It’s 1822 in the village of Brooklyn, a recently carved out enclave on the high bluffs overlooking the East River in the Kings County town also known as Brooklyn.
Roughly 5,000 souls reside in this village, living and working amid a tidy network of streets mostly named for earlier landowners and new developers (like Jacob and John Middagh Hicks) and connected to Manhattan since 1814 by steam-powered ferries.
One of the residents, a cooper named John Rogers, decided to construct a new building at the corner of Cranberry and Hicks Streets. Coopers were skilled craftsmen who built barrels and casks out of wood.
What became 59 Hicks Street was completed that year. It was likely was occupied by a ground-floor workspace and shop, with domestic quarters upstairs and in the half-floor attic space.
The building probably wasn’t considered remarkable; 59 Hicks was a simple wood-frame structure with a peaked roof, similar to other buildings in the neighborhood of riggers, shoemakers, cabinet makers, and ferrymen.
What was life like for Rogers in the village, which joined forces with the town to form the city of Brooklyn in 1834?
“Rogers apparently fell on hard times, for in 1846 the household furniture was put up for auction,” noted Lost City in a 2013 post.
But like the city of Brooklyn, 59 Hicks was destined for bigger things. By the 1870s, Brooklyn had a population of about 400,000 and its own prestigious schools, churches, and theaters—as well as a booming commercial and industrial base of sugar refineries and shipbuilding.
The 1870s also saw building of the Brooklyn Bridge. The chief engineers, father and son John and Washington Roebling, made 59 Hicks their architectural office.
Washington Roebling (third image) actually supervised bridge construction from his home nearby at 110 Columbia Heights—stricken down by caisson disease three years after his father died of tetanus while surveying sites for the bridge towers.
Roebling closed up shop in 1897, one year before Brooklyn ceased to be a city and transformed into a borough. The building was now up for rent at $35 per month, according to Lost City.
“In 1911, the trustees of Plymouth Church bought the property, with the intent of using it as an entrance to the nearby church,” continues Lost City. “They purchased it from Rev. Dr. Frank Halliday, who was for many years the assistant to Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, when the latter was pastor at Plymouth.”
Beecher was the 19th century abolitionist preacher whose passionate sermons attracted not just Brooklyn residents but people from Manhattan as well, who ferried over on Sundays in what were known as “Beecher boats.”
In 1928, shingle siding was added to the facade. A shoemaker occupied a rear section of the building, which was no longer an open alley or yard area but a two-story corniced addition.
By the 1940s, with the neighborhood now known as Brooklyn Heights ready to claim its title as New York’s first suburb, a grocer took over the ground floor space (fifth photo, above).
“In 1937, a poor, hungry man named Anthony Gimenez was arrested for stealing eight loaves of bread (value: 64 cents) from the store,” stated Lost City. “It was next owned by Joe Kaplan, who repaired and altered Navy uniforms for seaman down at the Navy Yard.”
A veterinarian, Bernard Wasserman, bought 59 Hicks Street in 1957 (sixth image, above) and renovated it into an animal hospital. Eight years later, Brooklyn Heights became New York City’s first historic district, which helped attract city residents charmed by the serene streets and lovely early 19th century houses.
Dr. Wasserman and his wife continued living upstairs from the hospital after turning the practice over to to Dr. Richard Turoff in 1985. Veterinarian Heather Thomson leased the space for her practice in 2013.
“After painstaking renovations that uncovered a 200-year-old ‘lucky’ shoe hiding in the walls, the hospital was re-reopened in the spring of 2015 as the sparkling, modernized, beloved space we know today,” per the Brooklyn Heights Veterinary Hospital’s website.
Currently 204 years old, with white stucco and black trim covering its wood facade, 59 Hicks is one of the oldest buildings in Brooklyn.
It’s witnessed the incredible transformation of this mighty borough—from a village of small businesses and artisans to a mighty industrial city and since 1898 part of Greater New York.
What will the future bring to this humble reminder of Brooklyn’s earliest uncertain days?
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Maggie Messer drops a giant pumpkin to be crushed at the event yesterday. Fun for all, except the pumpkins!
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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Years ago, when visiting Metropolitan Hospital in Manhattan I spotted five paintings hanging on the walls of the Administration Office.
Looking closely, I realized they were scenes from the Metropolitan Hospital School of Nursing when it was on Blackwell’s Island, probably around the late 1920’s.
Years later, I was told that some of the paintings still existed. NYC Health+Hospitals has a division that discovers, catalogs and displays many works of art that were in possesion of our municipal Hospital system.
Holy Spirit Chapel was specifically built for the patients and staff at Metropolitan Hospital. After the hospital closed, the building had a few lives and it now the Sanctuary.
