Mother Britain to remonstrate her wayward daughter America. The earliest record currently existing of any public display by the Corps dates from Evacuation Day 1793, when a salute was fired to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the evacuation of British forces from New York. The annual Independence Day salute began on the following 4 July 1794, when, as one Captain Chapman of the VCA wrote in 1838, "National Morning Salutes, which have been faithfully and timely performed for the past forty-five years," were made, and which I am happy to report have carried on to the present day.

While the Corps remained mostly ceremonial, worsening relations between Great Britain and the United States eventually led to it being reorganised by Governor Tompkins as a formal corps of artillery in 1809, armed with brass 12-pounder guns. It was then known as the Artillery Corps of Exempts, referring to its members exemption from required militia service in recognition for their service in the Continental Army and being over forty-five years of age. The members served completely voluntarily. At the unfortunate outbreak of open hostilities between Great Britain and the United States in 1812, the Corps was the first militia unit in the City to offer its service to the Union. Along with a number of companies from the 9th Regiment of Artillery, they were assigned to the North Fort on Hubert Street in the city, while also manning in part the State Arsenal on the corner of White and Elm Streets. General Dearborn, it was noted, "observed with peculiar pleasure the Corps of Veteran who, at an advanced period in life evince a determination to be first in the defense of their country and its rights".

The old State Arsenal on the corner of White and Elm, New York.

In 1858, the Veteran Corps of Artillery was assigned to the 4th Regiment of Artillery, New York State Militia, as Battery G. With the outbreak in the South of the second revolution, the other components of the 4th Regiment served in the Union Army. However, opposition to the North's war was brewing widely in New York which, up to the commencement of hostilities, was known for its strong sympathy for the South. The mounting tension at home finally broke into four days of open violence in July 1863 in what became known as the New York Draft Riots. Battery G, which, being composed primarily of veterans, had remained in New York, yet again manned the State Arsenal and defended it from rioters.

John Ward Dunsmore
Mess Tent, Veteran Corps of Artillery, Tuckahoe, N.Y.
1917, Oil on canvas, 8" x 11"
New-York Historical Society

With America's entry into the Great War in 1917, the members of the Veteran Corps of Artillery recruited an anti-aircraft unit of fourteen hundred men to defend New York against the possibility of attack, however remote. The VCA sent three of its officers to Britain and France to study the antiaircraft methods being used there. One of these, Capt. Robert H. Wilder, was the first American officer to die in a gas attack on the Western Front. One of the main contributions of the Veterans, however, was the task of translating reams of French anti-aircraft material into English. Part of their completed work became the standard manual for air defense for the United States Army.

Gentlemen of the V.C.A. with Mayor Rudolph Guliani on the front page of the New York Times.

Today, under the command of Gen. David Ramsay, the Veteran Corps of Artillery continues in its ceremonial duties and forms the Guard of Honor to the Governor of New York. They remain one of only nine historic units which are liable for duty in war under the orders of the President (c.f. U.S. Code Title 32, section 104, "Retention of Ancient Privileges and Organization"). One of the VCA's traditions, maintained at their annual Mess Dinner commemorating the Battle of New Orleans, is to pass around a huge snifter of brandy which is monikered 'Artillery Punch'.

Above, at St. Patrick's Cathedral, and below, in the Veterans Room of the Seventh Regiment Armory.

Images are from the Veteran Corps of Artillery (http://www.vca1790.org), New York Public Library, and New-York Historical Society.

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.

I look forward with excitement to the publication of 'Forgotten New York: Views of a Lost Metropolis', by Kevin Walsh of the brilliant Forgotten New York site and due out this October from Harper Collins. (Click here for the Amazon link). Forgotten New York is one of my favorite sites and an excellent way of exploring the myriad of neglected and underappreciated nooks and crannies which pepper the great metropolis. My personal favorite of all the sections of the site is 'You'd Never Believe You're in NYC' highlighting the somewhat rustic nature of some parts of the city. The site also exhibits some of the ongoing tragedies of the Big Apple, including historic buildings which have been destroyed even in the space of time since the site began, and the ongoing over-development of Staten Island, which contains some of the last tranquil places in New York.

Another great site for New York City virtual exploration is Bridge and Tunnel Club. The most recent additions are shown on the main page, and the total contents can be accessed via the Big Map. Perhaps you'd like to take a peek at Columbus Circle, or explore the Public Library, remember the dead of the Great War at the Victory Column, or maybe visit the cricket grounds of Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.

IT MAY INTEREST our readers to know that before the Feddle Gummint started throwing its weight around, the Great State of New York was in the habit of minting its own coinage. One of the most famous of the coins produced during the era is the 1787 'Nova Eborac', so called for its abbreviation of Nova Eboracum; that's 'New York' in the language of our ancient Roman forbearers. All decent people being lovers of monarchy, the New Yorkers of yore found themselves in a slight predicament. Their king had granted them independence four years earlier, but George III (the forgetful man!) neglected to indicate who would be king once he relinquished the sacred office. Every country must have a king — if not, then whose face would go on coins and such? "Not to worry," saith the designer of the Nova Eborac. "We'll stick a king on and just not say who he is." And so they did, as seen on the obverse of the above Nova Eborac. The reverse depicts a figure who looks suspiciously like the Britannia on the old British coins. Old habits die hard. Around this Britannia-esque figure is the inscription VIRT. ET LIB for Virtus et Libertas – Virtue and Liberty.

One Thomas Machin, however, clearly thought this was a bit silly and so decided to simply put the Governor on the coins he produced. His coins (seen on the right) show Gov. George Clinton on the obverse and a depiction of the arms of the Empire State on the reverse (they also grace the banner of this webpage). A chap named Ephraim Brasher went a little further and depicted neither the anony-king nor the governor but instead put depictions of heraldic arms on both side of the coin; New York on the obverse and the United States on the reverse. These coins are known as 'Brasher's Dubloons' and the front and back can be seen below.

Previously: New York Currency

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.

These photos are from the funeral procession of Gen. Daniel Sickles in 1914. Above, the General's coffin leaves St. Patrick's Cathedral. Below, the procession down an avenue (I can't tell which one), eventually to be transported to Washington and buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The Old Guard of the City of New York provides the Guard of Honor.

Previously: Old Guardsmen | The Old Guard | Grandpa

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

I have always considered myself a patriotic New Yorker as well as being rather partial to the County of Westchester; the former being the greater whole to which I owe my loyalty, and the latter being the more familiar portion of which I am very fond. Yet a mere eight miles northeast of my place of birth, growth, and residence there lies a foreign land by the name of Connecticut. Now Connecticut is a fine little land in its own right, possessing natural beauty, some pretty towns and villages, and an ancient seat of learning. Living in Connecticut, one imagines, would not be a bad thing. The Connecticutian even enjoys the privilege of being able to serve in either company of the Governor's Foot Guard or Horse Guards. Could I ever be a Connecticutian, then? No, I think not. It may just be an imaginary line separating Westchester in New York from Fairfield County in Connecticut, but no, I don't think I could ever tear myself from the Empire State (nor would I want to!). Imaginary line perhaps, but a damned important one if you ask me.

At any rate, both my patriotism for New York and my suspicion of Connecticut suitably affirmed, I've decided to share with you a little amusing snippet I discovered while flipping through an edition of the William and Mary Quarterly, the premier scholarly journal on early American history published at the College of the same name. I must admit that reading it filled my heart with not a little admiration for Lewis Morris, despite scandalous support for and signature of the Declaration of Independence.

"It is my desire that my son Gouverneur Morris may have the best education that is to be had in England or America but my express will and directions are that he be never sent for that purpose to the Colony of Connecticut least he should imbibe in his youth that low craft and cunning so incident in the people of that Country which is so interwoven in their constitutions that all their art cannot disguise it from the world tho' many of them under the sanctified garb of religion have endeavoured to impose themselves on the world for honest men."

— Will of Lewis Morris of Morrisania, Westchester County, New York, November 19, 1760, Wills of New York County, Vol. 23, p. 430.

It also reminded me of that quip of Chesterton's that God tells us to love our enemies and our neighbors, probably because they're usually the same people.

