Hastings Historical Society

Hastings in Yonkers!

2010-11-08T14:37:00.005-05:00

"View at Hastings-on-Hudson," painted by Jasper F. Cropsey ca. 1891, on view at the Hudson River Museum, and currently part of their Paintbox Leaves exhibition.

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!

But in the meantime, we encourage you to take a trip to the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers before January 16th to see Paintbox Leaves: Autumnal Inspiration from Cole to Wyeth. Among the many lovely representations of Fall are four by Jasper F. Cropsey (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.

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.

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 Hudson River Museum website.

Moonwatch and Open House this Weekend

2010-10-11T13:59:00.016-04:00

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.

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.

At 2PM astronomers will present an analysis of the Draper telescope parts here at the cottage.

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.

Postcards from the Edge (of the Hudson)

2010-08-19T15:34:00.012-04:00

The Hastings Historical Society blog is on vacation.

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.

Wish you were here!

Sails on the Hudson

2010-08-05T14:05:00.001-04:00

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.

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 Half Moon. 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.

This replica of the Half Moon 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.

This ship is a replica of Adriaen Block’s ship, the Onrust, which means “restless” in English. The original Onrust was the first “decked vessel” built from the ground up on American soil. Block arrived from Amsterdam in the Tyger, 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.

The replica of the Onrust 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.

The Clearwater 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.

The Mystic Whaler 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.

And last but not least is the John J. Harvey, 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 Normandy. The John J. Harvey 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.

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 Half Moon at the Hudson River Maritime Museum in Albany, the Clearwater in Beacon, and the John J. Harvey at Pier 63 near West 26th Street.

Bringing History to Life in the 1920s

2010-07-29T14:28:00.025-04:00

Pocahontas and John Rolfe, after their wedding in the Jamestown church, from Jamestown, one of the Chronicles of America Photoplays.

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.

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 Chronicles of America Photoplays were films on American history. This series of fifteen silent movies, with titles like The Pilgrims, Peter Stuyvesant, The Declaration of Independence, Dixie, and The Frontier Woman, 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.”

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, Columbus and Jamestown. 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.

The Chronicles of America Photoplays were based on a set of books called Chronicles of America 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.

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 Peter Stuyvesant.

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 Hollywood on the Hudson: Film and Television in New York from Griffith to Sarnoff describes the process. “Production soon began on Columbus, and the company was lucky enough to locate a full-scale reconstruction of the Santa Maria that had been floating in Chicago’s Jackson Park Lagoon since the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Although the Nina and the Pinta were by now considerably beyond repair, the Santa Maria 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.”

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.)

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 Chronicles of America Photoplays became the first documentary film series to be shown on American television.

Congress assembled in Independence Hall on June 7, 1776 to vote on a resolution for independence, from the film The Declaration of Independence.

Hastings’ First Female Doctor

2010-07-23T14:37:00.028-04:00

Sarah Elizabeth "Lizzie" Curry, probably taken in the 1880s.

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 Yonkers Herald Statesman of 1932.

“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 Women’s Medical College 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.”

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.

“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.

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.”

We’d love to know more about Dr. Lizzie. Anything we discover, we’ll share with you!

June 1894 graduating class of the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women, 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.

Mystery Photograph: Church Ladies?

2010-07-15T14:27:00.012-04:00

Remember the young commuter 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.

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!

A Fourth of July Parade – 1910s style

2010-07-08T14:01:00.002-04:00

In 1941, long-time Hastings resident Stephen Zebrock wrote a column for the Hastings News 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.)

“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.

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.

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). …

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.

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.

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.

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.”

Heads Up – It’s the Hindenburg!

2010-07-01T15:32:00.021-04:00

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 Hindenburg 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.”

“Thousands of Yonkers residents, craning their necks skyward and shading their eyes against a blazing sun, got their first view of the giant dirigible Hindenburg today.

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.

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.

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.”

Map from the New York Times showing the route of the Hindenburg's 10-hour cruise.

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 Hindenburg 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 New York Times reported that a Newark man had actually died after falling through a skylight while stepping back to get a better view!

And this was no surprise, for the Hindenburg 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.

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 Hindenburg and the Graf Zeppelin were used for propaganda purposes in Germany, flying around the country dropping leaflets and broadcasting political speeches.

In 1936, the first year of its operation, the Hindenburg 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.”

But almost exactly seven months later, for reasons still not fully explained, the Hindenburg 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 Graf Zeppelin was grounded, and in 1940 the brand new Graf Zeppelin II was dismantled.

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 Hindenburg must have thought they were looking at the dawn of a new age – the glorious hydrogen-filled future of air travel.

Photograph from the October 9, 1936 article in the Yonkers Statesman.

Josephine Selvaggio: Hastings Commuter

2010-06-24T14:41:00.037-04:00

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.

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.

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 Reminiscing Hastings, was a luxury that not everyone could afford in the 1920s. And so she went to work for Commercial Investment Trust.

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."

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

Watch Where You Step!

2010-06-17T14:01:00.021-04:00

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!

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.)

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.

New sections of Tennessee pink marble in the center of Grand Central Station’s Main Concourse.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

(Reprinted with permission of Metro-North Railroad)

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.

Mark Your Calendars! Moonwatch Friday, June 18, in Draper Park

2010-06-12T12:14:00.019-04:00

Photograph of the moon highlighting the Mare Imbrium. The small white circle underneath the center of the Mare Imbrium is the Capricorn crater.

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.

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, click here.) 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.

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.

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!

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.)

Slideshow this Sunday: A Voyage up the Hudson in Historic Photographs

2010-06-03T14:03:00.017-04:00

Palisades from Englewood Landing (repairing shad net), ca. 1870

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.

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.

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.

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.

Breakneck from Cornwall (Sunday), ca. 1870

400 Turn Out For House Tour!

2010-05-27T14:05:00.040-04:00

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)

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.

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!

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!

Docent Dick Ford greets visitors to 31 Sheldon Place, home of artists Rosetta and Herbert Bohnert. (Photograph copyright Susan Rutman)

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)

Title: House Tour Preview: May Yohe – Hastings’ Glamour Girl

2010-05-20T15:26:00.033-04:00

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 Historical Society’s house tour. 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!

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.

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.

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 Natural Gas, 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.

Shortly afterward, they met again, in London. Lord Hope apparently arranged for May to be cast in the starring role of the play, Little Christopher, Jr. 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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

2010 House Tour: Hastings' Characters and Character
Saturday May 22 & Sunday May 23 between 1PM & 5PM

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.

And here is a grand list of the Hastings personalities featured on the tour!

Actress May Yohe

Women's rights activist Margaret Sanger

Musician Arthur Abell

Artists Rosetta and Herbert Bohnert

Empire State Building architect Richmond Shreve

Social psychologists Kenneth & Mamie Clark

Federal judge Maurice Grey

Ballet master Alexis Kosloff

Local activist and photographer A.C. Langmuir

Scientists John William Draper and his son Henry

Admiral David Glassgow Farragut

Artist Jasper F. Cropsey

Tiffany silversmith Edward C. Moore

Join us this weekend to learn more about all these fascinating characters!

House Tour Preview: Jasper F. Cropsey – A View from the Artist’s Studio

2010-05-13T16:02:00.038-04:00

Jasper F. Cropsey at age 24, painted by Edward L. Mooney in 1847. From the Collection of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation.

Thanks to the generosity of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation, our May 22 & 23 house tour 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.

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.

"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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

Interior of Jasper F. Cropsey's studio in Hastings.

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.)

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.”

"View from the Studio (Overlooking Ravine)," watercolor painted by Jasper F. Cropsey in 1891. From the collection of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation.

House Tour Preview: Kenneth Clark – Neighbors and Guests

2010-05-06T16:31:00.026-04:00

Our May 22 & 23 house tour 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.

(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.)

The view: the Hudson River seen from the Pinecrest neighborhood in 1929.

INT: Where did you first live?

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. …

INT: Was Hastings an integrated community at that time?

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. …

INT: What kind of reputation did Hastings have?

KC: A pleasant place, a pleasant suburb. … It seemed the type of place that one would like other places to be like. …

INT: Did you use the parks around here, or the aqueduct?

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. …

INT: Was he working continuously? Was he sculpting all the time?

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.

The Old Croton Aqueduct running alongside Pinecrest Drive in 1931.

INT: What did you talk about besides Picasso?

KC: Events – what was happening in the world. We had similar ideology. …

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.

KC: Paul Robeson had been up with the Chances. Martin Luther King had spent some time here with us as a guest. …

INT: Were they here just socially, or did you have meetings?

KC: Socially and meetings. Meetings with Roy Wilkins, Whitney [Young] [both prominent civil-rights activists], and others. …

INT: Why did you meet here, rather than in somebody’s office?

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]. …

INT: What was [Jim Baldwin] like?

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 … .

INT: You said you saw Martin Luther King angry once?

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.

Sculptor Jacques Lipchitz at work in his studio ca. 1965.

Mystery Photo: 1938 High School Fire Squad

2010-04-29T15:49:00.016-04:00

"FIRE SQUAD: The fire bell rings and students are efficiently rushed out of the building by the Fire Chief Albro Rile assisted by those ten strong men on the fire squad: Eben Chabot, John Moser, Walter Bennett, Jack Galvin, Frank Wills, Bill Burckhalter, Bill Kaufman, Joe Janik, and Chris Rohrbach."

So says the 1938 yearbook. And, as for a mystery, this should be an easy one! All you have to do for us is match up the names with the faces. Albro Rile is the boy holding the white helmet. Joe Janik might be the one to the right of Rile. Chris Rohrbach might be to the right of Janik, and behind him holding the hose might be John Moser. What do you think? Click the photograph to look at it more closely in Flickr. Choose the "All Sizes" link above the photograph, and then select "Original Size" so you can see the faces. If you can help with the identifications or know anything more about the activities of the fire squad, let us know!

The photograph below appears in the "snapshot" section of the yearbook, along with images of football games and the marching band. Is the quality good enough to recognize anyone?

House Tour Preview: Margaret Sanger’s Window

2010-04-22T16:15:00.040-04:00

Margaret Sanger in a photograph she included in her book My Fight for Birth Control with the caption "Suburban Motherhood."

In 1998, Margaret Sanger was included in Time Magazine’s 100 Most Important People of the Century for her relentless crusade for women’s rights, and especially for birth control (a term she coined) as the tool with which women could take control of their lives. The revelations that led her to this vocation came in the tenements of the Lower East Side in 1912, two years after she left Hastings.

Margaret came to our town with her architect husband in 1904, recovering from the birth of her first child and a bout of tuberculosis, but full of hope for a life of motherhood and stability. She left in 1910, healthy again and bored with suburbia, anxious only to return to her nursing career and “the great Pageant of Living” in Manhattan.

In her 1931 book My Fight for Birth Control, she said that, looking back, she could see how every detail of her past life contributed to her final calling. Margaret had a love/hate relationship with the house that her husband designed for the family in Hastings’ Locust Hill, a development just east of North Broadway that included lots along Edgars Lane, Sheldon Place, Minturn Street. For Margaret, the house represented both a happy family life and the narrow suburban values that she would later struggle to change.

“In looking about the suburbs for a suitable location in which to build and bring up our family, we decided that we needed something more than a mere house. We wanted space. We wanted a house with a view. We wanted a garden. At Hastings-on-Hudson we came across a new development consisting of about fifty acres of hillside land overlooking the river. The land had been purchased by a group of professional people with the idea of developing a colony of homes for men and women of congenial tastes, and to insure a proper environment for their children. We were delighted with its possibilities. We bought an acre of this land with high hopes. We were going to have our own home at last! We were going to settle down for life. We were delighted with our neighbors. We planned a large family; a comfortable serene, suburban existence. …

The Hudson River looking west from the Locust Hill development, ca. 1915.

Ours was but one of several houses then in the early stages of construction. We were brought in close contact with our neighbors who were facing similar problems, the two primary ones being the building of a home and the rearing of a family. The wives spent their afternoons together conferring on these monumental problems. Out of our informal meetings there sprang a “literary” club… . It was made up of the wives of the artists, professors, scientists, doctors, and high school teachers who made up our little colony. There was an inclination, among both husbands and wives, to sink back into a complacent suburban attitude, to enjoy petty middle class comforts. For the wives, the height of adventure was a day “in town”—a shopping expedition followed by a bargain matinee. This adventure would furnish conversation for us all. At the “literary” club we read papers on Browning, George Eliot, Shakespeare, closely following the suggestions of the courses given at Columbia University. But deep in my soul I could not suppress my own dissatisfaction with the futility of such interests.

Meanwhile our house was nearing completion. It was “modern” in architecture, one of the first of its kind in this vicinity. It was even called a “show” house, and people came from far to study its simple design and the unadorned surfaces of the fireproof stucco of its walls.

Great was our anticipation of the day of its completion. For weeks we both worked on our “rose window,” which was to surmount the open staircase which led upstairs from the library. Every petal had been cut, leaded, and welded together by our own hands. After the baby had been put to bed, we worked far into the night. It seemed to me as if this rose window was the very symbol of the stability of our future. …

At last our furniture was moved in. Carpenters and painters were pushed out. Everything was completed and finished. … Weary at last but like happy children on Christmas Eve, we tumbled into bed. We were rudely awakened a few hours later by a pounding at the door and the shout of the German maid—“Madam, come! come! A fire in the big stove!” The house was on fire!

There was no telephone within half a mile of the house. My husband ran in his night clothes to sound the alarm, but it was already too late.

The Sangers' house (background, right) in Locust Hill, ca. 1910.

I carried my terror-stricken son Stuart to the top of the staircase. Flames were then leaping through one side of it. I was confronted with a terrific danger: dare I venture down those steps? I knew I must. I put the bath robe over the child’s head, and pressing close to the other side of the wall I descended cautiously but finally to safety. I crossed the street to our nearest neighbor’s. I tucked the youngster into an impromptu bed with a prayer of gratitude that we had escaped with our lives.

In a few moments the flames that were consuming the staircase had swept through our precious beautiful rose window! This I realized as I stood gazing from the neighbor’s window into the night. … I recalled our cut fingers, our bleeding hands, our irritated nerves, our fatigued eyes, all the loving hopes and ambitions which had gone into that window. …

I stood there amazed, but I was certain of a relief, of a burden lifted, a spirit set free. … Somewhere at the back of my mind I saw the absurdity of placing all of one’s hopes, all of one’s efforts … in the creation of something external that could perish irretrievably in the course of a few moments. … My scale of suburban values had been consumed in the flames, just as my precious rose window of leaded glass had been demolished. …

Fortunately, the construction of the house was fireproof, and while the inside woodwork, doors and floors were badly damaged there was the possibility of quick restoration. Within a few months the place was renewed, and life went on apparently as if the fire had never been. But to me all was different. …

A new spirit was awakening within me; a strong, insistent urge to be in the current of life’s activities. I felt as if we had drifted into a swamp and had to wait for the tide to set us free. The fire, the destruction of the rose window, had done this. I was never happy in that house again. The first opportunity we had to sell it we let it go. We moved our three children back to New York to take our part individually or collectively in the great ‘Pageant of Living.’”

Teacher Jessie Trube and her kindergarten students, ca. 1908. The boy in the center of the front row is Stuart Sanger, Margaret's eldest son. The other children are neighbors of the Sangers, and "Bennett's Shack," where Jessie taught at this time, may have been an outbuilding of the R. Grant Bennett who lived on Sheldon Place.

Margaret and William Sanger’s house will be part of our May 22 & 23 house tour. For more information and to purchase tickets, follow this link.

House Tour Preview: Henry Draper’s Observatory

2010-04-15T15:01:00.045-04:00

Save the date! May 22 & 23
Get acquainted with fifteen historic Hastings houses and the celebrities who lived in them. Come to our 2010 house tour and learn more about Civil War Admiral David Farragut, women’s rights activist Margaret Sanger, Hudson River School artist Jasper F. Cropsey, African-American sociologist Kenneth Clark, Empire State Building architect Richmond Shreve, and ten more! For more information and to purchase tickets, click this link.

Henry Draper's observatory, ca. 1880, showing both the first dome, built in 1860, on the far right, and the 1897 rotating dome in the center.

Also on the house tour will be Henry Draper’s 19th-century astronomical observatory, now Draper Observatory Cottage, the home of the Hastings Historical Society. At the end of the 19th century, the observatory was a mecca for scientists, and Henry Draper, while still a young man, developed an international reputation and became the guiding light and mentor for a new generation of American astronomers. The following is an edited version of an article written for us by Marion Martin in 1992 telling the story of Henry, his observatory, and the ‘new astronomy.’

“Unlike ‘old astronomy’, which was concerned with figuring the location of planets and stars by means of mathematical calculations, ‘new astronomy’ used photography as a tool for learning about the appearance, position, and composition of heavenly bodies. Although extremely popular in Europe, new astronomy was slow to take hold in this country. Indeed, until the mid-1880s, Henry Draper and Lewis Morris Rutherfurd were the only American astronomers to keep pace with—and sometimes surpass—their European counterparts.

Engraving showing Lord Rosse’s telescope in Parsonstown, Ireland, from the Nov. 28, 1846 issue of Scientific American.

[Henry’s father] John William Draper had pioneered this new science when he first photographed the moon in New York City in 1840. He introduced the techniques and applications of photography to Henry who, at age 13, helped his father take the first photographs of slides through a microscope (photomicrographs). After graduating from medical school in 1857, Henry, accompanied by his brother Daniel, went to Europe where they examined the giant six-foot reflecting telescope that the Earl of Rosse had constructed outside Birr Castle in Parsonstown, Ireland. Henry returned to New York inspired to build his own telescope and observatory.

He found the highest point on his father’s estate a superb location … Built by a village carpenter whose name goes unrecorded, Henry’s observatory was a beautiful piece of cabinetry with a revolving roof and a curving staircase leading to a viewing platform that encircled the room. It was designed specifically to accommodate a 15 ½ inch Newtonian reflecting telescope that Henry and Daniel painstakingly built with advice from their father, who was then in England. …

Interior of the 1867 rotating observatory dome with its 28-inch telescope.

When the telescope was finally finished in November 1860, Henry began taking photographs of the moon that were the clearest of any yet obtained. … In 1863, Professor Joseph Henry, the great physicist who headed the Smithsonian Institution, visited the observatory. Impressed with Draper’s accomplishments, he invited Henry to produce a report entitled “On the Construction of a Silvered Glass Telescope.” The following year the Smithsonian published the study, which included a description of the layout of the observatory. Henry’s detailed instructions encouraged others to build their own instruments and observatories and was responsible for a tremendous growth in amateur astronomy. To those caught up in the astronomy craze, Henry Draper and his Hastings observatory became revered household names.

In 1867 Henry married Mary Anna Palmer [who] … proved to be an enthusiastic and talented assistant to her husband. … In 1869 Henry added a second dome to his observatory, this one a large equatorial dome regulated by Seth Thomas clockworks. With his wife’s help, he constructed a larger, more powerful telescope. … With this new arrangement, Henry achieved a major astronomical triumph in August 1872 when he successfully photographed the spectrum of the bright star Vega. Over the next few years Henry and Mary Anna photographed the spectra of more than 100 stars. In September 1880 he achieved another “first” when he photographed the beautiful nebulosity—the luminous clouds—in the constellation of Orion, with an exposure time of 50 minutes. …

Two of Henry's photographs of the Orion Nebula. The one on the left is one of his first, taken in 1880, and the on the right is one of his last, taken in 1882 and showing far more detail of the nebula.

Henry Draper proved to American astronomers that photography was the best means of studying the sky. What was particularly remarkable about his astronomical accomplishments was that he fitted them in along with teaching at City Universtiy and the Medical Collge and managing his wife’s large estate [in Dobbs Ferry]. In the summer of 1882, thrilled with what he had recently accomplished in his Hastings observatory, Henry resigned his professorship. Forty-five years old and financially independent, he planned to devote the rest of his life to astronomical photography. … However, he died suddenly of pneumonia the following November, surviving his father by only 11 months.

