Engineering America: The Life and Times of John A. Roebling

Richard Haw, interviewed by Beth Harpaz

The beloved Brooklyn Bridge was one of the most daring feats of 19th Century engineering. The man who designed it was equally daring and a paradox of personality: An oddball who engineered a structure that was a marvel of stability at a time when suspension bridges routinely fell down. Richard Haw, a professor in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, has written two previous books about the Brooklyn Bridge. The focus of his latest – after 13 years of research – is the man behind the bridge. Engineering America: The Life and Times of John A. Roebling tells one of the most fascinating American immigrant stories. Haw talks about it with Beth Harpaz, editor of CUNY SUM.

Interviews, Podcasts, Brooklyn, Built EnvironmentGuest UserMay 1, 2020Comment

The Women of Atelier 17: Modernist Printmaking in Midcentury New York

Review by Jennifer Farrell

While there is certainly no dearth of scholarship on midcentury art in the United States, especially work made in New York City, this informative and important new book proves that there are still many areas in this period which demand further study. In The Women of Atelier 17, the independent historian Christina Weyl closely examines a world largely ignored in both art history and cultural studies—modernist printmaking and work done by female artists at the celebrated print studio when it operated in Gotham. Using archival sources, interviews, skillful visual analysis, as well as literature from a variety of fields (including art history, women’s studies, cultural studies, history, sociology, and other subjects), she considers both their work and influence, in this particular field and beyond it.

Arts & Culture, ReviewsGuest UserApril 30, 2020Comment

Repowering Cities: An Interview with Sara Hughes

Interviewed by Katie Uva

Today on the blog, Katie Uva speaks to Sara Hughes about her recent book, Repowering Cities: Governing Climate Change Mitigation in New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto. The book examines how each of these cities have set climate change mitigation goals and how each city’s ability to achieve those goals has evolved over the past decade.

Interviews, Urban PlanningGuest UserApril 28, 2020Comment

“Skull Trouble”: A Brief History of Police Harassment of Black New Yorkers

By Marcy S. Sacks

As a fresh recruit to the New York City police force at the turn of the twentieth century, Dutch immigrant Cornelius Willemse learned an important lesson from his superior officer about how to treat the black residents on his beat. One day, the novice patrolman encountered a group of black men congregating on a street corner. He attempted to disperse the group. “At my order to move along,” he recalled, “they shuffled off slowly, dragging their feet on the sidewalk, in a way which seemed to say, ‘Feet, we’ll be back as soon as this fool cop is gone.’” Angered by their perceived insolence, Willemse decided that they were “ripe for a lesson.” Without warning, he began beating any black man within reach, “work[ing] with the old nightstick as hard as I could.” In short order, “Negroes were lying all over the sidewalk, some of them half conscious, others bruised and bleeding.” He smugly evaluated his success. “I had made good on my threat of ‘skull trouble.’” He expected no further difficulty from them.

Crime & Policing, Race & EthnicityGuest UserApril 23, 2020Comment

Stirrings: How Activist New Yorkers Ignited a Movement for Food Justice

Reviewed by Nevin Cohen

It is impossible to read Stirrings: How Activist New Yorkers Ignited a Movement for Food Justice in the midst of the 2020 Democratic primaries without drawing comparisons between the tensions faced by the food justice pioneers profiled in Lana Dee Povitz’s history and the very different visions of social change articulated by the two candidates. Bernie Sanders’s case for the radical transformation of an unequal and unjust economic and political system seems diametrically opposed to Joe Biden’s more conservative approach, emphasizing incremental change within existing institutions. Their ideologies seem irreconcilable. But as the organizations profiled in Lana Dee Povitz’s compelling history of food activism illustrate, on the ground social change is more nuanced and complex than the Sanders/Biden schism suggests.

Reviews, Poverty & Inequality, Food & DrinkGuest UserApril 21, 2020Comment

The Unstoppable Irish: Songs and Integration of the New York Irish, 1783-1883

Interview by Elizabeth Stack

Today on the blog, Gotham editor Elizabeth Stack speaks with Dan Milner about his recent book, The Unstoppable Irish: Songs and Integration of the New York Irish, 1783-1883 and the importance of music to the Irish people both in Ireland and New York.

