Destruction leads to revelation

I am so glad I got a smart phone with a good camera. This is on 125th street back on January 8th 2012. I am facing north and the building on the north side of 125 has recently come down. The demolition revealed this advertisement for Theo. F. Tone & Co. It seems they sold coal and that they had a Harlem office.  The right half of the ad indicates that they had a yard on 12th avenue on what looks like 133rd street. This makes sense as 12th avenue would be next to the Hudson River which would be the way large amounts of coal could be delivered to a distribution point. This is similar to the coal faciltiy on 96th street and Riverside pictured below (as a reminder of what used to be before Robert Moses put the West Side Highway there). The ad was painted on the entire east facing wall and it appears to have covered up an earlier ad.

42nd Street and the theater with 3 names over 80 years.

As 42nd Street was becoming the "Avenue I'm taking you to", the center of the theater district that migrated up Broadway since the 18th century, there were those who believed that this street could also be home to business (other than show) development. In this case a speculatively built 24 story white Terra cotta office tower skyscraper that ultimately nodded to the neighborhood by including a theater.  This gleaming white tower was built by the Coca Cola Company and opened in 1913. For a brief period it was the tallest structure in New York north of 24th street (the Metropolitan Life tower in Madison Square was the tallest building in the world from 1909 until 1913 when the Woolworth Building opened). The person behind this plan was Asa Griggs Candler who purchased a failing soft drink company in 1891 for $2300. By 1917 Coca Cola was the world's most recognized trademark. And Candler joined other out of state investors in improving our skyline (the Flatiron Building for example was built by foreign money - all the way from Chicago) by adding his New York office here on "The Deuce".  Not satisfied with his name on the door to the building, he got his name on a marquee. The Candler Theater was designed by, who else, Thomas Lamb.

You entered on 42nd street but the theater itself was on 41rst street. This is the same set up for the New Amsterdam which was just to the east and the Liberty Theater which was to the west of the Candler. What this meant was when you went to one of these theaters you had to walk down a long narrow lobby to get to the theater. The main reason for this was that the land was cheaper on 41rst and 43rd streets (because this happened on the north side of 42nd as well) and more theaters could be built if there was a sort of alternation between one theater on 41rst and the next on 42nd. The Eltinge Theater, when it was in it's original location, stood infront of the Liberty Theater's auditorium. Both theaters were entered from 42nd but the Eltinge was really on 42nd. In addition to the land being a cheaper purchase, the taxes on the 41rst and 43rd street parcels, usually the larger structure, would be lower. This fact played a role in determining the future of 42nd street as the grip of the Great Depression took hold.

The candler was finished by May of 1914 but the first production to open was on August 19th, 1914 was The Trial by Elmer Rice. Presented by the producing team of Sam H. Harris and George M. Cohan the production ran a respectable 365 performances.

This was the second production in the Candler which ran 245 performances. Look at those prices. What is even more shocking is that people made money with runs lasting 245 performances before the show would go on the road. In 1916 the Candler was renamed the Cohan & Harris Theater. In 1921 Cohan left the partnership and the Cohan & Harris became just the Harris Theater. This was the name of the theater for the rest of it's existence. In 1922, theater history is made with Tyrone Power Sr. as Claudius King of Denmark and John Barrymore as Hamlet in a limited run revival (aren't all Shakespeare productions revivals?). John Barrymore broke the record for playing Hamlet 101 nights in a row, the run was 101 performances. The previous record was set Edwin Booth of only a mere 100 nights in a row.

This behind the orchestra section. The ceiling of the 1200 seat house contained an elliptical shallow dome, ringed by Art-Nouveau style chandeliers in a floral theme, not unlike those at the New Amsterdam next door.  With one balcony and boxes on either side of the proscenium arch, the Italian Baroque auditorium included gilded plasterwork around the proscenium and a general color scheme of ivory and gold. Its 25-foot wide marble lobby had 17th Century style wall panels, decorated in floral patterns (floral patterns seemed to have been a theme running throughout the house). Its foyers were decorated with tapestries depicting scenes from Shakespeare.

The last live production at the Harris opened January 16th 1933 and ran for 70 performances. Not too good. The play in one act was written and produced by George M. Cohan. When this production moved out in March of 1933, movies moved in for good.  This appears to be what the movie screen set up looked like when the change over happened. The Candler was built with a projection booth so the change over was not so dramatic. Only when movies went wide screen after 1953 was there a need to alter the decor by removing the boxes or other similar "improvements".  So for 61 more years, the Harris remained a 42nd Street triple feature grind house, losing most of its original décor, including the tapestries, the chandeliers, and the side boxes during that time.

