New York – ALL I NEED IS MY PASSPORT

Hudson Yards, The High Line and the 9/11 Memorial

Oct 162022

October 6, 2022

The Vessel at Hudson Yards

If one begins the High Line at West 29th you start at Hudson Yards. While Hudson Yards if filled with many attractions, the reason I was there was to see the Vessel. The Vessel is a spiral staircase, designed as an interactive piece of art by Thomas Heatherwick of Heatherwick Studio. Sadly, after becoming a suicide destination it is closed.

The piece is comprised of 154 intricately interconnecting flights of stairs consisting of almost 2,500 individual steps and 80 landings.

After having visited the Coulee Vert in Paris and writing about it, of course I had to walk the High Line.

The High Line took many years to come to fruition and like so many grand places in New York it was originally destined for demolition.

In the 1800s freight trains on street-level tracks, ran by New York Central Railroad, delivering food to lower Manhattan. The dangerous conditions created for pedestrians caused 10th Avenue to became known as “Death Avenue.” By 1910, more than 540 people had been killed by trains.

The tracks still run along the path and can be enjoyed in many locations

In the 1930s trains began running on the High Line—which was then called the “West Side Elevated Line.” The line was fully operational by 1934 and transported millions of tons of meat, dairy, and produce cutting directly through some buildings, creating easy access for factories like the National Biscuit Company (aka Nabisco), which is now where you can find Chelsea Market.

Thanks to the trucking industry, the train’s usage began dwindling in the 1960s and found itself out of use by the 1980s. The early 2000s saw a desire to both tear it down and preserve it. After considerable input by many organizations the High Line was saved and the first leg opened in 2009.

The thing this author loved more than anything was the public art found all along the way.

Women and Children by Nina Beier

Pomme d’hiver by Claude and Francois Lalanne

A mural on a building in one of the neighborhoods along the way

Fun architecture you see as you wander the High Line

A view of the Empire State Building from the High Line

The End of the High Line at Gansevoort

Just one block away from the High Line end at Gansevoort, is Washington Commons, a residential complex with a sweet public area to enjoy. It is a wonderful place to just sit and let your feet recover.

Washington Commons Public Area

The 9/11 Memorial Area

One of two 9/11 Memorial Pool

The area which includes the two identical Memorial Pools was designed by architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker.

The pools are called Reflecting Absence. The largest waterfall in North America cascades 30 feet down into the reflective pools. Massive pump rooms collect all that water, treat it and send it back to the top at a rate of 24,000 gallons per minute.

The North Pool

The names of the 2,983 people who were killed in the 2001 and 1993 terrorist attacks are inscribed on bronze parapets edging the memorial pools. The names are grouped by the locations and circumstances in which victims found themselves during the attacks. The North Pool parapets include the names of those who were killed at the North Tower, on hijacked Flight 11, and in the 1993 bombing. The South Pool parapets include the names of first responders as well as victims who were killed at the South Tower, on hijacked Flight 175, at the Pentagon, on hijacked Flight 77, and on hijacked Flight 93.

The South Pool

The Sphere

As a sculpture lover I had to go hunting for The Sphere. Originally a cast bronze sculpture by German artist Fritz Koenig, it was commissioned for the old World Trade Center and completed in 1971. It stood on the Austin J. Tobin Plaza until the September 11 attacks. The sculpture survived the attacks with relatively little damage. It was relocated to Liberty Park, adjacent to the Memorial, in 2017, and stands as a testament to the horrendous day in New York City’s history.

I had one day in New York City, I had never seen either of these, it was a great way to spend the day.

Byrdcliffe

Woodstock

Jul 122019

Woodstock, New York

Byrdcliffe was founded in 1902 near Woodstock, New York by the husband and wife team of Jane Byrd McCall and Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead along with colleagues, Bolton Brown (artist) and Hervey White (writer). It is the oldest operating Arts and Crafts Colony in America. Byrdcliffe was created as an experiment in utopian living inspired by the arts and crafts movement.

The colony, still in operation today, is located on 300 acres with 35 original buildings, all designed in the Arts and Crafts style.

