By Caitlin Hawke

This isn't technically a Throwback Thursday post, but I am going to tag it as one since an earlier of my  Throwback posts put me in an Audrey Munson state of mind.  That face is everywhere!

I am not going to retread the narrative.  Her story has been told again, and again, and again thanks both to her long life and her tragic fate. But for a time she was the most sought after model of the time.  Sculptor after sculptor asked her to pose. And it wasn't infrequent that she sat for multiple figures in one work, as you'll see below.

So, while I usually try to stick to the Block Association's immediate environs when featuring things in this blog, I thought it was fair to stretch it a bit with this offering.  The truth is, we boast a few prime Audreys right here in B'dale.  And I have come to think of her as an honorary neighbor. What links us to the rest of the city (and well beyond) is one long chain of Audreys -- ornamenting buildings and fountains and bridges.  Arms outstretched.  Breasts bared. Laurel crowned. Leafed in gold. Marble hewn. Bronzed. Iconic.

I give you now, up close and personal and all in one place, the muse extraordinaire of Bloomingdale and well beyond.  Miss Audrey Munson.

About This Gallery
For details about each sculpture depicted below, hover over the image with your cursor and a caption will appear with date, site and sculptor. Most (but sadly not all) are in place today; you can go see her for yourself.

If you want to explore more of our neighborhood's history, click here to see all prior entries in the recurring feature of this blog, "Throwback Thursday."

Finally, live in the neighborhood?  Spread the word by sharing this; tell a friend to subscribe.  There's a lot more in store.

By Caitlin Hawke

I'm a sucker for a good sandwich board.  But I also like bad knock knock jokes.  In any event, a tip of the hat to The Heights for making me smile on the way home.

By Caitlin Hawke

You are cordially invited to join neighbors at the Lotus Garden for
E L E M E N T S
an art exhibit

Today!

Saturday, September 17, from 12 to 6 p.m.
Enter via gate just west of Broadway on W. 97th, south side of the street.
The garden is above the garage on W 97th between Broadway and West End.
 Please note the garden is not wheelchair accessible and without restrooms.
Access requires climbing one tall flight of stairs (handrails on both sides). Paths are bark strewn.

For the second time, we are weaving art into our one-sixth of an acre public paradise, an improbable slab of three feet of dirt and towering greenery in midair, suspended over gritty sidewalks and a parking garage. For one day, humans will add their own creative touches to the splendor of our winding paths.

E L E M E N T S     l     14 artists   l    40 +  works
     ---
Barbara Beck
Caroline Blum
Lisa Ferber
Mark Fox
Shanna Forlano
Karen Gershenhorn
Molly Heron
Kenneth Karpel
Jeff Kindley
Graham Puleo
Emily Wagner
Pamela Mason Wagner
Pamela White
Walter Zucker

By Caitlin Hawke

This year marks the 15th since the horrors of 9/11.  I find it hard to believe in every way. 

Months ago, while leafing through archived newsletters, I came across one from September 2001. On the front page (reproduced below), the Block Association's newsletter editors poignantly acknowledged what had just transpired. Presumably that box was added just as the newsletter was going to press.

Seeing it brought back a flood of memories, mostly of the surreality the city was going through and of the mourning.  There was an impromptu gathering at the Firemen's Memorial on W. 100th Street and Riverside Drive, recently renovated, I recall. That must have been on the Friday evening following black Tuesday.  But I could be wrong.  There, I remember a sea of candles and flowers surrounding the memorial.  Incredulous neighbors huddled together.  We didn't know then that there was more to come with the terrorizing anthrax attacks -- prolonged and destabilizing.  In hindsight, it all seems insurmountable.  But then think of all the similar tragedies that have come since, in unending succession, constantly challenging people to surmount the insurmountable.

What strikes me about this newletter piece from the archives is the simple, elegant message on the newsletter's front page.  In it, we have what the French call a "témoin" -- a witness or a telltale -- of what we needed and sought.  It's a window to the past that reminded me that for a moment in New York, all was local -- the way Tip O'Neill meant "all politics is local."  Time stopped and New York belonged just to New Yorkers.  And we comforted each other.

The juxtaposition of this box with the article beneath it about happier news -- the celebration of this organization's 30th anniversary -- is apt in the sense that the block association is and has been a catalyst for community-building.  I did the uncomplicated math: turning 30 in 2001 makes the block association 45 this year.  Wrap your head around that in an era where the lifespan of a new gadget is roughly 24 months, and when Broadway retailers are turning over at a dizzying rate.  But the block association endures.

