Tag: Landmark

The Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is one of the most famous art museums in the country and the world.  The permanent collection of the museum has several notable artworks by artists such as Van Gogh, Picasso, Seurat, Matisse, and Dali, among many, many others.  The museum also has several temporary exhibitions that bring subjects as diverse as artist retrospectives to trends in mid 20th Century furniture design.

The MoMA was first formulated in 1929 and opened shortly after the stock market crash of that year.  It moved to its current location in 1939.  It gained prominence early in its history with exhibits about Van Gogh and Picasso.  The museum has been expanded several times—in the 1980s and in the early 2000s.  A satellite campus has been opened in Long Island City, Queens, at P.S. 1 to showcase contemporary art.  Another large expansion is in the works to be completed by 2020.  In addition to its painting and sculpture collection, the MoMA houses thousands of sketches, books, and movies deemed important for preservation.

The museum is very popular on Fridays after 4:00PM when admission fees are waived.  The MoMA is worth a spot on the itinerary of any visitor to the city.  This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

Jefferson Market Courthouse

In addition to the NYPD and the great collection of civic buildings at Foley Square, there are many symbols of law and order in the city. One of the prettiest is the ornate Jefferson Market Courthouse in Greenwich Village.

Built in 1877 by Calvert Vaux, who designed the structures in Central Park and Prospect Park, the Jefferson Market Courthouse was built on the former site of a fire watchtower for the city. Between 1877 and 1945, this court was the location of the courthouse for the Third District of New York. Being located near Union Square, then the vice district of the city, the court tried cases in the infamous “Tenderloin” district of the city. Prominent trials such as the infamous “Trial of the Century” and the obscenity trial of Mae West in 1927 were among two of the most important cases heard before judges before its closure as a courthouse.

Through adaptive reuse (and the fact it was city property), the city rehabilitated the building into the Jefferson Market Library in 1967, the local branch of the New York Public Library for Greenwich Village. This building is the starting point of my “Around the Villages” tour and one of the highlights of any visit to New York. You can learn even more about this building by taking this tour.

Essex Street Market

Even though Americans live in an age with massive supermarkets and even online delivery of groceries, markets provide character and are part of the identity of a city or a neighborhood. This is true of the Italian Market in Philadelphia or Findlay Market in Cincinnati to give two examples. The same is true of the Essex Market in the Lower East Side of New York.

The Essex Street Market was built in 1940 as part of an urban renewal project. Before this building was built, the streets of Little Italy and the Lower East Side were packed with vendors selling items out of pushcarts. These merchants, mostly Eastern European Jews and Italian immigrants to New York, sold mostly food, but anything that could be sold out of a cart—including books, glasses, and underwear. The sheer number of pushcarts were a significant hazard to cars, trucks, and wagons on Delancey Street and made some side streets in the Lower East Side nearly impassible. Seeking to make the traffic flow better and remove a symbol of labor thought to be demeaning to immigrants, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia banned pushcarts and moved to consolidate the pushcart vendors into several markets throughout the city, including the Essex Street Market.

The market reflects the local population—selling Jewish and Italian goods in the 1940s to 1950s, Puerto Rican goods from the 1960s, and goods geared toward urban professionals that have moved into the Lower East Side since the early 2000’s. The City of New York also spent millions in the 1990s to rehab and renovate the market hall so that it may last for decades more. When in the Lower East Side, the Essex Street Market makes a fun stop for a snack or to see the types of wares on offer. This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

Triumph in War: Two Soldier’s Memorials at Grand Army Plaza

The Civil War was the most destructive war in American History. The conflict was commemorated in somber battlefield memorials throughout Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, as well as in several major cities throughout the country. Several large Civil War memorials exist in Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and in Washington, DC, among several other locales. New York contains memorials to the war between the states as well— one in Manhattan and the other in Brooklyn. Ironically enough, both memorials are in Grand Army Plazas—both named after the Union Army’s veteran organization, the Grand Army of the Republic.

The Civil War Memorial in Manhattan at Grand Army Plaza is at the southeastern corner of Central Park. The main statue in the square is a golden equestrian statue of General William T. Sherman, the Civil War general who led the famous March to the Sea in Georgia. The statue was sculpted by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who is known more for designing American coins. While the statue and the plaza are not well known landmarks for this generation of visitors, the Plaza Hotel, located across the street from Grand Army Plaza, is one of the more known landmarks in this part of the city.

