tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2266195400365144582024-03-05T00:30:37.564-05:00Hastings Historical SocietyThe blog of the Hastings-on-Hudson Historical SocietyThe Hastings Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16009201276849333251noreply@blogger.comBlogger128125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-65816763682983172842019-07-24T21:39:00.002-04:002019-07-24T22:30:07.845-04:00The Evolution of HoH's Official Seal (No, Not the Animal)<div style="font-size: 14px;">
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<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">by Natalie Barry</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Several months ago, our new mayor Niki Armacost was asked to speak to the 3rd/4th and 5th graders at Hillside and Farragut Middle School, respectively. During the Q&A segment, one child asked whether our village has an official animal. That got Mayor Armacost thinking about the eagle on the Hastings-on-Hudson village seal. She posed the question to the Historical Society: <i>Why do we have an eagle on the seal? And what do the stars, arrows and leaves mean?</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">At the cottage, we started digging around and came up with some insights. While we may not have answered every one of Mayor Armacost's questions, we think you might be interested in what we discovered. This is almost verbatim what our response was to Mayor Armacost's inquiry.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">The U.S. Great <span class="gmail-il">Seal</span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Eagles have been used on American <span class="gmail-il">seals</span> since the early days of our Republic and many municipalities use aspects of the national <span class="gmail-il">seal</span> in their insignia. The bald eagle was chosen on June 20, 1782 as the emblem of the United States of America, because of its long life, great strength and majestic looks, and also because it was then believed to exist only on this continent. The Great <span class="gmail-il">Seal</span> of the United States (shown below) was also introduced publicly in 1782; it appeared on the reverse side of the one-dollar bill in 1935. In the U.S. Great <span class="gmail-il">Seal</span>, the eagle's wings are outstretched (or displayed). S/he is facing left, towards the olives branches in its talon on that side, symbolizing a preference for peace. There are 13 arrows, representing the 13 original states, in its other talon. Above its head is a "glory," again with 13 stars.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We're not sure when the village of HoH started using a <span class="gmail-il">seal</span> with an eagle. The earliest eagle in public view we could find is displayed at the top of the World War I memorial at the foot of Fulton Park, shown below:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Society enlisted the help of Village Clerk Joe Cerretani, whose office has a number of <span class="gmail-il">seals</span> in their possession. Clerk Cerretani looked through binders of old Village Board meetings from 1879 to 1904, also 1926 through 1929. None had any <span class="gmail-il">seals</span> on them. It's possible that the village adopted an eagle <span class="gmail-il">seal</span> early on, although we couldn't find any use of it before 1929. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Official Hastings-on-Hudson Village Seal</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">According to Clerk Cerretani, the "official" village <span class="gmail-il">seal</span>, which is on file at the New York Department of State, looks like the image below. This particular image was in the Society's files, on the cover of a November 18, 1929 program inaugurating the Municipal Building.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Village Clerk's office has a heavy cast iron press, which imprints this same official <span class="gmail-il">seal</span> on documents. This press looks like it is decades old, possibly from the 1930s or earlier. Its imprint is the same as what is shown above. In terms of what the leaves and arrows mean, we have no specific information on that. The leaves could be olive branches, like the ones on the U.S. <span class="gmail-il">seal</span>, although they could be referring to another type of foliage. The significance of the three arrows is unclear (the three hills in Hastings? a reference to the village, town and county? these are just guesses). In this earlier version of the <span class="gmail-il">seal</span>, there are no stars above the eagle's head.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Menconi's Eagle</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Keep in mind that 1929 was when the Municipal Building was constructed and dedicated. Hastings resident and famous sculptor Raffaele Menconi created a majestic bronze eagle, which was placed on top of the building, seen below circa 1940:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sometime in the 1940s, the eagle was removed from the roof and placed into storage. Over the years, the eagle statue became buried in sand in the basement of the Municipal Building and was only uncovered when the police firing range was enlarged in 1979. The statue was placed on a new pedestal in 1979, to commemorate the centennial of our village's incorporation, and now resides outside on the right portico of the Municipal Building. Here is the sculpture in a recent photo:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So it's possible that we had a <span class="gmail-il">seal</span> prior to 1929 and the eagle statue was created independently -- or it may be that the statue and our village <span class="gmail-il">seal</span> were both inaugurated in 1929, when our Municipal Building was dedicated. Note, however, that the eagles are facing different directions in our official <span class="gmail-il">seal</span> and Menconi's statue.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Modern Village <span class="gmail-il">Seal</span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A newer, more modern version of the village <span class="gmail-il">seal</span> features prominently on the first floor entrance hall area of the Municipal Building. In this updated version, the eagle's head is now facing right and s/he is all black. Three stars have appeared over the eagle's head. The arrows and leaves have also changed sides, which is intriguing. The eagle's head is still turned to the side holding the leaves, which would be in keeping with the foliage being olive branches. The photo below shows the seal on the hall floor:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">According to records donated to the Historical Society by architect Peter Gisolfi, this new <span class="gmail-il">seal</span> was placed into the hallway during the 1999 renovation of the Municipal Building. According to discussions with several officials who held village positions during that time, then-Village Manager Neil Hess and his associate Raf Zaratzian were in favor of updating the village seal and took the opportunity to do so when the building was being remodeled. Various versions of this new <span class="gmail-il">seal</span> currently appear on village letterhead, envelopes, business cards, and on this <span class="gmail-il">seal</span> that sits at the front counter of the Village Clerk's office, shown below. (Note that this paperweight seal does not have three triangles between the "V" of Village and the "N" of Hudson, which appear in the seal on the floor.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In these various (new) versions being used today, sometimes the eagle's head is black and sometimes it is white, but it is always facing right. The wings differ a bit in the various newer versions. In Clerk Cerretani's opinion, some of this variation may simply come down to what eagle images the printer who is replicating the stationary has on hand.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We were disappointed we couldn't pinpoint exactly when the Hastings <span class="gmail-il">seal</span> was introduced, although we suspect it was inaugurated in 1929. We believe the leaves are likely olive branches, mimicking the U.S. seal. The stars may be purely decorative -- or perhaps another nod to the Great Seal. The question of what the three arrows means remains a mystery. If any of you reading this can shed any light on any of these questions, please email the Historical Society at <i><a href="mailto:hhscottage@gmail.com">hhscottage@gmail.com</a></i>. We'd love to hear your thoughts!</span></div>
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The Hastings Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16009201276849333251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-978454388086600732019-06-01T11:07:00.000-04:002019-06-02T12:00:35.817-04:00Hillside Students as Urban Planners - Visions of Downtown and the Waterfront<div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">By Natalie Barry</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>This past January, Hillside teacher Dianna Clarke invited me to speak to the 2nd grade about Hastings history. I had a great time talking about early industry in the ravine, our waterfront factories, plus sharing “then and now” photos of important buildings from Hastings’ past. </b></span></div>
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As I was walking out of Ms. Clarke’s classroom, I came upon some wonderfully creative dioramas of downtown Hastings, which were displayed in the hallway. I was so struck by these projects, I immediately pulled out my cell phone and took some photos. When I emailed Ms. Clarke to ask what they were all about, she explained:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYmFulqsaixXqdtaJXQpBuhUKc3BtsclsGDKKkqTu2LPO68jar10QhKXzE2RYjeYa2pe2ECTlCnEpjT3A7EfEVTI3VIl4mceelaw1ktjNO5drGkQBnkcnyMAABh3c0Io9OsrIVV7F8XwAa/s1600/4+KarateAndKickboxing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-indent: 36px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1116" data-original-width="1500" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYmFulqsaixXqdtaJXQpBuhUKc3BtsclsGDKKkqTu2LPO68jar10QhKXzE2RYjeYa2pe2ECTlCnEpjT3A7EfEVTI3VIl4mceelaw1ktjNO5drGkQBnkcnyMAABh3c0Io9OsrIVV7F8XwAa/s200/4+KarateAndKickboxing.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO_72B2rw93YSq9bcqAwgt3l93KOH6Fm7Tey5PWJSq0yut9-5Bp7UTpHS8Ol_V139w1Z92AJiKfkQkpYw7wwJkUI0fZ-O9oSKwIyO6p0yCM4-bvJ0hvKkga1YKlwDrWvXhhkcAbJXUThzw/s1600/5+ClockworkRecords.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-indent: 36px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1500" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO_72B2rw93YSq9bcqAwgt3l93KOH6Fm7Tey5PWJSq0yut9-5Bp7UTpHS8Ol_V139w1Z92AJiKfkQkpYw7wwJkUI0fZ-O9oSKwIyO6p0yCM4-bvJ0hvKkga1YKlwDrWvXhhkcAbJXUThzw/s200/5+ClockworkRecords.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>We’ve been learning about different types of communities, including our own, and what goods and services are available in our community. Students were asked to pick a business on Main Street or Warburton Avenue to create and then present to the class the goods or services the business provides. Students were so excited to share what they had learned! Their projects looked fantastic when we put them all together to recreate some of the streets in Hastings. </i></span></blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCZK6AqxTV-vMIxPi3K1ILiFXXkDihHQ7LtlitMJVjXdChjuCaEGNvJ9mqrLCco4tfBR1SWncfxPBnmoAAJQIzIb1ts9YjEre3Y6tcsjU6l03Ww4vvJpSFX453oGMC-nobhCNmTSG40Nzj/s1600/SlicesCharmed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1500" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCZK6AqxTV-vMIxPi3K1ILiFXXkDihHQ7LtlitMJVjXdChjuCaEGNvJ9mqrLCco4tfBR1SWncfxPBnmoAAJQIzIb1ts9YjEre3Y6tcsjU6l03Ww4vvJpSFX453oGMC-nobhCNmTSG40Nzj/s200/SlicesCharmed.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCiMYDTTtPLjCfGM4HiBA_BqNrQxkC1reyMhZ3GaK6qsZnCnY1z7imFjLs_6SKzEromBYwcpUZKQdp3ZYUd3jD1A-5rXXWfneweXDtHmEpF8HS1f3NE4Kyp7Hhy9eQJyu9slm9m5yRi3uV/s1600/6+BalloonAndFLower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-indent: 36px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1500" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCiMYDTTtPLjCfGM4HiBA_BqNrQxkC1reyMhZ3GaK6qsZnCnY1z7imFjLs_6SKzEromBYwcpUZKQdp3ZYUd3jD1A-5rXXWfneweXDtHmEpF8HS1f3NE4Kyp7Hhy9eQJyu9slm9m5yRi3uV/s200/6+BalloonAndFLower.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">With the permission of Amy Cazes, the principal of Hillside, I’m happy to share my photos of the diorama projects put together by Ms. Clarke’s class. If you look closely, you can see that the kids included some incredible details, including conversations going on within an establishment (see Sakura Garden) and others that show goods in the window (e.g., Hastings Own Bagel).</span> And we have a very realistic depiction of the Village Balloon and Flower Shop, which closed its doors a few weeks ago. </div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ms. Clarke also told me about the final segment of the 2nd graders’ studies concerning Hastings history. Here’s what was involved:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Lastly, the students studied the Hastings waterfront. They looked at the past land use of the waterfront and were asked to create a plan for the current empty space. Students were very thoughtful in their planning, thinking of a plan that would benefit many in the community. There were so many fabulous ideas, including an amphitheater to hear bands and performances, a hotel for visiting family and friends, an aquarium that highlights the Hudson River, and the first In-N-Out Burger on the East Coast. Students learned a lot about their community and are invested in the future of the waterfront.</i> </span></blockquote>
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The following are some of the drawings done by Ms. Clarke’s students, which depict what they envisioned on the waterfront. I hope you’ll agree that they did a terrific job of imagining what could be possible for the future of village!<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinRjzOnYmdKxC_PSOv9HA9bid08Dzc3YbxkRW8mcuRGsM-IU1Di8AOsEyFXNxj6NGn5A8yzm5WJknyPOP0mu3vItGVAZdyI1Kkwyu4ujgkmBHiYJQD9i__AVE5e-ZjTdnbwuv0g0_gEY5r/s1600/Waterfront+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1016" data-original-width="1354" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinRjzOnYmdKxC_PSOv9HA9bid08Dzc3YbxkRW8mcuRGsM-IU1Di8AOsEyFXNxj6NGn5A8yzm5WJknyPOP0mu3vItGVAZdyI1Kkwyu4ujgkmBHiYJQD9i__AVE5e-ZjTdnbwuv0g0_gEY5r/s640/Waterfront+2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The Hastings Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16009201276849333251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-25189272717173451292019-01-23T15:35:00.000-05:002019-01-23T15:40:31.312-05:00<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Telephone Booths and Numbers </span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: black;">I</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">n <span style="color: purple;">“On This Day in History,”</span> featured in </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: black;">The New York Times, </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: black;">it mentioned that on January 7, 1951, the minimum price of a coin-box telephone call rose to 10 cents from 5 cents in the state of New York. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: black;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: black;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: black;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This made me think about those coin-box telephone booths that were located around Hastings. There was one located outside the auditorium in the High School that was often used to call home for a ride back from an event at the school. And there was one outside the Center Restaurant, or was there just a phone inside? I’ve forgotten. That was used if you were in the middle of the village and needed a lift or had to check in with your parents. I’m sure there was one near the train station and I remember some near service stations. And now, they’re gone. Cell phones are much easier. It’s no longer necessary to fish through in your pockets or purse for that much needed dime. But there was something special about pulling the door of that booth closed to have a private conversation.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #191919; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="text-align: right;">by </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12px;">Judy Chamberlain (née Wemer)</span></h4>
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<span style="caret-color: rgb(25, 25, 25); font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A recently </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(25, 25, 25); font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">unearthed piece of ephemera included a set of very important numbers. At least important to a teenager in Hastings in the 80s. </span></h4>
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<span style="caret-color: rgb(25, 25, 25); font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The numbers to various pay phones throughout the village: the A&P, just before the Gulf station on </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(25, 25, 25); font-weight: normal;">Warburton and the two in the alley outside of the Center Restaurant. Of course they were nothing like using the one wooden phone booth. In my twenties and thirties, I used the one at The Hastings House in the back beyond the dining room and John's Bar & Grill – creaking shut the door and dialing the rotary phone.</span></span></h4>
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<span style="caret-color: rgb(25, 25, 25); font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In 1961,<i> The Hastings News</i> kept us informed about the new and emerging area code: 914. </span></h4>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>This was perhaps the last payphone in Hastings-on-Hudson, in the now defunct Tony's Steak & Seafood’s foyer. Photographed by Jeff S Alterman. Posted to Facebook December 18, 2015. </b></span></h4>
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The Hastings Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16009201276849333251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-79715160879697049232018-09-23T23:14:00.006-04:002018-09-23T23:32:06.053-04:00Immigration to and Emigration from Schwäbisch Hall<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>One of Hastings' early shopkeepers, Frederick Breyer, was included in a book recently published by the city archive of Schwäbisch Hall in Germany. The translated title of the book is "Immigration to and Emigration from Schwäbisch Hall: 1600-1914." For those of you who speak German, we now have a copy of the book in the Historical Society library. </b><a href="http://www.mida-sha.de/stories.php?id=52"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #551a8b;"><b>Here is an online version</b></span></a><b>. Some of the following material is from our files and some is information translated directly from the book. The photos included in this post are the same ones provided to the authors of the book.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Friedrich Breyer (known as Frederick Breyer in the U.S.), was the son of a railway linesman from Uttenhofen. Friedrich was born in Heilbronn, Germany in 1869 and raised in <a href="http://www.schwaebischhall.de/en/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #551a8b;">Schwäbisch Hall</span></a>. In 1884, he emigrated to the United States at the age of 15 with his 22-year old half-sister Catharina (his mother’s illegitimate daughter). His younger brother Christian Breyer (born in 1872) followed his siblings to New York in 1889, but vanished without a trace in August of 1890. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Proprietor Fred Breyer behind the counter of his meat market, </span>Breyer's Prospect Market Choice Meats, at 3 Spring Street, c. 1910</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Frederick settled in Hastings-on-Hudson in 1899, where he married a native-born American and opened a butcher shop on Spring Street. Named "Breyer's Prospect Market," the shop was a mainstay of the village's commercial district for several decades.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;">Fred Breyer is in the center behind the dog, his son Fred, Jr. is seated on the barrel, and Anna Rohrbach is standing on the far right, c. 1910. This location today is the home of Giordano Beauty.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Frederick's business must have flourished, because he was able to purchase a Ford Model T truck for his establishment in the 1910s. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Prospect Market <span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">truck, overlay</span> Google Map.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In 1920 Breyer sold his business and retired; he died in 1925. His obituary called him one of the most remarkable men of Hastings, because he continued with his trade -- without any obvious impairment -- despite ultimately losing his eyesight completely. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;">Fred Breyer, Jr. on the Warburton Avenue Bridge with Demmler children, one of whom is probably Charles Demmler. Photo is c. 1905-1910.</span></span></div>