The organizers of the block association saw fit to mark the 30th by feting our neighborhood history and its preservation. In the 2001 article, neighbor and history buff, Ginger Lief, rolled out an incredible grassroots-driven archive at the New York Public Library, and I know that Win Armstrong was an engine of this effort as well.  It inspires me that neighbors care so much about what came before...and perhaps also about what is still to come and how to shape it for the better.

I don't know when it happened.  Was it the completion of the new WTC tower or the memorial that has become a tourist destination.  Or the advent of the Oculus.  But somehow between the 10th and 15th anniversaries, in my mind 9/11 has folded into that history.  It makes me feel like Rip Van Winkle that we now have neighbors who were in junior high school back on that terrible day who are discovering the story of what so many of us lived through now that New York is their home. 

So, today, memories turn back 15 years. To the lives lost. And to the lives affected.  And to how the challenge soldered our city together.

Thoughts project forward to the next 45 in our neighborhood.  May we never have to share a day like that day in September again.  But if we do, rest assured that the comfort and compassion will flow.

By Caitlin Hawke

Bloomingdale, like a lot of the UWS, has a great musical tradition.  After all, we can boast that right in our catchment, around 1925 Ira and George Gershwin shared a house at 316 W. 103rd Street.  And we have Duke Ellington's mansion nearby at 333 Riverside Drive, and his studio around the corner at the Canavan mansion where Tempo Music was housed and run by the Duke's sister Ruth. If that's not enough, it seems Nina Simone also lived on that stretch of RSD.  And I know from the wonderful Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group that Billie Holiday's mother had a restaurant on W. 99th Street.

There's a tradition of musical education in these parts (I know because walking the streets in the afternoon you can hear all kinds of voice and piano lessions). So, it stands to reason that we'd boast a music school all these many years later right nearby at 323 W. 108th Street, the Bloomingdale School of Music (BSM).  It's been here since 1972 and offers a full course load as well as public performances, many of which you'll see on our calendar.

I thought it would be nice to share the slice-of-life piece that appeared two days ago in The Manhattan Express about BSM and its director Erika Floreska by Jackson Chen.  Click here to read it.

Or click on the image below.  Enjoy!

By Caitlin Hawke

To complete the prior two blog posts, I have an image to share. Plans for the proposed penthouse addtion to 840 West End Avenue were presented at a hearing on Thursday evening since our neck of the woods is landmarked and additions or modifications to landmarked buildings require approval.  You will see architectural renderings of the proposed addition atop 840 West End Avenue (NE corner of W. 101st Street) below.  The red arrows point to the rendering of the proposed penthouse on the roof of 840WEA.  At left, the addition is seen from the west elevation of the building (West End Avenue view) and at right from the south elevation (W. 101st Street side). The blue arrows indicate the current roofline.

So...what do you think?

With appreciation to CB7 for these images.

By Caitlin Hawke

Despite searching online, I haven't been able to answer requests for a diagram of the 840 West End Avenue penthouse plans -- the subject of a hearing on Thursday.  I will post them when they surface.  However, thanks to a reader, I have a bird's eye photo from the vantage point of a higher floor on W. 103rd Street showing the two penthouses "blocked out" in orange netting -- presumably in advance of the two hearings this week.

The photo is looking south from W. 103rd Street.  At left in orange is the roof of 236 W. 101st Street and at right in orange is the roof of 840 West End.  Note the black penthouse addition atop 838 West End directly  -- the beige building with the fire escape, right across from 840 West End.

To learn about the 9/6 and 9/8 hearings about these two structures, see the prior blog post here.

9/9/16 Update: for a rendering of the 840 WEA penthouse proposal, see the more recent post here.

Live in the neighborhood?  Spread the word by sharing this.  Also, if you enjoy these occasional blog posts, tell a friend to subscribe.  There's a lot more in store.

So what will the new topper at 840 WEA look like?  What will the penthouse rent for if a 2nd floor apartment is 15 grand?  For answers to these and other burning Bloomingdale questions, I'll see you at the hearing on Thursday!

9/9/16 Update: for a rendering of the 840 WEA penthouse proposal, see the more recent post here.

Live in the neighborhood?  Spread the word by sharing this.  Also, if you enjoy these occasional blog posts, tell a friend to subscribe.  There's a lot more in store.