Drumming up Support for Tin Pan Alley Designation
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SPRING 2018 [email protected] | 212-886-3742 WWW.VICSOCNY.ORG the new york metropolitan chapter of the victorian society in america Drumming Up Support VSNY INITIATES LAND- MARK EVALUATION For Tin Pan Alley Designation A request for evaluation filed On the snippet of West 28th Street that links Broadway on behalf of the Victorian and 6th Avenue in Manhattan, the storefronts overflow Society New York by board member Alta Indelman asked with wigs, beaded slippers, paper lanterns, phone cases the Landmarks Preserva- and knit ponchos. What you will not find in its windows tion Commission to consider anymore, and what you would have been offered at designating the school at 131 every turn circa 1900, is brand-new sheet music. Sixth Avenue in Manhattan as From the 1890s to the 1910s, composers, performers an individual landmark. and music publishers and impresarios rented offices on Now home to Chelsea the block in four- and five-story structures built as early Career and Technical Educa- as the 1830s. Hits like “Give My Regards to Broadway” tion High School and the New and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” were first played York City iSchool, the building was completed in 1905 to the on the tenants’ pianos, with cardboard muffling the design of C.B.J. Snyder, the soundboard strings (to keep competitors from hearing legendary superintendent the melodies in progress). The pervasive tinny sound of buildings for the Board of inspired the block’s nickname, Tin Pan Alley. Buildings from the glory days of Tin Pan Alley remain on West 28th Street in Manhattan.Photo courtesy of Historic Education from 1891-1922. The buildings where the immortal music was Districts Council The Beaux Arts style struc- dreamed up are substantially intact. The street is ture has a “J” shaped plan historic fabric, it obviously should be a historic district. full of facades with faceted bay windows, detailed rather than the “H” form But Tin Pan Alley has not yet come under New York moldings, leafy brackets and column capitals made Snyder used for numerous City Landmarks Preservation Commission protection, of stone, terra cotta and pressed metal. Given the schools. Its façade has a despite years of public demand for the street to at least limestone base and bands of block’s combination of significant past inhabitants and appear on the commission’s calendar. In an effort to light-colored brick accented crank up the push for designation, George Calderaro, with terra cotta detailing. A copper-clad cornice and co-chair of the Victorian Society New York’s Preserva- faux mansard parapet crown tion Committee, is spearheading a renewed Save Tin the structure. The building, Pan Alley landmark initiative, an advocacy campaign wrote Ms. Indelman, “stands to safeguard what he calls a “precious cultural legacy” as a graceful coda to the that is “acknowledged globally.” streetscape vista from the Calderaro’s team, which includes the 29th Street SoHo Cast-Iron Historic Neighborhood Association, Historic Districts Council District and the Sullivan- and Victorian Society New York, is raising public Thompson Historic District.” awareness by networking with politicians, journalists, Hilda Regier musicians and scholars and hosting events including After this article went to press, guided tours led by historians David Freeland and the Landmarks Preservation Miriam Berman. Lesley Doyel has developed a Tin Pan Commission denied the request. Alley curriculum that she introduced to P.S. 11 students Options to pursue designation Snyder school on Sixth Avenue is focus of a request to be evalu- will be explored. ated as a possible landmark. Photo by Alta Indelman Architect as part of her education initiative for the VSNY; she is CONTINUED ON BACK PAGE Architecture And Technology: How Buildings Grew Tall With rare exceptions, church steeples were the tallest structures on the horizon in New York City until the mid-1860s, with most buildings topping out at six stories—around 60 or 70 feet—or lower in height. In the early years of the Victorian era, floors and roofs were typically framed with wood beams supported by hand-laid masonry bearing walls, with building heights subject to the limitations of those materials and construction methods. Now, fast-forward to 1899 when the newly completed Park Row Building, designed by R.H. Robertson at 15 Park Row in lower Manhattan, extended 386 feet into the sky. It was, for several years, the tallest building in the world. How did this happen? As construc- tion technologies evolved and were able to sustain taller structures and the functions within these structures, the push to make buildings higher picked up momentum. By the late 1880s, the die was cast for New York, along left to right: The Park Row Building was the tallest building in the world from 1899 to 1908. The Everett with Chicago, to be a city of skyscrapers. Building at 200 Park Avenue South exemplifies the new American architecture of the