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The Hastings Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16009201276849333251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-40788901321543296492018-01-25T09:14:00.004-05:002018-01-25T15:14:35.041-05:00<h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;"><span style="text-align: right;">by Mary Wallis Gutmann </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: right;">(was Whiting in 1968)</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;"><span style="text-align: right;"> </span></span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; font-size: 13px;">I’m not very Web-savvy, but every now and then someone who is calls to say, “Mary, listen to what I read on Facebook. . ." This time it was my son, Paul, reporting that Wendy Waczek was writing about the [Zinsser] gardens. So thank you, Wendy – your post made me remember with pleasure all your 4-H kids and working to save the Zinsser Gardens. -Mary Wallis Gutmann</i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-size: x-small;">Arthur Langmuir's 1933 photo showing the site of </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Owned by Colonel Frederick Zinsser</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We [The Whiting Family] moved to an apartment in Hastings in 1968 and got to know the village. Paul and I were walking on the Old Croton Aqueduct and paused to look down into a low-gardened area. We were puzzled.</span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> Who owns this space? </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I thought. Along came another walker, who introduced himself as Charlie Callison. He was, I learned later, Vice President of the Audubon Society and an expert at saving land. “Are those community gardens?” I asked him. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">“Sort of,” Charlie said. “That garden belonged to the Zinsser family. The village bought it and the land next to it,” pointing above at a larger area along the Aqueduct. “The gardens have been here since the Zinsser Chemical Company decided to give their workers garden plots years ago. During the war they were Victory Gardens. Hastings had many Russian escapees [refugees]. They mostly grew cabbages, onions and tomatoes. Some still do,” he said, pointing out rows of neatly lined up plantings with onion tops tramped over in classic fashion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;"> “What about the gardens now?” I asked. They seemed only partly used.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">“The gardens now may be lost, ploughed under a grassy lawn,” Charlie answered. I winced.</span></div>
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“You’d better<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;"> join our group. We call ourselves, the Nature Program Committee."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">“What programs do you do?” I asked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">Charlie said, “Come to the next meeting and see.” A neighbor, Carol Ettlinger, was also a member of the group. The members were all concerned about the possible loss of the gardens. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">Charlie announced: “Here’s what we need to do. We’ll keep this low-key. First, we need a name. 'Zinsser Gardens' is one the Historical Society likes and it has been used for a long time. Next, we have to get more gardeners. Unfortunately it’s barely used: I’d say 20% tilled is a generous number; the rest is left to weeds and marsh. Mr. Ruggero has had a garden down there for years and we could get Pat Dugan, Director of Parks and Recreation, to assign him more space – Mrs. Ravinsky and other gardeners, too. We need a 4-H Club. Carol and Mary, you’ve got young kids, how about it?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">We had no choice but to nod.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">“Now we need more activities there. Mary, how about if you do a watercolor rendering of the area?” Charlie spread his arms wide to indicate the size. His ideas were beginning to sound like work. “Pretend you’re in a helicopter. Your drawing should show the Aqueduct and all the way out to Broadway, including the parking lot. Now, sketch in garden spots. You’ll have to make them up, of course. Pretend there are about 20. Include the grassy area between the gardens and the parking lot, the space with the two magnificent oaks. Sketch in a bocce court and a climbing play place made of logs for the kids.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">“But who will play bocce?” someone said. I had never heard of bocce.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">“We’re not <i>making</i> either of those, it just shows that we could. No promises – we’re creating interest and possible uses, and a story in the local newspaper,” Charlie smiled broadly at everyone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We went to the next Village Board meeting armed with the sketch. I discovered that Mayor Sheldon Wagner [Mayor of Hastings-on-Hudson from 1961–75] had </span>long ago dubbed us ‘the Nature Nuts.’ We could tell the Board was counting heads. We were more than 15 voters, joined by others who had come with different petitions or just because Sheldon’s meetings were often entertaining. Everyone sided with us. Since the board remembered an election where the Mayor had won by 29 votes, they took our numbers seriously. So did Sheldon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">Charlie made a little speech in which he called the gardens “a long tradition in Hastings” and said how the children would benefit from the educational aspects of the 4-H program (he didn’t mention that it did not yet exist). He went on to talk about the expert, long-term gardeners who worked there – Mr. Ruggero and Mrs. Ravinsky, for example – and the benefit gardening was to families and all ages learning together. By the time he finished, he had Board members calling the garden a tradition and we could see we’d won.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-size: x-small;">Dawn Taylor tending her garden c.1974</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">We never put in the bocce court, but somebody assembled logs for a sort-of playground that is probably now humus. Carol and I liked the idea of a 4-H Club. Both our daughters were more or less enthusiastic and both sons not wild about it, but they all did some work every now and then. At the end of the first summer, we piled the kids in Carol’s big station wagon to take part in the Yorktown Heights Grange Fair. Our kids won prizes; Wendy Waczek remembers hers with delight and Paul won for the biggest tomato. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another of Charlie’s promotional ideas for the garden was to have our own 'Country Fair.' Pat Dugan liked the idea. He and I worked with different groups to set up a day at Zinsser Park with a pony ride in the upper field, a baby pig from the Andrus Children’s Home on display, and produce from the gardens. There was a cake, pie, bread baking, and corn-husking contest, and tables of fund-raising items for the local non-profits. The piglet got away, creating some delighted excitement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Six women examining the preserve table a the Country Fair on September 15,1979. The fair was part of Hastings Centennial, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the incorporation of the village. From the Left: 2nd is Mary Callas, the former Village Clerk, Polly Carpenter, Carolyn Armour, Emmy Crosby, flatly on the right, Blanche Marchetti, the original owner of <i>Food for Thought</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">After it was over, I said to Pat, “I am exhausted. How can we manage that again next year?” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">He said, “We won’t. We’ll hold it every other year.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">“Every other year? But they’ll be hounding us, some told me they’re already planning their part in next year’s.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">Pat grinned, “We’ll tell them, when they ask what happened to the fair, that they missed it. They won’t know the difference.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-kerning: none;">No one caught on. We had six or seven fairs over 12 or 14 years. (to read more on the fairs <a href="http://hastingshistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2009/04/mystery-photo-judging-preserves-at.html" target="_blank">hastingshistoricalsociety.blogspot.com</a>) Pat really understood people; that’s how he survived in a demanding little village. He used to say under his breath, no matter how mad they were at him for something he would or wouldn’t do, “Keep those cards and letters coming. . .” And they did.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-size: x-small;">Three girls, one in a Girl Scout uniform, </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-size: x-small;">One of the events of fair was a sheep shearing exhibition. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-size: small;"><i><b>Do you recognize any of the girls? Let us know!</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We all played a part in saving the gardens: Charlie Callison, Carol Ettlinger, Pat Dugan, Betty Waczek, other committee members, and me. One of the things I loved was the slightly ragged look of the area. This remained as more gardeners moved in. Some fenced their garden with chicken wire that sagged in places; others with cast-off pickets found at the dump. Mrs. Ravinsky had wooden boxes to hold her tillers and her planted rows were perfectly straight, while other gardeners gave up after spring harvest, and let their spot go to weeds and wildflowers. It was a good place to hang out when the kids were playing ball in the upper field and to talk with other gardeners. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span>Everyone loved to pass on seeds and advice, and whatever kind of garden keeper you were didn’t matter – a bit seedy or pristine, all were okay. I hear all the garden plots are fully tilled now and that’s great.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">________</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Other write-ups on the Zinsser Gardens: </span><br />
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<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">County's Landless Farmers Cultivate Community Gardens</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">By ELSA BRENNER</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Published: July 22, 1990</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0433ff; font-size: 10px;">http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/22/nyregion/county-s-landless-farmers-cultivate-community-gardens.html</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A New Garden Pest: Pilferers in the Produce</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">By DONNA CORNACHIO</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">July 26, 1992</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0433ff; font-size: 10px;">http://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/26/nyregion/a-new-garden-pest-pilferers-in-the-produce.html</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In Community Plots, the Gardening Is Organic</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">By ELSA BRENNER</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">August 16, 1992</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0433ff; font-family: "times"; font-size: 10px;">http://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/16/nyregion/in-community-plots-the-gardening-is-organic.html</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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The Hastings Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16009201276849333251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-68155866570926386842016-06-30T07:52:00.000-04:002018-01-25T09:33:25.623-05:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Hastings Shortcuts</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Paths and staircases offer direct routes through the Village</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">By Corinne McSpedon</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Hastings is crisscrossed by many footpaths and staircases that connect one street or neighborhood to the next. Some—such as the paths into and through the Burke Estate, Hillside Park, and Zinsser Park—are well known and easily identified on the <i>Hastings Trailways</i> map, which is available at the Recreation Department or via this <span style="color: #420178;"><a href="http://www.hastingsgov.org/sites/hastingsonhudsonny/files/uploads/trailwaysmap.pdf" style="color: blue;">link</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Others require a bit more searching. There are many strips of land tucked between private property as well as several staircases throughout the Village. When many of these were built—about 100 years ago—pedestrians were navigating early 20th century Hastings roads, some of which were private and all of which had a tendency to meander as they followed the contours of the hills. The paths helped commuters and students save time and avoid walking on private streets. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">For the most part, these shortcuts are open to the public but tend to be hidden from view. Fred Hubbard detailed many of these in his 2006 publication,<i> Recreational Areas of Hastings-on-Hudson </i>(available at the library), in which he documents 40 “outdoor areas” in the Village.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Frequently only nearby or long-time residents know about the shortcuts in a given neighborhood. To follow are descriptions of some of the paths and staircases still in use today. A map, which can be viewed in greater detail, is included at the bottom of this post.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Hudson Heights</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">A century ago, the developer of the Hudson Heights neighborhood, Hudson P. Rose, built steps, paths, and sidewalks into the hill to provide waterfront workers, students, and commuters with direct access to the center of town and the two rail lines servicing the area at the time: the Hudson Line of the Metro-North Railroad and the Putnam Division of the New York Central Railroad— “the Old Put”—which carried passengers and freight from the Bronx to Brewster and stopped in Hastings at Mount Hope Station, near the Saw Mill River.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a;">(The Old Put rail line is now defunct, although hikers on the South County Trailway can follow its path as it meanders along the Saw Mill Parkway.)</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Kent Staircase, located at the intersection of Kent and Fairmont Avenues</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Today, some paths and staircases are used more than others. At the intersection of Kent and Fairmont Avenues, for instance, is the top of a long set of steps that blends into its surroundings so well it’s easily mistaken as a neighbor’s walkway. The Kent Staircase, which is missing steps and covered by vegetation in places, leads to the corner of Fairmont and Clinton Avenues and does not appear to have been used much in recent years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Near the top entrance to these steps, just west on Fairmont Avenue, is the entrance to a trail that bisects Lefurgy Park, a portion of public land that extends between the backyards of houses on Southgate and Fairmont Avenues and Overlook Road. The Lefurgy Park Trail runs through this parkland, stretching from Fairmont Avenue to the south side of Mount Hope Blvd.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entrance to the Lefurgy Park Trail on the south side of Mount Hope Boulevard, between Overlook Road and Southgate Avenue</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Across the street from this entrance to the Lefurgy Park Trail are the remnants of a sidewalk that ran along the north side of Mount Hope Boulevard, providing commuters with a path to the Old Put. Although only small sections of this sidewalk remain between Lefurgy Avenue and Overlook Road, in recent years neighboring homeowners have cleared vegetation from the remaining and mostly intact sidewalk from Overlook Road to Cliff Street.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sidewalk along the north side of Mount Hope Boulevard, between Overlook Road and Cliff Street</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Descending the other side of the Hudson Heights neighborhood is a staircase linking Jefferson to Hamilton Avenues, offering a secluded if a steep alternative to Mount Hope Boulevard. Newspaper articles dating back to 1940 refer to this as the Mount Hope Staircase. Fred Hubbard called them the Jefferson Steps in his publication. Neighbors often refer to them as the Hundred Steps.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Hundred Steps, between Jefferson and Hamilton Avenues</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Staircase from Hamilton Avenue to Prescott Place</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">At the bottom of these steps and across Hamilton Avenue is a smaller staircase that provides access to Prescott Place and, ultimately, Rosedale Avenue.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Further north on Rosedale Avenue, on the east side of the street, is the bottom of another staircase. These well-used steps stretch from Rosedale Avenue to</span><span style="font-family: "\22 times new roman\22 ";"> </span><span style="font-family: "\22 times new roman\22 ";">Wilson Place</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Interestingly, a path that still exists in the Hudson Heights neighborhood, linking Lincoln and Lefurgy Avenues, appears to have been one of a couple of parallel paths that existed on adjacent streets: from Lefurgy to Cochrane Avenues and from Cochrane to Jefferson Avenues. The trails on these streets are no longer in existence, but it seems they may have once formed a continuous path from at least Lincoln Avenue to the top of the Hundred Steps.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Farragut</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">The Farragut Trail connects Rosedale Avenue to Farragut Avenue and could be a further extension of the path from the Hudson Heights neighborhood to the Village. A few houses south of the Rosedale Avenue and Prescott Place intersection, on the west side of Rosedale, this path runs between neighboring properties to Farragut Avenue, ending a few houses down and across the street from the dirt road entrance to the Burke Estate.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Riverview Manor</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">High up in the Riverview Manor neighborhood are the Summit Steps, which offer views of the Hudson River. This staircase leads from Summit Drive to the intersection of Calumet Avenue, Buena Vista Drive, and Pleasant Avenue.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Summit Steps, leading to Pleasant Avenue</td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Pinecrest</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">On the other side of town, a set of steps and path connect Pinecrest Parkway to the Aqueduct, near where it intersects Pinecrest Drive, providing residents with an essential link to the Village.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steps and path from Pinecrest Parkway to the Aqueduct</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">At the bottom of Pinecrest Drive and across Warburton Avenue is another staircase—steep and made of metal—leading to the waterfront and Rowley’s Bridge Trail.