Posts Tagged ‘Manhattan’
Mulberry Streets
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Note: The series of posts you’re about to see, over the next few days, are offered as a notebook- sort of a work in progress. When I get something wrong, please let me know, as this is a learning experience for your humble narrator.
The “Bloody Sixth” provides a certain context, in my mind, for why the vast numbers of people left Manhattan for points east and populated Brooklyn, Long Island City, and Newtown. In many ways, we live in the wreckage of their utopia… here in the Newtown Pentacle.
This is an image of a Mulberry Street Tenement from the
Harper’s Weekly of September 13, 1873, from the Library of Congress:
A familiar illustration, it’s linked to by many people, and is provided for context- although it is difficult to read the actual text- even in the larger version attained by clicking the image. It describes a visit to a Mulberry Street Tenement and it’s “back house” in the upper drawing, and an inspection of a fruit market set up along the sidewalk in the lower.
This is a short post, but likely interesting to long time readers and antiquarians…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Exiting from St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, I noticed a surprising relict of the ancient sixth ward. The bloody sixth, as it was called by sensationalist and muckraker alike, was famous for the smaller structures that landlords would erect in their back yards in order to maximize their real estate. So called “back houses” were once a common sight, but were the worst places to live- as they shared their living space with the outhouses and privy drains of the larger structure and the enormous population housed therein and most were in perpetual shadow.
from nytimes.com
The worst thing in New-York from a sanitary point of view is the rear tenement. It kills more people than war or famine in proportion to its opportunities. It is a sure lurking place for dirt, disease, and death.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For some reason, the progressives of the 19th century were horrified by open air markets set up along the sidewalk. On modern day Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, one can observe similar merchant activity to that described by Jacob Riis and others- little shops set up in hallways and along the sidewalk, any hole in the wall- by an insular people loathe to let go of their customs and language.
Other Riis terminologies like “Tramp Burrows”, “Jewtown”, and “Heathen Temples” trample upon modern political corrrectness, however, and will most likely be trimmed from future discourse.
Moving about the sixth ward in 2010, one might happen across a Chinese grocer offering alien vegetables of unknown specie, who barely hides her umbrage when the Gwai Lo tourists ask “What’s that?”. Many sidewalk vendors were noticed to have displayed signs that say “photos $2”.
from wikipedia
Gwai Lo (鬼佬) literally means “ghost man” (the word “ghost” refers to the paler complexions of stereotypical Caucasians). The term is sometimes translated into English as foreign devil. The term arose when the first group of Europeans appeared in China as they were associated with barbarians . For several thousand years, Chinese people had the image of its borders continuously breached by “uncivilized tribes” given to mayhem and destruction. The term was popularised during the Opium Wars in response to the Unequal Treaties. In Southern parts of China, the term gwai lo was used. In Northern parts of China, the term (Western) ocean ghost ((西)洋鬼子 (Xi) Yangguizi) was used, Europe being West of China.
Also of interest, this is a digitally retouched and colored image found in the Public Domain over at Wikimedia Commons, representing Mulberry Street in 1900:
My belief – if the signage displayed in the above photo is accurate and 88 Mulberry Street means the same thing now as it did 110 years ago- is that this is the corner of Mulberry and Bayard Streets, looking uptown from below Canal Street with Five Points behind the camera. Obviously, the photographer had someone watching his back.
from wikipedia
The street was named after the mulberry trees that once lined Mulberry Bend, the slight bend in Mulberry Street. “Mulberry Bend is a narrow bend in Mulberry Street, a tortuous ravine of tall tenement-houses… so full of people that the throngs going and coming spread off the sidewalk nearly to the middle of the street… The crowds are in the street because much of the sidewalk and all of the gutter is taken up with vendors’ stands”.” For the urban reformer Jacob Riis, Mulberry Bend epitomized the worst of the city’s slums.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My 2010 shot looks downtown toward Five Points from the far end of the scene above, at Mulberry and Grand Streets in modern Little Italy’s “main street” restaurant row, and at the infamous “Mulberry Bend”.
from wikipedia
Much of the neighborhood has been absorbed and engulfed by Chinatown, as immigrants from China moved to the area. What was once Little Italy has essentially shrunk into a single street which serves as a tourist area and maintains few Italian residents. The northern reaches of Little Italy, near Houston Street, ceased to be recognizably Italian, and eventually became the neighborhood known today as NoLIta, an abbreviation for North of Little Italy. Today, the section of Mulberry Street between Broome and Canal Streets, is all that is left of the old Italian neighborhood. The street is lined with some two-dozen Italian restaurants popular with tourists, and seemingly very few locals. Unlike Chinatown, which continues to expand in all directions with newer Chinese immigrants, little remains of the original Little Italy.
