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English

Portel is a Portuguese town in the District of Évora, Alentejo and Central sub-region of Alentejo, with about 2 800 inhabitants.

It is the seat of a municipality with 601.15 kilometers ² and 8 109 inhabitants (2001), subdivided into 8 districts. It is bordered to the north by the Municipality of Évora, east of Évora, southeast by Moura, Vidigueira the south, southwest of Cuba and west of Viana do Alentejo.

The town of Portel was founded in 1261 and received charter county in 1262.

History

St. Mary or Our Lady of the Lake

It was the year 1257, Lisbon on 28 June, when the King Alfonso III ordered the Municipality of Évora to hand over to D. John Peres Aboim, Rich Man, his vassal and Butler-Mor, the lands that now constitute the end of Portel. On 18 October 1261 was authorized by the king to build a castle and fortress, thus laying the foundations of the current town of Portel. On 1 December 1262, D. John and his wife Aboim D. Afonso Navy grant to residents of the new town of Portel letter of charter with the forums and customs of the city of Evora.

Deceased D. John Aboim fit the town of Portel, an inheritance to his son D. Pedro Eanes that came to deliver his sister Maria Eanes. This and her husband exchanged it for other lands, with the King Dinis. This landlord owned the town of Portel and castle until April 1331. Subsequently became the landlord, respectively, to: Queen Santa Isabel, King Afonso IV, D. Pedro I, and King Friends who donated to Gonçalo Rodrigues de Sousa became this man and mayor of Portel.

During the crisis politico-economic and social discovered in Portugal in the years 1383-1385 and after the s struggles that were fought for the occupation of the throne by King John I, was the town of Portel donated to the disputed D. Nuno Alvares Pereira. It is through his grandson, D. Fernando, 2nd Duke of Braganza, the town of Portel became part of the landlord of the house of Braganza, where he remained until the advent of Liberalism.

In 1510, King D. Manuel reformed the forums and customs of the Charter of charter of 1262 granting the Provincial Portel New Reading.

After the Liberal Revolution of 1820, Portel was integrated in the general administration of the state.

Monuments and tourist attractions-sheet: Medieval castle and walled town;

Churches and Convents (Matrix, Mercy, Holy Spirit, St. Paul and St. António Capuchin) and chapel and church of S. Pedro;

Urban area surrounding the castle and the urban Vale Flores - narrow streets, white houses, chimneys protruding in the majestic facade;

Palaces and mansions of the Republic Square and the Largo 5 October;

In the Town of Portel was attached to the old Town of St. John Baptist Odivelas whose parish church of the patron saint S. John the Baptist and located at Mount St. John is at present in complete ruin.

Português

Portel é uma vila portuguesa, no Distrito de Évora, região Alentejo e subregião do Alentejo Central, com cerca de 2 800 habitantes.

É sede de um município com 601,15 km² de área e 8 109 habitantes (2001), subdividido em 8 freguesias. O município é limitado a norte pelo município de Évora, a leste por Reguengos de Monsaraz, a sueste por Moura, a sul pela Vidigueira, a sudoeste por Cuba e a oeste por Viana do Alentejo.

A vila de Portel foi fundada em 1261, tendo recebido foral de concelho em 1262.

Historia

Santa Maria ou Nossa Senhora da Lagoa

Decorria o ano de 1257, Lisboa a 28 de Junho, quando o Rei D. Afonso III, ordenou ao Concelho de Évora que entregasse a D. João Peres de Aboim, Rico Homem, seu Vassalo e Mordomo-Mor, as terras que passaram a constituir o termo de Portel. Em 18 de Outubro de 1261 foi autorizada pelo soberano a construção de castelo e fortaleza, lançando assim os fundamentos da actual povoação de Portel. A 1 de Dezembro de 1262, D. João de Aboim e sua mulher D. Marinha Afonso concederam aos moradores da nova vila de Portel Carta de Foral com os foros e costumes da cidade de Évora.

Falecido D. João de Aboim coube a vila de Portel, em herança, a seu filho D. Pedro Eanes que a veio a entregar a sua irmã D. Maria Eanes. Esta e seu marido trocaram-na, por outras terras, com o rei D. Dinis. Este possuiu o senhorio da vila de Portel e castelo até Abril de 1331. Passou, posteriormente o senhorio, respectivamente, para: a rainha Santa Isabel, Rei D. Afonso IV, D. Pedro I, e Rei D. Fernando que o doou a Gonçalo Rodrigues de Sousa tornando-se este senhor e alcaide de Portel.

Durante a crise politico-económica e social que surgiu em Portugal nos anos 1383-1385 e posteriormente à s lutas que se travaram pela ocupação do trono por D. João I, foi a vila de Portel doada ao Contestável D. Nuno Alvares Pereira. É, por intermédio de seu neto, D. Fernando, 2º Duque de Bragança, que a vila de Portel passou a fazer parte do senhorio da Casa de Bragança onde se manteve até ao advento do Liberalismo.

Em 1510, El-Rei D. Manuel reformou os foros e costumes da Carta de Foral de 1262 concedendo a Portel Foral de Leitura Nova.

Depois da Revolução Liberal de 1820, Portel foi integrado na administração geral do Estado.

Monumentos e locais de interesse turístico-patrimonial: Castelo medieval e amuralhamento da vila;

Igrejas e Conventos (Matriz, Misericórdia, Espírito Santo, S. Paulo e Stº António dos Capuchos ) e ermida e igreja de S. Pedro;

Malha urbana envolvente ao castelo e malha urbana de Vale Flores - ruas estreitas, casas brancas, chaminés magestosas salientes na fachada;

Casas apalaçadas e brasonadas da Praça da República e do Largo 5 de Outubro;

À Freguesia de Portel foi anexada a antiga Freguesia de S. João Baptista de Odivelas cuja igreja paroquial de orago a S. João Baptista e situada no Monte de S. João se encontra, na actualidade, em completa ruína.

 

House after it was enlarged by George Wilcox. [Photo from State Library of SA: B 43103 (c1885).]

 

Original house built c1856 on land owned by William Martin Letchford, leased 1877 to Robert Rowan Purdon Hickson. Purchased, enlarged & named Eynesbury by George Wilcox 1881, property subdivided 1919, house purchased 1919 by Henry Maxwell Bradford, later converted to flats, leased 1980s by religious group, leased as a school 1990-2001, now private.

 

“District Councils. . . Mitcham. . . [Letter] from W. M. Letchford, for culvert to his entrance on Unley-road, offering to pay half cost of same — to be attended to.” [Register 28 Aug 1872]

 

R Hickson, Lower Mitcham [Adelaide Directories 1878, 1879]

 

“Mr Robert Rowan Purdon Hickson. . . From 1874 to 1881 he was engineer-in-chief of harbours and jetties In South Australia.” [Sydney Morning Herald 29 Jun 1923]

 

“A garden party, followed by a banquet, was given to the Stow Church Choir and their friends on Saturday, October 19, by Mr. and Mrs. George Wilcox, at their residence, ‘Eynesbury’, Lower Mitcham. During the afternoon outdoor games were participated in, and in the evening about forty guests sat down to the spread.” [Evening Journal 21 Oct 1889]

 

“the beautiful grounds of Eynesbury, the residence of Mr. George Wilcox at Mitcham, presented a busy scene when a strawberry fete in aid of the building fond for a new Anglican church at Hawthorn was held.” [Advertiser 15 Nov 1897]

 

“the fine wisteria climbing over Mr. George Wilcox's residence, Eynesbury, Mitcham, shows the enormous growth to advantage. The wisteria is 30 ft. high, and covers a space of over 1,200 ft., and now that it is in full bloom makes a beautiful exhibit.” [Critic, Adelaide 13 Oct 1900]

 

“The late Mr. George Wilcox purchased the property from Mr. Letchford, of the firm of Messrs. Shuttleworth & Letehford in March, 1881, but the owner was not living there at the time, as Capt Hickson, the Engineer for Harbours, was then renting the place. When Mr. Wilcox took possession the whole of the back portion of the land was under vines, but these were subsequently rooted out. The late Mr. Wilcox also imported all the ornate ironwork for the front gates, fence, and balconies. These were purchased by his son, Mr. John Wilcox, while he was in England. The first consignment of .this material went to the bottom of the sea on a sailing ship off the coast of Ireland in 1884, and the duplicate set ordered is that now standing at Eynesbury House.” [Register 8 May 1919]

 

“'Eynesbury House', Unley Road, formerly the residence of the late Sir. George Wilcox. This imposing mansion, which is massively built of stone, is famed throughout Australia for its wonderful wistaria [sic] creeper. The estate, which comprises some 20 odd acres, has just been subdivided, leaving 3 acres of garden surrounding the house, and the balance of the land (together with the beautiful tree-studded paddock adjoining Mr. Alfred Wilkinson's residence) has been surveyed into 66 residential sites, and named 'Kingswood Park'. 'Eynesbury House' contains 12 rooms, also magnificent ballroom (52 x 25 ft.), and extensive domestic offices. For a family residence, a high-class guest home, for residential flats, or for a rest home it would be hard indeed to find its equal. The trustees of the estate (Elder's Trustee & Executor Co.. Ltd., and Mr. Sydney Wilcox) have instructed Messrs. Wilkinson, Panda, & Wyles to dispose of the property by public auction. . . To ensure its sale, the nominal upset price of £1,700 has been placed on ‘Eynesbury House' (with 3 acres).” [The Mail 10 May 1919, p 11]

 

“Eynesbury House. . . The residence of the late Mr. George Wilcox, containing 12 rooms, &c. realised £1,825, the purchaser being Mr. J. Milburn. The iron fencing on the Unley road frontage of the estate was sold separately, and realized the sum of £120.” [Register 29 May 1919]

 

“the following sales by public auction and private contract. . . Account Messrs. Milburn and Jeffery — the well-known two-story residence of 14 rooms, &c., known as Eynesbury House, Kingswood Park, to Mr. H. M. Bradford.” [Register 4 Dec 1919]

 

“Mr. W. M. Bradford, 'Eynesbury', Unley, referring to the 380 ft. of iron palisading, presented to the Town Council by Mr, Willcox [sic]; as he had purchased 'Eynesbury’, he would be pleased to make the Council an offer for 120 ft. of same, as he desired to replace the home as Mr. Willcox left it.” [Bunyip, Gawler 5 Mar 1920]

 

“Mitcham Study Circle. At the invitation of the Misses Humphris, the opening meeting of the Study Circle will be held at Eynesbury House, 69 Victoria terrace, Mitcham.” [Advertiser 23 Feb 1934]

 

“Super U. furn. flats, s.c. 5 or 6 rooms, adults, garage, Eynesbury House, 69 Victoria terrace. L. Mitcham.” [Advertiser 18 Nov 1936 advert]

 

WILLIAM MARTIN LETCHFORD

“At a meeting of the ratepayers, held at the Brownhill Creek Inn, Mitcham. . . Mr. William Letchford was duly elected to serve as a Councillor for the year 1858.” [Register 2 Jul 1858]

 

“LETCHFORD. — On the 16th July, at Lower Mitcham, after 12 hours' illness, Anne, the beloved wife of W. M. Letchford, aged 36 years.” [Register 17 Jul 1872]

 

“the death of Mrs. W. M. Letchford. . . at Mitcham. . . Mrs. Letchford leaves seven young children behind her.” [Register 17 Jul 1872]

 

“LETCHFORD — CHAMBERS.— On the 4th June, at the residence of the bride's father, Mr. Wm. Walker, Parade, Norwood, by the Rev. W. L. Binks, W. M. Letchford, of Lower Mitcham, to Anne, widow of the late Thomas Waterhouse Chambers.” [Advertiser 18 Jun 1874]

 

“For Sale.— The Valuable Freehold Property, known as the Residence of Mr. W. M. Letchford, comprising 18 Acres of Land, on the Unley and Mitcham Road, together with the Excellent Family Residence erected thereon, and Stabling, Storerooms, Wine Cellars, Tanks, and every requisite required.” [Register 1 Jul 1876 advert]

 

“For Sale, or To be Let on Lease, with or without Right of Purchase, the Residence of the undersigned, Grove Villa, Lower Mitcham. . . W. M. Letchford.” [Evening Journal 26 Dec 1876 advert].

 

“At Glenelg fronting the sea wall, a handsome villa residence in the Italian style is being erected for Mr. W. M. Letchford.” Advertiser 10 Jan 1877]

 

“LETCHFORD. — On the 13th December, at Albert-terrace [now South Esplanade], Glenelg, William Martin Letchford, aged 56 years.” [Advertiser 14 Dec 1880]

 

“Mr. W. M. Letchford. . . many years ago established the soap and candle factory in South Adelaide which is now known as Tidmarsh & Co.'s. Since then, for a number of years, he has carried on business as a land and estate agent, and was confidential manager for Mr. T. G. Waterhouse. . . South Australian Carrying Company. . . Equitable Insurance Company, and also of the Equitable Building and Investment Society.” [Register 14 Dec 1880]

 

ROBERT ROWAN PURDON HICKSON

“On Wednesday morning, June 30, the professional and clerical staff of the Department of Harbours and Jetties waited upon the Engineer, Mr. Hickson, in his office, for the purpose of bidding him farewell prior to the dissolution of the department, which was to take effect on the following day.” [Register 3 Jul 1880]

 

“Mr. Robert Rowan Purdon Hickson, I.S.O. . . born in .1842, in County Kerry, Ireland, and served articles as an engineer to James Burton, engineer-in-chief of the principal works in the North of Ireland, He was appointed to take charge of the Carlingford Harbor works in 1864, and was Engineer-in-Chief of Harbors and Jetties in South Australia from 1876 to 1881. In 1881 Mr. Hickson became Resident Engineer at Newcastle. . . President of the Sydney Harbor Trust, 1901-1912. . . He is survived by a widow, 7 children. . . Mrs. W. F. Everett (London), Mrs. E. A. M. Merewether (Newcastle), Messrs. G. F. Hickson (Mildura), R. P. Hickson (Gunnedah), W. L. Hickson (Singleton), C. H. Hickson (Western Australia),. R. M. Hickson (Armidale).” [The Sun, Sydney 28 Jun 1923]

 

GEORGE WILCOX

“WILCOX.— On the 13th April, at Eynesbury House, Lower Mitcham, Annie, beloved wife of George Wilcox (suddenly), aged 57 years.” [Register 14 Apr 1897]

 

“wife of Mr. George Wilcox, of Mitcham. . . was a native of Huntingdonshire, England, and a colonist of over thirty-five years. . . There are two daughters — Mrs McRostie and Miss Wilcox — and three sons, who are in business in Sydney.” [Advertiser 15 Apr 1897]

 

“WILCOX.—On the 5th September, at Eynesbury, Lower Mitcham, George Wilcox, aged 78 years. No flowers by request.” [Express & Telegraph 6 Sep 1917]

 

“Mr. George Wilcox. . . took keen interest in his garden at Mitcham, and was particularly proud of the magnificent wistaria [sic] — one of the finest and largest in Australia — growing against the house.” [Register 6 Sep 1917]

 

“Mr. George Wilcox. . . was a native of St. Neots, Huntingdonshire. He was born in 1838. . . Mr. Wilcox became apprenticed to the grocery trade in England, and in 1858, he came to South Australia and started as a storekeeper at Gawler, where he remained until 1872, when he relinquished business and returned to England for two years. In 1874 he returned to South Australia. . . a business as an export merchant until 1903, when he retired. Subsequently he interested himself only in the Koonamore sheep station in the north-east, which he held in partnership with the late Mr. William Hamilton. . . Two sons (Messrs. Sydney Wilcox, of Adelaide; and Murray Wilcox, of Sydney), and two daughters (Mesdames H. E. McRostie, of Glencoe East, and Miss Wilcox, of Mitcham) survive. Mrs. Wilcox died about 20 years ago.” [Critic, Adelaide 12 Sep 1917]

 

Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

 

The Upper East Side Historic District epitomizes the architectural development of this section of the city in a variety of architectural styles and building types ranging from later 19th-century brownstone rowhouses to mid 20th-century apartment buildings.

 

A striking Victorian Gothic rowhouse, built as one of a group during the Civil War years, may be seen at 129 East 70th Street. When development began in the late 1860s and early 1870s, rows of brownstone houses in the popular Italianate style were built on several of the side streets, as well as on Madison Avenue. During the second wave of development, in the period of recovery from the Panic of 1873, the construction of brownstone houses in the neo-Grec and Queen Anne styles continued on all of the side streets and on Madison Avenue. Often a group of houses on Madison Avenue and the adjacent side street would be developed together. Some houses were oriented to Madison Avenue, generally including the corner -property, while other houses of the group faced the side street.

 

Among the architects active in the area during the period were Breen & Mason, Charles Buek, Charles Graham & Sons, D. & J. Jardine, Edward Kilpatrick-, Anthony Mowbray, William P. Parsons, John G. Prague, Thorn & Wilson, and James E. Ware (see Architect's appendix). Genetally without formal training these architects began their careers as masons, carpenters, or builders. A number of them also acted as real estate developers, buying large parcels of property, subdividing them into 20-foot lots, erecting rows of houses on the property, and then selling them to middle class families. Virtually all of the blocks within the Historic District, with the exception of the Fifth Avenue blockfronts, were initially developed in this speculative manner. Many of these brownstone houses survived only until the early 20th century when they were either replaced by new houses or were extensively altered with completely new facades.

 

Nonetheless excellent examples of rowhouses in the Italianate, neo-Grec, Queen Anne, and neo-RenaiSsance styles—all with brownstone or brick and brownstone fronts—remain almost intact.

 

By the end of the 1890s many large elegant mansions had been erected on Fifth Avenue. Among them were several residences in the picturesque Francois I style of the French Renaissance, which had been popularized in the late 1870s and early 1880s by architect Richard Morris Hunt in his residential designs for the Vanderbilts. Hunt again used the style in creating the mansion of Caroline Schermerhom Astor (1893-95) at Fifth Avenue and 65th Street, as well as the Ogden Mills mansion (1885-87) at Fifth Avenue and 69th Street and the Josephine Schmid mansion (1894-95) at . Fifth Avenue and 62nd Street. Charles Coolidge Haight.was inspired by the style (as well as by the Romanesque Revival style) when designing the Henry 0. Havemeyer residence at Fifth Avenue and 66th Street. Charles Pierrepont H. Gilbert was a prominent practitioner of the style, and several examples of ^ his work in that mode survive on the side streets, despite the disappearance of five of his designs on Fifth Avenue.

 

Another distinguished example of the style is the Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo mansion at 867 Madison Avenue, designed by Francis H. Kimball. The Francois I style, sometimes called the "Fifth Avenue style," became associated with the stretch of the Avenue known as "Millionaires' Mile" and with the wealthy people who commissioned such residences.

 

By the turn of the century the earlier brownstone rows along the side streets began to be interrupted by large impressive mansions. Changes in taste, fostered in part by the romantic classical styles used at the Chicago World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893, brought the demise of the brownstone house in favor of the exuberant Beaux-Arts and the more restrained neo-Renaissance styles.

 

In the years before World War I a number of very distinguished mansions and town houses were built for prestigious individual clients in the Beaux-Arts, neo-Italian Renaissance, neo-French Renaissance, and neo-French Classic styles by some of the city's most important architects. The architects included John H. Duncan, Ernest Flagg, C. P. H. Gilbert, Carrere & Hastings, Charles Coolidge Haight, Richard Howland Hunt, Richard Morris Hunt, McKim, Mead & White, James Gamble Rogers, R. H. Robertson,, William Schickel, Horace Trumbauer, and Warren & Wetmore (see Architects Appendix). Ironically the works of some of these architects no longer survives within the district, as their efforts were concentrated on the design of Fifth Avenue mansions which were later replaced by apartment buildings.

 

Among the outstanding mansions which do survive are : the Edith and Ernesto Fabbri residence (1898-1900) by Haydel & Shepard, 11-13 East 62nd Street; the Orme Wilson residence (1901-03) by Carrere & Hastings, 3 East 64th Street; the William and Maria Schiefflin residence (1898-1900) by Richard Howland Hunt, 5 East 66th Street; the Harold L. Pratt residence (1919) by Delano & Aldrich, 58 East 68th Street; the Henry Clay Frick residence (1914) by Carrere & Hastings, 1 East 70th Street; the Oliver Gould Jennings residence (1897-99) by by Flagg & Chambers, 7 East 72nd Street; the Henry T. Sloane residence (1894-96) by Carrere & Hastings, 9 East 72nd Street; the Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo residence (1896-98) by Francis Kimball, 867 Madison Avenue; the Joseph Pulitzer residence (1903-05) by McKim, Mead & White, 11 East 73rd Street; and the Edward S. Harkness residence (1905) by Hale & Rogers, 1 East 75th Street.

 

These elegant residences and the prominence of the persons associated with them greatly enhance the architectural and historical significance of the district.

 

Many other fine town houses were built on speculation by real estate developers during this period. Among those active in this a area were Jeremiah C. Lyons, W. W. & T. M. Hall, McCafferty & Buckley (who had begun developing brownstone rowhouses in the 1880s), and Daniel Hennessy. While Lyons commissioned such better known architects as York & Sawyer, Ogden Codman, and Buchman & Fox to work for him, the other developers worked with architects who specialized in speculative building. The firm of Welch, Smith & Provot was one of the most prominent of these.

 

- The role of the speculat ive builder in the development of the area was noted by Montgomery Schuyler, writing under the pseudonym Franz K. Winkler,1 and in 1900 the Real Estate Record and Guide wrote:

 

Another important feature of the Fifth Avenue building movement is created by the part the speculative builder is taking in it. Originally begun and still for the most part sustained by architects building for private owners, the speculative builder has seen an opportunity to participate in [the movement}, and in a way reveals the growth of capital employed in commercial building. . . . Building in expectation of finding a new market among multi-millionaires is decidedly a new industry.2

 

It may seem strange that wealthy clients would buy houses that were not built specifically for them, but the speculative builder was able to provide houses that were both individual and ostentatious in design so that they would be representative of the wealth of his affluent clients. The designs of the interiors were, however, often completed in consultation with prospective buyers to meet their individual requirements. The Record and Guide noted: "The speculative builders make allowance for individuality of taste in such matters £and} are leaving the drawing-room, dining-room, and library undecorated, until a purchaser is found and his wife consulted.

 

Whether individually designed for a specific client or built on speculation, the majority of the houses within the district reflect the character and the influence of the Beaux-Arts movement in architecture. In its use of the elements of classical and Renaissance architecture, this movement created architectural examples which were harmonious with each other, yet individualistic and able to symbolically represent the importance and affluence of their residents. The extent of such architectural examples within the district is an important factor in establishing the elegant architectural character of the area and in giving it a sense of place.

 

Another phenomenon important in the architectural development of the area was the practice of altering earlier rowhouses. In 1903, the architectural critic Herbert Croly wrote of the transformation of the 19th-century brownstone residence:

 

In some few cases the reconstruction has gone no further than the destruction of the stoop, the placing of the entrance on the ground floor,. . . but for the most part people demand that the old houses shall be either utterly destroyed or subjected to such a drastic process of purging that every trace of the brownstone is removed. And the process of reconstruction is v covering ground with the utmost rapidity.^

 

This practice was widespread within the historic district in the early years of the 20th century when many brownstone facades were extensively altered from the Italianate, neo-Grec, and Queen Anne styles to the newly-popular Beaux-Arts and neo-Renaissance styles, executed in limestone.

 

A second wave of extensive alteration on the earlier brownstone houses took place between about 1910 and 1925. By this time the neo-Georgian and neo-Federal styles had become very popular, and many houses were altered accordingly. This practice was particularly evident in the blocks adjacent to newly-fashionable Park Avenue. A number of houses, such as the group on the Park Avenue blockfront between 68th and 69th Streets, and the Sara Delano Roosevelt house, 47-49 East 65th Street, were newly-built in these styles. The houses in these styles in the district are among the finest in the City. Among the prestigious architects who specialized in these styles were McKim, Mead & White, who had helped introduce this urban Colonial Revival mode in the 1880s; Charles Piatt; Delano & Aldrich; Walker & Gillette; Mott B. Schmidt; and Cross & Cross (see Architects appendix).

 

Another method of altering brownstone houses became popular in the 1920s and '30s. Architectural detail would be removed from the facade and the brownstone surface smooth-stuccoed and painted. The stoop would be removed and a new entrance created at ground level. Sometime the entrance enframement would have detail inspired by classical sources and a simple roof cornice would be added.

  

Certain types of buildings were constructed in the area of the historic district to serve the wealthy residents. Prominent among them were stables and carriage houses. Located primarily on the blocks adjacent to Park Avenue these utilitarian structures were often designed in styles that reflected the styles of their owners' houses. The Romanesque Revival and Beaux-Arts styles were especially popular for these buildings.

 

Club buildings, too, reflected in their styles those of contemporary residences. The neo-Italian Renaissance Metropolitan Club (1892-95) by McKim, Mead & White, the neo-Federal Knickerbocker Club (1913-15) and the Colony Club (1916), both by Delano & Aldrich, and the neo-Georgian Links Club (1916) by Cross & Cross, are club buildings which enhance the residential qualities of the area.

 

The religious structures in the area reflected changing architectural tastes as well. The Gothic Revival Church of the Resurrection (originally the Church of the Holy Sepulchre) designed by Renwick & Sands, at 115 East 74th Street, is the oldest surviving church in the area. St. James1 Episcopal Church and Phillips Presbyterian Church on Madison Avenue, both designed by R. H. Robertson, were built originally in the Gothic Revival style. St. James Lutheran Church on Madison' Avenue, designed by William A. Potter, was Romanesque Revival in style. Likewise the synagogues in the area—Temple Beth-El, Rodolph Sholom, and Congregation Zichron Ephraim— were designed in the Byzantine-Moorish Revival style. Not all of these buildings survived with changing residential and commercial patterns in the area. St. James Episcopal Church was rebuilt in the more fashionable neo-Gothic style in 1923-24 by Ralph Adams Cram.

 

When Phillips Presbyterian Church merged with the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in 1899, the church building at 74th Street was redesigned in an austere neo-Gothic style by James E. Ware. The two new churches of the 1920s on Park Avenue were built in then-fashionable styles—the Third Church of Christ Scientist in the neo-Georgian style and the Central Presbyterian Church (originally the Park Avenue Baptist Church) in the neo-Gothic style. When Temple Emanu-El was built in 1928-30, its stylized Byzantine design by Robert D. Kohn reflected the tastes of the period.

 

The most important factor in changing the architectural character of the district was the advent of the tall luxury apartment house. Several of these, such as the Verona and the apartment house at 45- East 66th Street, had been built prior to 1910. However, it was the neo-Italian Renaissance apartment house(1910-12) at 998 Fifth Avenue, somewhat to the north of the District, designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White, which made apartment living fashionable for the wealthy. It also set a stylistic trend for those apartment houses which were to follow in the 1920s. Many of the mansions and town houses on Fifth Avenue, as well as rowhouses on Madison Avenue and Park Avenue and stables, carriage houses, and rowhouses on blocks just east of Park Avenue, were sold to realty and development corporations, and large luxury apartment houses were constructed on their sites. Two of the architects most active in the apartment house field were Rosario Candela and J. E. R. Carpenter.

 

Following the stylistic lead of McKim, Mead & White, their designs employed the forms and detail of Renaissance architecture as applied to the tall building. Forms of neo-Georgian and neo-Federal architecture were also popular for apartment houses. By the late 1920s, the Art Deco style was also favored for apartment houses. Examples of this style may be seen in the buildings at 19 East 72nd Street, 778 Park Avenue, and at the Hotel Carlyle. Emery Roth was one architect who actively promoted the style (see Architects' Appendix). Curious as it may seem to modern sensibilities, multiple-family dwellings, whether narrow four or five-story buildings or tall luxurious apartment houses such as these, we're classified as "tenements" in the records of the Department of Buildings through the 1920s.

 

Very few buildings within the district were constructed specifically for commercial purposes. Those that were are located on or adjacent to Madison Avenue. Some are of special architectural interest as the two neo-Georgian/neo-Federal bank buildings at Madison Avenue and 63rd Street and Madison Avenue and 64th Street. The Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company building of 1930 at 35 East 72nd Street, was designed by Cross & Cross in a neo-Palladian style. Not only were these three bank buildings designed in styles that reflect those of contemporary residential architecture, but also their scale is consciously related to that of residential architecture in the area.

 

While the rowhouses on Madison Avenue were not originally designed for commercial use, they have proved to be well suited to those purposes. Beginning as early as 1904, shopfronts began to be installed at the basement and first floor levels of these houses. The shops which conform to the 20-25 foot width of the rowhouses and extend upward two stories from the street, are an important factor in creating the special character of Madison Avenue.

 

The architectural character of the historic district was firmly established by the early 1930s. Picturesque, brownstone rowhouses of the 1860s-80s, Francois I mansions of the 1890s, exuberant Beaux-Arts town houses of the late 1890s and early 1900s, elegant neo-Italian Renaissance, neo-French Renaissance, and neo-French Classic mansions of the pre-World War I years, restrained neo-Georgian and neo-Federal designs of about 1910-25, and luxury apartment houses of the 1920s make this one of the most notable areas of the city. As reminders of an age of wealth and elegance, these buildings are vital elements in the fabric of New York City.

Tottenville, Staten Island, New York City, New York

 

Westfield Township District School No. 5, erected in 1878'(architect undetermined) and enlarged in 1896-97 to plans provided by the architectural firm of Pierce & Brun, demonstrates the strong commitment of the inhabitants of Tottenville to education. As the oldest public school remaining in use on Staten Island, the building recalls the era when such schools on Staten Island were under the jurisdiction of Richmond County and the State of New York. The brick schoolhouse appears to have been designed by a builder or architect familiar with the neo-Grec style. The facade, with its temple-inspired form, incorporates stylized classical elements and incised ornament, while the side walls have a robust rhythm established by pilasters and window openings with denticulated window heads. The growing population of the village and the establishment of a two-year high school department prompted the construction of an addition to the schoolhouse in 1896-97. Pierce & Brun established a T-shaped plan and incorporated signature elements of the original building into an up-to-date scheme with banks of windows and a weII-lighted central stairhall. Denticulated brick window heads and patterned bands, as well as the bracketed wood cornice, unite the two portions of the building into a harmonious whole. The projects, undertaken by the School District Board of Trustees and Board of Education with the approval of district residents, were exercises in local government as well as architectural achievements. The schoolhouse, part of the educational complex in Tottenville, remains in use as the Public School 1 Annex.

HistQfy gfTQtterfe'

 

The southwestern tip of Staten Island (Richmond County), once an important Native American habitation site and burial ground, has a recorded history which dates to the 1670s, when Captain Christopher Billopp built a stone manor house (the Billopp or Conference House, a designated New York City Landmark) and initiated ferry service to Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Billopp's plantation, later enlarged and given the title "Manor of Bentley," was the largest holding in the West Division (later renamed Westfield Township), one of the four precincts into which the county was divided. Following the Revolution, the Billopp property was confiscated by the State of New York, partitioned, and sold; it continued to be used largely for farming and as a base for fishing and associated maritime trades. Gradually the land was subdivided into smaller lots and by the 1840s a hamlet began to form around the ferry landing and the nearby sections of Amboy Road, the path leading to it. The slow-growing settlement soon came to be known as Tottenville, after the prominent family who had erected a wharf, Totten's Landing. Many local residents were engaged in the oyster business and ship-building, which remained leading occupations and mainstays of the area economy into the 1920s, while the waterfront setting and frequent steamer and ferry connections prompted the development of small summer resorts, restaurants, hotels, and other recreation businesses.

 

The completion in 1860 of the Staten Island Railroad, which ran from Vanderbilt's Landing on the island's east shore to a depot near the hamlet's ferry landing, establishing an important link between the developing village and the rest of the island, spurred the growth of an adjacent commercial area. During the subsequent decade, a post office was begun and soon named Tottenville, and the hamlet was officially incorporated as a village — the only one to be chartered on the island's southern and western sections. The village, re-incorporated in 1894, reached a peak of development at the close of the nineteenth century, when many commercial and civic institutions — such as the Tottenville Free Library, several weekly newspapers, the Atlantic Terra Cotta Works, and the Tottenville Copper Company — were established. From the 1870s through much of the present century, Tottenville has been the largest, most populous, and most cohesive settlement in the southern section of Staten Island and has retained its individuality as a suburban village.

 

Common Schools on Staten Island Prior to the consolidation of Greater New York in 1898, the schools on Staten Island were under the jurisdiction of the Richmond County Superintendent of Schools and the State of New York. Though thought of today as public schools - as opposed to private or parochial institutions - they were known as "common schools" throughout the nineteenth century. In 1854, local school districts, organized and numbered by township, were given the power to select sites for schools and raise the money to construct and maintain schoolhouses, in addition to other school supervisory powers. Common school districts received financial support from state sources and school district taxes; some continued to use the rate bill system and assessed parents according to the number of children they sent to school. The Township of Westfield had seven school districts, which were centered on small villages and numbered in order of establishment.

 

During the last half of the nineteenth century, presumably all of the school districts on Staten Island erected schoolhouses, which varied widely since each school district was responsible for its own facilities. The increase in the population on the island throughout that period, however, taxed the adequacy of even the best-planned and largest facilities. During the 1870s, the Village of Tottenville and the Townships of Castleton and Southfield responded to the problem with the construction of substantial brick schoolhouses. During the late 1880s, the inadequate and overcrowded conditions of many of the schools on Staten Island prompted the County Superintendent to report that the public was generally taking a greater interest in schools and education, in contrast to the "good enough" attitude that had prevailed.

 

During the 1890s over twenty district schoolhouses were erected on Staten Island. The growing population and the enforcement of the Compulsory Education Act, adopted in 1894, prompted the school construction boom. Richmond County Superintendent of Schools Julia K. West, who held the position from 1894 to 1898, oversaw most of this construction. West noted in her first annual report that the schools in the county were overcrowded and some were unfit for use. The work on Staten Island occurred at the same time as the extensive construction of schoolhouses throughout New York State during the 1890s. According to a Department of Public Instruction annual report, schoolhouse construction emphasized "aesthetics, convenience, and hygienic provisions" and involved such a spirit of rivalry between districts to erect the most attractive school buildings that even the most parsimonious districts and stolid trustees were unable to oppose the progressive aspect of the times. The Staten Island Independent articulated the effect of the school building campaign, noting that the large brick school built in Tompkinsville was "an ornament to the neighborhood and will reflect great credit on the trustees of the district.,

 

The construction of a school on Staten Island prior to the consolidation of Greater New York in 1898 was an exercise in local government that was directed by the School District Board of Trustees, but included all voting residents of the district. The trustees of a school district board would call a special meeting to entertain the question of constructing a new building. If the vote was favorable, the trustees then appointed a committee to consider sites and make a recommendation to the voters. Once the district acquired a site, a small building committee - usually the trustees and two or three additional members of the community - was appointed; sometimes the trustees commissioned an architect to provide plans and specifications, while in other situations, particularly for larger building projects, the trustees acquired plans through a competition advertised in local newspapers. Once plans were adopted, the district usually issued revenue bonds to finance construction. Both the Kreischerville and Tottenville school buildings were erected by local contractors and furnished with materials acquired from Staten Island merchants.

 

Westfield Township School District No. 5 School districts were established in the townships of Staten Island in 1812, and it appears that a common school existed in the area that became Tottenville by 1822. Local residents recalled an early school that was located in a former chapel and Sunday school building near Richmond Valley (the small hamlet just to the northeast of Tottenville). The Leslie sisters from Nova Scotia operated one of the private schools in the village during in the early 1850s, and the Rollins family owned another. During the mid- nineteenth century there were two schoolhouses in the village, one of which was at Satterlee Street near the western termination of Amboy Road. The other was a two-story brick structure on the north side of Amboy Road, between Wood and Fisher Avenues. That building was remembered as having a single room downstairs for older students and two classrooms upstairs for the intermediate group; the primary class was located in a house across the street.