During Henry Draper’s lifetime, virtually every eminent astronomer and physicicist in the country visited his Hastings observatory. Inventors such as Thomas Alva Edison and Samuel F.B. Morse, eminent neighbors such as Cyrus Field, and distinguished visitors from afar such as King Kalikana of the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii) and Emperor Don Pedro II of Brazil also came to see Henry’s remarkable observatory. … In time the Draper Observatory would be eclipsed by larger enterprises, but from the mid-1860s to 1882, along with Lewis Rutherfurd’s observatory in New York, it charted the course of the new astronomy in this country.”

This photograph is from the collection of the Smithsonian Institution. Their cataloging information identifies it as Henry Draper in his observatory. If this is correct, it was probably taken in the 1860s or early 1870s, before he grew the beard that we see in his later photographs.

Hastings in 1790, The Year of the First Census

2010-04-08T16:14:00.028-04:00

The 1790 census: a page showing the numbers for Yonkers and Greenburgh.

The census you and I have just completed is the twenty-third national population count. Since the Constitution directs that a census be taken every ten years, it does not take very higher math to determine the date of the first census: 1790. Representatives to the first official Congress of the United States, which met in New York in 1789, were apportioned to the thirteen original states based on an estimate of their populations. But since the democratic ideal of the new government was representation based on exact numbers, the people had to be counted. All of them.

This job was assigned to the U.S. Marshals, the new law enforcement branch of the judiciary. The marshals of each district were empowered to hire assistants, who would be paid at the rate of $1 for each 150 persons counted in the open country, or $1 for each 300 if the assistant worked in a city. It was not a simple head count. Since the number of representatives for a state would be calculated based on the number of free citizens (not including Native Americans) plus three-fifths of the number of “others” (that is slaves), it was necessary to have separate counts for free people and for slaves. The 1790 census also enumerates males and females, and breaks free white men into two categories—those under 16 and those over 16. Historians theorize that the First Congress was trying to determine the size of the country’s workforce, and its military strength. Questions were raised immediately about the accuracy of the 1790 census. President Washington himself believed that the U.S. contained more than the reported 3.9 million people. But even so, the 1790 census is a fascinating source of information on early America, and Americans.

Hastings was not incorporated as a separate entity until 1879. The area that would later become our village appears on the 1790 census as part of the town of Greenburgh, which included everything from Hastings to Tarrytown, and as far east as the Bronx River. Greenburgh, as you can see here in a tabulation of its 1790 census information, had only 215 households, and a total population of about 1,400. This included 300 free white males over 16 years (208 were heads of their households) and 323 free white males under sixteen. Free white females numbered 616. In addition, there were 122 slaves, a little shy of New York’s average, which amounted to 12% of the population.

Detail of an 1880 copy of the 1785 map drawn up by the Commissioners of Forfeiture for New York showing how Philipse Manor was divided and to whom it was sold. In 1880 the map was redrawn and "updated" from supposedly more accurate records. The text in small caps has been added, including the word "Hastings", and possibly also the position of the "school house" and the streets marked out in the center of the village.

The 1790 census does not record the name of every individual, only the heads of households. And there is no indication of where in Greenburgh each family resided, so we don’t know for sure who lived in our area. But several of the names on the census have a strong Hastings connection. Peter Post, keeper of the tavern at Five Corners and hero of a local skirmish with Hessian soldiers during the war, headed a household that included two boys under 16, six women, and four slaves. The other Hastings innkeeper, Evert Brown, whose tavern was on Broadway near the Yonkers border, had an even larger household of 19. This included seven slaves, making him the third largest slaveholder in Greenburgh.

Five years before the census had been taken, the state of New York had seized the property of loyalist Frederick Philipse, a manor that reached from Spuyten Duyvil to the Croton River. They sold the land off in lots, giving preference to those who lived on the land at the time. A map drawn up in 1785 gives the names of the purchasers. In the Hastings area, one of these plots went to Post, and the plot directly over the line into Yonkers went to Brown. Another was purchased by Jacobus Dyckman. Judging by the map, Dyckman owned a house on Broadway near Washington Avenue. His name also appears on the census as head of a household including seven men, three women, and three slaves.

George Fisher, who purchased the southernmost plot in Hastings, does not have a house with his name attached to it on the map, and is not even mentioned on the 1790 census. He appears to have sold his property relatively quickly to Adrian Leforge and James Fargee, both variations on the familiar Hastings name of Lefurgy. The northernmost plot in Hastings, running over the border into Dobbs Ferry, was bought by a man listed on the map as James De Clarke and on the census as Jacobus D. Clarke. A house with his name next to it can be seen on the map on what is now North Broadway. A slew of other familiar names appear on the 1790 census: Odells, Van Tassels, Van Warts, and also Abraham Dobbs, head of the family that ran the ferry crossing the Hudson to the north of us.

It is hard from these bare bones to get a feeling for what Westchester was like in the 1790s. In maps of Westchester from the time of the Revolution, our area was represented as nothing more than a roadway interrupted by two taverns. Much of Philipsburg Manor had been farming country, and the area continued to be largely agricultural into the 19th century. But if we follow the fortunes of the Lefurgy family, we can see hints of the changes that were to come for the Hudson valley. The Lefurgys were tenant farmers under the Philipses, landowners after the Revolution, and by the late 1790s they had become involved in shipping and the sloops, the maneuverable single-masted ships that carried furs, timber, fish, and passengers up and down the Hudson, encouraging local industry and paving the way for the future domination of steam and rail.

Watercolor of Philipsburg Manor and the Lower Mill at Yonkers, painted in 1784 based on sketches taken during the Revolution, one of the few images of any kind that gives us a feel for the rural character of Westchester in the late 18th century. (This watercolor is in the collection of Historic Hudson Valley, Tarrytown.)

The New "Hastings Historian" Mails Today!

2010-04-01T13:30:00.005-04:00

Hanging out at the counter at Lange’s Sweet Shop, ca. 1958. The photograph shows, left to right, sitting: Marianne Marinello (later Marra), Savo Tseros (later Fries), and Margy Jenkins (later Fisher); standing: Kevin Grauer, Lee Manning, Janet Aluisio (later D’Alio), and in the very back you can see the top of Henry ‘Skip’ Lange’s head.

The lead story in this issue is Bob Russell’s article on 583 Warburton Avenue, which for so many years was Hastings' prime snacking destination. From the 1920s to the 1950s it was Bruning’s Ice Cream Parlor, in the late '50s and early '60s it was Lange’s Sweet Shop, from the '60s through the '70s it was the Cup ‘N’ Saucer, in the '80s and '90s it was Pino Gareri’s electronic repair and magic shops, and now it is Comfort Lounge. When she heard that Bob Russell was working on this article, Janet Aluisio D’Alio e-mailed us the first two pictures you see here, showing Janet with her friends in Lange’s. Thanks for the photos, Janet, and don't miss this great article!

This is the first issue of the 2010 membership year. Check your mailing label to make sure your membership is current (exp 2010 or later). And for those of you who are not members, please consider joining us! Your $25 (totally tax deductable) goes to support our efforts to preserve and share the history of our village, including this blog!

The juke box at Lange’s. Left to right are Janet Kupcok (later Costa), Margy Jenkins (later Fisher), Skip Lange, Savo Tseros (later Fries), and Phil Thompson.

From all the Christmas decorations in the photographs, you can tell what time of year Janet’s photos were taken. And, sure enough, when we looked in the December 24th, 1958, edition of the Hastings News (which we just happen to have in our small but fascinating collection of local newspapers), we find the following ad for Lange’s.

Between the articles about the Cornell and Sweet Briar co-eds home for the holidays, the weddings and engagements, arguments over industry tax assessments and whether Nodine Avenue should finally be paved, we find a host of seasonal salutations from other local businesses. And just because it's April Fool's Day (and because we can’t resist), here are a few of these Christmas ads:

Broadway: A Millionaires’ Playground

2010-03-25T16:22:00.041-04:00

The New York City Coaching Club's road coach "Pioneer" stopping to change horses in Hastings on the way to the Ardlsey Country Club, ca. 1900. (This photograph is a detail of the photograph further down the page. Click either one to examine it more closely in Flickr.)

The Historical Society has a fabulous collection of personal reminiscences from Hastings residents. Buried in the notes of those who were children at the turn of the century are several references to a coach and a barn “owned by Vanderbilt”.

Albert Shaw Jr. wrote that, as a child, he used to go down in his pony cart to Broadway near Washington Avenue “where the coach-horses were changed when Vanderbilt drove up every day from New York City to the Ardsley Country Club.”

In the 1920s, village President Alfred F. Kneen remembered that there was a barn a little to the north of Washington Avenue, across from or at the foot of Olinda Avenue, that was owned by “Vanderbilt” and where the “Tallyho” changed horses.

Memories of those days were so dim that, by the time they were written down, some people thought the coach that came through Hastings had belonged to the Astors rather than to the Vanderbilts. Everyone agreed, though, that going to see the horses changed was a tremendously thrilling event. A little research tells us why, and lets us in on a very odd corner of American history: the late 19th century sport of coaching.

Ardsley Country Club's own four-in-hand coach, the "Tally-Ho", on Broadway on its way through Hastings to the Brunswick Hotel in the city. Road coaches could seat 12 on the outside of the coach -- only the occasional lady's maid sat inside.

It was the English nobility who first turned coach driving into a sport. In the middle of the 19th century stagecoaches as public transportation were rendered obsolete by the railroads. But riding along an open country road in a brightly painted rig filled with well-dressed ladies and gentlemen still had an appeal. There were also some gentlemen who loved the challenges of coach driving—picking and training the properly balanced four-horse teams, and controlling the teams during the drive.

In 1875, two wealthy anglophiles, Colonel William Jay and Colonel DeLancey Astor Kane, helped to found New York City’s Coaching Club. Col. Kane’s own yellow road coach, imported from England and called the “Tally-ho”, made such an impression on the public that, from that moment on, all road coaches were referred to as “tallyhos.” Frank Leslie’s Magazine referred to coaching as “the sport of millionaires,” and the costs associated with it were very high—members of the Coaching Club owned both the coach itself and several changes of horses (Alfred G. Vanderbilt had 71 trotters), as well as employing grooms and trainers, and renting stables along the coaching routes where the horses would be changed—like the barn in Hastings.

The Coaching Club indulged in pleasant outings to one another’s country homes and in annual parades around Central Park—and also in what was called “public coaching.” In his 1967 article for American Heritage Magazine, Frank Kintrea defined the term: “Briefly, public coaching meant simply this: a gentleman or group of gentlemen, of sufficient wealth and ample leisure, would undertake to drive a coach on a regular schedule over a specified route, carrying passengers who had paid a fare. Anyone, theoretically, could reserve a seat on such a coach, and by paying fifty cents or a dollar extra, he could ride on the box beside the coachman, who might be DeLancey Astor Kane or Reginald Rives or even, if he were lucky, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt. It may be too much to expect to fathom why Messrs. Kane, Rives, and Vanderbilt should have derived pleasure from such employment, but it is indisputable that they did.”

In theory, as Kintrea says, anyone could buy a ticket, and it only cost a few dollars. But one had to buy it at the swank New York hotel from which the coach departed. Most often, the passengers were friends and relatives of the driver or wealthy out-of-town visitors.

This is the photograph that the first detail was taken from -- here you can see the stable on the left with the sign that reads "Pioneer Coach Stable", the flock of boys running out to get a good look at the coach and its occupants (according to an 1899 article, this was one of the most amusing features of the ride for the passengers), and the cop keeping order from the sidelines. We are on Broadway, looking south, and Washington Avenue is on the right, just beyond the picket fence. In the foreground is the wheel of an automobile.

The coach that ran through Hastings was the “Pioneer” on its route from the Holland House hotel on Madison Square to the Ardsley Country Club. The run was 26 miles, and since it was thought to be best to change horses every four or five miles, Hastings was only one of five or six stops. The steep stretch from Yonkers to Hastings was thought to be the hardest on the horses, which may explain why they were changed in Hastings. At each of these stops there would be a new set of horses and possibly an extra groom to help with the change. The drive was timed for two and a half hours each way with a three hour stopover for lunch at the country club before returning to New York City. At its fastest, the coach reached speeds of almost 12 miles an hour.

The “Pioneer” did not belong to an individual, but was sponsored by the Coaching Club as a whole. Two of the most common drivers were Alfred G. Vanderbilt and Reginald W. Rives. Alfred Vanderbilt was the son of Cornelius Vanderbilt II and Rives became a millionaire after inheriting the estate of his father, who claimed descent from English kings. During the years 1898 to 1907, Vanderbilt, Rives, or one of the other members of the Coaching Club drove the route every day but Saturday for eight weeks beginning the Monday after Easter. But already in 1903 coaching enthusiasts could see the writing on the wall. “The witchery inseparable from handling four good horses is but little appreciated by the youth of the day, who seem to prefer the ‘honk’ of the hooting automobile to the ringing music of a ‘yard of tin’ [coach horn],” said one fan.

In 1907, having lost $6,000 on public coaching the previous year, the Coaching Club withdrew from this activity. That fall, Alfred Vanderbilt, one of public coaching’s greatest enthusiasts, drove his own coach, the “Venture,” along the old route to Ardsley, but that was to be public coaching’s last season in the United States.

Diagram of the "Pioneer" from a 1904 article in the magazine Outing, written by Reginald Rives. On the bottom he shows how the names of the places through which the coach will pass is written on the sides of the coach -- Hastings appears on the right, under Dobbs Ferry.

Mystery Photo: An Irish Field Day in 1949

2010-03-18T14:44:00.017-04:00

The picture you see below is 8 inches high and 29 inches long. It was taken in Draper Park on June 24th of 1949 and shows the Hastings Irish American Club's second annual Field Day in Draper Park. Click on either the top or the bottom photograph to look at it more closely in Flickr. Choose the "All Sizes" link above the photograph and then select "Original Size" so you can see the faces. At the moment we have not a single identification for all the friends and relatives of Ireland shown in this photograph. If you recognize anyone, let us know!

And PS -- don't miss the collection of St. Patrick's Day postcards in the New York Public Library's Digital Gallery!

Tales of the Blizzard -- of 1947

2010-03-11T10:46:00.001-05:00

Warburton Avenue looking north from Williams Street. (click on any image for more information about the photograph)

You think we had a tough time a couple of weeks ago with 20.9 inches of snow? Well, the 26.4 inches that fell on December 26, 1947 hit New York much harder. “Metropolis Resembles Ghost City As It Digs Out of Record Fall” read one headline. Buses, cars, trains, subways – all were paralyzed, and 77 people lost their lives. As bad as conditions were in Hastings in 1947, the local shutterbugs were all out with their cameras, so we have a good record of what our village looked like. Here are four of the scenes they captured, along with snippets from the Herald Statesman newspaper put out the day after the blizzard.

“The city’s usually congested streets were still congested – but by lines of stalled automobiles, buses and trucks, bumper to bumper, stretching block after block. Other streets, piled high with drifts, were as deserted as country lanes.”

“The Hudson Tubes, which connect this city to New Jersey points via the tunnels under the Hudson River, the ferry houses, and rail and bus stations, were filled to overflowing and at one time the situation grew so grave that additional policemen were assigned to handle the anxious – and often stranded – crowds.”

“The city’s gala nightclub life was stifled by the transportation snarl. At Midnight only eight patrons were present at the usually noisy and gay Monte Carlo club, while the headwaiter at the swank Stork Club said business was ‘knocked out.’”

Main Street looking west toward the Palisades

“At one time officials of bus companies reported 2,000 vehicles “lost,” their whereabouts temporarily unknown.”

“Telephone communication also was almost completely paralyzed yesterday as a record-smashing volume of calls tied up all boards. A 20-minute or half hour wait sometimes resulted in an operator answering telephone but for the most part coin boxes brought no action.”

“Swamped with telephone calls, a Brooklyn firm that provides limousine service to hospitals for expectant mothers couldn’t operate its automobiles and tried to rent horses and sleighs. Police cars served as ambulances for several expectant mothers.”

“Even the cemetery was a welcome place of refuge last night. One group beat the storm by spending the night in the office of St. Mary’s Cemetery, Sprain Road.”

“Two detectives had nearly dug out their snow-bound car before discovering it was the wrong car.”

“Trains resumed running to and from New York at about 7AM today after the worst tieup in more than two generations. Only the strike of 1946 had stopped the trains completely since the Blizzard of 1888…. On the Hudson Division a train reached Harmon from New York about 6 o’clock this morning – just 12 hours late.”

"Mount Haines," the pile of snow dumped off the bridge during village cleanup by the D.P.W. and named after its chief, Melville Haines.

“Hastings had difficulty with its snow-clearing equipment. During the height of the storm, three of the four plows broke down.”

“Milk deliveries were just about halted. The Borden company said it got three trailers through from its pasteurizing plant in Mount Vernon and is going ahead with deliveries. Sheffield company reported it was concentrating wholely on house deliveries “to get milk to the children” and not paying attention to wholesalers, stores, etc.”

“The Liner Queen Mary, some of whose passengers brought their luggage to the pier aboard sleds, finally sailed at 4:25 A.M. today after the storm had delayed her departure nearly 12 hours.”

“The mailman’s slogan fell by the wayside in the day-after Christmas snowstorm of 1947. The snowstorm stopped mail deliveries in Yonkers today and no trucks and no carriers went out of the Yonkers Post Office… Carriers and trucks went out yesterday, in an effort to keep schedules but many were stranded and had not yet returned home by noon today…”

“A pair of skiers tried out their boards on fashionable Madison Avenue. There was skiing in Central Park, too, and up at Bear Mountain. Officials of Palisades Interstate Park were as joyful about the snow as local street-cleaners were glum. They predicted record crowds for Winter sports.”

Snow day on "Mount Haines." Sue Lindemann (later Staropoli) takes the plunge while Phyllis Schumm, Jimmy McCue, Bill Costello, Steve Ravinsky, and Jack Ayres look on.

Hudson River Maps at the New York Public Library

2010-03-04T14:21:00.019-05:00

The 2009 Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial has stirred an excitement in early New York history that lingers on into 2010, especially at institutions that have collections rich in that period. Such is the case with the New York Public Library. Their current exhibition entitled “Mapping New York’s Shoreline, 1609 - 2009” opened in September 2009 at the 42nd Street branch of the library, and remains on view until this coming June.

The library’s map collection is one of the best in the world. But this exhibition also draws on their impressive store of prints, photographs, ephemera, documents from the genealogical collection, and, naturally, books. The display illustrates how knowledge of the New York shoreline -- and the shoreline itself -- changed from the time of the earliest European explorers to today. There is a focus on the Dutch period and on the American Revolution, but the show also traces the development of transportation along the waterways and the impact of other events like California’s Gold Rush. Many of the items relate to Manhattan’s shoreline, especially its southern tip, but others show the Jersey shore, the Long Island Sound, and, naturally, the Hudson River.

This is, of course, where Hastings comes in. It is fun to walk from decade to decade trying to find a mention of Hastings’ tribe of Weckuaesgeeks, and spot the first appearance of “W. Chester.” There is an entire small gallery devoted to maps of the Hudson River, including a map pasted onto the floor so you can walk, with a giant’s steps, the entire length of the Hudson River in a few paces. Naturally, we think that more attention should have been paid to Hastings-on-Hudson. One map places it below the Greystone train station, and another attributes to John William Draper the first photograph ever taken and dates it a decade before the camera was even invented. Tsk tsk. As we all know, John William Draper is only credited with taking the first photograph of the moon and one of the first photographs of the human face.

But, all in all, this is a fascinating show for anyone interested in the history of New York or the Hudson River, and offers many different ways to look at, and think about, New York. Look for the 1719 view of “Ye Flourishing City of New York”, the copy of The New York Mercury from 1787 with news from the East and West Indies, and the wonderful 19th-century prints of New York Harbor and the Brooklyn Bridge. There is also an interesting video showing how one of the documents on display was prepared for the exhibition by the library’s staff of paper conservators, and another, more high-tech, video showing how some of the library’s old maps can be digitally mapped onto a Google globe of the Earth.

The exhibition is free, and open during New York Public Library hours. See their web site for further information and related programs, and also take a look at their related Flickr photostream set -- it includes many images of the Hudson River, including postcards and stereoviews, that are not in the exhibition.