Want to live in a French philosophe's petit chateau but don't want to put up with high taxes, soaring unemployment, and immigrant neighborhoods in a permanent state of rebellion? Then boy have I got the house for you! The seventeenth-century Château des Thons, which tradition claims is where the dastardly 'Enlightenment' thinker Voltaire carried out his affair with Madame de Chatelet, was shipped during the 1920's to the peaceful village of Upper Brookville, L.I. in the Great State of New York and is currently on the market. The house features Louis XIV panelling, a sweeping staircase, a tower, and a good few fireplaces.

One of my favorite Voltaire anecdotes is his confident claim – hilarious in hindsight – that "One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker." Two hundred and twenty eight years after his death, the Bible is still a best-seller and the most widely-read book in the world.

Msgr. Lavelle and others review the 69th N.Y. Regiment from the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral, 21 June 1916.

Previously: Your Royal Highness, Caed Mile Failte | Fighting 69th: Home for St. Patrick's Day

I do miss my library. In a perfect world, I would spend half the day wandering through various libraries of lower Westchester and the City. Of course we have a university library here in St Andrews, but its selection is fairly poor, especially in the subjects in which I am particularly interested.

Chinatown's Fung Wah bus is famously one of the cheapest ways to get to Boston, costing only only $15 to get to New York's most northerly suburb. The preferred mode of transport between home and university for many a student and an economical mode of transport for the traveller-in-the-know, the chief deficiency of the 'China bus' as it is known is that in New York it just lets you off on a random street corner at the eponymous end of the Manhattan Bridge. Wendan Tang, a graduate student at Notre Dame's School of Architecture (arguably the best in the country), produces his solution to the problem with a hypothetical design for a bus terminal in Chinatown, nudged between the bland modern Confucius Plaza and the beautiful classical entrance collonade and arch of the Manhattan Bridge.

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 Irish Guards) 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.

IN THE SHADOW OF FATHER DUFFY: Members of the New York City National Guard (sic) stand next to a wreath during a ceremony honoring New York's Fighting 69th at Times Square's Father Duffy Square (sic) yesterday. The regiment, which suffered 19 casualties during its tour of duty in Iraq, will be marching as a full unit in this year's St. Patrick's Day Parade on Fifth Avenue. The speaker of the City Council, Christine Quinn, has decided not to march in the parade. Story, page 3.

Despite the inaccuracies (it's the New York National Guard, not New York City National Guard, and Father Duffy Square is opposite Times Square, not in it), it's nice to see one of the Empire State's greatest regiments remembered in the press, and on no less than the front page.

Further:

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.

'But will it give birth?' the Villagers Inquire

“NYU is the largest private university in the United States and they are growing,” Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, told Community Board 2 Thursday night. “They are growing at a much faster pace than our neighborhood is. NYU has always been here. It should always be here. I don't think the Village would be the Village if NYU wasn't here. But I don't think the Village can stay the Village if it is predominantly NYU.” And so a new campaign to get NYU to check it's own expansions in the Village by creating a "secondary campus" begins. [Gothamist]

A secondary campus such as, for example, the one they sold off in 1979? I would have to concur that NYU has grown rather too large for the Village's britches, and the fact that NYU is trying to build a towering dormitory where St. Ann's once stood doth not encourage feelings of merriment (though, of course, the blame for that belongs mostly to our archbishop from the Middle West). At any rate, perhaps NYU can strike a deal and buy back the University Heights campus. Unlikely, since the City University of New York which now owns the campus (run as Bronx Community College) would probably like to see itself as a competitor to NYU (it isn't; they're leagues apart).

Of course one idea is to stop expanding and maintain the current size and facilities of the university, but this is unlikely. NYU have displayed a Hitlerian glee in the acquisition of neighboring properties, and, to stretch the analogy beyond any rational use, Fordham, St. John's, and Columbia have no strategic interest in acting as the UK, US, and Soviet Union (respectively) in uniting to counter that expansion.

Previously: Thoughts on NYU et cetera | Back in the Day | New Washington Square Plans | NYU - Old & New

IT IS NOT OFTEN remembered that New York was the first capital of the United States and, as such, was home to the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the new republic, albeit only for a short time. Federal Hall (above, with the Presidential carriage) was originally constructed in 1699 as a City Hall for New York. It was in this building at 26 Wall Street in 1735 that John Peter Zenger was tried and acquitted of libeling the Governor, affirming the Freedom of the Press. The Continental Congress began meeting in the City Hall in the 1780's, and with the ratification of the new Constitution of the United States it became the first home of the federal government. Having been elected the first President of the United States, General George Washington was inaugurated on the balcony of the building on April 30, 1789.

The structure needed to be renovated to meet the needs of the new government, and Pierre Charles L'Enfant was engaged to redesign the structure accordingly. The new Federal Hall featured dignified chambers to house the Congress. The House of Representatives Chamber (above and close-up below) was a stately rectangular room, despite which the Congressmens' seating was arranged in a semicircular pattern.

The Speaker's Chair was on a raised dais, backed by the American flag, above which further were the monogrammed initials of the United States of America. The bountiful sunlight filtering through the many windows would warm the room and, failing that, there were also six fireplaces. The public could view sittings in the chamber from seating located on the House floor, seperated from the Representatives by a balustrade, as well as from two galleries suspended from the chamber's wall to the Speaker's right.

The Senate, meanwhile, met in a smaller chamber but even more stately in design. Again, the members' desks were arranged in a semicircular pattern while the President of the Senate (a position the Vice-President is designated by the Constitution) was given a positively lordly throne-like chair on a dais from which to preside over the proceedings.

In 1790, Government House was constructed on Bowling Green by the State of New York to serve as the Presidential residence in hopes that the federal government might be persuaded to retain New York as the capital of the United States. The same year, however, saw the passage by Congress of the Residence Act which called for a new capital to be built on the banks of the Potomac near Georgetown. (It is ironic that the permanent capital of the new republic named after our first president, Washington, would be built so approximate to a town named after our next to last king, George II). The Act also called for the federal government to move further south to Philadelphia until suitable buildings in the new federal city on the Potomac could be devised and executed. Despite all this, Government House was brought to completion two years later in 1792.

"Government House," writes historian William Seale, "could hardly have been more British in its design. The tall building of red brick [later painted white] was set up on a rusticated stone basement and was rich in Anglo-Palladian ornament, not unlike that which would appear later on the White House." It was described by John Drayton, a South Carolinian visitor to New York in 1793 as "plac’d upon a handsome elevation, and fronting roadway, having before it an elegant elliptical approach, round an area of near an acre of ground, enclosed by an iron railing. … [It] is two stories high. Projecting before it is a portico covered by a pediment; upon which is superbly carved in basso relievo, the arms of the State, supported by justice and liberty, as large as life. The arms and figures are white, placed in a blue field; and the pediment is supported by four white pillars of the Ionic order, which are the height of both stories."

The First Lady, Martha Washington, presides over a reception in the Presidential residence, New York, 1789.

With the removal of the federal government, Government House became the residence of the Governors of our great state, and as such was home to such great men as John Jay and 'Magnus Apollo' himself, DeWitt Clinton. After the government of the State repaired to Albany in 1797, the building was used as a Custom House, then home to the collections of the New-York Historical Society, and then rented out as the Elysian Boarding and Lodging House (perhaps somewhat coincidental, as the current residence of the President of the French Republic is the Elysée palace). The structure suffered under these varying uses, and was sold to the City in 1813 and finally torn down in 1815.

Meanwhile, Federal Hall returned to the City of New York and the lack of a suitable meeting place for the State Assembly may have contributed to the decision to move the seat of government up the Hudson River to Albany. Poorly maintained, Federal Hall was home to the City government until 1812 when the current City Hall was completed. The Mayor, City Council and assorted municipal functionaries moved into the new City Hall while Federal Hall was sold off and demolished. In 1842, the United States Customs House was built on the same site, later serving as a Sub-Treasury and then Federal Reserve Bank. This building survives and continues today as the Federal Hall National Monument, owned and operated by the National Parks Service. How sad that these important structures in the history of the Empire State and the early history of the United States have not been preserved for posterity.

Hail, rustic metropolis! I'd file this view of Fresh Kills on Staten Island under 'You'd Never Believe You're In New York City'. The name might seem odd to those who aren't either New Yorkers or Dutch. 'Kill' is a common placename in the Empire State, from the Middle Dutch 'kille' meaning riverbank or channel of water. Exempli gratia Arthur Kill, Kill van Kull, Fishkill, and Peekskill in New York, or the Schuykill River in Pennsylvania.

Previously: Rowing in Pelham Bay

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.