Draper Hall was the residence for nursing students. Located on the northern tip of the island just south of the Lighthouse.
The lounge at Draper Hall with large windows overlooking the park and river.
The Octagon main entrance to the hospital with the south wing of patient wing.
Chapel of the Good Shepherd on the right with a building from the City Home.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Maggie Messer drops a giant pumpkin to be crushed at the event yesterday. Fun for all, except the pumpkins!
Judith Berdy
CREDIT
JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
In the archives of the Saratoga Springs Public Library, history often arrives in unexpected ways. Sometimes, it appears in a long-forgotten photograph, a stack of handwritten correspondence, or a faded ledger tucked inside an archival box.
Here, it arrived as a partially processed collection donated to the Saratoga Room over two decades ago.
Inside were medical records, physician notes, prescriptions, society minutes, and treatment observations documenting cancer care in the early twentieth century. One word repeatedly appeared throughout the collection: radium.
For most Americans, radium evokes the story of Marie Curie, the Radium Girls, and the tragic consequences of radiation exposure.
Yet these documents revealed a lesser-known chapter in medical history, one centered in Saratoga Springs, New York, and led by physician Dr. Douglas Calhoun Moriarta, a surgeon, civic leader, and early cancer specialist whose work placed Saratoga among the communities experimenting with one of medicine’s most revolutionary treatments.
The Promise and Peril of Radium
A series of scientific discoveries that transformed medicine marked the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1896, French physicist Henri Becquerel discovered uranium radiation.
Two years later, Marie and Pierre Curie isolated radium and polonium, opening the door to an entirely new understanding of radioactive materials. By the early 1900s, radium was being marketed not only as a medical treatment but as a health and beauty aid.
Manufacturers marketed radium-infused cosmetics, face creams, soaps, and powders as products that promised vitality and rejuvenation, even though people understood little about the dangers of radiation exposure.
Within fifteen years of radioactivity’s discovery, physicians around the world had experimented with radium as a treatment for cancers and skin diseases. The same element that illuminated watch dials and inspired consumer products was increasingly viewed as a powerful therapeutic tool.
It was in this atmosphere of optimism and scientific exploration that Dr. Moriarta began incorporating radium into his medical practice in Saratoga Springs.
The risks would become apparent only later. By the 1920s, workers painting luminous watch dials, later known as the Radium Girls, developed devastating illnesses linked to radiation exposure.
Their landmark legal victory in 1928 helped expose the dangers of radioactive materials and prompted greater public awareness of radiation safety.
An Archival Discovery
The collection that inspired this research raised an immediate question: could materials associated with radium treatment still be radioactive more than a century later?
The answer was potentially yes. Radium has a half-life of approximately 1,600 years, meaning any residual contamination could remain detectable for generations.
Concerned about hazards, with the library-acquired Geiger counter, the collection items were tested, and the readings remained within safe levels. Although experts considered the materials safe to handle, preservation protocols still restrict unnecessary contact with the collection.
After addressing safety concerns, a deeper historical question arose: who was the physician whose records documented the use of radium therapy in Saratoga Springs?
From Poverty to Physician
The story of Douglas Calhoun Moriarta is one of extraordinary determination. Born in 1859 to Peter and Hannah Moriarty, Douglas faced adversity almost immediately.
Shortly after his birth, his father abandoned the family and never returned. According to family accounts recorded by his daughter, Hannah Moriarta Adler, the family subsequently dropped the “Y” from their surname, becoming Moriarta.
Poverty and hardship marked life. Adler later described her father as “an undersized, unruly, indifferent child at school,” whose shabby clothing and extreme shyness contributed to his decision to leave school early. She recalled that her father “got little schooling and not too much to eat.”
As a young boy, Moriarta found work at the Hathorn mineral spring, where he performed labor without pay, slept on straw near the spring, and relied on leftover food from local hotel kitchens.
Later, while working as an errand boy in a pharmacy for three dollars a week, he discovered a passion that would change his life. After witnessing a chemical reaction and asking for an explanation, a clerk handed him a book. The experience ignited a lifelong fascination with science, medicine, and learning.
Driven by ambition, Moriarta eventually organized informal evening classes for fellow drug clerks and won academic prizes in science. He later earned a scholarship to Columbia College and graduated with a degree in pharmacy in 1883.
Recognizing greater opportunities in medicine, he enrolled in Albany Medical School, completing a three-year curriculum in only two years and graduating with the highest academic standing of his era.
Building a Medical Legacy
Returning to Saratoga Springs in 1885, Moriarta established a medical practice that would span over five decades. In 1890, he built his home and office at 511 Broadway and married Harriet Frances Merchant later that year.
His influence steadily expanded. In 1910, Moriarta partnered with Dr. George F. Comstock to establish the Saratoga Cure and Infirmary at the corner of Regent and Phila Streets.
