Tag: Manhattan

Adolph Weinman

Born in Germany, Weinman immigrated to the U.S. when he was a teenager and was educated at the famous Cooper Union in New York City.  He became a gifted sculptor and is perhaps best known for sculpting coins.  His most famous design was the Walking Liberty Half-Dollar and the Mercury Dime designs of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Weinman is famous for his sculptural work.  In New York, he is most famous for designing eagle statues that once graced the front of McKim, Mead, and White’s 1910 Pennsylvania Station in Midtown.  As I mentioned in my blog article about the Manhattan Municipal Building, his most famous work is the 25’ tall gilded copper statue, Civic Fame, which celebrates the unification of all five boroughs into New York City in 1898.  Weinman also sculpted ornamental details on this building, which can be seen on a Sights by Sam-led “Foundation of New York” tour.

This is the type of information you will learn on any Sights by Sam tour.

Museum of the City of New York

New York City has not one but two historical museums about the city.  With the New-York Historical Society on the Upper West Side, the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY) guards the Upper East Side.

The MCNY was founded in 1923 to preserve the history of the city.  It has moved around several times, including briefly occupying Gracie Mansion (the Mayor of New York’s residence—more on this in a future entry).  The current museum is a purpose-built structure that was completed in 1932.  The collection of the museum contains 1.5 million objects.  The most notable of these are a collection of children’s toys and period rooms of different stages in New York’s history.

The most notable reason to visit this museum are the temporary exhibits about the city’s history.  Exhibits have been done on baseball in New York, subway graffiti, the grid plan of Manhattan, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission to name but a few.  The museum’s gift shop carries an incredible assortment of books about the city—including catalogues of the many temporary exhibits.

The MCNY sits far up on Fifth Avenue at the edge of the world-famous “Museum Mile” district.  The MCNY and other attractions important to the city are pointed out on any Sights by Sam tour.

Little Italy

Since the arrival of many Italian immigrants in the 1800s, Italian-Americans have been one of the most important groups in the city—with many famous people in the city—such as mayors and athletes among them.  Although today most Italian Americans in the city live in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island, the center of the Italian universe in New York was once Little Italy in Lower Manhattan.

Italians started coming to New York in the mid and  late 1800s in large numbers.  Many were fleeing from the wars of Italian unification and hard economic times in Southern Italy (Naples, Calabria, and Sicily) to find safety and jobs in the U.S.  Many Italians settled in Lower Manhattan from south of Canal Street to Houston Street.  At one point, there were tens of thousands of Italians in this area.  Italian-American businesses such as restaurants, bakeries, and banks proliferated in the area.  New arrivals to the neighborhood slowed to a trickle after the federal Immigration and Nationality Act of 1924 (repealed in the 1960s) put strict quotas on the number of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe into the U.S.

As Italian Americans became more integrated with the larger society, people in the neighborhood became more upwardly mobile and left.  This occurred at the same time as the Chinese population began to rapidly expand, with Chinese and Chinese-Americans moving into the area known as Little Italy.  Although the population of Italian Americans is now less than 1200 in the area, it is still famous as a center for Italian life in the city, hosting many famous restaurants and the annual Festival of San Gennaro (the patron saint of Naples, Italy).  You can see Little Italy today on the “Lost in the Lower East Side” tour from Sights by Sam.

Upper East Side

Long associated as a fashionable residential area, the Upper East Side of New York conjures up images of doorman apartments and residents walking little dogs. The neighborhood, stretching from 59th Street to 96th Street between 5th Avenue and the East River is among one of the wealthiest areas of the United States—and its electoral districts for Albany and Washington were once called the “Silk Stocking District.”

Once a rugged area with sparse population through the native and colonial eras, the Upper East Side started to grow in the lead up to the Civil War and immediately afterward. The area was demarcated in the grid of Manhattan and was also used for railroad tracks coming into New York. The railroad would eventually be covered up by a tunnel running under Park Avenue. In the late 1800s, wealthy families such as the Astors, Fricks, Roosevelts, and Rockefellers, among others, would locate their residences in this part of the city, building many mansions (the Frick Collection and the Villard Mansion are two of the only survivors). In time, luxurious apartment buildings would be constructed all over the district. While the area is famous for having a reputation as a very wealthy area, there are still vestiges of a Central European community (Germans, Austrians, Czechs, and Hungarians) in the northern part of the neighborhood during the early 1900s.