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Staircase from Warburton Avenue to Rowley's Bridge Trail</td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">In the Village</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Unlike many of the steps found in the other neighborhoods,<b> </b>the staircase leading from West Main Street and the Steinschneider Parking Lot to Southside Avenue and the train station—one of the most well-used shortcuts—was constructed around the middle of the last century by the Village.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stairs from West Main Street to Southside Avenue</td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Ownership and Upkeep</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">In 1940, the state of disrepair of the Mount Hope Boulevard Staircase, as described in a <i>Herald Statesmen</i> article published on October 31 of that year, led the Village to barricade the steps, which incited outrage among residents. According to the article, an investigation revealed that Hudson P. Rose deeded the staircase to the Village around the time it was built, in 1910. The steps were ultimately reopened, but it's not clear if they were repaired at that time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Ownership and maintenance of other paths and staircases, such as the Summit Steps and the Wilson Place staircase to Rosedale Avenue, can be equally unclear. Some of these cross through private, state, or Town of Greenburgh land. In addition, Hastings homeowners are responsible for maintaining the sidewalks bordering their property</span><span style="font-family: "\22 times new roman\22 ";">.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> It seems that the Village and neighboring homeowners have, at various times during the past century, maintained certain paths and staircases. Others, however, have</span><span style="font-family: "\22 times new roman\22 ";"> simply been left alone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Occasionally, nature has reclaimed—or neighboring property owners have purchased—some of this land. The Hastings Trailways Committee and the Adopt-a-Trail program in the early to mid-2000s organized efforts among residents to clean and maintain some of the remaining public passages. Currently, the Village’s Recreation Department maintains the paths identified on the <i>Hastings Trailways</i> map.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">In general, the staircases tend to be in worse condition these days than the trails, which are at least minimally maintained as long as people use them. Many of the staircases have broken or missing steps and are washed out or overgrown in places. Despite their condition, however, these staircases and footpaths are still used regularly—by commuters and students, walkers and joggers. More than 100 years later, they continue to be vital pathways for anyone navigating the hills and neighborhoods of Hastings.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>click on map to enlarge</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Map was adapted from the Hastings Department of Parks and Recreation’s Trailways Map, design by Adam Hart, by Lindsey Taylor June 2016 </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Photos by Corinne McSpedon</span></div>
The Hastings Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16009201276849333251noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-42498381973020287362015-02-16T14:39:00.000-05:002015-02-16T14:39:38.331-05:00Lesser-known trivia and tidbits about Hastings' famed painter Jasper Francis Cropsey<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Artist and Architect</span></span></i></h3>
The popularity of the Hudson River School came during a time of tension between nature and industry. While Hudson River School painters found their inspiration from the unaltered and natural beauty of the land and the river, life along the Hudson was changing. The Hudson River Valley was a focal point of the industrial revolution, from the invention of the steamboat to railroad construction.<br />
Cropsey was the unique Hudson River School student who found ways to both preserve and embrace the nature through his art and to contribute to the rise of industrial development.<br />
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As a child, the noted artist and Hastings resident Jasper Cropsey was “something of a prodigy.”<br />
with “both an artistic and a mechanical bent,” writes William Nathaniel Banks, in <i>Ever Rest, Jasper Francis Cropsey’s house in Hastings-on-Hudson New York</i>.<br />
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At the age of 13, Cropsey won a diploma from the Mechanics Institute for a model house he had designed.<br />
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While Cropsey’s tranquil canvases of Hastings-on-Hudson in the mid to late 1800s are well-known, lesser known is the fact he also designed the stations of 14 elevated railway stations built in Manhattan, as well as a blueprint for the Seventh Regiment Armory, also in Manhattan.<br />
Cropsey's sizable collection of architectural drawings have been displayed at the Newington Cropsey Foundation.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwF8Utj8Yo8L7wgYjnvQyCDuLBMoHPs_-nr6-rsZxW_SIV21eTzTEb6T1WhSttR3dEUWb-n96CoLWadUExwakmW4mc46t7uyjBdiOllqBRkNctW4aOFyd5f_tMNyhPS5q9-bBkJGZ6qtSx/s1600/cropsey+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwF8Utj8Yo8L7wgYjnvQyCDuLBMoHPs_-nr6-rsZxW_SIV21eTzTEb6T1WhSttR3dEUWb-n96CoLWadUExwakmW4mc46t7uyjBdiOllqBRkNctW4aOFyd5f_tMNyhPS5q9-bBkJGZ6qtSx/s1600/cropsey+3.jpg" height="255" width="320" /></a><br />
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An Interior of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation's Art Center.</div>
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Photograph, winter 1990.</div>
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<i>Views on “The View at Hastings”</i></h4>
In 1987, a custodian discovered an original Cropsey painting in a furnace room of the Hastings High School. “The View at Hastings on Hudson,” in which Cropsey painted what he saw from his Washington Avenue studio to the river in subtle greens and reds, was estimated to be valued at $1 million. (See this Society <a href="http://hastingshistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2010/11/hastings-in-yonkers.html"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(18, 85, 204); color: #1255cc;">blog post</span></a>).<br />
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The painting’s donor, a man named Sherman Thursby, wished for the painting to go to “the village,” as he had indicated on the back of the canvas. Village residents debated the implications of this inscription.<br />
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The Hastings School Board believed that as “View” was found on school property, and because at the time of the gift the school district effectively pulled the community together, that Cropsey’s work should remain in the hands of school officials. The Board added that the sale of the painting would be an asset for the school system's fiscal crisis at that time. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ7FBstsW9qBaXwz_bhh4pe2oJoem8UNUuvQm3BhNFQMF8JGtMyNS4JFpt1n7M03uOWBcji9tMdrvKvCAKqAEFQOnS7AcUbSvrmSLJ3Z3EEUzb67SubdnqcPE3tgAkmOwu6kVaiHIqvRAI/s1600/CropseyFall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ7FBstsW9qBaXwz_bhh4pe2oJoem8UNUuvQm3BhNFQMF8JGtMyNS4JFpt1n7M03uOWBcji9tMdrvKvCAKqAEFQOnS7AcUbSvrmSLJ3Z3EEUzb67SubdnqcPE3tgAkmOwu6kVaiHIqvRAI/s1600/CropseyFall.jpg" height="175" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>"</i>View at Hastings on Hudson<i>," Jasper F. Cropsey ca. 1891</i></div>
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Representatives from both the Historical Society and the Hudson River Museum agreed on the importance of the public display of the painting and jointly brought a lawsuit against the Hastings School District in order to prevent the sale of “View at Hastings.” Meanwhile, the lengthy debate over the nearly 100-year old artwork received notable media coverage.</div>
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The Newington-Cropsey organization itself took no official position, while the Foundation’s administrator and trustee Adelia C. Rasines told a New York Times interviewer “It’s too bad that the legitimate ownership cannot be established.” New York Supreme Court justice John DiBlasi ruled that the painting remained school property, but that it be publicly displayed. The Hudson River Museum in Yonkers was chosen as the best nearby public location for its safety and visibility, and there it has remained ever since.</div>
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<i>Beatrice and Barbara</i></h4>
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Jasper Cropsey's granddaughter Isabel Wack and her husband William Steinschneider, who became the mayor of Hastings, lived in the Cropsey residence on Washington Avenue during the 1920s and 30s. Determined to preserve her grandfather's legacy, Wack held parties and social gatherings and instilled in her daughters Barbara and Beatrice an appreciation for art.</div>
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In the early 1960s, Cropsey made the silver screen. While giving a tour of the White House, Jackie Kennedy pointed out a Cropsey original to the TV audience. Beatrice and Barbara both saw the program and were inspired by the longevity of their great-grandfather and his work. This, said Barbara, was "when the slow reawakening of interest in Cropsey began."<br />
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Thanks to Cropsey's great-granddaughters, the Newington Cropsey Foundation was established in 1978. The goal of the Foundation, said Barbara in a New York Times article, was to preserve the "moral and artistic values" of her great-grandfather.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPotSdS2D2WBEOxDIcvE8PHiGbPy-SucNUweqXxtgQ8kQuZX6lxgryST5jJfSJbV0enXJhlHhEe7bxS0GiuNQvqP0QO3utubj2tNirmKmnSHDFQaxht5NusVqHU8QHtmsD2rbRGTO_x3Gw/s1600/barbara+beatrice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPotSdS2D2WBEOxDIcvE8PHiGbPy-SucNUweqXxtgQ8kQuZX6lxgryST5jJfSJbV0enXJhlHhEe7bxS0GiuNQvqP0QO3utubj2tNirmKmnSHDFQaxht5NusVqHU8QHtmsD2rbRGTO_x3Gw/s1600/barbara+beatrice.jpg" height="216" width="320" /></a></div>
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Photo of a reception for a Cropsey exhibition the Hastings Municipal Building, February 1979.</div>
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From left to right: Mayor Julius Chemka, Village Manager Jim Mulcare, Barbara Newington,</div>
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and Beatrice Ellsworth</div>
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<i>The Role of the Foundation</i></h4>
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Adelia Rasines, executive director of the Newington Cropsey Foundation, describes the Foundation as a "little pocket, [a] little bonfire." Indeed the establishment of the Foundation came out of the personal passion of Barbara and Beatrice, adamant about their aims to preserve the art and artistic values that ran in their family's history.<br />
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In the decades since its inception the cultural center has had often tenuous relations with the Village of Hastings on Hudson. An article in the January, 2000 issue of the Enterprise describes how "some [Hastings] residents assumed the Foundation would function like other museums."<br />
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The article goes on to mention that the directors of the Foundation wanted to build a security fence on the eastern side of the Warburton Avenue Bridge after receiving complaints of trash being thrown over the bridge. The Hastings Planning Board refused to grant this request, citing the importance of maintaining visibility of the Foundation's property from the Bridge.<br />
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Warburton overlookers can still sneak birds-eye views of the Foundation's expansive property, with its gardens and fountains and stunning architecture. And the Foundation holds community events from from art exhibits and concerts to high school reunions and garden parties. The Foundation itself, however, remains privately funded, and tours are granted by appointment only.<br />
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In spring of 1979, the artistic legacy of Jasper Cropsey and the cultural past and present of Hastings-on-Hudson intertwined seamlessly for an event called "Jasper Cropsey, A Hastings on Hudson Centennial Celebration." An informational brochure for the event discussed "the link between the artistic and public domains in Hastings," stating that Barbara and Beatrice "have been in a unique position" reconciling the two.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu-GcynfMhN-fN56p9XswKoXpmFaJG9wK_kO6JuTSVOZgdMCHDXCElqsu_2ivOOzNTEQKp0GSUgiQa89ItYXhCMho34BKgulkD-9FPaHAVxjrxVajL09rOU2lQfzNEzWhVJ5FGkghZ6E7W/s1600/cropsey+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu-GcynfMhN-fN56p9XswKoXpmFaJG9wK_kO6JuTSVOZgdMCHDXCElqsu_2ivOOzNTEQKp0GSUgiQa89ItYXhCMho34BKgulkD-9FPaHAVxjrxVajL09rOU2lQfzNEzWhVJ5FGkghZ6E7W/s1600/cropsey+5.jpg" height="221" width="320" /></a></div>
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Photograph of the building on the Newington-Cropsey foundation property.</div>
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Photograph, June 1994.</div>
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<br />The Hastings Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16009201276849333251noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-74988852358739036682015-02-16T13:38:00.000-05:002015-02-16T13:38:13.265-05:00The Warburton Avenue Bridge: A Trip Down Memory LaneIn honor of the ongoing construction on the Warburton Avenue Bridge, and while we are awaiting the completion of that construction, we thought you might enjoy taking a trip down memory lane with us as we reminisce over the bridge's evolution through time. Here are some photos of the bridge and activities on it from the Hastings Historical Society's archives, spanning a period from 1905 all the way through the spring 1948, when a huge dumped pile of snow was still around and did not melt until the summer of that year! Makes this winter not seem so bad so far!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNiAiSTvifNNaE8Ofitvu6zklv_KcO33PyGV1SeWOKclHIFGUubhrg_kz6b5ok0EgNnr1y418zDLNab6iNblWWnG3r3QrO4FN-aUP9N5M-sDpDuQQQC5SR8TQew9CLctc5CIoySQNpL0rE/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNiAiSTvifNNaE8Ofitvu6zklv_KcO33PyGV1SeWOKclHIFGUubhrg_kz6b5ok0EgNnr1y418zDLNab6iNblWWnG3r3QrO4FN-aUP9N5M-sDpDuQQQC5SR8TQew9CLctc5CIoySQNpL0rE/s1600/1.jpg" height="206" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class=" meta-field photo-desc " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729724399_1623"><span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729724399_1629">Postcard of Warburton Avenue, ca. 1905</span></span><br />
<span class=" meta-field photo-desc " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729724399_1623"><span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729724399_1629"> </span> </span><br />
<span class=" meta-field photo-desc " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729724399_1623">Postcard
showing Warburton Avenue, looking north from the end of the bridge. On
the street you can see the trolley tracks turning right on to Main Street. In the left foreground is "Doc" Todd's drugstore. Beyond it,
across West Main, is Goodwin's Cigar Store. The horse and wagon farther
down the street belongs to W.W. Tompkins' National Meat Market and is standing in front of that shop.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsn09LTdOxjVpDV65wliKbptaN705ZkPqOav3fQnmKJWBlM_GfhiH0t6igUThL1VNWUuIM91_A0vh7rTgEqsSY6bhY39KTkKB6iFct9foGfVogCH2Cp6YOm-M8KfJm9pWTiBK3blT9ptvL/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsn09LTdOxjVpDV65wliKbptaN705ZkPqOav3fQnmKJWBlM_GfhiH0t6igUThL1VNWUuIM91_A0vh7rTgEqsSY6bhY39KTkKB6iFct9foGfVogCH2Cp6YOm-M8KfJm9pWTiBK3blT9ptvL/s1600/2.jpg" height="209" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729483332_1630">Postcard showing Warburton Avenue Bridge postmarked 1907</span><br />
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<span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729483332_1630"> </span><span class=" meta-field photo-desc " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729483332_1623">A
color lithograph postcard, printed in Germany and showing a trolley and
a horse-drawn carriage on the Warburton Avenue Bridge. We are looking
north from the southern end of the bridge toward the business district,
with Todd's Drugstore on the northwest corner of the bridge. The
postcard is postmarked 1907, but the photograph on which the printed
card was based may certainly have been taken several years earlier.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP0pXp36U2Pp2AiOmvyt6eOyzylEtSttxJYxDMHKmeCMIBu216qmzefEFNHVXv-MeD3ZePmFha0UhG89r83N1hShHycy0QMg8eZvf7h4bO_bMEKP6UzzVlrSiAttqFkRxoQ08LSq9SrnrT/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP0pXp36U2Pp2AiOmvyt6eOyzylEtSttxJYxDMHKmeCMIBu216qmzefEFNHVXv-MeD3ZePmFha0UhG89r83N1hShHycy0QMg8eZvf7h4bO_bMEKP6UzzVlrSiAttqFkRxoQ08LSq9SrnrT/s1600/3.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729930051_1635">School children marching in the Fourth of July Parade in 1914</span><br />
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<span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729930051_1635"><span class=" meta-field photo-desc " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729930051_1641">School
children with flags and fancy hats in the Fourth of July Parade in
1914. The photograph was taken on the Warburton Avenue Bridge. We have
no identifications for this photograph. If you think you recognize one
of the faces, let us know!</span> </span> <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwEg3X3iyuRIKY1AO0OACfE4Tevap3ilHVRzpyXAlFew6pT76s3sKMFp_AQZ_xcdrHbjZxIeyTmW2thay0MONmmvfaMAzudZZ1Gg1pU8hwj-AKrzPSC04T-xHNkcK9jwG8b80LnD76DTdW/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwEg3X3iyuRIKY1AO0OACfE4Tevap3ilHVRzpyXAlFew6pT76s3sKMFp_AQZ_xcdrHbjZxIeyTmW2thay0MONmmvfaMAzudZZ1Gg1pU8hwj-AKrzPSC04T-xHNkcK9jwG8b80LnD76DTdW/s1600/4.jpg" height="219" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729815366_1571">Procession to St. Stanislaus Kostka, 1914</span><br />
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<span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729815366_1571"><span class=" meta-field photo-desc " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729815366_1576">Procession
to the church of St. Stanislaus Kostka in Hastings on Hudson on the day
of its consecration, June 14, 1914. The procession was led by girls
with flowers. Here they are marching north and crossing the Warburton Avenue Bridge.</span></span> <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWnehw1W4S5OO5oYvm3rUmnyQagzeH7QOR8K_PGZx-S4TL7bUuvDROk6L4wlH2VZBv9fX7XeRDGPA3h7oT48Z66ZWEOXU-4auYfj4ZYwLN-ZbJIGijGZqhJjQMHNLOXKq-BonJxpEWrSaJ/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWnehw1W4S5OO5oYvm3rUmnyQagzeH7QOR8K_PGZx-S4TL7bUuvDROk6L4wlH2VZBv9fX7XeRDGPA3h7oT48Z66ZWEOXU-4auYfj4ZYwLN-ZbJIGijGZqhJjQMHNLOXKq-BonJxpEWrSaJ/s1600/5.jpg" height="182" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729551197_1602">Street widening on Warburton Avenue, 1929</span><br />
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<span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729551197_1602"><span class=" meta-field photo-desc " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729551197_1608">Warburton
Avenue, looking south from the bridge toward the Washington Avenue intersection. This
photograph was taken by A.C. Langmuir on September 19, 1929. He wanted
to capture the moment when the old streets were being widened for the
increasing traffic going through the village. On the far side of
Washington Avenue is Hastings Lunch, "The Place to Eat."</span> </span> <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGFEJbiGKDlgqvuu_2-JRpviNxylC9g4VDuMUkrJ1G8Z3pv3mtvHnleInWJvmvT3de8GdEY2jzUjBMqen-3TKiFNmCqCrAEEerwuvW4W3h3GcUo_LtZ2-L3LmjFgRXue8ZzSy6yRIKUYeK/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGFEJbiGKDlgqvuu_2-JRpviNxylC9g4VDuMUkrJ1G8Z3pv3mtvHnleInWJvmvT3de8GdEY2jzUjBMqen-3TKiFNmCqCrAEEerwuvW4W3h3GcUo_LtZ2-L3LmjFgRXue8ZzSy6yRIKUYeK/s1600/6.jpg" height="181" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729635851_1619">Warburton Avenue Bridge, 1931</span><br />
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<span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729635851_1619"><span class=" meta-field photo-desc " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729635851_1624">A.C.