early 20th century. While buildings increased in height Photos by Alta Indelman Architect. significantly during the latter third of the th19 century and skyscrapers popped up in New (488 Broadway, designed by architect John the new American architecture of the 20th York City at a galloping pace by the 1910s, the P. Gaynor) illustrates how slender metal century, reflective of both New York and systems necessary for the development of columns, in place of masonry bearing walls, Chicago styles. high-rise buildings were in the works decades enable spacious interior layouts and generous Designed by Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck earlier. For a building to grow tall, power- fenestration. Further refinement in metal and built in 1908 for the Everett Investing operated equipment was needed to do the frame construction was made possible by the Company, the building was lauded in the actual construction work and there had to be advent of the I-beam. Trenton Ironworks, trade journals of the day for being both a convenient way to travel up and down in founded by Peter Cooper, rolled the first functional and architecturally pleasing. 200 the building. The structure had to be flexible wrought iron I-beam, the precursor of modern Park Avenue South showcases the features enough to be braced for wind loads, able to steel framing, in 1855. of tall building design that made these be easily fireproofed, and slender enough to Fans for ventilating tall buildings were structures work so well for growing busi- not eat up valuable floor area. A brick bearing being developed by 1860, and plumbing nesses. Square, clear floor area, important wall in a 20-story building would need to be systems were able to achieve enough pres- for supervising large numbers of employees, four feet thick at the first floor! Clearly, metal sure to serve a tall building by 1858. Lighting was made possible by the regularity and framing to replace bulky masonry was key. remained the last problem to be solved for compact footprint of a steel frame. Terra Plumbing had to reach the top floors, active the design of high rise buildings. Gas was not cotta facade cladding was designed to custom ventilation was needed for a healthy environ- an optimal source at that scale and, although fit the shape of the steel, fireproofing and ment and artificial lighting was required for central electric power became available in New weatherproofing it, as well as contributing the interior spaces. York City in 1882, many new large buildings elegant architectural detail to the facade’s William Otis, an American inventor, continued to rely on private generators until strict grid. The snug fit of the terra cotta to patented the steam shovel in 1839, ringing World War I. the steel allowed for large window openings in the era of powered construction equip- The Everett Building, 200 Park Avenue at the exterior walls and maximum daylight ment. His cousin, Elisha Otis, designed the South at East 17th Street, is a solid case study in the work spaces. first commercial passenger elevator; it was in early skyscraper design and exemplifies The Everett Building, and other new installed in the Haughwout Building in 1857— the development of rapidly built, fireproof loft and office buildings of its type built the beginning of vertical transportation as we commercial buildings with simple, gridded during the last years of the Victorian era, know it today. facades and open plan interiors. Sixteen stretched the scale of New York’s commercial Cast iron, used for load bearing, facade stories (230 feet) high and sheathed in white streetscapes, laying the groundwork for the framing and decorative elements, hit its stride terra cotta with green and orange ornamen- very tall skyline to come. by the late 1850s. The Haughwout Building tation, the building is a true expression of Alta Indelman 2 Victorian Era Foods Pique Interest Scholars are revealing how Victorian chefs mint juleps at West Virginia spa towns, and Related exhibitions have gone on view at concocted and marketed meals, just in time the freed slave Emeline Jones spooned a puree the Museum of Food and Drink (mofad.org) in for the Victorian Society New York’s February of chicken, anchovies and truffles onto lettuce Brooklyn. Its current show (through February 24 three-course brunch at the new antiques- leaves at New York’s Carlton Club. Dr. Shields 16) covers the history of Chinese restaurants packed Oscar Wilde Bar in Manhattan. has peppered the text with recipes and tips for in America, with menus dating back to the David S. Shields, a professor at the Univer- cooking and serving. 1910s. In the former Lee’s Art Shop flagship at sity of South Carolina, has profiled 175 218 West 57th Street in Manhattan, an exhibi- influential chefs and restaurateurs in a new tion (through early spring 2018) explores the book, The Culinarians: Lives and Careers from the PBS series Downton Abbey’s sets, costumes, First Age of American Fine Dining (University plotlines, characters and social history context of Chicago Press).