Grant's Tomb

 We arrived at the steps of Grant's Tomb on a cool Wednesday morning to see a model and crew in the middle of a photo shoot. Several minutes passed before they finished their work and moved off the steps.
Ulysses S. Grant is perhaps best remembered for leading the Union to victory in the Civil War. He granted Confederate General Robert E. Lee generous peace terms at Appomattox Court House in April 1865. He served two terms as 18th President from 1869 to 1877, but his administration was plagued by corruption, so historians haven't been kind in assessing his accomplishments in that capacity. Late in life he persevered in writing his memoirs while battling cancer. He was a life-long cigar smoker. He hoped his memoir would ensure his wife, Julia, a source of income after his death. He died in Saratoga, New York, in 1885, five days after completing the memoir. His funeral procession on August 8,1885, was attended by an estimated one million people lining the streets of New York City to view his coffin.

Ulysses son, Fred, was tasked with finding a location for his father to be interred with his mother as was his father's wish. In 1888 there was a contest for the architectural design that was won by John Duncan. The construction of the tomb was fully funded by donations. It was constructed with marble imported from Italy. The mausoleum is the largest in the Western Hemisphere. The memorial was dedicated on April 27, 1897, which would have been Grant's 75th birthday. Julia Grant was laid by her husband's side after her death in 1902.

This eagle, one of two guarding the steps of Grant's Tomb, was not part of the original design. Both were donated from a New York City post office that was demolished in the 1930s.

The mural shows Grant on his horse Cincinnati.

This flag is displayed inside the monument. How many stars are on this flag?

Reflections on NYC Tour

Now that we are on the bus poised to leave NYC at the end of a whirlwind five day tour, I’ll take a few moments to reflect on all that I’ve seen and done while here. We began our touring late Saturday afternoon with a subway ride from Fulton Street to Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. We walked to Fort Greene Park and in addition to learning the history of the park we got to observe people from the Brooklyn neighborhoods recreating, or working out on a beautiful spring weekend afternoon. From there we went to enjoy a garden party at the apartment of Scholar Charles Calhoun. That was a wonderful way to end the afternoon.

From there, Terry Martin and I went by subway to find Teresa’s Restaurant in Brooklyn Heights. This was not as much of an adventure as I thought. We found this restaurant on Montague Street at dark. We both enjoyed white borscht which was delicious. I had a plate of pierogies which was equally good. We debated walking back across the Brooklyn Bridge, but decided to ride the subway instead.

Ellis Island as seen from the ferry boat.

Sunday morning we had beautiful weather as we walked to Battery Park. Ed O’Donnell led this walking tour. The entire day was great, not too warm, as we completed the ferry trip to Ellis Island and back. Afterward, we walked up Broadway and toured our way up to Wall St. Our last stop, the 9/11 Memorial was a fitting way to end our first day, reminding us of the costs of liberty in our modern world.

Monday, we took a subway to the Lower East Side and toured the the Tenement Museum. The tour guides who were both named Rachel were gracious and knowledgeable. We went to Katz’s Deli on East Houston Street for lunch. We did a walking tour led by Ed O’Donnell through some of neighborhoods of the Lower East Side and learned about how to tell the age of an old tenement building based on the presence or absence of air shafts, windows, and the proportion of the area the building’s footprint occupies on the lot. The lower this percentage is, the newer the building. The afternoon became quite warm, and several of us took refuge in some shade near a water fountain in Columbus Park. We ate dinner at Ginger Joe’s in the heart of Chinatown. One new interesting fact I learned is that New York’s Chinatown is the largest one in the Western Hemisphere.

Neon sign in the window of the delicatessen.

Tuesday, we took the subway north again, this time to Harlem. It was another gorgeous day with blue skies as we took our walking tour. Although the Harlem nowadays is a vibrant community with few abandoned and dilapidated buildings to be found,the old Renaissance Ballroom standing boarded and deteriorating, with trees growing on the roof, contrasts to the renewal surrounding it. One footnote to the story of this building is the story of the Rens, a touring basketball team that played all comers and won over 2,500 games during its existence.

The Renaissance Ballroom was once a gathering place for African-Americans in Harlem.

Wednesday, we went over to Grant’s Tomb on the west side of Manhattan. The morning started out chilly, but with bright sunshine that didn’t last long. The tour here was in two parts, a walk through the tomb itself and a lecture at the visitor’s center. The next leg of the trip was to take a subway with Terry Martin up to Fort Tryon Park to visit the Cloisters. This museum of medieval art, has many impressive religious relics of the early Catholic Church. Most impressive were the massive tapestries that hung on the walls of the various rooms. Many of these appeared to exceed 15 feet by 20 feet in dimensions with incredible details that tell a story. One room contained only unicorn tapestries. Our tour guide spent many minutes in this room, pointing out the intricate details and explaining the various interpretations of the visual narrative.

This tapestry is titled "The Unicorn in Captivity."  Little is known of its origins, but the letters A and E are interwoven into the tapestry. Perhaps these letters represent the link to whoever was involved in its creation.