Langmuir's photograph of the businesses on the south end of the
Warburton Avenue Bridge taken June 4, 1931. The adverstising signs include
the Silver Lining Laundry, located in Yonkers, Sundial Shoes on the
corner (slogan: "Time Will Tell"), and a Chinese Laundry further down
the street.</span> </span> <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWVZZv3ULODdA05m2g7Zj29n-NoqofW0Eg0453UX_E_TOggNelylhz2YUm24Ts2oFGtSreMU0YpMnGq8_Y2q7kKEI37FSkVsTp-CQAEDcrt4HtCnhTIBz_Dho15f24MwtBkI60Ctr-vJZ/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWVZZv3ULODdA05m2g7Zj29n-NoqofW0Eg0453UX_E_TOggNelylhz2YUm24Ts2oFGtSreMU0YpMnGq8_Y2q7kKEI37FSkVsTp-CQAEDcrt4HtCnhTIBz_Dho15f24MwtBkI60Ctr-vJZ/s1600/7.jpg" height="181" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729424450_1587">Warburton Avenue Bridge after the blizzard of 1947</span><br />
<br />
<span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729424450_1587"><span class=" meta-field photo-desc " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729424450_1594">Looking
east up the Ravine at the huge pile of snow dumped off the side of the
Warburton Avenue Bridge after the D.P.W. had cleared the downtown area.
The head of the D.P.W. at the time was Mel Haines, so naturally the pile
of snow was christened "Mount Haines." The blizzard of Dec. 26-27, 1947
was the heaviest snow fall in New York after the blizzard of 1888.</span> </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7bzXaGVDG2UsJHBvcAj5Pys_CmO06xiAoIk2r5A4znaB4swCjEdoiVLYgq1idY_6ZfaGvvd1jdztasTnfXAG8QG1WalVKXKrmictQGLievQZubrMG-ZnYqHKtayhRc3wOBob5KSsTa_s8/s1600/10891836_10152619823105098_2512079080102874745_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7bzXaGVDG2UsJHBvcAj5Pys_CmO06xiAoIk2r5A4znaB4swCjEdoiVLYgq1idY_6ZfaGvvd1jdztasTnfXAG8QG1WalVKXKrmictQGLievQZubrMG-ZnYqHKtayhRc3wOBob5KSsTa_s8/s1600/10891836_10152619823105098_2512079080102874745_n.jpg" height="268" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729918461_1634">High schoolers sledding down "Mount Haines," May 1, 1948</span><br />
<br />
<span class=" meta-field photo-title " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729918461_1634"><span class=" meta-field photo-desc " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1422729918461_1640">Sue
Lindemann (later Staropoli) takes the plunge down the huge pile of snow
dumped off the side of the Warburton Avenue Bridge.
Looking on are Phyllis Schumm, Jimmy McCue, Bill Costello, Steve
Ravinsky, and Jack Ayres. </span></span><span class=" meta-field photo-desc " id="yui_3_16_0_1_1423426214755_5152">There
was so much snow that it was still around for kids to go sledding in
May, and the last of the snow did not melt until July!</span>The Hastings Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16009201276849333251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-74380709753310753792010-11-08T14:37:00.005-05:002010-11-08T14:45:13.157-05:00Hastings in Yonkers!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2U-hZMMrEmgJNfgk-bCIBlrG3bsxuHvlNWRPfBAN_21ScDueZA4cRlwV9C3_Le9wMjmtFjAcygWKy2DUH_6A4xR3FiUbNl8_SWoOZdCBBfYGTFm_IvzRe7LtHImaRyG1t_1IiPM7tI5j8/s1600/CropseyFall.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 220px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537265767503669282" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2U-hZMMrEmgJNfgk-bCIBlrG3bsxuHvlNWRPfBAN_21ScDueZA4cRlwV9C3_Le9wMjmtFjAcygWKy2DUH_6A4xR3FiUbNl8_SWoOZdCBBfYGTFm_IvzRe7LtHImaRyG1t_1IiPM7tI5j8/s400/CropseyFall.jpg" /></a> <p align="center"><em>"View at Hastings-on-Hudson," painted by Jasper F. Cropsey ca. 1891, on view at the Hudson River Museum, and currently part of their</em> Paintbox Leaves <em>exhibition.</em></p>We have so loved working on this blog, dear readers, and sharing the wonderful stories and photographs that the Historical Society has collected over the years. But at the moment we don’t have the staff to keep up weekly posts. When we have an event or some great piece of news, we will still post on an irregular basis. And as soon as we have the people to carry forward a weekly blog, we will start up again. Thank you, everyone, for your support of this blog during the last two years!<br /><br />But in the meantime, we encourage you to take a trip to the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers before January 16th to see <em><a href="http://www.hrm.org/exhibits/Paintbox/paintbox.html">Paintbox Leaves: Autumnal Inspiration from Cole to Wyeth</a></em>. Among the many lovely representations of Fall are four by <a href="http://hastingshistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2010/05/house-tour-preview-jasper-f-cropsey.html">Jasper F. Cropsey </a>(1823-1900), two of them painted after he moved to Hastings in 1885. One in particular, “View at Hastings-on-Hudson,” gives a wonderful picture of what our village looked like at the end of the 19th century.<br /><br />Looking at this painting, you can see just what Cropsey saw from his studio on Washington Avenue. There were fewer, and shorter, trees, and the artist had a wonderful view down through the Ravine to the river. In the center of the painting is the original Sugar Pond. A little stream leading off from the pond supplied water to the sugar refineries on the waterfront in the middle of the 19th century. According to the information that came to us with a turn of the century photograph, the buildings beyond the pond, on the east side of the train tracks, include McLave’s blacksmith shop, Schlachter’s saw mill and concrete block operation, and Ferguson’s livery stables. In the distance both sailing ships and steamboats float on the River.<br /><br />Look for this painting and for “The Narrows at Lake George,” which Cropsey most likely painted in Hastings from earlier sketches. For museum hours and directions, see the <a href="http://www.hrm.org/information.html">Hudson River Museum </a>website.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-20568643274829364782010-10-11T13:59:00.016-04:002010-10-11T14:13:41.284-04:00Moonwatch and Open House this Weekend<a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object.cfm?key=35&objkey=214"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 197px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5526850234172711746" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm-e5_2iyYDUNk_bbaFhRODMmS2_eb91Dy6LSyabQiTc54Kowj0nqCmmg83aXarc6yG2lHS2zsvWyuov_3AQX649Xo-QA1oJNyvPv3y8_o4Z_k9O1atO8g77_0SdFml-FXGITYNTNkR-B2/s400/SmithsonianMoon.jpg" /></a> <p align="center"><em>Stereoview card made from photographs of the full moon taken by Henry Draper in the 1860s from his observatory at Hastings on Hudson. To read more about this card, which is in the collection of the Smithsonian Museum, click on the image.</em></p>On Saturday, October 16th, the Hastings Historical Society will be open from noon until 4PM. Come see our exhibition entitled "A Story of a Village: Hastings Maps from 1600 to the Present.<br /><br />At 2PM astronomers will present an analysis of the Draper telescope parts here at the cottage.<br /><br />At 7:30PM there will be a MOONWATCH in Draper Park, 407 Broadway. Large telescopes will be available, or you may bring your own. There are no lights in Draper Park, so flashlights are recommended.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-86852046777565670442010-08-19T15:34:00.012-04:002010-10-04T11:54:37.384-04:00Postcards from the Edge (of the Hudson)<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/4907862197/in/photostream/"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 286px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5507206958170722162" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUcSGD-smEFScD_g9AC7dvNjoq3fL8bs6WnTM9wwE4N0q6R_YqaKJDEqHS-eummc-jyPl5s_zAU99w4ccnw_DKHfh6QHco1lj9yh2Dl69AqdO_IiLtwX4kblwu0TiJYEhgB9MZPASWkZdB/s400/PostcardPst0397.jpg" /></a><br />The Hastings Historical Society blog is on vacation.<br /><br />To tide you over, here are a couple of postcards from beautiful and historic Hastings-on-Hudson, one from the 1960s and the other from around 1909.<br /><br />Wish you were here!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/4907861635/"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 252px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5507206959339600658" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoQ3GlKoRu-5i2uO5KlnSQSHEgRTCRLD_7HXyUXHZTCaHhu4LE6T0G35wCPeXz_k5FtWlUkilePy-Lf3n68M1Wv8LZO3JrXKe_gQnsqONYTCTJS0ezUKr8Encwy2V2f6TvBC-aG9OflICz/s400/PostcardPst0506.jpg" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-74877600602700299972010-08-05T14:05:00.001-04:002010-08-11T14:30:34.949-04:00Sails on the Hudson<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifFnfr-3tB7J-CJeZ32qQS2hDGw4BL5K1MES5GjXcnv7kJFL3AA3_UK9P0_zcwy5SQTR6JtdiD9foCHCUaIwVDEaybiSlrVM6o_0HPOYj6wf6-GTGr0T04lIBKZDAOK5wVYNF-Tpl_P1vI/s1600/MPh12,083A2.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 304px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504217151656564450" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifFnfr-3tB7J-CJeZ32qQS2hDGw4BL5K1MES5GjXcnv7kJFL3AA3_UK9P0_zcwy5SQTR6JtdiD9foCHCUaIwVDEaybiSlrVM6o_0HPOYj6wf6-GTGr0T04lIBKZDAOK5wVYNF-Tpl_P1vI/s400/MPh12,083A2.jpg" /></a><br />I’ll bet many of you spotted the picturesque ships on the Hudson River on June 6th, 2009. Member Paul Duddy did, and snapped these great photos for us. This nautical parade, called the Great River Day Flotilla, was part of the 2009 Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Celebration.<br /><br />Pretty as the ships were, when you know a little something about each one, you realize that they also represent the history of transportation on the Hudson River. For example, the ship you see above is a replica of Henry Hudson’s ship, the <em>Half Moon</em>. The original was commissioned by the Dutch East India Company in 1609 to hold a crew of 20 men. In this ship, Hudson sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and into the Delaware Bay before exploring our very own river in the hopes that it would connect with the Pacific Ocean. He sailed as far as Albany, opening up that spot for the first Dutch settlement in New York, which was established in 1614.<br /><br />This <a href="http://www.halfmoonreplica.org/">replica of the <em>Half Moon</em> </a>took a year to build. She was constructed at the Snow Dock in Albany and launched in June 1989. The vessel, based on extensive research on Hudson and Dutch East Indian Company ships, is 85 feet long on the deck and is powered by sails, with an additional modern motor. One of the flags flying from the masts is the flag of the original masters of the ship, the Dutch East Indian Company.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWtpfx5IgsMemz6bs-AjzV8Yl2RQT33Gn3e1Ys_pGMX0HlbU-CmLT0HcKqt_1wIB0kAy1jBM_aQAa3dMBtUG5GWH0Cnq8tChsfvU4wLckjSle7IlY5oumXLbR9mYQD_eyQDU37W1dEam9W/s1600/MPh12,083A5.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504217140054540498" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWtpfx5IgsMemz6bs-AjzV8Yl2RQT33Gn3e1Ys_pGMX0HlbU-CmLT0HcKqt_1wIB0kAy1jBM_aQAa3dMBtUG5GWH0Cnq8tChsfvU4wLckjSle7IlY5oumXLbR9mYQD_eyQDU37W1dEam9W/s400/MPh12,083A5.jpg" /></a><br />This ship is a replica of Adriaen Block’s ship, the <em>Onrust</em>, which means “restless” in English. The original <em>Onrust</em> was the first “decked vessel” built from the ground up on American soil. Block arrived from Amsterdam in the <em>Tyger</em>, but that ship was destroyed in a fire. Block built his new ship during the winter of 1614, possibly with help from the local Lenape tribes. It was in this vessel that Block sailed into the Long Island Sound and discovered the island later named after him.<br /><br />The <a href="http://www.theonrust.com/Welcome.html">replica of the <em>Onrust</em> </a>was built in Rotterdam Junction, New York, by New Netherland Routes, Inc. It is 42 feet long, and was built of white oak and pine using traditional 17th century Dutch ship-building techniques. Construction began in 2006 and was finished in 2009, just in time for the Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Celebration.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAejM6sWrPyBNN4v4zPAtZpdAvfSna2rGgX7hy1It32tB8lc2HG9AVLFvlaFUPyX3CthZ4c35DOtNSFJGoksKjUkJz85JpU1RdIEsomdaqTL4HpP5Av6idZkxPfOsuRPw2wj_FTlp9i1zQ/s1600/MPh12,083A3.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504217130621690146" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAejM6sWrPyBNN4v4zPAtZpdAvfSna2rGgX7hy1It32tB8lc2HG9AVLFvlaFUPyX3CthZ4c35DOtNSFJGoksKjUkJz85JpU1RdIEsomdaqTL4HpP5Av6idZkxPfOsuRPw2wj_FTlp9i1zQ/s400/MPh12,083A3.jpg" /></a><br />The <a href="http://www.clearwater.org/about/"><em>Clearwater</em> </a>is not a replica of an old ship, but it was modeled after the 18th and 19th century Dutch sailing sloops that dominated Hudson River trade until the arrival of the steamship. It was built in 1968 by the Harvey Gamage Shipyard in South Bristol, Maine. The Clearwater organization uses the ship for its educational programs that teach school groups and the public about the Hudson River ecosystem. In 2004 she was added to the National Register of Historic Places for the important part she played in the environmental movement.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj95lwCVH0PcCId3ZaRtqvqnrWfDyMt1Xzs6gIEIjcZIKfpw4n-SKT5BZC0-u2VyNlEEtHQ-gSAffBSP8FXo3bZltb-8p1K8Slo_un8w-bfKJpzEfs9cPRV3j_T6w9ZCL33l5AT-CEqlQ16/s1600/MPh12,083A4.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504217122932331074" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj95lwCVH0PcCId3ZaRtqvqnrWfDyMt1Xzs6gIEIjcZIKfpw4n-SKT5BZC0-u2VyNlEEtHQ-gSAffBSP8FXo3bZltb-8p1K8Slo_un8w-bfKJpzEfs9cPRV3j_T6w9ZCL33l5AT-CEqlQ16/s400/MPh12,083A4.jpg" /></a><br />The <a href="http://www.mysticwhalercruises.com/joomla/index.php/the-schooner"><em>Mystic Whaler</em> </a>is a reproduction of a late 19th-century New England coastal trading schooner. She was built in 1967 in Tarpon Springs, Florida and is 83 feet long, with both traditional sails and a modern diesel engine. This vessel is based in New London, CT, but she is regularly chartered by the Clearwater organization to help them reach more schools with their education programs.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi-NN9YIQqcoqZX0LeWEJflQBKWn0aO6AJUt7sp-xtMxveN1eNW0v43KzZzLlz0utLGbflAhdaTgNP8hFlU1vsTOg2vg2UwIYigp1QLdCcwHAd87XKVu7uPHgSWG4toqq5iHpAwQP6lLna/s1600/MPh12,083A6.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504217112392613874" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi-NN9YIQqcoqZX0LeWEJflQBKWn0aO6AJUt7sp-xtMxveN1eNW0v43KzZzLlz0utLGbflAhdaTgNP8hFlU1vsTOg2vg2UwIYigp1QLdCcwHAd87XKVu7uPHgSWG4toqq5iHpAwQP6lLna/s400/MPh12,083A6.jpg" /></a><br />And last but not least is the <em><a href="http://www.fireboat.org/">John J. Harvey</a></em>, the only ship here that is not a copy of an earlier vessel. This fireboat was launched in 1931 and has been in service almost ever since. She is one of the first fireboats on the New York waterways with a combustion engine, replacing the 1920s steam-powered fireboats. John J. Harvey himself was a fireboat pilot who died in the line of duty at a fire on the North River Piers in 1930. The ship named after him fought hundreds of fires on ships and piers all along the west side of Manhattan during its long years of service, including the 1942 fire that destroyed the ocean liner <em>Normandy</em>. The <em>John J. Harvey</em> was acquired by a preservation organization in 1999, and in 2000 she, too, was put on the National Register of Historic Places for her role in marine history.<br /><br />Now, there’s plenty of Hudson River history for you. And if you didn’t get a chance to see the flotilla, you can visit the <em>Half Moon</em> at the Hudson River Maritime Museum in Albany, the <em>Clearwater</em> in Beacon, and the <em>John J. Harvey</em> at Pier 63 near West 26th Street.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-9169091848633270962010-07-29T14:28:00.025-04:002010-07-29T14:51:28.255-04:00Bringing History to Life in the 1920s<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF1mJ94C00s37VlqbRXEKB8_jjGbyCmXp_-QBz6ZsNM5YtwmTtQlop4stAE1D1DkVwkSU2xMF17bn4DNL-5LeIP9G9Zqq8AfZaSRdZ-sFwQtuBcrrq4bS1lUGFoQ5TajYL0IaH-FsWFBJf/s1600/ChroniclePoca.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 304px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499398290214204866" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF1mJ94C00s37VlqbRXEKB8_jjGbyCmXp_-QBz6ZsNM5YtwmTtQlop4stAE1D1DkVwkSU2xMF17bn4DNL-5LeIP9G9Zqq8AfZaSRdZ-sFwQtuBcrrq4bS1lUGFoQ5TajYL0IaH-FsWFBJf/s400/ChroniclePoca.jpg" /></a><p align="center"><em>Pocahontas and John Rolfe, after their wedding in the Jamestown church, from</em> Jamestown<em>, one of the</em> Chronicles of America Photoplays<em>. </em></p>If you had been sitting in the Hastings school auditorium on Friday, September 16th, 1932, you might well have seen the wedding of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. It would have been in black and white, and without any sound – but at least there would have been movement, history brought to life on the silver screen.