By Caitlin Hawke

Perhaps you've noticed the new sign at right which sits at the corner of W. 103rd Street and Broadway: "Room to Move! Open Streets." Or maybe you joined in the 2021 Earth Day events above.

To quote my favorite octogenerian: "Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?"  Well here's a chance to come find out more. For an open discussion on this NYC designation of W. 103rd Street, join our next meeting on June 15. Below are further details from the board of directors about this Q&A with neighbor Peter Frishauf.

By Caitlin Hawke

As a teaser for the talk I'll be giving on Tuesday, here's a little Throwback Thursday entry which I hope will entice you to come hear more!

For the past many years, I've been digging up tidbits about the apartment house that stands at the southwest corner of West End Avenue and W. 102nd Street. Built in 1895, it's a little building, filled with charm. Its solid construction is thanks to the fortune that bankrolled it -- one amassed by Miss Maggie Mitchell powerhouse of the American stage in the Civil War era.

For about 22 years, Miss Mitchell called this building her home. Sadly, she died there in the wee hours of March 22, 1918, but at the ripe age of 81. Hailed at her passing as "one of the most popular actresses of an earlier generation," and "one of the most famous of American actresses," Mitchell left the stage in 1892, and retired to Bloomingdale where her well-constructed, eight-story, colonial revival building still stands, but where her name has been all but forgotten.

I'm hoping to rectify that on Tuesday, January 14, at 6:30 p.m. To hear how George Sand, John Wilkes Booth, Laura Keene, Abraham Lincoln, and a shadow-dancing waif with enchanting powers all cross paths with Maggie, come over to Hostelling International for this free presentation in the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group's wonderful lecture series. More details in the poster below.

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By Caitlin Hawke

The extraordinary Bloomingdaler Florence Clinton Sutro (1865-1906) came to my attention thanks to reader Wilbur J.

He also shared the interior shots below of her home, with husband Theodore, at 320 W. 102nd Street. Designed by Alonso B. Kight, the Renaissance Revival townhouse at 320 W. 102nd Street, was first occupied by the Sutros. The interiors were meticulously photographed sometime soon thereafter and below, thanks to Wilbur, you will find the rosetta stone to Bloomingdale living 125 years ago. Daybed and desk huddle near the grand fireplace. Heavy velvet drapery stands at the ready to buffer the winter entering through the main door. High molded and vaulted ceilings top off burnished wood trimming everywhere. And an impressive cast iron stove gives rise to imagining the meals that must have come out of the kitchen (below).

The Sutros were on the NYC circuit of elites. And Florence was in many a vanguard. Cultural, social, intellectual.

Depicted above at the time of obtaining her law degree, she was better known as a painter and musician. Her musical talent manifested at a young age; she took a $1000 prize at 13, besting 950 other young musicians with her interpretation of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. She went on to study at the Grand Conservatory of New York where she was the first woman to graduate with a doctorate in music, all the while displaying her paintings at the National Academy of Design. Urged on by her financier-lawyer husband to take up his field, she graduated in 1891 as valedictorian from her law program at the University of the City of New York. In 1895, she published her book Women in Music and Law -- for which I am now hunting a printed version, but view the Hathi Trust digitized version here. Quite the niche she targeted. But hers was a quest to raise the profile of women in the arts and probably the law, too.

Together, the Sutros were champions of women's suffrage. In an April 1894 suffrage meeting, to warm applause, Theodore said: "That women do not have the privilege of the ballot seems to me contrary to all ideas of justice in this free country. It is only in accordance with principles of logic - and I might say grammar - that the word 'male' should be stricken from the Constitution."

It is highly likely that Harriot Stanton Blatch and Florence moved in the same circle living just six blocks apart.

I have not yet scratched the surface of the lives of these erstwhile neighbors. Theodore's two brothers Otto and Adolph have intriguing trajectories. Adolph was the first Jewish mayor of San Francisco and responsible for the Sutro baths, the ruins of which are out by the Cliff House near Land's End, San Francisco.

Florence is best remembered as the founder of the National Federation of Women's Music Clubs where her mission was to undo the discrimination against female musicians who were "not able to excel...due to existing prejudice." 

One can easily imagine these parlor and study rooms below filled with guests and tunes and intellectual discussions of all in this world that is just and beautiful and artful and female.

Something like a slice of Bloomsbury in Bloomingdale. 


h/t to Wilbur J. for flagging the Sutros!

​If anyone has any photos of the West 103rd Street head house of the subway station in the median from any period, please share them: blog@w102-103blockassn.org. Wilbur and I are interested in all details about it and in particular good images of it over the years it existed.

By Caitlin Hawke

The subway comes to Bloomingdale in this great shot on Broadway looking northwest from about W. 99th Street on the east side of Broadway. Note the three-story Grimm building at the NW corner of 100th Street and Broadway toward the right edge of this picture. (For more on the Grimm building, see prior posts here and here.  This shot is prior to the subterranean postcard I put up several years ago here.
Note, too, that the site soon to house the Whitehall on the SW corner at 100th Street is empty. 

By Caitlin Hawke

Behold 330 Riverside Drive, The Davis Mansion at West 105th Street (exact photo date unknown) now owned by Opus Dei and undergoing major interior renovations these past many months.

The Daytonian in Manhattan blog has written extensively about 330 Riverside Drive which was built on spec by Joseph Farley in 1902.

Neighbor Dan Wakin in his recent book about the stretch from 330-337 Riverside Drive also tells the story of the eponymous Davis Baking Powder fortune that enabled the Davis family to move into this beaut.