New York Has a Snow Day

2010-02-25T21:11:00.010-05:00

But the internet, like the U.S. Postal Service, just won't quit!

The snow came down all day, and it is still falling. Parts of Hastings are without power. We timid folks of the Hastings Historical Society certainly did not make it to the Cottage today. And yet some dizzy New York Public Library employee was on Facebook at 8PM posting an album of photographs of 19th and early 20th-century snow storms from the library's collection. (Click on the photograph of snow carts from 1896 above to browse through the rest of them.)

Isn't it comforting to know that, even in the face of a snow emergency, you can still get your dose of local history?

Anaconda Demolition Videos

2010-02-18T15:20:00.013-05:00

We are delighted to report that James Dean's video of the Anaconda building site demolition is back on YouTube! Click on the screen below to start the video rolling.

And if you just can't get enough waterfront clearance, James has also posted a sped-up compilation of all the demolition footage he collected through January 27th. It's a wild ride, so best to heed James' warning "People prone to fits from flashing lights or jittery video should proceed with caution."

Thanks, James! It's all fascinating!

Happy Birthday Hastings Theater

2010-02-11T14:33:00.025-05:00

The Hastings Theater in 1929

Today is the 90th birthday of the Hastings Theater, which opened amid great fanfare on February 11th, 1920. We are lucky enough to have an eye-witness account of this event written in 1967 by Steve Zebrock (also known by his stage name of Alan Brock). In 1920, Steve was eleven years old and living with his family on lower Warburton. To earn enough cash to get to the Yonkers movie house on the weekend, Steve and his friends delivered newspapers for the Hastings News. But they kept a keen eye on the site next to the Hastings News office where architect Foster L. Hastings of Ridgedell Avenue was superintending the construction of Hastings’ very own movie theater.

“… in December, 1919, the Hastings theater building stood before us in all its magnificent glory, and Mr. Hastings decided to let us in on the opening night attraction: Douglas Fairbanks in “The Mark of Zorro”! We cheered the posters out front – Doug was then America’s favorite movie star. …

A few days before the opening of the “Mark of Zorro” a heavy snowstorm blanketed Westchester – actually more of a blizzard. The kids were scared – maybe the movie wouldn’t open? Fortunately Mr. Hastings stuck to his word. … Despite the snow, the weather was not too cold, and parents, with offspring holding on, were spread all around the theater.

This was a real “dolled up” night, the likes of which most of us village kids had not seen before: Members of the first families were arriving in their motors, with some of the men in Tuxedos and the ladies in evening gowns and fur capes. Among the first of the leading citizens was the Walker Whiteside family. Mr. Whiteside was a famous Broadway stage star who lived in Tower Ridge. His young and lovely daughter Rosamond was also a well-known actress. Next came the Wuppermans, Ralf and Frank, known to Broadway as the Morgan brothers [Frank Morgan would later play the Wizard of Oz in the 1939 movie]. Claudia Morgan, who later became famous on Broadway, radio, and TV, was the daughter of Ralf. There was a loud cheer as the shining Rolls Royce belonging to Billie Burke and Florenz Ziegfeld pulled up. The Zinsser family soon drove up, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Zinsser with their beautiful daughters Ellen and Peggy, and handsome son Jack. …

Within a few seconds the cashier’s window was raised and the head of Anna O’Hara welcomed us from behind it. The first honorary tickets went to Village President Thomas Goodwin and his family. After that came the Thomas Reynolds family, and Mr. and Mrs. Egbert Handy and their pretty daughter Edna, and gradually the crowd moved comfortably indoors.

The young Steve Zebrock

Once inside the theater itself, we were awe-struck. This was not a narrow tunnel-like movie such as the ones we had been accustomed to. The auditorium was brilliantly lighted and wonderfully warm. Brand new carpets stretched down the entire length of the aisle to the stage, and the wall lights looked like real candles burning. We were proud of our Hastings Theater.

The excitement of this special night was quickly reaching its climax. We grabbed seats down front right behind the orchestra put and reveled in all the splendor surrounding us. … At last the lights began to dim and Foster L. Hastings walked down the aisle with a few of the village dignitaries. A sudden hush fell over the entire audience as Mr. Hastings began a speech of welcome. He then brought on the Village President, Mr. Goodwin, to a round of applause, and a few more familiar faces. More applause and whistling, then – the stage was empty.

The piano quietly went into music from the opera “Carmen,” in keeping with the Spanish mood of “The Mark of Zorro.” The lady at the piano was Gordon Smith’s mother. We all knew her. Mrs. Smith was the most popular pianist in Hastings. [Gordon Smith says that his mother was invited to play for the opening and stayed for the next three years.] At the end of the mood music, everyone in the auditorium broke into applause. The next minute the screen flashed Douglas Fairbanks in “The Mark of Zorro.”

When the last close-up of Douglas kissing beautiful Marguerite de la Motte faded from the screen there was a sudden let-down. Back to earth. The lights were on again and the miracle was over. But we knew that ahead of us were more miracles. Now we had our own movie theater. And Hastings, for us, was on the map at last.”

Hastings Theater right after it closed its doors in 1977. In the years that followed, it was under consideration for several businesses – an antique shop, a movie house for films in Spanish, housing for senior citizens, a theater for training young Broadway hopefuls. In 1986 it was remodeled into the Moviehouse Mews.

Out of the Blue

2010-02-04T16:39:00.014-05:00

Draper Cottage must have been built on a field of four-leafed clovers. That is the only explanation of the incredible luck the Hastings Historical Society seems to have. We have a question, and miraculously, within two or three days, someone will call or e-mail with the answer. We start researching a subject and suddenly every box or file we open is brimming with information about it. And the way donations seem to flow in is incredible. Take the package that arrived on Monday. It contained at least two dozen photographs of Hastings and here is the letter that was inside:

“To whom it may concern: My name is Trampas King and I am the superintendent of a small municipal waste transfer station located in Dexter, Maine. We recently found these pictures in one of our resident’s trash. They were very interesting to me so I looked up Hastings-on-Hudson, and found your address. Maybe you can use some of these. I don’t know who they came from but I didn’t want to discard them either.”

And how did he know about Hastings on Hudson? In with these photographs was an envelope postmarked 1947 and addressed to Master Thomas Fogler, 18 Calumet Avenue, Hastings on Hudson. We looked up Thomas Fogler in the yearbooks and found him in the class of 1948. The caption under his senior photo reads: “As his camera records pictures… He leaves a picture of success.” Many of the photographs in the collection that Mr. King sent us are of the school itself, like the one above, and high school sporting events. Tommy may have taken many, if not all, of the photographs. They certainly seem to all date from the late 1940s. We are especially curious about the one below – the group includes several shots of this dinner. Does anyone recognize one of the boys or the event?

We are more grateful than we can express to both Trampas King and Thomas Fogler -- who has certainly left behind a picture of success!

Anaconda Video Removed

2010-02-02T14:45:00.016-05:00

We are sorry to relate that ARCO has asked James Dean to remove his YouTube video of the building demolition referred to in the last post. If we can get permission to show it on the internet, we will include it in a future post. Meanwhile, for those of you who did not see the video before it was withdrawn, here is the Before and After, as recorded by the camera of member Paul Duddy. After half of the siding panels were removed, two cranes pushing on the east side of the building brought the entire struture to the ground. Thanks for the photos, Paul!

Good-bye Research Building

2010-01-28T16:23:00.012-05:00

If there is a fascination in watching building construction, there is an equal fascination in watching demolition, especially of a building you have come to see as a permanent part of your village sky line.

On January 27th, Southside Avenue resident James Dean recorded the final demise of Anaconda Wire & Cable Company's Extra High Voltage Laboratory, constructed in 1958-59. The link below is to Jim's video on YouTube.

In its day, this building housed a state of the art research & development laboratory as well as a facility for manufacturing the newest power cables designed to supply the growing power needs of huge cities like New York. When it was built, it was the only such plant in the nation. But during the 1960s Anaconda constructed new specialty plants in the south and west and the Hastings laboratory became obsolete.

Now all trace of it is gone, and we look forward eagerly -- or is that anxiously -- to the future of the Hastings waterfront. Thanks for sharing the video, Jim!

A Moment of Glory for 25 Main Street

2010-01-21T13:49:00.039-05:00

By Judy (Wemer) Chamberlain

Movie crew in front of 25 Main Street, transformed with temporary tiling and potted plants into a Santa Barbara restaurant. (photo copyright Anne Marie Leone)

Hastings was all a buzz this past summer with the news that a movie was being filmed on Main Street. It is exciting when something out of the ordinary happens in a small town. It gives everyone something to talk about, and it makes for good “people watching.” The featured actors included Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and Alec Baldwin, though only Meryl was in the scene shot this June in the village.

It’s Complicated, the new romantic comedy written and directed by Nancy Meyers, chose to feature one of my favorite buildings in town. The First National Bank building, on the corner of Main and Whitman, was built in 1907, and through its long history the building has housed an assortment of businesses.

Postcard from about 1912 showing the bank building

My connection to 25 Main Street was through a dentist. Dr. Stewart had his office on the second floor. Mounting the steps was like marching to the gallows. I would walk down from school with dread for my afternoon appointments. I remember that the waiting room was austere, the magazines of little interest to me, and time waiting for my turn in the chair, unbearable.

There was one bright spot though. The receptionist was a lovely lady with silver gray hair, who always had a large colorful handkerchief attached to her stiff white nurse’s uniform. Her name was Mrs. Feury. I think her first name may have been Beth, but since I never called her anything but Mrs. Feury, I’m not certain. She was efficient and tried her best to put patients, especially nervous children, at ease -- no small feat given the antiquated drills that awaited you beyond the closed door.

Photograph from 1929 by A.C. Langmuir. The slogan on the window reads: "Love and Thrift Make Happy Homes."

Today the office of dentist Dr. Harvey Kutz is located at 25 Main. However, now for at least the run of this newly released film, the sturdy brick building with its pleasant arches, will be famous in Hastings for its transformation into a restaurant.

Unfortunately, only those who stopped by in person to watch will know this, because the scene shot here ended up on the cutting room floor. For the rest of us who intently watched the film to spot our landmark, well, we’ll have to be content to know that this fine building brought a film crew, Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep, and some excitement to Hastings.

Editor’s Note: We have lots of photographs of 25 Main, but not when it was Dr. Stewart’s office. Does anyone have such a photograph that they could lend us?

The lost scene: Meryl in the rain. (photo copyright Anne Marie Leone)

Mystery Photograph: Ferrera’s Meat Market

2010-01-14T15:17:00.018-05:00

Back in 2008 when Carol Venuto Davis wrote her wonderful article for the Hastings Historian on her house at 4 Spring Street, she included this photograph of herself (right) and her sister Priscilla (peeking over her shoulder) in Fererra’s meat market, taken around 1953. We recently asked her to tell me more about the photograph, and here is her answer.

“That's the owner Mr. Ferrera in the long white apron cutting a piece of meat. The two men behind the counter were working for him, but I can't recall their names. The men standing behind my sister are customers. Don't know them either.

The photo was taken for advertising—they had just installed some new meat counters, and I think the local paper was doing a story about that. It was nice of Mr. Ferrera to give me a photo, but then, we were regular customers. Mom sent us there a couple of times a week because she felt they had good quality meat.

I remember the shop always smelled of fresh sawdust and the meat was placed in white cardboard containers then wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string. You don't get that kind of service any more.

One of our chores was to go to Ferrera’s for meat, and buy groceries including fruits and vegetables at the A & P supermarket across the street—you can't really see it in the photo but my sister is holding Mom's shopping list and I'm clutching the money. The butcher or grocer would tally the amount on the wrapping paper or bag, and we were supposed to wait there and make sure the addition was correct before paying. It was good training in budgeting at an early age since I was 11 and my sister 8 years old at the time the photo was taken.”

Please let us know if you can identify the men in the picture. And if you have any memories of the meat market to share, send them along!

Ferrera Brothers market at 546 Warburton Avenue in 1935. The photograph show, left to right: Alfred Ferrera, Jack Cattell, Lillian Cattell, Frank Ferrera, and Albert Ferrera.

Carol is also looking for information about people who might have lived in her family home, 4 Spring Street, before her grandparents bought it in 1926. Some of the names listed on old deeds to the house include: Michael Kablack, Louis & Lizi Babulicz, Abraham & Carrie Oppenheimer, Fannie Leitner, Michael & Agnes Masterson, Jane Scriven, William Kinder, Frederick Kinder, Garret A. Veeder, George W. Bippell and Sidney S. Blackwell.

Let us know if you can help her!

Veselykh Sviat! (Happy Holidays!)

2010-01-07T10:51:00.011-05:00

The Historical Society does not own as many photographs of holiday festivities as we would like, but here is an exception. Nine members of the Hastings Ukrainian American Society pose for the camera in the costumes that they wore when they went out caroling on Christmas Eve, which by the Eastern Orthodox calendar is January 6th. The photograph was probably taken in the late 1920s and shows, left to right, standing: Steven Borys, Steve Konick, Nick Perik, Michael Myhal, John Penderski, Mr. Siwick; seated: John Politza, Mr. Kozemchyk, and Michael Fedew, who ran a saloon near the train station that was popular with the Hastings immigrant community. Most of the men pictured here worked in the waterfront industries and lived nearby with their families. (Some of the identifications have been challenged and some are incomplete, so if one of our names seems wrong to you, let us know.)

These carolers are following a Ukrainian tradition that goes back in Hastings at least into the 1910s and much further back in the Ukraine. Dinner on Christmas Eve breaks a forty-day fast with a meal celebrating the bounties of the harvest. Caroling comes after dinner, as described by the Ukrainian ethnomusicologist Sofia Hrytsa in an article she wrote in 1999.

“After the meal, young carolers, koliadnyky, go from house to house singing carols and performing a short play on the Christmas theme, called a vertep. The characters usually include shepherds, the three wise men, angels, and devils. One of the carolers says a vinshuvania (a short poem), wishing each of the household members a prosperous and bountiful New Year:

Glory to God,
King of the Heavens!
Grant the hospodar [host] lucky years
By the sevens!
Glory to You God, Glory today!
Grant the hospodynia [hostess]
As many years as you may!”

A Joyful New Year

2009-12-31T12:57:00.015-05:00

When icicles hang by the wall,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
When blood is nipt and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whoo! Tu-whit; tu-whoo!
-- Shakespeare

We are starting to develop quite a nice collection of 19th- and 20th-century greeting cards here at the Historical Society. This is one of the most elaborate. It measures five by seven inches, and is a double-sided card made up of two cards pasted back to back surrounded by silk fringe. The scenes are printed in beautiful detail using the color lithograph process; on one side is a Christmas greeting and on the other side is a New Year’s greeting. At the very bottom in letters too small to read without a magnifying glass is the name of the publisher: Wirths Bros. & Owen.

The Wirths brothers, Colvert and Robert, were engravers. In the 1850s they emigrated from Hanover, Germany to the United States. From the 1860s to the turn of the century the brothers designed and produced greeting cards, calendars, and small illustrated books. By the time this card was published in the 1880s, they had offices in New York at 12 Bond Street, and in London. Their cards, however, were printed in Germany. This was common for cards and postcards produced before the first World War, since German printing methods were considered far superior to American.

The Boston printer Louis Prang had introduced English-style Christmas cards to the United States in 1874, and the Wirths brothers began designing their own cards soon after. In the 1880s, Christmas cards were still a novelty, and each December the cards of the season were reviewed in popular magazines like The Literary World and Athenaeum. Wirths brothers’ painted satin cards and cards frosted with glitter were praised as “dainty and attractive” and “much superior to the common run.” Cassell’s Family Magazine admired their sunsets and snowy landscapes. And in 1887, the London magazine Punch confirmed the popularity of Wirths Brothers cards in its supposedly humorous verses on new Christmas products:

Wirths Brothers cards we like, and for this reason
They are in keeping with the Christmas season
Of Christmas Cards, you will ask, well, where on
Their point? Quite so, but here’s your money’s wirths.

Volumes of Good Wishes from the Historical Society

2009-12-24T12:50:00.001-05:00

In 1982 Algernon Gordon Smith, known to his Hastings friends as Gordon, gave the Historical Society a small scrapbook of greeting cards, two of which you see here. Gordon was a third generation Hastings-ite, and he and his wife were charter members of the society when it was founded back in 1971. He was the first editor of the Hastings Historian and the second president of the Historical Society, and his historical notes are some of the oldest in our files.

Gordon compiled his scrapbook in the first grade – that would have been in 1911. One of the cards in the book actually has a copyright date of 1909, so Gordon had probably been collecting these cards for a few years. He gave his little scrapbook as a present to “Mrs. Smith,” presumably his mother. And today we share it with you – with volumes of good wishes this holiday season!

Speed Demons of Hastings

2009-12-17T16:25:00.017-05:00

Gus Wagner's goat cart with Ed Rohrbach at the reins, ca. 1910

By now you will have received your new Hastings Historian with the lead article by Bob Russell on the 1950s Hastings car club called the Driftin’ Shifters. The young mechanics in that club rebuilt and souped up old cars to race on the Dover Drag Strip in Wingdale, New York.

The racing spirit has a long history among Hastings residents of all ages. But while automobiles absorbed the attention of adults, kids had to take what they could get. At the turn of the century, the transportation of choice among the young racing set in Hastings was the goat cart.

In 1974 Albert Shaw Jr. described the sport of goat-cart racing in a letter to the Historical Society’s Gordon Smith. Albert Jr. was born in 1898 and his family lived on North Broadway, the stage for many hotly contested races between goat-cart owners John “Jack” Zinsser and Stanley Halle. Jack was the son of Col. Frederick G. Zinsser, owner of Zinsser Chemical Company, whose house once stood in Zinsser Park. Stanley was the nephew of the Sidenbergs, who lived on North Broadway near the Dobbs Ferry border. In their races, Albert Jr. observed a pattern – Jack always won when they were coming south and Stanley always won when they were going north. The goats, it seemed, were always willing to put on a little extra steam when heading in the direction of their own barn and feed bag.

Alfred Jr. was clearly a sporting young gentleman, following in the footsteps of his neighbors. According to an article in our files, Alfred Jr. won the local soapbox derby in 1908. This race was run on the grounds of Mackenzie School in Dobbs Ferry (now the site of Cabrini Nursing Home). Albert Jr. called his car “Isotta-Fraschini” after the make of the car that had won the popular Briarcliff Cup stock car race in Westchester that year. Our hero might not have been able to enter the race at all—he had broken both his spare wheels (they were express-wagon wheels made of wood)—but the chauffeur of another contestant lent him an extra wheel. The course ran steeply downhill along the border of Dobbs Ferry and Hastings and included at the end a hairpin turn onto Broadway that a later newspaper article described as “something of a killer-diller.” But Albert Jr. and his mechanic, a youngster from Ardsley named K.B. Conger, were clocked as the fastest and took home the prize against a field that included the fiercest competition from all the local villages.

Jack Zinsser in his pre-racing days, standing by the head of a goat cart ca. 1900; photograph lent for copying by Jack's son John A. Zinsser

Hastings’ Model Orphanage

2009-12-10T15:22:00.010-05:00

Children from the New York Orphan Asylum in Hastings-on-Hudson with their donkey cart pulled by "Jack", the school donkey. (All the pictures in this post are from Dr. Reeder's 1909 book on the orphanage.)

One hundred years ago, in the very southwest corner of Hastings, there was a model orphanage. In 1910, the Review of Reviews described it as “one of the best examples of the cottage system for the care of orphans to be found anywhere in the world.”

The “cottage system” was invented by reformers at the end of the 19th century to counteract the evils of what they called “institutionalism.” In the early 19th century, philanthropists thought they could rescue children from the unsanitary and dangerous conditions of cities like New York by removing them from their homes and placing them in charitable institutions. But many of these were overcrowded and far from the sanitary and orderly places that the philanthropists had envisioned. They were institutions where, as Hastings R. Hart wrote in his book Preventive Treatment of Neglected Children, “children are kept in uniform, with shaved heads; where they do not have individual clothing, but have clothing distributed to them promiscuously from week to week; where lice and bedbugs prevail; where food is meager and of inferior quality; … where sleeping rooms are insanitary; where thin straw beds let the tender bodies down upon hard wooden slats; where cuffs and abuse are more freely distributed than kind words.”