<br /><br />How do we know what a high schooler would have been doing on that particular day? Well, we were recently looking through the public school handbook for 1932-33, which is in our pamphlet file, and we became curious about several entries in the school calendar. Sandwiched between the G.O. elections and the Aloha Club dance are three days where the scheduled activity is “Chronicles of America”. A quick google supplied the information that the <em>Chronicles of America Photoplays</em> were films on American history. This series of fifteen silent movies, with titles like <em>The Pilgrims</em>, <em>Peter Stuyvesant</em>, <em>The Declaration of Independence</em>, <em>Dixie</em>, and <em>The Frontier Woman</em>, was one of the earliest educational film series. It was produced between 1923 and 1924 by Vitagraph Studios in Flatbush, Brooklyn, a studio established in 1906 that has been called the “first modern motion picture plant in the country.”<br /><br />The real Hastings connection here is a person – Arthur E. Krows, who was scenario editor at the Vitagraph company. Krows wrote the scripts for the first two films in the series, <em>Columbus</em> and <em>Jamestown</em>. Krows lived on Farragut Avenue, directly across from the school, with his wife, known to the entire town as an animal lover and host to all the stray dogs and cats in the neighborhood. Krows’ brother was “Doc” Earl Krows, a local dentist, who lived on Euclid Avenue. It seems likely that Arthur Krows was the man responsible for obtaining, or encouraging the school to obtain, copies of the film reels to show to students.<br /><br />The <em>Chronicles of America Photoplays</em> were based on a set of books called <em>Chronicles of America</em> published by Yale University Press between 1918 and 1922. “This series of fifty volumes,” declared the publishers, “is designed to tell the story of the United States, as it has never before been told… to present the entire history of our country in living form, so related that the reader will be given a real vision of his country from the beginning to the present day." And almost as soon as the first volumes went to press, the publishers had the idea of developing accompanying films that would further the goal of bringing history to life.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb_jGcOu7so10SdJaa3yGNZXpWcktiViFcud4fgxuxBe2PYIu-7qb2Atj0U40qLtSIOjZeY7o-u7RWKPHqcpAya6eTfOMmBIPEU8oRVeSRBYDc15JWSREWRZ7gQipEaVT762Qte4KNteT9/s1600/ChroniclesStuyv.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 308px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499398291981547650" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb_jGcOu7so10SdJaa3yGNZXpWcktiViFcud4fgxuxBe2PYIu-7qb2Atj0U40qLtSIOjZeY7o-u7RWKPHqcpAya6eTfOMmBIPEU8oRVeSRBYDc15JWSREWRZ7gQipEaVT762Qte4KNteT9/s400/ChroniclesStuyv.jpg" /></a> <p align="center"><em>Director-General Peter Stuyvesant gives way to fury as the Councilors urge him to accept the English terms for surrendering the Colony of New Amsterdam, from the film</em> Peter Stuyvesant<em>.</em></p>The publishers contacted Krows at Vitagraph, who was enthusiastic about the project and agreed to become secretary of the Chronicles of America Picture Corporation, a joint venture between Yale University and Vitagraph. He set to work on the first two scripts and made arrangements for filming to begin. Richard Koszarski in his 2008 book <em>Hollywood on the Hudson: Film and Television in New York from Griffith to Sarnoff</em> describes the process. “Production soon began on <em>Columbus</em>, and the company was lucky enough to locate a full-scale reconstruction of the <em>Santa Maria</em> that had been floating in Chicago’s Jackson Park Lagoon since the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Although the <em>Nina</em> and the <em>Pinta</em> were by now considerably beyond repair, the <em>Santa Maria</em> was towed out into Lake Michigan for a few impressive establishing shots. Back in New York, an estate at Mount Kisco doubled for the palace of King John of Portugal, the La Rabida monastery was shot in Huntington, and beach scenes showing Queen Isabella’s messenger overtaking Columbus were filmed along the shores of Montauk. Interiors were built at the Vitagraph studio in Flatbush.”<br /><br />The book series took history from the Indians to the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Vitagraph was able to produce only fifteen films out of the proposed forty, and only got as far as the Revolutionary War before the combination of incredibly high production costs, conflict between the historian/editors and the filmmakers, and the collapse of the Vitagraph studio brought an end to the photoplays. (Arthur Krows himself resigned as secretary of the Chronicles of America Picture Corporation after an argument over changes that the Yale historians wanted to make in his scripts.)<br /><br />But though the films may not have recouped their costs, they were popular enough with museums, schools, and local clubs that they helped establish a real market for educational film. As late as the 1950s, prints were still being circulated by various institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Pathe company, and in 1941 the <em>Chronicles of America Photoplays</em> became the first documentary film series to be shown on American television.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgflutQW7axAEtljypFH-Dbjhwxhhnn7me_eZv6OIowU7dK-1o3btE6YKRX93HZN5cHQnvnbejeR0Yh-sZ3oRb1y1wOrLFrEhX_1uPSF7nBK7E5hxuc1STyBiXYfioVIV6AQXSpa9DB0d49/s1600/ChroniclesCongress.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 302px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499398300062679442" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgflutQW7axAEtljypFH-Dbjhwxhhnn7me_eZv6OIowU7dK-1o3btE6YKRX93HZN5cHQnvnbejeR0Yh-sZ3oRb1y1wOrLFrEhX_1uPSF7nBK7E5hxuc1STyBiXYfioVIV6AQXSpa9DB0d49/s400/ChroniclesCongress.jpg" /></a> <p align="center"><em>Congress assembled in Independence Hall on June 7, 1776 to vote on a resolution for independence, from the film </em>The Declaration of Independence<em>.</em></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-83126947657371380102010-07-23T14:37:00.028-04:002010-07-23T16:44:12.446-04:00Hastings’ First Female Doctor<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/4821202541/in/photostream/"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 296px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497172853325562130" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtP98BsTQtxCBCbiOq0UdCAJgh9bsak7GQrhVEgmyiO_S_r33B0FecRJRW7VIIk4SS_NwS7iZ5kIIJ-udrK2LGI2K_XthEw2aysA8pVqvD_w_iSbbVFZHRqRL0vl6hGNh8TYQyHZbviHjt/s400/DrCurryPhAl28L13a.jpg" /></a><p align="center"><em>Sarah Elizabeth "Lizzie" Curry, probably taken in the 1880s. </em></p><em>Do you find obituaries depressing? But you never know what fascinating lives lie behind these short paragraphs! Take a look at this obituary from the</em> Yonkers Herald Statesman <em>of 1932.</em><br /><br />“Hastings-on-Hudson, May 31 – Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Curry, one of the oldest woman doctors in the country, died at her home here yesterday after a long illness. Dr. Curry, who lived at 219 Thompkins Avenue, was in her late seventies. Born in New York, the daughter of the late Francis M. and Mary Lane Curry, she moved to Hastings at an early age. Because the Curry home was on the Yonkers-Hastings line, she attended School One in Yonkers for a number of years before continuing her education in Chappaqua and Pennington Seminary. She was graduated from the <a href="http://www.homeoint.org/cazalet/histo/newyork.htm">Women’s Medical College </a>in New York and after practicing in that city, returned here to enter general practice. She retired about 15 years ago because of poor health. She is survived by her brother, Town Judge Frank E. Curry of Greenburgh, and a number of nieces and nephews. ... Burial will be in the family plot in Mount Hope Cemetery.”<br /><br /><em>Bare bones, indeed—but intriguing! A few comments in the oral histories done for the Historical Society by Vira Curry McNiece, Sarah’s niece, fill in some of the details.<br /></em><br />“There was a carriage house on the property that was quite a distance from the house. It housed a two-seater carriage and a buggy. It had a flight of stairs that wound upstairs where the walls were plastered. That’s where school was held. Some of the children around attended, as did my mother. My doctor aunt taught there for a while after my grandfather died while she was waiting for her inheritance.<br /><br />Later she practiced somewhere in New York, and then she came home and commuted on the old Putnam Railroad, going down every morning and coming back in the evenings. Still later she had her office at our house in Hastings. She charged 50 cents for office visits. I don’t think she had too large a practice, but she made lots of house calls—for $1.00 each—in her horse and buggy. She had quite a few patients in northern Yonkers and on Washington Avenue in Hastings. [Both lower income neighborhoods (Ed).] She was a homeopathic doctor. She lived to be 76 when she died of cancer.”<br /><br /><em>We’d love to know more about Dr. Lizzie. Anything we discover, we’ll share with you!<br /></em><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/4821202445/"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 296px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497172845952484418" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Hh_pb64jtIth4Y2uwZpKlFB1qgxSevV0ioh8m9gdfIWSUqr8ETnhD3uRS74tJmQ5AB0oauQ5a6-zflXCMVeVMVSBEREBHt1M54no2K1pVtbXWgZw06ezJLo1Lj11V54rgn7OQHpAwvzn/s400/DrCurryLPh6771B.jpg" /></a><p align="center"><em>June 1894 graduating class of the <a href="http://www.homeoint.org/cazalet/histo/newyork.htm">New York Medical College and Hospital for Women</a>, a homeopathic institution incorporated under the University of the State of New York in 1863. Sarah is the tallest woman standing in the back row, framed by the central arch. This was the first place in New York City where a woman could study medicine and, until 1918, the only hospital that accepted female interns. When Sarah attended it, the school was located near Carnegie Hall.</em></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-63008137055050647882010-07-15T14:27:00.012-04:002010-07-15T15:30:12.398-04:00Mystery Photograph: Church Ladies?<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/4796570039/in/photostream/"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 387px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494201996800946178" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKb1jnr4Pvl-zudyT-Es_f5lCHEVgeqTjooZM_82faqM7t6BUKcVAKP8AsuPBz94dX4_7sRhTExnzXHXIA5nWnQcqjWkjztF_QrYM99Qx4LMEzBN5SB9e4GtYgd48Br3TR35U_3CSRfE1Z/s400/MPh12,047A1.jpg" /></a><br />Remember the <a href="http://hastingshistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2010/06/josephine-selvaggio-hastings-commuter.html">young commuter </a>from the June 24th post whose name was Josephine Selvaggio? Well, the years have rolled by, and you see her here on the far left of a group of seven senior citizens, with one gentleman standing at the back. They are posed on Main Street, right outside the Youth Center. Behind them is the church of St. Stanislaus Kostka, where Josephine married Joaquim Dos Santos in 1926. This is another of the items given to us by Josephine’s son, Louis Dos Santos. It might have been taken in the late 1960s or early 1970s.<br /><br />Can you help us with the identifications? Is this a group of ladies from the church? It is a senior citizen group on their way to the Youth Center? Josephine did volunteer at the Hillside School. Could these ladies all be school volunteers? What are the names of the other women, and who is the man behind them? Click on the photograph to look at it more closely in Flickr. Any and all suggestions gratefully appreciated!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-12366335555105888802010-07-08T14:01:00.002-04:002010-07-10T14:21:06.927-04:00A Fourth of July Parade – 1910s style<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/4780008327/"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 272px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5492340168671972434" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrs5oXXL1MFtU2Tk9ZpUU-De28HO4c_4O8Vpt51OLSWbaF-UKAw6_6CrDHu5cfyIgqO9SyWtSdLfb2ebzJmZUZjtqFTx14jXUkDCcJMOQmPVAW9mNkmHwbCKDTS18V9sZhKP4_JyIzPGFs/s400/July4Ph06129A2J.jpg" /></a><br /><em>In 1941, long-time Hastings resident Stephen Zebrock wrote a column for the</em> Hastings News <em>called “Main Street Through the Years.” In this column, he set down everything he could remember about his childhood in Hastings in the late 1910s. This week, we thought you might like to read what Stephen wrote about Fourth of July parades. (The photographs that illustrate this post are from the 1914 parade. For more information, click on a specific photograph.)</em><br /><br />“Parades were really an event in our lives. A Fourth of July parade would have every kid in the village agog for weeks in advance. Who would march in it? Which band would lead? Where would they start? Ann and I and Margaret and Emma Rimar would awake at six A.M. actually waiting! Finally at eight o’clock or so we’d rush downstairs, wash up, dress, and dash out into the front yard.<br /><br />My father had built a large picket fence insuring privacy and also a box-seat view of any Main Street proceedings. A hundred precautions to keep our clothes clean, and we’d finally hear distant drums beating…. The parade was coming! Across Warburton Avenue Bridge, we could see the gaily-colored stream of people marching toward us. There they were—going up Main Street.<br /><br />Look! There’s Louie [Zebrock, Stephen’s older brother], and Steve Snyder, Joe Meyer, and other members of Hastings Brass Band. There too was Mr. [John] Prince, Kitty’s father. Next came Capt. [William] Cronell, looking like a general out of a history book, at the head of our police force. Then came the school children (no one under the fifth grade was allowed to march) all decked out in their finest, all the girls showing their newly-made curls (after a night of torture). …<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/4780008597/in/photostream/"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 224px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5492340175835311794" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcYW2dJpT1cflAUdEqspoG37aqMooKqOUT9ZJ2Pro_zaI-kpRly4DbczzZnC7djUtgUxQH5R-APiBeL9X-WdTHRzH54-F1AUf_o_So-aaNZc082umaMwBbG0QvKh5EE3-8Othq9mmsZQap/s400/July4Ph06130A2.jpg" /></a><br />Next in line came some of the teachers. I recognized Miss [Kate] Crane, Miss [Agnes] McLave, Laura Caffyn, Mae Devery, Emma Van Nostrand, Grace Harlow, Margaret Waldbillig, Grace Sylvester, Mary Toole, Miss Senn (my teacher) and Mr. Peters, the Manual Training teacher. Our new principal, Mr. [H.H.] Murphy, lead this contingent. Following the teachers came some of our well-known and most popular citizens: A.W. Bevers, C.C. Delanoy, John Lawler, Jas. Magee, Dr. H.C. Sherman, Frederick Zinsser [owner of Zinsser Chemical Company on the waterfront], Dr. W.J. Doerfler, Louis Limekiller, and Nicholas Cook.<br /><br />The Hastings Girl Scouts following the Boy Scouts took a round of applause. The Hungarian, Russian, Italian, Irish, and other local societies were well-represented, their native flags side by side with the American Flag.<br /><br />About this time my mother would leave the kitchen to join Aunt Vera, Uncle John, my father, Mr. and Mrs. Szabo, and, generally, the proprietor of our home, Mr. Wagner, and his family. The parade stretched on, there were four or five different kinds of bands—from Uniontown, the Manor, from ‘the Juvenile Home’ up the Hill, and at least two or three brass bands. Finally, only a gang of kids trailed by…. The parade was over.<br /><br />At the holiday spread, the one topic of conversation was the parade. “Didn’t Captain Cronell look dignified. Didn’t our Louis play better than all the rest? Wasn’t Mildred Young pretty in that girl scout uniform. Bill Hogan looked like a real captain. And the new dress on Kathlyne Collins! Mr. Zinsser looked like a Major in that uniform. And did you notice Dr. Doerfler marching?” This was a sample of the talk around the dinner table. We didn’t know whether to eat or talk. After all, didn’t everyone in the village turn out? And hadn’t people come for miles just to see our parade? Darn tootin! A parade in Hastings was an event in those days.”<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/4780008887/in/photostream/"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 273px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5492340179891165890" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLe5VmjVpYgOdo3MyGBih4v6DpxWCIpRtVBj1kSd9YZOHu7oYO5L9r4nrhzQkaI61cfJzCI3GsxCxEOzQu0e1iFrk3szSWbTP7IF_yWvDkV_OkvE5afG7p2EMpRGa0q3eAWyUgWEsiZfRY/s400/July4Ph6248A2.jpg" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-34475801259808606732010-07-01T15:32:00.021-04:002010-07-01T16:04:32.050-04:00Heads Up – It’s the Hindenburg!<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/4752970268/"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 281px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489025337823060226" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigNJaQBP8HFs27MKq-5RbvmOF5lJ4y6QG6n6gb6mA3EYmWACWWw93It3eomKx_ID0Z309uBLpt8wn089p8E0knuUCDceemWz7eN54kCJLTVhSdO-ArBBq0Tll6QjJw5KZIER_lRgQMyPES/s400/hindenburgNewScan5.jpg" /></a><br />On the 9th of October 1936, retired chemist and camera buff A.C. Langmuir of 383 Broadway set up his camera to take a photograph of the zeppelin <em>Hindenburg</em> hovering above the Anaconda Wire & Cable Company on the waterfront. The same day, the following article appeared in the Yonkers Statesman under the title “Thousands Here View Hindenburg.”