​Thanks to this building and the townhouses between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue, W. 105th Street has enjoyed landmark status far longer than most places around here. The landmarking report for the so-called "Riverside-West 105th Street Historic District" dates to Mayor Lindsay's days, compiled over several years. (I was amused to see the name Deborah S. Gardner as a main author of the report; she currently serves as the in-house historian of Hunter's Roosevelt House.)

An interesting aside for lovers of the "Bloomingdale" moniker: the landmarking initiative was originally referred to as the "Bloomingdale Historic District" but later changed to reflect greater specificity.

Landmark status was designated on April 19, 1973 by the Landmarks Commission citing the streetscape's visual harmony and fine preservation of the buildings.  By and large, the Beaux Arts buildings in the district -- all built within about three years of each other -- had the good fortune to have housed tenants of long occupancy and, as a consequence, suffered little remodeling, making them ripe for preservationists to rally around. For the report, I've extracted below the case to preserve 330 Riverside Drive and a description of its architectural features.

Also in this gem of a report, there is a fine history of the neighborhood and its development all the way back to the 1660s! It's worth clicking on the link above to read more.

Just a final thought: one must marvel at the date of 1973. Forty six years ago, our city and neighbors saw fit to protect the 30 buildings that sit in the shaded area of the map below, to lock in their existence for us all to enjoy, to ensure the neighborhood's grip on the past.  On your next walkabout, make a point of delecting this breathtaking block.

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The text below is an excerpt about 330 Riverside taken from the 1973 case to landmark the buildings in the bounded area above.

By Caitlin Hawke

Depicted below are numbers 863, 865, and 867 West End Avenue. This, of course, is the west side of the avenue, between W. 102nd and 103rd Streets, and it puts into perspective how the contemporaneous eight-story 855 West End Avenue stood tall on the avenue in its early days.

The residences below were built in the mid-1890s and are in keeping with those that still may be seen directly across the avenue on both the northeast and southeast corners of W. 102nd Street, which thankfully have been preserved as landmarks. To see what those looked like circa 1911, see this old post.

In 1923, the northern half of the block below was demolished to make way for Rosario Candela-designed 875 West End Avenue, and in 1924-25 the entire southern half of this block, including these three, was demolished for the construction of 865 West End Avenue, the apartment house on the NW corner of W. 102nd Street, also designed by Rosario Candela.

Candela was born in Sicily and emigrated in 1909, just the year before these photos were taken, to train at Columbia University. He earned his degree in 1915 and less than a decade later he was churning out luxurious designs for east and west side living. For more on Candela, see this piece or google him. Or better yet, just go outside and look up at pediments for the entwined carving 'RC', and you'll begin to see him everywhere.

The second shot, below, is the same three houses as above but a closer view of 863 and 865, taken in 1910. Notice detail of the doorways and the front stoops, and the figures in relief.

The maps above show, in 1912, the make up of West End Avenue, averaging 10 buildings per block.

By Caitlin Hawke

​Nice and simple today: The Marseilles in all her glory.  For another historic image of the Marseilles, see this post.

By Caitlin Hawke

One of the posts I never got to last year was this charming shot. It comes from a gentleman who grew up around here and recalled, among other things, going to the Horn and Hardart automat, to the Armstead beauty salon (where Henry's was), to the TV store nearby and the candy store, Pollak's. Suba was Armstead Pharmacy back then and had a soda fountain where Mark's brother worked.

So readers may recall when the Hudes sign reappeared after the 103rd St. deli closed. Mark recalls that whenever he went into Hudes, the lady who ran it would give him half a salami sandwich.

Those were the days, my friends!

If you know someone who went to Booker T. in the early 1950s or if you know someone in the picture, email me with your stories! 

By Caitlin Hawke

This is the second in what you might think of as a diptych of posts. My last Throwback post digging into the story of the Beastie Boys' genesis in the Grimm Building led me down a long rabbit hole of fascination for the structure. If you didn't see that one, click here to read the nitty gritty Beastie story.

For part two now, here in images from 1867 to present is a documentation of that remarkably unchanged site, the NW corner of 100th Street and Broadway.

​It's rare that a building is so well documented over the years, so the gallery was great fun to pull together.

Recall in my prior post that this site does not enjoy landmarked status thanks to the gimme carveouts all along Broadway -- see the map on the prior post to understand what this means.

I don't know. Maybe I am just too in love with the past. But it defies any sort of reason or logic that our preservationists wouldn't protect this special building. Before the wonky land use and real estate savvy folks start to get impatient with me, I do get that it has been altered over the years, and that the Metro owners put a lot into it to bring it back from decrepitude.  But so many readers have a huge place in their Bloomingdale hearts for this one, it just seems like a no-brainer that we, as a community, might go the extra mile for this nigh on 150 year-old structure.

​Enjoy the picture show below.  

To navigate this photo gallery, click on the arrows or press the play button.
Note: If you are reading this in an email subscription, you may have to click on the
blog post title to view the gallery, or click here.

By Caitlin Hawke

A good while back, when I posted a quizlet on the architectural detail seen here, many readers replied quickly. Of course Pam Tice got it in a heartbeat, as did Lorne Sharf, Anthony Bellov and others. Anthony wrote that the Grimm building (aka 2641 Broadway, home of the Metro Diner) is "definitely the oldest remaining building on the Upper West Side - period." 

The wooden structure was built in 1871 and run for a few years by Henry Grimm as a grocery, with apartments above. Grimm was foreclosed on and the building soon became The Boulevard House, a respite for travelers, reflecting the slow to develop state of upper Broadway (then known as the Boulevard).