The house of Dagger John
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When you first enter the place, your pupils are narrowed, as the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself stares down upon you. This is hallowed ground, one of the places where the modern nation cast off its caul. You are in Manhattan, but the builders of this place called the island New York, and this is their Cathedral.
In 1815 New York City was Manhattan only, and it only extended from the Battery to fourteenth street, by 1865 paved and graded roads went as far as Forty Second Street.
On June, 8th, 1809- the cornerstone of this building was laid down, and it was dedicated on April 14, 1815.
from wikipedia
In the 19th century, the city was transformed by immigration and development. A visionary development proposal, the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, expanded the city street grid to encompass all of Manhattan, and the 1819 opening of the Erie Canal connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the North American interior. Local politics fell under the domination of Tammany Hall, a political machine supported by Irish immigrants. Public-minded members of the old merchant aristocracy lobbied for the establishment of Central Park, which became the first landscaped park in an American city in 1857. A significant free-black population also existed in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Slaves had been held in New York through 1827, but during the 1830s New York became a center of interracial abolitionist activism in the North. New York’s black population was over 16,000 in 1840. The Great Irish Famine brought a large influx of Irish immigrants, and by 1860, one in four New Yorkers – over 200,000 – had been born in Ireland.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The king of France himself commissioned stained glass windows to adorn this structure, but those artifacts ended up at Fordham university, which is just as well because they would have been consumed in the 1866 fire that gutted the place.
Hellfire, however, was no impediment to Dagger John’s flock which feared it not.
During the 1830’s and 40’s, large tracts of Manhattan building stock were converted from domestic to industrial usage, and the flood of arriving immigrants- largely from Catholic Germany and Ireland, and overwhelmingly single young men, crowded into certain neighborhoods walking distance from the new factories.
This building was designed by Joseph Francois Mangin, and beneath the place is a labyrinth of mortuary vaults.
from nyc.gov
In the 17th century, the Dutch City Hall was in the old City Tavern on Pearl Street. A new City Hall was built in 1700 at Wall and Nassau Streets. It was renamed Federal Hall when New York became the first capital of the United States. The 1833-1842 Federal Hall National Memorial is now on this site. The Common Council talked about a new City hall as early as 1776 but the Revolutionary War intervened. A site was chosen, the old Common at the northern limits of the City, now City Hall Park.
In 1802, a competition was held for the new City Hall and twenty-six proposals were submitted. First prize of $350 was awarded to John McComb, Jr. and Joseph Francois Mangin. John McComb’s father repaired the old City Hall in 1784. John McComb, Jr. was a New Yorker while Joseph Mangin was trained in his native France. McComb designed the landmark Hamilton Grange on Convent Avenue, Castel Clinton in Battery Park and the James Watson House on State Street. Joseph Mangin was City Surveyor in 1795 and published an official City map with Casimir Goerck in 1803.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When anti catholic “nativist” mobs from the nearby “Lower East Side” river fronts approached the place in 1842, they found that Dagger John had great walls erected about his church after similar riots in 1835, and that those walls and the surrounding streets were manned by the hated Irish.
By the late 1840’s, the word tenement had become a familiar term to refer to the crowded warrens in New York, and an official City census by the Council on Hygiene reported some 500,000 people living in just over 15,000 buildings.
In 1866, a conflagration consumed the place, and it was rebuilt in 1868.
from wikipedia
Anti-Catholic animus in the United States reached a peak in the nineteenth century when the Protestant population became alarmed by the influx of Catholic immigrants. Some American Protestants, having an increased interest in prophecies regarding the end of time, claimed that the Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon in the Book of Revelation. The resulting “nativist” movement, which achieved prominence in the 1840s, was whipped into a frenzy of anti-Catholicism that led to mob violence, the burning of Catholic property, and the killing of Catholics. This violence was fed by claims that Catholics were destroying the culture of the United States. The nativist movement found expression in a national political movement called the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s, which (unsuccessfully) ran former president Millard Fillmore as its presidential candidate in 1856.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
They thrust rifles through and over the walls, brandished pistols and brickbats, and in the end- the Irish Squad of Dagger John called the Hibernians battled the riot away from this place. Honored even today for their courage, these Hibernians showed the so called “English” that in America, things would be different for their people.
The political map of the time was drawn around this district, whose death rate was six times that of the rest of the city, and where the principal form of garbage collection were a population of roaming hogs.
Incidentally, this is where the baptism scene from the Godfather film was filmed.
from aoh.com
Anti-Catholic bigotry, cloaked in the guise of American patriotism, emerged in a nativist prejudice against immigrants –– especially the Irish, who began arriving in large numbers. A period of extreme intolerance was launched in the early 1800s that began with social segregation, resulted in discrimination in hiring, and reached its climax in the formation of nativist gangs such as the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, the True Blue Americans and others bent on violence against the Irish Catholic immigrant population. These gangs would coalesce in 1854 into the American Party or ‘Know Nothings’.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When you’ve been inside for a minute or two, your eyes adjust to its permanent twilight interior, and reflect on what it must have been like in the 1870’s and 80’s to enter this space after having experienced the surrounding neighborhood, described by Charles Dickens as “leprous houses where dogs would howl to lie”.