Previously: The 7th Regiment in Washington Square | The 'Silk-Stocking Regiment'

New York recently played host to the Prince and Princess of Venice and Piedmont, Emanuele Filiberto and Clotilde of the House of Savoy. Emanuele Filiberto is the son and heir-apparent of HRH Vittorio Emanuele the Prince of Naples (Vittorio Emanuele IV) who currently lives in voluntary exile from the Italian Republic. The laws forbidding the House of Savoy from visiting and living in Italy were finally overturned in 2002.

The two day visit to New York organized by the American Delagation of Savoy Orders culminated in a Solemn Mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral on January 6 said by His Eminence Cardinal Egan, himself a Cavaliere di Gran Croce. About three dozen members of the orders of the House of Savoy attended the Mass with friends and family.

Entitled "National Guard – 7th Regiment New York State Militia", this mid-nineteenth century view shows the famous 7th Regiment of New York, nicknamed the Silk-Stocking Regiment, parading in Washington Square. In the background can be seen the University of the City of New York and the Church of St. Thomas, which has since moved to Fifth Avenue in Midtown.

Previously: Back in the Day | New Washington Square Plans | NYU - Old & New | The 'Silk-Stocking Regiment'

Ah, Manahatta. Even on a day as soggy as this, the Upper East Side still charms me. It also retains a fair number of buildings from the days when New York had higher tastes, mostly to be found between Fifth and Park Avenues. It is a fact to be mourned that we have probably destroyed most of what was good in New York's built environment. Nonetheless, we should of course be glad for the beautiful things which remain from our great city's golden age, and thankfully they are not a mere handful.

Stumbling down East 82nd Street this afternoon amongst puddle, gloom, and rain I emerged onto Fifth Avenue to see the beautiful mass of the Metropolitan Museum of Art revealed in all its glory. The façade of the Met has recently been cleaned and glancing at it today, despite the cloud and percipitation, one could almost imagine the year as 1902 when the wing designed by Richard Morris Hunt was completed. This is doubly so because the Metropolitan currently lacks her usual ungainly vexillic adornments pronouncing the exhibits shown in her distinguished galleries. These banners add nothing to the Met's façade, and if there is a more clever and handsome way of announcing what is within without – and surely there must be – the Museum does not seem to have found it.

Still, the situation is not as reprehensible as across Central Park at the American Museum of Natural History. The AMNH enjoys two façades, one of which commands the view over Central Park West and the park itself beyond. The main portion of the Museum's Central Park West front is a brilliant triumphal arch which is in fact the State of New York's monument and memorial to Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States and Governor of New York during his earthly life. Shamefully, the Museum disrespects this great monument to this great man by covering it in advertising banners akin to those which usually mar the Metropolitan. The American Museum of Natural History should be ashamed of itself for sullying such an august and dignified locale for the purposes of selfish marketing.

Mother and Child, 1345-1350
Tempera and gold on panel; 35' x 23'
Deacon's Office, Zbraslav/Koenigsaal/Aula Regia
(on loan to the National Gallery, Prague)

What brought me to plod up the splendid elevating staircase of the Metropolitan was to catch – just barely, for this was its last day – the special exhibition entitled Prague: The Crown of Bohemia 1347-1437. I had first gotten wind of this showing flipping through the mail whilst I was still interning at the New Criterion at the end of the summer and duly noted in my diary that though it opened while I was away in Scotland it would still be open upon my return for the Christmas holiday. Anyhow, I finally took advantage of it today and it was much enjoyed. What a remarkable land is Bohemia. The exhibit served only to augment my interest in the country and I must be sure to spend some time there sooner or later.

In addition to the Mother and Child above, the exhibit presented the tabernacle shown below (photographed in its actual home). There were also many, many reliquaries, some of which appeared to still have relics in them. One would have thought a museum's interest in a reliquary was purely artistic and thus that the relics involved would be removed and handed over to those who would give them the care they deserve. Does the Museum have a consultant to advise on these cases, I wonder? Anyhow, I was sure to touch the glass and ask the saints to pray for us, just in case. The Bohemians clearly knew how to treat relics, would only that New Yorkers did – though to be fair I am told that the Tour of the Relics of St. Thérèse of Liseux which made its way to New York just a few years ago was well attended in the Metropolis and even up in Westchester round my neck of the woods. There is a relic of our dear Thérèse available for veneration in St. Patrick's Cathedral which I occasionally drop in on when in the neighborhood.

At any rate, had I attended Prague: The Crown of Bohemia 1347-1437 earlier I would've enjoined the reader to pay it a visit, but since it has finished its run I instead enjoin our dear readers to at least saunter down Fifth and stop to savor a glance of the cleaned-up Metropolitan sans banners. No doubt it will not be free of them for long — unless they who direct the Museum have had a moment of grace.

Previously: The Remarkable Hapsburgs | Brünn

Source: http://www.bronxville.us/

When New York magazine speculated on the prospects of an independent New York they postulated Woody Allen gracing a "1 York" note with Rudolph Guliani on the "20 York" note. In Caledonia they're used to dealing with many different varieties of banknotes. In Scotland alone there are three different institutions authorised ot print currency: the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Bank of Scotland, and the Clydesdale Bank. Northern Ireland, meanwhile, has four: the Bank of Ireland, Ulster Bank, Northern Bank, and First Trust Bank. England and Wales, on the other hand, have but the Bank of England to issue legal tender, that institution having been granted a monopoly so to do in 1921. [More on British banknotes]

Nonetheless, this got me to thinking who and what I would put on New York bank notes if we had them. First of all, none of this "York" business; dollars they are and dollars they would remain in my land of fancy. Anyhow, here's what I generally came up with:

Value — Front / Back
$1 — Saint Nicholas / Dutch, English, British, State, and American flags
$5 — Peter Stuyvesant / The Stadt Huis (Dutch Town Hall)
$10 — James II / Scene of Colonial New York
$20 — DeWitt Clinton / Map of Erie Canal and the Grid Plan
$50 — Alexander Hamilton / Scenes of Trade and Commerce
$100 — Theodore Roosevelt / The Dewey Arch

Penny (1¢) — Saint Nicholas / Coat of Arms of New York
Nickel (5¢) — Henry Hudson / Coat of Arms of New York
Dime (10¢) — Washington Irving / Coat of Arms of New York
Quarter (25¢) — John Jay / Coat of Arms of New York

St. Nicholas, of course, I'm quite fond of and is the patron saint of New York and so ought to be represented prominently. Peter Stuyvesant was the first leader to knock the place into shape. New York was named after James II while he was still just the Duke of York. He was also the last reigning Catholic king of England. DeWitt Clinton was the genius behind the Erie Canal and a major proponent of the 1811 Commissioners' Plan which laid out the majority of Manhattan according to a grid plan. Alexander Hamilton shaped the modern American system of trade and commerce, founded the Bank of New York, and the New York Post, both of which are still around today. And Theodore Roosevelt was Theodore Roosevelt.

Henry Hudson was the English explorer working for the Dutch who explored New York harbour and eponymously named the Empire State's great river. Washington Irving is arguably the greatest New York author; he is certainly at least the first great New York author and the first American to make his living entirely through literature. Many of his tales are the foundational myths of New York. John Jay was the first Chief Justice of the United States and before that was an important opponent of the radical tendency during the Revolution and also one of the framers of the U.S. Constitution. The Coat of Arms of New York (the shield of which permanently graces the top of this webpage) could form a uniform reverse for coinage, like the Queen's head on British coins.

Suggestions, objections, and comments welcome.

Previously: Res Publica Nova Eboraci

Wasn't Manhattan more beautiful before the invasion of the glass boxes? I will tolerate Lever House and the U.N.; none further.

Ardolph Loges Kline, one of my grandfather's predecessors as Commander of the Old Guard of the City of New York, on the 89th Anniversary of the Old Guard, April 22, 1915. Kline was the acting Mayor of New York who started the annual tradition of lighting the Christmas Tree in City Hall Park (or 'holiday tree' as it is now officially called). This ceremony has since been eclipsed in popularity by the Rockefeller Center tree lighting, but still takes place every year.

Here we have C.H. Heustis on his 85th birthday in 1922. Heustis served in General Burnside's brigade during the Civil War, later becoming a broker on Wall Street. He never missed a single meeting or parade of the Old Guard once he joined.

From the Bettmann archive.