The facility reflected Saratoga’s growing reputation as a center of therapeutic medicine, combining traditional medical treatment with the region’s longstanding belief in the healing properties of mineral waters.
Throughout his career, Moriarta embraced innovation. He acquired some of the earliest sterilization equipment available for medical facilities and maintained affiliations with organizations including the American College of Surgeons, the American Radium Society, and professional medical societies on the local, state, and national levels.
A Pioneer of Radium Therapy
By the 1920s, radium was among the most expensive and scarce substances in the world. At the time, the United States possessed only about fifty grams of radium, distributed among a handful of major medical centers.
Yet Moriarta obtained and used radium for therapeutic purposes, becoming, for a significant period, the only private physician north of New York City known to own and utilize radium.
Through journal articles, case studies, and medical presentations, he documented his observations and treatment outcomes, contributing to the growing body of knowledge surrounding radiation therapy.
Working during an era when treatment protocols were still evolving, Moriarta stood among a generation of physicians willing to explore new methods in the fight against cancer despite limited scientific understanding and significant personal risk.
Ironically, the physicians pioneering these treatments often worked without the radiation protections considered standard today. Moriarta handled radium regularly for decades.
Although no direct causal relationship was ever established, records note that he developed diabetes more than twenty years before his death, and Dr. Frederick Banting, the physician credited with the discovery of insulin, began treating him in 1923.
Whether his occupational exposure played any role remains unknown.
Beyond Medicine
Moriarta’s achievements extended well beyond the examination room. He served as physician to the Saratoga Race Course for over forty years and held numerous public offices, including president of the Chamber of Commerce, city physician, health officer, Saratoga County coroner, and medical examiner for the World War I Draft Board. He was also a founding member of the Saratoga Medical Association.
As president of the Sewer, Water, and Street Commission, he oversaw the construction of Saratoga Springs’ sewage disposal plant, among the first of its kind in the region. The project became a model for similar systems elsewhere and remains operational more than a century later.
Moriarta was equally passionate about Saratoga’s mineral springs. He published extensively on their therapeutic value and advocated for their conservation, arguing that their medicinal usefulness depended upon maintaining their natural purity.
A Legacy Still Visible Today
Dr. Douglas Calhoun Moriarta died in 1944, but the medical legacy he helped establish continues to resonate throughout the region.
Saratoga Hospital’s modern radiation oncology program, including the Mollie Wilmot Radiation Oncology Center, represents the latest chapter in a story that began with early experiments in radiation therapy more than a century ago.
For modern cancer patients, it’s difficult to imagine an era when physicians worked with radioactive materials using little more than hope, observation, and determination.
Yet it was the willingness of physicians such as Moriarta to explore unknown territory that helped lay the groundwork for today’s sophisticated cancer treatments.
As both an archivist and a breast cancer survivor, these records represent more than historical artifacts. They document the human pursuit of answers in the face of disease.
These records remind us that trial, error, perseverance, and extraordinary courage often build progress.
In the story of Dr. Douglas Calhoun Moriarta, Saratoga Springs possesses not only a fascinating local history but also a remarkable chapter in the broader history of cancer treatment.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Two Marathoners from Brazil were early afternon visitors to the kiosk on Monday
Judith Berdy
CREDIT
ichelle Isopo, M.S.I.S., is an archivist and history librarian who has worked in public libraries, archives, and special collections since 2018. As a breast cancer survivor, her research examines the intersection of medical history, archival collections, and the human stories behind advances in cancer treatment. Her research into the life and work of Dr. Douglas Calhoun Moriarta examines Saratoga Springs’ place in the history of cancer treatment and the early use of radium therapy.
Illustrations courtesy the Saratoga Springs Public Library (with the exception of the first), from above: Drinking Saratoga Springs mineral water with radium (Popular Science, June 1923); Douglas Calhoun Moriarta as a Dipper Boy at Hathorn Spring, ca. 1873; portrait of Dr. Moriarta by an unknown photographer, 1859–1944 (donated to the Library by Jo-Ann Moriarta); Dr. Moriarta’s home and medical office, 511 Broadway, in Saratoga Springs.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
MARGARET STEUERWALT Years ago, the RIHS was contacted by the family of Margaret Steuerwalt. They donated Miss Steuerwalt’s cape, photos and yearbook from the Metropolitan Hospital School of Nursing, Class of 1941. We were thrilled to accept this donation and to preserve Island nursing history.
Nursing students by the lighhouse. Note they black hosiery, Black hosiery was worn during the first six months as a probationary nursing student. The night that they passed their probationary period, all tied their stockings together and floated them in the river.
