house Archives - Page 3 of 4

July 11, 2017

Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	48 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	The broad array of games: deck of cards, dice, checkers, arrayed around the upstairs sitting room. Makes me appreciate our sophisticated modern timekillers like Settlers of Catan and Pandemic.

Bartow-Pell Mansion, The Bronx, New York Long ago (1654) and far away (under an oak tree on what is now the frontier of the Bronx), a, Englishman named Thomas Pell signed a treaty with the local Siwanoy/ Lenape Indian tribe. He gained ownership of either 9,166 acres (City of New York, Friends of Pelham Bay Park, other reputable sources) or 50,000 acres (Bartow-Pell Mansion printout, Wikipedia) of land. While his descendants sold off the massive holding over time, in 1836 Robert Bartow, scion of the Bartow-Pell family, bought back part of the original estate and started building a fine country house and working farm on it. In 1842, he and his wife Maria Lorillard Bartow, their seven kids, and assorted Irish servants moved out from the filth and hubbub of New York City. The family resided there for over 40 years.

Like all of the country retreats I’ve visited, the family’s fortunes ebbed, and the expanding City eventually caught up with the Bartow-Pell Mansion. Mostly. Today the house stands in the heart of Pelham Bay Park (in fact, the City bought the house and land as it was creating the park), the only survivor of what used to be a string of mansions in the area. Continue reading “Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum”

June 25, 2017

Ukrainian Institute of America

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	69 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	Max Vityk’s “Outcrops” series of tactile, colorful, geologic abstract paintings installed in the third floor library and dining room. Sometimes abstract art clashes with classical decor, but these go better than they have any right to. Compliments to the curator for a beautiful installation.

Ukrainian Institute, New York

Three First Impressions

The first thing you notice walking into the Ukrainian Institute on a balmy day in June is the warmth. No air conditioning. Which is okay — fancy Fifth Avenue mansions (and the Ukrainian Institute occupies one of the fanciest) have thick walls and high ceilings to keep them reasonably comfortable on all but the hottest days.

The second thing you notice is the quiet. They keep the front door of the house locked, you have to buzz for admission. Someone eventually emerges from the non-public (and I bet air conditioned) offices to let you in and find out what you’re about. She’s happy to admit you, though a little…surprised maybe?… I’m not sure the Institute gets many visitors. (There were three others while I looked around, at least one of whom spoke Ukrainian.) She tells you that the admission fees quoted on the desk are suggested, and whatever you want to pay is fine.

And the third thing you notice is the amazingness of the interior, and how much of it you, now admitted as a guest, have available to roam around in. I expected a single gallery space with a small, obscure show, like the Czech Center or Japan Society. Instead, I got four floors of beautifully cared-for Gilded Age rooms, with Ukrainian or Ukrainian-related art very thoughtfully integrated into the fabric of the place.

Ukrainian Institute, New York

The House (Condensed Version)

The Institute makes its home in the 1899 Fletcher-Sinclair House, designed by C. P. H. Gilbert for wealthy (duh) manufacturer Isaac D. Fletcher. It occupies a corner lot on Fifth Avenue, diagonally across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I’d call the exterior “extreme French Gothic”: extravagant stonework with flowers and garlands and dragons and such, while the interior feels more mellow, tasteful, and comfortable according to early twentieth century standards.

“…Comfortable, by early twentieth century standards.”

Fletcher died in 1917 and left his fabulous art collection and the house to his neighbor across the way. And unlike Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s collection, the Met Board accepted. But then a few years later, not really needing an opulent mansion (I suspect the Met today would find something to do with it), the Met sold the house. (It kept the art). An oil man named Harry Sinclair lived there with his family for a decade. Then the very last direct descendants of Peter Stuyvesant moved in starting in the 1930s. After they died off, the house went on the market in the 1950s, just as William Dzus’s fledgling Ukrainian Institute needed a home. Which it got for the unbelievable auction price of $225,000 (the 1955 Times headline reads “Ukrainians Take Fifth Avenue Mansion.”) I’m sure the place needed work, but what a bargain!

A Top-to-Bottom View

Ukrainian Institute, New York — Vertigo!