Previously: The Old Guard | Grandpa

by Rev. George W. Rutler (via CERC)

Continue in full

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)

Got $50,000,000 to spare? Why not buy this Stanford White original on East 78th Street in Manhattan? Would be suitable for residence, offices, or club quarters. Even includes balcony from which fearless leader can make inspiring demagogic speeches. Who can resist? Contact Sotheby's International Realty for details.

"If ever there was a summary execution that could make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, that was it." – Dr. Nathaniel Kernell

Previously: A Glimpse at the Sun | Which Way Forward for the Sun? | Taki on the Sun | Huzzah for the Sun
Link: NewsDesigner.com | For newspaper design junkies such as myself.

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).

The lagoon (a word of which I am not fond) is a long marine strip flanked by the verdant shores of Pelham Bay Park, the largest park within the City of New York. The two-thousand-meter-long rowing course there seems surprisingly underused being as it sits on the eastern edge of the Bronx, but I suppose it is all the better for it, as there was no one to crash into when the rudder of our vessel broke except a sculling double from Fordham Prep.

An aerial view of the lagoon.

A satellite view, courtesy of Google.

At the southerly tip of the rowing course is a judging tower which, viewed from the water, I found somewhat ugly and dull yet intriguing. I made a closer investigation of it this afternoon and think it has rather grown on me.

White with black railings, it has the air of the Russian constructivists about it, a style of architecture I've never been particularly keen on but this small-scale execution seems to have worked. It is both functional and attractive. The tower was fenced off but, lacking any direct prohibition, I took advantage of a gap in the fence to enter and climb the tower.

The first floor of the judging tower, looking towards one end of the rowing course.

At the top of the tower there is the leaf emblem of the New York City Parks Department. In my youthful ignorance, I had always assumed it to be a maple leaf, though in later years I was enlightened as to it actually being a sycamore leaf.

The view north from the top of the tower.

The view south.

For more photos of Pelham Bay Park, please continue.

Well our favorite Jewess-turned-evangelical-turning-Catholic, Miss Dawn Eden, picked up on the complaints yours truly had about the Brooklyn Museum in her weekly Daily News column (scroll down, "A Boil Grows in Brooklyn", NY Daily News, July 10, 2005). Well folks, someone at the B.M. must've been reading because later in the week upon collecting our mail I received an envelope from none other than the Brooklyn Museum itself.

The contents? Four free guest passes and a brief missive:

I laughed out loud when I read it. I'm glad they have a sense of humor, though it doesn't make up for the new entrance. Nonetheless, I shall take them up on their offer. Perhaps the carbuncle is not quite as grievous in the flesh. Perhaps it's worse. It remains to be seen.

The last time I went to Brooklyn (so far as I can remember) was to Fort Hamilton, one of the few remaining military installations in the city, back in 2000. It was Independence Day and my uncle was leading the artillery battery firing the salutes at the incoming tall ships for OpSail 2000.

The more deductively inclined amongst you, dear readers, shall of course have extrapolated two conclusions from the above photograph. First, there has been a wedding. Second, I have obtained a pipe. Huzzahs all around.

I have known the young lady formerly known as Katie Lennon as long as I can remember, and I've known Brendan Daly more or less as long as they've been an item. The twain were joined in a happy and blessed union on Saturday afternoon at the Church of St. Joseph in Bronxville, and we all wish Mr. and Mrs. Brendan Daly a fruitful and happy marriage. The reception followed shortly afterwards at the Shenorock Shore Club on Milton Point in Rye, New York.

I had not really been to Shenorock in a number of years but many a day in the Cusack childhood was spent there, especially during the summers. We kids generally found it disagreeable while our parents found it an ideal place to unwind. Some summers my mother worked the 7:00pm to 7:00am shift at Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville. She would come home from work in the morning, wake my brother, sister, and I, pile us into the car, pick up the Lennon children and the McKegney children and head to Shenorock. We were kept busy at the club's day camp while Mum slept on the beach for a five or six hours, read when awake, then collected us all again, dropped us off at our homes, fed us Cusacks dinner, and headed off to work.

For some reason I never liked going to Shenorock as a kid but nonetheless the place is a fountain of fond memories as I grow older. Just the other day a few of us were sitting in Scott Bennett's back garden; Scott and I reminisced about summers at Shenorock, kickaboo juice, and crazy Mr. A (the summer camp's director). Tommy Lennon (who's my age, the younger brother to Mrs. Daly) and I would built forts and castles on the beach and man them with those little green plastic army men. Barbecues in the wooded Bowery were frequent, and of course the magnificent fireworks display for the Fourth of July was an annual obligation (who can forget the grand finale!). Strangely, we kids also had a pronounced hatred for Coveleigh, the neighboring club. (For some reason there was no similar disliking of the American Yacht Club, also on Milton Point on the other side of Shenorock). They were the France to our Germany and for some reason amongst us young'ins the rivalry was passionate. Of course now that I'm an old man Coveleigh's bowling green grows more and more attractive.

Shenorock's home on Milton Point is easily the most beautiful spot on the Westchester coast (only Red Bridge and Manor Park come close to challenging it). A seemingly permament breeze rolls off the Long Island Sound and keeps the Summer Clubhouse with its long, awninged deck overlooking the sandy strand at a comfortable temperature. The Winter Clubhouse across the street overlooks Milton Harbor and the dining room once afforded an excellent prospect of the Twin Towers all the way down in Manhattan. A happy place with happy memories.

The large beach in the center belongs to Shenorock, with the large summer clubhouse on it with flanking cabanas. The winter clubhouse and dock are on the other side of Milton Point, on Milton Harbor. Coveleigh is at the top right, and the American Yacht Club at the bottom left, covering the end of the point.
From Google Maps

And the pipe, dear reader? What a felicitous gift! It was a present from my old school friend Lev Trubkovich (aka Leviathan), who even chucked in some tobacco from Nat Sherman. The last time I had enjoyed the pleasures of the smoking pipe was deepest winter amongst our friends in New Haven. Places where we have smoked our pipe so far: on Red Bridge, watching the world (and the geese, and the swans) pass by; in my hammock in the back garden whilst reading; in Pelham enjoying the company of Nick Merrick, Panda, Simon (also called 'Generalinnimo' owing to his short stature), and Miss McGarry; and finally, planted in a deck chair at Shenorock on Saturday evening. We hope we shall find many more places to enjoy our pipe.

"St. Gregory's Church of 1917, located at Brooklyn Avenue and St. John's Place, was closely based on the 'idealistic ground plan' of St. Clement in Rome, an archetypal basilica with an open, colonnaded narthex and a tall engaged campanile on one side of the nave. In keeping with its prototype, St. Gregory's was gaudily decorated with figural frescoes and mosaics." - New York 1930

It seems a rather pulchritudinous church; I'll have to add it to the list of places to visit. It was designed by Helmle and Corbett, who were also responsible for the Bush Tower, built a year later. The Bush Tower will soon get a brand new neighbor, seen below.

Top photo lifted from the ever-nifty Bridge and Tunnel Club's Walk Down Brooklyn Avenue.

When was the last time you read the story of Rip van Winkle? If you've never had that pleasure, then you are all the worse for it, my friend. The tale was handed down to us through the ages by the munificence of one Diedrich Knickerbocker, though some sore-minded rapscallion later credited the ever-capable Washington Irving with its invention. Anyhow, it is one of my favorite tales in all the history of New York. It's a short story, and worth a read online if you haven't a printed copy immediately at hand.

The tale, of course, revolves around "a simple good-natured fellow", namely Rip van Winkle, and his encounter with "odd-looking personages" whom still to this day show themselves around the Hudson valley. We merely have ceased to hear reports of them because thoroughly unimaginative types are in control of the world these days. (The "monotony monitors" as my Latin teacher monikered them, enforcing boredom and mediocrity at every possible opportunity).

The genealogists amongst you will be interested that Mr. Knickerbocker notes this van Winkle was "a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina." Now, for want of fast-paced action, you may not have any particular desire to read about a simple, good-natured fellow like Rip van Winkle, but desires aside you must read "the Most Horrible Battle Ever Recorded in Poetry or Prose" (Chapter VII of Book VI of the same Diedrich Knickerbocker's A history of New York, from the beginning of the world to the end of the Dutch Dynasty). The record of the siege of Swedish Fort Christina by the good New Netherlandish is the most hilarious and enchanting chronicle of any battle anywhere.