The Theater

Planned in 1902 by Bolton Brown to house the Byrdcliffe School of Art. The large studio room, with magnificent lighting from the North, was used for painting classes, exhibitions, concerts, dance performances, and social events. The west wing once housed Ralph Whiteheads 5000 volume library. Today it is used as a theater for the performing arts.

The Villetta

The Villetta was built in 1903 as a boarding house for students. It operated as the French Camp for Children during WWII. It is now the home of the Artist in Residence program. The building once had a laundry, a wood room and servants quarters behind it.

Eastover

Eastover is one of Byrdcliffe’s largest homes, it was built in 1904-5 as faculty housing. It has been the home/studio of Chevy Chase, The Band and artists Sally and Milton Avery.

Sunrise

Sunrise is the very first residence on Byrdcliffe to receive the morning sun. Built in 1903 it was designed by Edna M. Walker and Zulma Steele.

Zulma Steele (1881–1979) was one of the first residents at the Byrdcliffe Colony and was considered one of the most talented students to come there. In 1903, she and Edna Walker, who both had recently graduated from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, arrived in Woodstock to work in the furniture shop.

Steele was one of the pioneering women of the Arts and Crafts movement and Modernism in New York. American arts journalist for the New York Times Grace Glueck noted that Steele was a “progressive-minded artist and artisan whose work was considered avant-garde.” She married a farmer, Nelson Parker, in 1926. After he died in 1928, Steele traveled extensively in Europe. She returned to upstate New York, where she died at the age of 98.

Serenata

Serenata is a year-round residence and studio.

The grounds were designed with the concept of beauty and mindfulness, even the water was captured in an artistic way to be enjoyed as it flowed down the mountain.

The car garage now the jewelry studio

Robin the Hammer is an instructor of jewelry in Woodstock. He created much of the jewelry worn by rocker Billy Idol in this studio He also created the High Times Cannabis Cup, awarded in Amsterdam every year

Fleur de Lis is another year-round residence and studio

The remains of the Old Kiln Shed built in 1914 by Ralph Whitehead as a pottery studio.

In 1913 Jane took a ceramics course at the University of Chicago and then studied in Santa Barbara under Frederick Hurton Rhead. Throughout the mid-1920’s both Jane and Ralph created pottery along with the Byrdcliffe potters, Edith Penman, and Elizabeth Hardenburgh. They created their own line called White Pines Pottery.

White Pines

White Pines was designed by Ralph Whitehead and Bolton Brown. It was built in 1903 for the Whitehead family. This was the heart of the colony where such guests as poet Wallace Stevens, authors Will Durant and Tomas Mann, naturalist John Burroughs and journalist Heywod Bround regularly visited. The building is the quintessential example of the Byrdcliffe Arts and Crafts style.

The fireplace of White Pines

Jane was the cousin of Henry Chapman Mercer founder of Moravian Tile Works in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He created the blue-green tiles.

A dining set made at Byrdcliff with the trademark Fleur de Lis carved on the end legs.

A clock made at Byrdcliff – The furniture enterprise only lasted three years, ending in 1905.

The Loom Room was added to White Pines in 1905.

The loom room gave the colony a large, open, workspace for the production of hand-woven items. There is a fireplace at one end, and once had a stove for dye pots, drying racks and looms.

The fireplace in the loom room. The Greek saying has been interpreted as a Sophocles saying “Love Begets Love”

Ralph Whitehead came from an extremely wealthy family in England who owned the Royal George Mills in Saddleborough. He studied at Oxford with John Ruskin, the father of the English Arts and Crafts Movement. He attempted to study with William Morris, the English designer and a leader in the English Arts and Crafts movement, but as he wrote to his wife “Morris will not take me as a pupil -nor canst I got to him now – he thinks tapestry is too difficult for me which by my own confession I have no artistic faculty, I agree”. Whitehead did eventually learn rug making under the teaching of Byrdcliffe weaver Marie Little.

Jane Byrd McCall came from a prominent Philadelphia family. Jane was a descendant of founding fathers William Byrd and George Mason, her father, Peter McCall, was mayor of Philadelphia and a professor of civil law at the University of Pennsylvania. From an early age, Jane and her sister traveled back and forth from Europe, where Jane studied art at Oxford with John Ruskin and fine arts in Paris at the Académie Julian. After the sister’s presentation to Queen Victoria in 1886, Jane practiced art and held a salon for European nobility and gentry, intellectuals and artists at Albury House in Surrey. She met Ralph in Italy during her travels.