The “ward”, which translates into a modern political term roughly as “district”, was once the worst slum on earth according to contemporaries- who actually did factor Calcutta, Shanghai, and London (from personal experience, mind you) into their opinion.
This is the Bloody Sixth Ward, just north of the “Mulberry Bend” and “Five Points”.
from urbanography.com
The district was known as the Sixth Ward bounded, south, by Reade Street; west, by West Street; north by Canal Street; east by Broadway. The Five Points so named in the 1830’s from the convergence of the intersection of five streets: Mulberry, Anthony (now Worth St.), Cross (now Park), Orange (now Baxter), and Little Water Street (no longer exists). This neighborhood was built over the Collect Pond and its adjacent swampland north of City Hall and the Courthouse, between Broadway and the Bowery.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lords and ladies of the Newtown Pentacle, welcome to the progenitor and founder of Calvary Cemetery, the stage of Dagger John Hughes and the birthplace of modern New York. This is St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, we’re in Manhattan for a change, and we’ve come here to figure out where the other half lived.
from oldcathedral.org
Her sidewalls rise to a height of 75 feet, and the inner vault is 85 feet high. The church is over 120 feet long and 80 feet wide. Near the west wall stands the huge marble altar surrounded by an ornately carved, gold leaf reredos.
At the opposite end of the church in the choir loft is a historic organ, an Erben 3-41, in its original condition. The organ was built by Henry Erben in 1852, and is one of less than a dozen such great instruments surviving in New York City. The organ is still used in liturgies today.
Crazy Seaport Experience
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, last night- June 15th- the Working Harbor Committee held one of its periodic tours of New York Harbor and both myself and a group of friends attended. Unbeknownst to us, however, a free concert was being offered by a local radio station. Whoever produced this show, incidentally- as in the individual- was criminally negligent regarding crowd control -IMHO. By 6 pm, the entirety of pier 17 was overwhelmed with thousands of kids, and the crowd backed out from the river a good two blocks up Fulton street.
from nydailynews.com
The raucous crowd massed on the Seaport’s cobble-stoned streets spun out of control during a lull that followed a performance by opening act DJ Ninjasonik.
“It was a riot,” said Melanie Gerald, 22, of Brooklyn, who was caught in the middle of the mayhem.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A small miracle, the steel staircases didn’t collapse under the weight of all these folks. They had come to see an act starring someone named Drake, and when word went around that the NYPD cancelled the show due to the uncontrollable numbers of people, they started throwing all sorts of things at each other and the stage. To be fair, however, NYPD had a meager footprint mustered around this massive legion- and normal crowd control techniques like sectioning the crowd into “pens” and limiting entry points to controlled gateways were entirely absent.
It really, really smelled of weed. If it smells like weed in the 21st century financial district, especially around a tourist attraction like the South Street Seaport, NYPD is clearly not in control.
from brooklynvegan.com
Chris La Putt was on hand to see Ninjasonik play less than one song at South Street Seaport this fine Tuesday evening (6/15). As previously mentioned, not counting Hanson’s soundcheck, that was all the music the giant crowd got to hear. Headliners Hanson and Drake never got to perform as the cops quickly shut down the free show to be safe.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our vessel departed, followed its course, and upon our return- it became obvious that NYPD was very much in control again. Helicopters circled overhead, less than a thousand feet up, and several Harbor units were also observed patrolling and illuminating the coastline beneath the FDR drive. Our boat, which normally docks at Pier 17, made a rough adjustment and moored to Pier 11 allowing us to debark.
from nytimes.com
The police said that chaos erupted shortly after 6:30 p.m. when word got out that Drake would not be arriving until 8 p.m. People began throwing things off the balcony down to audience members below, and the police ended up arresting at least two people for disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration. The concert’s promoter eventually shut the concert down for safety reasons, the police said.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Vehicles flashing their bubble lights were observed in long lines, creating a mobile wall and acting to separate the crowd into manageable segments. Hundreds if not thousands of kids were roaming around, angry at having missed the opportunity to experience the concert. Real menace hung in the air, although both kids and cops seemed to maintain a measure of civility on one hand and professionalism on the other. Above, the choppers.