A pleasantly uninteresting flight across the realm of the Atlantic and I am happy to find myself home in New York once more. Not much sooner had my parents and I returned to our little abode in Eastchester than we were off to dinner courtesy of Uncle Matt and Aunt Naomi (who live next door to us) at a happy little place called Joe's on Marbledale Road in Tuckahoe — an eatery quite keen on what is most often called home food: simple, filling, and particularly appropriate in this circumstance. I then had my first legal drink in the States: Brooklyn IPA (India Pale Ale). Not a poor drink, but didn't strike my fancy terribly. I have had better pints before, legal or not.

After we all returned to the Cusack family compound, I tried to convince my mother of the efficacy of Catholic social teaching for a bit before heading into town to Roger Mahon's house, wherein lay Michelle Carroll and good ole Will Freeman. Mikey, the Mahons' Irish Wolfhound, is pretty much fully grown now, but of a very kind nature. Caro Gill should've been there but was exhausted since it was her birthday.

The Church of St. Agnes: exterior and tabernacle.

As I have often said, I always really know I'm home when I've heard the intoxicating incantation of the Asperges me at the 11:00 at St Agnes. The train from Bronxville is scheduled to arrive in Grand Central at 11:04 but almost always gets in two minutes before the hour, allowing just enough time to ascend to the grand concourse of that beaux-arts temple of transit, scurry through the Graybar passage, hop across Lexington Avenue to arrive at St Agnes just as the procession is finished and the Asperges commences. Today proceeded right on target.

Asperges me Domine hyssopo et mundabor,
lavabis me et super nivem dealbabor.
Misere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.
Gloria patri et filio et spiritui sancti,
erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula seculorum. Amen.

Asperges me Domine hyssopo et mundabor,
lavabis me et super nivem dealbabor.

The wonderful thing about the Latin mass at St Agnes is it's always just as it should be. It's not an over-the-top ostentatious drama as you might find at Anglo-catholic churches, nor a wailing maelstrom as at some charismatic churches, nor a banal mediocrity as at the average Marty Haugen parish. It is what it is, and it is beautiful and reflective of God's eternal glory.

Taking the train back to Bronxville, on Metro-North's brand spanking new rolling stock I might add, I noticed a number of new buildings which popped up along the line since I last travelled on it in the winter; chiefly in Harlem. There were about five new structures: one was bland and inspid, but three were fairly decent attempts at good New York vernacular, and one was an exceptional example of the said style. It was brick, with proper windows, a wonderful cornice, and everything you might expect of a building of its kind built in the 1900's or thereabouts. I don't know how it managed to get built today, nor by whom, nor do I know what it is (looked like housing), but it was most certainly a new building and I admire whoever's behind it for making new New York architecture in the New York style. Bravo.

Now I must be off to cocktails next door at the Colonel's. It's good to be home.

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.

The new old Globe was rebuilt in the style of the old, however, whereas the just plain new Globe will be built to a design by Foster and Partners, one of those trendy firms who've done some good stuff but a great deal of thoroughly uninspiring work as well. Their plans for the theatre are uninteresting but acceptable. Castle Williams has a certain beauty of its own, and the theatre will largely be demolishing some of the abusive reconstruction it has undergone in the past century, and that we must welcome.

I also think it will be rather nifty to see Shakespeare performed here, as theatregoers will have to take to the waves and catch a boat to get to the New Globe; there's no other way of getting to Governors Island bar the air.

The theatre will be topped by a restaurant and bar which will feature some of the best views of the harbor and of the lower Manhattan skyline.

This view from the top of Castle Williams shows the halcyon days of Manhattan skyscrapers. The superb triumvirate of the Bank of Manhattan building, the Farmers Trust building and the Cities Service building (my favorite skyscraper) reign supreme.

The keystone above the entrance to Castle Williams.

Above, a stone staircase in Castle Williams, and below, an aerial view of the island. The island is named as such becuase it was reserved by the Assembly for the use of the royal governors of New York. I must restrain myself from turning this into a post on Governors Island in general though, because then we would be here forever.

This afternoon, Miss Breed and I were sitting in the Common Room at Canmore attempting to study for our Art and Piety exam on Tuesday and would you know, the young lady has never even heard of Sutton Place nor Beekman Place? Sometimes I think if she hadn't gone to Brearley and then St Andrews she'd never've left Soho. And that would be a tragedy. What is this world coming to?

Meanwhile Mr. Brenner inquires as to why I stated my preference for Murray Hill among the neighborhoods of Manhattan. It is somewhat on the quieter side of things, it has one of the best parishes in the Archdiocese (the Church of Our Saviour) and is within walking distance of another (my beloved St. Agnes), is home to the Union League Club, the English-Speaking Union, and other institutions, and the general tendency of the architecture is fairly attractive. Why not?

Alright, there are plenty of desirable districts in Manhattan. Sutton Place/Beekman Place, Carnegie Hill, Yorkville, Riverside Drive, some parts of Greenwich Village, and up top Hudson Heights and the Fort Tryon Park area aren't bad. Depending on the accomodation, I'd be happy to live in any of those areas; especially one of those wonderful nostalgic neo-Dutch buildings on the West Side, or something neo-Georgian on the East Side.

Anyhow, for the edification of Miss Breed, here are the B&TC on Sutton Place, and the City Review as well.

Marty Browne, a loyal reader from Queens, has brought to my attention that a hooplah has taken place in a few media outlets recently concerning our beloved New York Sun. Essentially, two memos written by Robert Messenger, deputy managing editor of the Sun, were somehow leaked to Gawker, Gotham's flitty rumor mill, and posted on May 11, 2005.

The two memos deal with the state of the Sun at the moment and highlights some concerns over its long-term future, suggesting something of a 'back to basics' course for the three-year old conservative broadsheet. Our friend Mr. Browne was concerned enough to write a letter to the editor cautioning against changing our beloved Sun, bar adding a few more voices from the old right (advice which should be heeded). But having read the memo, I think it offers a frank analysis of the paper today and productive suggestions for the direction it should go in.

Essentially, what the Sun has to do is decide what it will be. It would be excellent if New York could have a general interest conservative broadsheet newspaper. However, given the overwhelmingly liberal market, I doubt the city's ability to support such an endeavour; a luxury we sadly cannot afford.

In the mad media market of Manhattan, the most reliable option for the Sun is not as a general interest paper, a more financially-precarious model, but instead to find a niche in which to solidly rest. The weekly New York Observer, only born in the nineties, has a niche which gives it a fairly firm foundation provided it continues to serve it well, and the Sun should take note of that.

Thus the niche market is the way to go. What niche though? In my opinion, the New York Sun should be three things: 1) Conservative, 2) High-brow, 3) Metropolitan.

1) The Conservative Newspaper: The right-minded mustn't just give up and concede New York as legitimately 100% liberal. This simply would not reflect reality, and the Sun must continue to provide a conservative voice on a higher scale than the populist New York Post.

2) The High-Brow Newspaper: Arts & Letters is already the most flourishing section and long may it continue. James Gardner on great on Architecture and I am absolutely loyal to the architectural historian Francis Morrone's 'Abroad in New York' column every Monday. The Editorial and Opinion sections provide good sound argument and discussion, but could do with expansion.

3) The Metropolitan Newspaper: Of course it must continue to be an intrinsically New York paper. Coverage of the civic, political, and social sides of the city are essentially. This department has been pretty solid and consistent, and should only be augmented.

Should the New York Sun aim to be the conservative, high-brow, metropolitan newspaper, I believe it will be a winning formula, and set the newspaper well along on path towards becoming a great New York institution, if it isn't one already.

(Continue reading for my thoughts on a few of Mr. Messenger's points.)

The Parks Department have unveiled their plans for the renvoation of Washington Square Park. I thouroughly approve. The main point is the replacement of the fountain with one along the axis of the Arch. This is a great improvement. The current layout of the Square is from when the road arrangement allowed you to drive through it, through the Arch in fact. When the Square was completely pedestrianised, they merely redirected and turned the former roads into paths, without any general rethink of the Square's arrangement. The new plan orients the park around the Arch's axis, which terminates on the N.Y.U. Catholic Church on Washington Square South. Unfortunately, the Church is a grievous 1970's monstrosity ripe for being torn down and replaced by some of the bright gang from Notre Dame.

