The Lost Battalion

15 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Governors Island, Great War centennial

Those who follow the Strawfoot Facebook post in addition to the blog itself have noted that I have been linking to the social media posts I’ve been writing this week in the lead-up to Saturday’s Doughboy Day at Governors Island. Thank you again to everyone at the various institutions who have been graciously posting daily. This morning I wanted to write directly about Saturday’s screening of The Lost Battalion. I met film authority Neil O’Connor at the Hackensack Toy Soldier show and understood immediately that he would be a valuable addition to our commemoration of the Great War centennial. Neil retired from NYNEX several years ago and has since pursued his passion for historic film, founding and directing WUN Enterprises. Neil is based in New Monmouth, New Jersey and keeps a busy schedule speaking at film showings throughout the region. If you will be attending Saturday’s Doughboy Day, please check out Neil in the early afternoon.

Production still from The Lost Battalion originally appearing
in the Hollywood trade publication Moving Picture World, June 28, 1919

The 77th Infantry was known as the Melting Pot Division because its
men came primarily from New York City’s diverse neighborhoods. When a
battalion from that unit was involved in one of the most dramatic
incidents of the war, Hollywood took notice and made a film about the
dramatic episode. The Lost Battalion was released in early July 1919,
thus becoming one of the first on-screen depictions of the Great War.
Join the National Park Service and World War One Centennial Commission
at Governors Island National Monument in New York City this Saturday
when they host film expert Neil O’Connor in an introduction and
screening of The Lost Battalion. The program will be in the Fort Jay
powder magazine. Introduction begins at 12:30 pm and the screening at
approximately 12:45. Running time is seventy (70) minutes.

(image/MacManus Corporation via Wikimedia Commons)

9/11 plus fifteen years

11 Sunday Sep 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Governors Island, Lusitania, Memory, Monuments and Statuary, New York City

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Freedom Tower from Manhattan’s Lower Battery at 8:30 this morning

There were definitely more people on the Battery this morning than on a usual Sunday morning. As you might guess most of them were headed for the ceremony at Ground Zero. I had never thought about it this way before, but I found the many other war/conflict monuments in the Battery comforting on this anniversary of the Trade Center attacks. This is where we had the commemoration of the sinking of the Lusitania a year ago this past May.

The flag–the Star Spangled Banner, if I noted correctly–was flying at half staff atop Fort Jay. On my way to Castle William for the 11:30 am tour I had to stop and take this picture (below) of these two apartment buildings. Coast Guard personnel who lived on the island in the late 1960s and early 70s have told me that from their living room and bed room windows they saw the Twin Towers go up incrementally over the years. I could not help but think of that this morning.

From these apartment building on the northern tip of Governors Island Coast Guard residents watched the Twin Towers rise nearly five decades ago.

From these apartment buildings on the northern tip of Governors Island Coast Guard residents watched the Twin Towers rise nearly five decades ago. The Freedom Tower is plainly visible.

“We’re in the forever business.”

21 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Gettysburg, Governors Island, Heritage tourism, National Park Service

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Author Brent D. Glass spoke about his new book 50 Great American Places this afternoon in the Commanding Officers Quarters at Governors Island. Author talks are not unusual at Governors Island but there was a particular reason Mr. Glass showed up when he did: this August marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the National Park Service. President Woodrow Wilson signed the enabling legislation on August 25, 1916. That signing came in the midst of the presidential election and less than a year before American entered the Great War. Not all of the places about which Mr. Glass writes in his tome are under the auspices of the Park Service; some are state or local concerns, or even in the hands of privately-controlled institutions.

Glass is Director Emeritus of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution and categorized the selections into five themes, which included Democracy, Cultural Diversity, and Military. Among the sites included are the Seneca Falls (NY) Convention, the Statue of Liberty, Mesa Verde, Little Rock Central High School, and Gettysburg. That last one had special resonance for Glass; his father had trained under Eisenhower at Gettysburg’s Camp Colt during Word War I. Glass added that though Eisenhower’s job was to train doughboys in tank warfare, so unequipped was the Army that his father did not see an actual tank until he reached France. I’d read this from others’s accounts of those training exercises.

Summer is winding down but there is never a bad time to explore America’s cultural heritage. There is no substitute for going where history was made, and Brent D. Glass provides a valuable guide for doing just that.

Governors Island’s 52nd Street

13 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Governors Island, Jazz

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Swing Street was the scene for New York’s jazz clubs and a hangout for GIs.

I am sorry about the lack of posts recently. This is the time of year when I slow down a bit, relax, and prepare for the coming academic year. I’ve spent much of the past week and a half listening to the Mets lose night after night. Queens’ Major League Baseball Club has not won two game in a row since July 6.

I had an interesting experience at Governors Island last week. I was there this past Thursday to conduct two oral histories with another volunteer. The first one was with a gentleman who worked in the Military Police in the 1950s. I took the opportunity to ask him a question that had long bothered me. Some readers may know that Castle Williams served as an Army disciplinary barracks for many decades. In my reading of many jazz histories and biographies over the years a recurring theme that Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and others repeatedly came back to was the considerable Military Police presence on 52nd Street. “The Street” as it was known–no number was required if you mentioned jazz–was notorious for men in uniform drinking, fighting and causing mayhem. (It is a story for another time, but in retrospect it seems obvious that many of these GIs were suffering from ptsd.)