The “cottage system” tried to create an environment that was more like a real home. Different ages of children lived together in fairly small groups with “cottage parents.” The ideal cottage system was also outside the city, where the air and water were clean, and where children could spend part of their day out of doors. This was what the New York Orphan Asylum had in mind when they bought their property in Hastings in 1869.

"Where We Live and Learn." The New York Orphan Asylum in 1909. On the left are the "cottages" and on the right are the administrative buildings.

But it was not until 1899 that the orphanage board decided to begin the move to Hastings, a move that was completed when the buildings were finished, in 1902. To help them carry out their plans, they hired a new superintendent, Dr. Rudolph Rex Reeder. Dr. Reeder is described in the 1913 Who’s Who in America as a “social worker,” a new profession that had developed in the 1890s. Reeder had started his career as a school principal in Illinois and completed his doctorate in education at Columbia Teacher’s College in 1900, the year he was hired by the New York Orphan Asylum.

Reeder was an enthusiastic champion of the cottage system. He wrote books and articles on the subject and spoke at conferences. He described with horror orphanages he had seen where children’s individuality and creativity were stifled. “The life of the child in most of these institutions is so dreary, soul shriveling, and void of happy interests, the daily routine of marching and eating and singing and of lining up for whatever is to be done so stupefying, as to inhibit the child’s normal development.”

Girls from the orphanage caring for a family of chickens.

In Hastings, Reeder tried to create the complete opposite of this kind of institution, and to Hart, who visited the orphanage and wrote about it in 1910, Dr. Reeder had succeeded.

“The ideal of an orphan asylum has been very nearly attained in the New York Orphanage at Hastings-on-Hudson, under the direction of Dr. R.R. Reeder. ... The institution is established on the cottage plan, with cheerful sitting rooms, well-ventilated dormitories, small dining rooms and a separate kitchen for each cottage, partly in order that the older children may assist in the care of the younger ones and partly in order to create a homelike atmosphere.

A class in a greenhouse.

Around the different cottages will be found flowerbeds, chicken coops and pets. Nearby will be found vegetable gardens, beehives, rabbit hutches, stables, etc. …

The school rooms are spacious, affording twice as much room per child as is found in the ordinary public school. This plan permits proper ventilation, exercise in the school room and comfortable seating. The schools are only an incident in the training of the child. The whole life of the child is made to articulate with his education; farming, gardening, grading, building, domestic work, play, environment of every sort, are skillfully wrought into educational material.

At the foot of the bluffs flows the Hudson River, where a bathing place is enclosed, allowing boys and girls alike to learn and practice the joyful art of swimming. ... The evils of 'institutionalism' are practically absent from this beautiful institution, and already its influence is being felt upon the orphan asylums and children's homes of the United States.”

Boys swimming in the Hudson.

Reeder wrote his own book about the Hastings orphanage in 1909, and you can read it online at Google Books, or by clicking here. Reeder was so well thought of that in 1921 he was hired to head the Oversees Child Welfare Association of America in Serbia. In 1929, following a long tradition of orphanages trading the name “asylum” for “school”, the New York Orphan Asylum changed its name to the Graham School in honor of its original founder, Isabella Graham. During the 1950s, the Manhattan branch was reorganized and renamed the Windham Society. In 1977, the Graham School and the Windham Society were consolidated into the current Graham-Windham.

Christmas in one of the cottages in 1909.

Open House This Saturday, Dec. 5th

2009-12-01T11:17:00.030-05:00

Now that Thanksgiving is over and the last slice of pumpkin pie has been eaten, we can turn our attention to the next set of holidays! We don’t often open the cottage on a Saturday, but in honor of the season we are going to have an open house this coming weekend.

Come by and visit us at 407 Broadway between 10AM and 2PM on Saturday, December 5th. It will be your last chance to catch our 2009 exhibitions, including the displays on the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909 and on John William and Henry Draper’s contribution to celestial photography. You can also help to support the good work of the Historical Society by stocking up on our t-shirts, postcards, prints, throws, and maps, buying yourself a copy of the Arcadia Press book on Hastings, or renewing your membership. They all make wonderful gifts. If you can’t make it to the cottage, take a look at our “Emporium” on the web site. It includes pictures of all our offerings and a mail-in order form. Give us a call if you have any questions.

We also have some lovely note cards with Hastings scenes that make perfect Season's Greetings cards. Our best seller since 1982 is this lovely little watercolor painting by Jasper F. Cropsey showing a sleigh flying down Ravensdale Road.

In Cropsey’s day, Hastings was much less built up than it is today, and his many paintings of our town show an area where the presence of human beings had not yet disfigured the natural landscape. And it was the natural landscape that inspired Cropsey, as you can tell from this letter that Cropsey wrote to John Wickliffe Kitchell in November of 1897.

“Some years ago, one winters day, I felt like having a little recreation—and a tramp in the snow—which lay freshly fallen, and very tempting in the sun-light. It did not seem cold—the air was so soft, and glorious; although a biting frost prevailed and with buttoned up overcoat I wended my way nearly knee-deep, out, and along the Farragut Avenue, here, near my place at Hastings-on-Hudson till I came to a turning called Ravensdale Road. This struck my fancy as being delightful, picturesque, and artistic. I immediately turned in, on this lovely road. By this time the sun had warmed the sky, and an afternoon glow had begun to prevail. A little further tramping and I entered a bit of wood, in which the snow lay pure and soft, and untrodden; tinted with gleaming sun light that flitted in, and out through the stately tree-trunks warming the branches with roseatic light, while it deepened every little hollow in the more obscure parts of the woods, with a cool shadow. Thus, I tramped along, admiring the beauty of the soft blue in the sky overhead—the warmth and glow in the fresh snow besplattered tree trunks: when turning to take a moments breath, I had before me, ... just as the sleigh came dashing along, the subject of your picture, cool and tender, as no language can describe.

It is needless to say, I went no further but then and there made notes which I embodied in the picture which was produced on my return home of which I think you are to be congratulated as the happy possessor.”

Cropsey is referring to the fact that Kitchell had recently purchased one of his paintings entitled “The Ravensdale Road in Winter.” Kitchell’s painting and the painting on our note card are two of Cropsey’s variations on the same theme. Not all are dated, but they must have been produced after 1885, when Cropsey first moved to Hastings.

Another of our Cropsey note cards, "Winter on the Hudson," painted in 1887. The original painting is in collection of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation

John Wickliffe Kitchell was a mid-westerner who had made his little fortune in developing coal mines and farming land in Illinois. In the 1890s he retired and began to enlarge his art collection. His favorite artist was Jasper F. Cropsey. Between 1897 and 1900, Kitchell purchased twenty of Cropsey’s paintings through the St. Louis dealer Alfred Newhouse for a sum in excess of $5,000. This must have seemed like a fortune to an artist who spent the last years of his life in poverty.

Kitchell liked to have a “pedigree” for his paintings, and Newhouse encouraged Cropsey to send Kitchell notes about the paintings he bought, giving him some description of the subject—whether it was Greenwood Lake, Niagra Falls, or Storm King. It was perhaps from these letters about Kitchell’s purchases that a friendly correspondence developed between Kitchell and Cropsey. Kitchell urged the artist more than once to visit him at his home in Pana, Illinois. But Cropsey, worried perhaps about the cost of the trip, always excused himself, explaining that he simply had too much work.

Kitchell’s painting, along with his correspondence with Cropsey, is now in the collection of the MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois. The painting on our note card is in the collection of long-time Historical Society friend and supporter Barbara Newington. And there are several other versions of the Ravensdale Road theme in other collections, in watercolor and oil. One of these, a watercolor entitled “Winter—Ravensdale Road,” sold at auction at Christie’s in 1995 for $45,600.

And yet another! "The Ravine at Hastings," a watercolor painted by Cropsey in 1895 and showing a view down the Ravine only a few years before the Warburton Avenue Bridge was built, with the pond in the center, a few of the houses near the railroad tracks, and, in the distance, steamships and sailing boats on the Hudson. The original painting is in the collection of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation.

Thanksgiving – Hastings Style

2009-11-26T14:09:00.010-05:00

Cover of Hastings House Restaurant's Thanksgiving menu, ca. 1974

With money as tight as it is these days, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to step into a time machine that would take you back to an era when you could have a full Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant for $6.25? Well, that’s what you would have gotten at the Hastings House Restaurant in the mid 1970s. Not so long ago, was it?

Hastings House, a true Hastings institution, spent many prosperous years patronized by employees of the waterfront industries who would come in for a quick drink after work. When Anaconda Wire & Cable Company was still in operation, the bar opened at 8AM to accommodate the workers coming off the third shift. Anaconda left in the mid 1970s, but though at least one Hastings resident likened the patrons at the bar to waxworks, Hastings House remained a local favorite until it closed in September of 2006.

The building on the corner of Spring Street and Warburton Avenue has a long and interesting history. It was commissioned in 1915 by two brothers, Samuel and Morris Kaufman. Thanks to Morris’s son, we know something of their early history. As young men, Samuel and Morris had travelled up from Yonkers to work at their uncle’s saloon on Spring Street. (This building became Dunn’s Bar in the 1920s.) The boys’ parents spoke Hungarian, Yiddish, and Polish, and they got along well with the Eastern European workers at Zinsser Chemical and the National Wire & Cable Company. The brothers eventually bought out their uncle, and then decided to build themselves a larger building, which they referred to as a hotel.

Postcard printed ca. 1920, showing the Farragut Inn on the left

The building was designed by Hastings architect Foster L. Hastings (who also designed the Hastings movie theater building that now houses the Moviehouse Mews), and the construction was supervised by William Schmidt, a builder who lived on Farragut Avenue. The “Kaufman Bros. Farragut Inn,” named after Admiral Farragut, one of the most famous of Hastings’ residents, opened for business in 1916 or 1917.

As with many local “hotels,” the Farragut Inn also served food and drink. One source in our files includes it in a list of the most popular speakeasys in Westchester during prohibition, and Morris Kaufman himself was jailed after a raid where a large amount of liquor was discovered on his premises. Morris’ son remembers meeting many famous actors and politicians at the Farragut Inn, as well as Babe Ruth, who was a regular customer. When the Babe visited, the news passed quickly around the neighborhood. By the time he had finished his steak, young fans would be lined up around the block, waiting to get a glimpse and an autograph of the famous man. The Farragut Inn's banquet room on the second floor was a popular place for all sorts of celebrations – testimonial dinners for local VIPs, like Fire Chief Melville Haines and Col. Frederick G. Zinsser, and banquets for the fire department and the Southside Social & Athletic Club.

The banquet room, from a photocopy in our files of a ca. 1920 postcard. Does anyone have one of these postcards that we could borrow to make a better copy?

Fashionable as the “speaks” may have been, prohibition was hard on places like the Farragut Inn and, to make matters worse, Sam Kaufman died in 1932. Around 1935, the business passed into the hands of Joe Falcaro, who changed the name to Falcaro’s Restaurant. Joe described himself in a 1937 advertisement as an “undefeated match game bowler,” and it may have been Joe who installed the “new up-to-date bowling alleys” in the basement.

Farragut Inn returned under new management in the early 1940s and did not close until 1960. (Can anyone help us fill in the ownership during this period? Historical Society Sleuth Bob Russell thinks it might have belonged to the Leith family for a time in the late 1950s.) Bernie Hoffman reopened the business two years later as the Hastings House Restaurant. Hastings House continued the tradition of hosting large groups, including class reunions and wedding receptions, and also served special Easter and Thanksgiving dinners, like this one. If you aren’t hungry yet, just read through the menu.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Hastings Historical Society!

Mystery Photo: Anaconda's Weatherproofing Department

2009-11-19T14:40:00.001-05:00

One of the departments at Anaconda Wire & Cable Company that employed women was the weatherproofing department. There, the women operated the machines that covered copper cable with cotton braid impregnated with a weather-proofing substance.

In these photographs, however, the ladies are having some kind of party -- complete with spaghetti and meatballs! From looking at the background of the photographs and matching them with other photographs in our collection, we know they are still at work, in the Anaconda caffeteria. And we know the names of two of diners: Sophie Karschmidt Hoss is in the plaid shirt and cap and Louise Capuano is wearing the checked shirt and vest. Who are the others? What is the celebration? We'd love to know!

Click on the photographs to look at them in Flickr (use the All Sizes link to enlarge the photograph). If you have any ideas, pass them along to us! If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

In Honor of Veteran’s Day

2009-11-12T14:18:00.002-05:00

Parade on Main Street during or just after World War I, possibly on Armistice Day, November 11th, 1918

Parades matter. And Joseph Semberger reminds veterans why in the “Commander’s Message” from a booklet produced in 1969 for the 50th anniversary of the James Daley Post No. 200 of the V.F.W.:

“Each of us has an important role in this celebration. As you march up Warburton Avenue with your visiting delegations and military units, remember one important fact – your presence will help to rekindle that spark of patriotism which has been slowly vanishing in our modern society. We hope it will leave a lasting impression in the minds of the spectators, young and old, who will line the route of the parade. If by our actions we can generate the feeling of pride in being Americans, then our efforts will not have been in vain.

Certainly you must remember when you, as a child, stood in the sidelines and watched similar parades, that vibrant feeling of pride running up and down your spine as each band went by. How proudly you stood at attention to salute the Flag borne by the color guards of each contingent… Remember?”

World War II veterans in the Memorial Day parade on Warburton Avenue in 1949

Between the Chrystie Estate and the A&P: Bob Russell’s Brook

2009-11-05T15:51:00.031-05:00

Editor’s Note: Bob Russell, a regular contributor to this blog and to the Hastings Historian, left a fascinating comment on Judy Chamberlain’s post last week about the history of the local A&P. I asked him to tell me more about what he remembered of the former Chrystie property, and he reminded me that he had sent a letter on just that subject to the Historical Society in 1999, which was printed in the Hastings Historian. We present an edited version of his letter here, illustrated with color slides from our collection taken of the Chrystie Estate in the 1940s.

Looking north from Five Corners up Broadway, toward the old Chrystie house on the site now occupied by the Hastings Terraces at 555 and 556 Broadway.

During the late 1950s and very early 1960s, just before the A&P excavations began, my friends and I would regularly play soldiers, or just plain explore the area, on the northwest corner of Main Street and Broadway known to us as “The Brook.” This land was originally part of the Chrystie Estate. The house I grew up in was on Whitman Street. So as the crow flies, I could, with a good head of steam, be at “The Brook” within five minutes by crossing through St. Matthew’s School playground.

I spent a lot of time there as a kid and knew the area pretty well. At the base of the slope, down from the top of the hill, just after the land leveled out, there was a circular pool. It appeared to me to be some kind of fountain or man-made pond, perhaps for growing watercress. It was somewhat overgrown but not stagnant, and I suspected it to be spring-fed and self-effluating, eventually meandering its way to the brook. Although it was fenced in, there was an opening just wide enough to squeeze through. But once inside, you had little room along the edge to stand on and had to be careful not to fall in.

The gardens of the Chrystie Estate, looking west toward Whitman Street.

Not far from the circular pond, there was a curious and relatively deep hole. It was roughly four feet square and six to eight feet deep. It was lined with stones so it was constructed as a square dry well. At the bottom were some rotted boards covered with weeds and brush. Perhaps this had been an old cover that had rotted over time and ultimately caved in. Nevertheless, I always stayed away from this pit as it was scary looking.

Then one day a friend came to us and said he and another lad had been down there and that it was O.K. to explore. One kid couldn’t go down without someone to help him get in and out. With the help of my friend Eric Likhonine, I got down to the bottom and began to snoop around.

The gardens, looking north from Main Street.

Underneath the boards and brush I saw iron balls, perhaps a half dozen or so, stuck in the dirt at the bottom. With a stick I pried one loose. I scraped it off, and it looked like an iron softball. For an 11 or 12 year-old, it was somewhat heavy and must have weighed between 10 and 20 pounds.

At that moment I just wanted to get out with my find. I passed it up to my friend, who then helped me get back out. We started off for my house, taking turns carrying the ball as we walked. My mother became upset when she saw it and asked where we had gotten it. She he told us to take it back. Eric laughed because he knew we’d have to haul it back—that all our hard work had been in vain. Eric, whose parents owned the Denise Gift Shop across from the Hastings Theater, now lives in Ashville, North Carolina, and remembers the incident very well.

So what happened to the cannonball? We went back to the brook and dropped it back into the dry well. We often talked about going back in again, just to get one or two to hide somewhere, but we never did.

Bob Russell’s next Hastings Historian article will be on the Cup ‘N’ Saucer restaurant that once occupied the spot that is now Comfort Lounge. “We’re sure that many of you have fond memories of the Cup ‘N’ Saucer that was previously Lang’s,” says Bob. “Does anyone have photos of the Langs, or of the Carusos, or any shots taken in or outside the store? Kindly e-mail them to us at hhsblog[at]hastingshistorical[dot]org.”

Happy Anniversary A&P!

2009-10-29T13:23:00.023-04:00

By Judy Chamberlain

During a recent trip to the A & P, I purchased some house blend coffee that came in a commemorative tin. The can’s copy heralds the dates 1859-2009 because the self-service chain is celebrating 150 years of service. The photo imprinted on the can reminded me of the small and simple A & P we once frequented, and the date triggered my memory back to 1960, when the new A & P supermarket finally opened its doors.

According to its website, nearly 150 years ago The Great American Tea Company opened a store on Vesey Street in New York City and began selling tea, coffee and spices at value prices. Soon stores sprang up all around the metropolitan area and salesmen took their wares on the road in horse-drawn carriages bound for New England, the mid-west and the south. In 1869 the Company was renamed The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, in honor of the first transcontinental railroad and hopes of expanding across the continent.

The original Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company in Hastings began selling groceries in the 1920s, and it was located on the west side of Warburton Avenue. Although I don’t remember much about the interior at this location, I do remember the strong aroma of coffee that wafted from a large coffee grinder that was located near the cash register. And I also remember the pincers, a long handled device that the clerks used to manipulate and grab items off the top shelves, Although the A & P was generally self-service, both the grinder and the pincers required an assistant’s help; watching these tools in operation made going to the grocery store a more interesting experience.

Two photographs of Warburton Avenue from 1936 spliced together show the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company's first home on the west side of Warburton Avenue, in the spot occupied today by Hastings Coin Laundry.

Many years of discussion and review went into building a modern supermarket in Hastings. It started in 1955 with a proposal by A & P to build on the site of the former Chrystie estate flower and vegetable gardens at the corner of Main Street and Broadway. It was a hot topic for debate, and differences in opinion escalated into a great supermarket battle that divided residents. Was the convenience of having groceries, meats, produce, baked goods, health and beauty aides, and other household items under one roof, worth the traffic and congestion that would result? Other sites were considered, but the supermarket was finally built on the originally proposed lot.

The supermarket opened to great fanfare on October 25th of 1960. Now why would I, still in middle school, remember the opening? Orchids. My girlfriends and I walked down after school on the opening day because word got around that they were giving away Hawaiian orchids to all the women customers. We were curious. Would they give a group of preteen girls exotic flowers from our newest state? They did--a small, lavender blue beauty for each. While inside, of course we explored, bought snacks, checked out the record department, sampled bakery treats, and browsed through the shelves of items at reachable heights. This new A & P was pretty fine.

The "new" A&P grocery store on the corner of Main Street and Broadway. When this photograph was taken, in the 1980s, A&P faced Main Street.

Author's Note: If you would like to learn more about “The Saga of the Supermarket,” stop by the cottage and read Mary Allison’s wonderful article in the Fall 1995 issue of the Hastings Historian.