Thursday morning, getaway day, we had to be all packed and ready to leave by 8 a.m. for our last walking tour to the High Line in Chelsea. This old raised railroad bed that has been converted into a walking path and park-like space represents a change in approach to the previous pattern of tearing down infrastructure that no longer seems useful to commerce or society. It is also a symbol of the power of a grassroots neighborhood effort. The Friends of the High Line worked for many years to convince the city’s politicians not to tear this structure down.

The High Line is a pedestrian green-space that connects W. 30th St to Gansevoort St.

  

Central Park

Before 1850 the notion of a park taking up land that could be used for commerce or houses seemed wrong-headed. After all if people wanted fresh air and a break from their congested surroundings all they had to do was head to the edge of Manhattan Island which was never far away and they could be satisfied. However, more liberal thinkers would contend that if the United States wanted to be a great nation in the European mold, then its great cities would need to have parks that rivaled those of the great cities of Europe.

Frederick Law Olmsted was appointed superintendent of the park, and along with Calvert Vaux designed a plan. The area for the park would erase the established grid from the plan for New York City from 59th Street to (eventually) 110th Street between 5th and 8th Avenues.  Olmsted and Vaux made the plan that was used. New Yorkers were amazed at how Olmsted, in an age of rampant corruption was able to build the park without giving in to corrupt influences. The hills and lakes of Central Park are man-made with the exception of Haarlem Meer at the north end. Its hard to imagine New York City without Central Park, an attraction for residents and visitors.

Bow Bridge where a Dutch man proposed to his girlfriend just as our tour walked through. The folks in the rowboats may have been heading back to the boathouse on the far side of the bridge.

The Lake with the towers of The Dakota in the distance.

The path meanders under rustic arch. The bedrock on the left is schist, the same type of rock that the towers of the Brooklyn bridge are anchored into.

Belvedere Castle is an attraction for park visitors. It sits on a site that previously had a fire tower. The people on the left are looking toward the Great Lawn, a site that used to be the city's reservoir.

Walking Tour in Harlem

The beginning of Harlem as an African-American community was the result of a speculative real estate market in the dawn of the twentieth century. Too many houses were built and a downturn in the economy left them vacant. The speculators who built these homes were desperate to sell them, but were reluctant to sell them to Black Americans. However, the Tenderloin race riot spurred new interest moving to Harlem, and economic and political pressure soon overcame the attitude of discrimination. A man named Philip Peyton helped broker some early deals for African-American buyers. After 1910 the growth in the African-American population began, and many properties were owned by African-Americans by the 1920s.

Many notable African Americans have stories linked to the Harlem YMCA on 135th Street. The older building is across the street from the one shown.

Thurgood Marshall Academy was built atop a building that once held Small's Paradise, a Prohibition Era integrated nightclub where jazz performers played. 

Tenement Museum and Katz's Delicatessen

The Tenement Museum's mission is to teach about immigrant history.At the Tenement Museum we learned how two different immigrant families survived in two different eras. Beginning in 1935, the tenements at 97 Orchard Street were shuttered for over fifty years. This happened because the apartments within were no longer meeting city code and the cost of upgrading them exceeded what the landlord could afford. Consequently, these apartments became time capsules, presently allowing us to see the dark, ramshackle conditions immigrants to New York City endured in the past as they chased the American Dream.

While at the museum we watched a video recounting the history of tenement life in the lower East Side. From their we walked up to 97 Orchard Street.

First we entered the 1880 apartment of Natalie and Julius Gumpert and their children. The apartments of this time had no plumbing. Water had to be pumped out of a well located in the backyard where the outhouses were also located. Even in those days officials knew this arrangement was a way of spreading diseases, but since the law permitted it, it was common practice. Hauling water was just one of many hardships while living in a tenement. With people packed so closely together, noise and odors were a fact of life.
    Julius undoubtedly tried to earn enough for his family, but that became increasingly hard. Things became so hard for Julius that he left one day and never returned. Natalie was left to raise her young family on her own. Using her talent as a seamstress, and relying on her neighbors who looked out for her, she was able to meet her children's basic needs. However, since Julius never returned, she was eventually able to get the court to declare him legally dead. Much after her family's time, it was determined that Julius went to Ohio after he had abandoned his family.

The second apartment we visited belonged to Adolpho and Rosario Baldizzi. They lived there in the early 1930s. This couple had two young children. Adolpho was a day laborer which meant he would stand on a street corner early each morning soliciting work. Many days he would get work, but not always. The Great Depression had left 25% of the working population unemployed, so when Adolpho worked his wages were meager.
    Rosario, who was born in Italy, worked hard as a housewife, and according who her daughter she was always busy cooking or cleaning.  Based on the artifacts in this apartment, this family relied on their strong Catholic faith to endure during difficult economic times when they had few material riches. Around 1935 their fortunes worsened again when the landlord chose to evict all his tenants rather than make the improvements to the apartments a new law required. That's when 97 Orchard Street became a virtual time capsule, helping to preserve the conditions of a bygone era for us to learn about today.