Miss Steuerwalt as a probationary nurse in 1938, an envelope addressed to her on the island, bottom photo perhaps graduation, with a male friend and a career woman. The yearbook states that she became an airling stewardess, where you had to be a nurse to qualify for the job in 1941.
Yearbook page from 1941. Note distinctive cap, that signified which nursing school you attended.
Draper Hall was the nursing student’s home. It was just south of the Lighthouse Park and Staff House for interns and residents was nearby.
All nursing students had a strict and enforced uniform regulations. The capes were regulation.
The pin all nurses receive at graduation
A sample of the pass needed to ride the ferry from East 78 Street to the Island and the schedule.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
I decided to wear the 85 year old cape this evening for Halloween. The cape is pure wool outside and lined with more red wool on the inside. The capes were not designed for easy wearing. They are very heavy and there are no sleeves and only one tiny inside pocket. The only way to keep it on is to use the attachments.
Judith Berdy
Visit us at the RIHS office in the Octagon and you are welcome to try on this 85 year old garment, an item of nursing and Island history.
CREDIT
RIHS ARCHIVE
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
As two laborers on the L.I.C. Shore R.R. were crossing the long dreary causeway spanning Sunswick Creek which separates Astoria from Ravenswood early yesterday morning, they noticed an object in the water. The tide was low but the rough, wintry wind raised such heavy ruffles that it was difficult for the men to determine whether the few straggling tufts of hair that were occasionally uplifted were those of a man or a dog. They called to Officer Emmet of Astoria and when he reached the place, the shiftings of the tide had turned the object over and the features of the dead man were fully exposed. The policeman attempted to drag the body from the water but it was fast held to the bottom and resisted his utmost efforts. Coroner Maujer of Winfield was summoned and he and a group of villagers gradually pulled the corpse from the mud. The body was that of a man about 45 years with a sandy complexion. The features were wildly contorted and wrinkled as though he had died in agony. He was dressed in a brown, cardigan jacket, a black velvet vest, brown undershirt, light pepper & salt pantaloons and light slippers of German make. There was $5.95 in German silver coins in the pockets. The face and hands were badly eaten by fishes. The body was borne to the Sunswick Hotel and there the inquest was held. The jury returned a verdict of death by drowning and censured the managers of the Shore R.R. in that they, while laying a new track, across the causeway, had taken down the fence and had neglected to provide a guard against the quagmires on either side. The point at which the body was found is a lonely and somewhat isolated spot on the outskirts of Astoria. It is just opposite the northern point of Blackwell’s Island and about a quarter-mile up Sunswick Creek, which makes up from the river at first in a deep channel and then spreads itself over the dreary meadow-lands that reach to the back of the Dutch Kills. The whole valley which is several miles long and a half mile wide is a trackless waste, interspersed with rank wild grass, slimy pools, and treacherous ferns. It belongs to the State but nothing has been done to reclaim it and it is shunned. It is a land of quicksand, of oozy mud pools and tangled bogs and it is said that no one who ever ventured upon its surface escaped with his life. At one time, years ago, the sea covered the whole land and it was navigable and the tide ebbed and flowed uncontrolled. But since the construction of the causeway, the water has been partially resisted and the back country has become a dreary waste. On the Astoria side of the Causeway is an old wooden flour mill and at its base the remains of a flood gate which helps to keep back the tide. The gate is regulated by the flow of the water, allowing the tide to rush out at low water and preventing it from flowing in at high. The tide rises to a great height, sometimes seven or eight feet, and when it is pouring in, it would be impossible to imagine a more perilous situation than that in the meadows on either side of the Causeway. It is supposed the drowned man was caught in the treacherous bottom of these meadows and was there imprisoned until the stealthy incoming waters slowly rose and engulfed him. He was found in the center of a collect or pond, many of which are scattered over the meadows and along its steep borders, and across the soft pulpy mud his painful footsteps could be traced. Through the tempest of Saturday night he probably struggled and each step took him deeper into the mire, adding to the horror and hopelessness of his situation and he sank powerless to help himself. His face was covered with the green mold and slime when he was taken from the quagmire. The body was unrecognized and, as there is no morgue in Astoria, was placed at once in a plain pine coffin and in the afternoon was buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery; there was no clue to the dead man’s identity. Some think he was murdered but it is the general opinion that he was caught in the quagmire and died after two hours of torture in the stream that slowly crept through the timbers of the floodgate. …..taken from 300 Years of Long Island City History by Vincent Seyfried Original story appeared in the Flushing Times, Nov. 3, 1875
SUNSWICK CREEK
From Wikipedia
1873 map of Long Island City. Sunswick Creek starts at the center of the image and drains into the East River, at left Sunswick Creek is a buried stream located in Astoria and Long Island City, in the northwestern portion of Queens in New York City. It originated to the north of Queensboro Bridge and Queens Plaza in Long Island City, flowing north to the present-day site of the Socrates Sculpture Park in Astoria, and emptying into the East River. The creek was named for a term in the Algonquin language that likely means “Woman Chief” or “Sachem’s Wife.”