Anthony also shared that, "in 1894, a German immigrant named Peter Doelger, a brewer who owned many saloons, bought the building. The bar was in front and a respectable restaurant in back. He lived at 280 Riverside right down the street. The saloon closed with Prohibition and became a seller of ladies' finery and then even a theater."

Interesting side note from the wonderful Forgotten New York: Peter Doelger was Mae West's uncle. So she may have lifted a pint or two there.

For more on Doelger, see this great post from the Daytonian in Manhattan.

At the time of the quizlet, neighbor Elizabeth del Alamo also quickly chimed in that the Grimm building is reputed to be the last wooden building in Manhattan. I haven't fact checked that but am sure she's right about it being the oldest on the UWS. Elizabeth recalled that the Grimm building was the subject of a New Yorker cartoon, probably from the early 1980s. I failed to find the cartoon and would love it if a reader would send it to me at blog@w102-103blockassn.org.

Emily Berleth told me that when she was a youngster, there was a pottery studio on the second floor where the salon is now.

I, of course, remember it in the late 1980s as La Tacita d'Oro. The album cover above and below depict Tacita faithfully. And I'd give anything to have their café con leche in my little golden cup again. The Metro Diner replaced it in 1993, and I recall that Tacita moved south before it shuttered completely about 12 or so years ago.

All these are great tidbits, but Jim Henderson topped them all with his tip off that this was where one of the first (white) hiphop supergroups -- the Beastie Boys -- had their inaugural concert on August 5, 1981, in founding member and guitarist John Berry's father's building on Adam Yauch's 17th birthday. John's father, also John, was a "1930s-style left-leaning intellectual with a serious work ethic" who was editor in chief of Library Journal" (p. 52 Beastie Boys Book). As a single dad, he gave his son a lot of leeway in terms of band practice but when he got home, the band stopped playing in deference to his intellectual downtime after work.

The bassist had his buddies over to practice in his third floor bedroom, and, according to Rolling Stone, the "first Beastie Boys shows took place at Berry’s old loft...where a small crowd gathered to hear the fledgling hardcore/punk band." The site popturf.com reported that that same evening "Dave Parsons of the Rat Cage record store said that he wanted to start recording bands, and asked the Beastie Boys if they were interested. They said yes, and the Polly Wog Stew EP was the result" and the Rat Cage label was born for what that is worth to music historians.

A great description appears in the new Beastie Boys Book:
"How do I even begin to describe this place? Start with the fact that it was an old, squat, three-story wooden structure in the middle of a concrete jungle, like someone had forgotten to tear the place down when they were building the rest of the modern city. Also, for a wood building, it was ancient, literally a hundred years old; it had been a saloon in the late 1800s -- before the streets up here were even f*&*ing paved -- and the place looked and felt like it hadn’t been touched since. It was a dilapidated, sagging, slant-roofed structure of rotting wood, parked in a sea of concrete, brick, and steel. At that point there was a greasy Cuban-Chinese restaurant on the ground floor (that’s right Cuban Chinese). John and his dad lived above the restaurant. John's bedroom, where we practiced, was the building's third-floor loft; the second floor was a single open room, but not like a glamorous designer loft. Large windows were set in rotting and splintered wooden frames. Fading and chipped paint covered the clapboard. Every piece of furniture looked like it had been found on the street.... Framed picture of Che Guevara, books on Lenin and Trotsky, and pamphlets about the IRA lay around the house.... Upper Broadway at that time was like a multicultural mixtape. Salsa blaring on one block, a JVC boombox playing rap outside a housing project on the next, sounds of AM broadcasts from Panasonic clock radios coming out to the opened windows on the next. Across 100th Street from John's place was the large residential hotel -- politely known as an SRO (single-room occupancy) building, and impolitely known as a flophouse....The constant hubbub across the street worked out well for us...because it allowed us to play music as loud as we wanted....We were pretty far down the precinct to-do list. So we'd just set up and practice after school on the third floor....When we weren't actually practicing, our whole cast of characters just hung out and played music full blast... [For the inaugural 1981 makeshift concert] maybe two dozen people showed up. Us. the Bag Ladies, a few of Yauch's oldest friends, and Dave Parsons and his girlfriend, Cathy, from a newly opened and really cool downtown record store called Rat Cage." (pp. 51-55, Beastie Boys Book)

Berry was sometimes credited for coming up with the name for the group which, perhaps tongue-in-cheekily, was said to be an acronym for "Boys Entering Anarchistic States Towards Inner Excellence." Other early members included Kate Schellenbach, "Mike D" aka Michael Diamond, and "MCA" aka Adam Yauch. "Ad-Rock" (Adam Horovitz) joined later after the departure of Berry and Schellenbach.

The Grimm building was also the location where, again thanks to the Berrys, Beastie side-project Big Fat Love formed in 1984. The structure in all its wabi-sabi greatness was featured on their album "Hell House" in an illustration on front and in a photo on the back. An homage to the building (was it in fact the hell house?) appeared in the album's liner notes:

"Big Fat Love's sound is unlike any other Beastie Boys side-project and may take a few listens before one gets into it or out of it, as the case may be. The music though is a wonderful document to just how creatively diverse this group of musicians could be. When people ask about this period in the band's history, Thomas Beller described it best in the liner notes: "Big Fat Love was organized around a particular living space, in this case a house, where several of the band members lived and where, in the mid-80's, an amorphous and slightly derelict group of people spent time. Big Fat Love didn't move to the house as a band, they just sprung up out of the house the way that, in the right conditions, a random bit of plant life springs up from a crack in the sidewalk." (Quoted from the site Beastiemania.com; also more here.).

