Tag Archives: history

Validating a Memory: The Neptune Raincoat Company

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  I was thinking about my father: he was a laborer. That’s what my mother said. I never knew what the words meant until later in my childhood, but I understood the memory of an image at a young age. I knew, for years, that my father worked on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, south of where we lived, on East Broadway and Canal Street. Somewhere, down there. I knew that he worked for The Neptune Raincoat Company. I remembered that in my early teens, while I was in Junior High School 104, that my father traveled to Elizabeth, … Continue reading →

Steller Story Series: A Charmed Life: Book 12: Italy in Silver

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  I have been photographing—and re-photographing my collection and designs; so this is a multi-faceted project: one project, the collecting, then the designing, begat another; the photography and presentation. Here is a link to the on-line presentation on Steller. If you are so inclined, download the Steller app. It is lovely the way the pages “turn.” The view is especially impressive on a large screen, as on a tablet. Feel free to comment!   Steller Link: Book 12  

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Sex and Power. Don’t Blame The Victim

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  Folks, we are living in strange times. Actually, all times have been strange since the very beginning, but the fact that we are living in these times make this our strange reality. Let me take you back to the 1960s. I graduated from high school in 1966. The times they were a-changing. It was about twenty short years since a horrific war. Some of us went home after school to a Betty Crocker existence. Some went home to an empty house and wore keys on strings around our necks because our mothers had to work. Some of us went on … Continue reading →

Creativity Takes Courage

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I finally had some time to go through my camera roll and see what needed to be edited. I came across two photographs of a display in The Jewish Museum, which were taken last March. The story below is extremely moving and the photograph is even more so. As a collector and creator of charms and charm bracelets, this was something to behold. Imagine the circumstances. Imagine the need to create. Imagine how creativity can keep one going. Imagine how this was made. Imagine.         Bracelet. Terezín (Theresienstadt), Czech Republic, 1941-43. Brass: cut-out; porcelain; cord. The Jewish … Continue reading →

What Just Freaking Happened? leading to …137. Mother-Daughter Journey

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  This has been a wacky few weeks. As I mentioned, I was giving an on-line iPhone photography course (they call it a workshop, but the amount of time and work that went into it could have gotten me tenure at a university) so I was on-line posting and creating and helping, and researching. And migraining. It was an awful month for migraines, just about a daily event of one kind or another, and I do think I mentioned about the violent vertigo attack; these scare the crap out of me. I try to live, if I can in between … Continue reading →

Sunday Sundries: Articles That Called to Me

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Articles that have crossed my path that I would like to share …   From The Atlantic: On relationships, dating, and the strange things that happen: A Catfishing With a Happy Ending: Emma Perrier was deceived by an older man on the internet—a hoax that turned into an unbelievable love story. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/10/hook-line-and-sinker/542748/   From The New York Times, a veritable book: Ireland Wanted to Forget. But the Dead Don’t Always Stay Buried. The Lost Children of Tuam by Dan Barry https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/28/world/europe/tuam-ireland-babies-children.html    

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NYC Photo Journal: A Visit To My Alma Mater, CCNY, “The Poor Man’s Harvard”

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  Looking across Convent Avenue towards Shepard Hall A visit during Open House New York (OHNY) (Alma Mater ) CCNY. Harlem, NYC https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/ https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/about/campusmap https://www.pointsmap.com/ccny/ I hadn’t been back since graduation in 1969. It is a very changed place. My observation: The North Campus has been gussied up and is shining. There was no Raymond the Pretzel Man. There is a fleet of vans poised to shuttle the masses from north to south: No running like a maniac for half a mile. The admin building is still standing. Remember how in the late ’60s we’d go in to pay the … Continue reading →

Nostalgia: On Baby Ducklings and Rye Bread

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Near the corner of East 14th Street and Avenue B there was an entrance to a store that was recessed from the building line and had two pillars; the façade was covered in red and mirror mosaics, making the entrance a bit hidden from the rest of the store doorways, but it beckoned in its exoticism.   When I pulled the door open I was hit by the odor of sugar and bread. Bakery products were made in the store, not in some central commissary; the smell was magic and this was my version of a Proustian madeleine, evoking my … Continue reading →

On This 9/11 …

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The new, beautiful NYC skyline renews hope, masks pain   Since 9/11, September has never been an easy month. In fact, the reality of the events get harder to face each year. Something which never should have happened, did, and the world changed forever. Each year I post links to a series of blogs about the history of The World Trade Center to the present. We New Yorkers left to survive that day will never forget. 📌You can find the series here.   [note: the photos posted are not mine]   Astronaut Frank Culbertson recalls seeing the attacks from space. … Continue reading →

NYC Photo Journal: The Process of Processing

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    Telling a story. The process of processing. Getting drawn into the world of the captured. I have always loved street photography, the candid, and the other worlds of others. I do this as a blogger, incorporating where I go and what I see into a world for the viewer. Recently at the Museum of the City of New York I saw an exhibit of Jacob Riis’s heart-gripping photography from the late 1800s and on. Riis was so taken by the way the poor lived–rather existed– in the city that he was compelled to photograph every example he could. … Continue reading →

NYC Photo Journal: I Guess I’ve Been Busy: BKLYN/OHNY/Kings Theatre, East Midwood