The mouth of the creek was settled in the late 17th century by William Hallet and Elizabeth Fones, who built a milldam at the creek’s mouth to create a mill pond. Due to industrialization in Long Island City, the creek became heavily polluted and was covered-over starting in the late 19th century.
Course Prior to its burial, Sunswick Creek’s source was located close to 21st Street north of what is now the Queensboro Bridge and Queens Plaza, within the Long Island City subsection of Ravenswood. The creek passed north near the current site of the Queensbridge Houses and the Ravenswood Generating Station, roughly following the present path of 21st Street.[1]: 96 A large city block, now the site of the Long Island City High School, marks the former above-ground course of the creek. Sunswick Creek drained into the East River near the present Socrates Sculpture Park in Astoria.[1]: 97
Etymology The term “Sunswick” was a neighborhood name formerly applied to the surrounding portions of Ravenswood and Astoria. It is believed to have originated from a Native American language, possibly the Algonquin word “Sunkisq.”[2] The Greater Astoria Historical Society defines the term as “meaning perhaps ‘Woman Chief’ or ‘Sachem’s Wife.'”[3] This name is shared by Sunswick 3535, a bar at the intersection of 35th Street and 35th Avenue.[1]: 98 Additionally, the present-day 22nd Street was formerly named Sunswick Street.[4]
History 17th through 19th centuries In 1664, the land on the northern shore of the creek’s mouth was purchased by British settler William Hallet (or Hallett), who obtained the plot from two native chiefs named Shawestcont and Erramorhar.[5]: 84 This peninsula, which jutted out onto Hell Gate to the northwest, was acquired in portions and was later renamed Hallet’s Cove.[5]: 84 [6]: 295 Hallet subsequently built a lime kiln on the creek. Sunswick Creek formed a navigable waterway with Dutch Kills, another stream to the south, making it easy for merchants to transport produce and goods along the creek.[5]: 19 A milldam was built at the mouth of the creek in 1679, creating a small mill pond.[7]: 4 Joseph Hallett and Jacob Blackwell built a mill on the creek’s right bank, near its mouth, in 1753.[6]: 296
By the 1860s and 1870s, Sunswick Creek was heavily polluted due to increasing industrialization, a lack of proper sewerage, and the high population density of Long Island City and Astoria.[7]: 4 The historian Vincent F. Seyfried wrote that disease around Sunswick Creek and Dutch Kills had become common by 1866, and that “The damming of the Sunswick Creek cut off the flushing-out of the meadow lands and the salt water that used to ebb and flow became stagnant and slimy and filled with mosquitoes.”[7]: 4 [8] After outbreaks of disease in 1871 and 1875, the marshes surrounding the creek were drained in 1879.[7]: 4 In addition, Long Island City had started building a proper sewage system in the 1870s, which was still not complete by the time Long Island City became part of the City of Greater New York in 1898.[7]: 5 The creek was partially diverted into one of the sewage system’s brick tunnels at Broadway, which was completed around 1893.[1]: 97
20th century After the consolidation of Queens into New York City, Sunswick Meadows, a lowland north of the present Queensboro Bridge, was infilled with the construction of the bridge in the 1900s and 1910s.[7]: 6 This was accomplished partly by dumping dirt from the excavation of New York City Subway tunnels in Manhattan.[9][10] In addition, street cleaners tossed dry rubbish into the lowland to raise the grade of nearby streets.[11]
In 1915, residents of Ravenswood sent a letter to the New York City Board of Health to complain about the tide gates along Sunswick Creek, which had been installed to alleviate an infestation of mosquitoes. The residents claimed that the tide gates were actually keeping mosquitoes in the creek, since these gates resulted in stagnant water, and threatened to open the tide gates. In response, the Board of Health suggested filling up their land, which the Brooklyn Times-Union reported would require the infilling of 6 acres (2.4 ha) to a depth of 8 to 10 feet (2.4 to 3.0 m). The operation had a projected total cost of over $100,000 (equivalent to $3,182,566 in 2025), which was not affordable for most of the neighborhood’s residents.[12] Early the next year, in April 1916, residents broke down the barriers with axes.[13] Afterward, the New York City health commissioner told a local newspaper that the residents “prefer to live like hogs,” prompting outrage from local residents.[14] Afterward, the Queens borough president, Maurice E. Connolly, announced a plan to install two tide gates on the creek.[15]
