Park Row, New York

I like to imagine being the young woman in Fort Benton, Montana who received this postcard in 1906. It must have seemed  fantastic, nearly unbeleivable. But then again, if you have a  prophetic name like Vista Henderson, maybe not.

At the time, the iconic Park Row skyscraper was the tallest office building in the world.  Note that the sender drew him or herself on the top of the building, along with a message that reads:

How would you like to be at the top of this? In a hotel we stayed at, our rooms were on the 17th floor and the diningroom  was six stories higher up, on the 23.

G.H.

The Park Row Building was built in 1899 and remained the tallest office building until the Singer Building was completed in 1908. Currently, the building is a mixture of commercial and residential uses.

The message on the front of this card, sent to Jessie M. Gray in Portland, Oregon, reads:

6/13/07

Dear Jessie:

I am expecting a letter. Having a fine time on Coney Island tonight. Saw a girl in the theatre last night looked like you. Don't work too hard is my advice to all young people. how is "Oregon" hotel overtime. Regards "Jimmie"

Here are two additional views of the building.

And here are the backs of the cards in the same order.

Wingspread

Lazy blogger that I am, I have enlisted my resident architect to provide us with text for this post. He is after all the expert. We are just back from a trip to Wisconsin where we visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Wingspread and a number of other Frank Lloyd Wright houses.

Here's Wingspread from above. We were given an in-depth private tour of Wingspread and left to wander around and take pictures for as long as we wanted.

Here's what the architect who steals my covers has to say about it:

Frank Lloyd Wright was definitely flying high in 1937 when he designed Wingspread, the +/- 14,000 SF home for Herbert Johnson, president of S.C. Johnson & Son.  Only a few years earlier, Wright was largely forgotten by the architecture world - some even thought he had died - his commissions having dried up after the 1915-1923 Imperial Hotel project (see earlier post), the result of personal scandals and society’s tastemakers rejecting the Prairie Style that Wright had championed starting in 1893.

One project had given life to the second great phase of Wright’s career, Fallingwater, the iconic 1935 country house that catapulted him to the cover of Life magazine and world-wide fame.  Over the next two years, he would create the first Usonian house (the Jacob’s residence), his own incredible desert home and studio at Taliesin West, and the stunning headquarters for Johnson Wax in Racine, Wisconsin.  The next 20 years were the most prolific period of his career, with more than 200 of Wright’s designs constructed.

During the construction of the headquarters, Johnson hired Wright to design him a new home on a large tract of land north of Racine.  A ‘zoned’ plan, four wings containing different private functions- master suite, children’s bedrooms, guest bedrooms/garage, and kitchen/service- extend into the landscape from a central 3-story great hall with living, dining, library and music areas spiraling around a chimney mass with five fireplaces.   

Wingspread - Great Hall

Wingspread - Great Hall

While the name Wingspread was derived from this layout, the glass cupola of the house also provided a location for the Johnson children to watch their father do fly-bys piloting his private plane. 

View from cupola

Spiral stairs to cupola

Many of Wright’s projects had wing-like roof or balcony projections seeming to defy gravity, but The Spring Green restaurant actually used steel trusses from the flight deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier to allow the building to span a small ravine.  It is currently used as the visitor’s center for Wright’s original Wisconsin home, Taliesin, located nearby.    

Spring Green

Fly on over to Sepia Saturday to look at more views on flight.

Metropolitan and Not-so-Metropolitan Operas

The Metropolitan Opera was not the first opera house in New York. There was a smaller, more exclusive one, the Academy of Music, but it catered exclusively to the old-money families and excluded the new rich, such as the Vanderbilts, the Roosevelts, and the Morgans. There were two-short-lived opera houses before the Academy of Music too, the Italian Opera House and the Astor House. When the Metropolitan Opera House opened at 1411 Broadway in 1883, it quickly became the opera house, and the new rich were able to see and be seen.  Here is the Met in a pre-1907 view:

It nearly burned down in 1892, but was rebuilt and reopened in 1893. The Met remained at its original location until the opera company moved to Lincoln Center in 1966. The building was demolished in 1967. I have never been to the Met, but I have been to a few of the live in HD performances at a local movie theater.  I'm sure it doesn't compare to being there in person, but I recommend it anyway.

So, while New York City was building itself an opera house in 1883, what was happening up in the  Amazon rainforest? It turns out that they were finalizing plans to build an opera house there too. While they started construction at about the same time, the process in Manaus, Brazil was a lot slower. Building materials, including marble for the stairs, columns and statues, were imported from Europe. The first performance, Ponchielli's La Giaconde, took place in 1897. No expense was spared though, resulting in a lavish building with electric lights, all funded by riches from the rubber industry. My friend Karin visited the place and sent me this picture of the Teatro Amazones.

Karin also mentions that: The pavement in the plaza in front of the Teatro is by Roberto Burle Marx, a famous landscape architect.  It represents the ‘meeting of the waters’ where the black Rio Negro and the latte-colored Rio Solimoes meet, just outside of Manaus.