At lunchtime we went to Katz's Delicatessen on Delancy Street. I enjoyed a pastrami on rye bread, dill pickles and a Pepsi; a classic New York lunch. The walls of Katz's Deli are lined with photos of celebrities and politicians. Bill Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, Jerry Jones, and Marisa Tomei were just a few of the notables. Also, the famous scene from "When Harry Met Sally" was filmed at a table here.

Ellis Island

 

We began the day walking from South Street Seaport to Battery Park so we could ride the ferry to Ellis Island. Along the way we passed the Vietnam War Memorial and the Shrine to St.  Elizabeth Ann Seton, first American born saint.

Before boarding the ferry to Ellis Island you are required to pass through the same kind of security check as at an airport. Unfortunately for me, I hadn't considered that fact before choosing to carry my backpack today. It was unfortunate because the small 5 in 1 tool which I had forgotten was in the backpack set off the security alarm. So a security officer had to go through all the contents of my backpack to find it. This took several minutes. I was standing there thinking, "I am not a terrorist." The official eventually found the "man tool" and it was confiscated. I will ask about security checkpoints when touring from now on.

Once on the ferry, we went to Liberty Island. Many shutterbugs were able to get some nice photos of the Statue of Liberty on a beautiful sunny morning. One I took is posted below.

Ellis Island is where steerage class passengers were processed before entering the United States from 1880 to 1924. This period is known as the Peak Immigration Period. Many of the immigrants during this period were from Italy, Russia, and Austria-Hungary. Since steerage class passengers were assumed to be impoverished and perhaps not able-bodied the Great Hall on Ellis Island was used as a place to determine if each immigrant was worthy of entering the country. These trans-Atlantic passengers were taken to this location from their ship by barges or ferries. After arriving they were asked to climb stairs and enter the Great Hall while inspectors from a balcony above watched them from afar to determine if they appeared able-bodied and healthy. The Great Hall was the Registry Room were each person was questioned. Some of the questions included "What kind of work can you do?" and "How much money do you have?" While at least 98% of the people coming through Ellis Island made it into the U.S., those who weren't had to be taken back to the ship they came into New York Harbor on to be returned to their mother country. For more information, visit the Ellis Island web site. www.statueofliberty.org/Ellis_Museum.html

The Main Building (with the towers) was built after a fire destroyed the original wooden building in 1897.

This view of the Main Building/Immigration Museum was taken from the ferry as it approached the dock.

The Great Hall on the second floor of the Main Building was filled with corrals during immigration days to keep people organized during processing. Inspectors would look down from the balconies on either side, checking immigrants for signs of ill-health.

These post cards displayed in array fashion at the Peak Migration Exhibit show some of the steamships that brought Europeans to America.

This photo of a photo may be found in the Peak Immigration Exhibit. It a shows an Irish farming family. Many immigrants came to the U.S. seeking a life better than these folks experienced.

This photo of a photo shows how people were kept organized in corrals as they were questioning from inspectors in the Registry Room.

Arriving at South Street Seaport

This is South Portland Avenue looking in the direction of Fort Greene Park.

We left Maine at 8 a.m. and rode a bus to New York City, arriving at the Best Western Seaport Inn by 3:00 p.m. The weather for the trip was great; sunny to partly cloudy. Geographically, the Seaport Inn is in lower Manhattan near the Brooklyn Bridge spanning the East River.  Shortly after arriving we headed to the 2 & 3 subway line to travel to Brooklyn. Scholar Ed O'Donnell led us from Peck Slip down Front Street to the subway station.

We purchased subway passes good for seven days and caught a train to the Atlantic Avenue stop. We walked several blocks and met Scholar Charles Calhoun who led us down South Portland Avenue toward Fort Greene Park. South Portland Avenue is a beautiful block, lined with brownstones and sycamore trees on either side of the street. The stoops leading to these homes and the wrought iron work on and around them are typical of a Brooklyn middle class neighborhood.

At Fort Greene Park we strolled passed a dusty make-shift soccer field and found some steps to sit on near a very tall monument where we heard from Charles. He told us how during the Revolution it was called Fort Putnam. It was a fort of mostly earthworks that the Patriots were unable to hold once the British troops attacked. Captured Patriots were offered parole if they were willing to swear allegiance to the King. The alternative was getting sent to a floating prison of ships in Wallabout Bay to endure nasty conditions. Dead from battles were buried in shallow, sandy graves along the East River. Many years later, bones unearthed from these graves were more properly interred in a crypt at Fort Greene Park. The park's tallest monument, Prison Ships Martyrs' Monument, was dedicated in 1908  with President-elect William Howard Taft in attendance. More about the history of Fort Greene Park, including the Revolutionary War general it was named for can be found at the New York City Parks web site.  http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/FortGreenePark/history

This shows the base of the monument.

We walked eastward from the park to Charles's apartment where we enjoyed refreshments and hors d'ouevres in the backyard garden.

The impressive set of steps below the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument can be either a place to sit, or a challenge for runners trying to improve their conditioning.