 

In the early 1870s, the residents of Tottenville began to consider the construction of a larger school house because the existing facility was overcrowded and more classrooms and teachers were needed. Although the residents considered erecting a building with two classrooms across the road from the existing schoolhouse, in 1873 the trustees chose a site for a new school: a large, partially wooded lot of about one-and-one-half acres between Garretson (now Yetman) and Prospect (now Brighton Street) Avenues - which was set back from the south side of Amboy Road. The residents instructed the trustees and members of the building committee to procure plans and specifications for a schoolhouse which was not to cost more than $9,000. After the trustees and the building committee presented the plans for the building, the voters in the school district defeated a proposal to issue revenue bonds for $10,000, and the project was temporarily set aside. In October 1877, the school district decided to move forward with the building program and authorized the trustees to solicit bids for construction of the building according to the plans and specifications on hand, and to issue bonds to raise money for building.

 

The new school opened with an official ceremony on the first Monday of September 1878. Students, parents, and friends heard America sung to the accompaniment of a new organ and remarks from officials, including David C. Butler, president of the board of trustees, who reminded the students of how their parents and neighbors had labored and saved to construct the fine school building and the importance of taking care of it. The students and visitors marvelled at the grandeur of the place, with its high ceilings, spotless floors, extra large blackboards, and heavy sliding glass doors that divided both the upper and lower floors into three large classrooms. Also impressive was the view from the upper windows which extended from Sandy Hook to the New Jersey Hills, prompting the name for the school, "Bay View Academy."

 

In 1895, the school district took actions that confirmed the village's strong commitment to education, as well as the effects of the continued growth of die village population and the Compulsory Attendance Law passed in 1894. It initiated the expansion of the school to include two upper grades which became one of the three high school departments established on Staten Island prior to the consolidation of Greater New York. In July 1896, the district decided to build an addition to the schoolhouse in order to accommodate 200 pupils and to improve the existing structure with a new heating and ventilation system. The newly-established Board of Education in the district commissioned the architectural firm of Pierce & Brun to prepare plans for the addition, which was built by the local contractor, P.W. Wolf & Son. The high school department occupied rooms on the upper floor of the building prior to its merger in 1902 with the Stapleton high school, which in turn was soon replaced with the establishment of Curtis High School in 1904.

 

Village Schoolhouse Architecture' Several nineteenth-century pattern book authors articulated the intent of schoolhouse architecture at that time. Henry Barnard, writing in 1842, asserted that schoolhouses should compare favorably to other public edifices in attractiveness, convenience, and durability, and that the exterior of the building should exhibit good architectural proportions and inspire children and the community with respect for education. In his 1871 volume, James Johnonnot added a "modern style" to the Greek and Gothic modes that he had previously recommended for schoolhouses, and noted that the best buildings had a composite style in which beautiful forms were adapted from any of the classic styles and arranged for convenience. School planners had long acknowledged the importance of lighting, ventilation, and adequate classroom size; in the early 1870s, school designers began to recognize the value of what came to be a signature element of a school architecture: banks of windows in classroom walls. Johnonnot noted that grouped windows not only provided the greatest amount of light, but also gave the opportunity for fine architectural detail. The small brick schools erected in Tottenville and Kreischerville were similar in size to designs recommended for schoolhouses in villages or towns that had two classrooms (for as many as fifty-six pupils) on each floor and often an assembly room in the attic; the buildings usually had separate entrances for boys and girls. In towns throughout the state, wood-framed schoolhouses were much more common than brick structures, and many of the schools erected in the small villages on Staten Island during die 1890s were picturesque wood-framed buildings. District School No. 7 in Kreischerville and the addition to the Tottenville school appear to have been the only brick structures of the smaller schools built on Staten Island during the 1890s, although several of the larger schools in north shore communities were brick. The school district trustees and architects were likely to have chosen that material in 1878 and 18% because of its fire-resistant qualities and its strong association with civic buildings, and to establish the Tottenville school as a small village school built of the finest affordable material.

 

District School No. 5 appears to have been designed by a builder/architect (undetermined) in the "modern style" of the era, which is best characterized as neo-Grec. Stylized references to classical architecture include the suggestion of a Greek-temple facade with a crowning pediment enclosing by an interrupted entablature, the denticulated window heads and bands, and incised ornament on the sandstone entrance and window elements. Pilasters incorporating ventilation flues and window openings with jaunty denticulated heads created a robust rhythm for the side walls of the structure; chimneys originally rose above alternate pilasters, creating a lively roofline. The designer of District School No. 5 acknowledged the convention of incorporating towers in school buildings to further their civic appearance by placing an open belfry on the roof. (See Fig. 1 for a late nineteenth-century view of the building.)

 

For the 1896-97 addition to the school Pierce & Brun skillfully incorporated up-to-date elements of schoolhouse design with the prominent elements of the original structure, such as the denticulated window heads. The central portion of the west-facing facade announces the location of the central stairhall; its large windows are flanked by expanses of classroom walls with no openings. The north- and south-facing end facades of the addition have closely-set windows, suggesting the banks of windows of contemporary school buildings; the joined denticulated window heads appear as a variation of a well-established theme. The intersecting gable roof of the entire structure is united by similar bracketed wood cornices which have interrupted entablatures framing each gable face to suggest pediments.

 

The architectural firm of Pierce & Brun specialized in school design during the mid-1890s. George Henry Pierce established an architectural practice in Long Island City, Queens about 1887. He moved his practice to Manhattan about 1892, where he was joined by Clement Benjamin Brun in a partnership from 1894-97; Pierce practiced in New York City until around 1900. After leaving his association with Pierce, Brun established a partnership with Leo Hauser from 1898 through 1902. The firm had provided plans for a school in Pleasant Plains, Staten Island, and may have become known to the Westfield District No. 5 Board of Education through that project.

 

Pegcriptjop

 

District School No. 5 is a T-shaped structure consisting of the original portion facing Yetman Avenue and a wing added to the west end, on the Brighton Street side of the site. The building is now surrounded by play yards and flanked by other school buildings: Public School No. 1 to the north and Intermediate School No. 34 to the southeast (buildings not included in this designation).

 

The 1878 portion of the school is a rectangular, two-and-one-half-story red brick structure on a raised basement. The main entrance is in the end of the building facing Yetman Avenue; steps (with a replacement pipe-rail balustrade) lead to a pair of doors set in a surround of sandstone with carved impost blocks supporting a pediment-like form with a segmental arch framing the opening. The fenestration of the facade of the building is irregular, with a single window on each side of the entrance, four bays at the second story, and an opening of the same size in the gable face lighting the attic. The window openings have sandstone supporting blocks, sills, and crested lintels that are incised with curvilinear and geometric designs, and (like all of the windows in the building) have four-over-four double- hung wood sash. A bracketed raking cornice at the edge of the gable roof is replicated as an interrupted entablature across the facade, which suggests a pediment form; the break in the entablature allows for the placement of a sandstone plaque inscribed "District School No. 5 Erected A.D. 1878." The bracketed cornice extends along the side walls of the building and longer brackets emphasize the corners. Bands of light-colored brick, with alternating denticulated and sawtooth patterns, extend across the end wall at each story at die height of the sills and just below the lintels of the window openings.

 

The side walls of the original portion of the school building are articulated with pilasters that are corbelled out at the main floor level and rise to the cornice. The narrow bays are nearly filled with window openings which are emphasized with denticulated segmentally-arched light-colored brick heads. The east end bays of the side walls have blocked windows; the pilasters west of those bays have corbelled terminations above low, rectangular window openings at the main floor level. Only two of the chimneys with corbelled caps that originally rose above alternating pilasters remain: one near the east end of the south wall and one near the west end of the north wall. A one-story, flat-roofed, metal-clad service structure extends from the mid-portion of the north wall.

 

The 1896-97 addition on the west end of the building has exterior walls of red brick similar to that of the original portion of the building; its intersecting gable roof is edged with a bracketed cornice which is nearly identical to that on the earlier portion. The facade of the addition facing Brighton Street has a central entrance and stairhall bay topped with an intersecting gable roof with a pediment formed by an interrupted entablature; an oculus window with a denticulated brick surround is centered in the pediment (and those above the end walls). Pilasters, like those that emphasize the corners of the addition, set off the bay. The bay has door and window openings with denticulated segmentally-arched brick heads (similar to those on the original portion of the building). Denticulated bands extend from the entrance arch at impost height across the central bay; the entrance has replacement paired doors. The upper portion of the tall, central window lighting the stairhall is separated by a brick panel from the lower opening, which has a sandstone lintel. The central bay is flanked by blank walls that form the side walls of classrooms. The north and south end walls of the classrooms have banks of five windows separated by narrow brick piers above which the denticulated brick heads join. At the junctures of the wings, external staircases have been added to serve entrances at the upper story which have solid doors. A rectangular chimney rises above the addition near its juncture with the original wing.

 

Subsequent History

 

Westfield District School No. 5 became Public School No. 1, Borough of Richmond, at the time of the consolidation of Greater New York in 1898 when all schools were renumbered. In 1905-06, a new school was erected north of the former Westfield District School No. 5. The New York City Board of Education Superintendent of School Buildings, C.B.J. Snyder, designed the new building (not included in this designation), which became P.S. No. 1. Snyder was the architect responsible for many New York City school buildings (several of which are designated New

 

York City Landmarks), and initiated the period of City-controlled school design in Tottenville. The former District School No. 5 became known as the P.S. 1 Annex. The complex of schools was expanded again with the construction in 1935 of the building south of Academy Avenue that originally housed the Tottenville High School, and is now Intermediate School No. 34 (also not included in this designation). The former District School No. 5 building has remained an integral part of this educational complex and currently houses classrooms and a small gymnasium on the main floor of the original portion of the building.

 

- From the 1995 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

A picture from the Library of Congress, taken at Morgan's country estate on the Hudson River. J.P. Morgan had his gardeners plant thousands of daffodil bulbs on the hills sloping down toward the river. Although the Morgan home burned down long ago and the estate was subdivided, these colorful flowers still cover the hills every spring.

Northcote Conservation study 1982 survey images: colour slide, black & white:.

`Part of G S Brodie’s 1839 Crown Portion was subdivided in 1878 as the Mayville Estate. On Lot 2.

of what was then Mitchell Street North, F O Pearson built 92 Dennis Street. Pearson leased the house to George Wall, a tailor, during 1886; Donald Dinnie and a miner, Joel Northey, being the next occupants. James Gooley, a tanner, lived at 92 Dennis Street from 1889 until after 1900, the ownership going to C G Turner in 1891, to be taken over, in turn by the Australian Deposit and Mortgage Bank after the bank crash of 1893. All of this time the clay quarry of the New Northcote Brick Works wax extending to the north from the first clay hole in Separation Street, eventually swallowing the allotments at the rear of 92 Dennis Street. By the 1920s the house was owned by the.

Northcote Brick Company and Thomas Hill leased it from them. Also, by 1889 Mitchell Street North had become Dennis Street.'

This was originally part of a Halle's Department Store. This section was subdivided and became a Dick's Sporting Goods ( I believe), then later Steve & Barry's.

Mt Pleasant –last town on the Torrens.

This sprawling hills town near the source of the trickling Torrens has an interesting history. The area was part of one of the SA Company Special Surveys of 1839. The government consequently had surveyed land to sell off which it did in 1842 to three men, Henry Giles Senior, Henry Bushell and James Phillis. They cleared a few trees, built their houses and attracted their relatives, brothers etc to come and take up land in the district. Landowner Henry Glover subdivided some of his land to create the town of Mt Pleasant in 1856 near the pre-existing Mt Pleasant Inn established in 1853. (When this Inn burnt down in 1860 a new hotel was erected called the Mt Pleasant Hotel).

 

Meantime, Henry Giles also decided to subdivide some of his land in 1858 and create a township which he called Totness, immediately adjacent to Glover’s Mt Pleasant township. Giles was already operating a general store here. The two townships competed and then finally amalgamated. In Totness the hotel there opened in 1860 (it began as a single storey hotel with the second floor added in 1918 to provide accommodation for an influx of holiday makers expected with the arrival of the railway in that year). After 1860 Henry Giles developed most of the town himself with a flourmill (1863), blacksmiths, cottages for his workers and his own residence Totness House (1840s) behind the Mt Pleasant Soldiers Memorial Hall. Giles’ town progressed more quickly and it soon had a Bible Christian Chapel (1858) now part of the School, an Anglican Church (1860), a Presbyterian Church (1866) and a Wesley Methodist Church (1867). The Town Pound for straying animals had also pre-dated Giles town of Totness as it was erected in 1855, only closing in 1944. When the former Bible Christian Chapel closed in 1861 it became the town schoolroom until finally being incorporated into a state school in 1876. Glover’s town however got the police station (1867).

 

From its earliest days Mt Pleasant was the service centre for some large estates in the district. By the mid 1850s when the town was established the Melroses had Rosebank estate and the McBeans had Glen Devon estate. Further away Alexander Borthwick Murray had Borthwick Brae and Mt Beevor. These landed gentry had an impact on the town and by 1904 when George Melrose died the Rosebank estate had increased to around 60,000 acres. It was left to the four Melrose children, one who was married to a Murray. This set the stage for ongoing conflict between two rival families of the McBeans and the Melroses over the location of the proposed Institute building. Lachlan McBean wanted it on the triangle on the main street which is now an antique shop on land he would donate but it was a very small parcel of land. Robert Melrose wanted it on its present site or similar on a spacious block of land that he would donate. There was no agreement on this issue amongst the local committee. The impasse was broken after Henry Giles Junior died in 1921. Robert Melrose bought up most Giles’ lands. Robert Melrose then donated the land for the hall in its present spacious site with parking and a small public reserve. Work began in 1926 and the Institute opened in 1927 but by then it was a late Memorial Hall for World War One which had hardly started when this saga began! In recent years Rosebank estate has been owned by the McLaughlin family.

 

The Mont-Saint-Michel abbey is divided in two parts: the church-abbey and the "Merveille". The "Merveille" was the monk living area. Seen from outside, it has a gothic front, on the North side, has three levels and was built over 25 years.

The "Merveille" can be subdivided into two parts: the East and the West sides. The East side was built first (from 1211 to 1218) and has three rooms: the chaplaincy, the hosts room and the dining-hall (from bottom to top). The West side was built seven years later and has three rooms: the wine cellar, the Knights room and the cloister.

 

Due to the nature of the Mont and the way that the abbey has needed to be constructed, the cloister is on top of the rest of the abbey buildings and not at the centre of the complex. Despite this, the cloister which crowns the Merveille [1] has maintained the form and functions of other cloisters found in all other monasteries with just a few subtle differences which set it apart, turning it into a symbolic representation of an ideal monastic life.

 

As with other abbeys the cloister’s function is above all a communications centre inspired by the atrium of a Roman villa and providing access to all the essential rooms: to the east, the refectory and the kitchens which no longer exist; to the south, one door led to the church another to the dormitory; to the west, the three traditional apertures must have opened into the chapter hall that was never built and a small door led to the archives. Only the north gallery, in the direction of the sea was not meant to serve as a way of communication with other rooms. The principal functions of monastic life, except for work and reception, were thus distributed around the cloister.

 

The cloister also served as a passageway, and as in all the other monasteries, it was the place set aside for the monk’s personal meditation. Paradoxically, this symbolic centre of the Benedictine abbey, the very essence of which was the community life that St. Benedict considered the only truly monastic way of life is the only space in which the individual is more important than the community.

 

The columns are as tall as a man and are spaced a shoulder’s width apart. This difference in scale compared to the other rooms is all the more striking in view of the fact that truly imposing spaces must be crossed before arriving at the cloister. The impression of weightlessness aroused by the cloister as a whole is thus accentuated.

The purely physical need to make the cloister, which rests on the vaults of another room, as light as possible explains the airy quality which never fails to take the visitor’s breath away.

 

It was impossible, due to the restrictions of weight to cover the portico with stone vaults and columns and buttresses. The covering therefore had to be of wood, and the plastered barrel vault in wood provides the galleries with their astounding perspective.

 

The weight and thrust of the framework are sustained externally by thick solid granite walls, decorated with blind arcading, and inside by the double arcade, set slightly askew, with its two overlapping rows of pointed arches. These authentic small ogive cross vaults in between carried on the acutely pointed arches hollow out the wall and ensure the triangulation which provides the whole with a perfect stability.

 

Unusual esthetic effects combine with the physical advantages of this type of architecture. The unbroken continuity in the rhythm of the supports and the absence of the solid masonry at the corners permit the eye to move unhindered and at the same time assures an absolute transparency towards the centre of the cloister.

 

The cloister is designed to be closed off to the outside yet extremely open to the centre. It is placed so that no other building rises higher and the slope of the roof reaches directly up towards the sky drawing our attention upwards towards heaven giving the monks a continual reminder of the subject of their meditation [montstmichel.co.uk]

The Barbican Estate building on the right (from www.barbicanliving.co.uk/blocks/speed-house/?amp) was completed in July 1969. Speed House was the first Barbican block to be built. This building was part of Phase III of the City’s building programme for the Barbican site. It was known as Block VI until completed. The contractor was John Laing Construction Limited.

 

The building consists of seven bays between giant concrete columns, with a narrower eighth bay set at right angles. Each bay contains a staircase and lift. In each bay on each floor there are two flats, one on either side of the staircase unit. The flats ‘wrap round’ the staircase unit at front and back. The bays are subdivided into three ‘room’ spans, so that one of the two flats has a two room span and the other has a one room span at front or back. As a result, on most floors, the flats are ‘L’-shaped and fit together round the staircase units so that one has a two span living room and a one span bedroom and the other has a one span living room and two bedrooms. This pattern is repeated along the building.

 

There are seven storeys above podium with two storeys beneath. The podium is open under the upper structure of the building and has glazed entrances to the flats in each of the eight bays. The top floor (which has to be reached by a flight of stairs) contains two penthouses per bay with barrel vaulted roofs and ceilings. There are two-storey maisonettes on the levels below the podium, with car ports and bedrooms on the lower level which face onto Speed Gardens.

 

Speed House is an ‘east-west’ or ‘front to back’ block which means that it runs from east to west and the flats in them go the whole depth of the block from the front to the back. So residents look out of their windows north and south, except for the sub-podium flats which only look south.

 

Speed House has 114 flats, maisonettes and penthouses with accommodation varying from two to five rooms. There are five floors of flats starting one level above the podium, with penthouse flats on the top floor. In addition, there are maisonette flats below podium level. Living rooms overlooks the garden and the lake. The garden flats differ from those in the similar blocks. Instead of two levels of single-storey flats below the Podium, the garden flats in Speed House are two-floor maisonettes, mainly of Type 84, with both living room and bedroom windows looking south over the gardens and lake

 

John Speed (1552 – 1629)

John Speed probably born in St Paul’s Cathedral’s churchyard, where his father lived and carried on a tailoring business. John Speed was brought up to carry on the family trade and in 1580 he became a member of the Merchant Taylors’ Company in the City. The Guild of Merchant Taylors of the Fraternity of John the Baptist in the City of London (to give it its full name) developed from being a religious fraternity to being a craft association of tailors and linen armourers. To do business in the City, a tailor had to be a liveryman (member) of the guild. They received their first charter from Edward III in 1327. Stow, the historian, and Sir John Hawkwood, the soldier-of-fortune or condottiere were also liverymen.

 

It seems that Speed attracted the attention of Sir Fulk Greville, and under his patronage Speed was freed from the need to follow his father into tailoring and was able to pursue his true interest, which was map making and history.

 

In 1582, he married and settled, probably in Moorfields, where he leased some land from the Merchant Taylors’ Company for twenty shillings a year. He built a house on the land which he described as a “fayer house which possibly may stand him in £400.”

 

Here he worked on his history and map making Between 1608 and 1610, he produced a series of fifty four maps of the counties of England and Wales.

 

His great work of history, first published in 1611, was entitled The History of Great Britain under the Conquests of ye Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans with the successions, lives, Acts and issues of the English Monarchs from Julius Caesar to King James. The publication of this work established Speed’s claim to be one of the first true English historians as opposed to a chronicler or annalist. It was so popular that it went to three editions, the last in 1633.

 

The accompanying atlas volume was called The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine. It is one of the most influential atlases of the British Isles ever published and it contains maps of the entire British Isles, the individual nations, and separate maps for the counties. The atlas rather than the history is Speed’s main claim to fame today.

 

Another atlas called The Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World was published in In 1627.

 

Speed died in Moorfield’s and is buried in St Giles Churchyard, next to his wife. The entries in the registers of his own and his wife’s burial are as follows : “Mr. John Speed, Merchantalor (Buried) 31st July, 1629. Susan, wife of John Speed. Gent. (Buried) 31st March, 1628.” There was a monument to him placed on the wall of the south aisle of St Giles’ church stating he was a faithful servant of Queen Elizabeth, King James I, and King Charles I, and that he died July 28th 1629, aged seventy seven, and that his wife bore him twelve sons and six daughters.

Turpan (simplified Chinese: 吐鲁番; traditional Chinese: 吐魯番; pinyin: Tǔlǔfān; Uyghur: تۇرپان‎, ULY: Turpan, UYY: Turpan?), also known as Turfan or Tulufan, is a prefecture-level city located in the east of Xinjiang, People's Republic of China. It has an area of 69,324 square kilometres and a population of 570,000 (2003).

 

HISTORY

Turpan has long been the centre of a fertile oasis (with water provided by the karez canal system) and an important trade centre. It was historically located along the Silk Road, at which time it was adjacent to the kingdoms of Kroran and Yanqi. The name Turfan itself however was not used until the end of the Middle Ages - its use became widespread only in the post-Mongol period. The center of the region has shifted a number of times, from Yar-Khoto (Jiaohe, 10 km to the west of modern Turpan) to Qocho (Gaochang, 30 km to the southeast of Turpan), and to Turpan itself. Historically, many settlements in the region have been given a number of different names, some of which refer to more than one place – Turpan/Turfan/Tulufan is one such example. (Others include Loulan/Kroran/Korla, Jushi/Gushi, Gaochang/Qocho/Karakhoja, Hezhou, and Jiaohe/Yarkhoto.)

 

The peoples of the Kingdoms of Nearer and Further Jushi (the Turpan Oasis and the region to the north of the mountains near modern Jimasa), were closely related. It was originally one kingdom called Gushi, which the Chinese conquered in 107 BC. It was subdivided into two kingdoms by the Chinese in 60 BC. During the Han era the city changed hands several times between the Xiongnu and the Han, interspersed with short periods of independence.

 

After the fall of the Han dynasty in 220, the region was virtually independent but tributary to various dynasties. Until the 5th century AD, the capital of this kingdom was Jiaohe (modern Yarghul 16 kilometres west of Turpan).

 

From 487 to 541 AD, Turpan was an independent Kingdom ruled by a Turkic tribe known to the Chinese as the Tiele. The Rouran Khaganate defeated the Tiele and subjugated Turpan, but soon afterwards the Rouran were destroyed by the Göktürks.

 

TANG CONQUEST

The Tang dynasty had reconquered the Tarim Basin by the 7th century AD. During the 7th, 8th, and early 9th centuries the Tibetan Empire, the Tang Chinese, and Turks fought to conquer the Tarim Basin. Sogdians and Chinese engaged in extensive commercial activities with each other under Tang rule. The Sogdians were mostly Mazdaist at this time. Turpan, renamed Xizhou by the Tang after their armies conquered it in 640 AD, had a history of commerce and trade along the Silk Road already centuries old; it had many inns catering to merchants and other travelers, while numerous brothels are recorded in Kucha and Khotan. As a result of the Tang conquest, policies forcing minority group relocation and encouraging Han settlement led to Turpan's name in the Sogdian language becoming known as “Chinatown” or "Town of the Chinese".

 

In Astana, a contract written in Sogdian detailing the sale of a Sogdian girl to a Chinese man was discovered dated to 639 AD. Individual slaves were common among silk route houses; early documents recorded an increase in the selling of slaves in Turpan. Twenty-one 7th-century marriage contracts were found that showed, where one Sogdian spouse was present, for 18 of them their partner was a Sogdian. The only Sogdian men who married Chinese women were highly eminent officials. Several commercial interactions were recorded, for example a camel was sold priced at 14 silk bolts in 673, and a Chang'an native bought a girl age 11 for 40 silk bolts in 731 from a Sogdian merchant. Five men swore that the girl was never free before enslavement, since the Tang Code forbade commoners to be sold as slaves.

 

The Tang dynasty became weakened considerably due to the An Lushan Rebellion, and the Tibetans took the opportunity to expand into Gansu and the Western Regions. The Tibetans took control of Turfan in 792.

7th or 8th century old dumplings and wontons were found in Turfan.

 

UYGHUR RULE

In 803, the Uyghurs of the Uyghur Khaganate seized Turfan from the Tibetans. The Uyghur Khaganate however was destroyed by the Kirghiz and its capital Ordu-Baliq in Mongolia sacked in 840. The defeat resulted in the mass movement of the Uyghurs out of Mongolia and their dispersal into Gansu and Central Asia, and many joined other Uyghurs already present in Turfan. In the early twentieth century, a collection of some 900 Christian manuscripts dating to the ninth to the twelfth centuries was found at a monastery site at Turfan.

 

The Uyghurs established a Kingdom in the Turpan region with its capital in Gaochang or Kara-Khoja. The kingdom was known as the Uyghuria Idikut state or Kara-Khoja Kingdom that lasted from 856 to 1389 AD. The Uyghurs were Manichaean but later converted to Buddhism and funded the construction the cave temples in the Bezeklik Caves. The Uyghurs formed an alliance with the rulers of Dunhuang. The Uyghur state later became a vassal state of the Kara-Khitans, and then as a vassal of the Mongol Empire. This Kingdom was led by the Idikuts, or Saint Spiritual Rulers. The last Idikut left Turpan area in 1284 for Kumul, then Gansu to seek protection of Yuan Dynasty, but local Uyghur Buddhist rulers still held power until the invasion by the Moghul Hizir Khoja in 1389. The conversion of the local Buddhist population to Islam was completed nevertheless only in the second half of the 15th century.

 

After being converted to Islam, the descendants of the previously Buddhist Uyghurs in Turfan failed to retain memory of their ancestral legacy and falsely believed that the "infidel Kalmuks" (Dzungars) were the ones who built Buddhist monuments in their area.

 

15TH AND 16TH CENTURIES

As late as 1420, the Timurid envoy Ghiyāth al-dīn Naqqāsh, who passed through Turpan on the way from Herat to Beijing, reported that many of the city's residents were "infidels". He visited a "very large and beautiful" temple with a statue of Shakyamuni; in one of the versions of his account it was also claimed that many Turpanians "worshipped the cross".The Moghul ruler of Turpan Yunus Khan, also known as Ḥājjī `Ali, (ruled 1462–1478) unified Moghulistan (roughly corresponding to today's Eastern Xinjiang) under his authority in 1472. Around that time, a conflict with the Ming China started over the issues of tribute trade: Turpanians benefited from sending "tribute missions" to China, which allowed them to receive valuable gifts from the Ming emperors and to do plenty of trading on the side; the Chinese, however, felt that receiving and entertaining these missions was just too expensive. (Muslim envoys to the early Ming China were impressed by the lavish reception offered to them along their route through China, from Suzhou to Beijing, such as described by Ghiyāth al-dīn Naqqāsh in 1420–1421.

 

Yunus Khan was irritated by the restrictions on the frequency and size of Turpanian missions (no more than one mission in 5 years, with no more than 10 members) imposed by the Ming government in 1465, and by the Ming's refusal to bestow sufficiently luxurious gifts on his envoys (1469). Accordingly, in 1473 he went to war against China, and succeeded in capturing Hami in 1473 from the Oirat Mongol Henshen and holding it for a while, until Ali was repulsed by the Ming Dynasty into Turfan. He reoccupied Hami after Ming left. Henshen's Mongols recaptured Hami twice in 1482 and 1483, but the son of Ali, Ahmad Alaq, reconquered it in 1493 and captured the Hami leader and the resident of China in Hami (Hami was a vassal state to Ming). In response, the Ming Dynasty imposed an economic blockade on Turfan and kicked out all the Uyghurs from Gansu. It became so harsh for Turfan that Ahmed left. Ahmed's son Mansur succeeded him and took over Hami in 1517. These conflicts were called the Ming Turpan Border Wars.

 

Several times, after occupying Hami, Mansur tried to attack China in 1524 with 20,000 men, but was beaten by Chinese forces. The Turpan kingdom under Mansur, in alliance with Oirat Mongols, tried to raid Suzhou in Gansu in 1528, but were severely defeated by Ming Chinese forces and suffered heavy casualties. The Chinese refused to lift the economic blockade and restrictions that had led to the battles, and continued restricting Turpan's tribute and trade with China. Turfan also annexed Hami.

 

19TH CENTURY

Francis Younghusband visited Turpan in 1887 on his overland journey from Beijing to India. He said it consisted of two walled towns, a Chinese one with a population of no more than 5,000 and, about 1.6 km to the west, a Turk town of "probably" 12,000 to 15,000 inhabitants. The town (presumably the "Turk town") had four gateways, one for each of the cardinal directions, of solid brickwork and massive wooden doors plated with iron and covered by a semicircular bastion. The well-kept walls were of mud and about 10.7 m tall and 6 to 9 m thick, with loopholes at the top. There was a level space about 14 m wide outside the main walls surrounded by a musketry wall about 2.4 m high, with a ditch around it some 3.7 m deep and 6 m wide. There were drumtowers over the gateways, small square towers at the corners and two small square bastions between the corners and the gateways, "two to each front." Wheat, cotton, poppies, melons and grapes were grown in the surrounding fields.

 

Turpan grapes impressed other travelers to the region as well. The 19th-century Russian explorer Grigory Grumm-Grzhimaylo, thought the local raisins may be "the best in the world", and noted the buildings of a "perfectly peculiar design" used for drying them called chunche.

 

SUBDEVISIONS

Turpan directly controls 1 district and 2 counties.

 

GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE

Turpan is located about 150 km southeast of Ürümqi, Xinjiang's capital, in a mountain basin, on the northern side of the Turpan Depression, at an elevation of 30 m above sea level. Outside of Turpan is a small volcanic cone, the Turfan volcano, that is said to have erupted in 1120 as described in the Song Dynasty.

 

Turpan has a harsh, drastic, cold desert climate (Köppen BWk), with very hot and long summers, and very cold but short winters, and brief spring and autumn in between. Annual precipitation is very low, amounting to only 15.7 millimetres. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from −7.6 °C in January to 32.2 °C in July; the annual mean is 14.4 °C. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 48% in December to 75% in September, sunshine is abundant and the city receives 2,912 hours of bright sunshine annually. Temperature differences between summer and winter are oppressively large (over 50 °C). The warmest months often approach the stifling intensity of cities such as Phoenix or Las Vegas, while winters produce average lows that more closely resemble frigid Minneapolis.

 

Extremes have ranged from −28.9 °C to 48.1 °C, although a reading of 49.6 °C in July 1975 is regarded as dubious.

 

However, the very heat and dryness of the summer, when combined with the area's ancient system of irrigation, allows the countryside around Turpan to produce great quantities of high-quality fruit.

 

DEMOGRAPHY

According to the 2000 census, the city of Turpan had a population of 251,652 (population density 15.99 inh./km²).

 

TRANSPORT

Turpan is served by China National Highway 312. It is the junction for the Lanzhou-Xinjiang and the Southern Xinjiang Railways.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Stapleton, Staten Island, New York City, New York, United States

 

The Mary and David Burgher House at 63 William Street is a fine surviving example of a vernacular Greek Revival-style residence, built c.1844 in the Stapleton section of Staten Island. The most distinguished feature of the house is its monumental, two-story classical portico set below an over-hanging flared eave – a combination that is characteristic of Staten Island builders’ interpretation of the Greek Revival style. Other characteristics typical of the style include the eared-entrance enframement; the paneled wood door with a full transom and sidelights; six-over-six, double-hung windows with shutters; and vernacular Doric pillars.

 

The house was constructed in the mid-19th century, at a time when the residential development of the surrounding area of Stapleton was just getting underway. With its excellent ports, close proximity to Manhattan via ferry, and proximity to good roads, Stapleton developed as one of the earlier suburban neighborhoods on the island. Constructed for fisherman David Burgher, the house serves as a reminder of the importance of maritime commerce for Staten Island’s economy in the 1840s and 1850s, and of the role that the harbor played in the development of New York City. A relatively rare surviving example of a building type that was once prominent on Staten Island, 63 William Street recalls one of the borough’s most important mid-19th century building traditions.

 

Located to the southeast of Tompkinsville, the adjacent village of Stapleton was named in honor of the New York merchant William J. Staples, who with Minthorne Tompkins, son of Daniel D. Tompkins, purchased a large tract of land from the Vanderbilts on the East Shore at the foot of present-day Broad Street, as well as a number of other transactions for land along the east shore south of Tompkinsville.7 Staples and Tompkins had the land laid out into a village with streets and building lots. By 1836, when the village was named, it boasted several houses and a hotel. The following year the Seaman’s Retreat and Hospital Fund opened its imposing new Greek Revival hospital building to care for sick and disabled merchant sailors on a forty acre site at Bay Street and Vanderbilt Avenue. (The Main Building at Seaman’s Retreat, designed by builder Abraham Maybie, with additions of 1848, 1853, and 1911-12, and the Physician-in-Chief’s Residence of 1842 are designated New York City Landmarks.) Staples and Tompkins established steam ferry service to Manhattan and advertised their new development. Over the next twenty-years, Stapleton and Tompkinsville grew rapidly. Both had excellent ports with regular steam ferry service to Manhattan and were located on main roads making them ideal entrepots for the transhipment of goods.

History of the Site

 

In 1835, Daniel Van Duzer sold about 5 acres, located to the east of the Ward estate, to Lemuel Brewster8 of Manhattan. Brewster, a hatter, temperance advocate and philanthropist, purchased the property on speculation, subdivided it into lots, and entered into an agreement with local merchant William S. Root to manage and sell the properties.9 According to deed records, Brewster and his wife Eleanor held the property for a short time, selling off a number of the lots in the late 1830s. In 1839, Root bought himself out of the agreement with Brewster, purchasing 11 of the remaining lots from the 65-lot subdivision, including those numbered 41 and 42, the future site of 63 William Street.10 Root, the owner of a store in Tompkinsville, had mortgaged the purchase of the property and soon found that he was “indebted and liable in considerable amounts to various persons and companies.” The property was transferred to Manhattan attorney William M. Prichard, who had purchased “all the goods and debts of William S. Root.” Shortly after, Root and his wife, the former Maria Metcalfe relocated to Brooklyn in 1847, although their son George M. remained on the island, working as a civil engineer, surveyor and authority on land and water boundaries. It is likely that William Street got its name from Root.

 

On June 20, 1843, David Burgher of the town of Castleton, purchased four lots from Prichard, including the two lots that are now known as 63 William Street. Burgher had the house constructed shortly after, c. 1844, as it appears on Bloods’ 1845 Atlas of Staten Island.

 

David Burgher

 

Although both his father and grandfather were farmers, David Burgher, who is listed in the deed as a “mariner,” worked most of his life as a fisherman. His father John Burgher married Mary Kettletas, who was descended from early Staten Island residents, and had an extensive farm on the southeast shore of the island, around today’s Burgher Avenue. Mary’s father, Stephen Kettletas, also a farmer, had property nearby that of Nicholas Burgher, David’s grandfather.