The Whiteheads’ marriage was based on an idea of a shared vision for a life lived apart from the real world, surrounded by beauty and useful work in the arts.

Byrdcliffe was left to Peter Whitehead, the only surviving son. He bequeathed Byrdcliff and its remaining assets to the Woodstock Guild of Craftsmen. In 1979 Byrdcliffe became a National Register Site for its Historical and architectural importance.

Lake Mohonk Mountain House

Mohonk

Jul 102019

New Paltz, New York

The ten-room inn, Stokes Tavern and surrounding acreage on Lake Mohonk were purchased by Albert Smiley kicking off the beginning of what today is Mohonk Mountain House Retreat.

The ten-room inn was renovated and expanded, and the Mountain House underwent a gradual change into the Victorian edifice that stands today. The facility opened with accommodations for 40 guests in June of 1870. Over the years that followed, rooms and buildings were added, then torn down and rebuilt as needed.

There is no single architectural style reflected in the sections of the Mountain House. Using various materials (stone was an early favorite due to concerns about fire safety), they contribute to an eclectic mix of styles that help achieve the fairytale look of Mohonk Mountain House.

A two-story gazebo-like structure stands in the middle of the garden

One of the wood fences in the garden

Just one of many stone structures found on the property

Sky Top Tower

Sky Top Tower was “erected in grateful memory of a man whose exalted character and useful life stand as a beautiful example to mankind.” That man is Albert K. Smiley, who lived from 1828 to 1912 and founded the Mohonk Mountain House with his twin brother, Alfred. The memorial tower was built in 1921. You can climb to the top of the tower and get a fabulous view of the Shawangunk Ridge.

The Shawangunks of southeastern New York are a long, high ridge that rises west of the Hudson River, and runs southwest as far as Virginia. Pronounced shuh-WAN-gunk, or SHON-gum by locals, the “Gunks” are known widely for their dramatic cliffs and landscapes, dwarf pine barren forest ecosystems, “ice caves”, and classic rock climbing.

The rocks of the Shawangunks are chiefly made of sedimentary conglomerate and sandstone, with a small amount of shale. They were initially deposited as quartz gravel and sand, eroded from the Appalachian mountains over several million years.

The rocks consist of quartz pebbles and/or sand grains cemented together by quartz.

The Sky Tower as seen from the other side of the valley. The area was split in two by an earthquake and then carved out by a glacier.

Mohonk Lake is in better shape than many of the sky lakes in the area as the glacier cut through to the sediment layer allowing for a small leakage of water through the soil keeping it from becoming too acidic.

One of many critters found wondering the property

The bridge to the middle of the Lily Pond, part of one of many hiking trails throughout the property

The Lake Lounge is a designated historic site as the room is built from extinct American Chestnut

The National Historic Landmark Program’s “Statement of Significance”, regarding the awarding of the site’s historic landmark designation in 1986, reads:

Begun in the 1870s as a small resort for family and friends by the Smiley brothers, it became so popular that it was enlarged many times. Because of the Smileys’ love of the outdoor life, the area around the hotel was treated as an integral part of the attractions of the resort. Much of this area was planned as an experiment in conservation of the natural environment, and as an educational tool for the study of botany, geology, and outdoor living.

One of the over 120 Summer Houses at Mohonk Mountain House

One of the lasting traditions at the Mohonk Mountain House is to place covered benches called summerhouses along the many miles of hiking trails that emanate from inn’s lake and estate.

Patterned after the summerhouses of English and French estates, summerhouses were popular in the Hudson Valley area when Mohonk was founded in 1869. Mohonk’s founders, the Smiley Brothers incorporated the summerhouses into the system of carriage roads (now trails) that they built around the Mountain House, situating them where guests could enjoy sublime views of the surrounding countryside.