By the end of 1916, the New York City government proposed to close up Sunswick Creek, mandating that households living nearby divert their sewage elsewhere.[16] A 1920 Brooklyn Daily Eagle article stated that the former path of the creek had been mostly developed with industrial buildings.[17] During excavations for a sewer line at Vernon Boulevard and Broadway in 1957, construction workers found remnants of the former grist mill on the creek’s mouth.[18]
Legacy The creek was relocated underground as part of a sewage tunnel, which was documented online by urban explorer Steven Duncan.[1]: 97 [19] According to one blogger, during heavy rains, the creek could be heard near the Sohmer and Company Piano Factory, across from Socrates Sculpture Park.[20] In 2011 and 2012, the Socrates Sculpture Park and Noguchi Museum commissioned a work from artist Mary Miss, entitled Ravenswood/CaLL, which consisted of several signs and mirrors along the course of the creek.[1]: 98 [21][22]
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Recently, as I was traveling up the Hudson by night, I encountered an odd nature scene. I was returning from the East River’s abandoned islands, finishing up my narration of a boat tour. Along Pier 59, in Chelsea — a unique sliver of shoreline that’s been netted off, covered in astroturf, and floodlit to create an eye-catching waterfront driving range where urban golfers whack balls into the river at all hours — the boat was briefly engulfed by a cloud of gulls frantically swatting at the surface of the water. It was an unlikely feeding frenzy, with birds fanning out around the boat and then descending, as we passed, upon the turbulent water our engine left in the halo of light that spilled onto the river. The gulls had lucked into one of the little human-created opportunities that urban wildlife exploit throughout New York’s estuaries: the light was drawing fish to the surface, and the passing traffic throttling them up for easy taking.
The water that circulates constantly through New York City is the region’s wildest, most dazzling natural feature. Twice each day, over the course of six hours, billions of gallons from the Atlantic push up through the Narrows, inching at first and then building to a deluge at the peak of the floodtide. The current carries in plankton, fish, and other animals from the ocean before slowing and reversing, ebbing back out to make room for the accumulated trickles of freshwater lakes and streams from all the way up in the Adirondacks that feed into the Hudson and enter the harbor on their way south. Along the East River, water from the Long Island Sound and the Bronx River sluices in through Hell Gate, churning toward Manhattan at 92nd Street.
The interactions between these various bodies of water create currents, eddies, bays, and beaches: features that attract birds, fish, and even larger marine animals such as dolphins and sharks. It’s from these overlapping marine ecosystems that the city derives much of its biological diversity and some of its most spectacular landscapes, like the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge and Pelham Bay Park. But the city’s marine environments are also some of its most heavily altered, and wildlife on the harbor needs to work constantly to adapt to the changes brought by people: dodging (sometimes literally) the threats we impose and taking advantage of unlikely opportunities. Throughout New York City, birds, fish, and even seals can be seen incorporating our maritime infrastructure into their day-to-day lives, as they find their way in the human harbor.
The most obvious anthropogenic features of these environments are the boats themselves, masses of steel, fiberglass, and wood that carry passengers, natural gas, gravel, scrap metal, and more back and forth across the water. The vessels have unleashed their share of environmental problems. In the early years of European colonization, house sparrows and brown rats arrived as stowaways on trans-Atlantic voyages, altering the local ecology greatly, while smaller hitchhikers continue to enter on their undersides and ballast water today. Sensitive to the noises that ships make, whales have been observed through satellite data making exhausting ocean circuits to avoid tankers, as heavy shipping traffic converges around urban ports. Every year in spring I see large Atlantic sturgeon and striped bass with unmistakable propeller gashes floating on the surface. But the vessel traffic also plays an under-appreciated role in organizing the behavior of birds and fish that live here.
Common terns, ring-billed gulls, and laughing gulls can often be seen following the largest boats, hovering over the whitewater behind tankers, barges, and other vessels to glean the small fish churned up in their wakes. Often, I see birds falling in behind the stern of a vessel to cheat their way over the water by draughting in its wind shadow, saving energy in the same way as bicycle racers riding in a tight line, or geese flying in a “V” formation.