Sadly John Berry died at the age of 52 in 2016.

If you weren't a Beasties fan, you might at least recall their top Billboard hit "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)" in 1987.  Their place in rap history was sealed forever by the success of the album "Licensed to Ill" which was the first rap album to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. 

If you were a fan, you might enjoy the audio embedded below from the NPR radio show "Wait wait...don't tell me" that I heard on December 22. It seems the surviving members have a new book out. The last of the beasts now tamed, the boys have turned to men, less anarchic and ever so slightly more capitalistic, now packing a license to shill.

Times change. The Grimm building has remained, but the scary part is that this wooden relic is not landmarked. So, stay tuned for next week's continued homage to the Building Grimm.

The Metro owners put a lot of cash and TLC into the refurbish they did before opening in the early 1990s. Thankfully, the diner seems to be going strong. But, incredibly, the Grimm building site was included in the controversial Broadway carveouts and didn't make the cut in the 2015 landmark ruling that protected so much of the area west of Broadway.

I hope the Grimm building will endure given the New York miracle that it's pushing 147 years old without landmark status.
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Many thanks to all the above readers for chiming in. Clearly, this building has captivated many of us, if not the powers that be at LPC!
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Note: If you are reading this via an email subscription, you'll have to click on the blog post title to listen to the radio audio.

By Caitlin Hawke

Well, neighbors, we’re coming quickly to the end of 2018. And I don’t know about you, but it sure flew by for me. I remember last year’s polar vortex like it was yesterday. 

Taking stock, I can measure the year in the number of blog posts I've gotten up, despite that I have such a backlog of potential posts. It puts me in a perpetual state of disappointment that I don’t have more time. Still, I looked at the log and see a grand total of 85 posts in 2018. That’s the most in one year since I started maintaining the site in April 2014. But the guilt persists, and I will try to roll out some of the treasures sitting in my desktop folder ominously marked "Blog To Do."

As I often write, our neighborhood is a very inspiring muse. Like Bob L. or John K. and so many others of you who love to “noodle” in different neighborhoods, I always enjoy a good city walk — looking for a bit of old New York. Or at least authentic New York. It’s getting harder to find, but it’s there in pockets. And those walks, no matter where, always remind me how much I love my home turf: bookended by two great parks, sleepier than the now mall-like UWS, relatively low-lying in terms of the architecture, and so luminous. Bloomingdale has it all.

Add to that the great history, and that’s what makes it so satisfying to chronicle.

Bloomingdale also has a tradition of community -- from the "Old Community" supplanted by Park West Village whose spirit truly lives on (and gave rise to the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group), to the community fostered by this Block Association with half a dozen events and four newsletters each year, to the communities that our neighboring block association and the one Bloomingdale Aging in Place has built over the last 10 years. That's just four quick examples, and there are many micro-communities in between, too.

When I reflect on what at times seems to be the electronic and political dystopia taking hold, I have to say all this community-building that has come naturally in Bloomingdale gives me quite a bit of hope going forward -- especially if new neighbors will join in, roll up sleeves and take up the tradition.

As part of my ongoing love letter to our piece of the Manhattan pie, I wanted to offer back up some of the slices from the year gone by — posts that have received great traffic from readers together with the ones I most enjoyed writing. It's far from an exhaustive list of the 2018 posts. But it's perhaps the cream.

Have a look at the links below and then perhaps you’ll write with your favorites to blog@w102-103blockassn.org or in the comments section of this post.

In any case, I appreciate that you read along throughout the year, and I send best wishes for an excellent 2019.  If you know nearby neighbors who would enjoy the blog, send them this link where they can subscribe.

And now to the Year in Blog Favorites....


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To read each post, click on the corresponding image at left or the hyperlinked text. If you are reading this post in an email subscription, it may be easier to view directly on the website.

​• Bob on Broadway: Dylan's Powerful Residency at the Beacon
Then if you want, gild the lily with a post to honor his 77th birthday here.
Yes, a bit of a stretch for the Bloomingdale catchment, but I'm counting on you to humor me. It took all I had to refrain from writing about The Public's Girl from the North Country and its superb cast including the luscious drummer in red, the boxer, and Mare Winningham -- three actors who stole the show. Look for Girl on Broadway soon.

​• Beautiful Block of Riverside Drive: Seven Beauties in Our Midst
Author Dan Wakin digs into the history of 330-337 Riverside Drive.
Pictured at left: Bennie the Bum with the sawed-off leg, not pictured!

​• Women's Suffrage & Bloomingdaler Harriot Stanton Blatch
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's remarkable daughter Harriot (a babe in arms at left) lived right here. Read more about the fight in NYC to get women the vote, including the effort to get Columbia's men to the polls.

​• Nightmare on 102nd Street
Always a blog favorite, the annual Block Association Halloween Party "Ghouls' Gallery", replete with a visitation from King George the Wee. The party is just one offering of the Block Association; for other B.A. event coverage in 2018, see this link.

​• Estelle Parsons: Triple Threat of a Neighbor
What do I love about Miss Parsons? Everything!
Her intensity and her energy are her superpowers that allow her to thieve every scene she's in. Catch her in this Bloomingdale walkabout. Probably the year's most-viewed blog post!  The lady has a legion of fans.