Here’s what I saw, from top to bottom:

Fourth Floor: Ukrainian Socialist Realism from the Jurii Maniichuk and Rose Brady Collection — impressive pieces from a more Soviet time, including a fantastic, huge, triumphalist painting of Khrushchev greeting Yuri Gagarin, unfortunately jammed into a hallway.

Mykhailo Khmelko, “Motherland Greets a Hero,” 1961

Also Fourth Floor: The Sumyk Collection of sculptures by Ukrainian-American Alexander Archipenko, which gets a room of its own.

Third Floor: Max Vityk’s “Outcrops.” As mentioned previously, I just loved the art and the installation. Each piece’s title comes from one of the geologic ages of the Earth. The description talks about appreciating them just as highly textural abstractions, but also as a spiritual or environmental account, “an antidote to the tyranny of time, or chronarchy…” Down with the chronarchy!

Library, Ukrainian Institute, NYC — Contemplating the Chronarchy, More of Max Vityk’s “Outcrops” series

Second Floor: Portrait photographs of WWII Veterans by Sasha Maslov. Rather wonderful pictures of these ordinary men (and a few women) in their unassuming homes, accompanied by quotes from interviews with them that reveal each as extraordinary. Maslov traveled the world to take these pictures, of both Axis and Allied veterans. He defined the word broadly, including some people who didn’t fight, but who nonetheless were involved in the war (and really, who wasn’t?)

First Floor: A brief introduction to Ukraine, the place, its people, history and culture. It includes a nice touchscreen display for those who want a deeper dive, and an overview of notable Ukrainian Americans.

This is my second Ukrainian place for this project (see: Ukrainian Museum). I get why they both exist. Different wealthy patrons wanted to celebrate their heritage and raise the profile of their culture. But if anyone asked me, I would recommend the Institute over the Museum by a wide margin.

A House Museum AND a Ukrainian Museum

I suggest thinking of the Ukrainian Institute as a house museum as much as a museum of Ukrainian art and culture. As an opulent Fifth Avenue mansion-turned-museum, it stands in good company with the Jewish Museum (also by Gilbert), the Cooper-Hewitt, the Neue Gallerie, and the Frick Collection. But with relatively fewer modifications, it feels much more homey.

It lacks the original furniture, but retains amazing amounts of period detail. The rooms aren’t labeled, but they don’t need labels. The ballroom (of course it has one) still looks like a ballroom, the library unmistakably remains a library. Even better, there are no barriers or blockades, and very few “please do not touch” signs. The woodwork smells pleasantly of oil or polish, and has a luster of well-preserved age. The wood floors aren’t pristine, but are much more beautiful and interesting for that.

The rooms have been re-tasked with sharing Ukrainian art and culture (broadly defined), but without losing their former selves. I deeply appreciate that.

I also appreciate that the Institute takes care to relate the story of the house. It provides a quick summary in the ground floor “Intro to Ukraine” section. It also offers a much more thorough version of the tale (complete with newspaper quotes and other primary sources) in a series of panels in a fourth floor room.

Last Thoughts

The Ukrainian Institute may be one of the best-kept secrets of New York that is still actually being kept. Except by me, I guess. Sorry? Anyone who enjoys a taste of Gilded Age splendor (and who doesn’t?) must visit. Even the warm summer temperatures just add to the authenticity. Though I realize that the wealthy Fifth Avenue Gilded Agers did have air conditioning. They just called it “spending August at my Newport cottage.”

Based on my visit, the art on view will be worth seeing, too. And as a bonus you get to learn something about Ukraine and its people.

I’m surprised and delighted with this place, and I feel confident that art and architecture lovers will feel the same.

For Reference:

Address	2 East 79th Street, Manhattan
Website	ukrainianinstitute.org
Cost	General Admission: $8 (suggested)
Other Relevant Links	A neat history of the house with a behind-the-scenes tour on the Big Old Houses blog

June 17, 2017

Old Stone House

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	25 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	In an era when museums (including this one) are full of touch screens, I was happy to see an old-school board game version of the Battle of Brooklyn. Uh-oh, you drew a Hessian card! Except you’re the British, so that’s awesome for you! Battle of Brooklyn, the Board Game

Old Stone House, Brooklyn

The Old Stone House isn’t actually all that old. And it’s not properly a house, though it is at least partially constructed from stone. Today’s Old Stone House replicates the Vechte-Cortelyou House, dating to 1699. The original’s history touches on Brooklyn’s earliest days, the Revolutionary War, and the dawn of the Brooklyn Dodgers. However, the house was demolished in the late 1800s.