Questions of energy retention and expenditure loom large in the lives of wild animals: deciding where they can nest, and how far they can travel in search of food, and whether they can afford to stay put in adverse conditions when finding food is more difficult. But boats rewrite these rules somewhat, providing some species with chances to save energy. Bigger barges and tankers, with their expansive decks free of people and boasting a range of textures and equipment, create perches that birds will sometimes use for a free ride south towards better fishing, or north away from heavier weather, saving nearly all of their energy. Over the years, I’ve seen gulls, pigeons, crows, and even a few bald eagles riding up- or downtown that way, using boats the way we do
I’ve spent a lot of time out on the harbor, working on smaller vessels of various kinds and leading tours on boats with seasonal routes through different parts of the city, but the ingenuity of the animals on the local waterways still surprises me. I’ve seen terns colonizing old shipping piers, and osprey tucking nests into everything from channel markers, to old pilings, to abandoned powerboats. Virtually every flat, hard surface along the water, from the roofs of the dock-houses that operate the drawbridges to the crumbling concrete piers scattered around the more derelict sections of the shoreline, is littered in shattered clam shells that gulls have dropped, using the force of gravity to break through to the meat inside. Each winter, little grey birds with orange legs called purple sandpipers take refuge from the frigid, rocky coastlines in Canada and Greenland where they breed, descending onto the riprap along the Belt Parkway. They hop back and forth on the rocks piled up along the edge of land to prevent erosion, gleaning invisible invertebrates amid lapping waves and tide swings. Their presence here is a relatively recent phenomenon. The riprap itself, and jetties installed along the coast to brace the areas people use, have created favorable habitat in what was previously soft sand and mud, allowing the birds to expand their winter range southwards.
The boat tours I lead go up the Hudson River to the Palisades in the fall, when raptors are migrating down along the cliffs, and out into Hell Gate in summer to visit the vast rookeries where egrets, herons, and cormorants nest on abandoned islands. In winter, we push out through the Narrows to the lower New York Bay, towards a pair of grim human-made islands called Hoffman and Swinburne. These landmasses were constructed in the 19th century to quarantine passengers arriving from trans-Atlantic passages where infectious disease had broken out, but the facilities have been closed since the 1930s, leaving the islands more or less abandoned. These days, beginning around December, a group of seals arrives to wait out the urban winter on the rocky ledges there, hauling onto a jetty in front of the crumbling ruins of the facilities. The return of seals to the city after nearly 200 years of local absence is an improbable success story, and a testament to the ability of city-dwelling animals to make use of even the bleakest, most derelict maritime structures.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Happy 85th Birthday
NANCY BROWN
Judith Berdy
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Russell Jacobs is a writer and a naturalist from New York City, whose reporting and essays have appeared in publications such as Slate, Hell Gate, and Urban Omnibus, as well as local papers such as Rockaway’s The Wave, and The Rockaway Times. He is also the author of Landlubber, a regular newsletter about marine ecology, seabirds, maritime history, and seafood.
The views expressed here are those of the authors only and do not reflect the position of The Architectural League of New York.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Brian Tolle’s Miss Brooklyn and Miss Manhattan (Photo by Nathan Haselby)
When traveling on Flatbush Avenue, either to or from the Manhattan Bridge, have you ever looked up and noticed the two spinning ladies greeting passersby?
These two grand dames are Miss Brooklyn and Miss Manhattan, created by the artist Brian Tolle and installed in December 2016 on a median at the intersection of Flatbush and Tillary Street, right across from the approach to the bridge. The sculptures sit atop a slowly rotating 24-foot-tall pedestal and are illuminated at night. Tolle is also the artist behind the Irish Hunger Memorial in Battery Park City.
Tolle’s sculptures are resin replicas of two 20-ton, 12 feet tall, granite allegorical female figures originally created by Daniel Chester French installed in 1916 to guard the Brooklyn gateway to the Manhattan Bridge. French later created the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Miss Brooklyn, wearing a laurel wreath in her hair, is demurely seated with a church steeple and a lyre to her left and a reading child sitting at her feet. Miss Brooklyn holds a tablet with the Dutch inscription “Ein Drach Mackt Maght” (“In Union there is strength”), a nod to Brooklyn’s Dutch roots.
Brian Tolle’s Miss Brooklyn and Miss Manhattan (Photo by Nathan Haselby)
Miss Manhattan proudly sits with her right foot on top of a small chest. A peacock stands by her side as she holds a winged globe in her right hand.
The same model, Audrey Munson, sat for both sculptures, according to the Brooklyn Public Library.
Brian Tolle’s Miss Brooklyn and Miss Manhattan (Photo by Nathan Haselby)
In 1961, Robert Moses filed a request with the Arts Commission of the City of New York to remove both the Manhattan and Brooklyn entranceways to the Manhattan Bridge to make way for his proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway (“Lomex”) on the Manhattan side and an interchange to the BQE on the Brooklyn side. Moses’ plans required the removal of the architectural and sculptural work that had adorned the entrances to the bridge for approximately 50 years because he claimed the artwork was distracting to motorists.
Allegorical figure of Brooklyn, 1916, photo by Irving I. Herzberg 1965 via Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection
Allegorical figure of Brooklyn, 1916, photo by Irving I. Herzberg 1965 via Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection
Moses’ “Lomex” plan was ultimately nixed and the Manhattan Bridge’s entryway (on the Manhattan side) was landmarked in 1975 and renovated in 2000. French’s Miss Brooklyn and Miss Manhattan were relocated to the front of the Brooklyn Museum in 1964.