The final drawing of the arch by Stanford White

As New York squares go, I'm more partial to Washington Square than most others, though it still has its betters. The chief drawback of the Square and its environs are the inhabitants; chief among them New York University. But the Washington Arch is an admirable, iconic feature. Though of course, there have been better arches in New York, this lasting, permanent one is modest while retaining a certain respectability.

The Square used to have some half-decent gothic revival buildings such as St. Thomas Church (at right) and the Main Building of NYU (below), founded as the University of the City of New York in the early to mid nineteenth century.

Back in school I took a course called New York Writers (which would've more accurately been called New York Writing, as it was about the product not the producers), and it seemed just about half of what we read stumbled upon Washington Square at some point, though I don't think we read the eponymous Henry James work. (Or did we? My memory fails me). Nonetheless, I think it would've been the place to live in early-to-mid nineteenth century New York. As for today, I'd say Murray Hill would be the best Manhattan neighborhood in which to live.

Commandant, Old Guard of the City of New York.

In this week's Spectator, the 'poor little Greek boy' Taki informs us of a feud between the Dorothy Parker Society and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society. Apparently the DPS invited the FSFS to a big to-do at the Algonquin and the FSFS didn't even respond. "I get all this info from my favourite Big Bagel paper, the Sun, or the Sharon, as I call it, because of the line it follows where Israel is concerned." I love the Sun, and I'm very glad Taki has discovered our favorite New York daily. He continues:

Moving along...

I seem to have misplaced or thrown out (shudder!) the Speccie with Paul Johnson's salient words urging and young people with talent in Britain to move to America, but if I do find it, I shall post his words of hope.

I came across this illustration of the original plan for Grant's Tomb in Riverside Park on the Upper West Side, back home in New York. The differences are conceptually slight, except for the complete lack of this grand staircase and triumphal arched watergate on the Hudson River, which was never constructed. It would be an intriguing addition if built, but I think slightly awkward, as it leads up to the side of the mausoleum, rather than the front. Had the tomb been constructed with its orienation towards the Hudson rather than on the axis of the long Riverside Park, it might be sucessful, but otherwise, it was wise of the city fathers not to execute this part of the plan.

For more views of Grant's Tomb, see the Bridge and Tunnel Club's page.

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.

Here are two photos of St Agnes on 43rd Street before the 1990's fire. When rebuilt, the Victorian gothic was replaced with neo-Roman classical. The current facade is modelled on that of il Gesu. Discovered through the NYPL Digital Gallery.

One of my favorite buildings in Midtown is the Board of Directors office of the U.S. Trust, at 9-11 West 54th Street. This fairly reserved wide neo-Georgian townhouse was designed by McKim Mead & White as a residence for Mr. James J. Goodwin when the West 50's was full of beautiful townhouses instead of mediocre office buildings.

The building eventually became home to the Rhodes School, a prep school which eventually moved to what is now the Children's Museum across from Café Lalo on the Upper West Side before closing in the late 1970's/early 1980's. Robert de Niro was a Rhodes grad and my Aunt Naomi took a summer course there (chemistry, I believe).

The Rhodes School, W. 54th St., 1955

On the same block at the Fifth Avenue corner is the renaissance palazzo of the University Club (so beloved of my friend Lev Trubkovich), also designed by McKim Mead & White. It's a bit too Italianate for my tastes (in the context of clubs, I prefer the neo-Georgian style), but impressive nonetheless. I especially enjoy the academic heraldry carved along the length of the building, depicting the coats of arms or seals of some of the country's most prominent institutions (Yale, Harvard, Brown, Williams, West Point, Annapolis, etc). And of course right around the corner is the most enjoyable neo-gothic Church of St. Thomas with its ethereal choir.

It's very much a shame, however, that this building isn't a home any more, nor a school, which is nearly as good as a home as it too is a place in which one (hopefully) experiences and matures. I imagine that the Board of Directors of the U.S. Trust can't enjoy their meetings to the same extent that a child could enjoy growing up in such a house. And that is, after all, what it was designed for. Notwithstanding, the Trust have been kind to the Goodwin mansion, having completely renovated it back to a high standard following decades of use as a school building, so at least for that we can be grateful.

UPDATE: An elevation and floor plans in this more recent post.

An altogether successful foray was made last night into the neighboring sovereign state of Connecticut, wherein resides a middle-aged (or perhaps even old, by our national standards) university which is named Yale, after the institution's early benefactor. Said place of higher learning is also home to the burgeoning second chapter of the greatest society ever to have graced the University and Royal Burgh of St Andrews. It was in such a capacity that I was invited along to a moderately informal and very cheerful evening.

Gothamist picks up the idea of the City of New York seceding from either the State or the Country. Normally I'm in favor of anything seceding from anything else. However, the City and State have to stick together. I wouldn't mind the State of New York regaining complete sovereignty, but I think we'd want to take Connecticut and northern New Jersey with us for the sake of geographic integrity.

New York currency illustrations from an article on secession in New York magazine.

Newsdesigner.com has an interesting post enlightening us to the history of the 'dingbat', the vignette which can be found atop the International Herald Tribune.

The design first originated in the nameplate (also called, varyingly, the 'masthead', 'banner', or 'flag') of the New-York Tribune. The Tribune became the New York Herald Tribune, which my Aunt Naomi informs me was a very good newspaper while it lasted. The NYHT died in 1966, being merged into the ill-fated New York World Journal Tribune (aka the Widget) which only produced a few numbers before labor troubles killed it too.

The Herald Tribune, however, has two remnants which still exist today: the Paris edition (now the IHT) which continued under the auspices of the New York Times and the Washington Post, now solely owned by the Times; and New York magazine, which started out as a weekly supplement to the Herald Tribune.

New York's Wallabout Market was once the second-largest market in the world. From about 1884 onwards, vendors would gather in this district adjacent to Wallabout Bay in Brooklyn and sell their various wares. It was then that the market vendors had been banned from Fulton Street for making too much noise, and so took up their trades further down by the Wallabout Canal, next to the New York Naval Shipyard, more commonly known as the Brooklyn Navy Yard (founded 1801, decommissioned 1966).

The market featured permanent two-story brick structures designed in a nostalgic Dutch style, commemorating the Netherlandish origins of New York and Brooklyn, centered around an open plaza known as Farmers' Square where stalls were erected. The centerpiece was a tall clock tower, seen at right and further below.

The market buzzed with activity from about midnight until just after dawn, by which time trading had died down. During the majority of the daylight hours the vast market stood empty.

Wallabout Market was an unfortunate victim of World War II when the Navy Yard expanded to seven times its previous size, gobbling up the land the Market was built on. New York's primary market today is in Hunts Point – the largest terminal produce market in the world – though Brooklyn still has its own terminal market at Foster and Remsen Avenues between 83rd and 87th.

One of the hidden gems of our county is St. Paul's Church, Eastchester. The church has been within the City of Mt. Vernon since the late 19th century, but was the original town church for Eastchester, situated on the village green. The first church building on the site, a simple wooden structure, was built in 1692. The current structure was built in 1763, with numerous additions and subtractions since that date.

Today it is a fairly simple structure, built of brick and local stone in a colonial Georgian style that's fairly restrained, especially when compared to more elaborate churches in more important towns such as St. Paul's Chapel downtown on Broadway (the oldest extant public building in the City of New York) or Christ Church in Philadelphia (the largest city in British North America before the Revolution).

The church has been designated by Congress as the 'National Shrine of the Bill of Rights' because it was on the adjacent green that Governor William Cosby denied voting rights to Quakers in 1733, which laid the basis for a mighty brouhaha involving the media. John Peter Zenger published the Governor's refusal, and was arrested on the charge of 'seditious libel'. A court with the Governor's own hand-picked judges could not find Zenger guilt because the alledged libel was actually fact (see the Crown vs. Zenger). It is generally agreed that this was the basis for Freedom of the Press in British North America, and later, with the First Amendment, in the United States.

Also, when the church was being used as a court house, Aaron Burr practised law here. The bell was cast at the Whitechapel foundry in London, still operating today, where the Liberty Bell was cast.

In 1787, George Washington Adams, the son of John Quincy Adams, drowned in the Long Island Sound under mysterious circumstances. His body washed up on the tidal river shore next to St. Paul's. A church warden discovered the body, removed it to a temporary vault, and notified the family. In appreciation for the church's kindness, Mrs. John Quincy Adams gifted a silver chalice to St. Paul's.

In 1932, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt worshipped at St. Paul's and addressed a crowd of over ten thousand on the Green afterwards.