That would’ve been that except that in 1934 the omnipresent (and nigh omnipotent) Robert Moses reconstructed it, mainly to serve as restrooms for Washington Park. The reconstruction used at least some of the stones from the original building, but unlike many of the house museums of the city, there’s nothing historic about the interior rooms or furnishings. Rather, the building contains a small museum focused mainly on the Battle of Brooklyn, with a little about the Vechte family.

Audience and Program

Mainly a kids museum, the displays are geared to the interests, attention span, and average height of the younger set. And yet, as a gathering place for the neighborhood, it aims at older people too. They show contemporary art in an upstairs space, and host theater and events with intriguing names like “Gin in June.”

The Battle of Brooklyn took place literally in the front garden, as a teeny but fairly dramatic diorama attests. 400 self-sacrificing Marylanders–like the Spartans only one-third more of them–kept a couple thousand redcoats busy long enough for Washington and his troops to slink away to Upper Manhattan, thence to base himself at the Morris-Jumel Mansion, and eventually abandon New York for the rest of the war.

Diorama, Old Stone House, Brooklyn — Beware of Hessians!

In museumological terms, the Old Stone House is rather straightforward. Its displays deploy a mix of technologies, culminating in a touchscreen-based day-by-day review of the Battle of Brooklyn, which I found hard to follow.

A family tree shows how the Revolution divided families between loyalists and revolutionaries. It also names some of the slaves who worked for the Vechte family, though of course no one bothered to record how they felt about independence, or anything else about their thoughts and beliefs. Still, I like that they don’t sweep the Vechte’s slaves under the historic rug. Another brief display on slavery observes how surprisingly prevalent it was in revolutionary Brooklyn. One in three Kings County residents was a slave, and half of Dutch households owned them.

There’s little to see about the Dodgers, but the original Old Stone House served as the team’s clubhouse in the late 1800s. Their first ballpark, long since gone, was in Washington Park, before they moved to the legendary (and also long-gone) Ebbets Field.

Moving upstairs, the current contemporary art show, titled “Multilocational,” featured work by two artists touching on themes of migration and acculturation. Sort of a smaller riff on Lehman College’s Alien Nations show.

Old Stone House, Brooklyn, Gallery

Who should visit? The Old Stone House is a quintessential local museum. It programs for its community, and that’s sufficient. Coming from Manhattan made me something of an exotic visitor to their parts. You might consider going if you are a huge fan of the Battle of Brooklyn or the history of baseball. Otherwise, plenty of other museums offer a better view of Brooklyn and New York City history.

Washington Park, Brooklyn, from Old Stone House — View from the Old Stone House

For Reference:

Address	336 Third Street, Brooklyn
Website	theoldstonehouse.org
Cost	Free

June 9, 2017June 9, 2017

Morris-Jumel Mansion

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	77 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	The mansion has recently undergone a major wall upgrade, installing recreations of historic wallpaper based on Mme. Jumel’s descriptions. The Octagonal Drawing Room features an amazing pattern of clouds against a blue sky. I must remember that for the next time I renovate MY octagonal drawing room.

The way to the Morris-Jumel Mansion takes you up the gentle slope of Sylvan Terrace, a single block long and one of the most unlikely streets in all of Manhattan. Paved with perfect cobblestones, both sides of the street consist of a matched set of beautiful, seemingly mint condition, wooden townhouses from the 19th century, all period charm and lovingly preserved detail. It’s a miracle that it survived, though the big white house on the hill at the end of the terrace is more miraculous still: the Morris-Jumel Mansion has lasted longer than any other home on the island, dating to 1765. That makes it about 30 years older than the Dyckman farmhouse, just a bit to the north. And instead of the Dyckman’s rustic, humble charm, Colonel Roger Morris built to his “summer villa” to impress.

Morris Jumel Mansion

Three stories (four if you include the basement), the grand house featured a columned portico and the first octagonal room in the country. Col. Morris and his wife, loyal to the British, abandoned the place during the revolution, leading to its moment in the spotlight of history. More on that later. In 1810, Stephen Jumel, an immigrant from France, bought the mansion. His wife, the smart and colorful Eliza Jumel (nee Bowen), has the strongest personality in the house today.