How things have changed, in the City of Greater New York, since your humble narrator was a boy in the 1970’s.
check out this video from black348 at youtube.com
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Even as late as the mid 1990’s this kind of situation would follow a script familiar to all, angry Cops bashing heads and kids breaking windows. There were a few scuffles, and a few bad actors were observed on both sides, of course. However, my friends and I- the youngest of whom was 30 and the oldest 60- remained unmolested and untrammeled. The kids were just being kids, the cops were just being cops.
also from youtube, check out this video by UrbaNiista
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Maybe this sort of situation is part of the reason that the cops do those scary training exercises of theirs, when 50 or more Police radio cars will move through the Shining City in a great serpentine formation. All I can say is that I was there, disconnected from the event- an Outsider, as always- and that the problem originated when the crowd was allowed to “do what it wilt”, which became the whole of the law for a time.
And kids, here’s a bit of wisdom from the 1980’s- never call a New York City Police Officer anything other than Sir. The fact that you’re still breathing indicates that they are showing restraint, you don’t want to test their patience, and most cops respond to polite behavior. Act all nutty, and they can hit you with boats, helicopters, missiles- anything they want to. You can’t win an argument with a cop on the street, go quiet and let the lawyer handle it.
finally- check out the local abc affiliate’s report on the scene.
Power and glory
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For some reason, whenever the NYPD is observed executing one of these drills, it actually makes me nervous. Logic demands such operations of course, their omission as a tactic would be irresponsible, but it reminds me of the truth of our world- and that the paramilitarization of the civilian police across the nation is a cause for concern. This was Union Square, incidentally, about a block from Tammany Hall, Manhattan.
from nytimes.com
It goes something like this: On a typical block in, say, Midtown Manhattan, as many as 80 police cars quickly stream in out of nowhere, in neat rows, their lights and sirens going. The drills seem to take place on blocks with restricted parking, and each car executes a fast back-in parking job against the curb.
opiate peace
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is not a dead place, this Creek which forms the currently undefended border between much of Brooklyn and Queens, despite wholly inaccurate statements to the contrary recently presented by major publications. To begin with, there is the teeming human infestation, whose population is in the millions. Additionally- migratory birds, invertebrate and vertebrate water fauna, and an enormous hidden population of higher mammals lurk amongst the canalized shorelines of the Newtown Creek.
from the nytimes.com– an article that gets a lot of things completely wrong, which is surprising for the times, and seems to be shilling against “Big Oil”
People don’t often think of urban creeks as biodiverse waterways, but Newtown Creek was once a rich tidal estuary popular among hunters and fishermen. Starting in the 1870s, however, Standard Oil and other refineries began spilling or dumping excess fuels and toxic chemicals into the water or onto the soil, slowly poisoning the ecosystem.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Famously and recently, a Dolphin’s appearance near the Pulaski Bridge excited the neighboring communities, but such extravagances of nature would have a difficult time at Newtown Creek. There are ocean going and brackish water fish that get swept into the Creek by the East River’s irresistible tidal cycles, which actually drown in the oxygen poor water, but I’ve observed other things swimming in its shallow depths. Weird squamous things that defy description, burrowers and soft bodied tunnelers which thrive in the putrid muds that line its soft bottom. Perhaps, when the federal EPA superfund work begins, studies of these uncommented organisms will commence.
Hey, not everything that lives is beautiful, but against all the odds- life is tenacious and nature will find a way to get by.
from epa.gov
Newtown Creek is a part of the New York – New Jersey Harbor Estuary that forms the northernmost border between the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. In the mid 1800s, the area adjacent to the 3.8 mile Newtown Creek was one of the busiest hubs of industrial activity in New York City. More than 50 refineries were located along its banks, including oil refineries, petrochemical plants, fertilizer and glue factories, sawmills, and lumber and coal yards. The creek was crowded with commercial vessels, including large boats bringing in raw materials and fuel and taking out oil, chemicals and metals. In addition to the industrial pollution that resulted from all of this activity, the city began dumping raw sewage directly into the water in 1856. During World War II, the creek was one of the busiest ports in the nation. Currently, factories and facilities still operate along the creek. Various contaminated sites along the creek have contributed to the contamination at Newtown Creek. Today, as a result of its industrial history, including countless spills, Newtown Creek is one of the nation’s most polluted waterways.
Various sediment and surface water samples have been taken along the creek. Pesticides, metals, PCBs, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are potentially harmful contaminants that can easily evaporate into the air, have been detected at the creek.
In the early 1990s, New York State declared that Newtown Creek was not meeting water quality standards under the Clean Water Act. Since then, a number of government sponsored cleanups of the creek have taken place. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection has sampled sediment and surface water at a number of locations along the creek since 1980. In 2009, EPA will further sample the sediment throughout the length of Newtown Creek and its tributaries. The samples will be analyzed for a wide range of industrial contaminants. EPA will use the data collected to define the nature of the environmental problems associated with Newtown Creek as a whole.
The Newtown Pentacle 