It was always my speculation that when these servicemen got into trouble the place to which they were usually taken was Governors Island. The Army would have handled such matters, not the civilian NYPD. Still, this was all conjecture on my part; in all my reading on both jazz and Governors Island, I never saw anything in writing that backed up my educated guess. That is, I had no corroboration of this until last week, when during the oral history I asked the interviewee if such was indeed the case. To my great satisfaction he confirmed what I had long suspected: that the uniformed servicemen picked up for making trouble on 52nd Street back in the days of the great nightclubs were indeed brought to Castle Williams on Governors Island. It fits into the narrative of Castle Williams as a minimum security facility. These troublemakers would be brought to be processed, sleep it off, and wait for the next step in the process. I cannot tell you how pleased I was to hear this firsthand from the former MP himself.

(image/William P. Gottlieb Collection, Library of Congress)

One man’s Governors Island

04 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Governors Island

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Today’s interviewee lived in Fort Jay’s south barracks during his tenure on Governors Island in the early 1960s. He was stationed here until the Army left and made way for the Coast Guard.

I was at Governors Island this morning, where another volunteer and I interviewed a First Army veteran via telephone. The man was 97 and quite sharp; he remembered his years of service with great eloquence and clarity. It really is a privilege speaking to individuals such as this. I mean, it is unforgettable. This former lieutenant colonel graduated from Gettysburg College in 1941 and served in Europe during the Second World War. He grew up in Gettysburg and told us that when he was sixteen years old Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s motorcade passed his house en route to the ceremony for the lighting of the Eternal Light Peace Memorial at the Gettysburg 75th anniversary in 1938. He even had a job making 50 cents and hour putting up the tents for the aged Civil War veterans in attendance.

One thing that made today’s interview that much more poignant is that we had a young man with us for the first part of the session who himself will be heading off to Gettysburg College in two weeks to begin his freshman studies. That is, this morning we had an 18-year-old young man speaking with a 97-year-old WW2 veteran who once aided Civil War veterans in attendance to see FDR mark the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in the presence of living Civil War veterans. That’s some crazy stuff. Our subject also recalled seeing General Eisenhower around town in Gettysburg, the president and his wife of course residing there for many years in the only house they ever owned. All in all it was an amazing morning.

Sunday mornings in New York

24 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Governors Island, The lighter side

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One of the things I like about volunteering at Governors Island on Sunday as opposed to Saturday is that the morning commute is quiet and easy. There are so few people around and one usually has the sidewalks to oneself. It is not unusual to see film crews out-and-about taking advantage of the quiet to shoot commercials, tv segments, and movies. The rest of the week it is usually just not possible. The film industry is a big part of the local economy and I don’t just mean the actors. Carpenters, craft service persons, and others are all necessary to make it happen. I have seen it so many times over the years now that I hardly think of it. This morning at 8:30 however, I could not help but pause when I saw this just south of Wall Street.

Evans Road

11 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Governors Island, Monuments and Statuary

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Last week I posted an image of the plaque dedicated to James C. Andes on Governors Island. Yesterday I strolled down the southern part of the parade ground to take this image of the monument to Ewin V. Evans. This is just north of the Chapel of St. Cornelius. It is so quiet on the island before that first public ferry boat, and with the Manhattan skyline standing there looking like a cardboard cutout on a bright day the moment is sublime.

Like Andes, Evans was a 2nd lieutenant in the 16th Infantry Regiment. Evans was killed the day after Andrews during the Battle of Soissons. At least with the 16th, what the Army did was place a tablet on a boulder and name the facing road after said individual. It’s something that most–as in virtually all–visitors to the island walk past without realizing. From what I understand someone I know is contemplating a larger project with the various 16th Infantry and other tablets spread out across Governors Island. I do hope comes to pass. Over the rest of the summer, leading up to our World War 1 day scheduled for September 17, I am going to take a photo of as many as I can an post them here.

Evans’s boulder and the road named in his honor

Happy 4th

04 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Governors Island, Monuments and Statuary

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I was all Gettysburg and Vicksburg at Governors Island yesterday. Hancock, the Grants, Pemberton. So many of them spent time, often significant time, on the island in the years before and after the war. Many of the visitors to the island are casual visitors who know little of the place’s history. Most perk up when you help them make a connection, especially of 4th of July Weekend. I stopped in front of the Andes plaque and took these photos of the tablet dedicated to the doughboy from the 16th regiment who was killed at Soissons in July 1918. Eventually I am going to dig deeper into this one and send it off to Mark Levitch at the WW1 Memorial Inventory Project. The 16th had strong ties to Governors Island in the decades after the Great War. They were housed in Liggett Hall and left their legacy all over the place. It was the 16th that marched through Paris on the 4th of July 1917 to Picpus Cemetery in honor the Lafayette. I did also manage to squeeze the marquis in yesterday during my tour of Castle Williams, pointing across the harbor to Castle Clinton to show the group where Lafayette was fêted by enthusiastic New Yorkers in 1824.