The Unstoppable Irish follows the changing fortunes of New York's Irish Catholics, commencing with the evacuation of British military forces in late 1783 and concluding one hundred years later with the completion of the initial term of the city's first Catholic mayor. During that century, Hibernians first coalesced and then rose in uneven progression from being a variously dismissed, despised, and feared foreign group to ultimately receiving de facto acceptance as constituent members of the city's population. Dan Milner presents evidence that the Catholic Irish of New York gradually integrated (came into common and equal membership) into the city populace rather than assimilated (adopted the culture of a larger host group). Assimilation had always been an option for Catholics, even in Ireland. In order to fit in, they needed only to adopt mainstream Anglo-Protestant identity. But the same virile strain within the Hibernian psyche that had overwhelmingly rejected the abandonment of Gaelic Catholic being in Ireland continued to hold forth in Manhattan and the community remained largely intact. A novel aspect of Milner's treatment is his use of song texts in combination with period news reports and existing scholarship to develop a fuller picture of the Catholic Irish struggle. Products of a highly verbal and passionately musical people, Irish folk and popular songs provide special insight into the popularly held attitudes and beliefs of the integration epoch.

Arts & Culture, Immigration, InterviewsGuest UserApril 16, 2020Comment

Public Works: Reflecting on 15 Years of Project Excellence for New York City

Reviewed by Fran Leadon

“Public Works: Reflecting on 15 Years of Project Excellence for New York City,” on view at the AIA Center for Architecture, on LaGuardia Place, (before the Center closed for COVID-19) is a tiny exhibition about a big idea. In 1996, during Rudy Giuliani’s first term as mayor, the city created the Department of Design and Construction (DDC) in order to unify construction programs that had previously been scattered through the Transportation, Environmental Protection, and General Services departments. In 2004, under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the DDC started a program called “Project Excellence” (also, confusingly, referred to as “Design and Construction Excellence.”)

Reviews, Built EnvironmentGuest UserApril 14, 2020Comment

Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763-1789

Reviewed by Jonathan W. Wilson

Have pity for John Holt. He lived in perilous times. As the publisher of the New-York Journal, and as a centrally located postmaster, Holt was poised to play an important role in the American Revolution. His evident sympathies were with the patriots. But he had to be careful.

Reviews, American Revolution, Business & Labor, British Era, Early Republic, PoliticsGuest UserApril 9, 2020Comment

Gabe: A Tribute to the U.S. Merchant Mariner Veterans of World War II

By Johnathan Thayer

The American Merchant Marine Veterans Association (AMMV) has worked on behalf of merchant mariner veterans of World War II since its founding in 1984. Representing a “Voice for the American Merchant Mariner” and advocating for just compensation and recognition for merchant mariner veterans of WWII and other wars, the the New York and New Jersey chapters of the AMMV have hosted countless meetings and celebrations for decades. Sadly, they have also lent their services to memorial remembrances for chapter members who have passed away. It is with a heavy heart that the New York City-based Edwin J. O’Hara chapter recently did so recently for Gabriel “Gabe” Frank, who passed away on January 29th.

Brooklyn, Waterfront & IslandsGuest UserApril 7, 2020 Comment

The Lawyer and the Fox: A Tale of Tricks and Treachery in New Amsterdam

By Jaap Jacobs

Historians of New Netherland have largely viewed Adriaen van der Donck positively, portraying him as a conduit for enlightened Dutch tolerance into North America. But this image of Adriaen van der Donck is hard to reconcile with the historical record. In fact, many aspects of his life point the other way. Van der Donck’s exile from Breda, his marriage to a daughter of a puritan minister from England, and his continuing membership of the Calvinist church suggest that his engagement in colonial projects stemmed from religious motives very like other New England colonists: the desire to create a safe haven overseas, free from persecution. If so, Van der Donck entertained religious ideas quite similar to those of Petrus Stuyvesant.

New Amsterdam, PoliticsGuest UserApril 2, 2020Comment