Hastings Powers the Atomic Age

2009-10-22T14:00:00.001-04:00

On September 21st we posted an article about Robert Fulton’s submarine called the Nautilus, which he built in Paris in the year 1800. Here is an article about one her descendents, the USS Nautilus, the world’s first operational nuclear-powered submarine, commissioned in 1954. Like Fulton’s ship, the new Nautilus was very much an experimental vessel, used to test new equipment and set new records in underwater speed and endurance. In 1958, she became the first ship to reach the geographic North Pole, travelling under the Arctic ice cap. The Nautilus was decommissioned in 1980 and, in 1982, designated a National Historic Monument. You can visit her today at the U.S. Navy Submarine Force Museum and Library in Groton, Connecticut.

The Nautilus’ reactor was made by Westinghouse, but the special cable that powered that reactor was developed by Hastings’ own Anaconda Wire & Cable Company. The following is an edited version of an article describing the cable that appeared in Anaconda Wire & Cable Company’s employee newsletter, the Anaconda Leader in the August-September 1957 issue. The Historical Society has a complete collection of the Anaconda Leader from 1950-58.

Atom Sub’s Reactors Wired with Anaconda “Top Hat”

A new era in transportation has been opened with the successful construction and operation of atom-powered submarines by the United States Navy. The USS Nautilus, first of this new breed, recently completed two years of record breaking operations during which time she traveled over 60,000 miles, more than half of which while fully submerged. On completion of these first two years of operations she returned to her home port at Groton, Connecticut to have a new uranium reactor core installed and a general overhaul to correct any “bugs” that had turned up.

At that time the standard Navy cable wiring in the Nautilus’ reactor was removed and replaced with newly developed Anaconda “Top Hat” cables. …

Anaconda is producing “Top Hat” cables in three basic types:

PS: Power Supply cable, which is used to drive control rod positioning motors and to power heaters on the reactor.

PI: Position Indicator cable, which is used to transmit electrical signals from the reactor to the control room indicating position of control rods in the reactor.

TC: Temperature Control cable, whose main use is to transmit electrical signals from the reactor to the control room indicating the temperatures in various parts of the reactor. …

The story of “Top Hat” cable is an interesting one in that it once again shows that Anaconda is the organization that gets the job done.

Tests by the Navy proved that the standard cable constructions employed in the submarine’s nuclear reactors would be unable to withstand the extreme heat of emergency operating conditions. A cable capable of withstanding temperatures of up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit was necessary as a precaution against possible breakdown of the reactor cooling system. Ordinary copper constructions then in use could not withstand these possible temperatures since the temperatures were high enough even to oxidize the copper conductors.

The Navy came to Anaconda with a set of performance requirements for “Top Hat” cable … and asked if we could make it.

Anaconda accepted the challenge to produce this new cable and went to work. Within three months of the initial query Anaconda had a workable sample of the cable in the Navy’s hands; and the first run of cable made and shipped from Hastings is now functioning in the reactor of the Nautilus.

Difficulties encountered in making this new cable included the newness of working with a silicone rubber sheath on armored type Navy cables. The specifications required that the cable be watertight longitudinally, and watertight shielded pair construction had never before been made. Specifications further required that no organic materials be used in order to make a more stable high-temperature cable. The originally specified overall diameter was also decreased to offer greater ease in using the cable in the confined space for which it was designed.

Anaconda worked closely with outside suppliers to develop a nickel plated copper wire which would be capable of withstanding the extreme heat. Nickel clad wire had been used before, but for this application it was necessary to develop a nickel plating that provided adequate protection to the copper without porosity. …

The Navy has standardized on the type of cable developed by Anaconda, and other manufacturers will be asked to bid on future requirements but, to date, Anaconda is the only organization that has delivered this type of cable to the Navy for use in their atom-powered vessels.

A new era has been opened up and, as always, Anaconda is in the forefront in supplying the products necessary for the advancement of this era.

Brochure from Anaconda Wire & Cable Company showing the Hastings Mill in about 1960. This brochure was digitized for us by the Westchester County Historical Society.

Meet the Author: Helen Barolini visits the Historical Society on October 25th

2009-10-19T16:40:00.026-04:00

The Palisades in winter, 1947, from the Historical Society collection

Ice on the Hudson,
frigid winds toss up white gulls,
sun sweeps the sky.

from Hudson River Haiku by Helen Barolini

As our final Hudson River Quadricentennial event, The Hastings Historical Society will open up Draper Observatory Cottage this coming Sunday afternoon, October 25th, between 2 & 4 PM. Refreshments will be served.

Come and see our exhibition on the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909 and help us celebrate local author Helen Barolini’s newest publication, Hudson River Haiku. This collection of haiku poems about the Hudson River is the latest in a series of chapbooks from Slapering Hol Press in Sleepy Hollow. The press, housed in the old railroad station at Philipse Manor, is dedicated to supporting and publishing poetry.

Historical Society trustee Helen Barolini (center) working with historian Roger Panetta and Historical Society archivist Mary Allison on the waterfront oral history project in 1988.

Draper Observatory Cottage is located in Draper Park. Our address is 407 Broadway, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706.

From the Editor: Due to time constraints, this will be our last Monday blog post. Watch for more mystery photos and articles about our collection in our Thursday posts!

Mystery Photo: First Grade at Hillside, 1965

2009-10-15T15:45:00.002-04:00

Here is one of our most recent acquisitions, a fabulous photograph loaned to us for copying by Katy Artel Pietrogallo. It shows the bright and shining faces of Margie Kunze's first grade class at Hillside School in 1965 (described on the letter board as "Year 1"). The girls in the middle row show off their favorite books, including Green Eggs and Ham and Gertie the Duck. Katy's brother, Alexis, is in the back row, fourth from the right. Do you recognize any of the other kids? Click on the photograph to look at it in Flickr (use the All Sizes link to enlarge the photograph). If you have any ideas, let us know!

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

The Historical Society Blog Takes a Holiday

2009-10-12T14:00:00.004-04:00

Our advice to you: Go to the movies!

A recent donation from former resident Roy Weldon -- a 1942 Hastings Theater flyer.

The New "Hastings Historian" Mails Today!

2009-10-08T13:32:00.010-04:00

"Babe" Ruth and Hastings mayor Thomas F. Reynolds

Your next issue of the Hastings Historian contains many fascinating articles -- articles about how Hastings got its name and about Hastings’ first ambulance, plus a wonderful reminiscence on gym class in the early 1960s. It also contains a plea from Frank Domchek for a photograph of Babe Ruth. And not just any photograph! As you can see, we have three of them. But Frank is looking for a very specific image.

It was in 1927 that George Herman “Babe” Ruth came to Hastings. The local Rotary Club had invited him to speak on the opening day of the Boys’ Summer Twilight League, which they sponsored.

“Babe Ruth is coming here!” exclaimed the Hastings News the week before his arrival. “Yes, he, George Herman Ruth, the Home Run King, the Sultan of Swat, the Prince of Ball Players, is coming in the flesh, in his own proper person. He will appear right out in the open in broad daylight, where every boy will be able to get a good close-up of him, free of charge.”

On the 16th of June, Babe Ruth drove himself up to Hastings in his eight-cylinder sedan and met Hastings’ mayor, Thomas F. Reynolds, at the acclaimed Longue Vue restaurant (now the site of the Andrus Memorial Home). After dinner, Hastings’ motorcycle policemen escorted the two back to Reynolds Field. “Every small boy who was not already at Reynolds field,” the paper reported, “could be seen scurrying as fast as immature legs could carry him to the scene of the appearance of the idol of the American youth.”

The Boys’ Band of the Children’s Village played the National Anthem. Then, as the paper put it, “there were the usual pictures.”(And how glad we are now that they were so usual!) Coach LeRoy Cochran took the stand and explained the important purpose of the gathering. Superintendent of Schools John L. Hopkins presented the mayor. And Reynolds presented Mr. Ruth, who, he announced, had just that day hit his twenty-second home run at Yankee Stadium.

“I suppose everyone wants to know how I hit them out,” the Babe began, after the cheers had died down. “About twenty kids have asked me that. Well, I’m going to ask ‘Lindy’ how he flew across the ocean. … Some home runs are luck and on some you out-smart the other fellow. That’s what I want you boys to do, try and out-smart the other fellow, and play the game for all it’s worth. I’m coming up some night to see how you get along.”

Among the “sea of young faces, every one of which bore the rapt expression of absolute idolatry,” was young Frank Domchek. He remembers distinctly a photograph taken of himself, “the Babe,” and a few other boys sitting in the back of a pickup truck. Frank would love to track down this photograph. If anyone can help the Historical Society out with this request, please let us know!

The Babe poses at Reynolds Field with local Hastings boys, officers of the Rotary Club, school officials, and village officers. The photograph shows, left to right, front row: William Steinschneider, Henry Cochrane, Charles Andres, Jim Leddy, Mayor Tom Reynolds, Harold Ulmer with son Harold, Jr. in front, Fred Charles, Harry Murray, Superintendent of Schools John L. Hopkins, and Coach E. Leroy Cochran; second row (behind man with boy): Laken Owens (behind the Ulmers), Norm DiChiara (boy), and Foster L. Hastings; top row: H.H. Murphy (bow tie), two unidentified, Jimmy Croke, William J. Russell Sr. (taller husky boy), unidentified, Kirby Brown, Babe Ruth, unidentified, Warren Reynolds, three unidentified, Dom Raimondo (from Irvington in open-necked shirt), unidentified. If you recognize any of the unidentified boys or men, let us know!

Cutting Edge Technology in Hastings: The Phonograph

2009-10-05T10:11:00.017-04:00

If you are a frequent visitor to this blog, you probably have some sense of how many unidentified photographs we have in our collection. In order to identify a photograph, we have to find the right person with the right knowledge, but sometimes that knowledge is not of names and faces.

The photograph you see above belonged to the late Margaret Woodrow of Hillside Avenue. It has no name, no date, no marks of any kind on it. Our resident costume expert, Kenneth Loyal Smith, was attracted by the young lady’s gorgeous sleeves. That kind of sleeve, he says, became popular in 1897, and the tight collar narrows the date of the dress down to right around 1899 or 1900. Kenneth also recognized the machine at her elbow as an early phonograph, the kind that played wax cylinders.

Some online research turned up the following advertisement for a machine with a similar silhouette. It was produced by the National Phonograph Company, a company founded by Thomas Edison.

The ad belongs to Neil Lerner, a collector of early Edison phonographs who lives in North Carolina. Neil was kind enough to look at our picture, and in his opinion the phonograph in is one of Edison’s “Home” units. You can identify the model, he says, by the clips on the side of the case. These clips were used to attach the lid of this “portable” (25 lbs.) machine. Behind the woman’s elbow is a hole in the case into which a crank would have been inserted to wind up the phonograph. Only a dozen seconds of cranking, and then you could sit back and listen to an entire 2-minute cylinder -- a song, a speech, or a story.

In the 1850s, several inventors had toyed with ideas for a sound recording machine, but it was Thomas Edison who developed the first machine that could reliably record and play back sound. He demonstrated his new invention in 1877 and patented it in 1878. At the time, the phonograph was seen as an almost magical device, and was the first of Edison’s inventions to bring him international fame. Edison went on to work on other projects and came back to take up the commercial manufacture of phonographs in the late 1880s. His earliest machines were leased for business use, but in 1896 he started the National Phonograph Company specifically to manufacture phonographs to be sold to home owners.

Edison’s first domestic machine was the phonograph in Neil’s ad, the “Home” model A. It was originally priced at $40, but competition with The Columbia Phonograph Company’s “Gramophones” reduced the price of Edison’s unit to $30. As the advertisement claims, the phonograph could both play and record. Undoubtedly a bargain. In 1901 this model was restyled and the clips removed, and this allows us to date the machine that appears in our photograph to between 1896 and 1901. If the picture was taken, as the dress suggests, around 1900, the phonograph would certainly have been a new and exciting addition to the household.

The woman in the photograph remains a mystery, but we can make a guess. Margaret Woodrow was born in 1904, and this young lady looks about the right age to have been Margaret’s mother. It does seem unlikely that Margaret would have had in her possession a picture of a woman of the previous generation, taken before she herself was born, unless that woman was a relative. Margaret’s mother was Frances McConnell, daughter of Benjamin McConnell who built a house for his family at 65 Washington Avenue in about 1860. We may be looking at the interior of that very house, and the woman may be Frances or Frances’ sister, whose name was also Margaret.

This is a photograph of Margaret Woodrow taken in 1923, the year after she graduated from Hastings High School. Is there a resemblance?

Of course, we can’t say for sure. The photograph at the top of the blog may show an older friend or mentor of Margaret’s who didn’t even live in Hastings. But, even if that is the case, photographs of domestic machines and household appliances are rare, and it is exciting to discover in our collection an image of one of the earliest phonographs.

Mystery Photo: Riverview Manor Hose Company, ca. 1945

2009-10-01T13:55:00.011-04:00

Here is a great photograph of the Riverview Manor Hose Company No. 3 filling up at the Gulf station on Main Street. We have a 1947 photograph showing the Gulf station in just this location on Main Street, in the spot that is now the Boulanger Plaza parking lot, before the station moved to a new location further up Main Street. Behind the truck you can see signs for Riolo’s Meat Market on the left and the Green Tavern on the right, where Slices is today. We don’t know the names of any of the men in the truck. The photograph came to us through the Shreve family, so someone from that family may be in the picture. Does anyone look familiar? Click on the photograph to look at it in Flickr (use the All Sizes link to enlarge the photograph), or look at the details of the men’s faces at the bottom of this post. If you have any ideas, let us know!

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Houdon in Hastings: The Life Mask of George Washington

2009-09-28T14:55:00.021-04:00

As soon as we had finished writing the previous week’s post on Jean-Antoine Houdon’s bust of Robert Fulton in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we realized that that eminent French sculptor is actually represented in Hastings, in our own collection.

In our small but select library, in a glass case, is a copy of the life mask that Houdon made of George Washington in 1785. At the time, Houdon was working on a commission for the Virginia Legislature. Two years previously, America, France, and England had signed the peace treaty that finally ended the Revolutionary War, and General George Washington had retired as commander of the Continental Army and returned to private life. The Virginia Legislature decided to honor Washington for his courage and patriotism with a full-length marble statue that would stand in the capitol building in Richmond. The governor asked Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, the United States’ ambassadors in Paris, to suggest the best artist for the commission. They both recommended Houdon. “I find that a Monsieur Houdon of this place possesses the reputation of being the first statuary in the world,” wrote Jefferson, using a term for a ‘sculptor’ that has since gone out of fashion.

Houdon was delighted with the commission, which he considered the most important of his career. The American artist Charles Wilson Peale painted a portrait of Washington and this was sent to Houdon as a guide for his work. But Houdon insisted on taking Washington’s image from life. He accompanied Franklin back to the United States and arrived at Washington’s Mount Vernon residence in October of 1785. During his two-week stay, Houdon followed Washington around, observing his posture and expression. He also took detailed measurements of his body and created the life mask to serve as a model for Washington’s face. He applied grease to Washington’s skin, put quills in his nostrils so he could breathe, and then covered his face with wet plaster. This impression created a mould that, once dried, could itself be filled with plaster to create a positive image of Washington’s face. Because Washington necessarily had his eyes closed, Houdon had to hollow out the pupils of the plaster mask to give the face a life-like expression.

Houdon took the mask back to Paris with him and used it to create the likeness of the final statue, which was erected in Richmond in 1796. Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette, and many of Washington’s relatives praised the statue as the most lifelike representation of Washington that had ever been made. By 1796, General Washington had become President Washington, and was just finishing his second term. He had become, if possible, even more famous than he had been in the 1780s, and Houdon’s statue drew national attention.

The mask itself was prized as the most authentic likeness of America’s first president. In order to make the positive mask, the mould had to be broken, so only one mask was ever made from the original mould. This mask is now in the collection of the Morgan Library in New York City, most likely purchased by financier and art collector J.P. Morgan on one of his many trips to Europe.

Ours is but a humble copy, made at least a century later. It was on display here in the Draper Observatory Cottage in the 1950s when the cottage housed a public reading room, but it certainly may have been purchased long before, probably by one of the Draper family. The round plaster pedestal that is part of the mask is unusual and may someday help us identify when and where our copy was made. Masks and busts of famous men and women were popular library accessories at the turn of the century, and there are many copies of Washington’s mask in libraries around the United States. In fact, you can still buy one today -- on eBay.

The Draper Reading Room as it appeared ca. 1950. Washington's mask is not visible in the picture. It may have been where it is now, in the Transit Room, which you can see through the doorway in the center of the photograph.

Mystery Photo: French Assembly, ca. 1947 – 1954?

2009-09-24T16:15:00.010-04:00

In 1981 Elizabeth Filkins Gessler, long-time French teacher at the Hastings High School, donated to the Historical Society an album containing dozens of wonderful photographs. The album is dated "1935-1954", and the photographs show the activities of the French Club, a club which “Madame Gessler” sponsored. The most spectacular pictures in the album are the ones of the French Assembly stage shows, like this one. It is not dated, however, nor do we know the names of the participants or what the subject of the sketch was. If you have any ideas, let us know! Click the photograph to see it on Flickr -- select "All Sizes" above the photograph to enlarge it. Does anyone look familiar?

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Robert Fulton in Paris

2009-09-21T15:47:00.015-04:00

Due to technical difficulties, today’s blog post will take a break from extolling the glories of our own collection, and point you instead to one of the many fabulous items to be seen in other New York collections.

Painted plaster bust of Robert Fulton by Jean-Antoine Houdon, ca. 1803. The bust is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (www.metmuseum.org) Wrightsman Fund, 1989 (1989.329)

The next time you are passing through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, do not neglect to pay your respects to Mr. Robert Fulton, inventor of the steamboat that, in 1807, focused the attention of the world on the Hudson River. You will not find him in the American Wing, but in the European Sculpture and Decorative Arts galleries, in the same room as the Emperor Napoleon. Why is the bust of an American engineer and inventor in the French decorative arts galleries, and why would anyone have commissioned a portrait of him before he built the steamboat that made him famous throughout the world? Those of you who read Judy Chamberlain’s excellent biography of Robert Fulton in the Spring 2009 Hastings Historian will know the answer to those questions. But for those who didn’t, we shall recap.

Robert Fulton was born in 1765 in a farming community in Pennsylvania and quickly demonstrated talents for both art and engineering. He was fascinated by mechanical problems, but his real passion was painting. When he was twenty-one, he left the United States to study with his idol Benjamin West, an American painter who had found fame and fortune in England. West was the official historical painter to King George III and a founding member of the British Royal Academy. Fulton studied with West for about five years and then gave up painting as a career. Scholarly opinions differ as to whether this was due to financial difficulties, a growing fascination with engineering, or a lack of artistic talent.

In any case, in West’s studio Fulton met important men who became the patrons and supporters of Fulton’s inventions, many of these concerned with solving problems in naval engineering. In 1797, Fulton went to Paris looking for money to develop a new kind of vessel – the Nautilus, an underwater warship armed with torpedoes. (The name was borrowed, many years later, by Jules Verne for the ship of Captain Nemo.) With the support of a few ministers in the French government, Fulton built a test model and demonstrated it on the Seine in 1800. For a time, both the French and English governments had their eye on the submarine, but they eventually lost interest.

Another of Fulton’s long-time interests was the steamboat. Many men had worked on designs for steamboats, and some even worked, but no one had yet made a commercial success of a steamboat business. Another man obsessed by steam travel was Chancellor Robert Livingston of New York. He arrived in Paris in 1801, having been appointed U.S. Ambassador to France. Livingston had an estate on the Hudson River and had himself attempted to build a steamboat, which had ultimately failed. This was of vital concern to him, since in 1798 he had managed to finagle the exclusive rights to navigate the waters of New York by steam for twenty years. This would be worthless if he could not produce a machine that could carry a decent-sized cargo and keep a reliable schedule. With financial support from Livingston, Fulton constructed a steam-powered ship to his own design and, in August of 1803, the boat steamed up the Seine. The trial run attracted an enormous crowd, including officers of Napoleon’s staff and members of the French National Academy.

1804 painting by Louis Leopold Boilly of Jean-Antoine Houdon sculpting the bust of Pierre Simon, Marquise de Laplace, a friend of Fulton and instrumental in arranging for government support of the submarine project. The women in the studio are Laplace’s wife and daughters. The painting is in the collection of the Musee des Art Decoratif, Paris.