A Day in the Life…

25 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Ellis Island, Governors Island, National Park Service, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

At the beginning of the summer I added my chapter from The Wonder of It All into Academic Works with the help of a colleague at work. She recommended to me and others that we post our efforts on social media, etc. And so I figured I would link here to “What a Day with a Park Volunteer Can Do.” Essentially it is the story of how I came to Governors Island 5-6 years back. They asked us not to use names in our submissions. Here though I can say that the volunteer in the title is the great Sami Steigmann. Sami if you are reading this: we will do that interview sometime over the summer.

Treetones: a Strawfoot interview

24 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Governors Island, Interviews

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There is a unique and thought-provoking art installation going on at Governors Island right now called Treetones. Governors Island is a fitting place for a show using trees. Native Americans called the island Pagannack, which was a reference to the abundant chestnut trees that then covered the island. The artist of Treetones is Jenna Spevack, who generously sat down and answered a few questions.

The Strawfoot: What is Treetones?

Jenna Spevack: Treetones, is a site-specific installation on Governors Island. Hand-sewn fabric wraps, made from tree rubbings, are tied to 12 different trees on the Island. Visitors are guided by a self-directed tour map to locate and identify the trees. They may also collect bark rubbings from each stop on the tour. Highlighted species include American Elm, Red Oak, Norway Maple, Horse Chestnut and London Plane.

What was the inspiration for the installation?

I started my residency at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Process Space on Governors Island in March, before the trees started to leaf out. I had visited the Island before, in the summer, but hadn’t really noticed the trees. The lack of leaves accentuated the impressive size and distinctive shapes of the tree trunks and branches. I kept coming back to older trees, in awe of the age and the variations in bark; much of it deeply fissured and rough. It struck in me a sense of mortality, of the history of the Island, of my own life. The project was a way of bringing awareness to the trees and recognizing their endurance and strength.

How did you choose the trees?

I spent a lot of time at the start of my residency walking and biking the island, because I was doing research for another project, Overtones. I created maps of my walks and rides- identifying interesting routes and areas. I was drawn to the larger, older trees and was fascinated by bark. I started by making bark rubbings and discovered that subtle and not so subtle differences appeared in the rubbings. I then looked up the descriptions of the bark in tree identification books and loved the poetic descriptions, many reflecting on how the age of the tree changed or enhanced the appearance of the bark. For me, the character and attitude of the tree was defined by these visual and physical textures. In the end, I chose the trees for the project for their bark and for their locations around the Island.

This is a faraway photograph of the Honey Locust one sees directly above this image.

What was the process of making the wraps?

I experimented with several different types of fabric and forms. I started with very simple muslin fabric wraps and then tried much louder sequined fabric flags. In the end I found something in the middle. I created bark rubbings on strips taffeta-type fabric using gravestone rubbing wax and then sewed them into bright orange sashes to draw attention to the trees. I created small pockets in each sash to hold the paper “give-away” rubbings. These tokens include a rubbing of that particular tree, the name of the tree and a short description of the bark.

Part of the experience of making the wraps was figuring out how to create a participatory installation for the visitors. The addition of the rubbings came about somewhat by accident while experimenting sewing. I like it when the act of making informs the final conceptual aspect of the project.

Yellow ribbons are a thoughtful detail.

Have you done similar installations in the past. or is this a new direction for you?

Yes, I have completed similar public art and participatory installations.

“Birds of Brooklyn,” is an on-going, community-based audio artwork that brings the sounds of Brooklyn’s endangered and bygone birds to sites around the Borough to reconnect city dwellers with the natural sounds of the area and raise awareness about declining bird populations in urban environments. It was exhibited as a special project installation at the Pulse Miami / Art Basel art fair and is currently installed in locations in Brooklyn. [ BirdsOfBrooklyn.org ]

“Inside Out House,” a binaural audio installation embedded with sounds recorded in woodland and quiet agricultural landscapes. Using simulated blindness to enhance the aural sense, the project aims to mimic the restorative experience of being outside in nature using auditory stimuli. Viewers are invited to enter into the darkened structure and visualize their experience by contributing a drawing to the installation. It was exhibited at the BRIC Biennial and at CR10 Gallery in Hudson, NY. jennaspevack.com/insideout

Other participatory and public art projects can be viewed on jennspevack.com.

What is you next project?

I’m working on a public audio installation, Overtones, that aims to create aural connections to natural environments through the harmonic tones generated by wind harps discreetly installed in trees and abandoned buildings. I started research for this project while at my residency on Governors Island. More information: jennaspevack.com/overtones

When and how can people see Treetones?

Treetones is installed on Governors Island until June 30th.
For more information: govisland.com/exhibitions/treetones

The Strawfoot

~ a New Yorker's American History blog

Category Archives: Governors Island