​​• Manfred Kirchheimer's Time Encapsulated
​What do I love about filmmaker Manny Kirchheimer? Also everything!
​A Bloomingdaler for five and a half decades, he's chronicled the city in his contemplative documentaries along with the odd fiction such as the film "Short Circuit" at left, shot entirely in our neighborhood.

​​• Throwback Thursday Spotlights 1920 Victrola Store
​Throwback Thursday: Bloomingdale Edition is the section of the blog where I feature historical pictures and tidbits. A trove of these await publication, time permitting in 2019. Emanuel Blout's Victrola store, circa 1920, was my favorite this year. Have a TBT favorite? Let me know in the comments.
You can view all TBT: BE posts here.

​​• Throwback Thursday: The Divine Tight Line & Philippe Petit
​This TBT: BE post comes in a close second place.
​Discover the neighborhood feat of the great tightrope walker Petit, high on Amsterdam Avenue. And divine as ever.

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​​• JFK Impersonator Vaughn Meader on the UWS
​JFK would have turned 101 in 2018 and in his honor this post unearths the wonderful two albums that comedian Vaughn Meader turned out before the stars fell down and the curtain closed on Camelot.

​​​• Catching Up with Hedy Campbell
​Four years and 330 posts ago, Hedy asked me to write for the blog. The idea was to pick up where the creators had left off and fill in the gaps between quarterly Block Association newsletter issues. Without breaking a sweat, Hedy has turned out the publication since 1987 -- a massive feat if ever there was one. The blog is child's play by comparison. I end the highlights of 2018 with Hedy because she is a neighborhood jewel whose efforts have helped build and sustain a community feeling now for over 30 years. It's a team effort to be sure, so this hat tip goes to all folks who value this organization.

And now is your chance to help sustain it!
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Join us by becoming a member here.


Catch you in 2019 for more Throwbacks,
more Hyper Local Eats, more Bloomingdale,
and, yes, probably more Bob Dylan.
​Thanks for reading.

By Caitlin Hawke

It's late on a Thursday so you'll have this throwback on Friday. But do come travel with me in time to just about two months after Black Tuesday, 1929. The new year 1930 has been rung in, it's good and cold, the Great Depression has begun. But unemployment won't peak for three more years in the city. 

And the great bellowing lung of our neighborhood, Straus Park, pays it all no heed. For here is a town square where folks of all ages come to inhale the fresh, crisp air and to entertain one another. An era before TV, the golden age of radio shines by night, but by day by golly the folks are out.

Fortunate in many ways, but in one we are not: we lack a town square. We lack that knowledge that you can fall out on a daily basis into the local pocket park and meet all your neighbors. It's why I love the yard sales that the Block Associations put on.  It's why BAiP's community-building mission is so needed.

We have forgotten how to commune in our own backyard.

The video below is extraordinary for its quality, its crystal clear sound, and the uncanny you-are-there feeling. See Straus Park -- less green, ok -- but more vibrant than you've ever seen it before. See all modes of 1930s transportation, including a rollerskater and a period pram. Get a good gander at Broadway looking north from its intersection at West End Avenue. And get a peep of the back of "Memory" -- far from the star of this movie.

It's perfection. A talkie of a time capsule. And it's yours if you click on the image above since if you are reading this in an email subscription the video won't play.

​Enjoy!

h/t to the West Side Rag comments section for bringing this beaut to the surface.

By Caitlin Hawke

What I would LOVE is for some kindly neighbor at the Broadmoor somewhere up top to try to capture a modern day image looking west southwest out toward West End Avenue and the river over the rooftops.

This picture is a gem for, really, how much has remained so. The east side of West End Avenue both north and south of W. 102nd Street should be familiar to viewers as should be 855 West End Avenue dead center with its nearby neighbors, just as you'd see them now. I love it for the way 299 Riverside at the south corner of W. 102nd Street and Riverside Drive dominates the view. And for the absence of 300 Riverside Drive. You'll note that William Foster's second mansion sits where 300 Riverside Drive is today at the north corner of W. 102nd Street. Scroll down for an image of that house, built in 1888 by the glove mogul, and read more here, in Gary Dennis's blog, about the two Foster mansions that occupied that lot.

Of course, 865 West End as we know it today hadn't yet gone up, and the shot is remarkable too for a rare shot of the row of houses at the northwest corner of 102nd Street and West End.

Ah, but look at Jersey!!

Enjoy these nearly contemporaneous 1912 Bromley maps from the Atlas of the Borough of Manhattan.

By Caitlin Hawke

I couldn't resist posting this 1934 ad from the Columbia Spectator beckoning neighborhood dancers from, wait for it, 4 p.m. to 3 a.m. What, may I ask, is even open anywhere at all on Broadway at 3 a.m. nowadays?

A cocktail for 20¢. No cover. No minimum Dancing all night. To my mind, it's pretty much what we could all use to take our minds off "other things."

For long time blog readers, you'll recall Old Algiers from these posts here and here. It replaced the famed Archambault where Mexican Festival now sits.

Clearly, they knew how to get around the longstanding Cabaret Law that was finally repealed last year.

By Caitlin Hawke

If you've been watching and waiting for the great reveal at the seemingly stalled-out five-plus year reno of the Schinasi Mansion (sold for $14M in 2013) currently on-going at 351 Riverside Drive at W. 107th Street by a former Goldman Sachs "honcho", then perhaps this will come as a diversion.

It's the building that occupied a site just one block north at 355 Riverside Drive, the Samuel Gamble Bayne mansion, named for the eponymous -- and fascinating -- Donegal-born oilman and banker.