Among visitors, the Upper East Side is famous for being the location of Museum Mile, which contains some of the greatest museums in New York and in the country. The neighborhood is also bordered by Central Park, one of the most famous parks in the world. As another superlative, the mayor of New York lives at the restored Gracie Mansion in the upper reaches of the neighborhood in Carl Schurz Park. In addition to the area’s many landmarks, a very prestigious shopping district runs up and down Madison Avenue through the neighborhood. This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

Rockefeller Center

The first “city-within-a-city” designed in the world, site of New York’s Christmastime fun (where the tree and the ice rink live), and the headquarters for NBC Universal (and site of the Today Show), Rockefeller Center forms an important part of Midtown and is a tourist destination all year long.

The Rockefeller Center complex contains 19 buildings and covers 22 acres.  It was financed by the Rockefeller Family with the original intent to build a new Metropolitan Opera.  When the Great Depression hit, the focus of the project changed to a commercial development.  The centerpiece of Rockefeller Center is 30 Rockefeller Center (called 30 Rock), which is 872 feet tall and the headquarters of NBC.  This is also the site of the 30 Rock observation deck.  The Rainbow Room supper club is also in this building.  In front of 30 Rock is the square where ice skating is held in the winter.  30 Rock and most of the other buildings were designed by Raymond Hood in the art deco style.

Aside from the observation deck and shopping in and around the complex, the star attraction of the area is Radio City Music Hall.  This theater, which seats 6,000 is known for its dancing spectaculars, starring the Rockettes dancers.  The stage is known for having a stylized sunset.

Rockefeller Center, a complex built at the height of the Great Depression by one of New York’s most prominent families, helped renew Midtown Manhattan.  The area, long a center of media, also known for its modern art, leisure pursuits, and nearby shopping opportunities, continues to be a focal point near the center of the island that forms the center of the known world.  This complex can be seen on a Sights by Sam walking tour.

Roosevelt Island Tramway

Between the East Side of Manhattan and Queens lies Roosevelt Island.  A mostly residential community, this island is mainly famous for its unique tramway and as the location of the ruins of hospitals and other facilities.

Roosevelt Island is connected to Manhattan by the unique aerial tramway that looks like it was built more for a ski resort in the Alps than for New York.  Featured in the climactic scene of Spider-Man and in the beginning of City Slickers, the tramway was opened in 1976 in lieu of a subway station that was to be constructed on the island (finished in the 1980s).  The tramway is a little over 3,000’ long and rises to 250’ over the East River between its terminals at 65th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan and Roosevelt Island.  The tram stalled in 2006 and was closed to update its safety systems.  A complete renovation of the system was completed in 2010.

Although the Roosevelt Island Tramway was only intended to be temporary, it has become a permanent necessity for residents of the island and those who work nearby in Midtown Manhattan.  In the wake of the L Train shutdown that will occur for the next couple years, there has been talk of a similar aerial tramway system that could connect Brooklyn and Manhattan, in addition to other areas of the city.  While some cost estimates state that it would be cheaper than building a new subway line and keep shipping channels on the East River open, opponents state that it may be too tempting of a terror target and that the pylons needed to support the tramway may be eyesores in their surrounding areas and lead to lower property values.

While not on most visitors’ itineraries, Roosevelt Island is worth the trip alone for the tramway ride, which allows for unparalleled views of Midtown on the south side of the trams.  Although mostly residential, Roosevelt Island may be changing due to the location of a technology campus that is a joint venture between Cornell University and the Technion that is being constructed on the island.  This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral

In SoHo, there sits St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral.  The building was deconsecrated as a cathedral when the new St. Patrick’s Cathedral was completed on Fifth Avenue in 1879.  Now a basilica, a site of pilgrimage in the Roman Catholic Church, the old cathedral is a distinct presence in the neighborhood.  The basilica has come into the news recently due to a sale of one of its burial plots (that can hold six) for $7 million (which the basilica will use to restore its pipe organ and other architectural items).

St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral was once the primary place of Roman Catholic worship in the city.  It was designed by Joseph-Francois Mangin, who also designed the New York City Hall, in 1815.  The cathedral had been built on an area that was formerly designated as a Roman Catholic graveyard.  St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral became a focal point for Roman Catholics in the city as their numbers increased in the 1800s, especially with large numbers of Irish immigrants arriving to the city.  In 1836, there was an incident where the cathedral was almost invaded by nativist protestants, but was repelled by worshippers at the church.  After 1879, the old cathedral functioned as a parish church to the surrounding neighborhood before it was declared a basilica in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI.

