Monthly Archives: May 2012

The other Ellis islands

20 Sunday May 2012

Posted by in Ellis Island

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It is Sunday morning. I am having my coffee and listening to a cd of Gregorian chants we bought at the Cloisters. I am headed to Greenwood in a bit before coming home to get some work done. This small piece about islands two and three at Ellis came through my inbox. One of the highlights of my time there was when one of the senior rangers received permission to take newer staff over to these islands that the public cannot yet visit. The Save Ellis Island group has done great work over the past few years giving tours and raising the funds necessary to renovate and open the WPA-era Ferry Building. It is a daunting task, but SEI and the Park Service are now working to open more structures in the coming year. The best source on the hospitals at Ellis Island is Lorie Conway’s Forgotten Ellis Island and its accomapnying film. There are layers and layers of history in New York Harbor.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Another Wal-Mart controversy

17 Thursday May 2012

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General John R. Coffee, soldier in the War of 1812

I have always maintained that the tension between preservationists and developers is more complicated that the good vs. evil narrative we usually hear. Change is inevitable, and individuals have a right to live in the present how they wish. That said, there is another Wal-Mart controversy developing in Alabama that is especially sensitive; the organization hopes to build a store in the small town of Florence that may or may not impinge upon a slave cemetery dating back to the early nineteenth century. The property was originally owned by General John R. Coffee, a veteran of the War of 1812 and friend of Andrew Jackson. Surveys so far have been inclusive and historical records, as one might imagine, are sketchy at best. This is one we will be watching.

(Hat tip Susan Ingram)

The People’s Department

15 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in Washington, D.C.

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Department of Agriculture Building, constructed 1865-1870

Last July the Hayfoot and I were walking down the National Mall when we happened upon the Department of Agriculture building. The Agriculture Department not being something I have thought much about over the years, its size and grandeur startled me. It was a lesson in the importance of traveling and actually seeing where history is made and events take place. As it turns out today is the 150th anniversary of the USDA; President Lincoln created the organization on May 15, 1862. This was one of many pieces of legislation the Republicans passed in 1862. These included the Homestead Act, which gave away Federal land in the West; the Morrill Act that created the Land Grant colleges; and the Pacific Railway Act that tied it all together. These were the internal improvements for which the fledgling party had advocated throughout the 1850s and in the 1860 election. The idea was to create a better fed, better educated population linked together by transportation (railroad) and communication (the already existing telegraph) technology. Of course this was all contingent on the Union actually winning the war, no small thing. That’s why they passed the Militia and Second Confiscation Acts that July. The war gave us so much of the world we live in today. That is why it is endlessly fascinating.

(image/G.D.Wakely stereograph courtesy NYPL)

From Brooklyn to Harlem

15 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in Film, Sound, & Photography, Genealogy

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The transition from Brooklyn to Manhattan has been a subject of novelists, filmmakers, and essayists for well over a century. The culture shock that can overtake a person with such force was especially marked in the twentieth century, before gentrification came to our fair borough and rendered us bridge and tunnelers more like our cousins across the river. This is not to say that the shock does not exist even today; nothing will ever replace or equal Manhattan. Pete Hamill, Woody Allen, and Alfred Kazin are three artists who captured the confusion, joy, and wonder that inherently come with leaving behind the old neighborhood and everything you know to find your place in the Big City. Filmmaker Monique Velez is making  a documentary about the move from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In her case, however, the story begins in tiny Brooklyn, Alabama where her great-grandmother Lucille lived before coming to Harlem during the Great Migration. I have been following the evolution of this project for some time, and am happy to report that things are moving steadily. Velez was in Alabama filming earlier in the spring and is now getting ready to shoot in New York. Ironically, she is part of the reverse migration in which African Americans are moving back to the South; Velez was born in New York and now lives in North Carolina. Watch the trailer. This should be something special. I will be certain to announce when the film is released.

The Arsenal of Democracy

14 Monday May 2012

Posted by in Museums, New York City, Subway trips

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On what turned out to be the warmest day of the year so far, a friend and I ventured to the Brooklyn Navy Yard on Saturday. From 1801 until its closure in the mid-1960s the BNY was where most of the ships for the United States Navy were built and maintained. Its locale, Wallabout Bay, was also the site of the infamous British prison ships during the Revolutionary War. For decades the Navy Yard sat mostly vacant, but has been revitalized in recent years through adaptive reuse. The city of New York now owns the 300 acre site and has done much to lure local businesses. Furniture makers, high tech entrepreneurs, fashion designers, and even a movie studio are all part of the new economy.

The site has come a long way, but you can still see the old Navy Yard if you look hard and pay attention. Here is a building waiting for renovation.

…and another. As you might imagine, I’m a big fan of ruin porn.

Here is an old pipe.

Many will know that the USS Monitor was built at the Navy Yard. It is worth noting that Brooklyn was its own city at this time. It did not became part of New York until the merger in 1898.