Below depicted circa 1893, the trophy mansion utterly dwarfs the well-dressed man sitting on the right of the steps to the main entry.  The Bayne mansion's story was told admirably by Daytonian in Manhattan here. It lasted only 30 years and by 1921, Bayne sold the site to a bloke by the name of Harris Uris who hired Bayne's son-in-law, British architect Alfred Charles Bossom, to design what now stands at 355 Riverside. Bayne had lost his wife Emily ten years earlier and was tired of padding around the mansion alone. In an act of human resilience, once the Bossom building was complete at 355, he planned to occupy the 14th floor penthouse for a bird's eye view from his same beloved plot. He died in 1924, a resident of the Wyoming at 853 Seventh Avenue, a Bloomingdaler at heart if not in body.

By Caitlin Hawke

Easily my favorite facade in our neighborhood, the Alimar stands at the northwest corner of W. 105th Street and West End Avenues. It's another story of buildings in these parts that have names and I will have to dig on this one. But for now, behold the Haussmannian beauty of this grande dame. Her copper bays and sumptuous detail. I have often wondered if she's prettier from the outside than from the interior. Maybe if you are a neighbor there, you will comment about the Alimar below.

By Caitlin Hawke

A little slice of life on Broadway and a nod to the Mom & Pops of yore!

The "One from the Vault" feature plumbs the archives of back issues of Block Association newsletters for the benefit of new neighbors and lovers of our community and its history.  To read other pieces from the vault, click on the category at right.


By Caitlin Hawke

I am tagging this as both "One from the Vault" and a "Throwback Thursday" because it's that delicious.

First, a big shoutout to Ginger Lief for the feature, a charming, well-researched March 2006 piece from the Block Association's newsletter vault offering up names -- many long since lost or forgotten -- of the neighborhood's buildings.  Ginger's research reveals not only the names but the reasoning behind several of them. Often harkening to places in Europe, the names tell a story about who the neighborhood's builders were, and how they left their mark.

Having done a little research, I can add to Ginger's work about the building referred to in her newsletter piece below as the "Standoche" at 855 West End Avenue.

855 West End was established as the "St. Andoche," and the name came to be mashed up into the "Standoche" in various real estate ads and municipal documents.

But the actual name is two separate words, and its significance is connected to the builder of 855 West End, a famous Civil War era actress, Maggie Mitchell. Mitchell made her fortune in the play "Fanchon the Cricket," a stage adaptation by Augustus Waldauer of George Sand's novel, La Petite Fadette.

The second act of the play takes place during a festival, the feast of St. Andoche. Mitchell's shadow dances in the play, and particularly in the second act, were adored by theater-goers and garnered her fame from Louisiana to Massachusetts and beyond.

In 1895, three years after retiring from the stage at the age of 60, Mitchell bought the parcel of land on the southwest corner of W. 102nd Street and West End Avenue and built the building that stands there -- solid as a rock -- today. Since the role helped Mitchell earn her considerable fortune, it's not a leap to understand why she tipped her hat by naming her building for it.

Click on "St. Andoche" in the list below for more.

Like 855 West End, some buildings have been featured in my Throwback Thursday posts, and you'll find those links are clickable in the list immediately below. Others are still to come. I'll update this list down the line.


Our Buildings' Names
Broadmoor: 235 W. 102nd Street at the northwest corner of Broadway
Clearfield: 305 Riverside Drive at W. 103rd Street
Friesland: 235 W. 103rd Street at the northwest corner of Broadway
Haworth: 239 W. 103rd Street between Broadway and West End Avenue
Magnolia: 240 W. 102nd Street at the southwest corner of Broadway
Hotel Marseilles: 230 W. 103rd Street at the southwest corner of Broadway
Hotel Alexandria: 250 W. 103rd Street between Broadway and West End Avenue
Ideal: 315 W. 102nd Street between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue
The Master Apartments (originally The Master Institute): 310 Riverside Drive at W. 103rd Street
Rockledge Hall: 299 Riverside Drive at the south corner of W. 102nd Street
St. Andoche: 855 West End Avenue at the southwest corner of W. 102nd Street


If you are a Block Association resident and your building has a name (or had a name), yet you don't see it, contact Ginger, send me an email, or leave a comment below!  Crowdsourcing comes to Bloomingdale.

Enjoy!

By Caitlin Hawke

The Alexandria was built as a hotel in 1916-17 and later converted to apartments. It's hard to make out but the awning below has "Hotel Alexandria" atop it in big letters -- well visible for travelers exiting the 103rd Street subway. The area had numerous hotels and the Alexandria was just paces away from the Hotel Marseilles built 11 years earlier to its east at the southwest corner of W. 103rd Street and Broadway.

The Alexandria is a 14-story classical revival stone and brick construction by architects William L. Rouse and L.A. Goldstone whose elegant work may be seen in many other buildings in these parts (Chesterfield, Allendale and Stuyvesant, to name only a few).

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By Caitlin Hawke

This is really a Throwback Thursday post, but I am putting it up a bit early because it is pegged to an event today, Wednesday, May 23, that I wanted you to know about. But first the facts.

Yes, in the photo above, that is famed tightrope walker and master of mystery Philippe Petit walking a line to St. John the Divine on September 29, 1982, to fete the construction of a new tower. If you look closely at the grainy newspaper image below from the Columbia Spectator, you  can just about make out a trowel on his belt that he was symbolically delivering across Amsterdam Avenue -- 150 feet in the air -- to the cathedral and its Bishop. A flourish to inaugurate construction of the south tower of the cathedral's west elevation.