The other main Civil War memorial in the city is in Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. Near the entrance to Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Museum, and the main library in Brooklyn, Grand Army Plaza contains one of the largest arches in the city: the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch. This arch was built between 1889 and 1892 and designed by McKim, Mead, and White. It contains several scenes of the Civil War and the reconstruction of the Union after the Civil War.

Other Civil War memorials exist in the city, such as the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in the Upper West Side. With that said, the two Grand Army Plazas and their memorials are awe-inspiring and give testament to the lives lost in preserving our great country. Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan can be seen on a Sights by Sam tour. The plaza in Brooklyn will be a stop on a future Sights by Sam tour.

The Little Red Lighthouse

New York is full of landmarks. There are many famous ones such as the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Unisphere, to name but a few of the most well known ones. There are also smaller landmarks that are important to many, such as the Little Red Lighthouse in Upper Manhattan.

Located in Fort Tryon Park, the Little Red Lighthouse was placed in its current location in 1921 by the U.S. Coast Guard. It had initially stood at Sandy Hook in New Jersey. After the construction of the George Washington Bridge, the lighthouse was decommissioned and slated for demolition. In 1942, the book, The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by Hildegarde Swift, was published about the lighthouse. In the book, the little red lighthouse feels overshadowed by the bridge, but the bridge helps out the lighthouse and reminds it that everyone has an important job. Because of the popularity of the book, children from all over the U.S. wrote letters to the Coast Guard to save the lighthouse. The lighthouse was saved in 1951 after it was given by the federal government to New York City.

The lighthouse is 40 feet tall and makes a great stop while visiting the George Washington Bridge or the Cloisters Museum in Upper Manhattan. Although the children’s book that made the lighthouse famous is not as well known among today’s kids, it is still believed by natives and visitors young and old—and is a popular picnic spot. This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

New York Stock Exchange

New York is synonymous with the financial industry. Most major American and international banks and financial institutions have a presence in the city. Along with London and Tokyo, New York forms one of the three major financial centers of the world. A lot of the reason for this is that the city is the location of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the largest in the country.

The NYSE owes its origins to the city as a major trading center. The port of New York meant that ships laden with goods from all over the world were coming into the port and commodities from the city’s vast hinterlands were coming down the Hudson River and from Long Island into the port. After the founding of the United States, 24 traders in securities signed an agreement on May 17,1792. This agreement formed the basis of the NYSE. Over time, the NYSE expanded its scope of trade and eclipsed other American stock exchanges in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. It has met in its current location since 1865 and in its current building since 1903. The NYSE survived several dark moments through its history such as the crash of 1929 that ushered in the Great Depression, and sizable crashes in 1987 and in the first decade of the 2000s.

Today, the NYSE is open during weekdays on non-holidays between 9:30AM and 4:00PM and trades hundreds of billions of dollars worth of stocks per day. Most trading has been computerized, in contrast to the image of traders yelling and waving on the bustling floor of the exchange. The building has not been open to the public since 2001. Visitors to the city can take my “Foundation of New York” tour can see the NYSE and Wall Street.

New York Public Library

The New York Public Library (NYPL) system contains over 53 million items in its collection, making it second to only the Library of Congress in the U.S. and the largest city library system in the world. The NYPL covers the boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx, and Staten Island (both Brooklyn and Queens have independent library systems). There are 88 branch libraries in the NYPL’s coverage area—-in addition to a few research libraries.

The NYPL was founded in 1895 as the result of a merger between the Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Libraries. To house the main branch, the firm of Carrere and Hastings was commissioned to build an impressive beaux-arts structure at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street (over the decommissioned Croton Reservoir). The structure was built between 1897 and 1911, and contains 15 million items in 646,000 square feet. The NYPL recently completed a renovation that will bring it into the next century.

The star of the show at the main branch is the Rose Reading Room, which has been depicted in numerous movies. Another famous feature of the building are the two lions: Patience (south) and Fortitude (north). The two lions were named by Mayor LaGuardia after the two virtues that he felt New Yorkers would need to survive the Great Depression.

The NYPL Main Branch houses several important items such as a Gutenberg Bible, historic maps, and a historic collection of take-out menus. The main branch also has several exhibits and artworks that are available for the public to view at no charge. These exhibits are worth the time if you have a moment to see them. The NYPL main branch is also next to Bryant Park, which offers a small green oasis in one of the more hectic sections of Midtown. The Main Branch of the NYPL can be seen on a Sights by Sam tour.