<br /><br />“Thousands of Yonkers residents, craning their necks skyward and shading their eyes against a blazing sun, got their first view of the giant dirigible <em>Hindenburg</em> today.<br /><br />The glistening German trans-Atlantic air liner was clearly visible in detail, from beaming nose to the colorful Nazi swastika on its tail. Its motors humming, the Zeppelin dipped low over the city, after making a graceful crossing from New Jersey and entering over South Yonkers. The flying level was estimated at 700 feet.<br /><br />The passage over this city began at 8:50 A.M., about half an hour past schedule. Aboard were a party of commercial men, making an observation tour of Westchester County’s western sector, and prepared to cruise over New England, returning down the Long Island Sound and eastern Westchester this afternoon.<br /><br />The dirigible glided north, over Hastings, Dobbs Ferry, Ardsley, Irvington, the Tarrytowns, Ossining, and Peekskill. Then it turned east toward Danbury, Conn. It was then to continue on a roughly elliptical course to Boston, and then return via Brockton, Providence, New Haven and Bridgeport, passing then over Port Chester and Mount Vernon.”<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1ukVTc8ZqwhYGN2If2Tx1nvvrEkv9wesI4YHxtxbXxB-cDKhIYstA7IMwJfCr6LweuD9nlJoi4VQxEH02XJ-pB1z_TqLR4QEg33hjsiZrgU85kx2GNW0hUnzLkICCmib3pJUQAhnBLwHG/s1600/HindenMap.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 312px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489025333451130306" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1ukVTc8ZqwhYGN2If2Tx1nvvrEkv9wesI4YHxtxbXxB-cDKhIYstA7IMwJfCr6LweuD9nlJoi4VQxEH02XJ-pB1z_TqLR4QEg33hjsiZrgU85kx2GNW0hUnzLkICCmib3pJUQAhnBLwHG/s400/HindenMap.jpg" /></a> <p align="center"><em>Map from the</em> New York Times <em>showing the route of the</em> Hindenburg's <em>10-hour cruise.</em></p><br />The residents of Yonkers were not the only enthusiastic spectators – every inhabitant of every city that the zeppelin passed over was amazed at the vision of the <em>Hindenburg</em> hovering above them. Factory whistles blew to alert the residents to its arrival in a new town. Planes circled around the liner and dipped in salute. Schools recessed, and the children ran about in the streets shouting so loudly that they could be heard on the zeppelin itself. The <em>New York Times</em> reported that a Newark man had actually died after falling through a skylight while stepping back to get a better view!<br /><br />And this was no surprise, for the <em>Hindenburg</em> was, and still is, the largest airship ever built. The Camden, NJ paper called her the “Queen of the Skies.” She was built for commercial passenger and mail service, and boasted a dining room, lounge, and writing room designed by the same artist who designed the interiors of ocean liners and luxury trains. The ship could carry up to 72 passengers, and for the trans-Atlantic service from Germany to the U.S. the tickets were $400 each (about $6,300 in 2010 dollars). As you might imagine, the passengers were mostly the very wealthy – politicians, athletes, entertainers, and industrialists.<br /><br />The “Nazi swastika” on the tail end of the zeppelin may seem a little surprising for a commercial passenger carrier. It probably wouldn’t have been there if Dr. Hugo Eckener, chairman of the company that built the zeppelin, had had anything to say about it. It was Eckener who had insisted on naming his zeppelin after the former president of Germany, and not, as the Nazi propaganda office had instructed him, after Adolf Hitler. For this error, the German newspapers were not permitted to use Eckener’s name in any article they wrote about the airship. In Hitler’s Germany, the state ran the airships in partnership with Dr. Eckener’s company. Both the <em>Hindenburg</em> and the <em>Graf Zeppelin</em> were used for propaganda purposes in Germany, flying around the country dropping leaflets and broadcasting political speeches.<br /><br />In 1936, the first year of its operation, the <em>Hindenburg</em> made 10 trips across the Atlantic. In October of that year it had reached the end of its official season. The flight over Hastings was part of a special 10-hour cruise before the ship returned to Germany for the winter. Its purpose was two-fold: to inspect sites for future airship air fields and to get the heads of America’s biggest corporations interested in the commercial possibilities of airship travel. Among the 84 passengers invited on the trip were Nelson Rockefeller, the presidents of Chrysler, Packard, and De Soto, and the president of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. (Could this ride have inspired Goodyear’s future affection for blimps?) Every guest was enthusiastic over the smooth and comfortable trip. When the ship returned to its birth at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, Dr. Eckener was able to tell the press that “progress had been made toward the financing of two big rigid airships in this country.”<br /><br />But almost exactly seven months later, for reasons still not fully explained, the <em>Hindenburg</em> crashed at Lakehurst airfield, killing 35 of the 97 people onboard. This disaster was so horrific that it brought the age of commercial airship travel to an abrupt end. Two days later, the <em>Graf Zeppelin</em> was grounded, and in 1940 the brand new <em>Graf Zeppelin II</em> was dismantled.<br /><br />But on that clear day in October when A.C. Langmuir set up his camera to snap the photograph at the top of this article, the future of the zeppelin looked bright. Langmuir and the thousands of other people who saw the <em>Hindenburg</em> must have thought they were looking at the dawn of a new age – the glorious hydrogen-filled future of air travel.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic6JUEtbKDsqnXlcwtDYic0_RlzZ4Fx1vr32Z3_Njx3lRe-jM-uB-Ljc1I6wntCdsHQSmODS1zL98XR_sIaH1dFAy-sm4T8BmIq5ZmxYeu6BhY09L2zUCoc9xRVt7URv79CLggqENrX-tq/s1600/hindenburgYonkers.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 322px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489025320626207186" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic6JUEtbKDsqnXlcwtDYic0_RlzZ4Fx1vr32Z3_Njx3lRe-jM-uB-Ljc1I6wntCdsHQSmODS1zL98XR_sIaH1dFAy-sm4T8BmIq5ZmxYeu6BhY09L2zUCoc9xRVt7URv79CLggqENrX-tq/s400/hindenburgYonkers.jpg" /></a> <p align="center"><em>Photograph from the October 9, 1936 article in the Yonkers</em> Statesman<em>.</em></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-1009376848965781132010-06-24T14:41:00.037-04:002016-07-07T10:12:37.455-04:00Josephine Selvaggio: Hastings Commuter<br />
After last week’s post, it seems appropriate to introduce you to one of the Hastings commuters who brought the floors of Grand Central Station to such a state of disrepair. Her name is Josephine Selvaggio of 22 Main Street, Hastings-on-Hudson, and she is 25 years old. It is 1926, and Josephine works as a secretary for Commercial Investment Trust (now CIT) of Manhattan.<br />
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Josephine was born in Palermo, Italy, in 1901, and arrived in Hastings with her parents when she was nine. Her father was a shoemaker and opened a shoe store on Main Street. In 1921 she received a card in a handy holder, certifying to her expertise on the Remington typewriter (see below). It notes that she is a student at Hasting High School.<br />
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But Josephine left school before graduation so she could help her parents with expenses. Graduating from high school, as she would later write in her short memoire <em>Reminiscing Hastings</em>, was a luxury that not everyone could afford in the 1920s. And so she went to work for Commercial Investment Trust.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/4730483855/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5486412899929156130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Aha5x0AvKtqkJClZHC3Duhka5UNWs0s1reU5UW5NTAdCQhH-uc-BHikwI9Vhk02QPXK4BS4OHtCW8-zUiQ0v8pqJP2xiLGi78QZATs4KUsDAqHmuJZMQrfU3AcXt4PW_7lJTxlCUT4BU/s320/JosephineSelvaggio.jpg" style="display: block; height: 257px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/?saved=1"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5486412697025895362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyWBL76qhqOijEHN3V5L6wLqitN81L4C_6aze9jROrHkNuDL59F_Vjk-gu_b7UwMJwroZcHzTq5s45EVyboJQBxJSXtAT4Au01fOHZcQkZ4GCfA6AraC_F4q0DEV-GJuS6cUigQCIvt64s/s400/RemingtonSelvaggioJ.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 324px;" /></a> <br />
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<em>Certificate of Efficiency awarded by the Remington Typewriter Company to Josephine Selvaggio, a student in the Hastings-on-Hudson High School, on Nov. 14, 1921. The certificate notes that she "has written on a Remington typewriter at a net speed of 49 words per minute for ten consecutive minutes."</em></div>
But it is not her job, but her train ticket (see below) that certifies Josephine as a genuine commuter. Like all the best things, the commuter is an American invention, brought about by the expansion of the railway system. In 1848 passengers on the New Jersey train were offered a convenient 8-trip ticket that was cheaper than 8 individual tickets would have been. It was called a commutation ticket, taking its name from the verb “commute,” meaning to exchange something for something else, in this case eight tickets for a single ticket.<br />
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By 1926, when Josephine was traveling back and forth to New York City, you could buy a “monthly commutation ticket”—in this case for the month of October. Why might Josephine have preserved this one particular train pass? The answer might lie in the date. On November 21 of 1926, Josephine Selvaggio married Joaquim Dos Santos at Saint Stanislaus Koska Church in Hastings. Just before their marriage, she took Joaquim to work with her.<br />
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“When I got married, I took my husband to meet everyone at work," she later told a local reporter. "They asked him ‘Why don’t you let Josephine stay here?’ But he said ‘No, she’s worked enough. She can be at home now.’ I came home and I cried.”<br />
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When Josephine was much older, she went into business for herself doing typing and typesetting under the name of the Hastings Letter Service. But throughout her life she preserved this, her last commuter train pass. This ticket and the typing certificate were donated to the Historical Society by her son Louis in 2009.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/4730483855/"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5486412691851576226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyphGoE95mWjDXdFIgRBiXF9lwp-tLXfsmd2ndRb2hvPzG_5akxAF_L-L_Lf52haipnPeRTphVbBA2EgRcTum3rMHKNseJwoRMgXDHzbaWC6aOeDJ50KBD1M4tujhV4iojIUi80_RTAybz/s400/TrainTicketJ.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 122px;" /></a> <br />
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<em>Monthly Commutation Ticket for J. Selvaggio for October of 1926 with holder including her photograph. The ticket was good only for travel between New York and Hastings-on-Hudson, and cost $8.31.</em></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-44232908771888200662010-06-17T14:01:00.021-04:002010-06-17T14:26:56.362-04:00Watch Where You Step!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8K2xWMaXECJO0D_5hb7g1etrVa7O_Zp2_LXKRqEOtET7Hyv3D6zp95W_fG0qjmLks4pD-Mtpeh7-AiikocjrDkOsHOcBfAamj-p9e6cSTWrWabrrGBvyIL8Hae7fzurSUQ09kqInmxcyl/s1600/GC2.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 337px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483805078065271682" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8K2xWMaXECJO0D_5hb7g1etrVa7O_Zp2_LXKRqEOtET7Hyv3D6zp95W_fG0qjmLks4pD-Mtpeh7-AiikocjrDkOsHOcBfAamj-p9e6cSTWrWabrrGBvyIL8Hae7fzurSUQ09kqInmxcyl/s400/GC2.jpg" /></a><br /><em>Now we all know, of course, that the fabulous figures of Mercury flanked by Minerva and Hercules that frame the Grand Central clock were carved by Hastings sculptor John Donnelly. This week on the blog, however, we ask you to look not up, but down. We recently read this little article about the flooring of Grand Central Station in the “Mileposts” newsletter published by the MTA Metro-North Railroad. Wondering what this has to do with Hastings? Well, next time you are in Grand Central, think about how much pressure your feet put on the floor—and ask yourself how many Hastings commuters have been walking the same path since Grand Central opened in 1913!</em><br /><br />At Grand Central, our five-year program to restore and repair the broken and cracked marble tiles and terrazzo sections of the Terminal’s floor continues. We’ve just finished the second year of this program; we are repairing about 5% a year to minimize disruption to the 700,000 people who pass through the Terminal each day. (We expect this rehabilitation project to be completed in 2012.)<br /><br />Depending on the area of the Terminal that needs repairs, we have been replacing broken tiles with either newly quarried Tennessee pink marble ones or with custom terrazzo panels (a type of flooring consisting of marble chips set in cement or epoxy resin that is poured and ground smooth when dry). (About 25% of the floor needs replacement – we’re talking about some 45,000 square feet of Tennessee pink marble and 67,000 square feet of terrazzo that will be installed.) The very process of chiseling out the broken floor sections and then setting in new ones is difficult enough, but the hardest task is the acquisition, selection, and emplacement of the marble and terrazzo so that it is indistinguishable from the original, adjacent sections.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtEbYAO3n69fJZloL1m6sc8eenndtBTDQf70TfnDxy-rjkhOfoYgYL7oya-uOhHhhJIAL0Em7ieb46PUSP2_yhOX7poZ8IecXpIBSCJQEBUjsgaVljPpY8xA0DnharrRlZek1URu7tEno0/s1600/marble.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 225px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483805067069082210" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtEbYAO3n69fJZloL1m6sc8eenndtBTDQf70TfnDxy-rjkhOfoYgYL7oya-uOhHhhJIAL0Em7ieb46PUSP2_yhOX7poZ8IecXpIBSCJQEBUjsgaVljPpY8xA0DnharrRlZek1URu7tEno0/s400/marble.jpg" /></a> <p align="center"><em>New sections of Tennessee pink marble in the center of Grand Central Station’s Main Concourse.</em></p>To acquire an exact match of the Tennessee pink marble, we went to the quarry from which the original stone was cut. It had been closed since the late 1980s, but the owners agreed to reopen it so that Grand Central Terminal could attain identical marble to that of the original. The original slabs of marble were placed just 1/16th of an inch apart. This tight fit, however, left little room for “give” when the building vibrates due to trains traveling on the Terminal’s loop tracks (which actually run behind the famous Oyster Bar). The replacement slabs are placed with double the space between them. The 1/8th inch separation that is now the standard is invisible to the casual eye and will prevent cracking.<br /><br />To duplicate the original terrazzo’s unique color and make-up is more challenging, as the original “mixture recipe” was lost to history. So a laborious and exacting process of trial and error ensued with multiple mixtures, combinations, and processes until, finally, a perfect color match was achieved. (Like Kentucky Fried Chicken, we keep the new written recipe for this perfect mixture a secret, and in a secure, locked drawer within Grand Central.)<br /><br />The terrazzo slabs, which are actually softer and more prone to wear and cracking than the Tennessee pink marble, now have an almost imperceptible brass border on all sides. This stops any cracks that have developed in one slab, from transferring to the next slab … and then the next.<br /><br />You can try looking for the new and shiny sections of the Terminal’s floor, but you won’t find them, thanks to the meticulous work of a our master stone masons.<br /><br />(Reprinted with permission of Metro-North Railroad)<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCQirgIBBLTcZ9wfTcsUff0tbATJP66vp0t5XQqnhwDHAvISLOAwT8g0KxoePgoGUD13c9I7Yt8zivt9lQFZSwaqnXZhgi9potEfjL1vIzaXZmQrHn64mC1fSVjgt_QEW-JH7SI_CyVsL3/s1600/terrazzo.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 225px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483805053437605922" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCQirgIBBLTcZ9wfTcsUff0tbATJP66vp0t5XQqnhwDHAvISLOAwT8g0KxoePgoGUD13c9I7Yt8zivt9lQFZSwaqnXZhgi9potEfjL1vIzaXZmQrHn64mC1fSVjgt_QEW-JH7SI_CyVsL3/s400/terrazzo.jpg" /></a><p align="center"><em>New sections of terrazzo in two different shades with brass border, set into the areas on the east and west sides of Grand Central Station’s Main Concourse.</em></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-6498484754465990782010-06-12T12:14:00.019-04:002010-06-12T12:34:06.148-04:00Mark Your Calendars! Moonwatch Friday, June 18, in Draper Park<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwaykqwImQRris4cRm20ya2i3mQcyQ4Zfxty1_K12o40Az33ryyszUkQwHPoiE_qXsQFK6E6nNXodkwdaJ9DAkxSKB6KgleBtfJ7MHHxe7u8dpZJdjtOZQoXWGRTexImexct_D7MCCYrtg/s1600/Moon1.