So, the photo above depicts an authorized -- orchestrated! -- walk to the cathedral. You don't have to imagine it because there's film of it (if you are receiving this message by email, make sure to click on the blog post title to view the video on our website). And indeed the trowel is looped on his belt as he makes his way across an unbelievably taught rope in his deacon purple stockings, pausing once to kneel on the wire and once to do a stork pose, then bowing deeply over the edge of St. John's roofline to the applauding crowd. One incredulous spectator shakes her arms over her head saying "Oh boy am I glad that's over!"

Great, yes. But let's just say it was not Petit's first walk at SJTD. That was in 1980, and he went stealth that time as was his wont.

Many a New Yorker knows Petit was a guerilla walker extraordinaire. In 1974, his clandestine operation and magnificent stroll between the two unfinished World Trade Center towers on a 131-foot cable suspended 1,300 feet above the construction site by his merry cabal was first one for the law enforcers; and then one for the history books; and finally one for the spiritual coda of those two towers whose fate we all remember too, too well. I've included two snaps at the bottom of that walk, one where he has an ear-to-ear smile, presumably elated or high on height. And the other of him lying down on the rope. He also danced on the wire that day in '74. Giddy, lollygagging about, and perhaps toying with the powers that be who had no way to get to him. That walk was an act of hubris, insanity, and majesty rolled into one.

In short, so great was Petit that his 1980 tightrope walk, which was inside St. John the Divine, led officials there to name him as one of the first Cathedral Artists-in-Residence. Better to have him with you than against you, you might suppose they reasoned. But actually, the Dean of the cathedral was all for the interior walk. He just couldn't get his board to sign off on it, presumably for liability reasons. Petit, characteristically undeterred, went ahead with the 1980 nave walk. The cops cuffed him on his way down from the wire that day for trespassing; but the Dean, James Parks Morton, intervened and thinking quickly informed the police that Petit couldn't be trespassing because he was, um, an artist in residence, right, that's the ticket.

To this day, the funambulist retains his resident artist title. And he's walked a wire many a time since including once after the terrible fire that broke out in the gift shop to help heal and herald a new beginning.

In a 1999 New Yorker piece by Calvin Tomkins, Petit was quoted as saying:

“When you think about it, wire walking is very close to what religion is. ‘Religion’ is from the Latin religare, which means to link something, people or places. And to know, before you take your first step on a wire, that you are going to do the last one—this is a kind of faith.”

Dean Morton told Tomkins that Petit was "one of the most religious people [I know]....Sometimes very unusual people turn out to be the most religious....I think of this as God’s joke.”

I do believe he believes. Just not in terrestrial authorities.

I love that he has this connection to our neighborhood. Since 9-11, Petit to me is an anthropomorphic poem. He's our living link to the towers he owned for a mid-seventies day. Religare.

In Bloomingdale, we live in the shadow of SJTD, the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, or if you prefer, one of the five largest church buildings in the world. You'll agree that its secrets -- like the Petit tales -- and its history are poorly known.

One place to rectify that is with the romp of a Bowery Boys podcast episode devoted to the cathedral -- I'm embedding the audio below. (If you are receiving this by email, please click on the title of the blog post to view the video on our website.) And if you can go to SJTD tonight, May 23, for $125 you can celebrate with the Bowery Boys the 125th anniversary of the ground breaking.

Probably tickets are sold out for the birthday bash. But tell me you weren't tempted!

Replete with peacocks, Greek revival remnants of the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum of 1843, and the little rope-walking giant, the cathedral is a neighborhood gem, a work in progress, ours to cherish, and ours to divine.

The link above is to the Bowery Boys podcast #262: Secrets of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. You may not love their style, but stick with it for lots of great historical information.

By Caitlin Hawke

This year's Block Association's Spring Planting Day got me thinking (click the link to see the gallery if you missed it). Where and when did this tradition all begin?

I did some digging and found an interesting piece in the NYT that seems to explain pieces of our history I'd never heard. Specifically, that our Block Association began in 1967 on West 103rd Street with a planting and beautification initiative. West 102nd Street was rolled in quickly and about four years later, the Block Association as we know it formally launched, as can be seen in our first newsletter in 1971 here.

Going back all the way to June 25, 1967, 51 years ago, the Times article below recounts how four local mothers had recently come together, mailed out letters to neighbors asking for funds for the improvement of West 103rd Street between Riverside and Broadway, and collected $1201 to buy London plane trees -- the then-favorite trees for our streets because it "grows fast and withstands city pollution."

So there you have it in a nutshell. Our Block Association's raison d'etre: the planting of trees to improve our environment. It's just second nature to the B.A. Hence the twice-yearly tradition of beautifying tree wells, of gently coaxing residents out to assist, of collecting funds to make it possible, and of liaising with the city to keep the greening going when a tree is lost or maimed.

In retrospect, it's pretty great that by the 1971 inaugural issue of the B.A. newsletter, the association already boasted 400 contributing members and had raised enough dough to plant 45 trees! Not too shabby at all.

So when you are walking around enjoying the leafing-out season, consider any tree that looks about 50 years old, and whisper an ode of gratitude to that founding crew -- starting with those four moms -- who planted and planted and planted. They made this such a beautiful neighborhood. And many continue today in their spirit, also thanks to the groundwork they laid in establishing the W. 102-103 Streets Block Association.

If you haven't stepped out or up to help the Block Association this year, it isn't too late. You can join anytime right here.