The church was originally dissenting, but conformed to the Church of England by decree of the Province of New York in 1702, with ministers being sent from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel back in the mother country. During the nineteenth century it fell under the sway of the Oxford movement, with the interior reconstructed in a highly-decorative manner oriented on an altar and chancel. In 1941-42, however, the nave was restored to its 1790's appeareance, with high box pews centered on a large pulpit, by the firm of Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn.

An Episcopal mass in the chancel after the 1942 restoration.

Ah, the fire burns, the tree is lit, and another Christmas is had amongst the fam.

Photos taken with my brand new digital camera. It replaces the one which was lost amidst the chaos of the 2003 Kate Kennedy Club May Charity Ball. Drowned in vodka.

Last night we received the first bout of snowfall since my return home, which means I'm currently in that wonderful period of grace when snow is charming and beautiful. Doubtless it will be but a few days I will be sick of it and yearn for better driving conditions. But for now, it is welcomed and enjoyed. I think tonight I will sit and read by the fire.

Well today was rather heartening. I went to the midday mass at St. Joseph's (the local church) and Msgr. Doyle (the pastor) addressed the congregation before mass, donning a cassock, something I'd never seen him do before. He then told us all that our beautiful tabernacle was being moved back to the centre of the sanctuary, where it would be joined by the fronting of the 1927 altar which had be found and restored, and that the priest's chair would move to the side. All this would be finished before Christmas, too! I had often considered writing a letter suggesting this very thing, but never got around to it.

Monsignor also pointed out that there were four pages of guidelines for church regarding dress, behavior, reception of Communion, and various other important things that have oft been ignored in the past forty years. (See pages 5-8 of this pdf file – very good stuff).

Gosh, St. Joe's is becoming more like St. Agnes. What a Christmas present! Now we just need them to give us some Latin.

Later, Adam Brenner and I went off to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols with the Rev. Andrew C. Mead, OBE at St. Thomas Church (Episcopal) on Fifth Avenue. Caroline Gill dropped out to take a look at a house. Anyways, I'm a big fan of Lessons and Carols, so that was much enjoyed. St. Thomas really do have a superb choir. They also have the reredos to end all reredoses – a massive stone affair that takes up most of the west (liturgical east) end of the Church. Beautiful church, but I still prefer St. Vincent Ferrer (which in addition to being beautiful is a proper church with valid sacraments).

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.

When one thinks New York and thinks libraries, the obvious place which comes to mind is the New York Public Library, one of the largest libraries in the world with one of the most beautiful homes in Bryant Park on 42nd St. The Public Library was formed in the mid-19th century by a merger of the private Astor, Lennox, and Linden libraries. The great metropolis, however, is home to a much older bibliotheca called the New York Society Library, founded in 1754.

In that year, six 'civic-minded individuals' formed the New York Society with the aim of founding a library which would be "very useful as well as ornamental to the city". The 'city library' was given a room in the old City Hall (later, as Federal Hall, home to the United States Congress), and received a charter from H.M. King George III in 1772. Unfortunately the Library was looted during the Revolution, but survived and was restocked afterwards, receiving a second charter from the Assembly of the State of New York.

The Society Library is still, as it was then, a subscription library which operates almost like a private club, though open to all who will subscribe (and the Society Library's membership fee is much more economical than a club). The N.Y.S.L. merged with the New York Athenaeum in 1840, and having been located a various locations around lower and mid Manhattan, in July 1937 moved its collection of one hundred and fifty thousand volumes into 53 East 79th Street (seen at top), where it continues today.

I've never been to the Library myself, though it seems a suitably comfortable and private location to read or research, and not expensive to boot. Perhaps I will strike up a subscription when I am next in New York as a full-time resident. They even have a Children's Room which would be useful when progeny appear.

Two groups are supporting plans to put a trolley line down 42nd St from river to river. Vision42's proposal (seen above) would see the thoroughfare pedestrianised and arborised, whereas that of the Municipal Arts Society (below) would retain automobile access.

I have to say I rather like the idea of turning 42nd Street into a tree-lined pedestrian boulevard, despite doubts as to it actually happening. Though, as an avid guy-who-drives-in-Manhattan-alot I think losing a major cross street would be a hassle. New York lacks a major pedestrian area. We have small ones like Stone Street/Beaver Street area way downtown and the South Street Seaport, as well as gorgeous piazzas like Audubon Terrace (a hidden treasure which surely must be the subject of a future post). But we're lacking a large, long, people-oriented boulevard. Adding trees would be especially wonderful as well.

Either way, it'd be nice to see 'light rail' (as trolleys are called these days) return to the streets of Manhattan. Whether it would be wise or prudent I'll leave for others to decide, but the Chestertonian nostalgic in me welcomes their return.

Having some genuine space around Times Square just for people would be a definite benefit as well. It's always terribly crowded with people and often vehicles as well. Removing 42nd as a vehicular cross street at Times Square would probably make it more effecient actually.

Of course the plans have the new trolley line turning at the Hudson river, heading south to link up with the redevelopment of Hell's Kitchen discussed in posts past.

Armavirumque chimes in with some sad news of the Yale Club, which has some of the greatest facilities of any private club in the City, conveniently located next to Grand Central. (Although this would've been more convenient in the days when long-distance trains ran into Grand Central).

Anyway, James Panero can do the talking:

I seem to recall that St Andrews grads are allowed to join the Yale Club, thus I mourn for its partial deterioration. Nonetheless, presumably the Club isn't run from the top-down but accountable to its members. They need to start a reactionary front to seize the reins of power.

Perhaps there ought to be a St Andrews University Club. Small and comfortable, owing to the comparitive scarcity of St Andreans in the metropolitan area. A library modeled on the King James Library, a dining hall modeled on Parliament Hall, a ballroom based on Younger Hall, and of course a smaller version of St Salvator's Chapel (clubs ought to have chapels, after all). And rather than stick it in the Clubland of the 40's, why not Fifth Avenue on the Park, or maybe Riverside Drive if we're willing to brave the West Side. Bah, fantasy.

...to join in the fight against our cousins, the Hun. I doubt many of NYU's ROTC students would be brave enough to don their BDUs in the streets of Greenwich Village these days. Well I don't doubt they'd be brave enough, but they'd no doubt be more prudent perhaps. Anyhow, the ROTC program for all the colleges and universities in the City are based up in the Bronx at fortress Fordham, where the administration has been happy to play host to the future leaders of America. (Though we've heard the Pershing Rifles at Fordham are given to somewhat riotous behavior). This li'l bit of New York nostalgia was dug up from the NYU Archives.

Lucas de Soto triggered a bout of homesickness when he sent me this link with desktop-sized photos of Larchmont. (The first four photos are from the link). Larchmont is sort of two towns over from my dwelling place, and has been home to many good friends including Lucas and Clara de Soto and family, Adam Brenner, 'the P' (Retha Petrosino – my legendary high school English teacher) and her husband Fred, and others. Also, my graduation ceremony was in the Larchmont Avenue Church.

So that's what WFB's living room looks like...

Photo from the N.Y. Sun

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 1950's shows a city that, if it weren't for the straight streets, seems to almost have the feel of 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 against humanity.

What?!? You still don't read the New York Sun? Well you're a fool then. I used to think the Daily Telegraph was the greatest newspaper in the English-speaking world, but now I think it's got to be the New York Sun. It's the quality hometown newspaper for the greatest town that ever was.

Almost like comparing the City of New York to the New York Times, the Sun is more colorful, less pretentious, loves America, and is a million times more interesting. The only way the Times is more like New York than the Sun is that the Times is so big you can never get through all of it at once.

In yesterday's Sun there was a fascinating profile of 'the Rev' (photo below), the men's room attendant in the 21 Club. It was absolutely fascinating to find out about a gem of a man such as he. Reading the Times is arduous and depressing, whilst reading the Sun is informative and pleasing.

Purchasing an online subscription to the Sun was the wisest investment I think I've ever made. And economical as well at a mere $16.50 per quarter (with free 4-week trial period), allowing me to cancel for the quarter of the year I can actually buy the paper edition. Most satisfying.

Perhaps you should join me in reading A history of New York, from the beginning of the world to the end of the Dutch Dynasty by Diedrich Knickerbocker, Washington Irving's superb masterpiece of New York mythology. Above is an old rendering of Sunnyside, Washington Irving's home in Tarrytown.