Madame Jumel

Portrait of Eliza Jumel, Artist Unknown, 1832-1833

Eliza Bowen came from a poor family in Rhode Island. Not only did she find in M. Jumel a successful businessman to marry, but she turned out to be something of a real estate tycoon herself. The Jumels may not have been welcome in high society (being nouveau riche and from the wrong backgrounds), but they lived well. They spent time in France, and Madame Jumel (always “Madame,” it seems, never “Missus”) returned with (so she claimed) Napoleon’s bedroom set, and strong ideas about decorating her summer villa. No one’s quite sure if it really is Napoleon’s bedroom set, but just the fact that she’d tell people that brings her to life. She lived in the house until she died in 1865, apparently becoming quite eccentric over time.

Hamilton and History

As with all buildings of that vintage, my first question related to my favorite Founding Father. A.Ham indeed spent time there at least twice. Once during the period from September to October 1776 when Washington made the mansion his headquarters, before the British drove him and the Continental Army out of Manhattan. And again in 1790 when Washington held a cabinet dinner meeting there.

Also, the notorious A.Burr actually lived here–Madame Jumel married him in 1832, just a year after M. Jumel’s death. Briefly. It seems she got along with him no better than Hamilton did, though at least he didn’t shoot her. Rather, she divorced him. Practically unthinkable in that time, it confirms that he really must’ve been a colossal jerk.

ALSO also, Lin-Manuel Miranda asked if he could spend some time in the mansion while he wrote “Hamilton,” the better to immerse himself in the period vibe. So some portion of the musical came into the world in Aaron Burr’s bedroom at the Morris-Jumel Mansion.

That’s about as Hamiltonian as it gets.

The House Today

Morris-Jumel Mansion Display — Odds and ends, Morris-Jumel Mansion

In addition to Napoleon’s alleged bedstead, the house has some original furniture, with about six rooms fully decorated, and another couple currently undergoing restoration. The kitchen space in the basement is open, but without much to see. As a fan of old kitchens, I hope they do something with it eventually. It does contain an odd display of a toaster, a chamberpot, a bedwarmer, and a teacup. Trying to figure out what those things have in common started to give me a headache.

iPad Holder, Morris Jumel Mansion — Insert Tablet Here

Each room has a rather handsome piece of modern wood furniture–a stand or a railing–designed to cradle an iPad. But no tablets in sight. I asked about that–whether it was an attempt at deploying technology that had failed. Turns out it’s still a work in progress. The tablets, when installed, will provide deep dives on individual pieces of furniture, paintings, and other objects. My skepticism of technology for technology’s sake in this sort of setting remains strong, but I like the idea of using screens to tailor descriptions to the needs and interests of visitors, enabling them to engage more deeply.

Trish, who was working the admission desk/gift shop that day, kindly answered my myriad questions, about technology and about history as well. She told me that it opened to the public in 1906, like the Van Cortlandt House a project of the Colonial Dames of New York. I asked how it survived, and she said Washington gets the credit: although only for a month, the fact that the mansion served as his headquarters earned its preservation. Indeed, when it first opened, the place served as a sort of shrine to Washington and the Revolution.

Only more recently has the story pivoted to focus on Madame Jumel, who after all lived there a lot longer, and about whose occupancy there’s a lot more historical information and documentation. And Napoleon’s bedroom set.

Morris Jumel Mansion, Harlem, from Sunken Garden The mansion’s vast land holdings at one point stretched the (albeit pretty narrow that far north) width of Manhattan. All that land is now Washington Heights, of course. And yet, its commanding hilltop location, surrounded by tiny, lovely Roger Morris Park, offers a taste of the country to this day. The grounds burst with rosebushes and even include a small sunken garden. I could easily see going back just to sit there and read a book.

Who should visit the Morris-Jumel Mansion? Hamiltonians, for sure. Fans of old wallpaper, and fans of rich eccentric 19th century madames. Those into colonial architecture and house museums. The three house museums of upper Manhattan (Dyckman Farmhouse, here, and the Hamilton Grange) provide a varied look at life in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Visiting all three of them would make for a highly edifying afternoon.