 

A prominent resident of Stapleton, David Burgher (1815-1879) was appointed Deputy Sheriff in 1833 by Sheriff Lawrence Hillyer, who was also his uncle. A successful fisherman, Burgher held the distinction of catching the first shad of the season off Staten Island in the years 1866 and 1870.16 After the incorporation of the Village of Edgewater, Burgher was elected trustee of the second ward of the new village in 1867. David Burgher and his wife Mary lived in the house at 63 William Street for about five years, before selling it in 1849 to Thomas Taylor. Burgher had purchased additional property nearby several years earlier and constructed a new home around the corner on Brewster Street, where he lived for the remainder of his life. By 1874, in addition to two other parcels of land near his home in Stapleton, Burgher owned a dock and three buildings on Bay Street at the foot of Washington Street (now known as St. Julian Place.) Later in life, Burgher was the proprietor of a lumber yard on Bay Street. He died in August of 1879.

 

The Design of the Burgher House

 

The house was likely built around 1844, shortly after David Burgher purchased the property on William Street. Its most prominent feature is its full-width, two-story porch set under the flared eave of the main roof. Although not a feature commonly found on Greek Revival houses throughout the country, this type of overhang was commonly found on vernacular Staten Island buildings of the period. The flared projecting spring or bell-cast eave was widely used on Staten Island from the late seventeenth century on and became so firmly embedded in the Staten Island building tradition that, when older architectural styles were supplanted by the newly fashionable Greek Revival, the form was carried over and incorporated into the new style of building.

 

Though the spring eave is commonly referred to as “Dutch Colonial,” its origins have not been conclusively traced. Different historians have attributed the source of this feature to Flemish, French, or Dutch immigrants; additionally, both French Canadians and local, lower Hudson River Valley settlers have been credited with the development of the extended flared eave.25 The depth of the overhangs found on early American buildings varies from slight to several feet, the larger of which were often supported by columns as a porch. Most historians agree, however, that the use of this roof feature (incorporated into a front and/or rear porch) was limited to the lower Hudson River Valley, the southernmost areas of Dutch influence, including the area around present day New York City and adjacent New Jersey,26 which is possibly the source of its misinterpreted Dutch origin.

 

The earliest surviving instance of a spring eave on Staten Island is the one employed for the Billopp House (c.1676, a designated NYC Landmark), at the southern tip of Staten Island. Constructed in a manner very similar to that employed in France, it has a relatively slight flare since the curved strips extend little more than a foot beyond the wall. Used with both gable and gambrel roofs, the spring eave on Staten Island and elsewhere in the New Netherland area, evolved into a deeper overhang over the course of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Supported on forward posts, it eventually formed a single story, often facade-wide, covered porch for the principal elevation While the spring eave may originally have served a practical purpose by protecting the wall construction beneath it, the great popularity and enduring use of the form on Staten Island should probably be ascribed to its aesthetic appeal.

 

Its appearance on the mid-19th century Burgher House testifies to the persistence of the spring eave in Staten Island vernacular architecture. Combined with a two-story Greek Revival style portico, the Burgher House’s spring eave illustrates one of the most striking of the responses made by local builders to the hugely popular Greek Revival style. The full-width porch with its two-stories, endows a relatively modestly-scaled building with a striking profile and an imposing presence. Former local historian Loring McMillan called this use of the spring eave in combination with the Greek Revival style unique to Staten Island, with no examples found elsewhere.

 

The introduction of the Greek Revival style to Staten Island coincided with the Island’s transition, initiated by the introduction of regular steam ferry service, from a sparsely settled, largely agricultural community to a location selected for several major institutions and large-scale planned suburban developments. Much of the new development was designed for a class of people new to Staten Island – wealthy New York City merchants who were aware of the latest architectural styles. Beginning in the 1820s and proliferating in the 1830s, knowledgeable versions of the fashionable Greek Revival style were employed for both residential and institutional designs.31 In the 1840s and 1850s the Greek Revival was supplanted for such commissions by more picturesque styles, including the Gothic Revival and the Italianate, but in those same decades the Greek Revival was discovered by local Island builders, and it was only then that the style blossomed fully in vernacular residential versions built by the hundreds from one end of the island to the other.

 

While most of Staten Island’s vernacular Greek Revival dwellings employ a simplified version of the style, it is clearly evident that the columned facades of the island’s high style residences built in the 1830s had a significant impact on local builders and on some of their patrons – an increasing more affluent segment of the citizenry that had, by the 1840s, been sensitized to the expressive implications of the style. They too sought out the Greek Revival style for their homes as a way to identify themselves as important members of their communities. Although there were exceptions, local builders did not, on the whole, attempt to duplicate the columned facade in either of its two principal manifestations on the island – the projecting pedimented portico fronting a wider cubic block, as seen in the Minard Lafever­influenced design for the Caleb Ward House (c.1835, Seth Greer, a designated NYC Landmark), or the temple-fronted, gable-end-to-the-street residences built in New Brighton during the 1830.32

 

What local builders did instead was apply a traditional deep spring eave to a standard earlier 19th century residential design – a longitudinally sited, two-story house of three or five bays. The spring eave was carried on giant forward supports (both coffered piers and the classical orders were used) to form a facade-wide quadristyle or hexastyle porch. A porch floor at the second-story level was sometimes introduced. Dozens of residences employing this combination of Greek Revival style porticoes and spring eaves were built in all sections of the island. The spring-eave-covered, quadristyle Greek Revival Doric portico of the Burgher House is obviously part of this vernacular tradition.

 

Supported by four, vernacular Doric pillars, the spring-eave portico of the Burgher House endows the relatively shallow structure with a sense of a grand scale that exceeds its actual dimensions, framing the three-bay facade and creating an imposing effect. Although never found in Greek or Roman prototypes, square columns were commonly used on both vernacular and high-style Greek Revival buildings in the United States. Another notable element of the design is the heavy entablature below the extended eave, which returns around the sides of the porch. At the first floor, the elaborate entry enframement is typical of the Greek Revival style. Constructed of carved wood, the eared enframement surrounds a typical entry, composed of a paneled wood door, a full-width, multi-light transom and sidelights. Also common to the Greek Revival style, the building retains its clapboard siding and historic six-over-six, double-hung wood windows with shutters and simple wood surrounds, which are typically less elaborate than the doorways.

 

Later Residents

 

Also related to the maritime industry, English immigrants Thomas Taylor and his wife Mary, who purchased the house in 1849, were the next residents of the house at 63 William Street. Listed as a “sea captain” in the 1860 census records, Thomas Taylor‘s household contained his wife, a son and an Irish immigrant who preformed “general house work.” By 1870, Taylor had relocated to the Finger Lake region of central New York State and was working as a farmer, although he maintained ownership of the 63 William Street until 1882. According to map records, the house was occupied in the mid-1870s by attorney George Rathbun.

 

The next residents of the house appear to be the family of Robert T. Bradford.36 A New-York­born cigar maker, Bradford lived there with his wife, several daughters, two sons and a servant. By 1882, when Minnie D. Bradford purchased the house from Thomas Taylor, she was already living in the area with her parents and siblings. Minnie, who is listed in the 1880 census as having the occupation of “picture colorer,” married paper industry tycoon Frederick Bertuch38 c.1884. The 1886 directory shows her father Robert Bradford still living at 6 William Street (the number was later changed to 63), while her husband Frederick Bertuch (and presumably she) was living around the corner at 39 Van Duzer Street. Born in Germany, Frederick Bertuch immigrated to the United States in 1880 and operated a pulp importing business with his father in Manhattan. The firm of Frederick Bertuch & Co. became quite successful, and Bertuch amassed a sizeable fortune. Directories show that Minnie and Frederick Bertuch were living at 63 William Street by 1888.

 

According to later owner Conrad Fingado, the 63 William Street house underwent extensive renovations during the Bertuch ownership. Among the exterior alterations that occurred around the turn of the 20th century were the installation of full-height parlor floor windows (replacing shorter, six-over-six double-hung windows and wood panels); stained-glass panels replacing clear glass in the sidelights at the front entry; shutters at the windows; and the construction of the dormer at the front roof. Other interior alterations that occurred at the time include the installation of parquet flooring at the parlor floor; plaster medallions at the ceilings; and tiles around the fireplace. (The interior of the house is not part of this designation).

 

In 1908, Frederick Bertuch purchased a rowhouse at 858 West End Avenue (Schneider and Herter, 1892-93, a designated New York City Landmark), where he and his wife lived for the remainder of their lives. (The Bertuches also owned a home in Babylon, Long Island.) Frederick Bertuch & Co. was dissolved and Bertuch retired from business in 1912, however, he remained a special partner in the successor firm founded by his former partner Johannes Andersen, J. Andersen & Company. Bertuch died in 1922, leaving the bulk of his estate to his widow, and made generous donations to charitable and educational entities. Among the many charitable donations outlined in Bertuch’s will were: $50,000 each to Lenox Hill Hospital, the Children’s Aid Society, the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the Cooper Union, and $100,000 to Columbia University. Minnie D. Bertuch died six years later in 1928.

 

Upon the Bertuch’s move to Manhattan, Minnie’s sister Ida S. Fitzpatrick and her two sons occupied the home. Ida Bradford had married William Fitzpatrick in 1887, but was widowed by 1900. By the time Ida Fitzpatrick purchased the house from her sister in 1919, her older son William was married, while her younger son Frank (F.J.) lived with and supported his widowed mother. Directories list the Fitzpatricks as residents of 63 William Street until the mid-1930s. After her death, Ida Fitzpatrick’s daughter-in-law Dorothy Fitzpatrick, who was living in Washington D.C. at the time, sold the house in 1950 to Michael Towstik Jr. Although he did not live there, Towstik retained ownership of the house for almost thirty years.

 

Later residents of the house include Conrad Fingado and Margot Nordenholt, who owned the property from 1978 until 2000. A restoration carpenter, Fingado was on the staff of Historic Richmondtown in the 1970s, while his wife operated a family-owned import-export business. During their ownership, the house underwent extensive renovation, including the removal of asbestos siding, the scraping and painting of the clapboards, exterior restoration of front porch, and the reconstruction of the rear ell on a similar footprint to the existing addition. Since 2000, 63 William Street has been owned by Robert and Rosemary McCormick.

 

Later History of the Neighborhood

 

In the mid-19th century, after the construction of 63 William Street, Stapleton and Tompkinsville grew rapidly due their excellent ports, transportation facilities and the presence of two important public institutions, the Seaman’s Retreat and the Quarantine Hospital. The villages continued to prosper during the Civil War as shipyards in both areas, as well as Port Richmond, worked busily to meet the demand for military vessels and commercial ships. Stapleton also was blessed with natural resources (artesian springs and cool caverns) that began to attract industry (notably breweries) to the area.44 The large number of German-owned businesses in Stapleton, especially the breweries, which required skilled knowledge of brewing techniques, brought many German-born workers to the area and Stapleton quickly became the most important village on Staten Island’s east shore and one of the northeast region’s principal German enclaves.

 

By 1870, Stapleton, Clifton, and a portion of Tompkinsville had been consolidated into the incorporated Village of Edgewater.45 Stapleton was the political center of Edgewater, its business center, and a major transportation hub. The area continued to prosper residentially following the integration of ferry and train service, and Staten Island’s 1898 consolidation into the City of New York. The neighborhood’s close proximity to the newly created Borough Center at St. George, an important road terminus and port for the ferry to Manhattan, helped maintain its status as an important “suburb,” a status which it maintains today.

 

Helping to further fuel the area’s residential growth, Staten Island’s waterfront industrial base grew during World War I as industries, particularly the shipyards, expanded due to government contracts. Waterfront activity continued as part of a municipal pier construction project along the east shore of Staten Island from Tompkinsville to Clifton during the 1920s. Constructed under the terms of Mayor John Hylan and Dock Commissioner Murray Hulbert, the project was part of an extensive waterfront improvement plan intended to meet the anticipated shipping needs of New York City. The project was later termed “Hylan’s Folly” due to the large capital expenditure of funds which were not regenerated as many of the piers sat vacant for a number of years. In 1983, much of the Stapleton waterfront was chosen to be used as a homeport for the United States Navy. After years of debate about the base’s impact on the community, the partially constructed homeport project was shut down in 1995. Most recently, New York City Council approved a plan to redevelop the site for residential, commercial and recreational use, however the work has not yet commenced.

 

Description

 

The Burgher House is located on a large, 50 by 100 foot lot at the northeast corner of William and Brewster streets. The rectangular lot is lined by wood picket fence along the south with a gate near the front entry. There is a chain-link fence at the Brewster Street facade and another chain-link along the eastern edge of the property. The lot most likely contains a privy and cistern as the building was constructed before public water and sewers were available. A paved bluestone path leads from the William Street gate to the basement-level entry and turns at a right angle to access a flight of steps that lead to the main entry. The steps, which extend to the west parallel with the porch, are constructed of a composite material, set on a common brick base. The staircase has grey-painted treads and off-white­painted risers, and features a zig-zag-style wooden railing and off-white-painted, square wood newel posts. There is a small, wood-framed garage and gravel parking area at the rear.

 

The two-and-a-half-story plus basement, wood-framed house is constructed on a dark-purple­painted, stuccoed brick basement and features a small, one-and-a-half-story ell at the rear, both of which have wood clapboard siding painted off-white. The eaves-front, asphalt-shingled, gable roof features an extended flared eave and wide cornice at the front facade, which is supported by four, square, vernacular Doric pillars creating a double height portico that also extends below to the basement of the building. The tetra-style porch frames the fenestration of the three-bay, south-facing, front facade. The at-grade, basement level of the building has a wood-paneled door with a wooden storm door in the first bay and six-over-six, double-hung wood windows with wood storm windows in the second and third bays.

 

The basement level porch floor is paved with brick. The main entry, located in the first bay of the first floor, features a wood paneled door; full, multi-light stained-glass transom; and sidelights set on wood panels surrounded by a carved wood eared enframement. The second and third bays have full-height, one-over­one, double-hung wood windows with carved wood surrounds, dark-purple-painted shutters and wood storm windows. There is a small light fixture above and a wood storm door at the entry. The porch features a wooden deck and wooden zig-zag-style railing at both floors. The second floor features a multi-light, wood paneled door with wood storm door in the first bay, and six-over-six, double-hung wood windows with carved wood surrounds and wood storm windows in the second and third bays. All three openings at the second floor have dark-purple-painted shutters. An asphalt-shingled, gable-roofed dormer projects from the center of the roof. It features two, one-over-one, double-hung wood windows and fish-scale wood shingles at the front facade and solid wood paneling at the sides. A red-painted brick chimney, with two flue caps and an antenna, extends above the gable at the eastern end of the main roof, and there is a weather vane atop the dormer roof.

 

The east-facing, side facade has two window openings at each floor, basement, first, second and attic. There are six-over-six, double-hung wood windows in both openings at the basement and in the second bays at the first and second floors. These windows have wood storm windows at the basement and first floor and aluminum storm windows at the second floor. The first bay of the first floor features a tall, one-over-one, double-hung wood window, similar in height to those found at the front facade. There are one-over-one, double-hung windows in the first bay at the second floor (wood with a wood storm window) and both bays at the attic (aluminum), which replace the historic multi-light windows. All windows on this facade feature simplified, carved wood surrounds. There is a leader at the southeast corner of the facade and air conditioner brackets below the second bay at the attic.

The west-facing, side facade has one, six-over-six, double-hung wood window at each the basement, first, and second floors and two, six-over-one, double-hung wood windows at the attic, all with simplified, carved wood surrounds and wood storm windows. A utility meter, telephone box, conduit, wires, and a spigot are attached the building at this facade.

 

The rear facade of the building has a one-and-a-half-story plus basement ell, built on a dark­purple-painted, stuccoed brick foundation, that extends from the western half of the building. The western and northern facades of the addition each have two, six-over-six, double-hung wood windows at the basement level. There is one, six-over-six, double-hung wood window at the first floor of the addition’s western side and two, six-over-six, double-hung wood windows at the second floor. All ell windows have wood storm windows. The rear facade of the addition has no window openings above the basement level, but features a small exhaust vent. A satellite dish extends from the building’s western facade at the junction of the main building and ell. A brick chimney and antenna extend from the roof of the ell. At the east side of main building’s rear facade, there is a deck with a square-wooden post and baluster railing at the first floor. The basement level under the deck, which is painted dark-purple like the rest of the foundation, features three, off-white-painted wood paneled doors at its north facade. There are leaders at the northwest corner of the main house and northeast corner of the ell.

 

There is a small, gable-front garage at the rear of the house, which is accessed from Brewster Street by a gravel-paved driveway that is set slightly above the rear yard behind a stacked bluestone wall. The garage has off-white-painted composite siding at its west, north and east facades, an asphalt-shingled roof, and paired wooden doors. There is a small, shed-roofed addition to the garage, which features board and batten siding and narrower, paired wooden doors on its west facade. The south facade of the garage addition, which also has board and batten siding, has a multi-light window and multi-light, paneled wood door. Both the garage and its addition have dark dark-purple painted trim. A wooden backboard and basketball hoop are attached to the garage at its front gable, and there is a vent at the roof.

 

- From the 2010 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Ilya Kabakov created School No.6 in 1993 as a gift to the Chinati Foundation. The work occupies an entire building that is subdivided into rooms reminiscent of an abandoned schoolhouse from the former Soviet Union. The spaces are filled with faded posters, flags, and emblems; everything is broken, boarded-up, and neglected. Bookcases and desks with Russian notebooks and memorabilia scattered throughout the disordered classrooms tell an elliptical story about another place and time. The walls are painted an institutional green, which is peeling. In the center of the building is a courtyard overgrown with grass and weeds. In faded red, glass-enclosed vitrines, Kabakov's poetic writing recounts the stories and recollections of the students' past experience in the school.

Former gunpowder and dynamite factory built in 1879 somewhere in Belgium. This site is where powder and explosives were made, in particular for a use in the mines. The site was sold and demilitarized in 1990 after the bankruptcy of its company.

 

Spread over about ten hectares secretly hidden in the forest, the "factory" is subdivided into approximately fifty buildings isolated from each other. The reason of this isolation? Simply to avoid chain explosions in case of accident.

 

Among all these buildings, there are workshops, laboratories and testing rooms, as well as administration and machinery buildings, and also warehouses. The site is also provided with a central heating network distributed towards all the buildings through above-ground insulated conducts.

 

Discovering the site is comparable to a long and pleasant stroll in the forest, but we have to admit that most of the instruments and working accessories are gone and many buildings are now empty.

 

Besides, the site is polluted and many nitrophilous plants took a malicious pleasure in regaining control of the place, even growing inside the houses.

 

---------

 

Ancienne poudrerie et dynamiterie belge construite en 1879. À ne pas confondre avec la poudrière (soit le "magasin à poudre"), ce site était une usine de fabrication de poudre et explosifs, destinés notamment à un usage dans les mines. Le site fut revendu et démilitarisé en 1990 suite à la faillite de la société.

 

Étalée sur une bonne dizaine d'hectares enfouis secrètement dans la forêt, "l'usine" se subdivise en (approximativement) une cinquantaine de bâtiments isolés les uns des autres. La raison de cet isolement? Simplement pour éviter des explosions en chaîne en cas d'accident de travail.

 

Parmi tous ces bâtiments, on retrouve des ateliers, laboratoires et salles de test, ou encore des bâtiments administratifs, de machinerie et des entrepôts. Le site est également muni d'un réseau de chauffage central redistribué vers tous les bâtiments via des conduites aériennes à parois isolantes.

 

Si la visite du site constitue une longue et agréable balade en forêt, force est de constater qu'il reste peu d'instruments et accessoires de travail dans les bâtiments.

 

Le site étant par ailleurs pollué par des ingrédients (comme le nitrate) qui servaient à la fabrication de la poudre, les plantes nitrophiles ont depuis lors pris un malin plaisir à se ré-approprier les lieux, allant jusqu'à pousser à l'intérieur des maisons.

Located in what now is the heart of the Garden District, between Washington, Sixth, Prytania, and Coliseum streets, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 is the oldest of the seven municipal, city-operated cemeteries in New Orleans. It is a non-segregated, non-denominational cemetery. There are immigrants from over 25 different countries and natives of 26 states as identified on the closure tablets.

 

The developers commissioned City surveyor Benjamin Buisson to develop a plan. The plan, dated March 5, 1832, subdivided the area between First Street and Toledano. The cemetery was laid out with two center aisles, a cruciform (cross) pattern, lined with trees giving it a park or garden-like appearance, and divided the cemetery into four sections. The intersecting avenues were built to accommodate funeral processions and originally paved with shells.

 

The cemetery was named for the City of Lafayette, which was annexed to the City of New Orleans as the Fourth District. The area of New Orleans that once was the city of Lafayette consists of two designated historical districts, the Irish Channel and the Garden District. The residents of the Irish Channel were first-generation immigrants many from Ireland and Germany, the two largest groups of immigrants to settle in New Orleans in the two decades before the Civil War. It was known as a working-class poor neighborhood, a rough and tough riverfront area. The Garden District, on the other hand, represented the new wealth of immigrants from Great Britain and the North who came and made their fortunes as cotton factors, brokers, and merchants after the Louisiana Purchase. They are often called “Southern Yankees.”

 

In the cemetery, there are almost 500 wall vaults on Washington Avenue which have been sealed. Only a few of the plaques are engraved.

 

In Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, there are society tombs for several volunteer fireman organizations (now extinct), the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, German Presbyterian Community, Home For Destitute Orphan Boys, Poydras Orphans Home, YMCA, and the New Orleans Home for Incurables.

 

Individual family tombs in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 feature Judge Ferguson of the Plessy vs. Ferguson “separate-but-equal” case. Also buried in the cemetery is Brigadier General Harry T. Hays who led the 1st Louisiana Brigade. The Brunie family, buried here, were notable jazz musicians who were associated with Papa Laine and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings.

 

Perhaps the most famous residents of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 are fictional. The tomb for the Mayfair witches, created by Anne Rice, in The Witching Hour, fits a combination of the Lafayette and Jefferson fireman tombs. Rice also staged a jazz funeral where she rode in a glass enclosed coffin down the aisle of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 to introduce her book Memnoch the Devil. The vampire Lestat’s tomb, made from Styrofoam for the movie, Interview with a Vampire, was possibly modeled from the cast iron tomb. Many other movies have been filmed in the cemetery, including Double Jeopardy in 1999 and Dracula 2000 in 2000. Other filming has taken place in the cemetery, such as music videos by acts such as LeAnn Rimes and the New Kids on the Block.

 

There are about 1,100 family tombs and more than 7,000 people buried in Lafayette I, a single city block.

Mt Pleasant –last town on the Torrens.

This sprawling hills town near the source of the trickling Torrens has an interesting history. The area was part of one of the SA Company Special Surveys of 1839. The government consequently had surveyed land to sell off which it did in 1842 to three men, Henry Giles Senior, Henry Bushell and James Phillis. They cleared a few trees, built their houses and attracted their relatives, brothers etc to come and take up land in the district. Landowner Henry Glover subdivided some of his land to create the town of Mt Pleasant in 1856 near the pre-existing Mt Pleasant Inn established in 1853. (When this Inn burnt down in 1860 a new hotel was erected called the Mt Pleasant Hotel).

 

Meantime, Henry Giles also decided to subdivide some of his land in 1858 and create a township which he called Totness, immediately adjacent to Glover’s Mt Pleasant township. Giles was already operating a general store here. The two townships competed and then finally amalgamated. In Totness the hotel there opened in 1860 (it began as a single storey hotel with the second floor added in 1918 to provide accommodation for an influx of holiday makers expected with the arrival of the railway in that year). After 1860 Henry Giles developed most of the town himself with a flourmill (1863), blacksmiths, cottages for his workers and his own residence Totness House (1840s) behind the Mt Pleasant Soldiers Memorial Hall. Giles’ town progressed more quickly and it soon had a Bible Christian Chapel (1858) now part of the School, an Anglican Church (1860), a Presbyterian Church (1866) and a Wesley Methodist Church (1867). The Town Pound for straying animals had also pre-dated Giles town of Totness as it was erected in 1855, only closing in 1944. When the former Bible Christian Chapel closed in 1861 it became the town schoolroom until finally being incorporated into a state school in 1876. Glover’s town however got the police station (1867).

 

From its earliest days Mt Pleasant was the service centre for some large estates in the district. By the mid 1850s when the town was established the Melroses had Rosebank estate and the McBeans had Glen Devon estate. Further away Alexander Borthwick Murray had Borthwick Brae and Mt Beevor. These landed gentry had an impact on the town and by 1904 when George Melrose died the Rosebank estate had increased to around 60,000 acres. It was left to the four Melrose children, one who was married to a Murray. This set the stage for ongoing conflict between two rival families of the McBeans and the Melroses over the location of the proposed Institute building. Lachlan McBean wanted it on the triangle on the main street which is now an antique shop on land he would donate but it was a very small parcel of land. Robert Melrose wanted it on its present site or similar on a spacious block of land that he would donate. There was no agreement on this issue amongst the local committee. The impasse was broken after Henry Giles Junior died in 1921. Robert Melrose bought up most Giles’ lands. Robert Melrose then donated the land for the hall in its present spacious site with parking and a small public reserve. Work began in 1926 and the Institute opened in 1927 but by then it was a late Memorial Hall for World War One which had hardly started when this saga began! In recent years Rosebank estate has been owned by the McLaughlin family.

 

The Mont-Saint-Michel abbey is divided in two parts: the church-abbey and the "Merveille". The "Merveille" was the monk living area. Seen from outside, it has a gothic front, on the North side, has three levels and was built over 25 years.

The "Merveille" can be subdivided into two parts: the East and the West sides. The East side was built first (from 1211 to 1218) and has three rooms: the chaplaincy, the hosts room and the dining-hall (from bottom to top). The West side was built seven years later and has three rooms: the wine cellar, the Knights room and the cloister.

 

Due to the nature of the Mont and the way that the abbey has needed to be constructed, the cloister is on top of the rest of the abbey buildings and not at the centre of the complex. Despite this, the cloister which crowns the Merveille [1] has maintained the form and functions of other cloisters found in all other monasteries with just a few subtle differences which set it apart, turning it into a symbolic representation of an ideal monastic life.

 

As with other abbeys the cloister’s function is above all a communications centre inspired by the atrium of a Roman villa and providing access to all the essential rooms: to the east, the refectory and the kitchens which no longer exist; to the south, one door led to the church another to the dormitory; to the west, the three traditional apertures must have opened into the chapter hall that was never built and a small door led to the archives. Only the north gallery, in the direction of the sea was not meant to serve as a way of communication with other rooms. The principal functions of monastic life, except for work and reception, were thus distributed around the cloister.

 

The cloister also served as a passageway, and as in all the other monasteries, it was the place set aside for the monk’s personal meditation. Paradoxically, this symbolic centre of the Benedictine abbey, the very essence of which was the community life that St. Benedict considered the only truly monastic way of life is the only space in which the individual is more important than the community.

 

The columns are as tall as a man and are spaced a shoulder’s width apart. This difference in scale compared to the other rooms is all the more striking in view of the fact that truly imposing spaces must be crossed before arriving at the cloister. The impression of weightlessness aroused by the cloister as a whole is thus accentuated.

The purely physical need to make the cloister, which rests on the vaults of another room, as light as possible explains the airy quality which never fails to take the visitor’s breath away.

 

It was impossible, due to the restrictions of weight to cover the portico with stone vaults and columns and buttresses. The covering therefore had to be of wood, and the plastered barrel vault in wood provides the galleries with their astounding perspective.

 

The weight and thrust of the framework are sustained externally by thick solid granite walls, decorated with blind arcading, and inside by the double arcade, set slightly askew, with its two overlapping rows of pointed arches. These authentic small ogive cross vaults in between carried on the acutely pointed arches hollow out the wall and ensure the triangulation which provides the whole with a perfect stability.

 

Unusual esthetic effects combine with the physical advantages of this type of architecture. The unbroken continuity in the rhythm of the supports and the absence of the solid masonry at the corners permit the eye to move unhindered and at the same time assures an absolute transparency towards the centre of the cloister.

 

The cloister is designed to be closed off to the outside yet extremely open to the centre. It is placed so that no other building rises higher and the slope of the roof reaches directly up towards the sky drawing our attention upwards towards heaven giving the monks a continual reminder of the subject of their meditation [montstmichel.co.uk]

Nº 48.

Opel Rekord 2.0 E Taxi (Frankfurt, 1984).

Escala 1/43.

"Taxis del Mundo" - Altaya (España).

Ixo.

Año 2014.

----------------------------------------------------

"El taxi Opel Rekord 2.0 E - Más barato que un Mercedes

Los Opel, más baratos y muy fiables, fueron la principal alternativa a los taxis Mercedes en Alemania durante varias décadas. El Rekord E, un coche de líneas elegantes, espacioso y muy robusto, se ganó una buena fama entre los taxistas de finales de los años setenta.

 

- See more at: www.planetadeagostini.es/colecciones-altaya/miniaturas/ta...

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Opel Rekord

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

"The Opel Rekord was a large family car/executive car which was built in eight generations by the German car manufacturer Opel. Between Summer 1953 and 1986 approximately ten million were sold.

 

In late summer 1986, the Rekord was replaced by the Opel Omega."

(...)

 

"- Olympia Rekord (1953–1957)

- Rekord P I (July 1957 – July 1960)

- Rekord P II (1960–1963)

- Rekord A (1963–1965)

- Rekord B (1965–1966)

- Rekord C (1967–1971)

- Rekord D (1972–1977)

- Rekord E (1977–1986) :

The E model can be subdivided into Rekord E1 (1977–82) and Rekord E2 (1982–86). Over 1.4 million units were made. The Rekord E was available as a two- or four-door sedan, and as a three- or five-door Caravan (station wagon). In some markets where the tax structure was suitable, a three-door van version was also available."

(...)

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/?title=Opel_Rekord

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Opel Rekord Series E

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

"The Opel Rekord Series E was a large family car, replacing the Rekord D on Opel's Rüsselsheim production lines in August 1977, following the end of the summer vacation plant shut-down. It shared its wheelbase and inherited most of its engines from its predecessor, but the bodies were completely new.

 

In October 1982 the Rekord E was extensively reworked, retaining the central portion of the body, the same windows and the principal elements of the substructure, but with redesigned front and back ends, and with several significant new engines. The pre- and post-facelift versions are commonly referred to as the E1 and E2, respectively."

(...)

 

Opel Rekord E1 (1977 - 1982)

 

"Despite sharing its wheelbase and, at least initially, its engine range with the car it replaced, the Opel Rekord E as launched at the 1977 Frankfurt Motor Show was slightly wider, slightly longer, slightly higher and, with larger windows, significantly heavier than the Opel Rekord D. Inside it was noticeably more spacious.

 

Plaudits for the technologically impressive (though commercially unsuccessful) NSU Ro 80, introduced in 1968, had prompted a revived interest in aerodynamics among West German automakers, and the Rekord E came with claims of an improved drag coefficient of 0.42 Cd.)[2] In 1982 the facelifted "E2" version was released. Of a generally smoother appearance, this version featured redesigned, more aerodynamical front and rear ends, and a reshuffling of engines and equipment levels."

(...)

 

Opel Rekord E2 (1982 - 1986)

 

"In September 1982 the Rekord E received a major upgrade. The upgrade might have been held out as marking a new Opel Rekord, but it was not: the manufacturer continued to use the "Rekord E" designation. Subsequently Rekords assembled in Rüsselsheim between 1977 and 1982 have becomes known as Rekord E1s and those assembled in that plant between 1982 and 1986 have become knowm as Rekord E2s." (...)

"The new car shared the basic chassis components from the E1. The shape of the central portion of the car was unchanged. But there were several new engines, and the front hood was reshaped to give a smoother profile.(...)

The published drag coefficient was reduced from 0.42 Cd on the Rekord E1 to 0.36 Cd on the Rekord E2.(...)

Opel now used the extra length at the car's ends to produce a Rekord E2 with a more conventionally mainstream appearance than the E1."

(...)

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel_Rekord_Series_E

  

Mintaro.

Legend has it that Mintaro was named by Spanish mule and bullock drivers from Uruguay who carted copper through this spot in their way from Burra to Port Wakefield from 1853-57. In Spanish Mintaro means “camping spot.” But Mintaro was named four years before these Spanish team drivers arrived in SA! The government surveyed and put up for auction land here in 1849. Before this time the area was part of a pastoral lease for Martindale Station established by the Bowman brothers in 1841 and other pastoralists like Arthur Young. Bowmans had 11,000 acres here. When the government sold land here in 1849 Henry Gilbert of Pewsey Vale and Gilberton purchased it. He then subdivided part of his lands to create a town which he called Mintaro after a local Aboriginal word meaning “place of netted water.” Gilbert was speculating on making money from a town ideally situated for the bullock teams travelling south from Burra as it straddle the Wakefield River. Next to Gilbert’s land an Irishman Joseph Brady purchased land at Mintaro north. He later discovered excellent quality slate there and began slate mining which still continues to this day. Brady was the man who donated two acres to the Catholic Church in 1855. The town grew quickly but when the railway reached Gawler in 1857 the bullock teams altered their routes south and the town was bypassed by most teams from that time onwards.

 

But the 1850s were still good times for Mintaro. Cottages with walled gardens were constructed as well as several stores, the Devonshire Hotel, the Primitive and Wesleyan Methodist and Catholic churches and the flourmill. The slate quarries boosted the town despite the lack of traffic passing through it. Brady leased the quarry to Thompson Priest who managed the quarries which employed a third of the town’s males. Meantime Thompson Priest who leased the slate quarries died in 1885 and the Mintaro slate quarries closed until 1893 when a local syndicate was formed to reactivate the quarries. 2,500 shares were sold to a group of local men who restarted the operations to keep the town economically strong.

Historical Walk in Mintaro.

Magpie and Stump Hotel. First hotel on this site opened 1851 for the bullock drivers taking copper from Burra to Port Wakefield. Up to 30 bullock teams camped near here each night. Original hotel burnt down in 1902 and present hotel was erected 1904. Good façade with corner veranda. Dining room incorporates the old bakehouse ovens.

Shop and Cottage. This is now a fine restaurant. Built around 1856 combining residence and shop. Window is finely glazed and it has a separate skillion roof on the veranda. Opposite the hotel.

Anglican church. On the corner of Young Street is the Anglican Church which was originally built by the Primitive Methodist church in 1858. When the Primitive Methodists and Wesleyan Methodists united in 1900 the Primitive Methodist church was sold to the Anglicans for a mere £90. This was in 1905 but it still sounds like a good buy

Wesleyan Methodist Church. The first Wesleyan Methodist church was opened in 1858. Then a second church was built in front of with an opening service in May 1867. The 1867 church is Gothic with small buttresses on the side. It is built of sandstone. It has good views across the vale to the Catholic Church on the next hill which opened as the Church of the Immaculate Conception in November 1856, making it one of the oldest Catholic churches in a SA. The land was donated by Mr Brady who ran Mintaro slate quarries. He also contributed significant funds to the building appeal for the church. Refreshments and entertainment after the opening was held at the home of Mr Brady.

Chimney House. Isaac Duance had this cottage built in 1855. James Fry acquired it in 1869. Note the square, rectangular & round chimneys on this cottage hence the name ascribed to it.

Anglican House. This delightful cottage was built in 1856 as a religious building hence the Gothic style windows. At one stage it was a private school but it was probably sold when the Anglicans purchased the former Primitive Methodist church across the street in 1905. It is now a private house.

Miller House. This fine residence on the hill with warm stone work, casement windows and an Edwardian wooden decorative veranda was built for a Mr Miller in 1853. The residence has a German appearance so Mr Miller was probably of German background. Note the steeply pitched roof line which is typically German.

Lathean’s Post Office and Store. The Richards house next door dates from 1854 but the store was built in 1862. The Post Office operated from here from 1862 to 1866. Not much remains of the store except a wall with a window with a fine brick voussoir above the window. The store was Georgian in style. In the 1890s it became a carpenter’s shop run by a Mr Denton, hence the sign for undertakers.