In the same year, perhaps in celebration of the successful steamboat trip, two portrait busts, one of Fulton and the other of Fulton’s friend Joel Barlow, were commissioned from the sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon. Houdon was the most famous portrait sculptor in Europe. All the important men and women of the age came to Houdon for their portraits – the Emperor Napoleon and Josephine, Voltaire, Catherine the Great, Benjamin Franklin, John Paul Jones, and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson even arranged for him to come to the United States to take the likeness of George Washington. It isn’t known who commissioned the busts of Fulton and Barlow, but there is speculation that Barlow, a wealthy diplomat living in Paris, ordered both of them. A young inventor who had yet to make his fortune would probably not have been able to afford such a luxury.

But Fulton’s luck was soon to change. He and Livingston returned to New York in 1806 with the test results of Fulton’s 1803 ship. Fulton immediately started work on a new vessel called the North River Steamboat. There had been so many failed attempts at steam navigation that the boat was popularly referred to as “Fulton’s Folly.” But when the North River Steamboat set out from Manhattan for Albany on August 17, 1807, it exceeded Livingston’s expectations. Later renamed the Clermont after Livingston’s estate, the ship was the cornerstone of the first successful steamboat business, opening up the Hudson River to trade, travel, and industry. In the decades that followed, steamships based on Fulton’s designs transformed rivers all over the United States from barriers into highways of commerce and colonization.

Mystery Photo: Hastings Policemen?

2009-09-17T13:44:00.000-04:00

We have all sorts of objects in the archive, and all sorts of mysteries. Here is an advertisement for Champion spark plugs from our documents collection. It appeared on page 15 of the Saturday Evening Post for January 18, 1958. The caption below the photograph reads: "Police cars have to start in a flash -- and go like the wind. Nearly twice as many use Champions as any other plug! Above: Champion-equipped police cars in Hastings on Hudson, N. Y."

So are these really Hastings policemen? Or are they actors? Was the photograph taken in Hastings, or was it just a stock photograph that the advertising agency pulled out of the files? What do you think? Do you recognize either of the policemen? Let us know!

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Billie Burke and Burkeley Crest

2009-09-14T15:00:00.009-04:00

Mary William Ethelbert Appleton “Billie” Burke, best known as the good witch Glinda in the 1939 film version of “The Wizard of Oz,” began her film and stage career in 1907. She was 24 years old and already a star when she bought the Kirkham estate on Broadway in Hastings in 1910. The estate possessed a fine mansion that Billie re-christened Burkeley Crest. In 1914 Billie Burke and Flo Ziegfeld were married, and for a while they lived in New York City.

Their daughter Patricia was born in 1916, and it was at that point that the family moved permanently to Burkeley Crest. They decorated the house with Italian and English antiques and Chinese hangings. They installed a fully-equipped projection room where they could watch movies, and built a “playhouse” for their daughter that was modeled on George Washington’s Mt. Vernon. Flo loved flowers and had the gardens around the house planted with hyacinths and daffodils, 24 blue spruce trees, and an English box hedge at the gate. A staff of seventeen servants catered to the needs of the Ziegfelds, their guests, and their menagerie of animals that included deer, parrots, geese, pheasants, bears, ponies, and buffalo.

At the time, having celebrities like the Ziegfelds living in Hastings was the village’s claim to fame, as Stephen Zebrock recalled in an article written for the Hastings News in 1941.

The names of Billie Burke and Florenz Ziegfeld of course went hand in hand every time anyone mentioned Hastings. It seemed as though no one could ever speak of our village without invariably adding, “You know, that’s where Billie Burke and Ziegfeld live.” It even got so Aunt Mary Salaky from Perth Amboy made a special trip one Sunday – just to see if this fantastic tale was really true. Every time my mother would say ‘this’ or ‘that’ about Billie Burke, Aunt Mary would look at her skeptically and murmur, “Go on – it isn’t so.”

Steve Zebrock at age 12, standing in front of the gates of the Burke Estate

Finally, she could resist no longer and made the trip; as she stood in front of “Burkeley Crest” on South Broadway and took in the vast estate, she shook her head from side to side, chanting, “Florenz Ziegfeld, Bille Burke – right before my eyes.” Then turning to my mother as we walked back, “Just wait til I get back to Amboy and tell the others that I saw Billie Burke’s house.” We all looked at her, beaming with pride, while my mother added the burning remark, “Well, I told you so.”

Aunt Mary took on a bit of local pride from them on, and every time she went to see a Billie Burke movie she would preen herself and, at the same time, whisper to her companion, “I saw her house in Hastings – I really did!”

After the stock market crash of 1929 the Ziegfelds were left badly in debt. They closed up the Hastings establishment and moved to the west coast so that Billie could continue her career in the movies. Flo died there soon after, and in 1940 Billie sold the estate. Burkeley Crest was later demolished, marking the end of Hastings’ most glamorous era.

Billie Burke sitting at her desk in Burkeley Crest

Mystery Photo: Portrait by Lewis Hine, ca. 1935

2009-09-10T12:17:00.007-04:00

Among the 50-or-so original photographs in our collection by documentary photographer and Hastings resident Lewis W. Hine are these two pictures of a young man in a suit.

Who is he? Why did Hine take his photograph? Did he win a prize? Was he captain of the football team? Does his face look familiar? If you have any ideas, let us know!

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Dateline: HASTINGS, September 7, 1900

2009-09-07T13:00:00.002-04:00

as reported in the Hastings column of the Dobbs Ferry Register

Warburton Avenue, looking north from the bridge. (Click on any photograph for more information.)

Counselor Wm. H. Blain of Tower Ridge is spending his vacation in town.

Thomas F. Martin [village tax collector] has been enjoying a well-earned vacation during the past week.

Dr. Albert Shaw of Broadway, Editor of the Review of Reviews, is spending his vacation in the Adirondacks.

Mr. J. Perry Worden, the well known literary man and lecturer, has returned from Germany for a brief visit to his home here.

The Fraser Free School opened on Tuesday with the largest attendance in its history. The Board of Education was unable to accommodate all who applied for admission, thus emphasizing the necessity of having a new school, the need of which has been apparent for several years.

A well contested game of baseball between the Hastings Athletic Club and the Uniontown Fire Company’s team on Labor Day resulted in a decisive victory for the fire laddies, the score standing 12 to 6 in their favor. Charles Gerkin pitched for the Firemen and John [Falbush?] Jr. for the Athletics.

The winning team: Charles Gerkin is the in the back row on the far right.

The firemen were called out at eight o’clock on Wednesday evening to extinguish a fire which started in the laundry of Mr. Robert Behr’s residence on Broadway. The prompt and efficient work of our fire fighters prevented the flames from spreading beyond the apartment where they originated, and as a consequence the damage was slight.

The ladies’ fair for the benefit of St. Matthew’s Church opened in the parish hall on Monday evening. The tables are in charge of the following ladies: Mrs. Walter A. Burke (St. Matthew’s table), Miss Marie H. Murphy (Sacred Heart table), Miss Josie Monk (Young Men’s Catholic Association table), and Miss Eliza Booth (refreshment table).

Gus Wagner (second from left), owner of the town's bicycle shop, outside Goodwin's cigar store with some of his stock and customers.

There are several voting contests in progress, among them being a contest for a bicycle, to be awarded to the most popular boy or girl; a contest for a silver trumpet between Protection Hose Company No. 1 and Union Hose Company No. 2; and a contest for a child’s crib to be given to the most popular baby.

The regular monthly meeting of the Village Board was held at the Corporation Rooms, on Tuesday evening. There were present: President [James E.] Hogan, Trustees [Francis] Curry, [Frederick G.] Zinsser, [William] Steckert, and [Monahan?], and Village Counsel [Melvin G.] Palliser. The minutes of the regular meeting of August 24th were read and approved. The Committee on Streets reported that all streets were in good condition. The Committee on Lights reported that arc lights had been placed at either end of the bridge. The Village Counsel reported that the new contract with the Hudson River Gas and Electric Company had not yet been executed. Mr. Curry called up the matter of the extension of Nepperhan Avenue, and on motion the Village Counsel was directed to acquire title to the property required for the extension, in accordance with the map prepared by E. Wulff, Civil Engineer. …

Mystery Photo: Labor Day Parade, 1984

2009-09-03T13:40:00.008-04:00

In honor of Labor Day 2009, let’s look back twenty-five years to Labor Day 1984. Here are two photographs that were taken at the parade that made its way down beautiful and historic Warburton Avenue. The quality of these Polaroids is not terrific. We do recognize our beloved former mayor Frances MacEachron in the bottom photograph. The top photograph shows a fife and drum band. We don’t know if the band included Hastings residents or not. But if you recognize anyone in the photograph, let us know! You can click on the photograph and look at it more closely in Flickr. If you need to enlarge it, click the “All Sizes” link above the photograph.

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

And Happy Labor Day, from the Hastings Historical Society!

Cutting Edge Technology in Hastings: The Automobile

2009-08-31T14:31:00.007-04:00

The Society's earliest photograph of a car, probably taken before 1907 (click on any photograph for more information)

On Memorial Day of 1896, Hastings residents were thrilled by an event that had, until then, only been witnessed by residents of Paris, London, and Chicago – a horseless carriage race! The race began at about 2PM at King’s Bridge and passed along Broadway through Yonkers, Hastings, and Dobbs Ferry, with the finishing line in front of the veranda of the Ardsley Country Club. The judges waiting on the veranda included John Jacob Astor, Chauncey Depew (President of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad) and Frank Thomson (Vice President of the Pennsylvania Railroad). Here is how this momentous occasion was described in a 1929 article from the Hastings News:

“John Brisbane Walker, then editor of the Cosmopolitan, living at Irvington on an estate near what is now the Chevrolet factory and in a house built by Stanford White, offered ... $1,000 to anyone who could ride from New York City to Irvington in one of the new-fangled “horseless carriages.” No time limit was stipulated. All the contestants had to do was to get to Irvington. People from miles around … gathered in anticipation of the momentous ride.

All Hastings jammed its way along the road. From New York seven [according to the New York Times, there were only six] determined riders started out. Riding before them on horse back were couriers who were to clear the way and to see that no on was hurt by the speeding monsters. Hours passed. People on the Handy porch [at Broadway and Warburton] craned their necks. There was a tremendous noise, as if a dozen threshing machines were in action. Around the bend two puffing, steaming horseless carriages were coming at a terrific rate of 8 miles an hour. Cheers broke out.

Eventually one of the two got to Irvington. The Columbus got Mr. Walker’s $1,000.”

The winner of the race was Frank Duryea. He was driving one of his company’s Duryea Motor Wagons, which were among the first “motor-vehicles” powered by gasoline. Frank covered the 13 miles from King’s Bridge to Ardsley in one hour, five minutes, and forty-two and two-fifths seconds. A year earlier, Frank had won the Chicago Times Herald race with an even better speed -- 7.5 miles an hour.

In 1895 the horseless carriage was called “a pack of French nonsense,” which could never replace a horse. In 1910 a series of photographs were taken of the lively Hastings - Dobbs Ferry Auto Club, documenting the first stirrings of Hastings’ addiction to the newfangled machine.

The Hastings - Dobbs Ferry Auto Club on Broadway near the Hastings - Dobbs Ferry boundary in 1910. Many Hastings residents were members, including Irving Smith, Frederick Charles Sr., Thomas F. Reynolds, Walter Keys, Henry Collins Brown, and the actor Walker Whiteside. These were some of the wealthier members of our community, and it’s not surprising to find them all in the auto club, since they were the ones who could afford to purchase automobiles.

Mystery Photos: The Youth Center in 1947

2009-08-27T12:48:00.020-04:00

Making posters

Here is a neat transition from the last post on the subject of ice cream. Take a look at the background of the first photograph and you will see an ice cream vending machine – ten cents each! This entire set of photographs was most likely taken in 1947 and shows kids at the Youth Center when it was at 8 Dock Street (now Southside Avenue) in the store front just downhill from the Con Ed building.

This is a shot looking over the ping pong table toward the front of the building

Remove the ping pong table and there was plenty of space for dancing

Or for chairs set up in front of the brand new television set

Click the photographs and look at them more closely in Flickr. If you need to enlarge them, click the “All Sizes” link above the photograph. Do you recognize anyone?

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Ice Cream Memories

2009-08-24T13:30:00.003-04:00

By Judy Chamberlain

The soda fountain at Todd's Drugstore ca. 1910 (for more information on any image, click on the photograph)

Now that summer days are finally warming up, ice cream has become the snack of choice for children of all ages. Though many consider it an all-year-round treat, I enjoy ice cream, sorbets, and popsicles most in the summer. Really, who can ignore the bells of an ice cream truck as it swings into a neighborhood? As a child, I know that I couldn’t.

Ice cream was always deliciously special when I was growing up. Today we can readily buy pints of Ben and Jerry’s, Edy’s fruit bars, and Carvel flying saucers, but back in the 1950’s, most home refrigerators had small, inefficient freezer compartments with little extra space for frozen treats. If my parents brought home a quart of ice cream or some ice pops, we were forced to consume them immediately.

The solution to this dilemma was the Good Humor truck that seemed to come by at just the right time each day. Decked out in a white uniform with a silver coin holder on his belt, the Good Humor man was a kid’s summer hero. Gathering a crowd around him, he’d open the magic door that offered cool relief for all those who came running. He’d take an order, pluck out the frozen bar or cup, and deliver heaven to the waiting hand. Ah, the simple pleasures of childhood.

August J. Bruning behind the counter of his ice cream parlor ca. 1925

Because our apartment was on the fourth floor, as soon as I’d hear those bells enter the neighborhood, I’d quickly run to my building and start calling up to my mother to ask if I could get something. She too heard the bells, but didn’t want to walk down those four flights. So she would open a window and toss some money down. Though she usually wrapped the coins in a napkin or a hanky, they often scattered on impact and left me hunting in the grass for a glistening nickel or dime. And the next year, when I’d moved to Clunie Avenue, I was delighted to hear the bells of summer and discover that the Good Humor truck came to this street too, arriving just after dinner, the perfect time for dessert.

If you were in the village and wanted ice cream, nothing was better than August J. Bruning’s homemade. It was here that I ordered my first banana split and discovered that it was way too much of an ice cream treat for one little girl. Future visits brought me back to my favorite -- strawberry ice cream. Bruning’s eventually turned into the Cup and Saucer and remained a town favorite for years.

Jacobson's Pharmacy in 1929. The white signs in the windows read ‘Good Chocolate Soda’ and ‘Chocolate Malted Milks’. The sides of the main sign above the shop carry the Hydrox Ice Cream logo.

Ice cream parlors and soda fountains have always been popular in Hastings. If you found yourself at Doc Todd’s in 1910, you might have had a sarsaparilla or a dish of peach ice cream. From the late 1930s into the 1960s it was known as Joe Algeo’s Pharmacy. My Dad spent a summer working behind the counter as a “soda jerk,” whipping up cherry cokes and chocolate sodas with vanilla ice cream. Or maybe you went into Jacobson’s Drug Store in the 1940s and were tempted to sample the pineapple sundae or have a coffee ice cream cone while spinning on a fountain stool.

In 1924, Charles Liede operated an ice cream parlor at 2 Main Street. I think that had turned into The Sugar Bowl by the time I was growing up. This location may have also been the site of Adam’s Ice Cream Parlor. During the 1920s Billie Burke would often treat the local children to ice cream there, and not just to a one-cent size cone. The Historical Society records indicate that she would spring for the larger, five-cent serving. And the favorite new flavor back then was tutti-frutti. Now how special was that!

Of course, there were the neighborhood spots to stop in for something cool and creamy. Pantelemon’s, south of the Warburton Avenue Bridge, had a nice soda fountain, and so did Lambert’s on Farragut Parkway. Or you might go into Whitey’s market, near the bridge, and find the most flavorful ice pops around. There were many choices, many flavors, and many memories made each summer day in Hastings.

Sam Caruso mans the soda fountain in Jacobson's Pharmacy in 1946

Mystery Photo: Zinsser Girls, 1942

2009-08-20T16:30:00.007-04:00

Isn’t it fun to dream about winter in the middle of an August heat wave? Well, today we take you back to the Christmas of 1942. The photograph you see above was part of a Christmas card produced by Zinsser & Company to send to its employees and to those men and women who had been employees and were in the service in 1942. The type under the photograph reads: “Girls of Zinsser & Co. / Thinking of you and sending you Christmas greetings.” Below is a list of names, but with only the first initial: H. Bednarchak, H. Wells, R. Dann, J. Ramsey, E. Crotty, F. [Florence?] Crotty, K. Devlin, E. Irvine, R. Paul, A. Teekle, G. McKernan, and N. Prince.

Everyone who got the card would know who they were, of course! We are not so lucky. If you can fill in any of the first names and match the names to the faces (the names may be listed in the order in which the women are standing, but we’re not sure), please let us know! Click the photograph and look at it more closely in Flickr. If you need to enlarge it, click the “All Sizes” link above the photograph. Do you recognize anyone?

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Admiral Farragut: Legends of a Hastings Hero

2009-08-17T14:04:00.037-04:00

Part III: A Hero’s Welcome

The Battle of New Orleans, April 25-May 1, 1862 (click on any photograph for more information)

Farragut’s victories at New Orleans in 1862 and Mobile Bay in 1864 made him a national hero. He returned to New York in December of 1864 only to find himself caught up in two weeks of banquets, luncheons, parades, and interminable speeches by New York City dignitaries.

On a snowy Saturday in January (the exact date is uncertain), a little after 4PM, Farragut’s train finally pulled into Hastings. An 1865 biography of Farragut written by P.C. Headley speaks of the admiral and his wife Virginia alighting calmly at the Hastings train station to a grand reception. But William McConnell, William Ward Tompkins, and others who were there at the time remembered things a bit differently. According to them, the Farraguts wanted to avoid the kind of welcome they had had in New York City. Upon seeing the crowds waiting for them on the platform, the couple remained on the train. They had it stopped a little further down the track and got out, determined to walk back home from there.

But Hastings residents have always been clever and resourceful. They caught up with the Farraguts at Broadway, where the admiral cheerfully agreed to return to the train station for a proper welcome. In those days the plaza in front of the station (approximately where the station parking lot is today) was called Union Square. Here the villagers had erected a triumphal arch made of evergreen branches and decorated with a huge American flag. Banners hanging from the station and from nearby buildings displayed the names of the cities where Farragut had fought his famous battles: “St. Phillip,” “Jackson,” “Gaines,” “Morgan,” “New Orleans,” and “Mobile.” At the top of the arch was the inscription “Welcome to Admiral Farragut.” (Fifty years later, George Archard still remembered being tickled at the way the sign painter had signed his name. The signature was so prominent that the inscription seemed to read “Welcome to Admiral Farragut – Phillips.”)

Beneath this arch the ceremonies began, with Farragut shaking the hands of the welcoming committee of prominent citizens, including William Few Chrystie (who became the first president of the village in 1879) and Edmund S. Mills (our second president).

The original Hastings train station ca. 1900. This station was slightly to the south of the spot where the current station now stands.

The crowd then followed the VIPs to the First Reformed Church for the official reception. It had been snowing heavily all day, and Farragut and his wife were driven up to the church in sleighs. As they rode up Spring Street and approached Warburton Avenue, they passed under another evergreen arch. Directly in front of them, on the gate to what is now the V.F.W. property, was another sign reading “Honor to the Brave,” with the initial ‘F’ above it, surrounded by a pine garland.

At the church entrance, the Farraguts walked under a canopy scattered with roses (presumably made of paper or silk) and flags. Two ladies offered the Farraguts bouquets as a band struck up “See, the Conquering Hero Comes.” More flags decorated the interior of the church, and over the pulpit was an inscription in pine branches that read “May God Bless and Preserve You.” The church was filled to capacity. People had come from Irvington, Tarrytown, and even as far away as Peekskill to see the hero of Mobile Bay. At the pulpit, Mr. Mills, an elder of the church, welcomed the admiral on behalf of the entire village. Headley’s 1865 biography gives Farragut’s reply:

“My friends and fellow citizens, it gives me great pleasure to meet you all once more at your happy home. When, nearly four years ago, I came to this village, unknown and without means, a voluntary refugee from my country… I was received with open arms, and with a warmth of friendship and a sympathy of patriotic and social intercourse that have ripened into attachments and associations which can never be effaced wherever I may be or whatever may be my future lot. Here also when absent on distant duty in a service dear to my heart, my family have found a quiet and agreeable retreat where the hand of friendship and the kindest attentions were ever extended to me. … I have been given many receptions by people throughout the country but none of them do I appreciate so highly as your warm greeting to me here in the village which is my home.”