For Reference:

Address	Roger Morris Park, 65 Jumel Terrace, Manhattan
Website	morrisjumel.org
Cost	General Admission: $10
Other Relevant Links	Atlas Obsura on the Morris-Jumel Mansion

May 1, 2017May 1, 2017

Edgar Allan Poe Cottage

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	70 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	During their sojourn at the cottage Poe and his wife had a cat named Katarina. And maybe that was Mrs. Poe’s idea but still there’s an endearing humor to that which changed the way I think about Poe a little.

Edgar Allan Poe, proto-goth, inventor of the detective story, writer of gruesome tales and horror-struck poetry, quother of the raven, had a hard life. Baltimore has largely claimed him as its own (just think of their NFL team). While he did live there for while, and died there in 1849, Poe was a New Yorker for a good chunk of his life. Indeed, he was only visiting Baltimore when he shuffled off his mortal coil in circumstances that remain mysterious to this day. For the last three years of his life Poe resided in a small rented cottage in what was then the village of Fordham in Westchester County, known today as the Bronx.

Built in 1812 by the Valentine family to house farm laborers, it’s a mark of how fast esteem for Poe rose after his death that his cottage has survived to the present. In 1902 Poe Park was established, and in 1913 the cottage was moved to the park, where it has stood as a museum ever since.

Poe’s reason for moving north was as sad as anything else in his life: his wife Virginia had contracted consumption, and they hoped that by escaping from the foul miasma of the city to bucolic Fordham, she might improve. It was not to be, however, and she died less than a year after they moved to the cottage, in January of 1847.

The cottage is definitely the home of a poor man. A realtor would call it cozy. While tiny, I imagine that during the winter it was freezing. A kitchen, parlor, and small bedroom on the ground floor, and a study and bedroom on the second floor, a small porch out front, and that’s it. Poe and his wife rented it for $100 per year.

It’s furnished with a fair number of period pieces, three items of which are known to have been Poe’s: a rocking chair, a fancy gilded mirror, and the narrow bed where Virginia Poe passed away.

In addition to period furniture, the house also contains assorted Poe memorabilia: period prints of the cottage, a bust of Poe that used to be in the park, and several pictures of the man in various states of unhappiness.

There’s a brief video that describes Poe’s life in the Bronx: walking the High Bridge, wandering along the Bronx River, and visiting the Jesuits at then then brand-new St. John’s College (founded in 1841, now called Fordham), with whom he seems to have gotten on well. Poe wrote some of his best-known works while he lived at the cottage, including “The Bells,” and Fordham lays claim to having THE bell that inspired the poem.

My guide during my visit was a local kid who really loved Poe and the place. His enthusiasm helped bring the cottage to life.

And he explained the most random furnishing of the cottage: a picture of penguins on the parlor wall. They feature in Poe’s only novel, a whaling tale called The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. I asked him who comes, and he said it was about 25% New Yorkers, 50% tourists from overseas, and 25% tourists from other states.

It takes some determination to get there. It’s on the way (by subway) to the New York Botanical Garden or Woodlawn Cemetery, and kind of near Lehman College Art Gallery. But it’s not especially close to any of those. Thus, even though the city has grown up all around it, Poe’s cottage is still sort of a lonely place.

Anyone with vaguely goth or romantic tendencies should absolutely go. Underappreciated poets and anyone who can still quote the opening lines of the Raven should too. But those outside those categories could probably stick visiting other historic houses in the city, many of which are easier to get to.

For Reference:

Address	2640 Grand Concourse, the Bronx
Website	Bronx Historical Society Website
Cost	General Admission: $5
Other Relevant Links	Full text of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (from Project Gutenberg)

April 30, 2017

The Morgan Library & Museum

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	99 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	The West Room Vault, which Charles McKim designed so that Mr. Morgan could keep his most super-special books super safe.

Many of the city’s great institutions, maybe even most of them, were gifts to the public by plutocrats looking to give something back, improve their image, or maybe atone for awful things they did to get ahead. Fro some people, it may diminish the joy of visiting somewhat to reflect on the ruthless profiteering that paid for all of it. That’s especially true of the most personality-driven institutions, like the Morgan and the Frick.

And yet. Your mileage may vary, but when I go to either of those two places, I’m sorely tempted to believe that they did it: the institutions balance the scales, and their sins are erased by the magnificence of what they’ve left for posterity — me– to enjoy.