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 389px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481923528183392034" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwaykqwImQRris4cRm20ya2i3mQcyQ4Zfxty1_K12o40Az33ryyszUkQwHPoiE_qXsQFK6E6nNXodkwdaJ9DAkxSKB6KgleBtfJ7MHHxe7u8dpZJdjtOZQoXWGRTexImexct_D7MCCYrtg/s400/Moon1.jpg" /></a> <p align="center"><em>Photograph of the moon highlighting the Mare Imbrium. The small white circle underneath the center of the Mare Imbrium is the Capricorn crater.</em> </p>The Hastings Historical Society in conjunction with a group of local amateur astronomers presents a sky viewing for the whole family at 9PM on Friday, June 18th, in Draper Park. Draper Park is accessible via the Historical Society driveway at 407 Broadway, just south of Washington Avenue. Telescopes will be available, along with knowledgeable astronomers, but you are welcome to bring your own telescope, too. There are no lights in Draper Park, which makes looking at the heavens easier. But we do recommend that you bring a flashlight with you so you can see your way. The event is free and open to the public. If it is raining on Friday, the Moonwatch will take place at the same time on Saturday. For more information, call the Historical Society at 478-2249.<br /><br />We are told by astronomers in the know that the conditions on Friday will be perfect for viewing the Draper crater, named after Henry Draper, whose observatory in Draper Park is the Historical Society’s home. (For more about Henry Draper and his landmark pictures of the moon, <a href="http://hastingshistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2009/04/opening-april-26th-milestones-in_22.html">click here</a>.) There are actually two Draper craters, referred to as “Draper” and “Draper C”. They are next to each other and of similar size and are called twin craters. These two cup-shaped depressions on the surface of the moon were made by the impact of an asteroid or some similar celestial projectile. Each of these craters is about five miles in diameter and one mile deep, so if we ever decide to move Hastings and Dobbs Ferry lunarside, we could probably squeeze them both into the Draper crater.<br /><br />These two “small” craters are at the very southern edge of the Mare Imbrium, which, translated from the Latin, means “Sea of Showers.” The moon has many “maria”, inappropriately named by early astronomers who thought they were real seas full of water. They are, in fact, huge, dark basalt planes made by the eruption of lava onto the moon’s surface. The Mare Imbrium’s circular shape is the result of an object hitting the moon’s surface and leaving behind a crater, which was later filled with lava. This “sea” is almost 700 miles in diameter. On the Earth, a crater this size would encompass New York state, Pennsylvania, most of Virginia, and all of New England except the northern tip of Maine. The impact of this huge object on the moon created several ridges of 4-mile-high mountains along the edge of the crater, and is thought to have caused a series of faults across the entire surface of the moon. In 1971, Apollo 15 landed in the Mare Imbrium and, based on rock samples it collected, scientists have dated the original impact that created the “sea” to 3.85 billion years ago.<br /><br />If you want to get a good look at the Mare Imbrium, the Draper craters, and other lunar features, join us for the Moonwatch next Friday!<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv1xxWv8wszkdY_wc3SqAE8pDl28SZ4_qqcmUfa-8m_EkCsbNQFhkdF51QW4QcUsMO1BGunXiiedc3Q-7RiEUDNB2nrnAchfVolO8EmQLn3ekwRl1gwkZnwPB0ZY0EwvB12AmjrY5pn6Y-/s1600/Moon2.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 321px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481923522932290626" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv1xxWv8wszkdY_wc3SqAE8pDl28SZ4_qqcmUfa-8m_EkCsbNQFhkdF51QW4QcUsMO1BGunXiiedc3Q-7RiEUDNB2nrnAchfVolO8EmQLn3ekwRl1gwkZnwPB0ZY0EwvB12AmjrY5pn6Y-/s400/Moon2.jpg" /></a> <p align="center"><em>Photograph of the moon showing the Copernicus crater, the “Carpathian Mountains” that mark the southern edge of the Mare Imbrium, and, at the very top of the photograph, the twin Draper craters. (Image used with permission of the Regional Planetary Image Facility, Lunar and Planetary Institute, University Space Research Association, Houston, TX.)</em></p>The Hastings Historical Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16009201276849333251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-50922457511166413852010-06-03T14:03:00.017-04:002010-06-03T15:15:34.039-04:00Slideshow this Sunday: A Voyage up the Hudson in Historic Photographs<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ8R-Vo64I5NOhMFIt2rZzWkZ-iiYkOiMrtsvu9i8CqET_67y_qhMZBQa6AR4QEPURpzFAvi5L6y3Y1rxKkqS-qeVdSoVAYP0Mt6NXXPX6Q5Xd9RVtylbf9Qf7GBz-gEdz_8B24h4VuIMX/s1600/Peluso2.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 226px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478614237123380082" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ8R-Vo64I5NOhMFIt2rZzWkZ-iiYkOiMrtsvu9i8CqET_67y_qhMZBQa6AR4QEPURpzFAvi5L6y3Y1rxKkqS-qeVdSoVAYP0Mt6NXXPX6Q5Xd9RVtylbf9Qf7GBz-gEdz_8B24h4VuIMX/s400/Peluso2.jpg" /></a> <p align="center"><em>Palisades from Englewood Landing (repairing shad net), ca. 1870</em></p>The Historical Society’s annual meetings are important but painless affairs, generally lasting from 5 to 10 minutes. Then we get to sit back and relax and enjoy a great lecture or concert, which is always free and open to the public.<br /><br />This year we are combining our efforts with the Friends of the Hastings Public Library, and we will both have our annual meetings at the Library this Sunday, June 6th, at 2PM. Our program will be a lecture by local author Tony Peluso, who will guide us up the Hudson River from Manhattan to Lake Luzerne using some of the many fabulous items in his personal collection of old photographs, stereo views, and ephemera, some as old as 1850 and as “modern” as 1930.<br /><br />Tony, who lives in Yonkers, has been writing for the Maine Antique Digest for the last thirty years. Last year he lent us several items for our 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration exhibition, including two fabulous miniature replicas of Robert Fulton’s ship, the “Clermont.” And then, a few months ago, Tony showed us a PowerPoint slideshow he had put together on the Hudson River. Well, we were bowled over, both by Tony’s collection and by the fascinating information on the history of our river that he had pulled together. We know you will enjoy his presentation as much as we did.<br /><br />The lecture will take place at the Library in the Orr Room. If you have any questions about the program, you can call the Library at 914-478-3307.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiT8-Jd4f7z2V7dyiG6YW8XKNUj5x0DVoMAb2VPPajtJ2LPLNE0EvW_O45OEWdqGOqibdzFqHtppqTAW7RDxItG3qbO7PhZv2YMxB47iftwNEoqMdV425NmlckloRUwwBBVDm2EUp8JLgq/s1600/Peluso.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 250px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478614232390496610" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiT8-Jd4f7z2V7dyiG6YW8XKNUj5x0DVoMAb2VPPajtJ2LPLNE0EvW_O45OEWdqGOqibdzFqHtppqTAW7RDxItG3qbO7PhZv2YMxB47iftwNEoqMdV425NmlckloRUwwBBVDm2EUp8JLgq/s400/Peluso.jpg" /></a> <p align="center"><em>Breakneck from Cornwall (Sunday), ca. 1870<br /></p></em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-59374930396675191102010-05-27T14:05:00.040-04:002010-05-27T14:45:06.665-04:00400 Turn Out For House Tour!<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476012976208834194" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 268px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyhEk3U8e2LE0p2w4SVSRjPABwLrVObtPvvwwBK2MsIze96WYu9UzjP9QlHN5e_b2RCv2dmZl02nzBIgVE7_KqI3Gsc2HvtvRgjkGaiHXUof4Y72rDQpIvTktT5fU6kwwcUVT5mIJTLmJI/s400/DSC_0103.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="center"><em>Noel Murrain (left), nephew of the present owner of 131 Pinecrest Drive, shakes hands with Hastings Mayor Peter Swiderski (right). 131 Pinecrest was owned in the 1920s by Metropolitan Opera ballet master Alexis Kosloff. (Photograph copyright Susan Rutman)</em></p>Last minute worries about the weather and a sufficient stock of cookies are behind us, and we can now bask in the glow of a terrifically successful event. The Historical Society’s house tour “Hastings Characters and Character” attracted approximately four hundred visitors this past Saturday and Sunday. And every one of them raved about the opportunity to peak inside fifteen of our community’s most historic homes.<br /><br />Once again, we want to extend our thanks to all those many, many people who helped make the tour not only possible, but fabulous! Thirteen private home owners (including children and dogs) graciously opened their homes to the public. Two dozen researchers compiled histories of the houses and their notable inhabitants. One hundred and twenty docents guided visitors though the houses on the days of the tour. A special thanks goes to Jennifer Moore Smith, who did all the graphic design for the project. And our biggest thanks to the tireless house tour organizers Sue Smith and Liz Liebeskind, the duo whose imaginations were large enough to conceive of such a mammoth undertaking. We stand in awe!<br /><br />And thanks also to everyone who attended! We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. If you took a couple of special photographs or have any interesting stories of the tour – send them our way!<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476012840009459474" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 268px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnBS6Lc0pA9PhXvUL6tMckIoyaPweOS7d2bes1lC08F-tv_E4xn9D6UP9k0zv87I9LuLKFqxYhGXQwfVKeXsHJunCb4ZH-WspdSkeI0WdjiCUx1-d3EUrq7dizfmEqFcXJ0Pa4iyP4uLYm/s400/DSC_0043.jpg" border="0" /><p align="center"><em>Docent Dick Ford greets visitors to 31 Sheldon Place, home of artists Rosetta and Herbert Bohnert. (Photograph copyright Susan Rutman)</em></p><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476020625656012594" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 268px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbcBamVaWOWyPqrZM0bK0Dly3V0u3BCnGC97kVrq5bW91U1lP6QVbz3SCuURpcaj-OAEurVFpBBcx5k3cfzFvvkpv8TWImHNT9Oyu7ftyGz3gh5JI_7S4EnvbUr9q7iwiaTPR_07CXqa3z/s400/DSC_0138.jpg" border="0" /><p><em>Our heroes: Liz Liebeskind (left) and Sue Smith (right), posed with the silhouette of actress May Yohe made for the house tour by Jennifer Moore Smith. (Photograph copyright Susan Rutman)</em></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-88230832877520876882010-05-20T15:26:00.033-04:002010-05-20T16:34:41.936-04:00Title: House Tour Preview: May Yohe – Hastings’ Glamour Girl<div align="left"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/3346283603/in/set-72157617007665483/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473436133543139170" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 268px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy0OWRo5-CgUEskdmtWe0pkkyLBzQdXtESr_VYhFC2guEvy5g4hqWhPM6fFwOnYCjHIZ1fJmoTcU5NDqaDjLwwB5M1qftMvX6vk6HQV6-TpWenHJOnOn9oOeNkhaoVuowWAvUbSlnbgNqT/s400/MayYoheTop.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Hastings has rarely been as close to the international high life as it was at the turn of the century when the actress May Yohe lived here. This weekend, May 22nd & May 23rd bewteen 1 & 5, the house she spent several years in will be on the <a href="http://www.hastingshistorical.org/">Historical Society’s house tour</a>. Her life is so incredibly like a romance novel that the wonderful 8-page article written for the Hastings Historian last year by Lilian and John Mullane was barely long enough to do it justice. This blog post, baldly cribbed from the Mullanes’ article, can only give you a hint of her extraordinary escapades. Join us for the house tour to find out more!<br /><br />Mary Augustus Yohe was born on April 6, 1866 to a poor family in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Her father, most likely of German ancestry, was an ironworker and a commissioned officer in the Civil War. Her mother, Lizzie Batcheller, was an expert seamstress and amateur singer of English-Narragansett Indian ancestry. Aided by German friends of her mother, May was sent abroad to an expensive boarding school in Dresden and then to a finishing school in Paris.<br /><br />By the time she returned to Pennsylvania, at age 21, her father was dead and her mother had moved to Philadelphia. There her mother ran a successful dressmaker’s business. One of her wealthy customers was Mrs. John Drew, a successful actress and manager of the Arch Street Theater in Philadelphia. Mrs. Drew, impressed by May’s poise, beauty, imagination, and musical talent, gave her a letter of introduction to Mr. A.M. Palmer, the manager of the Union Square Theater in New York.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/3346283603/in/set-72157617007665483/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473436128408056482" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 254px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFAPXmOBe_OcWbPRbQUcNvEesY2W4geAQvVz2DC5jlUn_EuNLQ1ef4Y7cTB_z3Qy4gY8bVGFvCMcwTx6lju5My-BDVRpehmkfG_W_43LoEq8y5sLrwDz52woXeW36Ahhjsjw_osJvU4sJu/s400/MayYohe2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Palmer gave May a job as a chorus girl at $9 per week. Less than a year later, she had her first role: understudy to the lead actress in <em>Natural Gas</em>, a musical comedy. May’s career flourished. Four years later, in 1892, she was introduced to Henry Francis Pelham-Clinton Beresford Hope at a dinner party at Delmonico’s Restaurant. Lord Francis, though May did not know it, was heir to a British dukedom and the Hope Diamond. After dinner, May had planned to go to the Horse Show at Madison Square Garden, and Lord Francis boldly asked to accompany her.<br /><br />Shortly afterward, they met again, in London. Lord Hope apparently arranged for May to be cast in the starring role of the play, <em>Little Christopher, Jr.</em> May’s “foghorn” contralto voice, performing “Honey, Ma Honey,” created quite a stir, and she soon became known as “Madcap May, the toast of London.”<br /><br />May appears to have moved in with Lord Francis before they were married, but the service was finally held, in spite of the bitter opposition of his entire family, on November 27th, 1894. Between her shopping and his gambling, the couple led an expensive existence. In 1899, they set out on a luxury round-the-world tour. It was on this trip that the couple met Putnam Bradlee Strong, a Harvard graduate and son of a former mayor of New York City. When the trip ended, Strong kept up his friendship with Lord Francis -- and increased his attentions to May. When May came down with pneumonia in New York and Lord Francis refused to cut short his fishing trip to Florida, Strong kept bedside vigil instead. When she recovered, May was in love.<br /><br />The couple fled first to San Francisco, and then continued on to Japan, where their house became the meeting place for the local smart set. Their life was no less extravagant than it had been in New York, only now May had to pick up the tab. When the money ran out, the couple returned reluctantly to the United States -- and to Hastings-on-Hudson.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473436116698991122" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 251px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_FzBWBZqC8OOcxPkzeMXns0WJ79tWjVyIbAR_5c1dNcvfDCyksKL_uZVB-4BKk7KNkb8isH7cWwKdqbH5Ae-7alULKHhok_esdF34GiH7A3SrAX-CKGYPDQfYa_LPZkuc-yR7Vu8NFTz0/s400/GribbenPst0284.jpg" border="0" /><br />By then May’s mother, Lizzie Batcheller, was living in a grand house on Villard Avenue. Built in 1880 in the Queen Anne style, the house has not only wrap-around verandah and an open turret, but also a large domed tower. It is unclear exactly who built the house, and when it came into Lizzie’s hands, but the money for it had certainly come from May. And to this house, Lizzie brought her daughter, her daughter’s lover, their Japanese maid Yodi, and their 100 pieces of luggage.<br /><br />On the surface, May and Strong lived quite peacefully in Hastings. May returned to the New York stage to bring in an income. But Strong had resumed his gambling. In July of 1902, Strong suddenly disappeared with money he made by pawning some of May’s jewels (which were said to be worth $250,000). May followed Strong to London, and there was a reconciliation, followed in October by a marriage in Argentina. May vowed never to return to the United States, but when her mother died she did come back to sell her mother’s house to Oliver O. Gribben, a buyer in foreign rugs and tapestries for Macy’s and B. Altman’s.<br /><br />This was the end of May Yohe’s connection with Hastings, though hardly the end of an eventful life that included at least two more marriages and a 1920s silent movie series that she starred in and promoted called The Hope Diamond Mystery. May made the most out of her brief association with the Hope Diamond, which she referred to as a “life-long association.” She did her best to further the completely unfounded “curse” surrounding it. Lord Hope sold the diamond in 1901, and it passed through several hands before it was donated by an American jeweler to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC in 1947.