© 2014 Kara Murphy Schlichting ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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© 2014 Kara Murphy Schlichting ALL RIGHTS RESERVED “Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires”: Shaping New York’s Periphery, 1840-1940 By Kara Murphy Schlichting A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in History Written Under the direction of Dr. Alison Isenberg And approved by ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey May 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION “Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires”: Shaping New York’s Periphery, 1840-1940 By KARA MURPHY SCHLICHTING Dissertation Director: Dr. Alison Isenberg “‘Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires’” offers a new model for understanding the invention of greater New York. It demonstrates that city-building took place through the collective work of regional actors on the urban edge. To explain New York’s dramatic expansion between 1840 and 1940, this project investigates the city-building work of diverse local actors—real estate developers, amusement park entrepreneurs, neighborhood benefactors, and property owners—in conjunction with the work of planners. Its regional perspective looks past political boundaries to reconsider the dynamic and evolving interconnections between city and suburb in the metropolitan region. Beginning in the mid-19th century, annexed territories served as laboratories for comprehensive planning ideas. In districts lacking powerful boosters, however, amusement park entrepreneurs and summer campers turned undeveloped waterfront into a self-built leisure corridor. The systematic decision-making of local actors produced informal development plans. Estate owners disliked the crowds at nearby working-class resorts; whites blocked black access to leisure amenities. These episodes of city building, ii viewed together, demonstrate how local development provoked debates among competing social groups about "appropriate" regional growth and waterfront use. Progressive park planners attempted large-scale structuring of the region through beach reclamation, parks, and parkways but could not always reverse local exclusionary practices. Challenging democratic planning ideals, village governments limited public park access and property owners collectively privatized beaches. These contradictory impulses of rational growth, environmental reclamation, and exclusionary decentralization coalesced in the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair. View comparatively, the construction of the fair and its futurist city exhibits emerge as complementary features of the re-planning and re-engineering of the modern urban environment of the 1930s. This reimagining of city-building practices calls attention to long-term environmental and urban processes, explores the dynamism of suburban environments, and brings to light the driving forces of regionalism. In aggregate, local stakeholders had the power to enhance planners’ visions of growth. But local interests could also inhibit regional planning. The contradictions inherent in collaborative city- building explain why, by 1940, New York leaders could celebrate the region’s exemplary park and highway network while simultaneously predicting the degeneration of unplanned growth into suburban sprawl. iii Dedication For my mother, Dr. Mary Murphy iv Acknowledgements This project would have been impossible without the existence of local archives and the work of local historians. My research led me to dozens of libraries and archives, small and large, scattered across greater New York. I am indebted to the staff of the New York Public Library Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, the New York City Municipal Library, the Bronx County Court, the Fairfield Museum and History Center, the La Guardia and Wagner Archives, the Office of the Town Clerk of the Town of North Hempstead, and the Special Collections Department at Hofstra University. Special thanks are due to Kaitilin Bingham Griffin of the New York City Parks Library and John Hammond, Historian of the Town of Oyster Bay. Last but not least, I am indebted to Emmy Carras, Historian of the Village of Sands Point, for her aid sorting materials, a ride from the train station, and a village tour. The Graduate School of Arts and Science at Rutgers and the History Department supplied funds for regional travel. I was also lucky to receive funding that made possible trips to more distant repositories to work with the dedicated archivists at the New York State Archives, Rockefeller Archive Center, and the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History. I could not have asked for a better place to undertake my graduate work than the History Department at Rutgers University. I feel lucky to have had to opportunity to study in such a welcoming, intellectually vibrant environment. I am particularly thankful