This is how most of us remember the Harris. The theater went dark forever in 1994 although there were hopes that the magic of Disney that took over the severely scarred New Amsterdam would happen here. No such luck as it was demolished in 1996 to make room for Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum.

Oldest Photograph of New York - The Mystery of the Location.

This is possibly the oldest photograph, actually a Daguerreotype, of New York City. I have enhanced this image to provide greater detail.  The original sold for $62,500 at an auction at Sotheby's in March of 2009. The photo was found at a small auction in New England with the following handwritten note attached:

This view, was taken at too great a distance, & from ground 60 or 70 feet lower than the building; rendering the lower Story of the House, & the front Portico entirely invisible. (the handsomest part of the House.) The main road, passes between the two Post & rail fences. (called, a continuation of Broadway 60 feet wide.) It requires a maganifying glass, to clearly distinguish the Evergreens, within the circular enclosure, taken the last of October, when nearly half of the leaves were off the trees.

May 1849. L. B.

So does this mean it is 1848? More importantly, were on the Bloomingdale Road is it?

 This is one possibility, this might be the house in the photo.  This photo is from about 1902 of a house on the east side of Broadway between 100th and 101rst Streets. Broadway had only been called Broadway north of 59th street for 3 years, prior to that it was called "The Boulevard".  The Bloomingdale Road, a road that was, for the most part, absorbed into the grid of 1811, ran just east of the current Boulevard and the even more current Broadway. The house at the time of this photo was the residence of Reverend J. Peters. It was replaced by Emory Roth's 210 West 101rst Street.
Notice the 5 widows across the second floor.

 This is a map from 1867 which clearly indicates the Bloomingdale Road. Along the Road, between 101rst and 100th streets, in between the properties labeled "Peters" and "Jackson", there is a structure. Obviously the Reverend Peters owned the house and the land in 1867.  The Boulevard or Broadway of the future is indicated by a shaded in road (or avenue for lack of better description).

This is a map from 1897. The house is very close to The Boulevard, it is yellow indicating that it is a wooden frame structure. It is located in block number 1872 and has a "46" on it. The blue lines to the right are the old boundary lines of the Bloomingdale Road.
Now the 1902 picture of the house clearly shows the front of the house. The house front faces west. Why? The view was better, you could probably see the river from the front porch when this house was built. If the photograph was taken from the east side of the Bloomingdale Road then we are seeing the back of the house.  This has to be were the daguerreotype was taken from, east of the road facing west. The location of the road in relation to the house in the 1867 map matches that of the daguerreotype.  Even with the indication on the map of 1867 of more structures in the area than in the daguerreotype,  the development is still sparse.  In addition there is a 19 year difference from the daguerreotype to the map and things change in this town over almost 2 decades.  As for the hill, New Yorkers have been leveling this island since the Dutch showed up in 1609, so a more dramatic hill in 1848 is not unusual.  The topography has changed on this rock so much that I can accept an uphill slope towards the west from somewhere in the middle of or just east of what is now Amsterdam Avenue.

West 104th Street - My Block

The great imposition on this rock, the bestowed conformity on this island, the declaration that would give order to the chaos, the Commissioners Plan of 1811, right or wrong, gave us a grid of right angles which I suppose is better than wrong angles.  Since the island was tamed and it's evolution dictated, streets began to open where there had only been stone markers before. Those stone markers holding the promise of future order and West 104th street.

  This is a map from 1867.  The shapes on this map are obviously houses. These are wood fame houses, stone or brick structures would be indicated with a reddish color. The house and piece of property labeled M.T. Brennan became the home of Isidor and Ida Straus, who were lost on the Titanic.  The Straus's purchased the"old country home" and land in 1884.  Matthew T. Brennan, a volunteer fireman who became a city official and allied himself with William M. (Boss) Tweed. When investigations began to expose the Tweed Ring in 1871, it was said that Brennan, Who had become Sheriff, had collected $150,000 in fees for escorting 5,627 prisoners to prison, when in fact there had not been more than 340 prisoners. ''Who Would Not be a Sheriff?'' The New York Times headlined. The 1866 house, which was one of the last of the country homes to be built on the upper west side, contained the first cast iron bathtub in the United States. The house was torn down the year after the Titanic sunk and was replaced by 924 West End Avenue.