All of the summerhouses on the Mountain House’s property are unique, with no two exactly alike. When they were first built in 1870, the summerhouses were built by rustic carpenters, usually farmers without any carpentry training, who used local materials from the surrounding forest to build them. While the Smiley brothers specified the placement of each summerhouse, there were no engineering drawings to specify what they should look like. Instead, each builder was left to use their imagination to determine their appearance, a tradition that continues at Mohonk today.

The earliest tally of summerhouses, dated in 1917, recorded 155 summerhouses at Mohonk. Each one is identified by a four-digit number etched on an oval tag nailed inside each house. The newer tags also have the year they were either built or rebuilt, something that must be done every 25 years or so depending on the house’s exposure to the weather. The tags in the newer houses can be found above the doors.

Today the builders are putting their initials in the houses, this one was by Cody

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Artists Colonies of the East Hudson Valley

New York, Woodstock

Jul 082019

Artist Cemetery
Woodstock, New York

The Woodstock Artists Cemetery is officially operated by the Woodstock Memorial Society, the original 80 ft. by 100 ft. plot of land was purchased by John Kingsbury following the tragic death of his son. Additional land was purchased and the Woodstock Memorial Society was incorporated on November 4, 1934.

In an effort to preserve the natural beauty of the landscape, the founding members sought to limit traditional symbols of grief. As a result, conventional tombstones and other visual intrusions were prohibited. As is still the case today, graves are marked only by ground-level stones, many crafted from native bluestone.

The Penning sculpture stands at the highest point of the hill. The poem, penned by Dr. Richard Shotwell reads: “Encircled by the everlasting hills they rest here who added to the beauty of the world by art, creative thought and by life itself.”

Shotwell was a Columbia professor, who attended the Paris Peace Conference at the end of World War I and helped draft the United Nations Charter after World War II.

The only other above ground structure permitted is the memorial honoring the life of Byrdcliffe founder Ralph Whitehead and his family. Woodstock became a draw for artists in 1902 because of Byrdcliffe, which was one of the country’s first intentional arts communities.

The cemetery is the final resting place for artists as diverse as Robert Koch, the Academy-Award-winning screenwriter of Casablanca; American modernist painter Milton Avery; WPA muralist Ethel Magafan, children’s book author Paula Danziger; and pianist Richard Tee, who played on Paul Simon’s “Slip Slidin’ Away.”

The legacy of some artists buried there has endured while the names of others, once well known, have become obscure, such as this grave of Clinton Woodbridge Parker.

Bolton Brown, carved his own birth and death years (as he felt the end approaching) into a boulder for his grave marker.

Brown was an artist, Lithographer, and Mountaineer. Brown was one of the founders of the Byrdcliffe Colony. He attended Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, where he received his Masters Degree in Painting. In 1891 he moved to Stanford, California to create the Art Department at Stanford University and was head of the department for almost ten years, but was dismissed in a dispute over his use of nude models in the classroom. Mount Bolton Brown in the California Sierras, is named in his honor.

The Sculpture Garden of
The Woodstock School of Art

In 1996, Pascal Meccariello, from the Dominican Republic, Alan Counihan, and Colm Folan, from Ireland, and husband and wife Hideaki and Eiko Suzuki, from Japan, were part of the Woodstock School of Art Sculpture Residency. They each picked various sites in the woods behind the school and created beautifully intricate sculptures, mostly of stacked bluestone.

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Opus 40
50 Fite Rd
Saugerties, NY

Opus 40 is the work of just one man, Harvey Fite. The sculpture, made of bluestone from the local quarries, covers 6 1/2 acres

Fite created Opus 40 by hand. The work, which he said would take him 40 years (thus the name), consisted of ramps, stairways, pools, moats and other configurations carved in the bluestone. It was to be completed in 1982, but Fite died three years prior in an accident.

Mr. Fite, studied art at St. Stephen’s College and in Florence, Italy, where he studied with Corrado Vigni.

His works are on display in the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Albany Institute of History and Art. In 1938 Fite was commissioned by the Carnegie Institution in Washington to restore ancient Mayan sculpture in Copan, Honduras. His work was shown in 1953 and 1954 as part of the Department of State traveling group shows in Europe and Africa.

Opus 40 was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001 and has been described in Architectural Digest as “one of the largest and most beguiling works of art on the entire continent.” * *