Here is a gallery of photos from the Teatro Amazones.

And here's the back of the first card.

I'm at the Imperial Hotel. Where are You?

The architect who steals my covers recently returned from the annual Frank Lloyd Wright conference with this piece of memorabilia.

 

I'm re-posting the card from a previous post that shows the hotel itself, along with the background information.

At the turn of the century, there was an increased demand for rooms for foreign visitors to Japan. In order to meet that demand, a directive was issued to build the Imperial Hotel. Frank Lloyd Wright was hired for the project in 1916. He designed just about every aspect of the hotel, including doorknobs and carpets.

According to the architect who steals my covers, these are some of the significant aspects of the hotel:

1. The job was an important one for Wright because he had no work at the time. He was still recovering from the murder of his mistress Mamah Borthwick-Cheney, who had been hacked to death with a hatchet along with her two children at Wright's house at Taliesin. The murder was committed by one of Wright's servants, who had just served them lunch moments before. After that, the servant also burned down Wright's precious Taliesin house. Frank Lloyd Wright was at his office in Chicago at the time. The scandal of the affair with Borthwick-Cheney and her subsequent murder diminished Wright's appeal to prospective clients.
2.  The Imperial Hotel managed to withstand the great Kanto earthquake in 1923, which destroyed just about every other building in the vicinity.
   
3. The hotel was demolished in 1967 because the property values were so high that a two-story building simply didn't make financial sense. The center part of the building was preserved and reconstructed at the Meiji Mura Museum, an outdoor architectural museum in Inuyama.

Revolving Beach House

This was touted as the house of the future, a house that could rotate to take advantage of the sun.  Although it has yet to become the rage, rotating houses are still being built. You can determine the speed, from one rotation every thirty minutes to one every 24 hours. I can't help but imagine a malfunction that sends the house into a high-speed spin and pins the occupants against the exterior walls, but I'm sure that never happens.

Give My Regards to Broad Street

O.K., that's not how the song really goes.  The real chorus is:

Give my regards to Broadway, remember me to Herald Square,

Tell all the gang at Forty-Second Street, that I will soon be there;

Whisper of how I'm yearning to mingle with the old time throng;

Give my regards to old Broadway and say that I'll be there ere long.

Is there a song about Broad Street? If so, I'm not aware of it. As important as the street may be, it probably doesn't inspire the enthusiasm that Broadway does. Broad Street is in the center of Manhattan's financial district, but long ago it was the Broad Canal. Traders could bring their goods into the city via boat or canoe before it was filled in in 1676.

Here are three postcards from different eras, all taken around the intersection of Broad Street and Wall Street. The first one is an early view by the American News Company, looking up Broad Street towards Federal Hall.

If you could walk up the street and turn left at the Federal Hall onto Wall Street, you would have seen a view similar to this, with Trinity Church at the end of the street.

The third picture is from the same general area as the second, but from a number of years later and taken from a different direction.

Here are the backs of the cards in the same order.

Venice, Italy

Here is another postcard from the former collection of the Walker & Weeks architecture firm. I imagine that they traveled all over Europe, collecting postcards of buildings that inspired them.

Here we have the beautiful Piazza San Marco and a similar view many years later. Yours truly, striking a pose.

And then the Piazetta - and the same approximate view on a less sunny day.

Did we forget to smile? Were they sold out of gelato at the corner store? Were the pigeons attacking someone? Oh, what could be the matter? Will someone please help these people!
Tired of looking at pigeons? You may want to go check out dogs and cats at Sepia Saturday.

Broadway - Portland, Oregon

This section of Broadway in Portland has never been my favorite.  It seems stark and traffic oriented, although it looks a little more appealing in this early 1900s view. On the left, you see the Hotel Oregon, which no longer exists. An annex was built onto the Hotel Oregon in 1913, and was initially called the New Oregon Hotel and later the Benson Hotel. In 1959, the original Hotel Oregon was demolished to make way for a new addition to the Benson Hotel.

At the time this postcard was printed, the U.S. National Bank Building (below on the right) had not yet been built.  It was completed in 1917,with major additions in 1925. A.E. Doyle, the building's architect, was a devoted classicist who also designed Portland's Central Public Library, the Meier & Frank Building, the Lipman Building, the original Reed College buildings, and the Benson Hotel.
Here's the modern view:

View Larger Map

And here's the back of the card, with a message to Viola in Grant's Pass, Oregon that reads:

Dear Viola

Thanks for the seeds. I shall look patiently for the pretty flowers. I do think Asters are such choice flowers. Haven't heard from your mother since she left guess she is having the time of her life. I guess Vada is pretty well considering.  _______will have another job with time. Celia

Central Bus Depot - Portland, Oregon

I bought this card for several reasons: 1. It makes a bus depot look stylish. 2. It's in Portland, where I live 3. The message on the back is typed. It's not that I don't like handwriting, but there's something amusing about a typed postcard - and typing allows the sender to write a longer message. And, of course, it's so easy to read.

