E. B. White’s Here is New York

It has been sixty-five summers since the essayist E.B. While walked the streets of New York, and holed up in a hotel room, in preparation for his ode to the city, Here is New York. The book was reissued in paperback in 1999, for the fiftieth anniversary of its original release, and new copies are readily available around bookstores in the city; however, my copy is from the original publication year (1949) and it the “Book of the Month Club” edition. Somehow, in my affectations, this makes it more authentic.

White’s general theme, in what is essentially a long essay, is that the city is both ever-changing and never-changing. The streets and familiar landmarks give one a sense of stability and permanence. Yet, at the same time, old buildings are torn down and replaced with amazing frequency. What I find interesting in the book is how prescient White’s observations are. He notes that people have an edge and arguments occur far more frequently, prefiguring the stereotype of rude New Yorkers. He is concerned about the over-commercialization of society, noting that to him Grand Central Station was the most inspiring interior until ruined by advertising. He laments the intrusion of television into public spaces, arguing that men go to bars to gaze at television rather than having “long thoughts.”

It is the final observation of the book that is the most interesting and far-sighted. White is very much a man of his era; writing in 1948 he is concerned about the specter of nuclear warfare. But his prose eerily foreshadows the September 11 attacks, even though the airplanes he fears are carrying atomic weapons instead of being themselves the weapons of terror. He notes, as well, what makes the city stronger in the aftermath: “The city at last perfectly illustrates both the universal dilemma, and the general solution, this riddle in steel and stone is at one the perfect target and the perfect demonstration of nonviolence…” (53). White returns to the argument that the city’s diversity makes it stronger, specifically that the number of different nationalities and groups meant that people had to be tolerant of one another (43). It is this allure of the city, which White argues bestows the gifts of loneliness and privacy, that allows people to be who they want. Because people migrate to the city to find freedom and anonymity, and they recognize fellow travelers, it creates the essence of urban tolerance. It is also the source of disdain for many outside urban areas, for they fear those who are different. Reading White sixty-five years after his observations, I was struck by his foreshadowing of current trends. Cities are big, often illogical, collections of neighborhoods and people that look like utter chaos; however, as Katz and Bradley have more recently argued, perhaps it is cities that will lead the future. 

Craighead Bridge

A nineteenth century bridge in Central Pennsylvania will not survive much longer. On 18 July, the Cumberland County Commission authorized the closure and demotion of the Craighead Bridge in South Middleton Township, just outside of Carlisle. The 114-year old structure was deemed unsafe and the Planning Department Director said that a recent inspection discovered “advanced deterioration.” He argued that given the current state of the bridge, it would not last through the winter. The plan is to demolish the bridge and replace it with a new two lane bridge approximately 150 feet west of the current location, which will be opened in 2015.

The Craighead Bridge spans the Yellow Breeches Creek, just off PA174 (Walnut Bottom Road) on Zion Road.  It was built in 1899 by the Pittsburgh Bridge Company and is a steel truss construction. It has a single lane that abuts PA174, meaning that if you are turning off PA174 onto the bridge you must yield to traffic already on the bridge. This has made traffic somewhat hazardous. The bridge is 140 feet long and quite busy, carrying approximately 2000 cars a day.

The day after the Commission made its decision (19 July), I went out to photograph the bridge since the Carlisle Sentinel article suggested that the closing of the bridge could occur as early as that weekend or early the following week. I was surprised by the amount of traffic that utilized the bridge and what a dangerous intersection the bridge created with PA174, with difficult sight lines in both directions. Commuters will have to take a four mile detour once the bridge is closed and until the new structure is opened. It is important to remember that when the Craighead Bridge opened in 1899, there was no automobile traffic.

The bridge, with its interesting and weathered perpendicular and diagonal lines, creates a beautiful setting against the wooded banks of the creek. After the bridge is demolished there will be only four truss bridges remaining in Cumberland County. The bridge is a reminder of a day when steel from the western part of the state, particularly Pittsburgh, was a major industry. More than likely the replacement bridge will be a nondescript, concrete structure that will make it difficult to discern that one is actually crossing a body of water. Several years ago it became fashionable to save, or even reconstruct, covered bridges. Perhaps it is time to consider saving nineteenth century steel bridges as well. 

Update: The bridge closed on Tuesday, 23 July 2013. 

Vintage Advertisements (Greencastle, PA)

At 8 East Baltimore Street, adjacent to the town square in Greencastle, there is a brick building once occupied by Carl’s Drug Store. The painted sign, high above the other surrounding structures, remains easy to read as if the drug store may still actually exist. Currently, however, the building is occupied by E.L.M. Department store that covers a number of buildings on the northeast corner of the square. My guess, completely unsubstantiated at this point, is that Carl’s was a place to go after school or on Friday or Saturday evenings for ice cream and soda. Given its location in the center of town, I am willing to be that it was a local social gathering place for young people.