Admiral Farragut then shook the hand of every person present. This apparently took several hours as the line moved up one aisle and back down the other. At the end of the day, the sleighs delivered the Farraguts to their dwelling on Washington Avenue.

Headley described the day, no doubt correctly, as “a scene that will be long and gratefully remembered by the inhabitants of Hastings-on-Hudson. They will dwell now and in aftertimes upon the coming of Admiral and Mrs. Farragut as among thier most cherished New Year's gifts.”

The interior of the First Reformed Church in 1900, their 50th anniversary year.

Mystery Photo: Uniontown Hose Company in 1959

2009-08-13T16:00:00.003-04:00

This photograph, dated 1959 and showing the Uniontown Hose Company in full dress uniform, was donated to the Historical Society by the Rivertowns Enterprise. The firemen are standing in front of their brand new firehouse on Rose Street, which was dedicated on Saturday, December 6, 1959. This photograph may have been taken at the dedication ceremony. But apart from Chief Aresta Aluisio, second from the right, we have no identifications. Do you recognize anyone else? Click the photograph and look at it more closely in Flickr. If you need to enlarge it, click the “All Sizes” link above the photograph.

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Admiral Farragut: Legends of a Hastings Hero

2009-08-10T16:00:00.003-04:00

Part II: I Sailed With Farragut

Admiral David Glasgow Farragut (for more information about any photograph, click the image)

Last week’s post included several stories about David Glasgow Farragut’s early days in Hastings in 1861. But the reminiscences of Civil War times that were printed in the local papers in the 1920s and ‘30s also contained more personal memories of Farragut. William McConnell must have been a great storyteller in those days, because many of his childhood memories found their way into print -- memories of swimming in the Saw Mill River and of being chastised by the master of the local “little red schoolhouse”. In the 1930s, the Hastings News carried a story of his acquaintance with Admiral Farragut’s family.

“For a year or more the lad had been carrying two pails of drinking water a day to the cottage on Washington Avenue. The spring at the northwest corner of Washington and Broadway provided drinking water for the neighborhood. Young Willie McConnell received a quarter a week pocket money for the carrying of a heavy pail each morning and each evening to the Farragut door. He still remembers the southern mammy who presided in the kitchen and who took the pail from the boy’s hands.”

But of all the stories told in Hastings about Farragut, the most exciting must be the one about James Hitchcock. In 1933, a Hastings News reporter got the story from James’s younger brother William, who was seventy-seven at the time.

“Young Jim Hitchcock, reckoned the village’s boldest blood, who was reputed to be able to spit tobacco farther than anyone in Hastings, was a close neighbor of the Farraguts. Perhaps it was during the inactive summer of 1861 that the Captain first took an interest in the boy. Probably the lad worshipped the old Captain and listened by the hour to tales of the sea. At any rate, when Captain Farragut was sent to the Gulf Squadron, Jim Hitchcock went with him. The captain had promised the sexton [Jim’s father] and his wife to find a berth for the lad that would not take him into direct action.

Hastings' Admiral Farragut Post of the American Legion posing with a model of the "Hartford" presented to President Roosevelt ca. 1938.

‘Jim was many years older than me. …I wasn’t born when Jim went off to the Spanish waters with the Captain,’ Mr. William Hitchcock told the representative of the Hastings News who called upon him the other day. ‘Yes, that’s what we called those parts at the time – the Spanish waters. I’ve heard my father and mother tell about it often, how Jim went with the captain, and how the captain made him a sailor...’

‘Yes,’ Mr. Hitchcock went on, ‘Jim was on the Hartford with the Admiral, and Jim fought at Mobile Bay. I’ve heard him tell the tale many a time of how three men at the wheel were killed by a shot that went clean over his head because he happened to be stooping down at the moment. The Admiral’s promise to my father and mother? It wasn’t his fault he didn’t keep it! It was Jim’s. The Admiral told my father when he came back that he had tried to put Jim on another ship, but Jim had coaxed for the Hartford. ‘You’ll get your damned head shot off you then, Hitchcock,’ said the Admiral to Jim, ‘and it won’t be my fault either.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ said Jim and he stayed with the Admiral. I’ve heard him tell that story many times.’ ”

And where was Jim Hitchcock in 1933? Nobody knew. “He came back to see us every few years,” William told the Hastings News. “Every few years until thirty-five years ago, and then Jim never came again. I went down to Snug Harbor a few years ago looking for him, but his name wasn’t on their lists of old sailors. Jim must be dead by now.” The Sailors’ Snug Harbor on Staten Island was the first home for retired sailors in the United States. It opened in 1833 and lasted into the 1960s. That property is now the Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden.

The USS Hartford, on which Jim sailed, was one of the last wooden warships and had been commissioned in 1858. She was set on fire during a battle in 1862, but was saved by Farragut and his crew and continued to be Farragut’s flagship for all his major naval victories. The news of their neighbor’s exploits no doubt thrilled the villagers of Hastings. But they had no opportunity to show their tremendous pride and admiration for their local hero until the Admiral’s return to Hastings in the winter of 1865. That spectacular homecoming is the subject of next week’s post.

Decorative stamp showing the "Hartford" organized by local residents for Hastings' 1936 Farragut Day, celebrating the 135th anniversary of Farragut's birth

Mystery Photo: Theatrical Performance with a Nautical Theme, ca. 1935

2009-08-06T15:00:00.001-04:00

Detail of central section. For entire photograph, see bottom of post.

Here is a real mystery. We know nothing about this photograph except that it includes Augusta Rieke (later Buckes). If you look at the entire photograph, below, you will see her in the front row, third from the right, next to the man dressed as a sailor.

There were so many organizations that mounted theatricals in the 1930s, and this performance could have been produced by any one of them. In our pamphlet file, we have programs from variety shows, plays, and musicals sponsored by the VFW, Riverview Manor Hose Company, the Woman’s Cub, the Tower Ridge Yacht Club, St. Matthew’s Lyceum, the Police Benevolent Association, and even the Holy Name Society of St. Matthews’s Roman Catholic Church. Generally, these performances were fundraisers, either for the organization that sponsored them or for a specific charity. But they gave plenty of opportunities for star-struck village amateurs to show off their singing, dancing, and acting skills. Sometimes there would even be an appearance by a local celebrity, like Jonathan Winters or Billie Burke.

This is a wonderful photograph, and we’d love to know something more about it! Do you recognize the show? Does anyone in it look familiar? Let us know! Click the photograph and look at it more closely in Flickr. If you need to enlarge it, click the “All Sizes” link above the photograph.

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Admiral Farragut: Legends of a Hastings Hero

2009-08-03T16:00:00.004-04:00

Part I: How Farragut Came to Hastings

"Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!" Admiral Farragut in the rigging of his flagship, the 'Hartford', at the Battle of Mobile Bay. (Click on any of the photographs for more information.)

Before Billie Burke arrived to dazzle the village with the glamour of the theater, Hastings’ most famous resident was Civil War hero, David Glasgow Farragut. The Farragut family lived in Hastings for barely five years, and for most of that time Farragut himself was at sea. But those years, 1861 to 1865, spanned the Civil War, during which Captain (from 1862 Rear Admiral) Farragut became an American legend.

“Interest in and appreciation of Admiral David Glasgow Farragut increases at Hastings from year to year,” wrote a local reporter in the early 20th century. “There is no place in this broad country that has a better right to claim his citizenship and reverence his memory.” The Historical Society is full of memorabilia and articles about the great man and his time in Hastings, enough to fill many blogs. We have selected a handful of these stories to share with you over the next couple of weeks.

The verifiable facts about Farragut’s time in Hastings can be stated in just a few sentences. Before the Civil War, Farragut, who was a captain in the Navy, lived in Norfolk, Virginia. But he was a loyalist, and when Virginia seceded from the Union in April of 1861, Farragut moved with his wife and son to Hastings-on-Hudson. For a time, they lived at 60 Main Street. Farragut also rented from John William Draper half of a two-family cottage at the corner of Washington Avenue and Broadway. Over time, the number and order of these residences has become confused. Perhaps they lived in two houses; perhaps it was three. In 1865 the war came to an end. At about the same time, the city of New York presented the Farraguts with money to buy a house in town, and the family moved into Manhattan, ending their brief connection with Hastings.

A.C. Langmuir's 1939 photograph of the Draper cottage occupied by Farragut. In the 1910s, most of the locals claimed that this, and not the house on Main Street, was where the Farraguts spent most of their time while in Hastings.

But having an American hero in Hastings, even for a short time, fired the local imagination. 60 Main Street became known as “the Farragut house.” An oak tree on Main Street became “the tree under which Admiral Farragut used to sit.” In the early 20th century, reporters sought out Hastings old-timers and wrote up anything they could remember about Farragut. Many of these old-timers had been children during the Civil War, and their stories often appear to change from one article to the next. The Society has two scrapbooks, one compiled by journalist J. Otis Swift in the 1910s and 1920s, and another by A.C. Langmuir in the 1930s, that include such articles. Are they “memories” or “tall tales”? After all this time, it’s hard to say.

An article from 1919 tells one story of how the Admiral came to choose Hastings-on-Hudson for his residence.

“It was just before the beginning of the Civil War, when there were many Southerners and Southern sympathizers in New York, that young Farragut came up from the South to visit New York. The Government of Washington, hearing that its favorite young naval officer was on his way to the city, and fearing some Southerner would kill him, sent word to him to get out of New York city instantly. Farragut got the message as he was crossing from Jersey to the city, and promptly transferred to a small sloop, which came up to Hastings and landed at the old dock where the cable factory is. Hastings was a secluded place, cut off from New York by a ravine and miles of country road, and he stayed here for some time, making many friends, so that he afterward decided to live here, and took the house on Main Street known now as the Farragut house….”

Potscard of 60 Main Street with the caption "Admiral Farragut's Home" produced by HC Todd ca. 1905. Todd included both a photograph of this house and of Farragut himself in his booklet of historic photographs of Hastings. There is also a photograph of Grace Episcopal Chapel with the caption "Farragut worshipped here."

An earlier article from March of 1911 gives a slightly different version.

“When [Farragut] first came among the people, he was treated with coolness, as a southern refugee. An absurd story was circulated that he was an emissary sent to Hastings to blow up the Croton Aqueduct where it crosses the deep ravine near the Farragut House.”

A 1933 article adds a story told by Miss Emma Dorland, whose mother bought 60 Main Street in the 1870s: “…the northern troops that were patrolling the aqueduct in 1861, making sure that New York’s water supply was safe, had destroyed a sextant which [Farragut] had left one day on his lawn on the grounds that it was an ‘infernal machine’ which might blow up the aqueduct!”

A reporter for the Dobbs Ferry Register in 1919 relates another tale, which even he cannot bring himself to believe – that Farragut and John William Draper were attempting to photograph the heavens when soldiers destroyed their camera, imagining it to be some kind of bomb.

But as the war progressed and news of Farragut’s naval exploits reached Hastings, the tide of Farragut’s popularity turned. Local residents became tolerant, and even enthusiastic, about “their” Admiral Farragut. Tune in next week for Part II of the saga of Admiral Farragut in Hastings.

Carte-de-visite photograph produced as a souvenir around 1865 after the Battle of Mobile Bay by photographer Charles C. Fredericks of New York City. This particular card comes to us through the Draper family. John William Draper remained a close friend of the Farraguts, even after they left Hastings.

Mystery Photo: Boy Scouts at Anaconda, 1963

2009-07-30T14:35:00.004-04:00

We’d love to know the story behind these two photographs. All we know is the date: March of 1963. The man on the left looks like Harold Ormerod, manager of Anaconda Wire & Cable Company’s Hastings plant. Is it an award ceremony? What is the award and who are the scouts and the other two officials? Does anyone know?

Beneath Our Feet

2009-07-27T14:00:00.017-04:00

by Judy Chamberlain

The Hastings waterfront in 1929.

In a recent post, I wrote about walking on the bluestone slabs and asphalt hexagon tiles that lined the sidewalks of Warburton Avenue. Initially, I wasn’t aware that two local industries, which began in the 19th century and were located side by side along the Hudson, provided Hastings with its variety of sidewalks -- and a number of jobs.

In 1882 Hurst and Treanor, dealers in bluestone, established a yard and mill on the waterfront, on the site that would later become Anaconda Wire & Cable Company. While Hurst ran the New York City end of the business, James Treanor moved to Hastings to oversee that operation. By 1885, brother Frank had joined the business of Treanor Stone Works, which had become one of the largest employers in the village.

Detail of an 1889 insurance map showing the Hastings Pavement Company and Treanor's Stoneworks.

Originally, the bluestone was brought from Oxford, NY, via the Hudson River. Oxford was strategically located on the Chenango Canal, an important waterway that went from Binghamton to Utica, and the water access helped in transporting these tremendous stones down east to be cut. In the 1870s, the railroad lines were improving, but the weight and size of the stones presented problems. However, the situation was remedied by James Treanor. He designed a special railroad car that held a stone up on its edge and away from the sides of the railroad car. His ingenious invention helped perfect the stone shipping business and, no doubt, contributed to the success of Treanor Stone Works.

Milled bluestone was very popular in its day and was used for sidewalks, curbs, and architectural elements. The village benefited from this local resource and used the milled stones for many of its sidewalks. You can still find them in certain parts of town.

Employees at the Hastings Pavement Company, ca. 1890.

Another waterfront business that provided Hastings with jobs as well as sidewalks was the Hastings Pavement Company. In 1880 a factory was built to begin manufacturing asphalt blocks, a process that combined crushed stone with asphalt and molded it into uniformed sizes and shapes for sidewalks. In 1897, the Hastings Pavement Company employed 30 men, and in the following year it gave work to 50 men; by 1907, 214 men worked for the company.

With asphalt brought in from Trinidad, limestone from Verplanck Point up the Hudson, and later trap rock from the Hudson Palisades, Hastings Pavement manufactured the 8-inch hexagonal and rectangular paving blocks that remain on some sidewalks in the village today. Unfortunately, a fire in 1928 destroyed the building. The company remained in Hastings until 1936, when it moved to Long Island. It is still in operation, and even though its headquarters are in Islip, it has retained its original name – the Hastings Pavement Company.

Machinery in operation at the Hastings Pavement Company, ca. 1910.

Mystery Photo: ‘V for Victory’ Dance, 1941

2009-07-23T13:18:00.002-04:00

This snapshot, while not of the best quality, is a wonderful document of Hastings during the war years, and we’d love to know who’s in it. It was taken by Dewey Kunze, who was a junior in the 1941-42 school year and photography editor for the yearbook. The Hastings Historical Society owns an almost complete set of high school yearbooks, and here’s what the 1942 edition had to say about the senior class and their prom in the fall of 1941.

“The members of the graduating class of Hastings High School, 1942, have been preparing themselves for citizenship in a democracy. They must now face in actual living those problems they have studied in school. This year the challenge of the future takes on a new meaning, for America is at war and they must not only live in a democracy but they must also help save that democracy. …

… the class of ’42 kept up its excellent record with the fall senior prom, one of the best dances in its high school career. Since everyone was very war-conscious, the class very appropriately chose the theme ‘V for Victory’. …

After the long march to the stage on Commencement night and the last farewells, the members of the class of ’42 will go forth with faith in their country, as they realize that the youth of today is the America of tomorrow.”

Can you help us put at least a few names to these brave seniors? Click the photograph and look at it more closely in Flickr. If you need to enlarge it, click the “All Sizes” link above the photograph. Do you recognize anyone? Let us know!

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Hastings’ First Ambulance

2009-07-20T13:10:00.003-04:00

by Bob Russell

Editor’s Note: Last year, member Bob Russell sent us three wonderful photographs of the ambulance that Hastings used before our first official ambulance arrived. Here is the story behind this unusual piece of machinery.

Until the mid Fifties people were hastily driven to the hospital by family or co-workers, or whenever someone was around to help and had a car available to assist an injured person. Thankfully because of WWII and the Korean War, many citizens were trained in basic first aid, but serious health issues and injuries demanded more specialized attention. No doubt the ambulance evolved from the void of properly addressing these immediate critical needs, and therefore became an invention of necessity. Hastings first ambulance was offered as a temporary loaner. Although the Village did not own it, we had full use of this vehicle until we got our permanent one. It was a new, modified Cadillac and arrived in Hastings during the summer of ‘54. Oddly, it was light powder blue in color, and was referred to as a “model” or prototype of the new red one that we eventually bought. There was no charge for the blue one.

This conversion must have been quite a “chop” job. The rear seat had to be removed as well as the trunk wall in order to make room for the stretcher, which sat on a rigid floor. The roof of course was modified, and then compartments or attachments were provided. This most likely was done at a shop that did this kind of specialty work for many towns. The Cadillac was chosen for conversion because of its size and the comfort of the suspension. It also had a powerful engine. In the Fifties when this first ambulance was made, De Feo Motors of Yonkers was the closest dealer. Perhaps they were the company that sent it out to be modified and equipped for rescue duty. Cadillac hearses were also being outfitted for casket transportation. So the Cadillac went from being a luxury car, to a converted station wagon for special uses. Maybe someone out there will remember the name of the company that supplied them.

I did have the opportunity to look inside the blue loaner one day when the rear door was open. I could see that it was modestly outfitted with a stretcher, oxygen tank and a first aid box. I was with my older brother Bill on the day when he took these photos of the blue car which was kept uncovered in the dirt lot which later became Boulanger Plaza.

The first ambulance was housed in the garage behind the Hook and Ladder building for nearly ten years, and was kept there, including the successive models, until Chief Aresta Aluisio encouraged the Village to obtain the land on the east side of the Chenard's Gulf Station (ca. 1978) in order to erect the present Ambulance Corps. Building located on Main Street.

When the shiny red ambulance arrived it was beautiful and well received. Everyone in town admired the fire engine color, gold leaf lettering that read “Ambulance” and “Hastings on Hudson”. It also had a bright chrome siren on the roof, with a red light similar to the police cars of the day. As a result of this important acquisition members of the fire department quickly formed an ambulance corps of volunteer drivers reporting to a Captain. I believe that our first official volunteer ambulance driver was "Patsy" Melella, nicknamed “Magoose”, and I think his back-up driver was from Uniontown nicknamed “Squatty” Gorman, who always wore sunglasses.

Patsy worked as a delivery man for Riolo’s Market and other stores. Timely deliveries were important, and therefore Patsy was a fast driver. Sometimes he’d hear three blasts on the Municipal Building horn and come rushing out of some public place in order to get the ambulance rolling. There was an old joke on the street that if you were shopping in town and the horn blew three times, it was a good idea to get into a store as quickly as possible, because Patsy would soon be racing by, sometimes jumping the curb onto the sidewalk in his eagerness to answer the call.

Everyone in Hastings owes a great debt to the dedicated members of the Hastings Volunteer Fire and Ambulance corps.

The Ambulance Corps posed with their red ambulance in front of the Hook & Ladder Company building on Main Street in 1958.

Mystery Photo: Hillside Faculty, 1964

2009-07-16T14:00:00.005-04:00

Here's another of our favorite photographs -- it shows the entire faculty of Hillside Elementary School in 1964. It may not be quite as mysterious to us as some of the other photographs in our collection, since we know the names of many of the teachers. But some are still unidentified. Here's what we know: from left to right, seated: unidentified, Connie Schmidt, Gladys Smith, unidentified, May Lynch, Marge Plant, Margie Kunze, unidentified, Evelyn Drewes, and Mary Axtell; standing: Theo Howe, Marcene Weiner, unidentified, Marlyn Bassett, Margaret Downar, Ann Hritz, Principal Dr. Harold Ahlquist, unidentified, Carol Krack, Marjorie Murphy, unidentified, Ann Columbo, and Gertie McDonald. Can you help us with the names of the six unidentified teachers? Have we misspelled anybody's name? Let us know!