In recognition of the changing demographics of its neighborhood, the basilica celebrates mass in English, Spanish, and Mandarin every Sunday.  St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral is important to the history of what is now SoHo.  It also serves as the anchor of markets and a sharp contrast to nearby structures that were built in the later part of he 1800s.  Both the new St. Patrick’s Cathedral and St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral can be seen on a Sights by Sam tour.

Costume Institute

One of the major collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is its collection of costumes held in the Costume Institute.  Officially named the Anna Wintour Costume Center (after the longtime editor of Vogue magazine), the Costume Institute concentrates on changing exhibits of costumes and gowns that help to preserve these unique objects and show the history of fashion.

The Costume Institute can trace its origins to the 1937 Museum of Costume Art.  While this institution was supported with contributions from the fashion industry (who naturally sought to bring awareness to the history of fashion and costumes), the museum merged with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1959, becoming the Costume Institute.  In 2009, the Brooklyn Museum donated its collection of costumes to the Costume Institute, bolstering its collection to over 50,000 objects (many of them rare).  The Costume Institute receives its funding through donations (via the “Friends of the Costume Institute”) and the annual Met Gala in spring, which not only raises money for the institute, but also shows off the new exhibit for the Costume Institute every year.

Famous exhibits at the Costume Institute in the past have centered on the fashion of U.S. First Ladies, Chinese imperial court wear, and works of the great European fashion houses among many others.  Being located at the flagship Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue, the Costume Institute can easily be combined with a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or another museum along the world-famous Museum Mile.  This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

Full Steam Under the City

Any visitor or native to the city recognizes the plume of steam trails (often spouting out of orange-white smokestacks in Midtown) escaping from under the city and above the island.  This is the result of a vast steam power and pipe system that crisscrosses Manhattan.

The steam system is operated by Consolidated Edison, the local power company.  Utility customers from Lower Manhattan and Midtown Manhattan have access to the system.  Steam is generated at six small power plants in Manhattan and Queens and is used for heating, cooling, and some industrial processes—including dry cleaning.  It goes through 105 miles of pipes to customers all over the island. The steam is deemed as clean—some Manhattan hospitals use it to sterilize equipment.  The steam is generated as a byproduct of burning oil for power.  Every year, over 20 million pounds of steam is generated for industrial, commercial, and residential use.

The steam system has been in operation since the 1880s.  Although it is constantly being maintained, there have been several notable incidents, such as a major explosion in 2007, which caused a plume of steam to rise higher than the Chrysler Building (meaning it was higher than 1049 feet tall). These incidents are thankfully rare. Steam is used without incidence year round as it helps to alleviate pressure on the city’s power grid.   Natives and visitors to the city often come in contact with this fascinating aspect of Manhattan every day in an indirect manner.  This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

The George Washington Bridge

The busiest toll crossing in the U.S., the George Washington Bridge sees over 300,000 vehicles and takes in over $1 million in tolls every day.  The bridge forms an important link between New England and the Mid-Atlantic States.   Like our first president, this bridge is stately, unique, and has a firm place in the region’s history.

Designed by Othmar Ammann and Cass Gilbert, the bridge was constructed between 1927 and 1931.  Residents of New York and New Jersey wanted the bridge to be named the “Hudson River Bridge”, but the Port Authority overruled the people and named the bridge after our first president.  At 4,760 feet long, the span was once the largest in the world (until the Golden Gate Bridge was completed).  The bridge was originally supposed to have a stone cladding, but this was cancelled due to the Great Depression making the cladding too expensive.  The bridge originally had six lanes, but this was expanded to eight on the upper deck.  A lower deck carrying six additional lanes was built in 1962.  There is also a bus station that connects Upper Manhattan to nearby locales on the Manhattan side of the bridge.  To keep the bridge in top shape, the Port Authority is beginning a multibillion dollar rehabilitation project in the coming years.

With respect to the George Washington Bridge in popular culture, the bridge is the supporting star of Hildegarde Swift’s beloved children’s book, The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge.  The bridge is also the site of the largest free flying American flag, which is flown from the bridge in the mornings on certain federal holidays.  On random days of the year, the Port Authority also lights up the towers at night with lights (which I personally wish would happen more often).

Not only is the George Washington Bridge an important transportation link, but it also forms a stately entrance into the city.  In time, Sights by Sam hopes to add at least a view of the George Washington Bridge on a tour.  For now, this will be the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.