The same year as the consolidation another ship built in the Navy Yard made history…

…the USS Maine. The museum had beautiful models of a number of ships built by Brooklynites over the decades.

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited the Navy Yard in March 1914. Note that he is standing without the assistance of others; he did not contract polio for another seven years. I had no idea how tall he was. Roosevelt exudes strength and virility. If I am not mistaken that is Andrew Carnegie standing on his left. Carnegie campaigned hard for peace before and during the Great War, but in one of history’s cruel ironies it was his steel that built many of the ships used in the war.

When Roosevelt talked about the Arsenal of Democracy as president he was referring in large part to the Navy Yard. This is the USS North Carolina on the site in April 1941. Navy Yard workers built the battleship in 1937.

And of course there was the USS Missouri, on whose decks the Japanese surrendered in September 1945.

This is the Navy Yard today.

(image/Jim Henderson)

Not a bad way to spend part of the weekend. We already have plans for other sites in the area. It is going to be a New York City summer for us.

Bon weekend

11 Friday May 2012

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Check your C-SPAN 3 listings this weekend for this documentary about the defenses of Washington. We take it as a given that the Confederacy did not capture the capital during the war. It very much might have gone the other way. Tomorrow a friend and I are going to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which I have never been to before. I will take pics. Sunday I will be writing an encyclopedia article. Enjoy your weekend.

Collecting the Negro problem

09 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by in Museums

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In 1956 Nathaniel Montague walked into a used bookstore and stumbled upon a Paul Lawrence Dunbar first edition. It was a moment that changed his life. It also led to the creation of perhaps the greatest personal collection of African Americana ever assembled. For half a century Montague travelled around the world scouring used book stores, garage sales, and wherever else in search of artifacts. He also hung out with Sam Cooke and Wilson Pickett. As the years went by, his methods became more organized and his searches more systematic. He was especially enthralled by the “museum libraries” he visited in Europe, where one could look at and touch the items. Montague is 84 now and recently declared bankruptcy. The collection is easily worth millions but it is not certain, perhaps even unlikely, that the collection will stay together in its entirety. The items are in an undisclosed location and await their fate.

To be continued

V-E Day

07 Monday May 2012

Posted by in WW2

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Tomorrow, May 8, is V-E Day. Or today is, depending on how you choose to do the math. I am old enough to remember when V-E Day was still a fairly big deal. Even in the early 1990s, long after I had reached full adulthood, the anniversary of the German surrender was duly noted. No one mentioned it to me today, and I am not betting on it for tomorrow either. What can you say? The world moves on. I mentioned last year on December 7th that Pearl Harbor Day 2011 was the last WW2 anniversary I would mark the way I once did.

The reason for confusion over the official ending of the war in Europe has its roots in the earliest stages of the Cold War. The Germans surrendered to the Americans on May 7th, but Stalin wanted to wait another day to make it official with his own ceremony. American and British reporters were sworn to silence, and so everyone waited. The plan was foiled when the Germans announced over the radio that they had indeed capitulated. After they did so, Ed Kennedy of the Associated Press realized the hoodwink for what it was and told the world what leaders in Washington, London, Berlin, and Moscow already knew. For his troubles he was unceremoniously fired.

I was having a conversation about this affair with someone the other day, trying to figure out why the Allies, especially the U.S., felt so beholden to Stalin. My theory is that Roosevelt never fully understood who and what Stalin was, and believed he could use his considerable personal skills to “handle” the Russian leader. Roosevelt was dead by May, however, and that does not explain all the kowtowing coming from his replacement. My speculation here is that the Truman Administration felt they owed the Soviets for their considerable contribution to victory, not to mention that they easily could have gotten back in their T-34s and rolled all the way through Western Europe if they had chosen. It all may or may not have been necessary but it was certainly a tragedy.

Kennedy’s posthumous memoir has just been released. It includes an introduction and apology from the current AP president and CEO.

(image/Stars and Stripes, May 8, 1945)

Herrick Hayner, 1837-1862

05 Saturday May 2012

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I was in Greenwood Cemetery earlier this afternoon. It was a cool, rainy day and there were few visitors even by normal standards. I had reached the part of the cemetery where a good number of Civil War soldiers happen to be buried and, walking up to one, was stunned to see that he had been killed in action on May 5, 1862–150 years ago today. What are the odds of such a thing happening?

Herrick Hayner, Brooklyn’s Greenwood Cemetery

I was not able to find a whole lot about Hayner. The reason, really, is because he died before having a chance to live. Herrick Hayner was born in Troy, New York in 1837. In New York City on New Year’s Day 1862 he was commissioned a second lieutenant in Company H of the 70th New York Volunteer Infantry. The 70th New York was part of the Third Corps at this time, and that May found itself part of General McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign.

Hayner lost his life in Virginia at the Battle of Williamsburg…

Currier & Ives

…and now rests here in Brooklyn near these trees.