what about the plastic animals?

Hamilton Grange on the Street

South side of Hamilton Grange, unseen since 1889
  North Side of Hamilton Grange, unseen since 1911

New home

There's been a lot of progress in getting Hamilton Grange, Alexander Hamilton's last residence, ready to move to its new home since my March visit.  The house is currently sitting in the middle of Convent Ave. awaiting the move to St. Nicholas Park this coming Saturday.  To get into the street the house had to be lifted 35 feet to get over the porch of the church next door.  The house was being lowered to near street level when I visited on Thursday.  I was part of an exclusive tour, complete with an ultra-secret password!

The house will be placed on nine dollies and rolled down Convent Ave, make the turn onto 141st St. before being wheeled into St. Nicholas Park.  Hamilton Terrace, the hill the house now sits on is rather steep, so the move could be exciting!  The fun begins at 7 a.m. on Saturday.  Too bad I'll be out of town.

Minuteman

The weekend I was in Boston was Patriot's Day weekend - the anniversary of Paul Revere's ride and the start of the Revolutionary War.  This is the statue of John Parker, captain of the Lexington militia, on Lexington Green.  I missed battle re-enactment on the green as it was conducted at the historically accurate time of 5:45 a.m. 

The Homestead

The Homestead, Amherst MA

Often when I drive between New York and Boston I'll take a short detour to either Northampton or Amherst, usually Northampton.  Since I stopped to see the Friendly Giant of Chicopee, Amherst was easier to get to on this trip.

One highlight of Amherst is the Homestead, the house Emily Dickinson lived in for almost her entire life.  The house is modest-looking from the front but it is a mansion that's a lot deeper than it is wide.  It is a short walk down Main Street from the center of town, where I had parked.

That was the longest two-block walk I had ever taken.  By the time I got to the house I was gasping for air.  This was the low point of not feeling well and I spent a long lunch debating whether to find an urgent care facility, return to New York, or continue on to Boston.

I saw my doctor a couple of days ago and I'm either allergic to tree pollen or have bronchitis.  He diagnosed the latter when I went into a violent coughing fit in the examining room.  I'm pleased to say I went for a five-mile walk today with no coughing episodes.

Anyway, Amherst is a picturesque college town, and I wish I had taken more pictures, but I mostly just sat at the Black Sheep Deli and contemplated what to do next and also wondered why Amherstians (Amherstites?  Amherstipuddlians?) flock to the Black Sheep as the two times I've been there my sandwiches have been mediocre at best.

Hamilton Grange on the Move

Current home

Future home?

Hamilton Grange, Alexander Hamilton's farmhouse from 1802 until he was killed by Aaron Burr in an 1804 duel, is about to move.  Or not.  You see, this is one of those complicated New York real estate stories.

Hamilton, perhaps Columbia University's (then King's College) most important graduate, co-author of the Federalist Papers, founder of the Bank of New York, first Secretary of the Treasury, all-around hot-head, and scandalous adulterer, had this federal style house built on his 32-acre estate.  In 1889 the house was bought by St. Luke's Episcopal Church and moved two blocks to its present location.  As you can see it is hemmed in by the church on the right and an apartment building on the left.  The original entranceway and wraparound porch were removed.

In 1962, the National Park Service became the owner of the house.  In the early 1990s a plan was put in place to move the house down the block into St. Nicholas Park.  After many years funding was allocated and the house's new foundation is being prepared in the park.

Here's the catch.  The original orientation of the house was to have the front face southwest.  Were the grange to face southwest in the park the front entrance would be staring at the side of a cliff and the back of a City College building.  The Park Service decided to rotate the house so the front points northeast, toward 141st St.

The reorientation has some historic preservationists upset.  Last week the local Community Board voted to oppose the move.  I'm not sure how much sway that decision has with the city and National Park Service.

Where One Giant Ape Ruled Supreme

Seventy-five years ago today King Kong opened at Radio City Music Hall and the Roxy Theater in New York City.  The movie was released nationwide a month later.  The Film Forum is hosting two screenings this afternoon.  After the 1 o'clock showing there will be a Fay Wray scream-alike contest.

Happy Birthday George!

George Washington is turning 276 years young today.  In this 1856 bronze by Henry Kirke Brown the Father of our Country sits upon his steady steed Trigger in Union Square.  Brown chose to commemorate the moment, November 25, 1783 and location, 14th and Broadway, when Washington officially reclaimed the city from the British.  Today he is seen gesturing toward the Whole Foods Market across the street, hoping a kind, patriotic soul would run in and get him take-out organic spiced tofu garam masala for lunch.

Happy Birthday Abe and Charles!

It's Abe Lincoln's birthday today.  He's turning 199 so wish him well if you see him.  He may not be able to see you as his eyes have been vandalized.  This sculpture by Charles Keck was made in 1948.  The Abraham Lincoln Association has Lincoln's collected works available for your perusing.

In a quirk of history, today is also Darwin Day.  Charles Darwin was born on the same day as Lincoln.  I don't have a picture of Darwin, but you can read everything he ever wrote at Darwin Online.  The Voyage of the Beagle and The Origin of Species are great reads.

Both Abe and Chuck are having bicentennial celebrations next year.

