Today in history: Colonel and Mrs. Roosevelt visit Governors Island

17 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Governors Island, Preparedness (WW1), Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President)

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Civilian Plattsburgh participants march on Governors Island with broomsticks, February 1917. It is not clear from the original Brooklyn Daily Eagle caption if this image was taken the day Colonel Roosevelt turned out at Governors Island on 17 February 1917 to meet Leonard Wood and give his support to the men.

Civilian Plattsburg participants march on the Governors Island parade ground with broomsticks, winter 1917. It is unclear from the original Brooklyn Daily Eagle caption if this image was taken the day Colonel Roosevelt turned out at Governors Island on 17 February 1917.

Over the past century and a half many American presidents have visited Governors Island either before, during or after their administrations. Theodore Roosevelt visited one hundred years ago. His purpose was to meet the Commander of the Department of the East Major General Leonard Wood. Wood of course had been helping with the organization of the Plattsburg Preparedness camps that had taken place in Upstate New York over the previous few summers. With unrestricted German submarine now again a reality Preparedness was taking on increasing urgency. And so on the afternoon of Saturday 17 February 1917 Theodore and Theodore Roosevelt took the ten-minute ferry from Lower Manhattan. Roosevelt’s appearance was quite public; the former commander-in-chief received not one but two twenty-one gun salutes.

The Roosevelts had lunch with Wood and other dignitaries and watched a group of forty Plattsburg men, whom Roosevelt referred to as “rookies,” drill. The Plattsburgers apparently had been drilling most Saturdays for some time. One of the most striking things about the drill to Roosevelt was that the men had no rifles; instead they carried broomsticks as they marched. Not one to mince words, especially when given a chance to take a shot at Woodrow Wilson, Roosevelt had something to say on the matter for the assembled journalists, averring that he was “filled with wonder and shame that a great people like ours should be in such a state of unpreparedness” as the country headed toward war.

On a happier note enjoy your Presidents Day Weekend, everyone.

(image/Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 20 February 1917)

Searching for one doughboy’s Great War

23 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Film, Sound, & Photography, Genealogy, Governors Island, Great War centennial

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The American Legion Monthly, November 1936

It is pouring rain outside here in Brooklyn. I have spent the last hour researching in Ancestry the details of a New York doughboy. It’s the perfect research endeavor for a winter night.

I don’t want to give the biographical specifics here, but I will say that he was born in Yonkers in 1886 and went on to serve in the Quartermaster Corps during the Great War. He was in St. Nazaire when the Armistice came in November 1918. This is for a project I am working on with others in which we are making a 15-20 minute documentary to be shown this spring, summer and fall at our college and at Governors Island. Our protagonist went on to become active in New York politics, and an ally of Al Smith. He had five sons who all served in the Second World War after him. Our doughboy was apparently a formidable presence, and the family patriarch until his death in the mid-1960s. It’s really a fascinating story, and a uniquely American one.

We have our first film shoot with his grandchildren this coming Saturday. As this moves along in the coming months I will divulge more.

(image/detail from The American Legion Monthly, November 1936)

Behind Bayonets and Barbed Wire

18 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Film, Sound, & Photography, Governors Island, WW2

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POW burial detail at Camp O¹Donnell just after the Bataan Death March

I had a meeting in the city today, after which I went to a small movie theater in Greenwich Village to see the film Behind Bayonets and Barbed Wire. It is a documentary about the Bataan Death March. What made it more immediate was that we interviewed one of the subjects this past summer at Governors Island. The film is a joint U.S./Chinese production and so focused in part on the often overlooked Sino experience during the Second World War. One can imagine that with China playing an ever larger role on the economic and political stage that this will be a more common thing. The interviews with the survivors are always riveting without lapsing into bathos, and the documentary even ends on something of an uplifting note.

The film’s major drawback was the unfortunate decision to re-enact scene from the Bataan march and the later POW experiences at the Mukden Prison Camp. I cannot express how distracting the re-creations are, or the extent to which they cheapen the film. The re-enctments may lessen the movie but they can’t take away from the events themselves; the Bataan/Mukden story is too powerful for that. With all that said, the filmmakers did the historical record a great service by interviewing these people before it was too late. If you have a chance, try to see the film if you can. I’m sure it will be available via streaming in the near future.

(image/Associated Press via National Archives)

Private Herman Ruth

03 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Baseball, Governors Island, Washington, D.C.

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General Pershing and Private Ruth exchange salutes, 28 May 1924

The above photo came through my in-box today and I thought that with the baseball post-season beginning this week it would be apropos to share. This is Babe Ruth saluting General John Pershing outside the State, War and Navy Building in Washington D.C. Ruth had recently joined 104th Field Artillery of the New York National Guard at Pershing’s request as a way to generate interest in the Citizens’ Military Training Camps. The Army needed all the help it could get half a decade after the Treaty of Versailles; the military drawback of the early 1920s meant that the United States again had a small fighting force.

A little digging shows that Ruth had sought a khaki uniform in New York but could not find one for his large frame. It is interesting to note that by today’s he is not that large. This is 1924 and he actually looks relatively slim, certainly slimmer than we came to know him as he grew older and stouter due to his excesses. It says something that a man of this physical stature would be considered stout for his time, and that a uniform could not be found in his size in all of New York. Ruth reported to the Quartermaster General’s office in Washington to be fitted early on May 28 and reported to Pershing for this photo op after that. Photo op is the right phrase: a basic search reveals several outtakes of the two men saluting, smiling, and/or shaking hands.

The Yankees were in Washington to play the Senators in on odd two-game road trip that lasted all one day. The Yankees and Senators split a double-header at Griffith Stadium. The Bambino went 3 for 8 in the two games. Ruth visited numerous Citizens’ Military Training Camps in the years after this photo was taken. By the endow the decade Ruth had apparently had enough; in April 1930 he informed Major General Hanson E. Ely, commander of the Second Corps Area at Fort Jay on Governors Island, that he was stepping down. Though again a “civilian” Ruth continued making a contribution, signing bats and balls to be given as trophies at CMTC athletic events until at least the mid-1930s.

Sunday evening coffee

25 Sunday Sep 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Governors Island

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The morning air had a crispness to it when I left the house early this morning. Fall is arriving. It was the final day of the Governors Island season. Yours truly had a quiet one. I wrote up the summary of an oral history we did two weeks and then with another volunteer interviewed a husband and wife who lived on the island in the mid 1950s. It is always a humbling experience to speak with individuals who played their roles, whatever those roles may have been, during some of our nation’s most dramatic 20th century events. In recent years we have spoken to Korean and Vietnam War veterans, Cold War intelligence gatherers, Coast Guard photographers who filmed ticker tap parades for the moon landings, and scores of others whose stories are as varied as the people who tell them. My one wish is that I could have spoken to a veteran or two from the Great War. I came along too late for that however. That is why I always appreciate what is there for me to take.

I miseed the end of season party yesterday but got a little goodie bag this morning with a little swag.

I miseed the end of season party yesterday but got a goodie bag this morning with a little swag.

The phone, the recorder and the questionnaires are in place for the last interview of the season.

The ferry pulls out. Note the blueness of the sky.

The Lost Battalion

15 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Governors Island, Great War centennial

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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.

The Strawfoot

~ a New Yorker's American History blog

Category Archives: Governors Island