Devonshire Hotel. Across the street from Mintaro Mews is the former Devonshire Hotel. It was built in 1856 and first licensed to James Torr until he sold it in 1864. The large cellars originally were fitted out with a skittle alley. The main hall in the hotel was 23 feet by 68 feet and was used for concerts. Grim times arrived in 1898 when Charles Grimm bought it and converted it into a temperance hotel! It then became a private residence. From the rear it is a two storey structure.

Post Office. Next door to the Institute. A Victorian building from 1866 in Italianate style. Warm coloured stone brackets support the roof. Telegraph arrived in Mintaro here in 1873.

The Institute. Local stone institute built in 1878 by local builders William and John Hunt. Stonemasons were Thomas Priest and John Trucker. Georgian in style. It was the centre of the educational and social life of the town.

Mintaro Mews row of shops. This impressive building with the large Moreton Bay Figs in front has upstairs dormer windows. The lower floor has a fine bay windows and good glazing. Originally this was a row of shops with accommodation upstairs. The house has slate floors from Mintaro slate quarries and to assist ladies climbing onto horses there is a mounting stone in front of it. Some walls are of slate too. It was built in three stages between 1856 and 1866. It was purchased in 1922 by the Mortlocks who owned Martindale Hall. They stabled some of their racing horses here! More recently it has been used for bed and breakfast accommodation.

 

Ko Chang (Thai: เกาะช้าง, pronounced [kɔ̀ʔ tɕʰáːŋ], also Koh Chang) is an amphoe (district) in Trat Province, Thailand. It is on the Gulf of Thailand's eastern seaboard, 310 km from Bangkok, near the border with Cambodia.

 

It is the country's third largest island, after Phuket and Ko Samui, and the largest island in the Mu Ko Chang National Park archipelago.

 

The name means "Elephant Island", and comes from its elephant-shaped headland. Despite the presence of elephants on the island, they are not indigenous. At present, there are nine villages on the island.

 

HISTORY

Prior to World War II, Ko Chang was little known. During this period, the few families there made a living growing coconuts and fruit.

 

During World War II, when Thailand was occupied by Japanese forces, Ko Chang was the scene of the 1941 Battle of Ko Chang between the Royal Thai Navy and a Vichy French naval squadron, in which the French won a decisive victory.

 

GEOGRAPHY

Ko Chang is part of an archipelago of 51 islands, and is approximately 30 km long by 14 km, wide with a total area of 217 km². It is part of the Mu Ko Chang National Park, which covers an area of 650 km², of which 70% is offshore.

 

It is a mountainous island, with Khao Salak Phet being the highest peak at 743 metres. The island is known for several waterfalls, thriving coral reefs, and rainforests.

 

The main settlements on the west coast are around Sai Khao, Hat Kai Mook, and Hat Ta Nam, with the village of Bang Bao on the south coast.

 

WILDLIFE

Ko Chang is home to populations of the stump-tailed macaque, the small Indian civet, the small Asian mongoose, 61 bird species, and a number of snakes and deer.

 

The Koh Chang frog (Limnonectes kohchangae) was originally thought to be an endemic species, but has also been found on the mainland.

 

ADMINISTRATION

The island forms a district (amphoe) in the province of Trat. It was formed on 30 April 1994, when it was split off from Laem Ngop District, at first being classed as a minor district (king amphoe).

 

Following a decision of the Thai government on 15 May 2007, all of the 81 minor districts were upgraded to full districts. With its publication in the Royal Gazette on 24 August, the upgrade became official.

 

The district is subdivided into the two subdistricts (tambon) of Ko Chang (Thai: เกาะช้าง), consisting of four villages and with a total population of 3,010, and Ko Chang Tai (Thai: เกาะช้างใต้), five villages with 2,346 inhabitants.[citation needed]

 

The district contains the following nine villages (muban):

 

Ban Salak Phet

Ban Salak Phet Nuea

Ban Salak Khok

Ban Chek Bae

Ban Dan Mai

Bang Bao

Ban Khlong Son

Ban Khlong Phrao

Ban Khlong Nonsi

 

TRANSPORT

AIR

Ko Chang has no airport. The nearest airport is Trat Airport[5] located 17km from the Ao Thammachat Koh Chang ferry terminal on the mainland. A minibus service runs from the airport to hotels on Ko Chang.

 

ROAD

There are two main roads on Ko Chang, running the length of the east and west coasts. Both roads start at Ao Sapparot in the north, near the ferry piers. Shorter roads branch out to Ploytalay Resort and Keereephet, Khlong Nueng, and Klong Phu waterfalls.

 

Songthaew operate on the two main roads, providing both public transport and taxi services.

 

Motorbike rental and motorbike-taxis are available.

 

The nearest long distance road transport is at Trat town, from where the 310 km journey to Bangkok takes five hours by bus.

 

BOAT

There are two ferry companies that run services from the mainland to Ko Chang. Both take vehicles and passengers. There are now no passenger-only boats to the island. Ferries run from around 06:30 until 19:30.

 

During high season, from November to May, there are passenger-only boat services from Ko Chang to the outlying islands of Ko Wai, Ko Mak, and Ko Kood.

 

ECONOMY

Ko Chang's income derives largely from tourism, but some traditional livelihoods still exist. Many of Ko Chang's villages rely on fishing, with Ban Salak Phet (Thai: บ้านสลักเพชร) being the largest and oldest community on Ko Chang, in a sheltered location in the south of the island. Other fishing villages include Bang Bao (Thai: หมู่บ้านประมงบางเบ้า), at Bang Bao Beach, which consists of houses on stilts built into the sea, and Ban Khlong Son, which also partly relies on rubber plantations.

 

Ban Dan Mai and Ban Khlong Non Si also have coconut plantations, and orchards of lychee trees. The variety of lychee grown, Silaman 200 years, is believed to be found only on Ko Chang.

 

TOURISM

The first foreign backpackers started arriving on Ko Chang in the mid-1970s, using local fishing boats, when the island was still undeveloped.

 

In 1982, Ko Chang along with the surrounding area became part of the protected Mu Ko Chang National Park, with approximately 85% of the island, together with nearby coral reefs, falling within the park.

 

It has since become a major tourist destination, both for foreigners and Thais, with a number of tourist resorts being developed.

 

Despite this, tourism on Ko Chang remains considerably less developed than on Ko Samui or Phuket.

 

ATTRACTIONS

The hilly nature of the island provides it with a number of popular waterfalls, including Klong Plu (น้ำตกคลองพลู). It is the only one on the west side of the island, and has an entrance three kilometres from Ao Khlong Phrao. Waterfalls on the east side of the island include Klong Nonsi, Klong Nueng, Khiri Petch which is about three kilometres from Salak Petch village, the five waterfalls of Kongoi near Bang Bao, and the Thanmayom waterfall near Thanmayom pier.

 

Ban Salak Phet village has a temple, Wat Salak Phet, built in the reign of King Rama V on his visit to the island. The original temple is now used as a museum commemorating the king's visits to the area. A new temple was completed nearby in 2014.

 

Bays include Ao Salak Phet, the largest on the island, and Ao Bai Lan (Thai: อ่าวใบลาน).

 

Ko Chang's beaches include Hat Kai Bae (Thai: หาดไก่แบ้) beach, and Hat Khlong Phrao-Laem Chaiyachet (Thai: หาดคลองพร้าว-แหลมไชยเชษฐ์) beach. By far the busiest is the first beach visitors reach when they arrive on the island, White Sand Beach (Hat Sai Kao). Backpackers will opt to head a couple of kilometres south of Kai Bae Beach to Lonely Beach, which is known for cheap accommodation and almost nightly parties in high season. A quieter alternative is Klong Kloi Beach on the south coast of Ko Chang. This was deserted until 2006 but is now home to a community of beach bars, restaurants, and accommodation.

 

EVENTS & FESTIVALS

KO CHANG YUTTHANAVI DAY

Ko Chang Yutthanavi Day, which occurs in late January at the Ko Chang Yutthanavi Memorial on Laem Ngop, commemorates the Royal Thai Navy's engagement against the French at the Battle of Ko Chang on 17 January 1941. There is an exhibition by the Royal Thai Navy, and merit-making and tribute rites are performed.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Roosevelt Mall, 2311 Cottman Ave; subdivided into several different stores.

3101 Kingsbridge Terrace, Kingsbridge Heights, The Bronx, New York City, New York, United States

 

Designed in 1900, and built from 1901 to 1902 by the New York architects Arthur J. Horgan and Vincent J. Slattery, the former 50th Precinct Police Station House is prominently sited at the intersection of Kingsbridge Terrace and Summit Place. Its style, scale, materials of construction, direct relation to the street, and ornament contribute to the monumental character, which distinguished the building from the surrounding two- and three-story frame structures of rapidly expanding Kingsbridge.

 

A symbol of the authority of the police force and of the presence of municipal government in early 20th century Kingsbridge, and an exemplar of Beaux-Arts principles of composition, the building should be seen within the context of the City Beautiful Movement.

 

Historical interest in the building further derives from its being among the best surviving works of an architectural firm that was very much in the public eye at the tum-of-the-century.

 

Development of the Kingsbridge Area

 

Coincident with the growth of the northwest Bronx generally, the modern development of Kingsbridge and of the area presently known as Kingsbridge Heights dates from the latter half of the 19th century.

 

Rural and sparsely populated, with a varied topographical character, the Bronx of the 19th century depended for its growth on the gradual subdivision of estates, on changed attitudes respecting the desirability of the area, and on the completion of the Harlem River Railroad, which provided a first impetus to the development of the "north side."

 

Kingsbridge formally began to take shape as a residential community in 1847 when the Macomb family's "Island Farm," an extensive tract, was surveyed and subdivided into building lots, which were then sold for development.

 

Notwithstanding its late development relative to communities on Manhattan Island, Kingsbridge has had a rich history beginning as early as 1609 with the arrival of Henry Hudson on the Spuyten Duyvil peninsula.

 

Apparently, the Dutch had considered siting their projected New Amsterdam colony at Kingsbridge. The plan was soon abandoned, but by the early 17th century, the Dutch were farming areas on Manhattan as far north as the flatlands of Harlem.

 

It was not long before they began to seek areas into which the population could expand; thus, in addition to disaffected New Englanders, among the first settlers of Westchester County and the Bronx — the land "upon the Maine" — were the Dutch. Indeed, the earliest European settler of the immediate Kingsbridge area was the Dutchman Jonkheer Adrien Van der Donck in 1641.

 

Van der Donck's tract, known as de Jonkheers, included all of the land from Spuyten Duyvil north eight miles along the Hudson River and east to the Bronx River.

 

The construction of the Boston Post Road in 1673 facilitated travel and communication between Manhattan Island and the northern colonies. Originating in lower Manhattan, the route ran the length of the island, crossed the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, traversed Westchester County and Connecticut, and terminated in Boston.

 

Until 1693 and the construction of the King's Bridge by landowner Vredryck Flypsen, crossing of the Spuyten Duyvil was accomplished by ferry. From the bridge, the Boston Post Road ran to Albany Crescent, followed Boston Avenue, and then veered toward the northeast, crossing the Bronx River at William's Bridge.

 

Another of the early roads radiating from the location of the King's Bridge and moving north along Bailey Avenue, was the Albany Post Road , which then continued along the western side of the Van Cortlandt properties.

 

That the King's Bridge served as the principal passage from the northern tip of Manhattan Island to the Bronx mainland, underlines the significance of the greater Kingsbridge area during Revolutionary times. As the main military artery for the armies of both the British and the Americans, the bridge was under constant attack during those Revolutionary War years when New York City was subject to British occupation .

 

Boston Hill was the scene of many battles in the years following 1776, and from 1777 to 1779, the British established a presence at the Van Cortlandt mansion .

 

Early indications of the eventual residential development of the area can be seen in the period immediately fol lowing the Revolution, at which time, well-to-do New Yorkers focused on the natural beauty of the area with an eye toward moving northward.

 

The eventual annexation of the Bronx proceeded in piecemeal fashion and not without opposition: against the incorporation were those Bronx residents who thought that nothing would be gained by aligning themselves with heavily populated Manhattan, and those New Yorkers who saw no advantage to appropriating farmland.

 

Nevertheless, on 1 January 1874, the townships of Kingsbridge, West Farms, and Morrisania formally became the twenty-third and twenty-fourth wards of the City of New York; from that time until 1898, they were known collectively as the "Annexed District". It was not until 1895, however, that the annexation of the Bronx east of the Bronx River was effected.

 

In 1897, the New York State Legislature passed a charter for the creation of Greater New York City; in 1898, twenty-four local governments including all the annexed districts north of the Harlem River, as well as the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond were officially consolidated.

 

Commenting on building operations in the Bronx and noting a remarkable thirty-three percent increase thereof between 1898 and 1899, a dealer in real estate averred: "as to the future of the borough, that is assured, for the natural trend of the city's growth is northward, and the Bronx with all its proposed improvements will reap a golden harvest."

 

Corroborating his opinion, the Real Estate Record and Guide of 1901 observed that "more families continue to forsake their downtown neighbors for better homes and the purer air and ampler room above the Harlem and especially brisk in the matter of building is [sic] the upper and eastern sections of the Bronx, where both private and tenement houses are springing up."

 

In point of fact, just after 1895 and the annexation of the eastern section, booms in both real estate and population occurred. These were attributable to a combination of factors, the most important being inclusion into the metropolitan area, self-government, and the improvement of transportation.

 

Bronx Police History and the 50th Precinct

 

Bronx police history formally began in January 1866 when the Metropolitan Police District, created by an act of the New York State legislature in 1857, established a substation in the Village of Tremont in the Town of West Farms.

 

Previously, police activity in Kingsbridge had been under the jurisdiction of Manhattan's 32nd Precinct , located at Amsterdam Avenue and 152nd Street.

 

Due to an increase in criminal behavior accompanying the immediate post-Civil War growth of the area, the residents of Yonkers and West Farms had favored incorporation within the Metropolitan Police District. Participation in the State's Metropolitan Police District was not long-lived, however; in 1870, as a result of the reorganization of local government according to the terms of the Tweed Charter, the City reclaimed control of the police department.

 

In the following year, Yonkers withdrew from the Metropolitan Police District and organized a police force of its own. In November 1871, the Yonkers police established a substation at Kingsbridge to serve the precinct extending from the West Farms town line to just south of the present Yonkers city line; an existir^ frame building, located at Verveelen Place, just east of Broadway and south of 231st Street, was adapted for use as a station house.

 

As a consequence of the separation of the Township of Kingsbridge from the City of Yonkers in 1872, the force headquartered at Kingsbridge was administered by a joint Board of Police Commissioners of Yonkers and Kingsbridge. Following annexation in January 1874, the district constituted of Kingsbridge, Morrisania, and West Farms was divided into two precincts and one sub-precinct of the New York Police Department.

 

Shortly thereafter, the sub-precinct, headquartered at Kingsbridge, came into its own as the 35th Precinct.

 

With the consolidation of 1898, the Police Department of Greater New York assimilated eighteen small police agencies, and a move was initiated to conform the boundaries of police precincts to the lines of the individual townships. New precincts were created to serve newly annexed areas and to accommodate rapid population increases and building and commercial development in already established ones.

 

In accordance with the general objective of creating a flexible system that would provide for future expansion of the force, several renumberings of Bronx precincts occurred during the next thirty years. Upon consolidation in 1898, Kingsbridge was redesignated the 40th; in January 1918, the 74th; in April of the same year, the 57th; in 1924, the 26th; and on 1 August 1929, the 50th, which it remains to this day.

 

Despite its changed status upon incorporation into the Greater New York City Police Department, the 40th Precinct continued to occupy its makeshift quarters at Verveelen Place, which were enlarged in 1886 by taking possession of a two-story frame building to the east. This measure served only as a stopgap, however, for conditions had become progressively unsatisfactory and indeed unsavory.

 

Not only were the quarters cramped, but the basement of the building had flooded so often that the jail had settled out of plumb. A newspaper reporter of the time remarked that "no more unhealthier police station exists in the City of New York than this one,and in the late 1880s, the Board of Health condemned the building. Nevertheless, although a project for construction of a new facility finally was initiated in 1898, new accommodations would not be had until 1902 when " 'the shanty', as the frame building which . . . sheltered the blue-coat&i guardians ever since the 40th precinct was established [was] abandoned for a modem structure.

 

In a review of the official architecture of New York City, The Real Estate Record and Guide branded municipal architecture a disgrace, deplored its standards, and observed that there appeared to be a tendency to employ builders over professional architects.

 

This situation — in which "there is not even one architecturally decent police station"^ — began to improve as New York embarked on a citywide reconstruction and renovation campaign to modernize police facilities. The turn of the century enthusiasm for constructing civic monuments provided a further impetus.

 

Horgan and Slattery were commissioned to design a new 40th Precinct Police Station House sometime between 1898 and fall 1900, although the City of New York did not purchase the land on which the building is situated until 2 October 1900.

 

The firm estimated the construction costs for the station house, stables, and a prison, at $70,000. Plans were filed in December 1900, but approval to proceed was denied due to the omission of tie rods between the steel floor and the spruce beams of the one-story carriage house.

 

The New Building Application was approved on 9 January 1901 only after the architects filed a petition demonstrating that their use of the Roebling System of Fireproof Construction would constitute a sufficient tie in itself. Construction began 18 March 1901 and was completed 16 April 1902.

 

Horoan and Slattery

 

From 1894, when The New York Times initially reported on the financial difficulties of the firm, until the period 1899 to 1903, when the newspaper regularly and eagerly followed the professional lives of Horgan and Slattery, the architects gained more and more notoriety.

 

While political patronage certainly was not an invention of the Tammany administrators, Mayor Robert Van Wyck was overly zealous about stamping the municipal architecture of New York City with the seal of his administration. It appears to have been Van Wyck's intention either to convey all city projects directly to Horgan and Slattery or to install them in a consulting capacity over more widely renowned architects such as John Thomas or Frederick Withers .

 

The firm first achieved public recognition with the rehabilitation of the interior of the Democratic Club in 1897. Upon completion of that job, apparently ". finding. . .hundreds of odd jobs, large and small. . .for the favored architects."

 

Queries from a perhaps overly critical press respecting any architect's professional qualifications or lack thereof are not in themselves objectionable.

 

However, in the case of Horgan and Slattery, the situation was rather more complicated as the attacks became a vehicle for denouncing the Van Wyck administration generally and pertained very little, if at all, with a fair assessment of the firm's work. In order to bolster their charges of corruption in the Van Wyck administration, the press seized upon the seeming irregularity in the relationship between the architects and the administration, claiming that the firm name had become "a trademark of municipal disrepute and jobbery".

 

Horgan and Slattery were characterized as political pawns "who had no standing artistic, political, scientific, or financial [but were] used as the cat's paw of politicians anxious to get control of municipal building in New York. . ."

 

Despite the scandals surrounding the firm, political affiliations carried the day, for "on the death of the architect J.R. Thomas, the contract for the completion of the Hall of Records was granted to the favorite Tammany contractors Horgan and Slattery in spite of strong denunciation of such action."

 

Considered cogs in a great political machine and sarcastically dubbed the "universal solvents" or experts in all fields of architecture, the firm was taken to task for lapsed professional and moral responsibilities:

 

The new city administration has acted none too soon and with none too much severity in the cases of those two "devouring absurdities" Horgan and Slattery. Two self-respecting men in their places — but that is unimaginable. Two self-respecting men could never occupy their places. But two men with not more than twice the average thickness of skin would have got out, when Tammany was defeated, withqut waiting to be kicked out amid the cheers of the bystanders.

 

Upon his election in 1902, Mayor Seth Low called for the "dishorganizing and unslatterifying" of municipal architecture and insisted that "all business relations between the city and Horgan and Slattery, who received the award of all city contracts during the administration of Mayor Van Wyck should be terminated as soon as possible."

 

Mayor Low's administration adopted a hardline position according to which it would be preferable to pay damages in court than to honor any outstanding contracts with the architects.

 

Although ethics rather than aesthetics constituted the point of departure for the accusations in the local press — there having been very little critical coverage of the design work —the artistic capabilities of the architects were fair game as well.

 

Nevertheless, the firm's rise to prominence, even in the context of its alleged association with the great tum-of-the-century New York City Democratic party machine, cannot nullify the inherent value of their designs, which, in large part, combined classical vocabularies and Beaux-Arts principles of composition.

 

The Architects' and Builders' Magazine of January 1907 recognized that, "[J. R. Thomas'] work has been carried on in praiseworthy fashion by Messrs. Horgan and Slattery who have added to Mr. Thomas' brilliant conception much of the virility of design which characterizes their other well-known masterpieces."

 

Scant biographical information exists on the two architects. Photographs or drawings of a fair number of their projects were published in architectural journals, but accompanying text is rare. Arthur J. Horgan and Vincent J. Slattery entered into partnership in 1886. Until 1897, the New York City Directory listed them as builders; interestingly, in the 1898 edition, they emerged as architects.

 

Evidently, they had incorporated as such and were working out of an office at 1 Madison Avenue. Apart from Horgan's testimony in 1899 before the Mazet Committee that he had studied architecture for five years in the offices of his godfather, Colonel Arthur Crocks, virtually nothing is known about the professional educations of the architects.

 

Slattery testified that the "outside work" of the firm was his responsibility, while Horgan assumed the "inside work"; he also referred all technical questions to Horgan. In the absence of conclusive information concerning their respective positions in the firm, which would elucidate Slattery's statement, one may speculate either that Horgan was the principal designer and Slattery the business partner, or that Horgan dealt with structural questions and Slattery with interior embellishment.

 

Following Horgan's death in 1911, Slattery went into business for himself, retiring in 1934.

 

The Design

 

The former 50th Precinct Police Station House is a handsome example of Beaux-Arts classicism, a mode of design that characterized much public architecture at the tum-of-the-century and became the emblem of the City Beautiful Movement.

 

Although clearly indebted to the architectural styles of the past, the design does not endeavor to replicate historical models exactly, nor did such archaeological accuracy underlie the historicism of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Rather, the elements are derived from classical prototypes but are freely interpreted and ingeniously combined.

 

Typologically, the building refers to an Italian Renaissance urban palace; the ornament is eclectic.

 

Horgan and Slattery approached the design of this small but imposing building in an imaginative way. The building dominates its site; further, it is the dominant architectural feature on the primarily residential block. The architects' masterful handling is demonstrated in the sensitivity to the site, an understanding of the rules of Beaux-Arts composition, the use of ornament, and the adaptation of an ancient but particularly appropriate building type to a modern use.

 

Their studied application of Beaux-Arts principles is evident in the clear articulation of the parts of the building, the bilateral symmetry, the clearly marked and elaborated openings, the hierarchy of constituent elements in the facades, the play of advancing and receding planes, and the consistency of the articulation.

 

The form of the building refers to two distinct phases in the evolution of the Italian Renaissance urban palace. The 15th-century palace, such as the Pitti or the Medici, with its massive presence, direct relation with the street, and rusticated base, is an appropriate model for the expression of such values as power, security, invulnerability, and monumentality, which, surely in the public mind, are associated with the police force.

 

Strengthening this association are the horizontal extension of the station house, which intensifies the image of its being firmly wedded to its site, and the battlements or crenel lations of the roof parapet.

 

The horizontal lines of the building are reiterated in the surface treatment on every level of the facades: by the granite base; by the continuous channels of the recessed brick courses; by the lines of the windows; by the projecting stringcourses; by the continuous cornice, which is distinguished from the fabric of the building both in color, texture and materials; by the roof parapet, which is defined as a series of advancing and receding planes.

 

In the 16th-century type, exemplified by the design for the House of Raphael by Bramante, the ground story rustication is mediated by the application of architectural ornament in the upper stories, which is also the case here.

 

Description

 

The Kingsbridge Terrace of today, which is rather an unprepossessing street lined with detached houses as well as low-rise apartments, does not figure prominently in the street system of the Bronx, or even of Kingsbridge. This was not always the case, however.

 

From the 18th century until 1913, that portion of Kingsbridge Terrace north of what is presently Albany Crescent, was known as Boston Avenue, the name deriving from its having been a segment of the Boston Post Road. As the east/west section of the almost elliptical Albany Crescent was also a part of Boston Avenue, and Bailey Avenue formed part of the Albany Post Road, the station house is in close proximity to the intersection of two historically significant roads, and at the crest of Boston Hill.

 

From the street, the building appears as a massive two-story masonry block. In plan, however, it is a "U", oriented southward such that its eastern arm forms the principal or Kingsbridge Terrace facade, and its base constitutes the secondary or Summit Place facade.

 

The principal facade is 83 feet in length and two stories in height; the secondary facade is 119 feet in length and three stories in height, only two of which are expressed, corresponding to those on the principal facade.

 

The juncture of the eastern and northern facades is mediated by a curved comer treatment. This transitional element, the articulation of whose second story departs from those of both street facades, constitutes the focal point of the composition if the building is viewed obliquely from the northeast.

 

The focal point, shifts, however to the center bay of the principal facade if the building is viewed directly from the east or obliquely from the south; from either vantage point, the comer construction is virtually invisible.

 

In both cases, the corner element and the axis of symmetry provide vertical accents in an otherwise horizontally disposed composition. The principal facade consists of five bays, the central three flanked by projecting end bays in the north and south.

 

This "ABA" rhythm is repeated in the secondary facade with the difference that the projecting end bays flank a central section of seven bays. Three bays define the curved comer section.

 

Gamboge bricks, which are variegated in hue and are laid in Flemish bond, constitute the veneers of the facades, including the southern wall of the eastern arm of the "U". The contrasting limestone members of the windows, door, stringcourses, and columns, the granite of the base, the terra-cotta ornament, and the green tin denticulated Doric cornice create an impressive polychromatic image.

 

Like the urban palaces of the Italian Renaissance, the two stories are differentiated in characteristic ways: a projecting stringcourse composed of a series of classical moldings literally cuts the building in half horizontally; the elaboration of the second story contrasts with the relatively unadorned ground story; the individual bricks in the second story are slightly more saturated in color than those in the first; and the apparent rustication of the ground story, achieved by recessing one course in every seven, is abandoned at the first stringcourse, above which the wall is planar.

 

In keeping with the unadorned character of the ground story are the openings, which receive identical articulation in both facades, in the corner, and on the southern side of the eastern arm. They differ only in their proportions: those in the north facade are squatter than those in the projecting bays and in the principal facade, and those in the curved section and the eastern arm are more attenuated.

 

The sash is one-over-one double-hung aluminum surmounted by a fixed pane of glass. The openings are unframed, vertically-oriented rectangles with flat-arch brick lintels and limestone sills with classical contours. A console at either end of the sill provides support, and a console serves as keystone in the flat arch .

 

There are three distinct window treatments in the second story, although the sash remains constant. While the same size as those in the east, the windows in the north side are the least elaborate, treated in much the same way as those on the ground story. Replacing the consoles, however, are wedge-shaped limestone keystones that are articulated in three dimensions.

 

One such opening marks the second story of the southern side of the eastern arm. The windows of the corner element are squeezed within the intercolumniations of four Roman Doric, unf luted columns on bases, the two end ones of which are engaged; a series of classical moldings constitutes the lintels.

 

The surface bounded by the upper edge of each lintel and the lower edge of the second story stringcourse is pierced by a round window enframed with a terra-cotta wreath; the comers are enlivened with foliate terra-cotta forms.

 

All windows in the second stories of both the principal facade and the projecting bays are aedicular in type.

 

The aediculae, which frame the windows, are constituted of a series of freely interpreted classical elements including flanking pilasters, which are articulated with deep channels running vertically from the base, a capital, impost block, and lintel of classical moldings.

 

The window sill is tripartite: at either end, a segment projects slightly to form a base for the pilasters. A console with pendant foliate and vegetal ornament decorates each pilaster from just above mid-height to the capital. The window extends from the sill to the top of the capital; in the space that is roughly the height of the impost block and extends from the capital to the egg and dart molding of the lintel, is a flat, blank plaque.

 

The panel duplicates on a reduced scale the one crowning the axis of symmetry in the principal facade, which is inscribed with the name of the precinct. Each aedicula of the projecting bays is enframed by a larger aedicula, which is vestigial in that it is composed of thick pilasters that are simply projections of the brick fabric. Elaborating each pilaster are a cartouche, festoon, and pendant foliate form, placed in series within a vertically-oriented rectangular panel.

 

The axis of symmetry in the principal elevation serves a dual function: it divides the facade into two equal and opposite parts, and it creates a strong central focus. The double doors are preceded by two granite steps set between granite blocks, upon which originally were lampposts.

 

Rectangular hollow metal double doors, which have been painted bright red, with a transom on which the name of the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center has been painted in white, are placed within a basket or depressed arch with prominent brick voussoirs. A large, elaborate stone cartouche serves as the keystone.

 

Flanking the arch, large ancones with foliate ornament, surmounted by impost blocks, support the stringcourse, which breaks forward from the plane of the building at the entry. Directly above, a parapet is elaborated by a blank panel flanked by two triglyph-like elements surmounted by scrolls.

 

The triglyph/scroll unit supports a projecting molding along the upper edge of the parapet. Flanking each of the triglyph/scrolls is an S-shaped scroll in bas-relief.

 

The uppermost element of the axis is a plaque identifying the building as the 50th Precinct Police Station House. The limestone plaque is a horizontally disposed rectangle; a continuous egg and dart molding serves as a border. A tripartite guttae-like feature dangles from each side of the lower edge of the panel.

 

A block with a console in its center projects from the center of the lower edge of the inscribed panel.

 

The facade of the western arm of the "U" is undistinguished and virtually invisible from any street. The brick wall is punctuated by windows in the second story.

 

Alterations to the exterior have been few and have not significantly affected the street facades.36 The police moved from the building to their current location at 3450 Kingsbridge Avenue in December 1974; the present tenant, the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center, took possession in summer 1975. In 1979, with funding from the New York City Capital Budget and the Federal Community Development Budget, the Community Center embarked on a major rehabilitative program, which was completed in 1981.

 

Undertaken by the New York architects, Edelman and Salzman, most of the alterations were in the nature of adapting the interior spaces to new uses and upgrading systems. The architects were sensitive to the original exterior; the north and east facades of the building remain virtually untouched.

 

The terracotta band courses were partially repointed; the existing wooden entrance doors and frames were replaced with hollow metal doors and frame, and the transom was closed; a new wrought iron gate to the courtyard was installed at the south end of the Kingsbridge Terrace facade; the wooden windows were replaced with aluminum ones, and stainless steel security screens were placed on every opening.

 

Unfortunately, the material condition of the exterior appears to be steadily deteriorating. The cornice, a section of which is missing from the curved elevation, shows an advanced state of erosion especially on the underside. Spalling marks the limestone members of the windows, door, stringcourses, as well as the terra-cotta ornament, and large pieces of the window sills have broken off.

 

- From the 1986 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

A Common Squirrel Monkey in the South American enclosure at the Lakeland Wildlife Oasis near Milnthorpe in North Lancashire.

 

The Common Squirrel Monkey (Saimiri sciureus) is native to the tropical areas of South America. They can be found primarily in the Amazon Basin, including territories in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Paraguay and Venezuela; a small population has been introduced to Southern Florida. A group of free-ranging individuals was recently spotted and photographed at the Tijuca Forest in Rio de Janeiro - possibly the result of an illegal release or of a scape from the pet trade.

The Common Squirrel Monkey prefers to live in the middle canopy, but will occasionally come to the ground or go up into the high canopy. They like vegetation which provides good cover from birds of prey.They are considered both frugivorous and insectivorous, preferring berry-like fruit on branches. It also looks for insects, and small vertebrates, such as tree frogs. It obtains a majority of water from the foods eaten, and will also obtain water from holes in trees and puddles on the ground. When fruit is scarce, the Common Squirrel Monkey will drink nectar.

The young are cared for by other females as well as the mother, but not by any males. Social interactions are centered around a group of dominant females. The Common Squirrel Monkey gives birth to a single offspring. Infants are able to climb from birth and the mother's supporting role is less than with other monkeys.

Squirrel monkey groups are subdivided into adult male bands, mother-infant bands, and juvenile bands. Adult females with their young form the core of the group. Adult males intermingle with the females only during the several months of mating season.

The Common Squirrel Monkey is diurnal. It is usually quiet but will utter loud cries when alarmed. It is arboreal but sometimes it will come down to the ground. Bands or troops can be from 12-100. Occasionally troops as large as 500 have been seen in undisturbed forests.

The Common Squirrel Monkey is rated as least concern; by IUCN from a conservation perspective. However, the Common Squirrel Monkey is among many rainforest animals whose status may be harmed by deforestation. The species has also been captured extensively for the pet trade and for medical research.

This corner house just across from the QE II medical campus in Nedlands has only been abandoned for a comparatively short time. Squatters and taggers have well and truly moved in however.

 

Apparently the place (and the one next door) are slated for redevelopment. They'll probably subdivide the blocks into townhouses like much of the rest of the block.

Original curbing and street features, Busch Gardens, Pasadena, 1904.

 

Memories of Pasadena's world-famous Busch Gardens, a botanical marvel created in the Arroyo Seco at the turn of the 20th century, have all but faded since its closure in 1938, when it was subdivided for housing.

 

But in its heyday, the spectacular garden attracted more than 1 million to what was then Pasadena's premier tourist attraction.

 

"This was the very first Busch Gardens in America," said Michael Logan, who's spent years tracing the remnants, now mostly hidden away on private property.

 

"It was the blueprint for many others that followed," he said, "a lot of natural beauty, small lakes, geysers, and a lot of birds - but we didn't get any amusement rides."

 

A surprising number of original features remain from the spectacular gardens that Anheuser-Busch brewery co-founder Adolphus Busch and his wife Lily started in 1904 and opened to the public in 1906.

 

Most famous is the Old Mill, originally built in 1920 as a playhouse for the Buschs' daughter. But the Grecian Pergola that was part of the original entrance, and many other features, also survive. And the research literally uncovered some things even the people living there didn't know about.

 

"The property owners had been there about 16 years, and Gary pulled away some ivy on a wall separating the property and saw these huge sculptured concrete volutes, almost like bookends, for a six-foot terrace," Logan said. "They never knew they were there."

Pasadena Star News, 2010

 

Porst Compact Reflex SP with the Vivitar 20mm f3.8 wide-angle lens on expired Kodak T-Max 3200 film.

Edmund Bowman senior arrived in SA from Van Diemens Land in 1838 with his brothers. They soon had leasehold runs along the Wakefield River from near its source in the Tothill Ranges beyond Manoora to its estuary at Port Wakefield. Edmund died young in 1866 whilst trying to cross the Wakefield River at one of his stations called Two Mile near Werocata station on the lower Wakefield River. His upper stations were Martindale, Wirrilla,and Holm Hill. He converted these leasehold runs into freehold in the 1850s and 1860s. After Edmund's death the properties were run by trustees until his eldest son Edmund Junior reached the age of majority in 1878.

 

Apart from the Wakefield River runs Edmund Bowman also purchased the southern half of Willogoleeche Run near Hallett in the 1850s. Bowmans run was called Wandilla and it was near Burra. With his brothers Edmund Bowman Senior also ran the Crystal Brook run until it was resumed by the government for closer settlement in 1874.

 

After 1878 young Edmund the son indulged his passions and built a grand mansion Martindale Hall at great cost. When interest rates changed and droughts came Edmund Junior sold off Martindale Hall and some lands and he moved onto Wandilla station. In 1878 the young Bowman inherited 18,000 acres at Wandilla, 25,000 acres at Mt Bryan, 9,000 acres at Martindale, 5,500 acres at Wirrilla, 1,600 acres at Holm Hill and 25,000 acres at Werocata which included 10,000 acres at Pareora or Two Mile station. Edmund Junior ran his properties with his brother Charles William.