Because the image below is a little blurry, I am including a pdf file above that you should be able to click on and download.

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By Caitlin Hawke

A mash-up of what the 300-block of W. 99th Street looked like 80 or 90 years ago

By Caitlin Hawke

This neighborhood as muse never fails to delight me.

In my noodlings, I found this picture of the southwest corner of 108th Street and Broadway, circa 1910-20, with Emanuel Blout's Victor Talking Machine store firmly anchoring the corner. One could easily spend a whole day off of work (ahem) doing a deep dive into the lore of the Victor and Victrola, and investigating the robust collectors network, too.

The billboards atop this pretty building, which I've seen in earlier incarnations and hope to post images of soon, speak to a vibrant neighborhood just booming along a decade plus after the subway opened.  The presence of the store so far uptown attests to the fondness for this beautiful machine.

This Victor Talking Machine business wasn't Emanuel Blout's first foray into the music selling business, he was an early partner of Emile Berliner who eventually ceded his gramophone patents to Eldridge Johnson who went on to found the Victor Talking Machine Company.

In any event, in 1920 Emanuel Blout was well off enough to purchase the building that housed his Victor dealership.

There's a charming, if wonky, FAQ on the Victor-Victrola Page where I learned the difference between the two:  "A 'Victor' is a phonograph with the horn mounted externally. A 'Victrola' has an internal horn, often with doors in front that open and close to control the volume. Both are products of the Victor Talking Machine Company. Victors were made in the 1901 until the early 20's. Victrolas were made from 1906 up through 1929, when RCA bought the company and became 'RCA Victor'."

If you have one taking space up in your home, values can be anywhere from $500-3000 and on up to $10,000 for the rarest of the rare.

Don't get me started on the demise of vinyl and rise of streaming music.  For today, I just want to think about my phonograph fetish and imagine walking into E. Blout's to browse his beautiful machines.  Scroll down for my lagniappe for anyone wondering how it sounds (if you are reading this in an email click the blog post title to stream the video).

Aptly enough, the video above is "Spring Is Here" by Irving Aaronson and His Orchestra played on a Victor Victrola model VV-XI.

By Caitlin Hawke

Readers seemed to have loved the reference to Childs in my last Throwback Thursday post.  Some of you still remember the actual restaurants.  But Jimmy Roberts wins the prize for pointing out the Rogers & Hart reference to the chain in "I'll take Manhattan."  I am including it at the bottom of this post as your lagniappe...you know the drill if you're reading this in an email subscription: you have to click here or on the post title to see the video.

You got me all curious about the SE corner of West 102nd Street and Broadway again.  You'll recall the recent post of the matchbook covers from the Childs' restaurant "Old Algiers" here. That then led to this post about the corner where Mexican Festival is that used to be home to both Old Algiers and its predecessor, Archambault.

My menschy friend, author and postcard collector Michael Susi,  kindly sent the images below. Black and white versions of these appear in his wonderful book of postcards, The Upper West Side. It's a book you've seen and leafed through and a book worth having -- not necessarily for the images alone!  His captions pack a wealth of historical detail into just a line or two.  And that's where I first discovered the Archambault.  Michael tells me that the eponymous Mr. Archambault also owned the Hotel Belleclaire which is having a renaissance now.

Again, if you haven't read Pam Tice's piece on dining out back in the day in Bloomingdale, you will enjoy it. She also references the restaurant at 102nd Street.

Michael says that a postcard image of Old Algiers' exterior will be hard to come by since its time falls outside the golden age of these postcards.  But behold these two beauties. 

I want to say just meet me there tonight for dinner.

Here's a side by side just for the kick of it.  Thanks, Michael!

Above is a clip from "Makers of Melody," the short 1929 film featuring Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart's first blockbuster, "Manhattan," as in We'll have Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, too....

It was their first hit song and quickly became part of our DNA. In the film, Ruth Tester and Allan Gould play a "boy and goil" in love, and if you listen closely at the 2:02 mark, you'll hear the reference to the Childs restaurant chain, courtesy reader and musician Jimmy Roberts.  (The Childs connection to the SE corner of W. 102nd Street and Broadway is explained here.)

Excerpt from the song "Manhattan" by Rogers & Hart

We'll go to Yonkers
Where true love conquers
In the wilds.
And starve together, dear,
In Childs'.
We'll go to Coney
And eat baloney
On a roll.
In Central Park we'll stroll,
Where our first kiss we stole,
Soul to soul.
Our future babies
We'll take to "Abie's
Irish Rose."
I hope they'll live to see
It close.
The city's clamor can never spoil
The dreams of a boy and goil.
We'll turn Manhattan
Into an isle of joy.

By Caitlin Hawke

You may recall that last week I revealed matchbooks I'd unearthed from the Old Algiers restaurant.  What I was after -- but have failed to turn up -- is any picture of that dining establishment.  However I can tell you that the restaurant was located on the SE corner where Mama Mexico once was and now the site of Mexican Festival.  And I can also tell you that its grand opening was on April 29, 1930.  The NYT clip below is my source.

"Old Algiers" replaced "Archambault's" which billed itself as "The Up Town Restaurant De Luxe."  I got the location thanks to Michael Susi who has some amazing postcard collections and has written histories of the Upper West Side and Columbia University's Morningside Heights all through the images in his collection. In his book on the Upper West Side, he has both an interior and an exterior of Archambault's.

But Old Algiers remains a mystery...for now.

As you can see from the little article, Old Algiers (and the other restaurant on the matchbook, Old London) were part of a mini empire of kitch dining emporia.