Presidential History in New York

While Washington has been the capital of the U.S. since 1800, New York (which was the former capital of the country) has been the unofficial capital of sorts as the country’s center of media, culture, and has people from every corner of the planet. Despite the fact that the city is no longer the capital of the country, it has a rich political history involving the leaders of the country, with successful candidates, and those such as Al Smith and Samuel Tilden who were never elected. This has been most notable through three individuals, George Washington, Ulysses Grant, and Theodore Roosevelt.

The history of New York with the presidency has to do from the very beginning of the country when George Washington took the oath of office at Federal Hall in Lower Manhattan. Washington also prayed at St. Paul’s Chapel in Lower Manhattan when the capital was in New York. Washington even had an association with New York as a great leader of the country when he helped to liberate the city from the British at the end of the war and had his farewell dinner with his military officers at Fraunces Tavern after the war.

Ulysses S. Grant was born in Ohio and was living in Illinois when he became the 18th president of the United States. A famous Civil War general, Grant’s presidency was marred by various scandals involving corruption. After retiring to Upstate New York after his presidency, Grant died in 1885. His tomb was built in Morningside Heights in 1897. The tomb suffered neglect over the years, but was recently restored in the last 20 years. Grant remains the only president buried within the city limits.

Theodore Roosevelt, the only president born within New York, has one of the most lasting impacts on the presidency and the city. Before being president, Roosevelt was governor of New York State and the NYPD commissioner. He is also famous for leading his “Rough Riders” up San Juan Hill in Cuba. Roosevelt is associated with the former NYPD headquarters in the Lower East Side as well as his birthplace, located between Union Square and Madison Square Park. He also had an important role in helping to build the collection of the American Museum of Natural History in the Upper West Side..

Guests are able to learn about the rich history of New York on any Sights by Sam walking tour. Anyone attending a tour can also learn about other significant presidential moments such as the speech that Abraham Lincoln made at the Cooper Union that made his presidency and the special rail car FDR used to travel in and out of the city among others.

African Burial Ground

In the Civic Center of Manhattan near the Ted Weiss Federal Building is an important monument that commemorates 15,000 people of African descent—both slave and free, who were buried in a graveyard that was on the then outskirts of the city. The African Burial Ground National Monument commemorates these individuals and their contribution to the early history of New York.

It is believed that the Dutch first imported African slaves into the New Netherland colony in 1626. While the Dutch offered some degree of emancipation to slaves in their colony, this was rescinded by the English after 1664 when they took the colony from the Dutch. One of the many restrictions placed on people of African descent is that they could not be buried with Europeans in their cemeteries, necessitating the foundation and use of a burial ground on what is now Duane Street (north of the old borders of the city). Although the burial ground was heavily used (as New York had a very large African population), much of this population fled with the British after the American Revolution (as Americans demanded the return of slaves to their masters). The area of the graveyard was filled over and built upon (which ironically preserved most of the graves).

In the 1990s during the construction of the Weiss Federal Building, bodies were discovered during the excavation to anchor the building to the bedrock of Manhattan. After hundreds of bodies were found, archeologists were called in and it was discovered that the building was planned over the burial ground. Due to protests from African Americans, the federal government declared the area a National Historic Landmark, which halted construction of the building over the site (its plans modified to be away from the burial ground) and called for a monument (finally completed in 2007). This site is important in the cultural history of the city and can easily be seen as a follow-up to the “Foundation of New York” tour from Sights by Sam.

Williamsburg Bridge

One of the three “BMW” bridges, the Williamsburg Bridge connects Delancey Street in Manhattan with Grand Street in Williamsburg. The bridge over the east river forms a sort of anchor between two historically important and up-and-coming neighborhoods in the city.

The Williamsburg Bridge was completed in 1903. It was designed by Henry Hombostel and constructed by Leffert Buck. At over 7300 feet long, the bridge was at one point the longest suspension bridge in the world. The bridge has eight lanes of roadways and two subway tracks. It initially had two trolley tracks on it that formed an important commuter link between Brooklyn and Manhattan. A direct result of the bridge’s construction was the rapid expansion of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as thousands of people left the crowded Lower East Side and journeyed to new homes across the East River.

Throughout its history, the bridge has seen its fortunes ebb and flow with the surrounding neighborhoods. In the years after World War II, rising crime and depopulation of neighborhoods on both ends of the Williamsburg bridge occurred. The bridge also bore the scars of this era with increasing wear and tear in addition to becoming vandalized. After decades of deferred and substandard maintenance, the bridge was closed in the 1980s to make structural repairs and renovated from the 1990s to the 2000s. As the bridge was being rebuilt, the areas it connected became popular destinations for shopping and nightlife. Today, the bridge forms an important link between these two neighborhoods. This is one of the things you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.