 

In the mid 1880s Martindale was sold to the Tennant family. In 1886 Werocata was sold to Stephen Ralli . Pareora was sold in 1895 to Gustav Gebhardt of Mackerode station.

 

Edmund stayed on Wandilla station until around 1918. But he also had a town house at Kensington Park. He retired to this stone house constructed around an earlier dwelling at Kensington Park in Wandilla Street which was changed to Yeronga Avenue. Edmund Bowman junior died at Wandilla house in 1921. His wife and daughters lived on in the house until it was sold in 1940 to wind up his estate. At that time nearly 3 acres of land was sold to make 19 suburban blocks of land with a new street to link Wandilla Street with Beulah Road extension. Wandilla House is a large freestone house built around 1890 by its appearance. Its sale ended the Edmund Senior and Junior Bowman links with the pastoral industry in South Australia. .

Scottish settler Matthew Smillie took out a Special Survey in 1839 of areas near Mt Barker. It was the eighth Special Survey in SA and named the Native Valleys Survey although the survey stretched between what is now Nairne and Woodside. This cost him £4,000 for 4,000 acres in the Hay Valley. Smillie had a vision of becoming a Scottish lord with many tenant farmers on his large estate. He built his fine two-storey residence, which he called, The Valleys (1844) north of Nairne. To cement his role as local lord of the region he subdivided a small part of his land to create the village of Narine in 1839. It was named after his wife’s maiden name. He advertised the blocks for sale and many sold quickly. He donated small portions of land for a reserve, a town market and a town cemetery. A few years later in 1847 Matthew Smillie died but his wife Elizabeth continued with the role of estate manager until her death in 1861. As late as the 1880s there were still around 15 tenant farmers on Smillie land and the Smillie family still owned around 2,500 acres. Matthew and Elizabeth were buried in the Nairne cemetery after their deaths in 1847 and 1861 respectively. Nairne began as a wheat-producing district and John Dunn of Mt Barker established a wind-powered flourmill in Nairne in 1842. It no longer stands but the more recent flourmill built in 1857 was acquired by John Dunn in 1864 and it still stands in the Main Street. Another early settler of Nairne was Samuel Day who also worked for a time for Matthew Smillie. He established a lime burning industry in the town in the 1850s. Henry Timmins was also an early settler and he established a tannery on Nairne Creek in 1851. James Shakes established the first inn in Nairne in 1845 which he called the Crooked Billet- depicted above. You can see it behind the Millers Arms Hotel in Leith Street. Leith in Scotland was the birthplace of Matthew Smillie. One of the old cottages built in Nairne beyond the creek behind the Albert Mill in Junction Street was the home of Eliza Smillie and her children. The cottage was built in 1852 the year William Smillie died in Paris but the gable section were added in the 1880s after Eliza had sold her Nairne properties. Nairne also had an early lime burning kiln and a brick making kiln from around 1850. During the 1870s copper mining flourished at nearby Kanmantoo and this brought an influx of miners and other residents. Apart from the tannery of Henry Timmins George Chapman established a bacon and smallgoods factory nearby in 1899. As the business expanded it moved into a modern factory further along the Nairne Creek. For many years George Chapman’s factory was the largest employer in the town with up to 400 employees but it was sold in 1987 to Weston Foods a British Company. They closed the factory in 2001. One of the major events in the history of Nairne was the arrival of the railway in 1883 as it was being pushed towards Bordertown and Melbourne for the Intercolonial Express train service which began in 1887. Add a description

Phetchabun is one of the northern provinces ( Changwat ) of Thailand. Neighbouring provinces are Loei, Khon Kaen, Chaiyaphum, Lopburi, Nakhon Sawan, Phichit and Phitsanulok. Phetchabun is located in the lower northern region of Thailand, in the area between the northern and the central region. The province lies in the broad fertile river valley of the Pa Sak River, with mountains of the Phetchabun mountain range to the east and west. It is surrounded by places of interest, many well known national parks, beautiful waterfalls and great lakes. The province is subdivided in 11 districts ( Amphoe ). These are further subdivided into 117 sub districts ( Tambon ) and 1261 villages ( Muban ).

1. Mueang Phetchabun 2. Chon Daen 3. Lom Sak 4. Lom Kao 5. Wichian Buri 6. Si Thep 7. Nong Phai 8. Bueng Sam Phan 9. Nam Nao 10. Wang Pong 11. Khao Kho

Phetchabun was established by two kingdoms: the Sukhothai Kingdom, and the Ayutthaya Period of the King Narai. In the thesaphiban administrative reforms at the beginning of the 20th century, the province together with Lom Sak Province to the north formed the monthon Phetchabun. As it was the smallest monthon, it was also the first monthon to be dissolved in 1915, after being temporarily administered from Monthon Phitsanulok between 1903 and 1907. Lom Sak Province was abolished and merged into Phetchabun in 1932. During the period between 1968-1982 communist insurgents established bases in the mountains in the province. From hidden locations they fought occasional skirmishes against the Thai Army.

It is the mountains that draw tourists. The rolling peaks of Khao Thor, known as Little Switzerland, were once a battlefield against communist insurgents. Today, its beautiful scenery and cool weather attracts many visitors, to see the mountain-top army base turned into a museum, and enjoy trekking in the open zoo and non-hunting areas. The national parks of Phu Hin Rong Kla, with its stunning rock formations, and Nam Nao, whose forests are home to many large animals and birds, are now starting to attract more and more trekkers and eco tourists. Khao Kho The most engaging national park of Phetchabun Province is Khao Kho National Park, about one hour northwest of Phetchabun town. It was designated to be Little Switzerland from many visitors, because of beautiful scenery and cool weather like Switzerland. It was once a battle field against communist insurgents conducted their struggles against the authorities. Its charming scenery and great weather allure tourists to see the mountain – top, army base turned into a museum, a Chedi containing a holy relic and enjoy trekking in the open zoo and non – hunting areas.

Phetchabun may be reach by Road No.21 ( Kochasenee Rd.) from Saraburi and 370 kilometres from Bangkok.

How to get there

By Train

There is no railway system to Phetchabun

By Car

Road No.1 from capital city ( Bangkok ) to Saraburi province and then Road No.21 to Phetchabun road No.12 from Khon kaen ( central province of the northeastern region ) to Lom Sak and then Road 21. southward to Phetchabun.

By Bus.

Quite a lot of buses stop at this town on the way to Lom Sak. Here are some services you can find from Mo chit Terminal: www.transport.co.th 0 2936 2852-66

Phet Tour 0 2936 3230

Thin Siam Tour 0 2936 0500Buses are very frequent, like 2 or 3 within an hour. First Class service from Phet Tour cost 263 Baht and takes 4 hour+.

Wat Mahathat Phetchabun, Thailand. on Nikon Bamrung Road in town, houses several ancient Chedi's of Sukhothai style. Situated in Muang Phetchabun municipality. It seemed strange seeing this Temple as there is another Wat Mahathat I visited in Ayutthaya last year in 2010. However this Temple is totally different to that at Ayutthaya as you will see. Within the grounds is a school for the training of Buddhist Monks and many where around the day I visited this fine Temple. This monastery is an ancient temple which HRH Prince Damrong presumed that this monastery might be constructed during Sukhothai period. Wat Mahathat has the important objects of worship such as, Phum Khao Binth styled pagoda has been presumed that it might be constructed about B.E. 1926 ( 1383 ). This pagoda is a place that comprises Buddha's relics, Orrahan's ( saint ) ashes, and small images of Buddha in several styles. Two Buddha images of the U-Thong period whose laps are 36 inches wide. One is housed in the main chapel and the other is housed in the vihara of Wat Mahathat.

Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

 

An intact group of four residences designed by the architectural firm of Schneider & Herter and built by the firm of Schneider & Company as a speculative venture. 1 The rowhouse group is the sole surviving example of a type of site planning used on several comer plots along West End Avenue in the early 1890s where a group of houses facing the Avenue featured a prominent comer house and an additional house was built facing the side street behind the Avenue-facing houses. Treated as the centerpiece of the rehouse group, the comer house at No. 858 West End Avenue is representative of the many larger comer houses with side entrances and comer towers which once stood on West End Avenue.

 

The group of residences was built in 1892-93 during the first period of intense residential development for the comfortable professional class along the northern portion of West End Avenue where the suburban qualities of landscaped streets, the views of the Hudson River, and the amenities of nearby Riverside Park created a desirable residential area. The 858 West End Avenue House is distinguished by ornament characteristic of the mannerist aesthetic of the firm of Schneider & Herter, the juxtaposition of contrasting textures of rough, smooth-faced, and carved brownstone, and the emphasis on a lively roof line punctuated by a bell-shaped tower and chimneys. The quality and distinctiveness of the Queen Anne/Romanesque Revival style design of the 858 West End Avenue House reflects the desire for individuality in the appearance of houses within rowhouse groups and is representative of the eclectically-styled residential architecture of West End Avenue dating from the 1890s.

 

Development of the Upper West Side

 

Despite its long history beginning soon after the colonial Dutch settlement, the Upper West Side, known as Bloomingdale prior to its urbanization, remained largely undeveloped until the 1880s. In the early eighteenth century, Bloomingdale Road (later renamed the Boulevard and finally Broadway in 1898) was opened through rural Bloomingdale and provided the northern route out of the city which was then concentrated in the southern tip of Manhattan. The Upper West Side was included in the Randel Survey of 1811 (known as the Commissioners' Map) which established a uniform grid of avenues and cross streets in Manhattan as far north as 155th Street, although years elapsed before streets on the Upper West Side were actually laid out, some as late as the 1870s and 1880s, and the land was subdivided into building lots.

 

The city grew rapidly northward during the nineteenth century, but it was not until after Central Park (a designated New York City Scenic landmark) was laid out in 1857 that development began around the perimeter of the Park, setting off the first wave of real estate speculation on the Upper West Side.

 

Improved public transportation to the area contributed to the growth and sustained development of the Upper West Side. By 1880 the horse car line on Eighth Avenue had been replaced by street rail service up to 125th Street and the Elevated Railway on Ninth Avenue (renamed Columbus Avenue in 1890) had been completed. However, the biggest boost to the development of the West End (the area west of Broadway) was the creation, between 1876 and 1900, of Riverside Drive and Park (a designated New York City Scenic Landmark) located north of 72nd Street along the Hudson River. The presence of the park and drive, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, was an important factor in making this area desirable for high-quality residential development.

 

Development of the Wast End began slowly, due, to a large degree, to the hesitation of would-be residents, but by 1885 it had emerged as the area in the city experiencing the most intense real estate speculation. The expectation that the blocks along Riverside Drive and West End Avenue would be lined with mansions kept the value of these lots, as well as adjacent land, consistently higher and developers were willing to wait to realize profits from the potentially valuable sites. The real estate developers, including the West End Association, founded in 1884 by the prominent developer, W.E.D. Stokes, ultimately stimulated the demand for houses in the West End. Real estate brochures and the local press drew attention to the area, emphasizing the scenic quality of the setting, the nearness of parks, and the availability of public transportation.

 

West End Avenue (formerly Eleventh Avenue) was opened in 1880 from 72nd Street to 106th street and was paved with asphalt by 1893. West End Association members set twenty-year restrictive covenants governing West End Avenue which closed the avenue to commercial traffic and initially limited development to single-family houses, thus enhancing the desirability of the residential area. By 1890 the character of the avenue had emerged as completely residential and was promoted as a suburban-like setting with such amenities as grass plots and trees along the sidewalks. The absence of flats and apartment houses on the avenue provided the opportunity for various treatments of the comers with rowhouses and larger attached residences.

 

In the mid-1880s the most attractive areas for development along West End Avenue were located near the El stations and along the higher elevations of the hilly avenue. Construction of mid-size rowhouses, rather than the more grand type of mansions originally projected for West End Avenue, began in 1885 near 104th Street which was convenient to a Ninth Avenue El station and by 1895 the high plateau between West 99th and 104th Streets had been built up with three- and four-story rowhouses. The architectural tone of these private residences was set by the presence of costly mansions such as the W.F. Foster residence at 102th Street and Riverside Drive and the Bacon residence at 104th Street and Riverside Drive.

 

The Schneider & Company's Houses

 

The site at the northeast corner of West 102nd Street and West End Avenue appears to have been first sold for development purposes in 1881 and at that time an open-ended restrictive covenant was initiated which prevented the construction of a variety of commercial and industrial buildings. The property changed hands several times before Hannah O'Brien filed plans in 1890 to build five three-story limestone-fronted houses designed by Andrew Spence; within a year O'Brien lost control of the property and this project was abandoned.

 

Two New York architects, Ernest W. Schneider and Henry Herter, along with two partners — John Fish, a previous client, and Eugene Schultz— acquired the property and soon after filed plans for the construction of a group of four three-story residences with raised basements. Beside the comer house, facing West End Avenue, are two narrow houses, nearly identical in design. Situated across the rear of the three West End Avenue houses, facing West 102nd Street and enclosing the yard area, the fourth house has a freestanding side facade. The houses, built between May, 1892, and April, 1893, were appropriately finished on the interior with decorative mantels, hardwood trim, and horseshoe openings ornamented with fretwork dividing the music rooms from the parlors, as well as up-to-date plumbing and utility areas. The placement of the stairhall in the center of each house permitted large full-width front rooms on the upper floors.

 

The first house to be sold in the rowhouse group was No. 856 West End Avenue. In 1895 the remaining houses were divided among the investors and Schneider & Herter acquired title to No. 858 West End Avenue. The house was sold in 1897 but title reverted to Schneider & Herter in 1898; they soon resold the house. No. 854 West End Avenue had been sold in 1895 and the West 102nd Street House was sold in 1896.

 

The Schneider & Company development venture is the sole surviving example of a site development pattern that emerged on West End Avenue in which large comer parcels were purchased for the construction of rowhouse groups. By decreasing the depth of the avenue-facing houses, an additional house could be built on the plot facing the side street; the plan worked to the advantage of the developer who sought a maximum return on the expensive West End Avenue lots. Slightly larger and more prestigious comer houses, with highly visible design features such as comer towers, were characteristic of this site development plan. This scheme was particularly favored in the early 1890s when the area between 99th and 104th streets was developed. Rowhouse groups facing West End Avenue, with a side street-facing house (or houses) across the rear of these lots, were built at the southeast comers of West End Avenue and 99th, 100th, 102nd, and 103rd Streets; all of the groups except the Schneider & Company group have been demolished.

 

The rowhouse group at the southeast comer of 103rd Street and West End Avenue, designed by M.V.B. Ferdon in 1891, included five houses facing West End Avenue and one facing 103rd Street; only the house facing West 103rd Street remains standing. Another group of houses designed by M.V.B. Ferdon and built by Increase Grenell in 1892 at the northwest comer of West End Avenue and 104th Street (demolished) included a comer house very similar to the Schneider & Company house, featuring the entrance near the center of the 104th Street facade.

 

Picturesque Architecture on West End Avenue

 

Curing the intense period of rowhouse development on the Upper West Side, from 1885 to 1900, residential design was dominated by a reaction to the conformity and homogeneity of older Italianate style brownstone rowhouses found elsewhere in the city. The first wave of development along West End Avenue in the period between 1885 and 1895 produced a number of individually-designed houses and speculatively-built, yet distinctive, rowhouse groups which, along with houses in the West End as a whole, represent the culmination of single-family house construction in Manhattan. Many of the most prominent architects working in New York City designed these residences, often for speculative developers who invested in the area. The residences designed for West End Avenue were characteristic of the picturesque eclecticism of late-nineteenth-century architecture, drawing from a wide variety of stylistic sources and expressing the desire of architects and clients for originality, variety, and novelty in residential architecture.

 

There was a movement away from smooth brownstone as a facing material and a new emphasis on the sculptural and textural qualities of surfaces, as well as on the mixture of colors and materials.

 

Unusual, picturesque house design on West End Avenue had been initiated by the construction of two groups of houses with a "Dutch" flavor in 1885-86, designed by Frederick B. White and McKim, Mead & White. Clarence True and other architects continued to design residences for West End Avenue in unusual and picturesque revival styles which were executed with a high-degree of artistic experimentation. Strong rhythmic patterns, asymmetrical massing, and a lively streetscape were created by the profusion of bowfronts, bay and oriel windows, gables, turrets, chimneys, dormers, cornices, stoops, and ornamentation associated with the popular Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival styles as well as more exotic revival styles. These later rowhouses on West End Avenue, and throughout the Upper West Side, unlike their Italianate brownstone predecessors from earlier in the nineteenth century, were purposely designed to be distinguished from one another, while together forming visually coherent ensembles.

 

The houses designed by Schneider & Herter are representative of this picturesque design movement, and although based on the common hybrid of the Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival styles they are enlivened by unusual carved ornament. The treatment of each of the four houses individually within the easily recognizable group provided the architects with the opportunity to create variations on a theme. The high degree of modulation in the plane of the facades, through the use of recessed entrances as well as projecting bay windows and balconies (which afforded views of the river and park) adds depth and grandeur to the rowhouse designs. Schneider & Herter explored the range of surface effects achievable from smooth-faced and rough-cut brownstone, and incorporated both geometric and figural carving of the material.

 

The repetition of several ornamental elements unites the houses, including paired stringcourses, gridded panels of rough-faced stone, chamfered window surrounds in the smooth-faced facades, sheet-metal panels at the roofline, and elements of the carved stone program. The two smaller West End Avenue houses are identical except for the shape and detailing of the window openings. No. 858 West End Avenue has recessed balconies at the parlor and second stories that relate the comer house to the West End Avenue houses, while the longer West 102nd Street frontage is visually linked to the house at 254 West 102nd Street through the repetition of unusual columns flanking the entrances and the carved panels at the roofline. The round comer tower with a bell-shaped roof serves as the centerpiece of the group.

 

The design of picturesque rowhouses in New York was influenced by trends in the design of architectural ornament in the later nineteenth century, a time when ornament was treated by many architects as an opportunity for creative experimentation. European theorists such as Owen Jones, James K. Collings, and Christopher Dresser encouraged an abstract interpretation of vegetation executed with an emphasis on geometricized form and their publications influenced designers in the United States. At the same time, technological change also influenced the design of ornament. The availability of steam-powered tools encouraged the use of bold, machine-cut ornament while the growing use of terra cotta prompted the design of intricate ornament that could be easily reproduced.

 

The popularity of several revival styles, and the inventive blending of these styles, encouraged the architect/designer to adopt an individualized aesthetic in the design of architectural ornament. This trend can be seen in the abstracted naturalistic ornament developed by such recognized American innovators as Frank Fumess and Louis H. Sullivan, as well as in the pioneering work of architects like Henry Hobson Richardson, who developed a highly personal style drawing on Romanesque sources. Many architects working in New York City also developed identifiable personal styles, such as clarence True with his interpretation of the "Elizabethan Renaissance Revival" style.

 

Schneider & Herter developed a somewhat idiosyncratic and mannerist aesthetic characterized by a lack of reverence for the traditional placement of ornament, an unexpected combining of architectural styles, and asymmetry in the composition of facades and their detailing; these characteristics appear in the firm's early designs for tenements, rowhouses and synagogues. In the ornamental programs of several buildings, including the 858 West End Avenue House, Schneider & Herter combined incised, machine-cut ornament— recalling the earlier Neo-Grec style of incised ornament — with both abstracted naturalistic designs and romantic figurative carving. An uncommon approach to the composition and placement of ornament appears in the design of the entrance where the architects combined pilasters with the projecting balcony above to suggest an entrance portico.

 

Two flattened engaged baluster forms, with incised horizontal bands and necks at the bottom, are topped by capitals with carved shell forms above inscribed circles; animal masks extend from the upper portion of plain blocks above the capitals that support the projecting balcony. Framing the door to the east is a variation on this form, a cylindrical baluster with a capital, different from the flanking ones, of stalky acanthus leaves above which an elongated console bracket supports the balcony. A more subtle example of Schneider & Herter's unusual ornamental treatment appears in the placement of carved stones in the upper courses of the rusticated basement to cap undefined piers.

 

Schneider & Herter

 

Ernest W. Schneider and Henry Herter began an architectural partnership in New York City around 1887; within a very short time they had a thriving business designing tenements, flats, and industrial buildings, primarily on the Lower East Side. Schneider & Herter worked repeatedly for a group of German-Jewish clients with ethnic backgrounds similar to theirs, the most prominent of whom were the real estate developers Jonas Weil and Bernard Mayer for whom the architects designed a number of multiple dwellings. This association led to the firm's commission for the Park East Synagogue, 163 East 67th Street (1889-90, a designated New York City Landmark), which Weil financed and led as president of the congregation. Schneider & Herter also designed Congregation Kol Israel Arshi at 20-22 Forsyth Street (1892, now owned by the Hellenic Orthodox Community).

 

The firm of Schneider & Herter had acted as architect-developers prior to its venture on the Upper West Side as Schneider & Co., designing and building a pair of French flats at 731-735 East 5th Street in 1890-91 and a French flat at 233-35 Delancey Street in 1891-92; the firm began a warehouse project at 141 West Broadway in 1893. Schneider & Herter later erected a five-story apartment building at 79-81 Perry Street in 1895 (in addition to designing several other buildings now within the Greenwich Village Historic District) and a pair of flats buildings at 309 and 317 West 93rd Street in 1901-02 (within the Riverside-West End Historic District).

 

The West End Avenue-102nd Street project was a departure from Schneider & Herter's usual work designing multiple dwellings, and was among the firm's first projects on the Upper West Side. Many of the firm's more than 100 multiple dwellings in Manhattan no longer stand, but those remaining exhibit the firm's individualistic approach to the use of ornament and facade compositions often featuring round-arched windows characteristic of the Romanesque Revival style.

 

- From the 1990 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

The Mary and David Burgher House at 63 William Street is a fine surviving example of a vernacular Greek Revival-style residence, built c.1844 in the Stapleton section of Staten Island. The most distinguished feature of the house is its monumental, two-story classical portico set below an over-hanging flared eave – a combination that is characteristic of Staten Island builders’ interpretation of the Greek Revival style. Other characteristics typical of the style include the eared-entrance enframement; the paneled wood door with a full transom and sidelights; six-over-six, double-hung windows with shutters; and vernacular Doric pillars.

 

The house was constructed in the mid-19th century, at a time when the residential development of the surrounding area of Stapleton was just getting underway. With its excellent ports, close proximity to Manhattan via ferry, and proximity to good roads, Stapleton developed as one of the earlier suburban neighborhoods on the island. Constructed for fisherman David Burgher, the house serves as a reminder of the importance of maritime commerce for Staten Island’s economy in the 1840s and 1850s, and of the role that the harbor played in the development of New York City. A relatively rare surviving example of a building type that was once prominent on Staten Island, 63 William Street recalls one of the borough’s most important mid-19th century building traditions.

 

Located to the southeast of Tompkinsville, the adjacent village of Stapleton was named in honor of the New York merchant William J. Staples, who with Minthorne Tompkins, son of Daniel D. Tompkins, purchased a large tract of land from the Vanderbilts on the East Shore at the foot of present-day Broad Street, as well as a number of other transactions for land along the east shore south of Tompkinsville.7 Staples and Tompkins had the land laid out into a village with streets and building lots. By 1836, when the village was named, it boasted several houses and a hotel. The following year the Seaman’s Retreat and Hospital Fund opened its imposing new Greek Revival hospital building to care for sick and disabled merchant sailors on a forty acre site at Bay Street and Vanderbilt Avenue. (The Main Building at Seaman’s Retreat, designed by builder Abraham Maybie, with additions of 1848, 1853, and 1911-12, and the Physician-in-Chief’s Residence of 1842 are designated New York City Landmarks.) Staples and Tompkins established steam ferry service to Manhattan and advertised their new development. Over the next twenty-years, Stapleton and Tompkinsville grew rapidly. Both had excellent ports with regular steam ferry service to Manhattan and were located on main roads making them ideal entrepots for the transhipment of goods.

History of the Site

 

In 1835, Daniel Van Duzer sold about 5 acres, located to the east of the Ward estate, to Lemuel Brewster8 of Manhattan. Brewster, a hatter, temperance advocate and philanthropist, purchased the property on speculation, subdivided it into lots, and entered into an agreement with local merchant William S. Root to manage and sell the properties.9 According to deed records, Brewster and his wife Eleanor held the property for a short time, selling off a number of the lots in the late 1830s. In 1839, Root bought himself out of the agreement with Brewster, purchasing 11 of the remaining lots from the 65-lot subdivision, including those numbered 41 and 42, the future site of 63 William Street.10 Root, the owner of a store in Tompkinsville, had mortgaged the purchase of the property and soon found that he was “indebted and liable in considerable amounts to various persons and companies.” The property was transferred to Manhattan attorney William M. Prichard, who had purchased “all the goods and debts of William S. Root.” Shortly after, Root and his wife, the former Maria Metcalfe relocated to Brooklyn in 1847, although their son George M. remained on the island, working as a civil engineer, surveyor and authority on land and water boundaries. It is likely that William Street got its name from Root.

 

On June 20, 1843, David Burgher of the town of Castleton, purchased four lots from Prichard, including the two lots that are now known as 63 William Street. Burgher had the house constructed shortly after, c. 1844, as it appears on Bloods’ 1845 Atlas of Staten Island.

 

David Burgher

 

Although both his father and grandfather were farmers, David Burgher, who is listed in the deed as a “mariner,” worked most of his life as a fisherman. His father John Burgher married Mary Kettletas, who was descended from early Staten Island residents, and had an extensive farm on the southeast shore of the island, around today’s Burgher Avenue. Mary’s father, Stephen Kettletas, also a farmer, had property nearby that of Nicholas Burgher, David’s grandfather.

 

A prominent resident of Stapleton, David Burgher (1815-1879) was appointed Deputy Sheriff in 1833 by Sheriff Lawrence Hillyer, who was also his uncle. A successful fisherman, Burgher held the distinction of catching the first shad of the season off Staten Island in the years 1866 and 1870.16 After the incorporation of the Village of Edgewater, Burgher was elected trustee of the second ward of the new village in 1867. David Burgher and his wife Mary lived in the house at 63 William Street for about five years, before selling it in 1849 to Thomas Taylor. Burgher had purchased additional property nearby several years earlier and constructed a new home around the corner on Brewster Street, where he lived for the remainder of his life. By 1874, in addition to two other parcels of land near his home in Stapleton, Burgher owned a dock and three buildings on Bay Street at the foot of Washington Street (now known as St. Julian Place.) Later in life, Burgher was the proprietor of a lumber yard on Bay Street. He died in August of 1879.

 

The Design of the Burgher House

 

The house was likely built around 1844, shortly after David Burgher purchased the property on William Street. Its most prominent feature is its full-width, two-story porch set under the flared eave of the main roof. Although not a feature commonly found on Greek Revival houses throughout the country, this type of overhang was commonly found on vernacular Staten Island buildings of the period. The flared projecting spring or bell-cast eave was widely used on Staten Island from the late seventeenth century on and became so firmly embedded in the Staten Island building tradition that, when older architectural styles were supplanted by the newly fashionable Greek Revival, the form was carried over and incorporated into the new style of building.

 

Though the spring eave is commonly referred to as “Dutch Colonial,” its origins have not been conclusively traced. Different historians have attributed the source of this feature to Flemish, French, or Dutch immigrants; additionally, both French Canadians and local, lower Hudson River Valley settlers have been credited with the development of the extended flared eave.25 The depth of the overhangs found on early American buildings varies from slight to several feet, the larger of which were often supported by columns as a porch. Most historians agree, however, that the use of this roof feature (incorporated into a front and/or rear porch) was limited to the lower Hudson River Valley, the southernmost areas of Dutch influence, including the area around present day New York City and adjacent New Jersey,26 which is possibly the source of its misinterpreted Dutch origin.

 

The earliest surviving instance of a spring eave on Staten Island is the one employed for the Billopp House (c.1676, a designated NYC Landmark), at the southern tip of Staten Island. Constructed in a manner very similar to that employed in France, it has a relatively slight flare since the curved strips extend little more than a foot beyond the wall. Used with both gable and gambrel roofs, the spring eave on Staten Island and elsewhere in the New Netherland area, evolved into a deeper overhang over the course of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Supported on forward posts, it eventually formed a single story, often facade-wide, covered porch for the principal elevation While the spring eave may originally have served a practical purpose by protecting the wall construction beneath it, the great popularity and enduring use of the form on Staten Island should probably be ascribed to its aesthetic appeal.

 

Its appearance on the mid-19th century Burgher House testifies to the persistence of the spring eave in Staten Island vernacular architecture. Combined with a two-story Greek Revival style portico, the Burgher House’s spring eave illustrates one of the most striking of the responses made by local builders to the hugely popular Greek Revival style. The full-width porch with its two-stories, endows a relatively modestly-scaled building with a striking profile and an imposing presence. Former local historian Loring McMillan called this use of the spring eave in combination with the Greek Revival style unique to Staten Island, with no examples found elsewhere.

 

The introduction of the Greek Revival style to Staten Island coincided with the Island’s transition, initiated by the introduction of regular steam ferry service, from a sparsely settled, largely agricultural community to a location selected for several major institutions and large-scale planned suburban developments. Much of the new development was designed for a class of people new to Staten Island – wealthy New York City merchants who were aware of the latest architectural styles. Beginning in the 1820s and proliferating in the 1830s, knowledgeable versions of the fashionable Greek Revival style were employed for both residential and institutional designs.31 In the 1840s and 1850s the Greek Revival was supplanted for such commissions by more picturesque styles, including the Gothic Revival and the Italianate, but in those same decades the Greek Revival was discovered by local Island builders, and it was only then that the style blossomed fully in vernacular residential versions built by the hundreds from one end of the island to the other.

 

While most of Staten Island’s vernacular Greek Revival dwellings employ a simplified version of the style, it is clearly evident that the columned facades of the island’s high style residences built in the 1830s had a significant impact on local builders and on some of their patrons – an increasing more affluent segment of the citizenry that had, by the 1840s, been sensitized to the expressive implications of the style. They too sought out the Greek Revival style for their homes as a way to identify themselves as important members of their communities. Although there were exceptions, local builders did not, on the whole, attempt to duplicate the columned facade in either of its two principal manifestations on the island – the projecting pedimented portico fronting a wider cubic block, as seen in the Minard Lafever­influenced design for the Caleb Ward House (c.1835, Seth Greer, a designated NYC Landmark), or the temple-fronted, gable-end-to-the-street residences built in New Brighton during the 1830.32

 

What local builders did instead was apply a traditional deep spring eave to a standard earlier 19th century residential design – a longitudinally sited, two-story house of three or five bays. The spring eave was carried on giant forward supports (both coffered piers and the classical orders were used) to form a facade-wide quadristyle or hexastyle porch. A porch floor at the second-story level was sometimes introduced. Dozens of residences employing this combination of Greek Revival style porticoes and spring eaves were built in all sections of the island. The spring-eave-covered, quadristyle Greek Revival Doric portico of the Burgher House is obviously part of this vernacular tradition.

 

Supported by four, vernacular Doric pillars, the spring-eave portico of the Burgher House endows the relatively shallow structure with a sense of a grand scale that exceeds its actual dimensions, framing the three-bay facade and creating an imposing effect. Although never found in Greek or Roman prototypes, square columns were commonly used on both vernacular and high-style Greek Revival buildings in the United States. Another notable element of the design is the heavy entablature below the extended eave, which returns around the sides of the porch. At the first floor, the elaborate entry enframement is typical of the Greek Revival style. Constructed of carved wood, the eared enframement surrounds a typical entry, composed of a paneled wood door, a full-width, multi-light transom and sidelights. Also common to the Greek Revival style, the building retains its clapboard siding and historic six-over-six, double-hung wood windows with shutters and simple wood surrounds, which are typically less elaborate than the doorways.

 

Later Residents

 

Also related to the maritime industry, English immigrants Thomas Taylor and his wife Mary, who purchased the house in 1849, were the next residents of the house at 63 William Street. Listed as a “sea captain” in the 1860 census records, Thomas Taylor‘s household contained his wife, a son and an Irish immigrant who preformed “general house work.” By 1870, Taylor had relocated to the Finger Lake region of central New York State and was working as a farmer, although he maintained ownership of the 63 William Street until 1882. According to map records, the house was occupied in the mid-1870s by attorney George Rathbun.

 

The next residents of the house appear to be the family of Robert T. Bradford.36 A New-York­born cigar maker, Bradford lived there with his wife, several daughters, two sons and a servant. By 1882, when Minnie D. Bradford purchased the house from Thomas Taylor, she was already living in the area with her parents and siblings. Minnie, who is listed in the 1880 census as having the occupation of “picture colorer,” married paper industry tycoon Frederick Bertuch38 c.1884. The 1886 directory shows her father Robert Bradford still living at 6 William Street (the number was later changed to 63), while her husband Frederick Bertuch (and presumably she) was living around the corner at 39 Van Duzer Street. Born in Germany, Frederick Bertuch immigrated to the United States in 1880 and operated a pulp importing business with his father in Manhattan. The firm of Frederick Bertuch & Co. became quite successful, and Bertuch amassed a sizeable fortune. Directories show that Minnie and Frederick Bertuch were living at 63 William Street by 1888.

 

According to later owner Conrad Fingado, the 63 William Street house underwent extensive renovations during the Bertuch ownership. Among the exterior alterations that occurred around the turn of the 20th century were the installation of full-height parlor floor windows (replacing shorter, six-over-six double-hung windows and wood panels); stained-glass panels replacing clear glass in the sidelights at the front entry; shutters at the windows; and the construction of the dormer at the front roof. Other interior alterations that occurred at the time include the installation of parquet flooring at the parlor floor; plaster medallions at the ceilings; and tiles around the fireplace. (The interior of the house is not part of this designation).

 

In 1908, Frederick Bertuch purchased a rowhouse at 858 West End Avenue (Schneider and Herter, 1892-93, a designated New York City Landmark), where he and his wife lived for the remainder of their lives. (The Bertuches also owned a home in Babylon, Long Island.) Frederick Bertuch & Co. was dissolved and Bertuch retired from business in 1912, however, he remained a special partner in the successor firm founded by his former partner Johannes Andersen, J. Andersen & Company. Bertuch died in 1922, leaving the bulk of his estate to his widow, and made generous donations to charitable and educational entities. Among the many charitable donations outlined in Bertuch’s will were: $50,000 each to Lenox Hill Hospital, the Children’s Aid Society, the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the Cooper Union, and $100,000 to Columbia University. Minnie D. Bertuch died six years later in 1928.

 

Upon the Bertuch’s move to Manhattan, Minnie’s sister Ida S. Fitzpatrick and her two sons occupied the home. Ida Bradford had married William Fitzpatrick in 1887, but was widowed by 1900. By the time Ida Fitzpatrick purchased the house from her sister in 1919, her older son William was married, while her younger son Frank (F.J.) lived with and supported his widowed mother. Directories list the Fitzpatricks as residents of 63 William Street until the mid-1930s. After her death, Ida Fitzpatrick’s daughter-in-law Dorothy Fitzpatrick, who was living in Washington D.C. at the time, sold the house in 1950 to Michael Towstik Jr. Although he did not live there, Towstik retained ownership of the house for almost thirty years.

 

Later residents of the house include Conrad Fingado and Margot Nordenholt, who owned the property from 1978 until 2000. A restoration carpenter, Fingado was on the staff of Historic Richmondtown in the 1970s, while his wife operated a family-owned import-export business. During their ownership, the house underwent extensive renovation, including the removal of asbestos siding, the scraping and painting of the clapboards, exterior restoration of front porch, and the reconstruction of the rear ell on a similar footprint to the existing addition. Since 2000, 63 William Street has been owned by Robert and Rosemary McCormick.