Another interesting artifact is the building at 24 South Carlisle Street. Currently it is Kerm’s Card Shop, specializing in sports memorabilia and cards. But it is clear from wording on the window that the building was a former grocery store. There are signs, which appear to be affixed to the windows, advertising Coca-Cola, meats, and self-service groceries. The signs catch my eyes because they are (and the store itself) is similar to the neighborhood grocery that was just down the street from where I grew up in Louisville. My Mom would sometimes send me down to Fanny’s to get thinly sliced bologna or a carton of Pepsi. In the days before he discovered he was a juvenile diabetic, my Dad would have a 16-ounce bottle nearly every day when he came home from work. I was afraid of Fanny, she often yelled at us kids for seemingly no good reason. I remember one time, when I was about five or six, I was sent to the store for a carton of soft drinks and, after my purchase, she yelled at me because I was slouching as I carried the eight-pack of 16-ounce bottles. When I said they were heavy, she told me that I needed build muscles. I sure she made somewhat of a cogent argument but I was too scared to hear and no longer remember. Another time, because of my fear of Fanny, I convinced by friend Mike to go in and buy bologna for my mom. Mike and his brother Allen were the only kids Fanny ever liked in the neighborhood. Apparently she asked Mike how he would like the bologna sliced and he told her he did not know because it was for my mom. Fanny came out found me waiting around the corner for Mike and started berating me for not purchasing my mom’s order. She knew my mom liked her bologna sliced thin. 

I would never think to eat bologna today; however, I do remember how good it seemed to taste back then.

Traveling Well

Two recent articles in the New York Times attest to the lure of traveling, especially in the United States. First, Rebecca Flint Marx’s article on exploring the Lincoln Highway is particularly interesting to me because it follows one of the methods that I enjoy, mainly taking a back road for a long journey to experience America on the road less traveled.  Marx and her companion traveled US30, the Lincoln Highway, to find the out of the way and the interesting. It was a relatively short piece for such a big subject. Nevertheless, it is a fun and inspiring read.

A second article, which is really a conversation between two travel writers, Philip Caputo and William Least Heat-Moon, takes a more philosophical approach to the act of travel. Like Marx, both men consider the benefits of travel on the two lane roads of America, but perhaps the more interesting portion of the conversation was the difference between a tourist and a traveler. While both men were kinder to the tourist than I might have been, I nonetheless think their analysis is correct. I might add that the distance traveled is not what makes a tourist or a traveler. Yet, my retort is that traveling to a place where English is not spoken reveals truths about yourself and provides lessons to learn for the traveler. It is true that it does not matter how travel occurs or where; however, a level of unfamiliarity reveals more than a standard tourist route.  

Vintage Advertisements (NYC)

When I see them, it is almost as if they are urban archaeological artifacts. Painted on the sides of buildings, often faded and difficult to read, these advertisements hearken back to previous days when name brands did not necessarily have a global reach. Strange

Gre-Solvent

names and products fascinate me and I enjoy the puzzle of determining what these old signs mean:

1. Gre-Solvent – West 50th Street (near 9th Avenue)

Gre-Solvent was a hand cleanser popular in the 1920s and 1930s that was used particularly by those engaged in manual labor. A company by the same name still exists in Britain. On the advertisement the catch phrase, “cleans them clean,” is still very legible. 

2. Hotel Rooms / Cigars – 8th Avenue (between 46th and 47th Streets)

Located on the side of the New York Inn, this advertisement offers rooms that features steam heat, housekeeping, and hot and cold water. It appears that the hotel advertisement was painted over an older advertisement for cigars, which is more difficult to decipher. 

Hotel Rooms

Small New York City Parks

One of the unique aspects of New York City is the multitude of small parks that dot Manhattan. When people think of parks in the city, their thoughts are naturally drawn to Central Park or, perhaps, Bryant or Battery Park. Yet, the stories behind other, lesser known, parks are just as interesting.

Adjacent to the theater district in Hell’s Kitchen, Ramon Aponte Park is a small, but vibrant park on West 47th Street (Between 8th and 9th Avenues). The odd shape of the park is because the property line was originally shaped by the farm land of Charles Kelley. In the 19th century (1860), the New York City Police Department build a station on the land of the park and for over one hundred years the site served as a precinct. Perhaps the most famous person arrested and brought to the precinct was Mae West, who in 1926, was incarcerated for appearing in the play “Sex,” which was deemed offensive by city officials. In defending the play, West said, “I think that ‘Sex’ is one of the cleanest plays on Broadway. There is no nudity and no obscene language in the whole play” (New York Times, 5 March 1927).