for the instruction of Dorothy Sue Cobble, Paul Israel, Nancy Hewitt, Jennifer Mittelstadt, and the late Susan Schrepfer, whom I consider to be model teachers and v mentors. A debt is also owed to Dawn Ruskai for her cheerful assistance in all departmental affairs. I am convinced that the graduate student community at Rutgers is one of the very best. Thanks are due in particular to Adam Wolkoff for fielding questions on law cases, as well as for his good company. I was lucky to find a confidante and fellow urban-environmental history enthusiast in Melanie Kiechle, and offer thanks for her continued friendship. This project benefited from the feedback of a number of other people. In particular, I appreciate the thoughtful comments of Adam Zalma and Kyle Shelton on various chapter drafts, as well as the participants in the New York Metro Seminar in Environmental History. A version of Chapter Four will appear in the Journal of Urban History, and I grateful for both the feedback of the anonymous reviewer and permission to reprint the work here. I was fortunate to complete this dissertation under the guidance of accomplished and supportive scholars. Paul Clemens, Neil Maher, Ann Fabian, and Alison Isenberg supplied invaluable feedback on my work and generously shared their knowledge and time. Elizabeth Blackmar’s insightful comments made this a more complex and stronger project than I had originally imagined it. Ann Fabian took on the herculean task of teaching me the craft of writing. I am thankful for her patience and determination. Alison Isenberg provided essential encouragement and critical feedback throughout my graduate experience. Her confidence in the merit of this project and my ability to realize it proved vital. Any accomplishments I can claim I owe directly to the mentorship of these scholars. Researching and writing this dissertation was a satisfying adventure. It was also an incredible challenge. For the friendship offered by Mary Fowler, Matthew Weaver, vi Sarah Lorch, Bethany Cook, and Ashley Bryan, a continual source of personal happiness, I am thankful. I can never repay my extended family for their generosity in supplying me with the necessities of food, wine, and excellent company, but I will always try. I am also thankful for Mike Kochanek, who made me happy during the most challenging periods of graduate school. I am grateful every day for his friendship, patience, and sense of fun. My mother, Dr. Mary Murphy Schlichting, and my father, Dr. Kurt Schlichting, made this experience possible. My twin sister Kerry Schlichting has played every role imaginable in my life, including editor, traveling companion, hostess, and sympathetic listener. As always, the thing I want most is to make my family proud. As E.B. White wrote, “it is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.” My mother is both these things. For her countless hours, enthusiasm, and crucial support whenever my nerve wavered, this work is dedicated to her. vii Table of Contents Acknowledgements v List of Illustrations ix Introduction: Greater New York and Long Island Sound 1 1. From Bridgeport to the Bronx: City-Building and the Rise of the 36 Regional City 2. “A Blue-Collar Country Club”: Pursuing Leisure on the Upper East 108 River and Long Island Sound 3. Designing a Coastal Playland: Regional Park Planning around Long 180 Island Sound 4. “They Shall Not Pass”: Opposition to Public Leisure and State Park 246 Planning in Connecticut and on Long Island 5. “From Dumps to Glory”: Coastal Reclamation and the Rebirth of 302 Flushing Meadows for the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair Conclusion: The Limits of the World of Tomorrow 358 Bibliography 373 viii Illustrations Figure 1: The extent of Greater New York. 35 Figure 1-1: To Fill in the Harlem. 97 Figure 1-2: P. T. Barnum, the King of Humbug. 98 Figure 1-3: Iranistan. 98 Figure 1-5: Industry in East Bridgeport. 100 Figure 1-6: Industrial Bridgeport. 101 Figure 1-7: The mature city of Bridgeport. 102 Figure 1-8: Waldemere. 103 Figure 1-9: The trans-Harlem. 104 Figure 1-10: The grid north of the Harlem River. 105 Figure 1-11: The Annexed District. 106 Figure 1-12: Louis A. Risse. 107 Figure 2-1: The informal leisure corridor of the Upper East River. 171 Figure 2-2: The boardwalk at North Beach. 172 Figure 2-3: A day at the beer garden in Queens. 173 Figure 2-4: North Beach. 174 Figure 2-5: The undeveloped East Bronx 175 Figure 2-6: Alongshore at Edgewater Camp 176 Figure 2-7: 1925 aerial view of Rye Beach. 177 Figure 2-8: Rye Beach. 178 Figure 2-9: East Bronx camp colonies. 179 Figure 3-1: Parks in the North Side. 234 Figure 3-2: Greater New York. 235 Figure 3-3: The Bronx River Parkway. 236 Figure 3-4: Westchester’s Parks. 237 Figure 3-5: Walker and Gillette’s rendering of Rye Playland. 238 Figure 3-6: Playland Mall. 239 Figure 3-7: Sanitized Playland in action. 240 Figure 3-8: Keeping order at Playland. 241 ix Figure 3-9: Mullaly’s Bronx Park System.