 

Later History of the Neighborhood

 

In the mid-19th century, after the construction of 63 William Street, Stapleton and Tompkinsville grew rapidly due their excellent ports, transportation facilities and the presence of two important public institutions, the Seaman’s Retreat and the Quarantine Hospital. The villages continued to prosper during the Civil War as shipyards in both areas, as well as Port Richmond, worked busily to meet the demand for military vessels and commercial ships. Stapleton also was blessed with natural resources (artesian springs and cool caverns) that began to attract industry (notably breweries) to the area.44 The large number of German-owned businesses in Stapleton, especially the breweries, which required skilled knowledge of brewing techniques, brought many German-born workers to the area and Stapleton quickly became the most important village on Staten Island’s east shore and one of the northeast region’s principal German enclaves.

 

By 1870, Stapleton, Clifton, and a portion of Tompkinsville had been consolidated into the incorporated Village of Edgewater.45 Stapleton was the political center of Edgewater, its business center, and a major transportation hub. The area continued to prosper residentially following the integration of ferry and train service, and Staten Island’s 1898 consolidation into the City of New York. The neighborhood’s close proximity to the newly created Borough Center at St. George, an important road terminus and port for the ferry to Manhattan, helped maintain its status as an important “suburb,” a status which it maintains today.

 

Helping to further fuel the area’s residential growth, Staten Island’s waterfront industrial base grew during World War I as industries, particularly the shipyards, expanded due to government contracts. Waterfront activity continued as part of a municipal pier construction project along the east shore of Staten Island from Tompkinsville to Clifton during the 1920s. Constructed under the terms of Mayor John Hylan and Dock Commissioner Murray Hulbert, the project was part of an extensive waterfront improvement plan intended to meet the anticipated shipping needs of New York City. The project was later termed “Hylan’s Folly” due to the large capital expenditure of funds which were not regenerated as many of the piers sat vacant for a number of years. In 1983, much of the Stapleton waterfront was chosen to be used as a homeport for the United States Navy. After years of debate about the base’s impact on the community, the partially constructed homeport project was shut down in 1995. Most recently, New York City Council approved a plan to redevelop the site for residential, commercial and recreational use, however the work has not yet commenced.

 

Description

 

The Burgher House is located on a large, 50 by 100 foot lot at the northeast corner of William and Brewster streets. The rectangular lot is lined by wood picket fence along the south with a gate near the front entry. There is a chain-link fence at the Brewster Street facade and another chain-link along the eastern edge of the property. The lot most likely contains a privy and cistern as the building was constructed before public water and sewers were available. A paved bluestone path leads from the William Street gate to the basement-level entry and turns at a right angle to access a flight of steps that lead to the main entry. The steps, which extend to the west parallel with the porch, are constructed of a composite material, set on a common brick base. The staircase has grey-painted treads and off-white­painted risers, and features a zig-zag-style wooden railing and off-white-painted, square wood newel posts. There is a small, wood-framed garage and gravel parking area at the rear.

 

The two-and-a-half-story plus basement, wood-framed house is constructed on a dark-purple­painted, stuccoed brick basement and features a small, one-and-a-half-story ell at the rear, both of which have wood clapboard siding painted off-white. The eaves-front, asphalt-shingled, gable roof features an extended flared eave and wide cornice at the front facade, which is supported by four, square, vernacular Doric pillars creating a double height portico that also extends below to the basement of the building. The tetra-style porch frames the fenestration of the three-bay, south-facing, front facade. The at-grade, basement level of the building has a wood-paneled door with a wooden storm door in the first bay and six-over-six, double-hung wood windows with wood storm windows in the second and third bays.

 

The basement level porch floor is paved with brick. The main entry, located in the first bay of the first floor, features a wood paneled door; full, multi-light stained-glass transom; and sidelights set on wood panels surrounded by a carved wood eared enframement. The second and third bays have full-height, one-over­one, double-hung wood windows with carved wood surrounds, dark-purple-painted shutters and wood storm windows. There is a small light fixture above and a wood storm door at the entry. The porch features a wooden deck and wooden zig-zag-style railing at both floors. The second floor features a multi-light, wood paneled door with wood storm door in the first bay, and six-over-six, double-hung wood windows with carved wood surrounds and wood storm windows in the second and third bays. All three openings at the second floor have dark-purple-painted shutters. An asphalt-shingled, gable-roofed dormer projects from the center of the roof. It features two, one-over-one, double-hung wood windows and fish-scale wood shingles at the front facade and solid wood paneling at the sides. A red-painted brick chimney, with two flue caps and an antenna, extends above the gable at the eastern end of the main roof, and there is a weather vane atop the dormer roof.

 

The east-facing, side facade has two window openings at each floor, basement, first, second and attic. There are six-over-six, double-hung wood windows in both openings at the basement and in the second bays at the first and second floors. These windows have wood storm windows at the basement and first floor and aluminum storm windows at the second floor. The first bay of the first floor features a tall, one-over-one, double-hung wood window, similar in height to those found at the front facade. There are one-over-one, double-hung windows in the first bay at the second floor (wood with a wood storm window) and both bays at the attic (aluminum), which replace the historic multi-light windows. All windows on this facade feature simplified, carved wood surrounds. There is a leader at the southeast corner of the facade and air conditioner brackets below the second bay at the attic.

The west-facing, side facade has one, six-over-six, double-hung wood window at each the basement, first, and second floors and two, six-over-one, double-hung wood windows at the attic, all with simplified, carved wood surrounds and wood storm windows. A utility meter, telephone box, conduit, wires, and a spigot are attached the building at this facade.

 

The rear facade of the building has a one-and-a-half-story plus basement ell, built on a dark­purple-painted, stuccoed brick foundation, that extends from the western half of the building. The western and northern facades of the addition each have two, six-over-six, double-hung wood windows at the basement level. There is one, six-over-six, double-hung wood window at the first floor of the addition’s western side and two, six-over-six, double-hung wood windows at the second floor. All ell windows have wood storm windows. The rear facade of the addition has no window openings above the basement level, but features a small exhaust vent. A satellite dish extends from the building’s western facade at the junction of the main building and ell. A brick chimney and antenna extend from the roof of the ell. At the east side of main building’s rear facade, there is a deck with a square-wooden post and baluster railing at the first floor. The basement level under the deck, which is painted dark-purple like the rest of the foundation, features three, off-white-painted wood paneled doors at its north facade. There are leaders at the northwest corner of the main house and northeast corner of the ell.

 

There is a small, gable-front garage at the rear of the house, which is accessed from Brewster Street by a gravel-paved driveway that is set slightly above the rear yard behind a stacked bluestone wall. The garage has off-white-painted composite siding at its west, north and east facades, an asphalt-shingled roof, and paired wooden doors. There is a small, shed-roofed addition to the garage, which features board and batten siding and narrower, paired wooden doors on its west facade. The south facade of the garage addition, which also has board and batten siding, has a multi-light window and multi-light, paneled wood door. Both the garage and its addition have dark dark-purple painted trim. A wooden backboard and basketball hoop are attached to the garage at its front gable, and there is a vent at the roof.

 

- From the 2010 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Estcourt House Grange.

Frederick Estcourt Bucknall, who owned most of the land which became the suburbs of Grange and Tennyson, built a mansion for his family in 1883 at a cost of around £12,000. The family of nine children needed a large house and Bucknall selected a site on the sand dunes overlooking the beach. He named it after himself as Estcourt House. Bucknall fell on hard times with his business ventures and the house was sold in 1886. Then in 1892 the James Brown Memorial Trust bought the house. James Brown was an early pastoralist in the Avenue Range in the South East of South Australia. The clean air movement was at its height at that time and the mansion was purchased to take advantage of the sea breezes and fresh air with French windows from most of the rooms onto the encircling verandas. The James Brown Memorial Trust acquired the mansion for housing for the elderly and for children with disabilities. From 1931 it became a convalescent home for children only especially those suffering Tuberculosis, polio and the like and the Education Department assigned a teacher to Estcourt House for the education of the children. In 1955 it was taken over the Adelaide Children’s Hospital and later Strathmont Centre and finally it became a nursing home. Estcourt House finally closed in 1989. It has since been sold and the gardens and lands around the house have been subdivided for luxury esplanade housing.

 

Opened June 9, 1954 as Big Bear grocery store. This location was later remodeled and was expanded in 1996 into a 65,560 square foot Big Bear Plus store. Big Bear closed in 2004 along with the rest of the chain and was subdivided into Citi Trends and Shoppers World.

3515 Cleveland Avenue, Columbus, Ohio

Welcome Home. Home Depot in Plano, TX

 

Research photo for Subdivided, a documentary by Dean Terry.

 

www.subdivided.net

 

 

Shell Infinity

 

When these ram’s horn shells are placed end to end they suggest an infinity symbol. Paired up like this they are formed into a larger infinity symbol as in a fractal (a geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts, each of which is a reduced-size copy of the whole.) The feather was left there by the tide.

Memories of Pasadena's world-famous Busch Gardens, a botanical marvel created in the Arroyo Seco at the turn of the 20th century, have all but faded since its closure in 1938, when it was subdivided for housing.

 

But in its heyday, the spectacular garden attracted more than 1 million to what was then Pasadena's premier tourist attraction.

 

"This was the very first Busch Gardens in America," said Michael Logan, who's spent years tracing the remnants, now mostly hidden away on private property.

 

"It was the blueprint for many others that followed," he said, "a lot of natural beauty, small lakes, geysers, and a lot of birds - but we didn't get any amusement rides."

 

A surprising number of original features remain from the spectacular gardens that Anheuser-Busch brewery co-founder Adolphus Busch and his wife Lily started in 1904 and opened to the public in 1906.

 

Most famous is the Old Mill, originally built in 1920 as a playhouse for the Buschs' daughter. But the Grecian Pergola that was part of the original entrance, and many other features, also survive. And the research literally uncovered some things even the people living there didn't know about.

 

"The property owners had been there about 16 years, and Gary pulled away some ivy on a wall separating the property and saw these huge sculptured concrete volutes, almost like bookends, for a six-foot terrace," Logan said. "They never knew they were there."

Pasadena Star News, 2010

 

Porst Compact Reflex SP with the Vivitar 20mm f3.8 wide-angle lens on expired Kodak T-Max 3200 film.

Colonel William Light had the task of surveying the city, which he did in March 1837 and then the Adelaide Plains. The land at Mitcham was surveyed and put up for sale as small farmlets in 1838. It was an ideal spot, slightly above the plains, good deep soils washed down from the hills, and an almost permanent stream running through the district- Brownhill Creek. Like many areas surveyed early, David McLaren, the first manager of the SA Company bought up much of the land for the SA Company. In late 1839 he subdivided some of this land to create the village of Mitcham, so named after the township in southern England. Some of the original purchasers of Mitcham village land, near the village green were Harrison, Hogg, McLaren (for himself), Mugg (first school teacher) Playford, Thornber, Traegar and others. In the early 1840s Mitcham was the biggest and most important village outside of Adelaide along with Port Adelaide. Consequently a road was surveyed and constructed to the village. It began on South Terrace and followed, as far as the current Arkaba corner, the Great Eastern Road (now Glen Osmond Road) which went up into the hills. Then Mitcham road headed south to the village and beyond to Coromandel Valley. These days Mitcham Road is known as Fullarton Road. It was the late 1850s before a road was constructed across the winter flooded south parklands to link the city, Unley and the village of Mitcham along what is now Unley Road.

 

As a further indication of the importance of Mitcham it was granted the first district council status in the state in 1853 after a public meeting at the village called for its formation. Other district councils soon followed after, but Mitcham was the first. Its boundaries stretched from South Terrace along the Bay Road (now Anzac Highway), and then south along Sturt Creek up into the Mitcham Hills. In the east it stretched from the Great Eastern Road, up into the Adelaide Hills covering what is now Crafers. Little wonder that it attracted wealthy settlers, local farmers, and city businessmen. Eventually Mitcham lost the Unley area (1871) and the Marion area. The village grew quite quickly with an early Anglican Church, St Michaels (1848), and a Union chapel on the creek used by several denominations and an early Baptist Church (1860). This is the church Prime Minister Julia Gillard attended as a child. The Baptists were led in the Mitcham village by Reverend Playford and services began in 1844, but the church was not finished until 1860. The Union Chapel was eventually used as the village school by head teacher Thomas Mugg from 1848 until 1871when it was moved to the Mitcham Institute. Six years later the school moved to the new the government school when it opened on what is now Belair Road.

 

Minor mines were established along Brownhill Creek in the 1850s but with no great success. Water for the village came from the Creek, and vegetables for the village and the city of Adelaide were grown on the flat areas along the valley. The valley even had its own school for many years. Beyond the village proper settlement grew up around the Torrens Arms Hotel on Belair Road, and some of the wealthy pastoralists established mansions on what was to become Springfield, Urrbrae and Glen Osmond. The horse tramway reached Mitcham in 1879 and it was not electrified until the Metropolitan Tramways Trust took over all tram lines in 1909. In the meantime the railway station at Mitcham opened in 1883 provided a service to the city in 12 minutes, the same as it is today.

 

Badian is a 3rd class municipality in the province of Cebu, Philippines. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 37,699 people. The Municipality of Badian is located 97.6 km southwest of Cebu City. It is bounded on the north by the municipality of Moalboal; on the south by the municipality of Alegria; on the east by the municipalities of Dalaguete and Argao; and on the west by Tanon Strait.

Badian is administratively subdivided into 29 barangays.

Alawijao Balhaan Banhigan Basak Basiao Bato Bugas Calangcang Candiis Dagatan Dobdob

Ginablan Lambug Malbago Malhiao Manduyong Matutinao Patong Poblacion Sanlagan

Santicon Sohoton Sulsugan Talayong Taytay Tigbao Tiguib Tubod Zaragosa

The Kawasan Falls is a three-layered waterfall series located in the Municipality of Badian, Cebu, which has become a huge attraction with foreign and local tourists throughout the years. The first waterfall is the largest and highest of the three falls, while the two falls uphill are smaller.

Kawasan Falls is located in Barangay Matutinao in Badian, Cebu. To get to Badian from Cebu City you can take a bus at the South Bus Terminal for a three hour ride that will directly take you to Badian. From there, you can take a tricycle that will take you to Barangay Matutinao.

If you are taking a private vehicle, drive past the Municipality of Carcar, and upon reaching the Municipality of Badian through the picturesque mountain road, then drive to Matutinao village. You can always ask for directions from people along the way if it is your first time to go to Kawasan Falls, so you won’t get lost.

When you reach the main road leading to Kawasan Falls, there is a main entrance to the waterfalls area and an entrance fee of 10 peso’s per person. From there, you start on a 20 to 30 minute walk on a trail that will lead you to the first waterfall.

You will then have to trek a further 10 to 15 minutes uphill to get to the second waterfall, and another 15 minute trek to the third waterfalls. There is a resort with restaurant at the area of the first waterfalls. There are small cottages and tables for rent at 300 peso’s each table as at September 2012 ( on top of the menu prices ) and several rooms for rent for those who want to stay overnight. A popular attraction is a bamboo raft ride leading to a shower under the cool falling waters of the first and second waterfall.

The Mactan International Airport is located in Mactan, Cebu; it is served by major airlines like Cebu Pacific Air and Philippine Airlines. You can also fly from Metro Manila to Cebu. There are many domestic flights and sometimes it is economical because many airlines offer a cheaper airfare. Check also for any available promo. If you arrived earlier in Cebu, you can leave straight to Badian providing you already arranged your accommodation there before your arrival or you can stay for a night in Cebu City and have your trip to Badian the next day.

Your choices to come from Cebu City to Badian are: from the airport you can take a taxi to South Bus Terminal look for Ceres Bus Liner via Barili, you can also take Librando Trans. There are buses leaving Cebu City to Badian every 30 minutes or one hour. It will take 2-3 hours or more bus travel to reach Badian from Cebu City depending on the number of stops. You can also hire a taxi at the airport or at the city to Badian, it is more comfortable and faster. Make sure the driver knows where Badian is. The fare is about Php 1500.00 - Php 3000.00 and be prepare for some bartering and some hidden costs

The capital barangay of Badian town is Poblacion. It is located in the centre of the town. This is where the local high school is located called Badian National High School ( BNHS ) is one of the two high schools in the town of Badian. This is also the largest of the two and many students from the neighbouring town just like Moalboal, Alcantara and Ronda come to study in this high school. The lower educational facility in Badian is the Badian Central Elementary School where all the younger children go to school for the simple fact that it is completely free and the only elementary school and the biggest one in town. One more very important institution that is located in Poblacion is the Town Hospital where everyone from every other barangay goes to in the time of sickness.

The facility has been better than the past management they have more improvements to the hospitals than anything else which is the best thing they could have done because this is where most Badianganons run to in the time of need. This is also the location where the town church is located ~ the church of Santiago Apostol, which celebrates its Festival on the 25th of July every year. Together with the Feast of Santiago Apostle is the Banig Festival which was started about three years ago. Poblacion is also where the Municipal Hall is located in sitio sawang. Thus, I believe that the municipality should ought to have more funding's in the Hospital Facility more so that the roads that they are trying to fix every single year Poblacion has many sitios which is the little corners of Poblacion which is residential or commercial properties. Some of these sitios are; Syma, Walog, Sawang, Highway, and many more. This is the only urban place in Badian compared to any other barangays that surround the town. Poblacion is also the most populated barangay in all Badian. Which has 3854 population as of 2007 Census. Poblacion is where the marketplace is located. Thus, most of the trading is here. Many vendors from all over town will show up mostly on Saturdays and Sundays for the trading.

Public School 66 (formerly the Brooklyn Hills School, Later the Oxford School, now the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School). Richmond Hill, Queens

 

Originally constructed in 1898-9, Public School (P.S.) 66 is a remarkable survivor from a time when Richmond Hill, Queens, was transitioning from a rural farming community into a vibrant residential neighborhood. Three identical schools (two now demolished) were constructed in anticipation of an influx of residents, expected as a result of improvements in transportation, the subdivision of farmlands into lots for residential development, and the consolidation of Queens with Greater New York City that same year.

 

Also known as the Brooklyn Hills School after the suburban development in which it was physically located, P.S. 66 formally opened its doors in 1902. Harry S. Chambers, Superintendent of School Buildings for the Union Free School District No. 7 of the Town of Jamaica, Queens, is credited with the design of the original school building.

 

C.B.J. Snyder, Superintendent of School Buildings for the New York City Board of Education from 1890 to 1923, is noted as the architect of a 1905-6 addition.

 

The two-and-a-half and three-story red brick building is Victorian Eclectic in style. Many of its features are characteristic of the Romanesque Revival style and give the building a fortress-like appearance, including prominent round arches highlighting window openings and the main entrance, a flared base, and a distinctive six-story tower (restored in 2001).

 

Elements of the Queen Anne style are also present in the building’s large entablatures featuring elaborate rinceaux, its gabled dormers, and the steeply pitched roofs of the 1905-6 addition, which was harmoniously designed in the style of the main section. The tower, which originally contained a bell used to call school children from neighboring farms and developments, is distinguished by round arches, brick corbelling, large masonry columns, and foliate details. An ornamental panel above the main entranceway survives and features the name of the school.

  

Today, P.S. 66 has been renamed the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School in honor of the former First Lady’s passion for literacy and for historic preservation and continues to serve in its original function as a grammar school. It remains one of Queens’ most distinctive school structures.

 

Richmond Hill, Queens

 

P.S. 66 is geographically located in east central Queens, just south of the verdant Forest Park in the neighborhood of Richmond Hill. The area was originally part of the town of Jamaica, one of the oldest and most historically significant areas of the borough. Jamaica was inhabited by a Native American tribe called the Jameco or Yamecah, a word meaning Beaver in Algonquin, when the first Europeans arrived there in 1655.

 

They had came from neighboring Hempstead looking for more space to farm and in 1656 applied to Governor Stuyvesant for a patent to “purchase” 10 acres of land from the native tribe.4 When the English took over in 1664, the town’s name was changed to Jamaica. Queens County (then including all of Nassau County) was chartered in 1683 as one of the ten counties of the colony of New York and official town patents were given to Jamaica, Newtown, and Flushing. A 1698 census of Queens County showed a total population of 3,366 white residents and 199 black residents.

 

While early records do indicate the existence of slaves in Jamaica, the town also had a free black population throughout its history. Through the next century, the community of Jamaica served as the county seat and became a trading post where farmers from outlying areas brought their produce.

 

Incorporated as a village in 1814, Jamaica became a center of trade on Long Island. Early east-west roads, like King’s Highway, and the arrival of the first railroad, the fledgling Long Island Railroad (LIRR), in 1836, provided crucial links between Eastern Long Island and Manhattan.

 

Further transportation improvements following the Civil War, including a horse car line in 1866 and electric trolley in 1888, began to open up previously rural, inaccessible portions of the county. The area became ripe for urban development, much of which remained focused around Jamaica.

 

During the 19th century, Jamaica evolved into a retreat for urban dwellers who patronized its numerous inns and saloons on weekend excursions and built large summer homes on its open land. The permanent population of Jamaica increased steadily throughout the second half of the 19th century, and eventually some of the nearby farms were subdivided for house lots.

 

While driving from his Wall Street office to his Lawrence, Long Island, summer home, Albon Platt Man, a wealthy lawyer from New York City, is said to have become enamored by a sunny slope in northwest Jamaica which dropped gently southward from Long Island’s terminal moraine ridge.

 

Man purchased the land in 1869, consisting of five farmsteads belonging to the Lefferts, Bergen, Welling, Robertson, and Hendrickson families, amounting to more than 400 acres.9 He later acquired adjacent parcels to the north and to the east.10 Man and his business partner, Edward Richmond, a landscape architect, envisioned the development of a rural community where workers could escape from the congestion of the industrial city to peaceful homes in picturesque settings.11 They named the project Richmond Hill, most likely after the famed London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.

 

By the 1870s, 250 acres of Man’s original purchase had been transformed into lots suitable for private residences. Between 1868 and 1874, some 400 shade and ornamental trees were planted, and various streets, avenues, and drives were laid out around the most desirable portions of the property. A passenger depot at Richmond Hill was opened in 1868 by the South Side Railroad of Long Island.

 

A school and a church were erected, followed shortly by both small-scale cottages and more luxurious houses built by wealthy businessmen from Manhattan. The heart of the village was the main junction of Myrtle, Jamaica, and Lefferts Avenues, near the train depot and a small grocery store / post office.

 

Richmond Hill continued to grow in the decades that followed, as did the surrounding neighborhoods that were similarly being developed by real estate developers and syndicates. In 1895, the three separate hamlets of Richmond Hill, Morris Park, and Clarenceville were incorporated as the Village of Richmond Hill.

 

The municipal independence of the village, however, was short-lived – just three years later Queens would become part of Greater New York City. Consolidation was favorably looked upon by developers, as extension of New York City’s water and sewers, rapid transit, and new bridges across the east river undoubtedly meant an increase in the region’s desirability.

 

Brooklyn Hills

 

In 1887, the Brooklyn Hills Improvement Company, a real estate syndicate, purchased roughly 160 acres of farmland within Richmond Hills.14 The land was easily accessible at the junction of the Long Island Railroad on Atlantic Avenue, the Rockaway Beach Railroad, the Brooklyn Union Elevated Railroad, and a proposed subway route (later an elevated train, now the J). To help ready the land for residential development, the company graded streets, laid flagging and sidewalks, planted more than 1,000 trees, and connected water pipes to the mains of the Woodhaven Water Supply Company.

 

By 1895, the company had constructed about 150 houses and 20 stores within the development that had come to be known as Brooklyn Hills.16 While the population of the neighborhood was cited as 200 residents by 1898, much of the land remained undeveloped at the turn of the century. This included “Plat No. 3,” a residential subdivision within Brooklyn Hills that consisted of roughly twelve blocks surrounding the newly constructed P.S. 66, located at Union Place (now 102nd Street) between Walnut Street (now 85th Road) and Tulip Street (now 85th Avenue) (see Figure 18).

 

A lawsuit brought by the Brooklyn Hills Improvement Company against the New York and Rockaway Railroad Company in 1899 alleged that a contract to establish a station at Brooklyn Hills had been breached, and that failure of the railroad to build the station had damaged and hindered the company’s efforts to sell real estate in the area.18 Ultimately the company was awarded only six cents in damages. The argument that the company had not been able to profit off its land was widely considered specious.

 

A Brooklyn Hills station of the Rockaway Beach Branch of the Long Island Railroad had operated at Myrtle Avenue and Forest Park from about 1882 to 1911. Moreover, records indicate no problem with sales – as reported in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, by 1902 the company had sold nearly 600 building lots at prices ranging from $2,500 to $3,000 per acre.19 The company had also profited in 1898 off the condemnation by the city of a hilly portion of the tract located north of Plat No. 3, which was to become part of Forest Park.20 Development delays, specifically within Plat No. 3, more likely resulted from complications with the nearby Waterbury and Napier farms which, until 1905, prohibited the cutting of through streets and which therefore stood as a barrier between the subdivision and the rest of the village.

 

This impediment, however, was removed by the time of the 1905 auction of the 382 lots of Plat No. 3.22 Real estate boosters prepared for the auction touted the tract’s location, bounded by a “beautiful range of hills” to the north (now part of Forest Park) slated to become “one of the most beautiful of New York City’s public parks.” Physical improvements were also touted, such as the widening of Union Place (now 102nd Street), the plat’s principal avenue, and the presence of the “large modern public school on its property,” referring, of course, to P.S. 66. The auction was apparently a success. The Brooklyn Hills Improvement Company was voluntarily dissolved on October 28, 1907.

 

Public Education in Jamaica, Queens

 

The present New York City public school system, fully supported and maintained by public funds, developed slowly from the initial establishment under the Dutch of elementary schools supported and jointly controlled by both the civil authorities and the Dutch Reformed Church. Under English rule, a system of private academies, similar to those in Britain, appeared in lieu of a public system. Through the 18th century, schools in Queens were rarely free and were primarily run by religious institutions.24 It was not until after the American Revolution that New York State undertook the task of creating a public education system. During the period between the first meeting of the state legislature in 1777 and 1851, nearly 1,000 pieces of legislation concerning education were passed. In 1812, New York State adopted a common school system intended to provide free elementary education to all the residents of the state, to be funded through local taxes.

 

In 1813, the town of Jamaica voted to receive its allotted quota of the state’s school fund to put towards establishing common schools.

 

“Union free school districts” were established during the 1853 session of legislature as a way for municipalities to combine two or more common schools for the purpose of making education available to children from a broader region. In addition to free admission, pupils within union free school districts were also entitled to free school materials, such as textbooks.26 The Union Free School District No. 7 of the Town of Jamaica was founded in 1888 and encompassed Richmond Hill.27 By 1890, 1,350 school children were enrolled within District No. 7, an increase of more than 30 percent in the two years since the district was established.

 

Consolidation of the city in 1898 created the need for a unified public education system that would combine the numerous, independently-administered school districts of the borough, each with its own curricula, grade divisions and educational policies. The Borough School Boards and Central Board had been established in 1897 to begin centralized decision making, but in 1901 they were abolished and replaced by a newly reorganized Board of Education consisting of 46 Local School Board Districts and a central Executive Committee. The work of the new organization was affected by several recently implemented state and municipal efforts at reform, including the Compulsory Education Law of 1894 which mandated school attendance for all children until age 14, the School Reform Law of 1896 which mandated state support of secondary schools, and revision of the city charter in 1901.

 

The laws substantially increased the number of children attending city schools, created new types of schools, and improved school accommodations. A temporary halt in funding for new buildings significantly slowed the construction of school facilities in most parts of the city for a year following consolidation. Although the moratorium led to further overcrowding in existing schools in Jamaica, as throughout the city, in the years that followed, millions of dollars were authorized for the construction of new facilities.

 

History of P.S. 66

 

Conditions in District No. 7, as throughout pre-consolidated New York City, were crowded as a result of the changes to state and municipal education laws. In July 1897, a resolution was presented before the local school board calling for $100,000 to be raised via taxes and the sale of bonds, for the construction of additions to existing school structures and the purchase of land for the erection of a new school house within District No. 7.30 Hoping to thwart further shortages in classroom space, and possibly anticipating the post-consolidation freeze in funding for new buildings, the board dramatically increased its proposal just one month later with a call for three additional ten-room school houses. In total, the school board hoped to be able to accommodate 1,750 pupils.

 

On August 3, 1897, the school board passed a resolution to purchase three sites for the proposed school houses – Site No. 7, referred to in town records as the Broadway site, which would become Public School 64, Site No. 8, referred to as the Union Course site, which would become Public School 65, and Site No. 9, referred to as the Brooklyn Hills site, which would become P.S. 66. The parcel of 200 feet by 175 feet on which P.S. 66 would be constructed was purchased for $7,000 from the widow of Thomas F. Hayes, a real estate agent who may have been associated with the Brooklyn Hills Improvement Company. Three identical plans were submitted for the buildings by Harry S. Chambers, the Superintendent of School Buildings and architect for District No. 7, and were accepted in the fall of 1897. In early December, however, a motion was made to reduce the size of the schools from ten rooms to eight rooms, as a result of contractor bids exceeding approximated building costs.

 

New plans were summarily submitted and accepted. A carpenter by the name of Thomas J. Clarke was awarded the contract for construction of “Building No. 9” just one week later, with a winning bid of $24,290.31 Construction began in early 1898, and the school was officially designated as “Public School No. 66” on April 15, 1898. The building was completed on July 28, 1899.32

 

Upon completion, P.S. 66 contained eight classrooms serving the first through sixth grades, a library, and a principal’s office. Four classrooms were located on each of the first and second stories of the building, surrounding an octagonal lobby. The two-and-a-half story Victorian Eclectic-style building, consisting of bearing exterior and interior walls with floors framed with wood joists, was essentially square in plan. The primary entrance to the school, which was picturesquely sited within a verdant, undeveloped area of Brooklyn Hills, was located at the base of a six-story, projecting tower along the building’s west elevation. Many of the original school’s features are characteristic of the Romanesque Revival style and give the building a fortress-like appearance, including prominent round arches highlighting window openings and the main entrance, a flared base, and its distinctive tower.

 

Elements of the Queen Anne style are also present in the design of the original school building, in its large entablatures featuring elaborate rinceaux, its gabled dormers, and a pair of paneled brick chimneys. The tower, which originally contained a bell used to call school children from neighboring farms and developments, is distinguished by round arches, brick corbelling, large masonry columns, and foliate ornamentation. An ornamental panel above the main entranceway featured foliate decoration and the name of the school.

 

Despite a very real need for classroom space throughout New York City at the turn of the century, most apparent in the fact that many schools were running classes part-time in order to accommodate demand, P.S. 66, like other schools constructed in Queens just prior to consolidation, did not immediately open. Due to a shortage in municipal funds, the unoccupied school had not been assigned a janitor and consequently began to deteriorate. In December 1899, the windows at

 

P.S. 66 were reportedly broken by neighborhood children and the plumbing stripped by thieves. To prevent further vandalism, P.S. 66, as well as the still unoccupied P.S. 65, were boarded up. Notwithstanding the continued residential development of the borough, Queens was still largely considered a rural farming community at the turn of the century and the presence of unutilized schools structures did not go unnoticed. As reported in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1900:

 

…While in Brooklyn and Manhattan there are thousands of children who cannot

go to school because there is no room for them, [here] there is room for nearly

two thousand with which the population of the village has not yet been blessed...

 

The notion that the schools remained unopened due to a lack of demand, however, was a misconception. For several years, the children of Brooklyn Hills residents were forced to attend Public School 58 in nearby Ozone Park on a half-day schedule as they eagerly awaited transfer to the new school. The New York City Board of Estimate and Apportionment, however, had only allotted $25,000 for janitors’ wages for the entire borough of Queens for the 1900-1901 school year, a full $15,000 less than the sum awarded the borough in the years prior to consolidation.34 Similar reductions in appropriations were made for teachers’ salaries, with reductions of 25% in early 1900 leading to a numerous teacher resignations. While P.S. 65 appears to have opened in time for the 1899-00 school year, relieving some of the crowding experienced by the school district, it is not surprising that under such financial strain, both P.S. 64 and P.S. 66 remained closed.

 

P.S. 66 finally opened its doors on April 14, 1902 and was referred to locally as the Brooklyn Hills School.35 Neighborhood residents were transferred to the school by start of the new fall term. In early 1902, the school board petitioned the Board of Public Improvements to open nearby Orchard Avenue (now 86th Avenue) “to accommodate school children in getting to this school, as no street opens from the northeast to it.”36 By May of that year, attendance at the school had increased so rapidly that the services of two additional teachers were requested. Records from 1905 indicate that seven teachers and 278 students occupied the building.

 

Between 1900 and 1910, the city’s population grew by nearly 39 percent, primarily a result of unprecedented levels of immigration. This growth naturally led to further increases in school enrollment and attendance throughout the city. To meet the latest increase in demand for classroom space, a three-story addition to the east of P.S. 66’s original school building was constructed in 1905-6. The addition doubled the number of classrooms and included space for a kindergarten and an auditorium. The addition, which is attributed to C.B.J. Snyder, superintendent of School Buildings for the New York City Board of Education from 1890 to 1923, was harmoniously designed in the style of the main section. Consisting of brick bearing walls with floors supported by steel beams, the addition is roughly rectangular in plan. The addition features a pair of two-and-a-half story gabled wings that project northwards and southwards from a three-story, flat-roofed core.

 

The addition is distinguished by steeply pitched slate roofs and ornamental brick corbelling at the wings and central core. According to Board of Education records, the addition was occupied on September 9, 1907.

 

Description

 

P.S. 66 is situated towards the eastern boundary of a large, rectangular lot bounded by the gently sloped 102nd Street to the west, 85th Avenue to the north, 85th Road to the south, and a service driveway to the east. The site is presently surrounded by a non-original concrete curb that is topped by iron and chain-link fencing. Primary pedestrian entry to the site is located along 102nd Street, while secondary entries can be found along 85th Avenue, 85th Road, and also via the service driveway. The school building is set back from 102nd Street by a verdant lawn featuring large trees and other plantings.

 

The school structure is composed of various masses that, together, are roughly symmetrical in plan (see Figure 12). The two-and-a half story, original portion of the school building, consisting of approximately the western two-thirds of the present structure, is essentially square in plan. An addition, consisting of a pair of two-and-a-half story gabled wings projecting northwards and southwards from a three-story, flat-roofed core, was joined to the east of the original school building in 1905-6 and is roughly rectangular in plan. The primary entrance to the structure is located at the base of a projecting fortress-like tower along the original school building’s west elevation. Secondary entrances are located along each of the remaining elevations.

 

All elevations of the Victorian Eclectic-style school feature red-brick laid in a Common bond. Partially-exposed basement stories are visible at all elevations (except where noted) and are flared at the original school building, one of several design elements that gives the school a fortress-like appearance. Rectangular window openings (shorter at partially-exposed basement stories) featuring flush cast-stone lintels and projecting cast-stone sills are typical at each elevation of the structure (except where noted). At the original school building, the sills of the first and second stories, as well as the lintels of the first story, are continuous with flush cast-stone bands at all elevations (except where noted). All first and second-story window openings of the original school building and 1905-6 addition feature six-over-six double-hung wood sashes (except where noted), several of which are original (see Alterations).

 

Basement window openings typically feature three-over-three double-hung wood sashes (except where noted).

 

Original School Building

 

West (102nd Street) elevation: The primary, west elevation of P.S. 66 is composed of three sections. The two-bay wide central section projects forward (except where noted) and is principally defined by a six-story, fortress-like tower at the southern bay. Two round-arched openings featuring concentric brick arches with brick hood molding are located at the ground story of the central section (basement not exposed), consisting of a window opening containing paired typical sashes and a typical sill, topped by a fanlight with ornamental lead dividers, on the left, and the primary entrance, consisting of slightly recessed, wood double-doors (non-original), paneled wood reveals, and a matching fanlight, on the right. The primary entrance is raised slightly on a single granite step. The ground-story arches of the central section spring from a molded cast-stone water table course, continuous on all sides of the projecting central section and beneath which are found recessed rectangular brick panels.