The installation of Tolle’s modern muses was a ten year, $450,000 project. The process was delayed waiting for city approval to install the new statues along the heavily-trafficked corridor, according to Brooklyn Paper.
Brian Tolle’s Miss Brooklyn and Miss Manhattan (Photo by Pamela Wong/BKLYNER)
The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership maintains the upkeep of Tolle’s Miss Brooklyn and Miss Manhattan—cleaning the sculptures regularly, replacing the motors every five years, and switching out the LED lights every 40,000 hours.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
From this weekend General Electric Building on Lexington Ave.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Birds, rose petals, seasonal foliage—there’s just so much richly detailed loveliness carved into the staircases leading to Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain.
But amid these whimsical carvings are some creepier reliefs of a witch riding a broomstick, a jack o’ lantern, a bat, an owl, and other figures representing the dark side.
You might think these sculptures were intentionally meant to represent Halloween.
In the early 1860s, when Bethesda Fountain was undergoing construction, Halloween was transforming from a harvest holiday inspired by ancient folklore to the spooky celebration of ghosts and goblins we revel in every October.
Actually, the creepy carvings were designed to be emblems of nighttime.
“The decorative elements for Bethesda Terrace itself were designed by English-born architect Jacob Wrey Mould,” explains Centralparkny.com.
“Reasserting the primacy of nature, Mould chose representative wildlife and seasonal design motifs,” the site continued.
“There are also carvings symbolic of day: a rising sun, a crowing cock. Night is represented by a lamp and book, a bat and owl, and a witch flying over a Jack-O-Lantern.”
Central Park holds no official Halloween celebration, to my knowledge—though park officials did hold a roller skating Halloween festival in 1936, which I’d lobby to bring back.
But if you’re not the costume party type, consider celebrating spooky season this weekend by paying your respects to these 1860s reliefs—and the designer who used his talent and imagination to create them.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
From this weekend General Electric Building on Lexington Ave.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
A historic lighthouse in Brooklyn may become a New York City landmark. The Landmarks Preservation Commission on Tuesday voted to calendar the Coney Island Light, an iron-framed lighthouse built in 1890, for consideration as an individual landmark. One of the oldest structures in Coney Island, the lighthouse sits within the private community, Sea Gate. Since the neighborhood is closed off to non-residents, most New Yorkers have never been able to access the historic building, which is owned by the U.S. Coast Guard and leased to the community’s homeowners association. It’s unclear whether a landmark designation would make it open to the public.
Modeled after the former Throg’s Neck Lighthouse, the Coney Island Light was constructed in 1890 to guide boats and barges as Coney Island’s growing popularity led to an increase in ferry traffic. Located on Gravesend Bay, the site also includes a two-story Queen Anne-style keeper’s house, clad in wood shingles, also up for designation.
“These rare, distinctive, and well-preserved structures remind us of the crucial role that the Coast Guard has played in maritime history and the importance of New York Harbor as a significant gateway to the nation,” Matthew Postal, a researcher for the LPC, said during Tuesday’s meeting.
In 1960, after a stint on Governors Island, Frank Schubert became the keeper of the Coney Island Light. He lived in the keeper’s cottage with his family for 43 years until he died in 2003. He was the last civilian lighthouse keeper in the country.
Today, the site remains owned by the Coast Guard and leased to the Sea Gate Association, which was founded in 1899 when Sea Gate was a summer retreat for wealthy families like the Morgans and Vanderbilts. Today, about 8,000 residents live in Sea Gate, according to the association.
The city has landmarked six lighthouses built from 1854 to 1912. There are three landmarked lighthouses on Staten Island and three in Manhattan, including the Statue of Liberty. According to the LPC, none of the existing landmarks have a freestanding keeper’s house like the one in Coney Island.
The Coney Island Light remains in operation and was fully automated in 1989. The tower now incorporates a radio beacon for the calibration of navigational signals.
The Commission will hold a public hearing on the proposed landmark, followed by a vote on the designation.
“I’m delighted we’re taking the first step toward recognizing the Coney Island Lighthouse as a New York City landmark,” LPC Commissioner Lisa Kersavage said on Tuesday.
“The lighthouse and keeper’s house are among the oldest surviving structures on Coney Island and wonderful reminders of the vital role New York Harbor has played in our city’s history and development. It’s especially meaningful that the lighthouse continues to serve as an aid to navigation more than 135 years after it was built.”
LAST PHOTO WAS CHICAGO UNION STATION WHERE A SCENE FROM “THE UNTOUCHABLES”: TOOK PLACE.
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6 SQFT
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