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/4625177464/"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473436104498687778" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 314px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw38AnA-IojATqYX0RqT2NpsGieAszpAyATvO9RJrMXtH2hKAMooju6sRfrW2BmCL1MPMy80KCDjjbx-3wsEeEy24ulW1AHnPjjeDy-tADKOuG54uKT0HxRlF21B_yNPV4wT1-1K7mt42z/s400/YohePh10,393B.jpg" border="0" /></a> <p align="center"><em>May Yohe in 1926. Around her neck is a necklace with a large stone suspended from it, probably the replica of the Hope Diamond made for the 1921 movie series. May apparently enjoyed wearing the stone in public -- and letting people think it was was the real one.</em></p><br /><br /><p align="center"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">2010 House Tour: Hastings' Characters and Character<br /></span>Saturday May 22 & Sunday May 23 between 1PM & 5PM</strong></p>Tickets are no longer available online, but you can still buy them at Festivities on Main Street in Hastings during business hours, and on the day of the tour during tour hours at the Historical Society tent in Zinsser Parking Lot, across the street from the train station. Tickets purchased at Festivities before Saturday are $20 for an individual, $40 for a family, and $5 for a child 8 or older. Tickets purchased the day of the tour are $25 for an individual, $50 for a family, and $5 for a child 8 or older. </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">And here is a grand list of the Hastings personalities featured on the tour!</div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">Actress May Yohe</div><div align="left">Women's rights activist Margaret Sanger</div><div align="left">Musician Arthur Abell</div><div align="left">Artists Rosetta and Herbert Bohnert</div><div align="left">Empire State Building architect Richmond Shreve</div><div align="left">Social psychologists Kenneth & Mamie Clark</div><div align="left">Federal judge Maurice Grey</div><div align="left">Ballet master Alexis Kosloff</div><div align="left">Local activist and photographer A.C. Langmuir</div><div align="left">Scientists John William Draper and his son Henry</div><div align="left">Admiral David Glassgow Farragut</div><div align="left">Artist Jasper F. Cropsey</div><div align="left">Tiffany silversmith Edward C. Moore</div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">Join us this weekend to learn more about all these fascinating characters!</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-38046114737851197262010-05-13T16:02:00.038-04:002010-05-15T13:40:50.899-04:00House Tour Preview: Jasper F. Cropsey – A View from the Artist’s Studio<img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 334px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5470850509148258882" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ5geSHKQX0S83icvA7FGmsg31jQQjcyUXV8hSbXj6Zwdw6U-2AjY_EQo3MMKDZARxRnbhamz2DMVo17GykURE4dJOJTQdGFNaOx74opeBX9H9Sn2pzSXydUQ4EY60LEWIdm75a4EIobSl/s400/Cropsey.jpg" /> <p align="center"><em>Jasper F. Cropsey at age 24, painted by Edward L. Mooney in 1847. From the Collection of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation. </em></p>Thanks to the generosity of the <a href="http://www.newingtoncropsey.com/">Newington-Cropsey Foundation</a>, our <a href="http://hastingshousetour2010.eventbrite.com/"><strong>May 22 & 23 house tour</strong> </a>will include the house and studio of the painter Jasper F. Cropsey (1823-1900), one of the leaders of the 19th-century Hudson River School.<br /><br />The Hudson River School has been called the first truly American school of painting, a school that glorified the beauty and grandeur of the American landscape. Cropsey himself was known as “America’s painter of Autumn.” His paintings of the fall colors of the Hudson Valley were so brilliant that the English thought he was exaggerating when he exhibited his work in London. He had leaves sent from home and displayed them with the paintings to prove that trees could really show such colors. Cropsey began his career in New York City as an architect, but from childhood he had shown a gift for painting. He exhibited a landscape at the National Academy of Design when he was 21 that earned him an invitation to become an Associate Member—the youngest in the history of that organization. In 1845 he left architecture to become a full-time painter.<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 217px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5470850499193018530" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimo26L-PrB7mOTxuUB4yJkWSTk684k4ZBvORIJu2q8plXtVVY5r8v-exjFPqVGibTj3T3IoWDyabgA-_6FlGO4RFG_scTgbmEnztpX1cD02wN-ohnbAdocZrnbLktq9K1oRPbb4pIMkzka/s400/CropseyView.jpg" /> <p align="center"><em>"View of Hudson River and Palisades from Artist's Home," an oil painting signed and dated, "J.F. Cropsey 1886." From the Collection of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation.</em></p>His work reached the peak of its popularity in the 1850s and 1860s. During this period he travelled between Europe and America, painting English castles and abbeys for his American clients and the American landscape for the English. In 1861 he was presented to Queen Victoria, who greatly admired his “Autumn—On the Hudson River.” In 1862 the painting won a medal at the International Exposition in London and sold for the amazing sum of $2,000. Back in New York, Cropsey helped to found the American Watercolor Association in 1866. That same year Cropsey and his wife Maria purchased land in Warwick, NY on which they built a splendid house and studio that they christened “Aladdin.”<br /><br />But during the 1870s the tide of fashion began to turn against the Hudson River School as the public became more interested in French landscape painting, and then Impressionism. The Cropseys, who were never careful with money, were forced to sell “Aladdin” in 1884. In 1885 they purchased a Gothic Revival cottage that had been built in the 1830s on Washington Avenue in Hastings. The couple gave the house the name “Ever Rest”, and they lived there together until Jasper Cropsey’s death in 1900.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXEeIaRNAPBzNeJHyjqOKOR3euMuV9pH6rlFbdRZzpOnYlJUztrLPPgEiLDNtQFrbRaeRp0LI1iDi10r55HswYC0E1TyQjSoaFCBOl8DoP-2c_H88iwnxHQI2p_SQ7BaLNuzhkwjf_Xc_A/s1600/1901MapDet2.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 175px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5470850494024492482" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXEeIaRNAPBzNeJHyjqOKOR3euMuV9pH6rlFbdRZzpOnYlJUztrLPPgEiLDNtQFrbRaeRp0LI1iDi10r55HswYC0E1TyQjSoaFCBOl8DoP-2c_H88iwnxHQI2p_SQ7BaLNuzhkwjf_Xc_A/s400/1901MapDet2.jpg" /></a> <p align="center"><em>Detail of a 1901 map of Hastings of the area between Main Street and Washington Avenue showing the Cropsey Estate, the house on Washington that backed onto the Ravine with its circular driveway, the stream running through the Ravine down to the industrial waterfront, and at the far right the "School" -- the 1863 Fraser Free School, the first school building built in Hastings.</em></p>As soon as they purchased the property, Cropey added a studio, a recreation of the one he had designed for Aladdin. The two-story room is paneled with dark wood and contains an Inglenook fireplace, modeled after one Cropsey had admired at Windsor Castle. Above is a square cupola whose windows can be opened with pulleys. The house and studio are full of his work, and you will also see Cropsey’s palette and easel there, as well as furniture and stained glass that he designed.<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 313px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5470850486737604210" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6OWiX44JGjLUeR2kcuHpj6l1_2aw-vpHQPtlZrlTUlp1jNnMGfawJ2PxemGsMLALUTKJ4HxarmFVOCDyav9N8gS1zvSvAjjUdNQxkk89OUtFa6IwjkrSLqicgoz_JBgWDvEIfMGqCtVrr/s400/Cropsey+Studio.jpg" /> <p align="center"><em>Interior of Jasper F. Cropsey's studio in Hastings.</em></p>Hastings, according to Cropsey, was “one of the finest passages of scenery on the river.” From 1885 on, the town began to figure prominently in Cropsey’s paintings and drawings. His studio overlooks the Ravine that begins behind Five Corners and leads down to the waterfront, under the Warburton Avenue Bridge that was built in 1899, the year before Cropsey died. The painting reproduced above shows the view looking west down the Ravine to the Hudson River. He also painted the view in the opposite direction, looking up the Ravine toward the back of Main Street. This watercolor, which you can see below, shows what was then the Fraser Free School (now the Hook & Ladder Company) and an axle mill in the Ravine, long since demolished, that was fed by the stream that ran through the Ravine. (For someone who had made his reputation as part of a group that prized wilderness above everything, it is surprising how many of Cropsey’s Hastings views include industrial buildings and steam boats.)<br /><br />Cropsey also painted pictures of the Hastings waterfront and views looking down to the river from the Hastings hills, as well as scenes in nearby river towns. “I have no occasion,” he wrote, “to travel much since I am so surrounded with beautiful scenery – the rocky palisades – the ever changing marine “bits” of the Queen River; and inland, the lovely meadow and wooded hills of the Saw-Mill River Valley, and the grassy Sprain River – where the summer verdure is most luxuriant and the autumn color is as brilliant as any where in our country. … [I] find my recreation with my sketch book, in little tramps about my home.”<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 316px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5470850475844275858" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPJEMjkCnflRIYTUce9G9vtuQ2lM3LM9dXnqHxEAzMkWoxPiglKo6xO9_FPRSTWlHYTLMhjcpb8B1ZsNMl-qz-cscXacG2Q-nhhAugj_ZTyB0ugtSRB7IP4vevSvxkeDcQjxNKOYccQVYd/s400/CropseyViewUp.jpg" /> <p align="center"><em>"View from the Studio (Overlooking Ravine)," watercolor painted by Jasper F. Cropsey in 1891. From the collection of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation.</em></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226619540036514458.post-42451747766253936192010-05-06T16:31:00.026-04:002010-05-06T16:46:24.637-04:00House Tour Preview: Kenneth Clark – Neighbors and Guests<img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 322px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468258125605995138" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB8rGA0mh_bGt_nQwlnPWTc2RZml9i7r_45MSdDb48cCHZBWYtwH0YFYr0eHr1viaBiVaohyphenhyphen_peotSMdurXJFyRwoPAcsz1PZM2iWhPsd3N6EZQvAadC6K-2pfMnZChDirmdvju2QASOtF/s400/Kenneth+Clark.jpg" /><br />Our <a href="http://hastingshousetour2010.eventbrite.com/">May 22 & 23 house tour </a>will include the home of African-American psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark. In 1950, the Clarks moved to Hastings’ Pinecrest neighborhood, the area west of the Andrus Memorial Home. They raised their children here and remained here until their deaths, Mamie in 1983 and Kenneth in 2005. In 1990, Historical Society Trustee Coleman Barkin interviewed Clark for the Society’s oral history collection. The following is an edited version of that interview, in which Clark talks about his house, his neighbors, his friendship with the Lithuanian-born sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, and some of his more famous house guests.<br /><br />(In the interview, Clark refers to “The Chances” who sold them their house. These were African-American lawyer Lucille Chance and her sister Sarah Grey. Their maiden name was Edwards, and under that name they ran a Harlem-based real estate business called Edwards Sisters Realty. Lucille was instrumental in bringing African-American families to Hastings. Her house will also be on our house tour.)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/4584420511/in/photostream/"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 226px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468258136580445170" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy4mnReSVSK3ndpX9B8eWIreIjXnFhodNzmu3t4ZAM6sWX-2HS7Zj-nHqNNC28Opb0HTF-I0xfVzCgqJPm-TpxbOJ-fXrTvH2Mxp7jKuZgH2qZMK3T8gXFcRe5yFsLAPRkyb1LGQR0MKrC/s400/PinecrestViewLPH0327A.jpg" /></a> <p align="center"><em>The view: the Hudson River seen from the Pinecrest neighborhood in 1929.</em></p>INT: Where did you first live?<br /><br />KC: In New York City, in Washington Heights. As I said, [Mamie was] from Arkansas, and a home—she didn’t particularly like living in an apartment. So she said we ought to look to find a home, and this was the first place we looked -- Hastings. Our neighbors, the Chances, who have a home up here, were in real estate and they showed us this home. … She liked it, I liked it. I liked the view, and that oak tree in the back is really magnificent, and the fireplace. We decided to buy it. We didn’t look any further. …<br /><br />INT: Was Hastings an integrated community at that time?<br /><br />KC: As far as we knew. There were about three or four black families in this area. It seemed like a pretty integrated area. I had a very good friend, Robert Merton, who lived up the drive. … He’s a professor of Sociology at Columbia. … I’ll never forget the first Christmas we were here. We hadn’t yet fixed up the house. The bell rang, we went to the front door and there was Bob Merton and a group of neighbors who came to sing Christmas carols and whatnot. That was really a very impressive event for us. It told us, really, that it was a decent community … . One of the things that fascinated me was that in the Pinecrest area whites and blacks interchanged in selling. A white family would sell to a negro family, a negro family could sell to a white family. …<br /><br />INT: What kind of reputation did Hastings have?<br /><br />KC: A pleasant place, a pleasant suburb. … It seemed the type of place that one would like other places to be like. …<br /><br />INT: Did you use the parks around here, or the aqueduct?<br /><br />KC: Yes, sometimes. In fact, I used to walk down the aqueduct to [sculptor Jacques] Lipchitz’s studio on Sundays. We would sit and talk. We were quite friendly. … I walked down and I saw his studio, and, of course, I’ve always been impressed with Lipchitz. In fact, I have one of his pieces upstairs that I’ll show you. We’d sit and we’d talk. We’d talk about Picasso. He was quite a person, a very gentle man. …<br /><br />INT: Was he working continuously? Was he sculpting all the time?<br /><br />KC: He did quite a bit of sculpting, yeah. And he didn’t seem to mind taking time out for us to sit and talk. And I visited his home there … . He has a lot of African art.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/4584419975/in/photostream/"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 227px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468258140706401938" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUn9Vhyt1cnW0fDXMDl1pWw9Z1ixRrRzeKmJAtTYm7DcBzZrnqOicANVWDvIkHgq1xxR7B3iduvFlWlNnyMZgd5j_ju9LO7yosux7HdfdraJYqfVHQ58e-m3UanfkBU_EUfCoyIYEdah2z/s400/PinecrestAqueductLPH0338.jpg" /></a> <p align="center"><em>The Old Croton Aqueduct running alongside Pinecrest Drive in 1931.</em></p>INT: What did you talk about besides Picasso?<br /><br />KC: Events – what was happening in the world. We had similar ideology. …<br /><br />INT: You had mentioned to me, when we last spoke, that you had different friends come up and spend some time here. [Singer] Paul Robeson, you said he’d been here, and [writer] Jim Baldwin.<br /><br />KC: Paul Robeson had been up with the Chances. Martin Luther King had spent some time here with us as a guest. …<br /><br />INT: Were they here just socially, or did you have meetings?<br /><br />KC: Socially and meetings. Meetings with Roy Wilkins, Whitney [Young] [both prominent civil-rights activists], and others. …<br /><br />INT: Why did you meet here, rather than in somebody’s office?<br /><br />KC: That’s a very interesting question. It was a… I guess it was a secret. I think Martin was staying with us. As I told you it was fascinating, we had lunch upstairs and discussions down here [in the library]. …<br /><br />INT: What was [Jim Baldwin] like?<br /><br />KC: He was like Jim Baldwin. We had long discussions. We’d have more discussions with Jim than we would with Martin. Martin was easy going. I only saw him angry once. Jim was sort of voracious. I liked him. Mamie liked him. In fact, we would not have guests here, particularly those that were staying for a while, who we didn’t like … .<br /><br />INT: You said you saw Martin Luther King angry once?<br /><br />KC: Once he was angry with [civil-rights activist] Roy [Wilkins], who was opposed to his anti-Vietnam position. I must say Whitney was quite the negotiator. I admired Whitney’s ability to reconcile. … [But] I certainly was very much on [Martin’s] side in the anti-Vietnam. I guess I was a part of history – here in the Pinecrest area – although by no means publicized.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastingshistoricalsociety/4585047122/in/photostream/"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 370px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468258149566820130" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKPhnyxKxj9lldxxG6-GtrtPOUU10p6HIQXQPnL0biNUdhWiSYWWmn4DbORvTe_KkQb5ggIGcr5aYXbjhKw4ttBUfJYNXkSAOLiziC-7Dq8embqtbi4p_I21BHzI2ya_tSyLRRJ1EuQW8U/s400/LipchitzPh08387Bdet2.jpg" /></a> <p align="center"><em>Sculptor Jacques Lipchitz at work in his studio ca. 1965.</em></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9