The depot was there until 2000, although at that point it was no longer used as a bus depot. The building became the venue for various nightclubs after a new bus depot was built in the 1980s. Over the years, it gradually became fairly seedy and was eventually slated for demolition.  Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club,  also wrote a book entitled Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk In Portland, Oregon, where he recounts a late-night illicit party in the abandoned depot building. He describes how people rolled bowling balls down makeshift lanes of votive candles. Instead of bowling pins, the targets were china and  knick-knacks from junk stores. He also describes running through tunnels that connected the bus lube pits.

The card was sent to Corporal Lute H. Defrieze during World War II when he was stationed at Camp Adair, just north of Corvallis, Oregon. Part of Camp Adair is now a wildlife area, and another part of is the city of Adair Village, with a population of about 1,000.

The sender, F.K.M., had an office in the Lumbermen's Building, which is now on the National Register of Historic Places and known as the Oregon Trail Building. It's about five blocks up the street from where the bus depot used to stand.

Tampa, Florida

Newberry's, a Kress store, great old cars, a streetcar...what more could you want?

Iconic New York

Never mind the Empire State Building, the Flatiron Building is the ultimate icon of New York.  Or is it the Brooklyn Bridge? Or the Statue of Liberty?  Well, my vote is for the Flatiron Building, but if you ask me tomorrow I may have a different answer.

 

This is from the set of tiny  (1.75" x 2.75") cards, one of which I featured recently (the Brooklyn Bridge.) Although the Flatiron is my favorite, the others are also nice.

The Empire State Building would look more impressive if they hadn't cut the top off. This probably should have been a vertical shot.

And here's another view of the Brooklyn Bridge, this time from below.

And finally, the George Washington Bridge.

Start Drinking

Most postcards that feature the inebriated also include a streetlight. There's often a moon too, but not in this case.

Then there's the guy who just soaks it up in the barrel. By the way, don't try this at home or anywhere else. There are reports of people dying from the fumes after going in to clean out empty brandy vats.

And then there's the guy in Portland, Oregon - did he die or just lose interest in drinking? He saved a whole lot of drink chips from the 60s and 70s from all kinds of taverns in Portland, most of which are not around anymore.  I bought these for 25 cents at a garage sale in a plastic Cool Whip tub with "Dick's Chips" written on the top in felt pen. It's part of Portland's history.

Here are some of the names of the old Portland taverns, in case you can't read them off the scan:
The Boondox Tavern, Y-Not Tavern, Mary Jo's, Little Apple Tavern, Ace Tavern, Spur Tavern, B&I Tavern, Spanish Inn, Hal & Thelma's, Hals' Tavern (uh-oh, what happened to Thelma?),  Pal's Shanty (still there!), The Table, Happy Days Tavern, Pakana, Picadilly Inn, Hour-Glass Tavern, Game Cock Tavern,  Hole in the Wall, Punjab Tavern, Hook & Ladder, Seahorse Tavern, Big Wheel, Snoopy's Tavern, Etc. Tavern, Red Star Tavern, Jakes' Paris Mugs, Tiny's Cafe, Side Show, and the Sandy Jug.

The Sandy Jug is still there, but it is now called the Pirate's Cove.  People still refer to it as the Sandy Jug, because it's on Sandy Blvd, it's shaped like a jug, and it's been there since the 1920s.  Here's what it looks like.

 Photo courtesy of Por Stanton.

Indianapolis, Indiana

I realized that I have yet to post any postcards from Indiana, so here they are. with my apologies for neglecting this state.

I notice that Indianapolis has some very interesting names for its high schools. Broad Ripple High School was originally in the town of Broad Ripple before it became part of Indianapolis, so that's where that name originated. Crispus Attucks High School was named after a black laborer, killed at the Boston Massacre in 1770 and regarded as a revolutionary hero. Arsenal Technical High School campus still has many of the early building from the days when it was originally a U.S. Civil War arsenal.

There is also some very imposing Art Deco architecture. The coliseum, now known as the Pepsi Coliseum, was built in 1939 replacing an earlier building from 1907.  In 1960, John F. Kennedy spoke to a capacity crowd here.  In 1963, it was the scene of a horrific explosion when a propane tank ignited during the opening night of the Holiday on Ice show, killing 74 spectators. In 1964, you could have attended the Beatles concert at the Coliseum for $5.

And then there's the Cadle Tabernacle, built in 1921 by revivalist Howard Cadle, who redeemed himself from a life of gambling and drinking to preach a message of fire and brimstone. He based the building design for the tabernacle on the Alamo.  The tabernacle and Cadle's radio show were successful enough that they enabled him to have a Cadillac and an airplane during the Depression, when most people were just barely getting by. After Cadle's death in 1942, the tabernacle quickly fell into decline and was rented out for events such as Shortridge High School graduations and Klu Klux Klan rallies.

The tabernacle was eventually razed in 1968.  Now, the Firehouse Square Condos stand in its place.