Mr. Morgan’s Library, now open for your edification and gawking

The Morgan Library & Museum contains treasures. It was literally Pierpont Morgan’s private library, so it combines gilded age period room splendor with a fascinating collection and space to put on dazzling temporary exhibitions.

Additionally, the Morgan is one of my favorite examples of marrying new architecture with old. In 2006, Renzo Piano completed an incredible glass box that fits like a missing jigsaw puzzle piece with the older Morgan buildings. The original library was built in 1906 by Charles McKim of McKim, Mead, and White, so it’s no slouch in the architecture department. One of the things I like best about the new addition is it doesn’t try to erase the differences between the buildings that make up the campus, while still managing to unite them harmoniously. It also adds more gallery space, fancy piston-based glass elevators, and a beautiful cafe with a tree and a view of the Empire State Building.

I love how the Morgan smells. The parts that are more library than museum contain enough ancient tomes that the very air is permeated with old leather, paper, and erudition.

In a city with many a fancy ceiling, one of the fanciest of them all.

The Morgan owns three (three) Gutenberg Bibles. Manuscripts of, it sometimes seems, everything ever written or composed by everyone. A collection of exquisite Babylonian cylinder seals. Huge amounts of religious art. It just goes on and on. I saw scores by Mozart and Chopin and Mendelssohn. And the first page of the original draft of General Grant’s first inaugural address on display. And the Zir Ganela Gospels, from Ge’ez Ethiopia ca 1400. And the only complete manuscript of a Jane Austen novel (of Lady Susan).

Its book and manuscript collection enable it to put on amazing shows just drawing from its own resources — “Delirium,” on the art of symbolist books, was on when I visited, along with a great show on Emily Dickinson (called “I’m Nobody! Who are You?”), where I learned her handwriting was awful. And a small show of old masters borrowed from the Swedish Nationalmuseum.

The Morgan also has at least a bit of a sense of humor. A fair number of things on display are not what Mr. Morgan thought they were — ingenious fakes, misattributed or misidentified works. I get the sense that he was a bit of a sucker. Or he just didn’t care — he’d Hoover up all the art there was, authenticity be damned. Clearly art sleuthing has progressed a lot in the intervening century, and seeing fakes can be both instructive and entertaining. Anyway, I like that they don’t hide them away or quietly dispose of them.

The Morgan contains wonders enough to balance a robber-baron’s debt to society. I can almost guarantee you will see at least one thing, a document, a score, a letter, that takes your breath away. It is an incredibly fine museum, and everyone should go.

For Reference:

Address	225 Madison Avenue (at 36th Street), Manhattan
Website	themorgan.org
Cost	General Admission: $20 (free Friday evenings)

April 5, 2017

Van Cortlandt House Museum

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	138 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	All the front windows of the house have neat, scary terra cotta faces centered above them. This was apparently a Dutch thing to ward off bad spirits. Reproductions are available at the gift shop!

At the northern terminus of the Number 1 subway line lies Van Cortlandt Park, home of one of the oldest surviving houses in New York City. Within the park, \ surrounded by an ancient iron fence, is a very fancy residence built in 1748 as a summer home by (surprise!) the Van Cortlandt family. The grandest home in the area, the Van Cortlandts owned and lived in the house for about 140 years, until in 1887 as the family fortunes ebbed, they sold the property to the city as a park. The National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York took over the house and opened it as a museum in 1897. It is, of course, a New York City landmark.

The Van Cortlandts in the early days were super-wealthy, and the house showed it. They were also super-Dutch, proud of their heritage as New Amsterdammers, and many of the details of the house (including a blue and orange color scheme for the china cabinets in the parlor) reflect that as well. Little that’s in the house today remains from the Van Cortlandts, but most of the publicly accessible rooms are filled with period furniture and knick-knacks that give a sense of what the lives of the earlier generations of the family might have been like.

When it opened as a museum, one room was redone to depict a modest city house, simulating how a much less successful Dutch family would have lived down in Manhattan. They’ve kept that to this day and while I would’ve liked the place to be as close as possible to how the family lived in it, the contrast is informative.

