Details of mid-19th-century life come alive in the letters of a German immigrant, translated by Sigrid Wilshinsky and recently published as My Life in America Before, During and After the Civil War.
Louis Hensel was born in 1817 and lived a life of travel and adventure, as colorfully described in letters to his granddaughter back in Germany. Wilshinsky translated them from Suderlein German into modern English. Read more
On December 14, the New-York Historical Society will present The Landmarks of New York, an exhibition exploring the history of New York as revealed by its historical structures.
The exhibition’s 90 photographs of landmarks are critical documents that chronicle the city’s journey from a small colonized village to a city at the center of the world from the 17th through the 20th centuries and includes the newly acquired set of 30 photographs by Christine Osinski, Steven Tucker, Reuben Cox, Julio Bofill, Michael Stewart, Michael Stewart, Andrew Garn, Richard Cappelluti, Adam S. Wahler, Eric C. Chung and others. Read more
The Brooklyn Museum, together with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has organized the landmark exhibition John Singer Sargent Watercolors, which unites for the first time the holdings of Sargent watercolors acquired by each of the two institutions in the early twentieth century. The ninety-three watercolors in the exhibition–including thirty-eight from Brooklyn’s collection, most of which have not been on view for decades–provide a once-in-a-generation opportunity to view a broad range of Sargent’s finest production in the medium. Read more
Columbus steers over Central Park
The enormous thirteen-foot tall explorer is steering the Santa Maria right over Central Park. Tatzu Nishi’s “Discovering Columbus” allows visitors to climb 75 feet up the column in Columbus Circle to see the famous statue up close. Nishi has surrounded it with a living room stage set, furnished with modern accoutrements from Bloomingdale’s, that gives a truly odd twist to the experience of seeing the pock-marked monument set atop a coffee table.
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A Checker taxicab, a conductor’s (OK, not just any conductor but Leonard Bernstein) baton, the blue-and-white Greek coffee cups and the elevator safety brake. A subway token and a mastodon tusk. Inspired by the British Museum’s ”A History of the World in 100 Objects,” The New York Times recruited historians and curators to identify objects that embody the narrative of New York City. Now they’re expanding that list into a book and need your help!
The museum’s ”History of the World” was limited to objects in its own collection. We have no limitations, except that when we asked readers for their suggestions, we probably should have defined “objects” more specifically. Readers suggested a number of people (former Mayor Edward I. Koch, among others) and some things like Central Park, Grand Central Terminal, Kennedy Airport, the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building and the Unisphere, which wouldn’t fit in a museum.
Readers recommended the subway token (substituted for a NYC MetroCard), Bella Abzug’s hat, and a hearty helping of food, from pizza slices (triangular and square)- egg creams (made with Fox’s U-bet chocolate syrup)- pastrami sandwiches- Mello-Rolls and other ice cream treats- seltzer bottles- Ebinger’s blackout cake- the cream-cheese sandwiches at Chock Full o’Nuts- plantains- cheesecake from Junior’s and Lindy’s- Charlotte russes- a pickle barrel- and hot dogs from Nathan’s and from carts under the ubiquitous blue-and-yellow Sabrett umbrellas.
Only a few symbols summon the city more immediately than the ”I love NY” logo, designed by Milton Glaser in 1977 for a state campaign to spur tourism, but does that qualify as an object? Also, we are looking for quirky, other-than-obvious objects that don’t just evoke New York, but that also could be used to tell the story of the city: A lottery wheel from the Civil War draft, a crack vial from the 1980s, the 1-inch-by-3 inch Delaney card, the visual attendance record invented by a Bronx teacher that, the reader wrote, ”held the power of life and death over a student” and Con Edison’s orange-and-white chimneys placed over manholes to allow steam to escape without scalding passers-by or obscuring visibility.
Any suggestions would be very welcome. Send them to Sam Roberts at The New York Times ([email protected]).
The Urban History Association held its sixth biennial conference at Columbia University, October 25-28. The final session that Sunday was a bit discombobulated as people were scurrying about trying to verify travel arrangements before Sandy hit. Read more
New York has been hit with another storm of the century (8 days, 2 hours, 25 minutes without power for me). I have lived through so many storms of the century that I must be challenging Methuselah for the longest-lived human being. Maybe it is time for the phrase “storm of the century” to be bid a not-so-fond farewell to be replaced by something more appropriate if less grandiose, like “storm of the year”! Read more
As downtown Manhattan assesses damage, more specifics are being reported, especially in low-lying Zone A. The Museum of the City of New York (MCNY), which is running the South Street Seaport Museum ,says that the storm surge waters soaked drawers of metal type in the Bowne and Co., Stationers. Read more
As New Yorkers still struggle without power in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, it plunges us right into the heart of a discussion about the historic waterfront. Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Vision for the 21st Century, proclaimed in 2002, the crumbling infrastructure along the Manhattan and Brooklyn waterfront that once served the port of New York should be harnessed for a variety of development schemes. Read more
Magnificent model trains, train stations and sheds, bridges and tunnels, carousels and Ferris wheels—all populated with toy figurines in colorful nineteenth-century dress, will be on view this holiday season at the New-York Historical Society, in the first museum exhibition of selections from the renowned Jerni Collection. Read more