If you are intersted in the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Inquiring Reporter Discovers What People Talk About When They Watch Workers Digging on Warburton Avenue

2009-07-13T14:00:00.003-04:00

Editor’s Note: This was the headline for an anonymous article that appeared in the Hastings News in July of 1929. Below is an edited version of the article. Though the first two photographs were taken by A.C. Langmuir when the streets were being widened in September and October of 1929, the scene must have been much the same as in July, when the telephone company installed the conduits that would be used to bury the network of wires that crisscrossed the sky above Hastings in the 1920s.

Warburton Avenue, looking south from the corner of Spring Street, October 4, 1929

All along Warburton Avenue, commuters, passers-by and little children with no baseball field to go to, are lingering over the piles of rock that are being dug up and piled up along the ditch in which the New York Telephone Company is placing conduits.

There was quite a crowd all this week at the corner of Spring Street and Warburton Avenue. The explosions caused by the blasting attracted many who were loath to leave, as shock after shock rocked the thoroughfare.

“Say! Look at that guy!” The crowd of boys looked. In the entrance of one of the row of vacant stores slept a worker. He not only slept. He snored. On his face was a look of beatific happiness. He was, any of the youngsters could see, at the height of bliss. “They ought to take that guy’s picture and give it to his boss.”

Warburton Avenue south of the bridge, looking south toward the corner of Washington Avenue, September 19, 1929

Then the whistle blew. With a start the worker awoke. His nimble wits sent him to his feet. When his foreman came around, he was first on his job.

“They ought to fire him and give me his job.

“They ought to put him in the Lyceum outfield!”

“Yeah! The Lyceums are good. They played some game last Sunday, I’m telling you.”

“Say, you saw the game with the Independents last Sunday, didn’t you? Well, did you notice that fellow, Wasko, who was pinch-hit in the last inning? I think it was the last. What a uniform he wore! He had a grey and red suit, green and white sleeves, a black hat, and purple and orange stockings.”

St. Matthew’s Lyceum on lower Warburton was a social organization for men and boys, organized in 1920. This photograph of the club’s baseball team shows both Sid Limekiller (seated third from the right) and John Vasko (aka Wasko, standing second from the right).

“And did you see Sid Limekiller forget where he put his glove when he went out to pitch that same inning? He couldn’t find it, and the rest of the boys were on the field. Finally they got hold of it, nestling behind second.”

Several of the men standing before the Farragut Inn laughed. “Funny how the kids notice those things,” he said. “By the way, did you see the mayor there last Sunday?”

His companion replied that he had not, and the two fell into a discussion as to what would happen if the mayor [Thomas F. Reyolds], the acting mayor, [Henry D.] Cochrane, and the acting mayor’s alternate, James Magee, all were gone. …

Thomas F. Reynolds (second from the right) at a St. Matthew’s Lyceum game. Mayor Reynolds acquired the uniforms for the team from New York Yankees owner Col. Jacob Ruppert. The photograph shows, left to right, umpire H. Shaefer, William Steinschneider, Fred H. Charles, Reynolds, and umpire Louis Limekiller.

Two men, waiting for the blasting foreman to let them through on their way down Warburton Avenue to Dobbs Ferry, were discussing a sermon recently made by Father Southwick, curate of the Sacred Heart Church, of Dobbs Ferry. …

Two other men took their places, idling on the corner, watching the diggers and waiting for the next blast. They fell to talking about the movie that the Reo Company had recently made in Dobbs Ferry. Their discussion attracted another bystander. “Those auto wrecks that they put on were the real thing,” he said. “Why I wouldn’t have done it for – well, it would have taken a whole lot o money, believe me.” …

And that’s what men talk about when they’re watching other men dig a ditch.

Mystery Photo: Baseball Players and Fans, ca. 1947

2009-07-09T14:00:00.002-04:00

Here is one of our favorite Summer photographs. It shows seven players from the Hastings "Lions" and a few extra fans on the side. Friends of the society have identified a few of the boys -- John Hirniak is on the far left, a Schnibbe boy is fifth from the left, and Frank Minkewicz is seventh. But we'd love to know the names of every single one of them. You can click on the photograph to see a larger view in Flickr. Do you recognize anyone? Let us know!

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive

Bottled in Hastings: Marc Rosner and the International Hotel

2009-07-06T14:00:00.001-04:00

Society member Marc Rosner is a chemistry teacher in the Hastings High School and an avid bottle and coin collector. Somehow, “avid” does not really seem to be a strong enough word to describe his passion for hunting through the backwoods of Westchester in his search for the perfect specimen.

“The holy grail for me has always been a Hastings bottle, and the closest I had come was a shard with "ASTINGS" on it. Recently, I have been scouring the area for new digs and working my way north. The vicinity of the East Irvington Nature preserve yielded some interesting finds. Then I returned to a secret spot I had found last summer, near what I discovered recently is Irvington's "Hermit
Grave."

Although I haven't found an intact one yet, the site has yielded the best stuff yet for my collection, and I have been sneaking off at odd hours to dig. As I move north, the bulldozers move south and we have been dancing around each other through the poison ivy and ticks. Every time I think I have the last good one, I find a few more, which I'd like to rescue from getting paved under the next new mansion.

Among the finds are several Hastings bottles with the top broken but the body intact. The bottle you see was unrecognizable until I cleaned it with several different chemicals. My relatives think I'm crazy, with good reason, but I enjoy this tinkering.”

Marc’s find is particularly interesting to us because of the words embossed on the glass. They read: “Chas. H. Bevers / Hastings, N.Y.” At the end of the 19th century, Charles H. Bevers and his wife Amelia Halbe Bevers ran the “International Hotel” on the west side of the train tracks, just opposite our present-day train station. (In the 19th-century, the station was slightly to south of its current position.) A hotel stood on the site as early as 1868. An article on Charles H. Bevers in our files tells us that in 1877 Charles went into business with his father to run the International Hotel. The article does not make it clear whether his father, whose name was also Charles, was already running the hotel by himself, or whether the International Hotel actually opened for business in 1877.

An 1889 insurance map (detail above) adds the useful information that beer bottling was performed in the basement of the building. If you look carefully at the photograph of the hotel below, you can see a sign that reads: “Yonkers Beer Ales & Porter.” So the bottles may have belonged to Bevers, but the alcohol in them seems to have been imported from a brewery in Yonkers.

The railroad purchased the International Hotel property from Bevers, probably around 1910 when the new station was built. The building itself, or part of it, might have survived until 1912. A booklet published in 1949 on the history of industry in Westchester says that the “Old International Hotel” and a saloon called the Tammany House on the same side of the train tracks were torn down to make room for a new mill being built by the National Conduit and Cable Company (the precursor of Anaconda).

It's hard to imagine that there was anything “international” about a 19th-century hotel/saloon in a small town like Hastings-on-Hudson. But the article on Bevers tells us that “during its palmy days, this was one of the most widely patronized and universally popular hotels of Westchester County, and held leading rank among others of its group in the State.”

We are grateful to Marc and other local archaeologists for their enthusiasm and their generosity. They supply us with the artifacts that keep the memory of these old Hastings landmarks alive.

Mystery Photo: A Kindergarten Class ca. 1947

2009-07-02T14:36:00.010-04:00

We have had so much trouble identifying these children that we sometimes wonder if the photograph was actually taken in some other town. We know nothing about the photograph, and we are only guessing that it is a kindergarten class from the late 1940s. Do you recognize any one of these ladies and gentlemen? Does the classroom look familiar?

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

The Early Years of the Hastings Literature Club

2009-06-29T13:00:00.003-04:00

By Julia House

Editor’s Note: This year the Hastings Literature Club, the oldest cultural organization in Hastings, celebrates its 100th anniversary. Its first president was Julia House, author of last week’s reminiscence on the village in the first decade of the 20th century. Julia and John House lived in the Tower Ridge area from 1903 until 1909, when they built themselves a new house on Sheldon Place. Julia describes it as “up in the fields where we used to take the children to pick daisies and look at the cows.” Even before the move, Julia had become involved with a group that later became the Literature Club. What follows is an edited version of an informal history of that organization that Julia wrote in 1942.

I think I may claim for that early group that they did work their brains just a little harder than we do to-day. We made our programs with the idea of not merely reading a book and then sharing the best of it with the Club; we were supposed to take a literary subject, read as many books as we could get hold of and could find time to read on that subject – then boil down the knowledge thus gained, and to the best of our ability, in a strictly limited time, present it to the Club. In short, we wrote papers and we read our papers, and I really wish that some of the best of those papers could have been preserved along with the records, just to show what we could do in those days. …

The Club began as a very small group, probably in 1905 or ’06 – the exact date seems to have become lost in the mists of antiquity – when a few women in Yonkers began meeting to read and discuss books. Sarah Hine [wife of photographer Lewis W. Hine] and Josephine Murlin [wife of John R. Murlin] were the prime movers in this modest enterprise. There were others whose names I have forgotten as they dropped out when the group became centered in Hastings.

This came through the Murlins moving to Hastings. Soon after they came here, Mrs. Murlin invited some of her new friends, who were later to be her neighbors on Locust Hill, to join the group. That was when Mrs. Bennett, Mrs. [Ina] Griswold, Mrs. [Margaret] Sanger, Mrs. Matthew, and I came in, making it a considerably larger circle. Mrs. Hine and Mrs. Middleton still came up from Yonkers faithfully and the rest of us frequently jogged down there in the trolley for meetings with them.

Ina Griswold, one of the founding members of the Literature Club, on the far left, attends a meeting of the club around 1960 in the home of Phyllis Andrews. Her daughter Ruth sits with her back to the camera, and across from her are Harriet Haug (right), and possibly Miriam Pomeroy (next to Ina).

Naturally with so few members, each one entertained often, but the entertaining was very simple. Tea was the only beverage ever served, and with it we might have crackers or maybe some peppermints. So it wasn’t much of a burden on the hostess and left our minds pretty free for Literature. The custom of bringing our sewing or knitting to the meeting dates from those early days, when we were only too glad to sit quietly and darn the children’s socks or let down the hems of their dresses, away from the little dears for a time, and to the soothing accompaniment of good literature. I am glad that, as we have grown bigger, we have still kept to those informal ways and are still more like a gathering of real country neighbors than a proper women’s club. …

In 1909 we actually became a Club, for then we adopted a constitution and elected officers – a President, Secretary, and a Chairman of the Program Committee. … For the first few years, our programs were mostly based on syllabi of Literature courses given at Columbia, but after a while we got away from those, and our Program Committees depended on the preparatory reading they did themselves as a basis for the year’s work. …

The Literature Club's certificate from the New York State Education Department registering it as a "study club" in 1910.

After doing English literature with some degree of thoroughness, we turned to the literature of other lands – France, Germany, Russia, Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, getting a great deal of pleasure and at least some new knowledge. After we felt we had had enough of foreign culture for the time being, we turned to our American writers and found that a great deal was to be learned about them, more than we had studied in school. We found fresh viewpoints and new appreciation of familiar writers. …

I was under the impression that during the First World War we suspended our meetings for at least one winter for I seem to remember nothing of that year of 1917 but making surgical dressings in Mrs. Fink’s dining room. But it seems we did keep up our regular meetings listening to the programs while doing this work and always meeting at the same place where the materials were kept. That was a sober time, but I am sure we were drawn closer together, not only our group but the whole community, by the strains of the times. …

And it is good that we can still go on together for a while, old friends and newer ones. Our Club has enlarged our vision and brought us into contact with great minds, but most of all it has been a source of both inspiration and relaxation because of the friendly feeling, the almost family feeling of it, the welcome sympathy in times of trouble, the never failing interest of each one in all the rest. May there always be a Woman’s Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson.

A portrait of Mrs. Julia House in 1918.

The Historical Society has a large collection of material from the Literature Club, including an (almost) complete set of programs. The records have been organized for us by members Barbara Thompson and Helen Barolini, and Susan Korsten and Diana Jaeger have created the display on the club that is currently on view at the Historical Society. Christine Lehner, another member, is gathering material for an article about the club and its history. Watch the Hastings Literature Club blog for more information.

Mystery Photo: Dedication of Hillside Park Swimming Pool

2009-06-25T15:13:00.009-04:00

Here are three photographs of the dedication ceremony for the Hillside Park Swimming Pool. They were taken in 1965, though we don’t know the exact date. Perhaps it was late spring, at the beginning of the pool season. After the death of young Julius “Butch” Chemka in 1983, the swimming pool was renamed in his memory.

We have a few identifications for the photographs. In the top photograph, for example, the woman in the front row facing the camera is Janet Wagner, wife of Mayor R. Sheldon Wagner. And next to her is Rev. Edmund Fabisinski from St. Stanislaus Kostka. But we’d like to know more! Do you recognize anyone else? Do you happen to know the date of the dedication ceremony? Let us know!

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Mayor Sheldon R. Wagner addressing the crowd at the dedication.

Pool life guards, including Steve Zahurak standing at the far right, and Lane Pettibone kneeling on the left. Do you recognize any of the others?

Our Village in 1909

2009-06-22T01:55:00.005-04:00

by Julia House

Editor’s Note: As much fun as it is to look at hundred-year-old photographs of Hastings, it’s even more exciting to have someone tell us what Hastings was really like in 1909. This reminiscence is an edited version of “A Long Look Backward,” an article written by Julia House around 1955, which we recently uncovered in a box of papers from the Literature Club. Julia moved to Hastings as a newlywed in 1903, and here’s what she has to say about her early years in Hastings.

Warburton Avenue in 1909

Hastings was a sleepy village in those days. None of the streets were paved, and the occasional motor-car was something to stare at. In summer the watering-cart jogged up the main streets, wetting down the dust. The Brandt mansion, now occupied by the Veterans, was almost concealed by masses of shrubbery.…

I had never known a place like Hastings, and it took me some time to feel a part of it. It was so different from my New England, and so I called it very Dutch….

Mr. Joe Murphy, proprietor of the “Bridge Grocery” sent us a polite letter, asking us to deal with him. This was flattering, and we at once became customers. Each morning Mr. Murphy or his assistant would call at the back door to take orders, and deliver in the afternoon. It was not long, however, before we were notified that since so many people now had telephones, the orders would in future be given by that means. We had not contemplated anything so startling, but now it seemed we really needed a ‘phone, so it was duly installed in our little hall. It was not handsome, but it did look important, sitting up there on the wall, with its crank at the side which, briskly turned, would summon the operator.…

Fred Breyer in his market ca. 1909

My marketing, for meat, was mostly at Breyer’s, on Spring Street near Maple Avenue. In winter, the market was as cold inside as out-doors, and Mr. and Mrs. Breyer, both large, were swathed in so many garments they were positively gigantic. In summer, they must have had ice for the meat, and returned to normal size.…

There was little social life, as far as I could see. The men got to know each other, going to the city on the train, and sometimes would bring their wives together, but card-playing seemed to be the only amusement….

The Tower Ridge Yacht Club in 1905

Our great boon was the Yacht Club, so near us, and easily reached (I thought then) by a long flight of wooden steps going down into the ravine and a bridge over the railroad tracks. My husband enjoyed the sailing races on Saturday afternoons and could always have a job as able-bodied seaman on somebody’s boat, until he had one of his own, shared with a friend. But the sailing was not very good. Thunder-storms were always coming up, or else the boats would be becalmed, and sometimes they wouldn’t get in until midnight.

The Club was a paradise for the boys of the neighborhood, as it was later for our own sons. There they learned to swim – the river was cleaner then – and played among the boats under the watchful eye of wiry little Ed Cook, “Cap” to them, as to their fathers. Cap had strong language at his command, but usually the boys obeyed him without his resorting to it….

You would hardly believe what a nice little beach there was, down by the riverside, before the tracks were moved out to their present location. I used to take my young son down there to play contentedly with shovel and pail, and watch the boats on one side and the “choo-choos” on the other. We early acquired a small rowboat, and used to venture across the river on calm days, but it was a venture, since we never could be sure it would stay clam. It usually didn’t, and the return trip was sometimes too exciting to be pleasant. But we enjoyed exploring the other side, which seemed a different world, quaint and quiet, with its old stone cottages and winding, uphill roads. Hastings seemed almost urban when we got back to it.

Gus Wagner in his sleigh in 1905

Our first two winters were extremely cold, with snow on the ground all winter. People drove across the river in sleighs, and we used to drag our baby across, tucked up in a box on a sled. Those two winters were something to remember, with the wind roaring down from the North Pole, and blowing right into our defenseless little house. It was a wonder we and it were not blown away entirely. It was impossible to keep warm, with the old hot-air furnace, a fireplace in the dining-room, in which we burned cannel coal, and the kitchen stove, which perhaps did the best job. Our relatives in the city did have something on us, then. But in spite of the rough winter, we still loved our home by the river….

Julia House’ reminiscences continue next week with the early history of the Literature Club. Julia was the first president of this club, which was founded in 1909.

Mystery Photo: High School Gym Class?

2009-06-18T10:15:00.001-04:00

Here are four photographs showing girls in what seem to be school gym uniforms. We’re guessing that the photographs were taken some time in the early 1950s. In the top photograph, one of the girls is holding a baseball bat. In one of the others, the girls are holding batons and standing in front of what looks like the door to the Farragut Inn on the corner of Warburton Avenue and Spring Street. Maybe they have been in a parade?

Do you recognize any of the girls? Let us know!

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

The New Historian Mails Today!

2009-06-15T11:15:00.014-04:00

Today the hardy Historical Society volunteers gather once more to prepare the Hastings Historian for the post. They have even more work than usual because this Historian is going to all the households in the village – more than 4,000 of them!

No one who has followed the Society’s doings over the past six months will be surprised to learn that the lead article in this issue is on the 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration. With Roger Panetta’s lecture in January and the opening of our own Hudson-Fulton exhibition here at the cottage in April, we have been immersed in this festival that galvanized the entire village one hundred years ago.

And you know how it is when you have something on the brain – you find it everywhere. A couple of weeks ago, after the Historian had gone to press, we were looking through Arthur C. Langmuir’s scrapbooks on Hastings history. They have never been thoroughly indexed, and on page 51 of volume II, we found this wonderful photograph that we didn’t even know we had. The caption says that it is a photograph of the Protection Engine Company firehouse decorated for the Hudson-Fulton Celebration.

Those who recognize Langmuir’s name may wonder why his scrapbook contains such an early photograph. Langmuir moved to Hastings in 1919 and his incredible collection of 1000+ photographs of the village all date to the 1920s and 30s. But Langmuir was a history nut. He begged and borrowed photographs of early Hastings from other local photographers, like Harriet Draper, Fred Berbert, and Joseph A. Devine. The photograph you see above has a handwritten note next to it reading “copied from a negative loaned by George T. Sackett.” Sackett was a local druggist and amateur photographer who came to Hastings in the 19th century. Some of our earliest photographs of the village, and the best photographs we have of the Hudson-Fulton celebration, were taken by George Sackett.

On page 55 of the same scrapbook, there are two more of Sackett’s fire company photographs from the Hudson-Fulton Celebration. The first is a copy of a photograph we have in our Sackett collection, and it is up in our exhibition. It shows the Protection Engine firetruck in front of the same firehouse, maybe even on the same day. The caption with the photograph adds the information that the horse used was borrowed from the Chrystie family who owned the large estate at Five Corners where the A&P grocery store is today.

The other photograph on the page shows a fire hose on wheels decorated with bunting and flags. The photograph does not have a caption, but this same equipment appears in the background of another photograph showing the National Conduit & Cable Company’s fire brigade. They marched along with the Protection Engine Company and the Uniontown Hose Company in Hastings’ own Hudson-Fulton parade on October 5th, 1909. (You will read much more about this parade and all the other Hudson-Fulton festivities in the Historian.) The place where the photograph was taken, however, is a mystery. Does anyone recognize the location?

We hope you enjoy this Historian, and that it makes you as excited about the Hudson-Celebration as we are. If it does, make some time to visit the Historical Society and see our exhibition!