 

A single, narrow typical window opening, which descends slightly into the water table course, is visible at the north-facing portion of the projecting central section at the first story. A decorative panel featuring foliate details and inscribed with the words “Public School” and “No. 66” is found above the primary entrance. A masonry and cast-stone balustrade tops the first story of the northern bay of the central section (including the north-facing portion). The two-story tall northern bay is recessed above the first story. At the second story, the northern bay features paired window openings topped by blind arches consisting of concentric brick courses, brick hood molding and a herringbone tympanum and featuring elaborate window surrounds with foliate details. An entablature consisting of a molded architrave, rinceau, and molded cornice, is found directly above the second-story window openings of the northern bay (see Alterations).

 

A hipped section of the structure’s slate roof is visible above the entablature at the northern bay. A drain pipe is affixed to the north-facing portion of the central section.

 

The southern bay of the central section consists of the six-story tower. Above the primary entrance, the tower consists of two, narrow rectangular window openings featuring four-over­four double-hung wood sashes and flush, continuous cast-stone lintels and sills at the second story, three narrow round-arched window openings featuring two-over-two double-hung sashes with arched upper sashes, brick hood molding springing from molded brick corbels, and slightly projecting cast-stone sills connected by a flush cast-stone band at the third story, three blind rectangular windows with a continuous cast-stone sill supported on stepped brick corbelling above a paneled frieze (continuous on all visible sides of the tower) at the fourth story, three arched masonry openings featuring outsized Corinthian columns (half-columns at outer arches), a continuous rinceau, and a projecting cast-stone sill supported on stepped brick corbelling at the fifth-story and repeated at a shorter height (and without the frieze) at the sixth-story, and a diminutive molded cast-stone cornice at its crown. Similar to the fourth story, the sixth-story sill and corbelling is continuous on all visible sides of the tower. The south elevation of the tower features two, irregularly-sized and irregularly-spaced narrow typical window openings at the first and second stories (left window opening at first story descends slightly into the water table course) and a single window opening at the third story with details similar to that of the third story of the tower’s west elevation. The details of the fourth, fifth and sixth stories of the west elevation of the tower are repeated on the north, south and east elevations (east elevation not visible from street).

 

The two-and-a-half story north section of the west elevation is four bays wide and features a typical window opening at each bay of the partially-exposed basement, first, and second stories. A wide gable with cast-stone coping that culminates in a finial spans the width of the section. Two shorter typical window openings are set within the gable and feature six-over­six double-hung wood sashes, sills connected by a flush cast-stone band and another flush cast-stone band that serves as a lintel course. The substantial metal tympanum beneath the gable features elaborate foliate, garland and urn details. Paired, cylindrical pinnacles of differing height, featuring cast-stone corbels with foliate details and patterned cast-stone finials, flank the section (the left-most pinnacle is continuous with the north elevation). From a distance, a rectangular brick chimney featuring arched panels, brick banding, and masonry coping, is visible above the roofline (also visible from the north elevation).

 

Each of the three bays of the two-and-a-half story south section of the west elevation features a typical window opening at the partially-exposed basement, first, and second stories.

 

An entablature consisting of a molded architrave, rinceau, and molded cornice, is found directly above the second-story window openings, matches that of the northern bay of the central section, and is continuous with the south elevation. A gabled dormer featuring cast-stone coping that culminates in a finial contains two rectangular window openings featuring two-over-two double-hung wood sashes and typical sills. The dormer pierces the cornice of this section and is flanked by cylindrical brick pinnacles with patterned cast-stone finials. A flush cast-stone band serves as a lintel course for the dormer windows. The metal tympanum beneath the gable features elaborate foliate details. A drain pipe that is affixed to the south-facing elevation of the tower at its top pierces the cornice of the section and continues towards the ground affixed to it. From a distance, a cross-hipped section of the structure’s slate roof is visible above the entablature.

 

One of the structure’s two rectangular brick chimneys featuring arched panels, brick banding, and masonry coping, is visible above the roofline (also visible from the south elevation).

 

South (85th Road) elevation: The south elevation consists of two sections. The two-bay east section of the south elevation is recessed from the four-bay west section. At the partially-exposed basement, first, and second stories, the west section of the south elevation features single typical window openings at each of the first two bays and two typical window openings at each of the third and fourth bays (a single header course is found beneath the typical sills of the partially-exposed basement windows). A dormer matching that of the south section of the west elevation is centered above the west section. At the partially-exposed basement, first, and second stories, the east section features a single typical window opening at the western bay and three typical window openings at the eastern bay. An additional bay is visible at the east-facing elevation between the two sections and features a single narrow typical window opening containing four-over-four double hung wood sashes at each of the first and second stories and a non-original door opening with typical cast-stone lintel raised on one concrete step at an exposed basement level (door is accessed via non-original, below-grade concrete stairway surrounded by a concrete curb with metal handrail) (see Alterations). An entablature matching that of the west elevation is found above the second-story window openings of the east, west, and east-facing sections of the south elevation, and is continuous from the west elevation. A cross-hipped section of the structure’s slate roof is visible above the entablature, as is one of the structure’s two rectangular brick chimneys featuring arched panels, brick banding, and masonry coping (also visible from the west elevation). A drain pipe that is affixed towards the right side of the east section pierces the cornice as it runs to the ground. Additional drain pipes are affixed towards the left edge of both the east and west sections.

 

North (85th Avenue) elevation: The north elevation is the same as the south elevation, except where noted. Unlike the south elevation, the west section of the north elevation features two typical window openings at each bay of the partially-exposed basement, first, and second stories, and there is no header course beneath the sills of the partially-exposed basement window openings of the east section. Although there is no opening at the partially-exposed basement story of the west-facing elevation between the sections, there is a non-original door opening at the right side of the third bay of the east section at the basement level (door is accessed via non-original, below-grade concrete stairway surrounded by a concrete curb with metal handrail) (see Alterations). The window openings of the left side of the fourth bay of the east section at the first and second stories have been altered into door openings to accommodate a fire escape (see Alterations). A multi-level, cross-hipped section of the structure’s slate roof is visible above the entablature at this elevation, as is one of the structure’s two rectangular brick chimneys featuring arched brick panels, brick banding, and masonry coping (also visible, at a distance, from the west elevation). In lieu of the smaller dormer present at the south elevation, a large, gabled dormer rises from the roof at the east section, about two-thirds of the way back. The dormer contains a single rectangular window opening with a molded window surround and three-over-three double-hung wood sashes. The metal face of the dormer features radiating sunburst and foliate details. Unlike the south elevation, only one drain pipe is affixed to the north elevation, at the west section.

 

1905-6 Addition

 

West elevation: The west elevation consists primarily of the west elevations of a pair of two-and-a-half story wings that project from a central, three-story, flat-roofed core (because the core abuts the slightly shorter original school building to the west, only a small portion of its western elevation is visible). Few details adorn the west elevations of the north and south wings. The west elevation of the south wing does not feature any openings, and although a typical lintel and sill are present at the partially-exposed basement story, any window opening that may have been present here has been seamlessly bricked in. The west elevation of the north wing features a short, wide rectangular window opening with a typical lintel and sill at the partially-exposed basement story that has been filled-in with a non-original metal panel. A portion of the west elevations of both the north and south wings is taken up by a projecting one-story pavilion which features brick corbelling, a large, flush masonry band, and masonry coping, all of which wrap to each pavilion’s south elevation (the pavilions may not be original to the 1905-6 addition, see 1905-6 Addition, South (85th Road) elevation). Brick corbelling caps both the north and south wings and terminates at the outer edge of each wing at a stylized brick buttress featuring a cast-stone corbel and capital (the buttresses are shared with the north and south elevations of the wings). A pitched slate roof is visible above each wing. The visible portion of the west elevation of the central core features a projecting brick band and parapet with brick corbelling and masonry coping, all of which are continuous with the north, south and east elevations of the core. A rectangular brick chimney is partially visible above the roofline of the flat-roofed core. Drain pipes are affixed to the west elevations of both the north and south wings and a pipe vent is visible along the roof of the south wing.

 

South (85th Road) elevation: The south elevation is principally defined by the gabled, three-bay wide, two-and-a-half story tall, projecting south wing. A single bay of three-story central core, flush with the original school building, is visible to the west of the south wing. Each of the bays of the south wing features a typical window opening at the first and second stories. At the partially-exposed basement story, only the outer bays feature a typical window opening. A single, shorter typical window opening is found within the gable of the south wing. Stylized brick buttresses featuring cast-stone corbels and capitals flank the gable (the buttresses are shared with the east and west elevations of the wing) and are continuous with cast-stone coping which culminates in a finial. The single bay of the central core, to the west of the south wing, features a typical window opening at the second story and a narrow typical window opening at the third story.

 

The first story is taken up by the projecting one-story pavilion, which overhangs the original school building slightly and which features brick corbelling, a large, flush masonry band, and masonry coping, all of which wrap to the pavilion’s west elevation. The masonry band serves as a lintel course for a wide door opening that pierces the brick corbelling. The door opening is raised on a wide concrete step that extends beyond the opening and contains a deeply recessed non-original metal door and solid metal side panel. The pavilion may not be original to the 1905-6 addition, as it obscures most of what appears to have been a typical window opening at the first story of this bay, presently only partially visible above the pavilion. Portions of the brick band and parapet with brick corbelling and masonry coping of the central core are visible above the gabled roof of the south wing, all of which are continuous with the north, east and west elevations of the core. A brick buttress-like element is located above the west slope of the gabled roof of the south wing at the central core.

 

North (85thAvenue) elevation: The north elevation is a mirror image of the south elevation, except where noted. Unlike the south elevation, only the west-most bay of the partially-exposed basement story of the north wing features a window opening. At the projecting pavilion, a shorter typical window opening that pierces the brick corbelling, whose lintel is integrated with the masonry band, and which contains two-over-two double-hung wood sashes, is located to the right of the door opening. To the west of the north wing, two bays of the central core are visible, both recessed slightly from the original school building. The eastern bay of the central core is the same as the north elevation, while the western bay features a short, narrow typical window opening containing two-over-two double hung wood sashes, offset in height at each of the first, second and third stories.

 

East elevation: The east elevation is comprised of three sections consisting, like the west elevation, of two wings projecting from a central core. The east elevations of the north and south wings are the same as the west elevations of the wings, except where noted. Unlike at the west elevation, the north and south wings are flush with the central core. Additionally, at the south wing, the window opening of the partially-exposed basement story is not filled in and, in lieu of a sill, abuts a raised concrete planting bed (see Related Landmark Site). The north wing does not feature any window openings, lintels or sills. Neither the north nor the south wing is obscured by a pavilion.

 

The three-story tall central core features two bays, each containing three typical window openings at the first, second and third stories. At the partially-exposed basement story, a single typical window opening is present at the first bay which, in lieu of a sill, abuts a raised concrete planting bed (see Related Landmark Site). At the second bay of the partially-exposed basement story, an additional three window openings are found and consist of a short typical window opening containing three-over-three double-hung wood sashes to the north, a typical, full-height window opening at center, and a filled-in typical window opening to the south that has been altered to accommodate a basement door opening below and three, square louvered vents above (door is accessed via a below-grade masonry and brick stairway surrounded by masonry curbing and a metal fence with gate).

 

A one-story pavilion projects from the central core at the first bay of the partially-exposed basement story and may not be original to the 1905-6 addition as it obscures part of the rightmost window opening of the first bay of the central core at the first story. The pavilion features projecting brick banding separated by a large masonry band, and masonry coping, all of which wrap to the pavilion’s north and south elevations. The east elevation of the pavilion features two typical lintels where typical window openings appear to have been bricked in. A square metal panel with a hinged door is set within the south elevation of the pavilion. At the third story of the central core, a projecting brick band runs continuous with the lintels of the third-story fenestration and is also continuous with the north, south and west elevations of the core. The central core also features brick corbelling and masonry coping at the parapet which, too, is continuous with the other elevations of the core. At the partially-exposed basement story, a small length of masonry or concrete base trim stretches from the right side of the central core to the north wing. A large number of drain pipes, pipe vents, and through-wall vents are affixed to all three sections of the east elevation, several of which may be original.

 

Alterations

 

While the windows of P.S. 66 are largely non-original, the replacement windows were apparently selected to maintain the integrity of the exterior facade and feature multi-paned, double-hung wood sashes similar to the building’s original windows (several of the non-classroom windows of the west elevation of the original school building are original and have not been replaced; it is not known when the non-original windows were installed). None of the school’s doors are original. The doors of the primary entrance were replaced with new paneled wood double-doors in 2009, while the remaining secondary entrances feature non-original metal doors. The fire escape affixed to the east section of the north elevation of the original school building is not-original.

 

Although it is unclear when the fire escape was put in place (not present in c. 1939 tax photograph), its installation required the enlargement of the leftmost window openings of the fourth bay of this section at the first and second stories in order to accommodate new door openings and metal doors. Although the original window lintels were retained, the remaining portions of the window openings not occupied by the doors have been filled in with metal panels. The three pavilions that extend from the various elevations of the 1905-6 addition are not thought to be original. Although it is not known when they might have been constructed, the pavilions do appear in the c. 1939 tax photograph of the school. An element that appears to be a large cornice at the central core of the 1905-6 addition looks to be present in the c. 1939 tax photograph, but has since been removed. It is not known when the concrete curb that surrounds the site was installed or when the areas to the north and south of the school were paved with concrete, but both conditions are present in the c. 1939 tax photograph.

 

Non-original signage is affixed to the central section of the west elevation of the original school building. A number of non-original security lights, school bells, speakers, conduit, and electrical boxes are affixed to the various elevations of both the original school building and the 1905-6 addition. Non-original window guards are present at all windows of the first, second, third, and partially-exposed basement stories at all elevations and at the fanlights of the central section of the west elevation of the original school building, but are not present at dormer or gable windows. The small length of masonry or concrete base trim at the east elevation of the 1905-6 addition is painted red. A concrete platform has been built up along the east elevation of the 1905-6 addition at the central core and north wing, which extends from the projecting pavilion and is continuous with the ramp that runs alongside the north elevation of the north wing.

 

It is not known whether the through-wall vent beneath the rightmost window of the south section of the west elevation of the original school building is original, nor if any of the through-vents on the east elevation of the 1905-6 addition are original. Similarly, it is not known if the various drain pipes affixed to the east elevation of the 1905-6 addition are original, although the drain pipes affixed to the other elevations are thought to be original.

 

A major exterior modernization project that took place in 2001 under the leadership of the architectural firm Montoya-Rodriguez Architects, PC returned many original details to the school building that had been removed or altered over the intervening years. The metal entablatures, including the rinceaux, present at the north, south and west elevations of the original school building, had been covered with stucco (see Figure 10), but were replaced as part of this project. The firm also restored much of the bell tower, which had been removed above the second story in 1967 due to wood deterioration. Although the present tower is not an exact replica of the original, a large number of details, including the numerous brick and masonry arches, continuous brick corbelling, and open belfry, are evocative of, and, in fact, very similar to the original design (see Figures 13 & 14).

 

As part of the scope of work, finials were returned to the pinnacles of the west elevation of the original school building, failing cast-stone details and rusted sections of decorative metal were replaced in kind, several windows of the 1905-6 addition that had been previously enclosed with face brick were filled-in with matching brick, and asphalt shingles that had been introduced to the roof in the 1980s were replaced with more appropriate slate shingles. The project also undertook the stripping of non-original paint layers from all exterior brick, cast-stone, masonry, and metal details, and the repointing of all existing brickwork (including chimneys) and masonry. Window openings at the partially-exposed basement story of the east-facing section of the south elevation of the original school building and at the rightmost opening of the third bay of the east section of the north elevation of the original school building were enlarged into door openings and below-grade access staircases were installed as part of the project.

 

- From the 2010 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Unique fireplace in the Stetson Room (this was later added when the large Empire Room was subdivided).

PENSHURST PLACE

 

Overview

 

Heritage Category: Park and Garden

 

Grade: I

 

List Entry Number: 1000153

 

Date first listed: 01-May-1986

 

National Grid Reference: TQ 53019 44868

  

Details

A C16 and C17 walled garden, restored and developed in the C19 and C20, set within a medieval deer park with additional surviving C18 and C19 landscape features.

 

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

 

Sir John de Pulteney built the present house at Penshurst in 1341 on estate land which had been owned in the C13 by Sir Stephen de Penchester. Sir John died in 1349 and Penshurst became the property of Sir John Devereux who enclosed the manor with its defensive curtain wall and turrets. His descendants sold the estate in c 1430 to Henry IV's third son, John, Duke of Bedford (CL 1972) on whose death it was granted to his younger brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester and then in 1447 to Humphrey Stafford, first Duke of Buckingham. On the beheading of the third Duke of Buckingham for treason in 1521, Penshurst became Crown property and was used by Henry VIII. In 1552, Edward VI gifted it to the Sidney family who were later created Viscounts De L'Isle and Dudley; the estate remains (1997) in private hands.

 

DESCRIPTION

 

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING Penshurst Place lies to the west of the B2188, c 5km south-west of Tonbridge and on the immediate north-east edge of Penshurst village. The registered site comprises a formal walled garden of c 4ha and a further c 178ha of parkland and woodland. The house and formal garden lie on the level floor of the Medway valley, the river running from south-west to north-east some 100m beyond the site's southern boundary. North and north-west of the house the parkland is laid out on land which forms a gently rising contoured bowl, from the rim of which there are extensive views to wooded ridges on the south-east side of the Medway and westwards to the Eden valley and the Sussex Weald. Woodland encloses the site to the north. Penshurst Road skirts the immediate west and north boundaries while to the east the site's woodland and farmland, enclosed by an avenue of trees and agricultural fencing, merge into a similar landscape beyond. To the south a fringe of trees encloses the site from the open pasture landscape of the river valley.

 

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES The present principal private entrance, which seems to have been established in the C19 with the building of North Lodge (probably (Newman 1969) by J B Rebecca, listed grade II), is from Penshurst Road, c 200m north-west of the house. The drive follows an easterly route then turns south to approach the King's Tower on the main entrance front across an apron of lawns enclosed within mature yew hedges and a walled ha-ha. The western length of the ha-ha was built by 1833 (anon sketch reproduced in Colvin and Moggridge 1994); the remainder of it and the present turning circle were complete by 1866-9 (survey date of OS 1st edition). Kip's early C18 view (Harris 1719) shows the house approached from both the north and east boundaries by formal avenues which still existed in 1758 (Eyre). C18 and early C19 views (see Colvin and Moggridge 1994) of the north front show open parkland extending up to the house until the reintroduction of the present enclosure. The present public entrance is at the southernmost corner of the site along a drive which enters at a gatehouse (mid C19 but incorporating older material, listed grade II) and runs for 380m parallel to the south wall of the garden before turning northwards to the car park and entrance buildings at the former Place Barn Farm.

 

PRINCIPAL BUILDING Penshurst Place (listed grade I) lies in the south-west corner of the site and forms a visual ensemble, when viewed from the park, with St John the Baptist's church, 60m to the south-west. The house is built in sandstone of varying colours, with some brickwork; the elevations are mostly battlemented but with some steeply pitched roofs visible. The plan of the house is extensive: the oldest part, the hall house or Baron's Hall built in 1341, forms the core, to the south-west of which a second hall, known as the Buckingham Wing, was added in the mid C15. The towers and sections of curtain wall which surround the house survive from the complete fortification of his manor house by Sir John Devereux in 1392 (Newman 1969; CL 1972). Considerable alterations took place in the C16: the south-west wing with an upper long gallery was added in 1574-5 and the King's Tower, in the centre of the north front, was built or remodelled as an entrance tower in 1585 (Newman 1969). The north front and part of the west front were refaced by J B Rebecca in 1818 and the stable range, with wrought-iron gates of c 1729 brought from Wingerworth Hall (ibid), added east of the King's Tower in 1834. Further extensive restoration was carried out by George Devey (1820-86) in the mid C19 and again after war damage in 1945.

 

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS The formal gardens lie within a slightly south-eastward sloping rectangular walled enclosure (listed grade II*), built in the early C16 and C17, of which the house occupies the western quarter. The enclosure is quartered by two main axes, recreated in the 1850s, the longer running south-west to north-east and the shorter south-east to north-west. Gardens existed on the site in the C14; the present main divisions and axes were established by the beginning of the C18, as shown on Kip's view (Harris 1719) although these may date from the C16 or C17 (guidebook). After a period of neglect in the C18 the gardens were restored in the 1850s by the second Lord De L'Isle and the architect George Devey who modelled his work closely on Kip's view.

 

The house opens from the south-east front onto a grassed courtyard with, on its south side, the Garden Tower (listed grade I), which overlooks the southern quarter of the garden. The south-west half contains the Italian Garden, laid out in the 1850s by Devey on a level platform dating from the late C16 with a raised terrace walk of the same date along its south-west side (ibid). The central focus is an oval lily pond (designed to appear from the house as a perfect circle) set within a garden quartered and surrounded by gravel paths and four rectangular symmetrical panels edged and infilled with box and bedding. The north-east half of this quarter, separated from the Italian Garden by high yew hedges, is itself subdivided by hedges into two enclosures: the one to the north-west is laid out with spring and autumn borders beneath trained nut trees while the Rose Garden to the south-east is laid to a formal design of purple and grey plants with standard and bush roses, designed by John Codrington in the 1960s (CL 1972). The two gardens are divided by a broad path lined with borders of foliage plants, designed by Lanning Roper in 1968 (under restoration in 1997). To the east of these gardens the main paved, south-east to north-west axis is flanked by wide herbaceous borders backed by fruit trees and yew hedges and is focused at the south-east end on the view through wrought-iron gates in the garden wall. At the north-west end, at the crossing with the south-west to north-east axis, is a small paved garden with a pool and four clipped plum trees.

 

The eastern quarter has mainly been developed since 1945 on the site of the former kitchen garden, although a number of the yew-hedged subdivisions survive from their planting in the 1850s. A long border of peonies and lilacs runs along the south-east garden wall; abutting it to the north-west and enclosed by hedges are two orchard gardens, one with formal rows of trees surviving from before 1945, the other, designed by John Codrington (guidebook), planted with Kentish cobs and crabs around a central glade with a rustic pergola supporting climbing plants. North-west of the formal orchard are three separate, hedged enclosures, developed in the 1970s to designs by John Codrington. From the west the first is the Magnolia Garden, with a central statue, laid out on the site of the former glasshouses (ibid). The second is the Stage Garden with a grass theatre and ramp designed by Lord De L'Isle, and the third a grey and silver garden. The long south-west to north-east axis runs along the north side of these gardens from the house to the hedged enclosure containing Diana's Bath (50m distant). The rectangular stone basin, shown in this form on Kip's view (Harris 1719) and all subsequent maps, was restored in 1890. The axial path, flanked by clipped domes of yew, terminates at the north-east garden wall in a small pool (guidebook).

 

Of the northern quarter, the south-west half is laid out as a kitchen garden flanked on the north-east side by an apple avenue while the north-eastern 0.8ha contains the Union Flag Garden, the flag laid out in a pattern of roses and lavender, surrounded by pleached lime trees and overlooked by a small viewing mount set in a rectangle of pheons (broad arrowheads) depicted in dwarf box.

 

PARK The park lies to the north and north-east of the house and walled garden, on ground rising to the rim of the contoured bowl which then extends northwards over a higher plateau. Within the bowl, the western half is grazed pasture, open in character with a scatter of clumps and individual trees and, towards the northern end, small areas of woodland. The eastern half is under arable cultivation with two major wooded clumps and a few individual trees. On the plateau north of the rim the majority of the parkland is planted with sweet chestnut coppice and coniferous forestry. A private deer park is first mentioned at Penshurst in 1290 and the whole of the present park covers the site of the paled medieval Old Park, shown on Burgess' survey of 1740 (Colvin and Moggridge 1994). Kip's view (Harris 1719), although compressing the landscape, confirms the appearance of the park in the early C18 and its complete separation from the formal garden. The enclosure of the east side of the park for agricultural use occurred between 1743 (Estate valuation, reproduced in Colvin and Moggridge 1994) and 1758 (Eyre plan). The Tithe map of 1842 shows the present landscape structure of the park established, with the new areas of woodland in the eastern half. Park woodland had expanded further by the late 1860s (OS 1871), although only one plantation had encroached on the northern plateau. The present extent here of commercial forestry and chestnut coppice dates from after 1945.

 

The parkland is cut by several major avenues; a central one, with trees of mixed age including some replanted in the 1990s, extends over 1.7km from the north-east boundary to the north-east corner of the walled garden. A second one, c 650m in length and completely restored in the 1990s, runs parallel to the western boundary as far south as the entrance drive and is focused on the church tower. A third runs along the park's eastern boundary. All are shown on Kip's view (Harris 1719) and there is an intention to replant the fourth, shown by Kip as running east to west and meeting the south end of the central avenue.

 

On the north side of the north-west wall of the garden a lime avenue lines the path from the car park to the house. This is shown on Burgess' plan of 1740 and was restored in the 1990s. Some 150m north of the entrance front of the house the cricket ground, with an early C20 pavilion, is laid out on the site of the early C18 bowling green (Harris 1719); 180m further north is a lake with a semicircular hedged enclosure, restored in the 1990s, on its north side. Known as Lancup Well, the lake is shown on Kip's view with a semicircular enclosure laid out with paths winding through blocks of planting which survive as woodland (called The Rookery) on the OS map of 1937. North of Lancup Well (160m distant) is the Sidney or Bear's Oak, now (1997) in poor condition but established as over 400 years old (Colvin and Moggridge 1994). Further ancient trees (chestnut and beech) shown in formal lines on Burgess' map of 1740 survive in that form at Collinses Tol, 150m within the north boundary. To the north-east of the walled garden and Place Barn Farm are two fishponds, shown on Kip's view but apparently silted up by 1870. These were restored in the 1990s.

 

REFERENCES

 

J Harris, The History of Kent (1719) Country Life, 5 (18 March 1899), pp 336-8; 9 (9 February 1901), pp 172-3; 30 (2 December 1911), pp 844-54; (9 December 1911), pp 894-902; 151 (9 March 1972), pp 554-8; (16 March 1972), pp 618-21; no 25 (21 June 1990), pp 124-9 J Newman, The Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald (1969), pp 436-40 T Wright, The Gardens of Britain 4, (1978), pp 78-84 Penshurst Place and Gardens, guidebook, (1993) Penshurst Place Park, History and Restoration Management Plan, (Colvin and Moggridge 1994)

 

Maps William Burgess, Survey of Penshurst Place, 1740 (in Colvin and Moggridge 1994) Edward John Eyre, A Map of the Manor of Penshurst, 1758 (in Colvin and Moggridge 1994) Tithe map for Penshurst parish, 1842 (in Colvin and Moggridge 1994) Tithe map for Leigh parish, 1842 (in Colvin and Moggridge 1994)

 

OS 6" to 1 mile:1st edition surveyed 1866-9, published 1871 2nd edition published 1898 3rd edition published 1909 1937 edition OS 25" to 1 mile:1st edition published 1882 3rd edition published 1909 1937 edition Illustrations J Kip, engraving (in Harris 1719)

 

Description written: May 1997 Amended: January 1999 Register Inspector: VCH Edited: November 2003

  

historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000153

 

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Penshurst Place and Gardens.

 

The House, once the property of King Henry VIII, was left to his son King Edward VI and granted to my forebear Sir William Sidney in 1552. The Sidney family have been in continuous occupation for more than 460 years since. It is still a family home and all who live and work here welcome visitors to discover the charm of Penshurst in the State Rooms, Gardens, Parkland and beyond.

 

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One of the finest fortified manors in England.

 

Poet Sir Philip Sidney wrote of his family home that it was 'built of fair and strong stone, not affecting so much any extraordinary kind of fineness as an honourable representing of a firm stateliness; handsome without curiosity and homely without loathsomeness'. In other words, Penshurst Place does not overawe nor underwhelm; it is what it is; one of the best examples of a fortified medieval manor house in England.

 

While you're visiting Penshurst don't miss the chance to enjoy the parish church of St John the Baptist, where the Sidney Chapel boasts tombs to members of the family dating back to Sir Willliam Sidney, the first member of the family to live here.

Tabernacle of Prayer, Jamaica Avenue, Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York, United States

 

Located on Jamaica Avenue at Merrick Boulevard in Jamaica, the major commercial center of the borough of Queens and once a major theater center for Queens and Long Island, the Loew's Valencia is the borough's largest and most famous remaining movie palace. Designed by theater architect John Eberson and opened in 1929, the 3554-seat Valencia was the first of five so-called "Wonder Theaters" built for the New York-based Loew's chain of movie theaters to serve the major metropolitan population centers outside midtown Manhattan.

 

Eberson, who created the "atmospheric theater" type, was one of America's most prolific and influential theater designers, and the Valencia was among his most important commissions. Its romantic, brick and glazed terra-cotta facade was inspired by Spanish and Mexican architecture of the Baroque or "Churrigueresque" period, with detail including elaborate ornamental terra-cotta pilasters, cherubs' heads, half-shells, volutes, floral swags, curvilinear gables and decorative finials. The Valencia entertained the people of Queens for half a century. Since 1977, it has housed the Tabernacle of Prayer for All People, which has maintained the building's exterior almost completely intact.

 

Development of Jamaica

 

Jamaica, one of the oldest settlements within the boundaries of New York City, developed into the leading commercial and entertainment center of Queens County. The Dutch purchased land in Jamaica from the Jameco (also spelled Jemeco) Indians in 1655.

 

The following year, Governor Peter Stuyvesant granted a charter to the town, originally known as Rusdorp.

 

Following the transfer of power from the Dutch to the English in 1664, Rusdorp was renamed Jamaica, after the original Indian inhabitants of the region. Queens County (incorporating present-day Queens and Nassau Counties) was chartered in 1683.

 

The English established Jamaica as the governmental center of Queens County, with a court, county clerk's office, and parish church (Grace Church; the present structure, dating from 1861-62, is a designated New York Landmark). Outside the town center, Jamaica was largely an area of farm fields and grazing land for cattle. The rural village was officially incorporated by New York State in 1814.

 

Jamaica's central location in Queens County, and the extensive transportation network that developed in the town during the nineteenth century, resulted in the transformation of the community into the major commercial center for Queens County and much of eastern Long Island. It was the arrival of the railroads that began this transformation.

 

The roads and rail lines — connecting Jamaica with other sections of Queens County, with Brooklyn to the west, eastern Long Island, and ferries to New York City — had a tremendous impact. Jamaica's farmland was soon being subdivided into streets and building lots, and new homes were erected.

 

By the turn of the century, Jamaica's importance as a commercial area became evident in the impressive buildings appearing on Jamaica Avenue. After Jamaica was incorporated into the borough of Queens and became a part of New York City on January 1, 1898, additional transportation improvements brought increasing numbers of people. As a result, the population of Jamaica quadrupled between 1900 and 1920.

 

It was during the 1920s, when the major mass transit links were in place, and during a period when private automobile ownership was growing at an extraordinary rate, that Jamaica experienced its major expansion as a commercial and entertainment center.

 

By 1925, Jamaica Avenue between 160th Street and 168th Street had the highest assessed valuation in Queens County.

 

During the 1920s and early 1930s, many small-scale commercial buildings were erected in Jamaica, as well as several major office and commercial structures on Jamaica Avenue. In addition, Jamaica developed into a significant entertainment center.

 

By the mid-1930s, there were over sixty restaurants, bars, and clubs, ranging from small ethnic taverns to elegant restaurants. And there were at least eight movie theaters on or just off Jamaica Avenue, including the Carlton, Hillside,

 

Alden, Merrick, Jamaica, and Savoy, and, largest of all, the Valencia Theater, which opened in 1929.

 

Loew's Valencia Theater

 

The Valencia was one of four theaters originally planned by the Paramount-Publix chain for four major residential centers outside Midtown Manhattan. These included the Kings on Flatbush Avenue in the geographic center of Brooklyn, the Paradise in the Bronx at the commercial hub of the Grand Concourse near Fordham Road, and the Jersey in the heart of Jersey City. When Paramount-Publix looked for a central location for its Queens theater, the logical choice was the commercial center of Jamaica.

 

According to Paramount-Publix's initial plans, the architectural firm of Rapp & Rapp was to design the Kings and the Jersey, while John Eberson was to design the Valencia and the Paradise. Both firms had designed many theaters for Paramount-Publix, and for its predecessor, Balaban & Katz, in Chicago and the Midwest.

 

As a result of the 1925 agreement that kept Paramount from building more theaters in New York and Loew's from entering the Chicago market, the four Paramount theater projects passed to Loew's. Paramount, however, appears to have maintained an interest in the theaters, using them as New York outlets for Paramount pictures.

 

Loew's also added a fifth theater, the 175th Street, designed by the company's preferred theater architect, Thomas Lamb. Each of the theaters included a Morton "Wonder" organ, apparently the origin of the name "Wonder Theaters" that has since been applied collectively to the five houses. The five theaters, all of which survive in varying states of repair, were among the most lavish movie palaces ever built in the greater New York City area. The Valencia was the first of the five to open.

 

In 1926-27 builder R. Riccardo acquired a site at the intersection of Jamaica Avenue and Merrick Road and subdivided it, keeping the corner plot on which he built the six-story Riccardo Building, and selling the other half to the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation (Paramount). Riccardo's agreement with that company apparently included certain restrictions "to assure Jamaica of a beautiful theater." When Famous-Players-Lasky sold the property to Loew's, the property remained subject to those restrictions.22 Loew's filed plans for the Valencia Theater in 1927; construction, by the Thompson-Starrett Company, commenced in June 1928, and was completed in December. The Valencia opened for business on Saturday, January 12, 1929.

 

Erected at a cost exceeding two million dollars, seating approximately 3500, and one of the first theaters built with sound equipment for the new "talkies," the Valencia was meant to serve not just Jamaica, but all of Queens and the greater Long Island area, offering first-run sound pictures along with stage shows imported from the Capitol Theater on Broadway. It was described as "the first Me luxe' theatre on Long Island."

 

Its anticipated opening provoked enormous amounts of coverage in the Long Island Daily Press, a regional paper headquartered in Jamaica. Multiple-page coverage in that paper the day before opening included biographies of Marcus Loew and his successor Nicholas Schenck, and stories and photos of the stage show's stars. Once the theater opened, in keeping with its role as a theater drawing from a wide regional market, movies playing at the Valencia were not shown anywhere else in the vicinity, as far east as Bay Shore, Long Island.

 

The Valencia was designed as a large movie palace, with a narrow mid-block facade containing the entrance lobby on Jamaica Avenue, and the bulk of the theater with the auditorium, stage, and stagehouse behind, along Merrick Boulevard, not quite half the block towards 89th Avenue. For the 40-foot-wide Jamaica Avenue facade, Eberson created an elaborate architectural fantasy in brick and terra cotta, using elements from Spanish and Mexican churches of the Baroque, or "Churrigueresque," period.

 

The Churrigueresque style, named after the Spanish architect J.M. de Churriguera, was an eighteenth-century modification of the Italian Baroque, incorporating Moorish and Gothic decorative elements. The Spanish-influenced design fit the exotic-sounding name of the theater (Valencia), a combination found in other movie palaces of the period (e.g., the Granada Theater, Chicago; Levy & Klein, 1926). The Indiana Theater, in Indianapolis (Rubush & Hunter, 1927), has a facade similar to the Valencia's. Eberson used the style in his 1928 Majestic Theater in San Antonio, while elsewhere in Queens Thomas Lamb made use of the style at the RKO Keith's (1928).