In the 1960s the land would be transferred to the Fire Department and ultimately the lot would stand empty and abandoned in the 1970s. Thanks to the efforts of local residents, including the leadership of Ramon Aponte, a playground was erected and opened on the spot in 1979. By 1981, the park received the official designation of a public playground and later as a park. 

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire – March 1911

It is an incredibly important event, yet many Americans are only vaguely aware of it. (Recently I asked a group of students how many were aware of what happened during the fire and more than have had not heard of it.) Despite sitting in lower Manhattan, on the campus of New York University, the Brown Building (formerly the Asch Building) at 23-29 Washington Place feels like it is a remote corner of the city. Perhaps it is the perfect metaphor for how we remember the Triangle Fire.

One of the best accounts of the fire, the trial that followed and its legacy is David von Drehle’s Triangle: The Fire that Changed America. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company was a place where young, primarily female, immigrants worked long hours for low wages. Employees were regularly cheated by their employers. Minutes were shaved off their lunch hours and time clock were “fixed” to elicit a little extra work out of the employees (von Drehle, pg. 7). On 25 March 1911, a fire raced through the factory killing 146 employees, some as young as 14 years. Locked doors and exits, unsafe working conditions and improper fire equipment all led to a high number of deaths. In an era of factory owners trying to secure massive profits, the economic well-being or safety of workers was not a primary concern.

The Brown Building (June 2013)

It is easy to disregard a number of deaths from a century ago; and, for some, it was almost as easy to do it then. The owners of Triangle, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, “were rich men, and when they glanced into the faces of their employees, they saw, with rare exceptions, anonymous cogs in a profit machine” (von Drehle, pg. 36). Yet, we often forget that in many cases these young women were the bread winners of their families; they were entrepreneurial and hardworking. These young people left behind a legacy of heartbreak and sorrow that often had ramifications in Eastern Europe. The lives of Blanck and Harris would not change substantially as a result, although their families were present in the building during the fire. Although there was a trial, the owners were acquitted of all responsibility even though this was not the first fire at one of their factories. On the other hand, many poor immigrant families were devastated. Shelia Nevins wrote a moving letter to her great aunt Celia (Gitlin) who perished in the fire years later when she realized the family stories were true. Celia was young (17 years), an immigrant (from Russia) and did not speak English. Yet, she came to American to find a job and a better life. Shelia’s letter asks questions that will never be answered and reminds the modern day reader that the people who lost their lives that terrible day in late March 1911 were real people, with hopes and dreams.

As the fire raged through the factory, trapping many of the workers, some chose to take their lives by jumping rather than waiting for a death by flames. Such actions had a traumatic effect upon those who witnessed the tragedy. As I lingered in the area around the Brown building on a Saturday morning in late June, I remembered von Drehle’s account. Even though the sidewalks have surely been paved over numerous times in the 102 years since the fire I still considered them with some trepidation. 

If anything good can come of such a tragedy, this may be an example. The fire served as an impetus to better workplace safety standards in the United States. We are occasionally reminded that those standards do not apply worldwide and that workers often face very dangerous working conditions elsewhere. A couple months ago, the collapse of a building in Bangladesh is reminder that workers continue to face unsafe working conditions. Even in the United States, the question of fair labor standards continues and some will occasionally bemoan safety regulation, even after more than a hundred years after Triangle. Yet this is more than a historical event, it is legacy and reality that bears remembrance and consideration.

Update: Bangladeshi Garment Factories (9 July 2013)

A consortium of European retailers agreed to a plan to inspect and upgrade Bangladeshi clothing factories in an effort to protect the safety of workers. The collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Savar killed 1,127 people in April. Under the plan European and Bangladeshi officials would inspect garment factories for safety hazards, including fire escapes and structural problems that make the buildings prone to collapse. The British and Dutch governments have offered to finance any modifications that would need to occur to bring buildings into line with safety standards. Yet, American companies have opted not to participate, instead trying to establish a program of their own. There is speculation that American companies were concerned with the costs and effects on profits. (See New York Times, The Guardian, Voice of America)

A fire in November 2012 at a Bangladeshi factory killed 112 workers, a number that is similar to the 146 workers who died in Triangle Fire. As David von Drehle pointed out, factory workers are often faceless cogs to consumers, retailers and factory owners. 

An Update: Anne Frank Censored

In a follow-up to my post on Anne Frank in May, an exhibit at the New York Public Library entitled, “The ABC of It: Why Children’s Books Matter,” has a fascinating examination of three hundred years of the literature of young people. Tucked inside the exhibition is a section on books that have been banned in different parts of the United States for their content and depictions. Among those in this section was the unabridged version of The Diary of Anne Frank. 

Citing objections, the exhibition noted that Bobbi Johnson, Superintendent of the Culpeper County (Virginia) Public Schools argued that the unabridged version did not “reflect the purpose of studying the book at the middle-school level and could foster a discussion in a classroom that many would find inappropriate” (29 January 2010).