Mr. Straus made the once summer home a full time residence.  One of the earliest telephone subscribers in the old village of Bloomingdale, Mr. Straus had to get downtown, to the store that by 1896 he owned, Macy's.  In 1870 he had taken over the china department, by 1888 he had been made a partner. The newly opened Ninth Avenue Elevated was the quickest way (with it's average speed of just over 4 miles per hour) to get downtown. His driver would take him over to the station at 104th and 9th (Columbus) Avenue in the morning and then would pick him up in evening.

This is the 104th Street Station again, but looking north. These pictures were taken in 1940 just before demolition began. Up ahead is Morningside Park. Note the wooden platforms and the old style railroad signal.

 This map again from 1867. Although the streets appear on the maps, west 104th street did not open officially until 1884.  The house with the name "W.P. Dixon" above it is on the site of 895 West End Avenue (at 104th street for those of you from out of neighborhood). Indicated on the map is a semi-circular driveway leading in from West End Avenue. To the west of the house is a pond. Mr. Dixon was a landowner in this area. He owned a tract of land along 110th street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. The simple wooden houses he built for a working class community was referred to as "Dixonville".  The name on the right, on what would be west 103rd street, Furniss, is the name of the landowner who owned "The Colonial White House" on Riverside between 99th and 100th streets.

Block numbers 1890 and 1891, grew up on the former, live on the latter.  This is a map from 1897 and there are some familiar shapes beginning to take root. The Dixon house is gone and a row of 20 foot wide townhouses have sprung up along West End Avenue on both blocks, including the side streets. In the upper left corner of block 1890, that dotted line where 315 Riverside Drive  (again at 104th street for those of you from out of neighborhood) will be is a stream that ran from the pond down to the Hudson. This neighborhood was covered with streams, some still existing. The basement of P.S. 145 on Amsterdam and 105th street used to flood every spring.  And have you ever wondered why you hear rushing water coming from below the street on the west side of Broadway and 108th?
On the lower left corner of block 1891 is stone, not brick, house owned by a family named Bacon. That is the site of 320 Riverside Drive. The lower left corner of block 1890 is the mansion that was the original 310 Riverside Drive.

This is a map from 1916. The Bacon House is still there on 104th and Riverside but stone and brick get the same color now. The brownstones that repalced the Dixon house have been replaced by the recently constructed "Mentone" or 895 West End Avenue. The original 310 Riverside still stands across from the newly built "Clearfield" or 305 Riverside Drive. Just south of the "Clearfield" is the original 300 Riverside Drive, the Foster mansion. 

This is the Foster mansion.

This is the original 310 Riverside Drive.

This is 1879 and the retaining wall is being constructed with Manhattan Schist, the bedrock on which we can build such tall buildings on this island. The rock was probably cut on site and I am guessing but the break there in the wall is for the staircase at 103rd street, but the caption for this photo is "looking north at 104th street and Riverside Drive".

Looking west on 104th street in 1922.  The building on the right, a private home, is on the site of the current 900 West End Avenue. The big building in the picture is none other than 905 West End Avenue. It must be a Monday or Thursday as there are no parked cars on the north side of the street.

 315 - 318 west 104th street in 1913. These are on the north side of the street and were designed by Martin V.B. Ferdon. The row on the south side were designed by Clarence True. Clarence True is considered to be one of the Godfathers of the upper westside.   Clarence True was an architect who was also a developer. He built 100's of speculative houses on the upper westside. He started in the office of Richard Upjohn, who designed (amongst other famous New York City landmarks) the 1846 Trinity Church on Wall Street. When Clarence True had an office, he employed a young William Van Alen who went on to design the Chrysler Building. You can draw a line from Richard Upjohn to William Van Alen. Pretty cool.

This looking north on the Riverside Drive service road from 104th street. The house on the right is part of the Bacon house. All of these would be demolished very soon in order to add the current 320 Riverside Drive to the cityscape.  Was it worth the visual cost?  "We will be judged not by what we have built . . . but what we have destroyed".