I joined a tour being given by a guy named Paul — when they have tours, they do them in a repeated loop (which is probably not that fun for Paul), so you can join in progress and then stick around for the beginning of the next one to pick up what you missed. It’s a little odd, leaving the Van Cortlandt background until the end, but it was very efficient.

Fancy, newly refurbished parlor/dining room, decorated a little later than the rest of the house. Note the neat Dutch tiles around the fireplace.

As I’m conditioned to do, I asked Paul about Hamilton. There is no recorded occurrence of the great man visiting. Washington did, though, thrice, as did John Adams. The VC house was the only large, fancy home for miles around. So Ham might’ve visited, but there’s no proof.

The Van Cortlandts lived a very different kind of life than the Dyckmans or the Hamiltons. And of course their home is a huge contrast to a city house like the Treadwells’. I wish that more of it was open — there are slave quarters up the back stairs that the only accessible periodically for special small-group tours because of the fire code. And we didn’t get to see the kitchen — as a food lover I’m highly interested in the evolution of kitchens and cooking. But with each one of these homes I visit, my sense for life in and around the city in the 1700s-to-early-1800s gets deeper and richer. And I have yet more appreciation for life in the 2010s.

On a sunny Sunday spring afternoon, Van Cortlandt park was full of people strolling, and several cricket teams in full whites, which made for interesting if rather bewildering spectating. I highly recommend a visit to the park. If you do, definitely venture past the iron fence and see how the Van Cortlandts lived.

For Reference:

Address	Inside Van Cortlandt Park at 246th Street, the Bronx
Website	vchm.org
Cost	General Admission: $5, Free/donation on Wednesdays
Other Relevant Links	The National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York Consider the Fork, a great book on the evolution of kitchens and cooking implements

March 28, 2017January 12, 2018

Dyckman Farmhouse

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	55 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	Jacob Dyckman was the first in his family to go to college, earning a degree from Columbia in 1806. They have his diploma on display in the parlor. Always nice to meet a fellow Columbia man.

The Dyckman Farmhouse is the least fancy historic home I’ve been to so far on this project. Owned by the Dyckman family, who had a large farm at the northern tip of Manhattan, the house is reckoned to have been built around 1783, so it’s also the oldest historic house I’ve been to yet.

The Dyckmans owned it for over 100 years, though they didn’t always live there; for a while they rented it, and it served as an inn for a bit too. As the subway was rolling north and Inwood was urbanizing, descendants of the Dyckmans decided the house should be preserved as a museum. It opened to the public in 1916.

It’s totally different from the fancy, symmetrical, Federal style of the other historic houses I’ve seen so far. Rather it is very basic, 2 stories plus a cellar, simple, small, cozy, and a little threadbare. And like all old houses, seemingly quite crowded and uncomfortable back in the day.

It’s hard to imagine the original surroundings of the house. They built it deliberately close to what was then the Kingsbridge Road (now Broadway). But mentally erasing the apartment buildings, cars, and buses and putting in rolling fields and outbuildings is hard. There’s a tiny plot of green in back and on the sides of the house, with a reconstructed Hessian hut, but it barely begins to evoke the original agrarian setting.

This would be a great opportunity for some augmented reality, though I get the sense that the Dyckman Farmhouse budget probably wouldn’t allow for anything that high tech.

The view from the Dyckmans’ front porch today

I didn’t go on a tour, just walked around the house on my own, and I definitely missed the value of a good guide, who I think would’ve conveyed a better sense of the people who lived there than I got from the room descriptions alone.

The winter kitchen, in the cellar. In the summer they would’ve cooked in a kitchen in a separate building.

I asked about Hamilton, of course, and to my surprise the answer was they’re not aware of any connections with the great man. However, George Washington likely visited the farm at some point. That said, it would be easy and instructive to combine a visit to Dyckman Farm with the Hamilton Grange, providing a contrast of styles between a working farm and a stately country retreat.

For Reference:

Address	4881 Broadway, Manhattan (at 204th St.)
Website	dyckmanfarmhouse.org
Cost	Free/Donation

March 23, 2017March 23, 2017

Gracie Mansion

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	76 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	The name “Margaret” scratched in the glass of the library window. Back in the 1960s, Margaret Lindsay, daughter of Mayor John Lindsay, decided to test whether her mom’s diamond ring was really a diamond. Caroline Giuliani scratched her name in one of the windows, too. Copycat. But I like that in an official house filled with history and art, they’ve allowed those little human touches to remain.