I'm in the midst of Book II, the more interesting part. However, reading books online is rather irritating, and a strain on the old eyes, so I might give in sometime soon and get Ottakar's to order it in. (Actually, I might be able to get a nifty 'thift edition' on Amazon.co.uk). Sadly, Ottakar's don't believe in stocking the classics of New York literature. And so we must mourn for them.

St Andreans were all quite intrigued by the arrival of an Ottakar's branch, but it's turned out to be all in vain. Though it is bigger than any other bookshop in town, that's not saying much, and the rumours that it would be two floors have turned out to be woefully untrue. Give me the Strand and it's eighteen miles of books (used to be just eight miles) any day of the week.

Chain bookstores are atrocious anyhow and are best avoided when it comes to purchasing. Whenever I feel like book browsing in Westchester, if I don't feel satisfied by the Womrath Bookshop on Pondfield Rd in Bronxville then I will browse Border's on White Plains Road in Eastchester (or Scarsdale, as it claims), find something interesting, and order it from Womrath's. The Strand is the best because it gives you 1) the varied selection usually only available at massive chain stores, 2) the quality of service of independent bookshops, and 3) the added bonus of used books, which are quite often better editions than more recent reissues. Eighteen miles of books, people! That's insane.

This photo (from Wired New York) shows the massive Queen Mary 2 lodged in its Hudson River perth beside the Queen Elizabeth 2.

Old timers can find the older (and supposedly haunted) RMS Queen Mary permanently docked in Long Beach, California.

With all the Yanks that are at St Andrews these days, I have a proposal to make. We infiltrate and take over the British Schools and Universities Club, raise some funds and thereby purchase a comfortable Upper East Side townhouse to use as our club quarters, and declare that straw boaters shall permanently, yes permanently, be in season within the confines of the Club. Perhaps the straw boater bit is a bit of an affectation, but otherwise it might be a sound idea.

It's an idea at least. Perhaps I'll just start my own private club (a la Boodle's). And speaking of Boodle's, the Foreign Aid Society of BASMOM recently held their annual dinner at Boodle's. Anyone have any clue what sort of order or whatnot the sacerdotal chap in the middle would belong to? I don't believe I've ever seen such a get-up myself. Though I remember seeing two priests from the Brompton Oratory in Country Life that were dressed vaguely similar.

Yet another reason why Christopher Bertram and I need to write the Field Guide to the Catholic Church.

Photos: FAS/BASMOM

... not yet gone. Cardinal Egan and his abomination squad have begun demolishing the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle in Harlem. St. Thomas is one of New York's architectural gems, especially known for its perpindicular gothic vaulted ceiling. It has been determined that the stained glass, the worth of which may reach into the millions, cannot be removed, and so will be lost with the rest of the church. The altar is already gone, although in honesty, it was the least attractive feature at St Thomas, a bit frilly.

Preservationist M.H. Adams: The church is "the most significant structure to be destroyed in the city since Penn Station."

Anti-Abomination.com quips "At least the moneychangers didn't try to sell the temple."

Gabriel Meyer, the fourth generation at Mayer of Munich (the firm that made St. Thomas's windows), told Cardinal Egan in a letter:

But it would seem that Egan's bureaucracy will trump history, Christian charity, and appreciation for beauty. The property will not be sold, but will be replaced by apartments to bring revenue into the Archdiocesan treasury. Cardinal Egan has done much since he ascended to the episcopal throne of our great metropolis. By this, and many other actions, he has shown his allegiance, and it is not to Christ.

Well folks, another entry is long overdue, and it will surprise you not that my computer is still out. As such, the unanswered emails are piling high, but I promise they will be taken care of.

Reading.

I've finished Buckley's Miles Gone By and I have to say I found it immensely enjoyable. It is a collection of biographical musings from across the years, akin to his previous Nearer, My God. The former, I'm glad to report, avoids the slight haphazardness of the latter, perhaps because it is much longer and the selections included are well grouped. One of the tales which I particularly enjoyed was of WFB and Brent Bozell (whose brother is in Solesmes) at Yale. WFB and some cronies had piled there money together to purchase an aircraft, which Buckley and Bozell one day landed on the great lawn of the Ethel Walker School, where Buckley's younger sister was studying. Upon disembarking the aircraft, they were promptly invited to tea with the headmistress. The audio CD which accompanies the book is a mere fancy.

Of Paradise and Power was particularly enlightening. Though Mr. Kagan's general supposition about the difference in American and European worldviews (as well as Europe achieving a Kantian perpetual peace only by existing under the wing of the United States, a Hobbesian leviathan) seems quite well thought out, I did find myself disagreeing with one or two of his conclusions. Plus it irritated me when he referred to Britons as Europeans. Such silliness.

Speaking of silliness, I've started reading Wodehouse. Bought Young Men in Spats, a collection of tales from the Drones Club, and a volume of three of the Jeeves-and-Wooster novels. So far, both are thoroughly enjoyable.

et cetera...

I was very pleased to catch up with Mr. Nicholas Merrick last night, via whom I also ran into Mssrs. Simon Tuchman and Steven Lagotte. Good old Nicholas, I'm very pleased to say, is not a Buddhist as was previously thought for some unknown reason, and Deo gratias Simon is no longer of the Marxian persuasion in terms of economic thought and whatnot. Floreat Thorntona!

Michael Ulsterman (as he is known to me), our favourite Oirishman, was in town recently and I was very pleased enough to take him out for a bite at Café Lalo, one of Manhattan's finest eateries (as well as the locale where I inadvertently stood up Brearley girl Buffy Breed on accounts of my not knowing what day of the week it was). Michael, though a liberal, is a Unionist through-and-through, and has a very sharp, sardonic wit that I hope will soon grace the pages of the Mitre. I think the first time I went to Lalo's was with Jessy Lewis, Jessie Smyth, and Peter Scott (and was the other Peter there as well?). Jessy is now at Brown, which I'm informed she is enjoying much more than her premier year at Barnard; I just spoke to young lady Smyth (Univ. of Penn.) a week or so ago; and last I heard of Peter Scott he was on the May Ball committee at King's College Cambridge. Not bad, not bad at all.

Particularly enjoyed the recent Kens Club correspondence.

Got to chat with Nicholas Vincent on his birthday (Aug 1) whilst he was minding Japanese children in Oxford with the indefatigable Dickon Prior. Athiest Mr. Vincent threatened to don shorts to evensong at Christ Church Cathedral, but Mr. Prior threatened a walloping and Nicholas was brought into line. (I know! Shorts at evensong! What will they think of next?)

Lastly, and mournfully...

Our prayers go out to Lindsay Mucka, whose father died only a few days ago. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.

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:

Thanks to our Hollandic foundation, Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of New York. The Saint Nicholas Center has a great website telling you all about good Saint Nick, including this page with tips for celebrating the Saint from none other than the great Joanna Bogle.

Joanna is a brilliant woman who I had a great conversation with after her talk 'Does the Catholic Church Oppress Women?' at Canmore during Martinmas term. Mrs. Bogle (whose other half is Jamie Bogle, another UK activist who has visited St Andrews) is a no-nonsense public speaker as well as a brilliant journalist covering issues relating to ethics, conception-to-natural-death, the Church, and women, her most interesting work being on culture. I hope to purchase her Book of Feasts and Seasons sometime soon.

His feast, December 6, is also the birthday of Miss Sofie von Hauch, good friend and Scandinavian femme fatale of polyphony who will be forever remembered for bringing Latin back into our parish's liturgy at university.

Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy the New York Sun? It's wonderful to come home to the Great Metropolis and read a broadsheet that doesn't come off as sanctimonious and elitist (ahem, überliberal New York Times). I'm beginning to think the Sun may even be better than the Daily Telegraph. After all, I don't believe I've ever seen any articles about 'Posh and Becks' in the New York Sun.

Like the Mitre, I dare say, it has a layout that is both contemporary and traditional. (There's also a definite 1920's aura to the Sun). And most unlike the Times, it is succint, taking up only twenty-two pages to the Times's one-hundred and sixteen. Mind you, I'd be the last to complain if it expanded in size. In fact, it could do to grow to perhaps thirty-something pages. But as our old headmaster used to say, to write, you have to be pompous. You have to believe others ought to be reading what you write. And at one-hundred-sixteen pages daily that means the New York Times is one of the most pompous newspapers around. No shocker there.