Kiss the South Street Seaport goodbye

From Curbed:

The shopping mall on Pier 17 has been one of Manhattan's quintessential tourist traps for over 25 years. On a hot summer day, the tourists are like bugs circling flypaper, swarming around establishments that include Shoelaces You Never Tie, The Wonders Of Rice, and Christmas In New York. Inside this massive shed, souvenir license plates and steaming trays of cheap food are served up alongside stunning views of the lower Manhattan waterfront. When this troubled old mall is closed down at the end of this week, to be replaced with a shiny new mall designed by SHoP Architects, few New Yorkers will miss it.

Many of the neighborhood businesses near Pier 17 were severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy and have not yet reopened. On the side streets of the Seaport, restaurants, theaters, and the Seaport Museum galleries have all been boarded up, abandoned, or vacated, while the Fulton Market Building, another mall owned by the Howard Hughes Corporation, has remained closed since the storm.

After Hurricane Sandy, a number of businesses in the mall closed down, including restaurants like Harbour Lights and Finn's Fish Market Pub.

The entire mall will be closed on September 9th and emptied for a "complete renovation," according to the Howard Hughes Corporation. Their new mall is scheduled to open in 2015.

The subject of many of Rauam's paintings is the Fulton Fish Market, which was closed down in 2005.

The fish market was relocated to the Bronx, leaving behind its old buildings. This newer section of the market was built in 1939 and is located next to the Pier 17 mall.

The building was denied Landmark status in August, according to the Epoch Times, leaving preservationists concerned that its owner, The Howard Hughes Corporation, "will tear the building down and replace it with a high-rise structure."

Though renovations continue on the historic older structures of the neighborhood, the future of the Seaport is far from certain.

Don't understand tearing down a mall to build another one, when the problem is the location, but whatever.

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How do you get to Tammany Hall? Tweeding, tweeding, tweeding.

From Capital:

Few buildings can claim to serve as global metaphors, but New York’s Tammany Hall surely is one of them. Mention Tammany Hall to reasonably educated Americans—or even British journalists—and the image that comes to mind is not of an old colonial revival building just off Manhattan’s Union Square, but a certain method of ethically slippery, brass-knuckle politics far removed from the ideals of the nation’s founders.

That image, desperately in need of revision, might explain why Tammany Hall—the building, not the metaphor—is one of the city’s best-known landmarks that is not, in fact, a landmark, at least not in the formal sense. But a decades-long campaign to recognize the Tammany building’s history may be on the verge of victory. On June 25, the city Landmarks Preservation Commission heard from a handful of speakers united in support of designating Tammany Hall as a city landmark. The proposed designation has the backing of the local community board as well as other preservation organizations.

If the commission approves, Tammany Hall, the onetime home of the New York County Democratic Party, will achieve a level of respectability it was denied even in its prime, when political legends like Alfred E. Smith, Robert F. Wagner, and Herbert Lehman were members of the Tammany political organization. Many of those who support the landmark designation have cited the Tammany building’s impressive architecture as well as its role as the onetime home of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, a historically significant trade union. They have tip-toed around Tammany Hall’s role in American political history, perhaps fearful of the organization’s much-chronicled scandals.

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Where was this photo taken?

This photo from the Museum of the City of New York is entitled, "The crowded main square at Long Island City; street car and bicyclists visible."

Where was the "main square" of LIC in 1898?

Here's the answer:

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Downtown Flushing in olden times

The following photos come from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.


136-50 Roosevelt Avenue, near Main Street. Old Central Bus Terminal building, three-stories, 330 feet long, faces west. 1942

Roosevelt Avenue. [Row of shops.] 1951

136-20 to 30 Roosevelt Avenue. [Row of shops.] 1942

Roosevelt Avenue. Looking N.W. along north side at N.W. corner of Roosevelt Avenue and Union Street. 1951

Roosevelt Avenue. Looking S.W. along south side, at S.W. corner of Roosevelt Avenue and Union Street. 1951

Roosevelt Avenue. Looking S.E. at Main Street. 1951

Roosevelt Avenue. Looking S.E. from L.I.R.R. platform at corner of Kissena Road and 41st Avenue, also shows park in front of library. 1951

136-21 Roosevelt Avenue. Consolidated Edison Building, view looking N.E. from near corner of Main Street along Roosevelt Avenue. 1951

136-31 Roosevelt Avenue. Stores. 1951

39-01 Main Street. [Row of shops.] 1944

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CUNY to destroy mural by famous black artist

From the Daily News:

A sprawling mosaic that has long been a symbol of City Tech in downtown Brooklyn will be destroyed when the Klitgord Auditorium gets torn down sometime this summer.

The massive mural, built on the Jay St. theater in 1962 by famed African-American sculptor Nathaniel Choate, will make way for a $400 million educational complex expected to open in 2016.

School officials said only part of the mural — the school crests flanking the main artwork, but not the six figurines celebrating sports, recreation, health, competition, drama and music — could be salvaged.

“This is a loss of history and contact with the founders of this institution,” said English teacher Mary Nilles, one of several teachers who spoke against destroying the artwork.
Construction on the 400,000-square-foot college building will start as soon as the aging auditorium - including Choate’s 33 foot by 17 foot mosaic - is razed.

Choate’s work is on display at several other locations including Harvard University and the National Academy of Design in New York.


If CUNY doesn't appreciate Mr. Choate's artwork, can't they at least donate it to an institution that will? Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Historical Society, etc.?

It's embarrassing to be a CUNY alumnus these days. Sheesh.

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