One More of Manhattan's Very Own West 110th Street

This picture was taken some time before 1940. This is a northbound Ninth Avenue Elevated train coming around "suicide curve", just south of 110th street. The reason I am so sure that this is before 1940 is that the Ninth Avenue Elevated was torn down in 1940.  Have you ever passed the corner of west 110th street and Columbus avenue and wondered why the buildings on the east side of the avenue were oddly shaped? The curve of the pre-existing before the tenements went up railroad dictated the shape of the structures on the site. This is where the Ninth Avenue Elevated curved off Columbus Avenue, headed down 110th street and turned north to head up 8th Avenue.
Looks remarkably the same, doesn't it?  The still extant building on the south west corner of 110th and Columbus, the grounds of Saint John The Divine just across the street.  A little further up on the south side of 100th street towards Amsterdam Avenue, after the taller apartment building, what appears to be undeveloped land is the landscaped grounds (very small grounds) of the hospital known as "The Women's Hospital".  A newer high rise and a Con Edison facility sit on the spot now, but other than that it still looks the same.

More Hudson River

In 1841 the Academy of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic boarding school for girls, was founded in a three-story house on Houston Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The Academy relocated in 1847 to the area north of 126th street to 135th street between 10th Avenue (now Amsterdam Avenue) and Saint Nicholas Avenue.  Destroyed by a fire in 1888, the Academy was rebuilt on the same foundation.  The piece of land upon which the Academy was built ascended towards 135th street (if you were going north it ascended if you were going south it descended) and formed the north slope of Manhattan Valley. From this lofty perch you were able to view the village of Manhattanville.  The village gave the school a new name eventually, Manhattanville College and the name Academy became part of our phone system; Academy was a popular exchange in the area for years, until the phone company discontinued their use but songs like Pennsylvania 6-5000 and books like Butterfield 8 will make sure that at least two of Manhattan's exchanges will live on.  This is a view of the area at the western end of Manhattan Street, the street now called 125th street and that is Manhattanville College in the background. On a post Civil War map of the area, and in a photograph I have seen taken just before 1920, there was a railroad depot at the foot of Manhattan Street were it intersects with west 130th street and the tracks of the Hudson River Railroad.

This is detail of the map showing a train station at West 130th. The Hudson river railroad carried passenger trains as well as freight when originally built. The line was instrumental in a small degree to the development of upper Manhattan.  As the elevated lines and subway lines came into being, passenger service faded into memory on what became a freight only line. However once upon a time, this was one of several passenger stations along the Hudson in Manhattan.

This is 96th Street and the big box holding up the train is the Obelisk beginning it's trip to Central Park.

These piers were on the river at what we call 125th street. One was a "recreational pier" and the other was for ferry and excursion boats. Before the George Washington Bridge, or the Holland Tunnel, opened it could take you a few hours to get off this island of Manhattan if you were going by car.  Once upon a time an excursion boat to Coney Island made that pier a stop. The eventual year round operation of excursion railroads in Brooklyn (five in fact and all but one lives on as a modern day "subway" line) killed that business but the Day Line up the Hudson survived well into the post World War II era.

 

This is a view looking north from the north end of Riverside Park in 1890.

This is looking north from 135th street and Riverside and from the looks of it just at the very end of the viaduct over Manhattanville.  It is 1920 and those are milk cans on those flat cars. I hope they're empty. 

This is approximately the same spot in 1938 and the Westside Highway is in place.  The George Washington Bridge opened in 1931 and though you would think that this would be the final nail in the coffin for the Fort Lee Ferry, the ferry service survived into post World War II Manhattanville as a quick way to get to Palisades Amusement Park.  Notice the sign on the (still standing) building in the lower left? It says "130th Street Station New York Central Railroad".

The Capitol Theatre, Broadway and 51rst Street

On October 25th 1919, the New York Times printed a review not of a movie but of a movie theater.

          "The Capitol, New York's newest, Largest, and most pretentious picture theatre, at Broadway and Fifty-first Street, last night opened its doors to the public. Its vast auditorium was filled with a crowd . . ." the article went on. The crowd filled every seat, 5230 to be exact.  The first theater in the world to go over 5000 seats, the Capitol eventually became one of MGM's premier houses in New York, once Loew's took over in 1924  By this point the theater had paid for itself and the number of people who had been through the theater was equivalent to one fifth the U.S. Population at that time anyway. This is the exterior (obviously) looking towards the south west from 51rst Street and Broadway.

This is the program cover for July 30th, 1922. This palace opened with Douglas Fairbanks starring in "His Majesty, The American". The show was headlined by Arthur Pryor and his band.

Stage shows were part of the package from 1919 until Loews dropped vaudeville from almost all of their theaters. Shows ended, for a while anyway in 1935.  This is a shot of the proscenium taken after a 1959 renovation in which the screen was enlarged and the seating capacity reduced to 4400. 