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This is me multitasking: notice how I can take a selfie of my selfies at the same time   So, kids during my hiatus I have been caring for my mother’s issues, caring for my own issues, taking a lot of iPhone photos, doing a little playing: I’ve watched up to Season 5 of Game of Thrones, and everything but the final six or so episodes of Season 7 of Mad Men; I’ll be sorry to see these series end. As for movies; I loved Learning to Drive, I liked 99 Homes, saw a few plays at MTC (Manhattan Theater … Continue reading →

NYC Photo Journal: Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, LIfe: The N. Y. Botanical Garden

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    The New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, New York is honoring the Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo from May 16 – November 1,  2015. Please visit this site for a multimedia bio.>>> Frida Kahlo Another article is here But first, a little Mexican food-truck lunch before the art and then the florals. The truck is fittingly called : Casa Azul, or “blue house,” named after Frida’s home and studio. [Food trucks are becoming popular all over the country. The tacos here were wonderful: the choice; fish and beef. And don’t forget the Tamarindo Jarrito soda.] Frida Kahlo was … Continue reading →

NYC Photo Journal: Back to The High Line For The Extension

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  Please refer to this post, written in 2009 when the Highline first opened, for the back-story and photographs: click>>>NYC Photo Journal: The High Line: abandoned rail in the sky becomes a park Click>>>Link to updated map and info The Highline has been lengthened to The Javits Center at 11th Avenue and 34th Street. At 2oth Street there is now an entrance. Once the hike upstairs is made, there are views on both sides: the Hudson River, and the Meatpacking District. (The lower west side of Manhattan) On the weekend it was packed with tourists, but the lovely wild flower … Continue reading →

Today We Remember. We Never Forget. Never Again.

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  Today is an important anniversary; it was seventy years ago on this day, 4/29/15, that the Dachau Concentration Camp was liberated. The photo above is of Gershon Press, who you might call a cousin. The photo was taken after the war in a DP, Displaced Persons’ Camp; he is still wearing part of the camp uniform. Taken from the photo archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Gershon Press poses after the war in his concentration camp uniform. Shirley Press is the daughter of Gershon Press. Gershon Press was born in 1921 (though official documents listed his birth … Continue reading →

NYC Photo Journal: November: A Month of Back-Blogs (part 3)

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The New-York Historical Society New-York Historical Society 170 Central Park West at Richard Gilder Way (77th Street) New York, NY 10024 Phone (212) 873-3400     I was able to catch several fascinating exhibits:   A Brief History of New York: Selections from A History of New York in 101 Objects; Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage: “Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage charts a new direction for one of America’s best-known living photographers. Unlike her staged and carefully lit portraits made on assignment for magazines and advertising clients, the photographs in this exhibition were taken simply because Leibovitz was moved by the subject. The images … Continue reading →

NYC Photo Journal: Sabarsky to Shiele and The Wurst That Can Happen

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    One of my favorite New York City museums is the lovely gem: The Neue Gallerie/Museum for German and Austrian Art. The museum is in a former townhouse; the museum is located at the Southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and East 86th Street, across from Central Park. But in order to look at and appreciate fine art, one must fill one’s stomach, so on the line one goes for about thirty minutes to get a table at Café Sabarsky on the first floor (my preference) or Café Fledermaus in the basement, where one can soak up the Austrian atmosphere … Continue reading →

NYC Photo Journal: From 1887 to Modern Times

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Saturday, September 20, 2014   but …   eventually I was at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, for a luncheon, a celebration of alumni and tours of buildings. There had been a terrible fire in a building and the subsequent reconstruction of it was wonderful. A few photos. The fun and interesting thing about this well-renown institution of art and architecture that was founded in 1887, is that a myriad of stray cats live in the boiler room. The cats are cared for, fed, taken to the vet, and adored by students and faculty members, alike. They roam the … Continue reading →

NYC History: Avery Corman: “My Old Neighborhood”

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Author, Avery Corman’s video is a touching look at growing up in the Bronx. Although I grew up in Lower Manhattan, I did live in the Bronx for about seven years. The denizens of each borough have borough-specific memories, yet somehow, the memories are the same. The food, the smells, the buildings, the sounds all echo from place to place. They will forever be different and forever the same. I am drawn to this video even though is is “before my time” and slightly out of phase with my life, but I know the Bronx. I remember the grand movie … Continue reading →

New York City Photo Journal: Look Into My Eye

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  May 30, 2014 Wonderful, brilliant friends in from Chicago, just back from India on a Fulbright scholarship for almost five months. The most creative family I know.  Outside our favorite deli in Mill Basin, Brooklyn.   May 31, 2014 The New George Jam Theater, Chrystie Street, NYC Saw: “A Beautiful Day in November On The Great Banks Of The Greatest Of The Great Lakes” Excellent review in the New York Times       June 5, 2014 The Brooklyn Museum Exhibit: Ai WeiWei     The Brooklyn Museum Artist from Brooklyn: Swoon     The Brooklyn Historical Society: Hidden … Continue reading →

Praises for Voelker-Orth Museum

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  The Voelker-Orth house is a gem of a museum and bird sanctuary in Flushing Queens–they even raise bees and make their own honey. This lovely Victorian home was lived in by one family of German immigrants and is over one hundred years old.  “The Voelker Orth Museum, Bird Sanctuary and Victorian Garden, through the experience of an immigrant family’s 1890s home, preserves and interprets the cultural and horticultural heritage of Flushing, Queens and adjacent communities to engage their ever-changing populations.” The recent Maifest … The Maifest welcomed us to Spring after a long, hard winter. The Voelker-Orth Museum is … Continue reading →