Zane Grey's House

By coincidence, as far as I could tell, the western writer Zane Grey lived in this house just upstream from the Delaware Aqueduct near where the Lackawaxen and Delaware meet.  It was in this house that Grey wrote his most well-known work Riders of the Purple Sage.  Today the house is home to the Zane Grey Museum which is administered by the National Park Service.  The museum was closed when I visited.  According to one of the park brochures I picked up, Grey enlarged this house twice in an attempt to get further away from his growing family while he was writing.

The Delaware Aqueduct aka the Roebling Bridge

Looking toward Pennsylvania

Cable anchor on the New York side.

Looking toward New York.

A few miles beyond the Hawk's Nest, just below where the Lackawaxen empties into the Delaware, is this curious one-lane bridge.  The roadbed is sunken well below the walkways on either side.  There's a reason for that!  The bridge was originally an aqueduct, designed to carry canal boats loaded with coal from Pennsylvania across the river.  Before the aqueduct was built in 1848 a slackwater dam (I'll put a photo on Flickr sometime soon) was built to slow the Delaware's flow so canal boats could be floated to the other side of the river.  Building the aqueduct greatly reduced the time needed to get the boats across the river.

From there the Delaware and Hudson (D&H) canal headed northeastward to the Hudson River near Kingston.  Then the coal headed downstream to New York City.  In the mid-19th century the D&H Canal Co. was one of the country's largest private companies.  Railroads didn't become more efficient carriers of coal until the late-1800s.

The aqueduct has a wire suspension design.  Each of the suspension cables contains 2150 wires, spun on site and bunched into seven strands.  This is John Roebling's earliest surviving suspension bridge.  Roebling later designed and began construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.  He also built three other suspension bridges along the D&H Canal but they are long gone.

The aqueduct was turned into a private toll bridge following the closing of the canal in 1898.  The bridge slowly fell into disrepair.  The National Park Service bought the bridge in 1980 and restored much of it, the cables and ironwork are original, in 1986.

Today's quiz:  Without resorting to the Internets, what famous author lived on the Pennsylvania side of the bridge in the early 20th century (and is resting there in the early 21st century)?

Today's updates:

1. Nobody appears to be familiar with nesselrode pie.  We may have to take corrective action.
2. Only one guess on the tomato age.  Said age will be revealed Saturday!

Regun Theatre

You would never guess it is an old building but according to PropertyShark, the building that houses the fish market across the street from my apartment was constructed around 1913, possibly earlier.  One bored evening this summer I came across a Flickr photo of the storefront.  The picture is crap but the photographer is a movie house buff.  In an earlier life the Sea & Sea Fish Market was the Regun Theatre.

The Regun Theatre is known to have operated between 1916 and 1950.  On May 22nd, 1923 the theater hosted Annie Mathew's "Kiddies' Day", an event sponsored by the Register of New York County.  It was estimated that over 3000 children saw two performance that day.  According to the Times the kids were treated to "a first-class orchestra" as well as showings of "Daddy's Boy" and "The Little Church Around the Corner".  The highlight of the day was a performance by "Miss Rita Hogan, the youngest child actor in the "movies" who sang and danced for them [the kids] at both performances".

A couple months later the Regun was involved in an ugly incident next door.  The Regun screened movies on the roof during the summer.  The July 12th, 1923 issue of the Times reports that Jacob London, owner of the two six-story walk-up tenements next door filed suit against a number of his tenants.  The tenants, Mr. London alleged, were inviting friends over to watch the movies next door from the roof of their building.  Actually he asked for a restraining order to prevent his tenants from

congregating on the roof at any time to witness moving picture performances; from holding meetings or assemblages on the roof; from gathering collectively ion the roof for social or amusement purposes; from occupying windows connected with the common halls to witness moving picture performances; from inviting, soliciting, encouraging or urging persons to assemble with them, either on the roofs or in the hall windows to witness moving picture performances or for any unlawful purpose...

Up to 200 a night were congregating on the roof, possibly causing the roofing to sag.  The headline of that article is "Brings Suit to Keep Tenants Off Roof".  The scanner must have had a hard time distinguishing U from H as the headline in ProQuest when I did the search was "Brings Shit to Keep Tenants Off Roof".  Anyway...

A shorter article a day later sheds a more familiar light on the situation.   Max Klein an attorney for the tenant claimed that the landlord was using the roof issue as an excuse to get rid of the tenants.  The tenants named in the suit had lived in the building for 6-10 years and were protected from increases by rent laws.  Mr. Klein said the landlord was trying to get rid of the tenants so he "could get new ones who would have to pay $15 to $20 a month more" in rent.

On June 24th, 1930 five Hispanic men were arrested after they tried to storm the Regun in protest of its showing of "Under a Texas Moon", directed by Michael Curtiz. who later directed "Casablanca", and the first western filmed in color.  The news article is sketchy on details but it refers to the neighborhood, which was primarily Jewish at the time of the rooftop lawsuit, was now a "Latin-American colony".  On the night of the arrests about 100 protesters marched upon the theater carrying placards that read "Down With Under a Texas Moon.  It is a reflection on the women of Latin America."

The most recent article concerning the Regun that I could find in the Times was on November 10th, 1936.  Four people were injure when plaster fell from the ceiling of the theater.  The rooftop projection booth (the article says the building had formerly shown outdoor movies) sat on iron stilts.  The stilts rusted away from lack of maintenance and gave way on the night in question.  About 150 moviegoers "stampeded from the auditorium".  The story did not mention what movie was playing.