 

The Spanish Baroque character of the Valencia's facade is created by the use of elaborate curving and twisted forms, spiral volutes, double columns adorned with florid patterns, and elaborate ornament including shells, wreaths, cherubim and foliate capitals. A series of curves and pinnacles is repeated three times: on the (original) marquee, at the surround of the main window opening, and again at the roofline. The Spanish motif is continued inside in the spectacular, atmospheric design of the lobby and auditorium.

 

The Valencia opened to much acclaim. Queensborough Magazine, published by the Chamber of Commerce of the Borough of Queens, considered the Valencia to be one of the "outstanding improvements" in the borough in 1928.30 William F. Hofmann, publisher of the Long Island Daily Press, wrote that the Valencia, "properly called the most beautiful theatre in the country," marked the climax of a "new era in the history of Jamaica," and "another milestone in the steady, healthy progress this community is making towards leadership in all fields of commercial endeavour."

 

The architectural magazine Architecture and Building wrote of the Valencia:

 

Having a seating capacity of 4,000, it compares favorably with the largest New York City houses and offers both motion picture and stage performances of the most elaborate character. The architectural treatment is a most elaborate development of Mexican Spanish ornament.

 

The Valencia as a Major Movie Palace

 

As part of the enormous chain of Loew's theaters, the Valencia was able to run a full program of vaudeville acts and a first-run feature sound film. The opening day's program on Saturday, January 12, 1929, which ran continuously from 11 a.m. until midnight, attracted an estimated 17,000 customers. Queens Borough President George U. Harvey gave an inaugural address.

 

The inaugural program featured MGM's sound film White Shadows in the South Seas. According to the Long Island Daily Press: the most up-to-date electrical effects for singing, talking and sound pictures which have been installed in the new theatre will be used in giving 'White Shadows' the sound effects that were to a great extent responsible for the extensive run on Broadway.

 

The stage show featured the revue "My Mantilla," brought in from the Capitol Theater on Broadway; a stage band directed by Walt Roesner; a symphony orchestra directed by Don Albert; and the following performers as described in the Long Island Daily Press:

 

Bob Nelson, well known musical comedy star, White & Manning, world famed comedy dancers, King & King, late features of 'Artists and Models,' and Gertrude Lang, soprano and late prima donna at 'Blossom Time,' Forrest Yarnell, baritone, and Livie Marracci, the fairest of all Italy and winner of the Internationa] beauty contest held at Galveston, Texas, last summer, who will appear in the grand finale supported by the 24 Chester Hale Girls.

 

The Valencia continued the movie and stage show formula for several decades. In the theater's first years, ticket prices ranged from 25 cents for orchestra and balcony seats on weekday mornings to 65 cents on Saturday, Sunday, and holiday evenings.

 

Broadway and other stars regularly graced its stage, including such famous performers as Ginger Rogers and Kate Smith. In the 1930s, the theater included as a regular Monday night feature, the winners of the Major Bowes' Amateur Hour.

 

After its stage show policy was discontinued, the Valencia stayed in use as a movie theater. In the 1950s, a new, larger "panoramic" screen was installed in the theater, along with "stereophonic" sound, making the Valencia the first theater in Queens to offer these effects.

 

Gerald F. Twohig, writing in the Long Island Press in 1974, called the Valencia "the Taj Mahal of Long Island movie houses." In his recollection, The Valencia wasn't just another movie house. It was the greatest of them all in those times when Queens in general and Jamaica in particular were big on movies. If you had a heavy date on Saturday night, you went to the Valencia. You proved you had class.

 

Later History

 

Following the end of World War II, with changing theater economics and the rise of television, a wave of theater alterations and demolitions began to claim large numbers of movie palaces across the country. In the 1960s, the management of many of the largest theaters, no longer able to attract audiences of several thousand, closed off whole seating sections.

 

Eventually, many were either subdivided into smaller theaters with accompanying loss of interior ornament, or demolished for reuse of their valuable large sites. In New York, most of the large Manhattan movie palaces disappeared, while those surviving in the other boroughs were either subdivided or abandoned and subsequently vandalized.

 

In 1976, rumors circulated that Loew's was considering closing the Valencia Theater. That threat brought an outcry from residents of Jamaica and Queens. Various plans for the theater's reuse were proposed — among others, the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation suggested its conversion into a cultural center, and a "permanent home for the Queens Symphony Orchestra."

 

In 1977 Loew's closed the Valencia Theater and donated it to the Tabernacle of Prayer for All People, a church congregation formerly located in Brooklyn. In an interview that year its pastor, Rev. Johnnie Washington, described the gift as "a miracle, a gift from God. A miracle at a time when miracles are not supposed to happen."

 

Rev. Washington admired the building's design:

It's like entering a fantasy world, isn't it? We decided to keep the atmosphere of the movie house. It's such a beautiful place— How could we ever replace what is already here? It has a beauty, an atmosphere that makes you feel you are at some place sacred.

 

The church undertook a major interior restoration, overseen by George Exarchou.

 

Today, the Tabernacle of Prayer for All People continues to use and care for the former Valencia, which remains very much a visible presence in the heart of downtown Jamaica.

 

Description

 

The former Loew's Valencia Theater building, located on the north side of Jamaica Avenue and the west side of Merrick Boulevard, extends along Jamaica for 39.4 feet and along Merrick for 210 feet. The building occupies an irregularly shaped lot, wrapping around a smaller building at the corner of the two streets.

 

The steel-framed structure has three elevations: a Jamaica Avenue entrance facade with an elaborate terra-cotta faced frontispiece; a long side wall on Merrick Boulevard with exit doors and a fire stairs; and a rear wall visible from the adjoining parking lot. These last two sections are faced in brick set in panels.

 

Jamaica Avenue facade;

 

Base: The first story contains a wide entrance to the lobby of the theater, with a centrally placed ticket booth projecting from the entrance doors to the property line. The booth is defined by eight slender but elaborately designed cast-metal columns rising to finials, with foliate screens at the top; a fret pattern adorns its base. The glass doors to either

side have decorative metal framing over them, with rectangular single glass panes above.

 

Framing the entrance at the property line, at either side, are twin metal volutes (the area below them is now enclosed by large announcement boards). The volutes support an overhead metal panel whose underside has foliate infill; its face is currently covered by a large sign. A large marquee projects above the base; it has been covered with protective materials.

 

The original marquee included stamped zinc ornamental designs, and a central sign spelling out "Loew's Valencia." There is decorative polychromatic tilework in the pavement in front of the doors.

 

Upper stories: The upper stories are designed in an extravagant Spanish Baroque style, with elaborate terra-cotta forms projecting from a yellow brick background. The brick background is composed of a slightly projecting diaper-pattern of brick headers, their crossing accented by colored tiles, superimposed over horizontal rows of stretchers.

 

The large central window opening has an elaborate terra-cotta surround and is flanked by heavily ornamented paired pilasters. The window has multi-light sash in three sections: a wide central section five-panes in width, flanked by narrower sections two panes in width.

 

Beneath the foliate capitals of the pilasters are small cherubs' heads, while the pilasters themselves are adorned with larger cherubs' heads, half-shells, volutes, and floral swags.

 

Directly above the window opening are spiral volutes supporting a curving gable form, surrounding a multi-pane sash, above which rises an elaborate terra-cotta infill including sphinxes and floral patterns. The infill is framed by another elaborate gable form, which mimics the massive curvilinear gable of the roofline above, accented by three crowning decorative finials.

 

To either side of the central window and its surround, at the lower level of the facade, is a single narrow lancet window; the brick section above rises to a lower roofline with a large decorative finial. A large, modern sign in the form of a cross, lettered with the name of the church, has been added to the facade; it projects out from the facade on metal supports.

 

- From the 1999 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

see michael-hansmeyer.com/html/solids/p0.html for further images and info

An iconic supermarket building from the 1960s (though property records say the adjoining shopping center was built in 1958); now subdivided and repurposed but still recognizable as its former self. A&P had a major presence in Wisconsin until 1979, when it closed down its stores and pulled out of the area...only to temporarily re-enter it again via acquisition four years later.

 

Oddly enough, the chain didn't seem to build any of these colonial-style "centennial" store buildings north of Milwaukee. Their roster of locations in Manitowoc, Green Bay, Oshkosh and elsewhere during the 1960s and 1970s consisted of a haphazard mix of nontraditional and pre-1959 stores.

Our first elected Premier, marking a milestone in South Australia’s political history, is now a largely forgotten man, unknown by most, probably including most for our current members of parliament. Today’s rooster of the fowl yard is now tomorrow’s feather duster. There is no statue of Boyle Travers Finniss in South Australia despite his public service from September 1836 before the colony was proclaimed, until his retirement from politics in 1866 and to some extent his death in 1893.

 

Boyle Travers Finniss. 1807 to 1893.

Finniss was born in 1807 off the coast of South Africa near Cape Town on a ship being mastered by his father Captain John Finniss. He was baptised in Bombay in 1809 and he spent his childhoods in Madras until he was sent to boarding school in England in 1813. In 1822 he entered the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. He was a top student here and was appointed to the 88th Regiment in 1825 and was soon promoted to Lieutenant in 1827. Whilst in military service he met and married Anne Rogerson in August 1835 in Dublin. In October that year he was retrenched by the Army and he then applied to be assistant surveyor of the proposed colony of South Australia. In December he bought two preliminary land orders of 134 acres each in SA at the fixed price of £160 and in mid 1836 he sailed on the Cygnet with his wife to the new colony arriving 11th September at Kingscote KI. At this time his wife Anne was over 6 months pregnant. He was assigned to work with Colonel William Light who sent him and half of Light’s survey work party to Rapid Bay in early October. Here Finniss planted the first crops ever in South Australia – two quick growing crops for summer ripening – potatoes and maize. His wife was with him as was the team doctor Dr Woodforde. Some simple bark huts were erected for shelter and Finniss began the first surveys of the Rapid Bay to Second Valley area. On the 1st January 1837 the first female European was born at Rapid Bay – Fanny Lipson Finniss. Her birthday has been disputed by several writers but Dr Woodforde’s diary and notes are to be believed. The first male European child was born earlier on Kangaroo Island to another of the survey work party there – probably William Black. On the January 20th Finniss and his survey group reached Holdfast Bay ready to join Light and the other surveyors. Finniss bought a tent to erect near where Government House now stands and his ill wife arrived by ”boat” as she was not fit to walk from Holdfast Bay to Adelaide so Finniss put her in a small boat which was then loaded onto a horse and cart.

 

After the surveying of the city centre in March 1837 Finniss acquired his two one acre city blocks of land. Finniss got the land between Hindley and Curry streets facing King William Street. He erected the first house in Adelaide, a prefabricated two roomed building which he had brought out from England along with farming equipment, a plough, tools, drills, axels, cart wheels etc. In his Reminiscences published in 1891 he claimed he was the first in SA to keep pigs and his land was the first land ploughed in South Australia as he owned one of the first ploughs in the colony. He also claimed that he was also the first to own poultry in the colony. Finniss surveyed the city centre east of King William Street in March 1837. Once the land surrounding the city was surveyed the land orders were given by ballot and Finniss got one section of 134 acres at what is now Prospect. This was in February 1838. He did not open these sections or stay long in his King William street house as he sold it in 1840 when he bought an 80 section at Burnside with a small house, a flourmill, one fenced acre and with Waterfall Gully Creek or First Creek flowing through it. At that time he also sold his two land order sections to finance this purchase at Burnside.

 

Around this time the district was also known as Finniss Springs. The section bought by Boyle Finniss was no 259 today bordered by Glynburn Road on the west and Greenhill Road on the northern end. Here Finniss built a bigger house which he called Traversbrook. In the gardens he planted some of the first oranges trees in the colony and some of the first vines. In 1847 he advertised machinery from the flourmill for sale. Nothing remains of Traversbrook today and the St John Vianney Catholic Church is on this site on Glynburn Road. Traversbrook was probably demolished around 1922 when Rivoli Hall was built on the house site on Glynburn road. This hall and land was sold to the Catholic Church in 1933 and used by them for masses until the new church was built in 1962. Finniss sold his Burnside land in 1858. Subsequent owners gradually sold off some of the land. The final portions of land around Traversbrook were subdivided from this section in March 1925 to create 52 building allotments plus a nine acre separate plot with the old Traversbrook house and Rivoli Hall on it. Traversbrook was renamed Finnissbrook house in 1853 when Finniss’s son Travers downed in the nearby creek. When the land was sold in 1925 it was described as being at the terminus of the Burnside tram near the current roundabout of Greenhill Road and Glynburn Road which now has a council works depot on it. Among the streets created in 1925 was Finniss Terrace. After 1858 Boyle Finniss later lived in Kensington Park and in Kent Town. He died at Kensington Park and his funeral left from that residence.

 

Sadly Boyle’s wife Anne died in Traversbrook in 1858. Before that time he and Anne had seven children beginning with Fanny Finniss in 1837 who died 1865, Boyle Travers Nixon Finniss in 1839 who died in 1853, Julia Howard Finniss in 1840 who died in 1918, William Finniss in 1843 who died in 1919, Emily Finniss in 1844 who died in 1929, Henry Finniss in 1845 who died in 1846, and lastly Frederick Robe Finniss in 1847 who died in 1908. Twenty years after his first wife died he remarried Sophia Lynch in 1878 in St Matthews Anglican Church Kensington where he lived. He had a further two children with Sophia – Coraly Finniss born in 1884 and she died in 1890 and Ethel Finniss born in 1890 who died in 1976.

 

Boyle Finniss in the first years. Explorer, Surveyor, Public Servant, friend of William Light.

As noted above Finniss surveyed and explored the south coast from Encounter Bay to the Murray mouth in January 1838. Throughout 1837 he supported his boss the Surveyor General Colonel William Light in his arguments and disagreements with Governor Hindmarsh. He strongly supported Light’s choice for the site for the city of Adelaide. He became a vocal critic of Govern Hindmarsh. In July 1837 he supported a second newspaper for Adelaide to oppose the governor’s plans. He was given the task of doing the surveys south of the Torrens River which were all completed by February 1838. Relations with Light and Governor Hindmarsh deteriorated as Hindmarsh favoured the incompetent Kingston as he sided with Hindmarsh on surveying issues. In June 1838 the entire surveying team resigned in protest at Kingston’s interference and in a month later in July 1838 Governor Hindmarsh was recalled by the British Colonial Office. Colonel William Light formed a private surveying company called Light, Finniss and company just before June 1838. Its members included surveyors Henry Nixon, a close friend for Boyle Finniss and William Jacob. Their first commissions were for a Glenelg town survey and the Port River area. By September 1838 Light was too ill to undertake work himself but the Port survey had been completed. In January 1839 they did a survey at Lyndoch for the SA Company, they declined a survey at Port Lincoln and by June 1839 they had completed the survey of Gawler town and a small survey at Marion. Colonel William Light died in October 1839. Boyle Finniss was his closest friend in Light’s final days and one of the few notable citizens who ever visited him on his death bed because he was living with his mistress Maria Gandy. In August 1839, just two months before Light’s death the survey company was closed down. After Governor Gawler arrived to take up office in October 1838, he wanted Finniss to be re-employed in the survey department as Deputy Surveyor General on a salary of £400 which was very acceptable to Finniss. This offer was made in August 1839 and Finniss accepted it. At the same time Finniss continued with his attempts at farming and running a flour mill. But when Governor Grey arrived in May 1841, charged with reducing expenditure, he offered Finniss another lower paid position in the public service which Finniss refused. With no reliable income Finniss eventually accepted a position in the Lands Department in September 1842 on a salary of £200 per annum. In April 1843 Finniss accepted a new position of Commissioner of Police on a salary of £350. From then onwards Finniss was a major public servant and later a politician. In April 1847 he became Registrar-General and Treasurer with a seat on the Governors Legislative Council. In 1851 whilst still on the Legislative Council he was appointed as Colonial Secretary on one for the highest salaries in the colony. In this new role he was part of the group to draft the Constitution Bill for self-government of South Australia. He remained in the role of Colonial Secretary until self-government was proclaimed in October 1856 when he became the first Premier of South Australia. In April 1857 he became the first elected Premier.

 

Boyle Finniss the Colonial Secretary and then elected Premier and Politician. 1851 to 1866.

From 1851 the Legislative Council was considering proposals for self-government and the options available. The first step in this direction was the expansion of the Governor’s Legislative Council which was dominated by appointment members until this time. In 1851 the Council was increased to 24 members, two thirds of them were to be elected and the Governor was not a member. Finniss was on the expanded Council and in 1852 Finniss was appointed as Colonial Secretary, the colony’s leading administrator. Finniss was involved with the new constitution which he argued should provide for adult male suffrage for the 36 representatives in the House of Assembly and like the House of Commons in England it should control finance and policy, and an upper house of 18 appointed members which could veto legislation and that after nine years an elected upper house could be considered. Others in the 1853/54 Legislative Council wanted only half the representatives in the House of Assembly to be elected and full adult male suffrage was controversial. The Constitution Bill with restricted franchise was sent to England for ratification in 1854 and then Finniss served as Acting Governor when Governor Young left Adelaide in December 1854 until Governor MacDonnell arrived in June 1855. The first constitutional bill was returned for reconsideration by the British parliament to the SA Legislative Council in in 1855. When Governor MacDonnell arrived he said SA was not ready for self-government and he wanted a single chamber with more appointed members. Finniss and Legislative Council member Hanson responded by wanting an upper house but with a property qualification for members to stand for election to it. This new Constitutional Bill was presented to the Legislative Council in November 1855 despite the opposition of the Governor MacDonnell and the conservative members of the Council. The new constitution bill included adult male suffrage for the House of Assembly (no other state was this liberal in their first constitutions for their lower house), vote by secret ballot, and a property qualification for voting for the Legislative Council.

 

The SA Constitution Act of 1856 was passed by the Legislative Council 3 January 1856 and forwarded the Westminster. The British Parliament passed it and the bill received royal assent in June 1856. News of this assent did not reach Adelaide until October 1856. Finniss, as Colonial Secretary was named Chief Secretary or Premier, as we know it. Boyle Finniss then decided to stand for election to the House of Assembly in early 1857 contesting one of the 36 seats along with 50 other contenders. Finniss was elected to his seat and the governor asked him to form a government in the House of Assembly in April 1857. Boyle Finniss was then the first elected Premier of South Australia but his term in office was short lived. Unlike today’s politicians he had honour and although he had some support in the House of Assembly of various railway, roads and postage bills he did not have the support of the Legislative Council which amended or rejected bills. So he resigned. He then served as a minister in the government led by Sir Richard Hansen from September 1857 to May 1860. During this time in January 1858 he introduced a bill to remove the property qualification for voting for the Legislative Council but it was rejected. In subsequent years another 40 attempts were made to remove the property qualification but they failed until 1973. He remained in parliament until 1864 when he was appointed as the first Government Resident of the Northern Territory which had been annexed to South Australia by the British government in 1863. South Australia won the territory because it had established the Overland Telegraphs line from Adelaide to Darwin in August 1862.

 

During his time in politics he spent much of his time in Old Parliament House. The first stage of government offices for the Governor’s Legislative Council was built in 1843 to the design of the architectural firm of Hays Hamilton and Woods. A new chamber was added to the 1843 building to accommodate the bigger Legislative Council of 1851. It opened in July 1855. Some small changes were made to the 1855 building and it was ready for the opening of the first elected parliament on 22 April 1857. Further changes were made on several occasions until the first half of the current Parliament House opened in 1889. It became a Constitutional Museum in the late 1970s until 1995 when the museum closed and it was used again by Parliament House for offices. So this building was the main working offices of Boyle Finniss as Colonial Secretary in 1852 and from April 1857 when he became our first Premier.

 

After his disastrous and despotic role as Government Resident of the Northern Territory 1864 to 1866 when he was recalled he tried to be elected to the Legislative Council as a wise old gentlemen in 1873. He was unsuccessful. He did however get a position on the new Forestry Board with a meagre stipend from 1873 until 1882.

 

333 Rt. 18; a Two Guys that was subdivided between Bradlees and other stores including TJ Maxx in the early 80s. Bradlees closed in early 2001; is currently Kohl's.

781 Bernard Street, Kelowna, BC.

 

Statement of Significance:

 

Description of Historic Place:

 

The historic place is the two-storey, wood-sided Leckie House and its landscaped front yard open to the public street, built in the Queen Anne style in 1906 and located at 781 Bernard Avenue, in Kelowna's historic North Central neighbourhood.

 

Heritage Value:

 

The Leckie House is a very good example of the first generation of substantial urban residences in Kelowna. It has value for illustrating the establishment of Kelowna as a significant urban centre in British Columbia. It was built in 1906, when upper Bernard Avenue had just been subdivided as a residential area for the community's more affluent citizens, and was being developed with homes for Kelowna's business and social elite. The design and scale of the house reflect the strong economy of Kelowna at the time.

 

The story of David and Date Leckie, the initial occupants, is illustrative of many Kelowna residents of their class, in that both contributed substantially to the development of Kelowna in their roles as business, community, and church leaders. David Leckie was a hardware merchant who served several terms on City Council, contributed to the first hospital and aquatic centre, and was involved as well in the cannery business. Both he and his wife were prominent in Knox Presbyterian Church.

 

In the 1930s the house was the residence of George A. Barrat, a member of the BC Fruit Board and secretary of BC Tree Fruits Ltd. The association with both Leckie and Barrat is important because both were involved in the fruit industry, a key economic sector in Kelowna throughout the twentieth century.

 

The conversion of the building to a duplex in 1944 tells us about the process of urban development and the changing urban landscape in Kelowna, reflecting both the wartime housing shortage and the decline of the area in favour of more outlying neighbourhoods, as many large houses in this area were converted to rooming houses and apartments.

 

The current use as an art gallery (Hambleton Galleries) is part of the ongoing redevelopment of the block into professional offices and specialty shops. It also reflects the City's encouragement of the conservation of historic buildings, in this case by a grant from the Kelowna Heritage Foundation.

 

The wood-frame house is a very good example of the Queen Anne Style, characterized by the asymmetrical composition, with a tall gable balanced by an elaborate entrance porch, and by the decorative use of materials and details. The form and construction remind us of how Kelowna's elite chose to express their economic and social success and how they organized their domestic space. The open front yard has a strong visual and social relationship with the Bernard Avenue public realm.

 

Source: City of Kelowna, Planning Department, File No. 6800-02

 

Character-Defining Elements:

 

The character-defining elements of the Leckie House include:

- Siting of the house, set back from the street

- Two-storey asymmetrical composition, characteristic of the Queen Anne style

- Tall gable on the right side of the principal elevation, balanced by dormer at left

- Narrow horizontal wood siding

- Bevelled shingle band between storeys

- Random-coursed stone foundation

- Semi-circular porch surrounded by classically-inspired columns and a balustrade above

- Dormer window on the principal elevation

- Well-pronounced eaves, with decorative floral panels located between the upper windows

- Wood-sash double-hung windows

- Very good craftsmanship of the wood details

- Continued domestic character and scale, even with the change to commercial use

 

Canada's Historic Places

Phetchabun is one of the northern provinces ( Changwat ) of Thailand. Neighbouring provinces are Loei, Khon Kaen, Chaiyaphum, Lopburi, Nakhon Sawan, Phichit and Phitsanulok. Phetchabun is located in the lower northern region of Thailand, in the area between the northern and the central region. The province lies in the broad fertile river valley of the Pa Sak River, with mountains of the Phetchabun mountain range to the east and west. It is surrounded by places of interest, many well known national parks, beautiful waterfalls and great lakes. The province is subdivided in 11 districts ( Amphoe ). These are further subdivided into 117 sub districts ( Tambon ) and 1261 villages ( Muban ).

1. Mueang Phetchabun 2. Chon Daen 3. Lom Sak 4. Lom Kao 5. Wichian Buri 6. Si Thep 7. Nong Phai 8. Bueng Sam Phan 9. Nam Nao 10. Wang Pong 11. Khao Kho

Phetchabun was established by two kingdoms: the Sukhothai Kingdom, and the Ayutthaya Period of the King Narai. In the thesaphiban administrative reforms at the beginning of the 20th century, the province together with Lom Sak Province to the north formed the monthon Phetchabun. As it was the smallest monthon, it was also the first monthon to be dissolved in 1915, after being temporarily administered from Monthon Phitsanulok between 1903 and 1907. Lom Sak Province was abolished and merged into Phetchabun in 1932. During the period between 1968-1982 communist insurgents established bases in the mountains in the province. From hidden locations they fought occasional skirmishes against the Thai Army.

It is the mountains that draw tourists. The rolling peaks of Khao Thor, known as Little Switzerland, were once a battlefield against communist insurgents. Today, its beautiful scenery and cool weather attracts many visitors, to see the mountain-top army base turned into a museum, and enjoy trekking in the open zoo and non-hunting areas. The national parks of Phu Hin Rong Kla, with its stunning rock formations, and Nam Nao, whose forests are home to many large animals and birds, are now starting to attract more and more trekkers and eco tourists. Khao Kho The most engaging national park of Phetchabun Province is Khao Kho National Park, about one hour northwest of Phetchabun town. It was designated to be Little Switzerland from many visitors, because of beautiful scenery and cool weather like Switzerland. It was once a battle field against communist insurgents conducted their struggles against the authorities. Its charming scenery and great weather allure tourists to see the mountain – top, army base turned into a museum, a Chedi containing a holy relic and enjoy trekking in the open zoo and non – hunting areas.

Phetchabun may be reach by Road No.21 ( Kochasenee Rd.) from Saraburi and 370 kilometres from Bangkok.

How to get there

By Train

There is no railway system to Phetchabun

By Car

Road No.1 from capital city ( Bangkok ) to Saraburi province and then Road No.21 to Phetchabun road No.12 from Khon kaen ( central province of the northeastern region ) to Lom Sak and then Road 21. southward to Phetchabun.

By Bus.

Quite a lot of buses stop at this town on the way to Lom Sak. Here are some services you can find from Mo chit Terminal: www.transport.co.th 0 2936 2852-66

Phet Tour 0 2936 3230

Thin Siam Tour 0 2936 0500Buses are very frequent, like 2 or 3 within an hour. First Class service from Phet Tour cost 263 Baht and takes 4 hour+.

Wat Mahathat Phetchabun, Thailand. on Nikon Bamrung Road in town, houses several ancient Chedi's of Sukhothai style. Situated in Muang Phetchabun municipality. It seemed strange seeing this Temple as there is another Wat Mahathat I visited in Ayutthaya last year in 2010. However this Temple is totally different to that at Ayutthaya as you will see. Within the grounds is a school for the training of Buddhist Monks and many where around the day I visited this fine Temple. This monastery is an ancient temple which HRH Prince Damrong presumed that this monastery might be constructed during Sukhothai period. Wat Mahathat has the important objects of worship such as, Phum Khao Binth styled pagoda has been presumed that it might be constructed about B.E. 1926 ( 1383 ). This pagoda is a place that comprises Buddha's relics, Orrahan's ( saint ) ashes, and small images of Buddha in several styles. Two Buddha images of the U-Thong period whose laps are 36 inches wide. One is housed in the main chapel and the other is housed in the vihara of Wat Mahathat.

Badian is a 3rd class municipality in the province of Cebu, Philippines. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 37,699 people. The Municipality of Badian is located 97.6 km southwest of Cebu City. It is bounded on the north by the municipality of Moalboal; on the south by the municipality of Alegria; on the east by the municipalities of Dalaguete and Argao; and on the west by Tanon Strait.

Badian is administratively subdivided into 29 barangays.

Alawijao Balhaan Banhigan Basak Basiao Bato Bugas Calangcang Candiis Dagatan Dobdob

Ginablan Lambug Malbago Malhiao Manduyong Matutinao Patong Poblacion Sanlagan

Santicon Sohoton Sulsugan Talayong Taytay Tigbao Tiguib Tubod Zaragosa

Your choices to come from Cebu City to Badian are: from the airport you can take a taxi to South Bus Terminal look for Ceres Bus Liner via Barili, you can also take Librando Trans. There are buses leaving Cebu City to Badian every 30 minutes or one hour. It will take 2-3 hours or more bus travel to reach Badian from Cebu City depending on the number of stops. You can also hire a taxi at the airport or at the city to Badian, it is more comfortable and faster. Make sure the driver knows where Badian is. The fare is about Php 1500.00 - Php 3000.00 and be prepare for some bartering and some hidden costs

The capital barangay of Badian town is Poblacion. It is located in the centre of the town. This is where the local high school is located called Badian National High School ( BNHS ) is one of the two high schools in the town of Badian. This is also the largest of the two and many students from the neighbouring town just like Moalboal, Alcantara and Ronda come to study in this high school. The lower educational facility in Badian is the Badian Central Elementary School where all the younger children go to school for the simple fact that it is completely free and the only elementary school and the biggest one in town. One more very important institution that is located in Poblacion is the Town Hospital where everyone from every other barangay goes to in the time of sickness.

The Kawasan Falls is a three-layered waterfall series located in the Municipality of Badian, Cebu, which has become a huge attraction with foreign and local tourists throughout the years. The first waterfall is the largest and highest of the three falls, while the two falls uphill are smaller.

Kawasan Falls is located in Barangay Matutinao in Badian, Cebu. To get to Badian from Cebu City you can take a bus at the South Bus Terminal for a three hour ride that will directly take you to Badian. From there, you can take a tricycle that will take you to Barangay Matutinao.

If you are taking a private vehicle, drive past the Municipality of Carcar, and upon reaching the Municipality of Badian through the picturesque mountain road, then drive to Matutinao village. You can always ask for directions from people along the way if it is your first time to go to Kawasan Falls, so you won’t get lost.

When you reach the main road leading to Kawasan Falls, there is a main entrance to the waterfalls area and an entrance fee of 10 peso’s per person. From there, you start on a 20 to 30 minute walk on a trail that will lead you to the first waterfall.

You will then have to trek a further 10 to 15 minutes uphill to get to the second waterfall, and another 15 minute trek to the third waterfalls. There is a resort with restaurant at the area of the first waterfalls. There are small cottages and tables for rent at 300 peso’s each table as at September 2012 ( on top of the menu prices ) and several rooms for rent for those who want to stay overnight. A popular attraction is a bamboo raft ride leading to a shower under the cool falling waters of the first and second waterfall.

The facility has been better than the past management they have more improvements to the hospitals than anything else which is the best thing they could have done because this is where most Badianganons run to in the time of need. This is also the location where the town church is located ~ the church of Santiago Apostol, which celebrates its Festival on the 25th of July every year. Together with the Feast of Santiago Apostle is the Banig Festival which was started about three years ago. Poblacion is also where the Municipal Hall is located in sitio sawang. Thus, I believe that the municipality should ought to have more funding's in the Hospital Facility more so that the roads that they are trying to fix every single year Poblacion has many sitios which is the little corners of Poblacion which is residential or commercial properties. Some of these sitios are; Syma, Walog, Sawang, Highway, and many more. This is the only urban place in Badian compared to any other barangays that surround the town. Poblacion is also the most populated barangay in all Badian. Which has 3854 population as of 2007 Census. Poblacion is where the marketplace is located. Thus, most of the trading is here. Many vendors from all over town will show up mostly on Saturdays and Sundays for the trading.

Colne, Shackleton Hall. Grade 2 listed former Co-operative store, hall and offices, built in 1888, and renamed Shackleton Hall in 1949 in honour of J W Shackleton JP. No longer a Co-op, it is subdivided into several businesses.

 

Colne, Lancashire, North West England - Shackleton Hall, Church Street

July 2024

Badian is a 3rd class municipality in the province of Cebu, Philippines. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 37,699 people. The Municipality of Badian is located 97.6 km southwest of Cebu City. It is bounded on the north by the municipality of Moalboal; on the south by the municipality of Alegria; on the east by the municipalities of Dalaguete and Argao; and on the west by Tanon Strait.

Badian is administratively subdivided into 29 barangays.

Alawijao Balhaan Banhigan Basak Basiao Bato Bugas Calangcang Candiis Dagatan Dobdob

Ginablan Lambug Malbago Malhiao Manduyong Matutinao Patong Poblacion Sanlagan

Santicon Sohoton Sulsugan Talayong Taytay Tigbao Tiguib Tubod Zaragosa

The Kawasan Falls is a three-layered waterfall series located in the Municipality of Badian, Cebu, which has become a huge attraction with foreign and local tourists throughout the years. The first waterfall is the largest and highest of the three falls, while the two falls uphill are smaller.

Kawasan Falls is located in Barangay Matutinao in Badian, Cebu. To get to Badian from Cebu City you can take a bus at the South Bus Terminal for a three hour ride that will directly take you to Badian. From there, you can take a tricycle that will take you to Barangay Matutinao.

If you are taking a private vehicle, drive past the Municipality of Carcar, and upon reaching the Municipality of Badian through the picturesque mountain road, then drive to Matutinao village. You can always ask for directions from people along the way if it is your first time to go to Kawasan Falls, so you won’t get lost.

When you reach the main road leading to Kawasan Falls, there is a main entrance to the waterfalls area and an entrance fee of 10 peso’s per person. From there, you start on a 20 to 30 minute walk on a trail that will lead you to the first waterfall.

You will then have to trek a further 10 to 15 minutes uphill to get to the second waterfall, and another 15 minute trek to the third waterfalls. There is a resort with restaurant at the area of the first waterfalls. There are small cottages and tables for rent at 300 peso’s each table as at September 2012 ( on top of the menu prices ) and several rooms for rent for those who want to stay overnight. A popular attraction is a bamboo raft ride leading to a shower under the cool falling waters of the first and second waterfall.

The Mactan International Airport is located in Mactan, Cebu; it is served by major airlines like Cebu Pacific Air and Philippine Airlines. You can also fly from Metro Manila to Cebu. There are many domestic flights and sometimes it is economical because many airlines offer a cheaper airfare. Check also for any available promo. If you arrived earlier in Cebu, you can leave straight to Badian providing you already arranged your accommodation there before your arrival or you can stay for a night in Cebu City and have your trip to Badian the next day.

Your choices to come from Cebu City to Badian are: from the airport you can take a taxi to South Bus Terminal look for Ceres Bus Liner via Barili, you can also take Librando Trans. There are buses leaving Cebu City to Badian every 30 minutes or one hour. It will take 2-3 hours or more bus travel to reach Badian from Cebu City depending on the number of stops. You can also hire a taxi at the airport or at the city to Badian, it is more comfortable and faster. Make sure the driver knows where Badian is. The fare is about Php 1500.00 - Php 3000.00 and be prepare for some bartering and some hidden costs

The capital barangay of Badian town is Poblacion. It is located in the centre of the town. This is where the local high school is located called Badian National High School ( BNHS ) is one of the two high schools in the town of Badian. This is also the largest of the two and many students from the neighbouring town just like Moalboal, Alcantara and Ronda come to study in this high school. The lower educational facility in Badian is the Badian Central Elementary School where all the younger children go to school for the simple fact that it is completely free and the only elementary school and the biggest one in town. One more very important institution that is located in Poblacion is the Town Hospital where everyone from every other barangay goes to in the time of sickness.

The facility has been better than the past management they have more improvements to the hospitals than anything else which is the best thing they could have done because this is where most Badianganons run to in the time of need. This is also the location where the town church is located ~ the church of Santiago Apostol, which celebrates its Festival on the 25th of July every year. Together with the Feast of Santiago Apostle is the Banig Festival which was started about three years ago. Poblacion is also where the Municipal Hall is located in sitio sawang. Thus, I believe that the municipality should ought to have more funding's in the Hospital Facility more so that the roads that they are trying to fix every single year Poblacion has many sitios which is the little corners of Poblacion which is residential or commercial properties. Some of these sitios are; Syma, Walog, Sawang, Highway, and many more. This is the only urban place in Badian compared to any other barangays that surround the town. Poblacion is also the most populated barangay in all Badian. Which has 3854 population as of 2007 Census. Poblacion is where the marketplace is located. Thus, most of the trading is here. Many vendors from all over town will show up mostly on Saturdays and Sundays for the trading.