 This is a color tinted postcard of the original decor.  The following is from the July 30th, 1922 program:

Cleaning the largest theatre in the world is a herculean task, but when the Capitol is opened to the public at 12:30 each morning, every square inch of surface has been made immaculate.

After the last performance each night, the huge task of housecleaning begins. Each one of the 5300 seats is turned up and cleaned, and every discarded program, scrap of paper and forgotten article collected.  At six o'clock in the morning, a small army consisting of fourteen porters and sixten (sic) scrubwomen invade the theatre.  By 12:00 o'clock, thirty minutes before opening time, every corner and surface of the theatre has ben (sic) cleaned and inspected.

The following surfaces are cleaned and polished:

5000 square yards of carpets and draperies.
6000 square feet of tiling.
5000 square feet of marble work
50,000 square feet of walnut woodwork.
600 square feet of bronze doors.
1000 lineal feet of brass railing.
1000 square feet of leaded glass.
2500 square feet of plate glass mirrors.
50,000 electric globes.

A perfumed disinfectant is sent through the ventilating system at definite intervals to clean and purify the air. Before you are invited to enter, the Capital Theatre is made as immaculate as the most up-to-date mechanical appliances, soap, powder, water and the plenty of old fashioned elbow grease can make it.

Walter Roesner leading the house band, The Capitolians, in 1928. In March of 1943, the Capitol returned to the movie and stage show policy.  Stage shows had been dropped, like I said, in 1935. However there was one exception.  In 1939 a special revue with Judy Garland & Mickey Rooney supported the premier  of “The Wizard of Oz.

The stage shows, prior to his departure to his Roxy Theatre, were under the supervision of Roxy himself.  Here he is, directing a rehearsal from the house, a house so big he needed to be amplified to be heard.  He took his own chair with him.  You could smoke in theaters back then. 

Of the post war stage shows that have graced the Capitol stage, the highlights include in 1943 with The Phantom Of the Opera remake premier Duke Ellington & His Orchestra, the Deep River Boys, Peg Leg Bates, Patterson & Jackson, and  Lena Horne. In 1947 the romantic comedy, “Her Husband’s Affairs,” starring Lucille Ball and Franchot Tone, opened at the Capitol as part of the theatre’s 28th anniversary celebration. But the BIG news was on the Capitol’s stage.  With Frank Sinatra, in his first Broadway appearance since becoming synonymous with the rival Paramount Theatre (Sinatra was now under movie contract to MGM, whose parent company ran the Capitol Theatre), was pianist Skitch Henderson & His Orchestra.  An extra added stage attraction was the Will Mastin Trio, featuring Sammy Davis Jr.  Fore shadowing of things to come?  

In March of 1948 the Capitol Theatre opened what was claimed to be “The Biggest Combination Show” in its history. On screen was Mark Hellinger’s “The Naked City,” an eagerly-awaited Universal-International B&W crime thriller that had been filmed entirely on location in NYC. The show however was tremendous. Glenn Miller alumnus Tex Beneke with his own orchestra and singers and as an “Extra!” was the "Rising comedy team of Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis".  The first show started at 9:00am, with the last feature screening at 1:15am. I would have been there all day. Stage shows ended, again but this time for ever, in 1953.

The balcony promenade. As far as the eye can see - promenade.

The outer lobby.

The original lobby. The Capitol was famous for the white marble star case in this inner lobby.

The lobby, again.

Part of the "modernization" of 1959 included running an escalator up the middle of the white marble staircase.

So was curtaining off the balcony to reduce seating (and of course the need to clean this vast expanse).

This is what the vast expanse looked like without the curtains.

In 1962 more modernization. The Cinerama process is installed in the Capitol.  The seating capacity was reduced yet again to 1950. The seat under the balcony overhang were walled off as the Cinerama process would not be effective to people seating there. In addition the the need for the three projection booths, as required by Cinerama as well as the need to have them project almost straight on, propelled this necessity into a reality.  The center booth is in the center of the above picture.   

The last picture to play the Capitol was Stanley Krubick's 2001 in 1968. It was shown in Cinerama. On September 16th 1968, a review appeared of a benefit given on the Capitol stage. Hosted by Ed McMahon as a benefit for The Communications Arts Center of the Catholic University of America in Washington DC, performers included Johnny Carson (the Tonight Show was still in New York), Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Alan King and Florence Henderson. Music was provided by the Rascals and the Tonight Show band. This review came almost 49 years after the opening night review. The next day interior furnishings and decorations went on sale and demolition begun.