Visiting Gracie Mansion for this project made me realize I knew nothing about Gracie Mansion, beyond the name.

Gracie Mansion is both older and newer than I thought. Older, in that I didn’t realize that the original house was built in 1799, in the classic Federal style I’m coming to know well. Newer in that it only became the official mayor’s residence of the city in 1942. La Guardia was the first mayor to live there; prior to that it served several roles, including as the home of the Museum of the City of New York.

Just inside the front door of Gracie Mansion. The ballroom is through the doors at the top of the stairs. No photos from here on, sorry.

The Executive Director of the Gracie Mansion Conservancy, who was one of the leaders of our tour, described the situation as “Robert Moses wanted to be the mayor’s landlord.” (He was head of the Parks Commission at the time.) And it became so.

I also didn’t know exactly where Gracie Mansion is. I always assumed it was in the East 50s or so. More central. Actually it’s in Carl Schurz Park, high in the East 80s, making it really far from everywhere in the city I tend to go. And a beneficiary of the Second Avenue subway.

Doing the math, this year is the 75th anniversary of the house becoming the mayor’s residence, and so they’ve decorated the public spaces with a great variety of art that hearkens back to the city in 1942, a time of war and jazz, fear and excitement. Weegee photos, a Noguchi scuplture, a 1941 signed Yankees champion baseball, Joe DiMaggio prominently in front…

The house has evolved substantially from its original form, with additions true to the Federal style in the mid 1960s (which apparently was fairly scandalous in a time of architectural modernism, but I can’t imagine a modernist wing stuck on the old house).

As with all buildings over a certain vintage in the city, there is a Hamilton connection, although ironically it’s a recent one. When they built the 1966 addition, they located and installed the mantelpiece from the Bayard Mansion in the new ballroom. Thus Hamilton died post-duel in front of the ballroom’s fireplace. According to Curbed, there’s a chance that Gracie Mansion and Hamilton Grange were designed by the same architect, too.

The tour was excellent, the art on display evocative and well chosen. We got a little rushed, as there was an event going on with the Onassis Foundation that evening in honor of Greek Independence Day, and so we got chased out of the last few rooms. Sadly the mayor did not crash our tour. Still, I appreciated the overview of the history of the building and its evolution, and learned a bit I didn’t already know about LaGuardia and some of the other mayors who lived there. All of the 14 or so people on my tour were New Yorkers, and I strongly encourage everyone who lives here to visit.

For Reference:

Address	E 88th St & East End Ave, Manhattan
Website	www.nyc.gov/site/gracie/index.page
Cost	Free but tours are limited and advanced reservations required
Other Relevant Links	Architectural Digest on the restoration of the mansion under the Bloomberg administration. Despite never living there, he donated a substantial sum to fix up the place. Making Gracie Mansion the mayor’s residence, at Curbed.

March 7, 2017April 11, 2021

The Frick Collection

Edification value
Entertainment value
Should you go?
Time spent	125 minutes
Best thing I saw or learned	Contemporary critics weren’t always kind to JMW Turner, accusing him of being “unrealistic” and using “blinding” light effects. So he painted the story of Regulus, a Roman general who was captured by Carthage and (among other tortures) had his eyelids cut out and was forced to stare at the sun until he was blinded, before being killed. Turner painted a port where you can barely make out Regulus, and dominating the painting is light, light light. Touche, Turner.

UPDATE APRIL 2021: The Frick Collection’s 5th Avenue mansion is closed for the next several years for a major renovation. The good news is Mr. Frick’s art has an temporary home in the old Whitney Building, the former Met Breuer, giving it a chance to recontextualize the art and juxtapose and present its art in exciting new ways. I’ll be writing about it soon, I hope. Spoiler alert: I love it!

This is going to be a hard one to write. I’ve been going to the Frick Collection regularly for over 20 years. I’m a member there. It’s my second favorite museum in New York City (the Cloisters is number one). Everyone needs to go to the Frick Collection.

Henry Clay Frick may have been a plutocrat industrialist, but he had such an eye for art. And the Frick, like the Gardner in Boston or the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, is his collection of art, much of it hung as he liked it, in rooms that were his rooms, now open to the public.

Continue reading “The Frick Collection”