Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Brooklyn's Fort Greene: From Bastion to Park
The 30-acre Fort Greene Park rises in New York City's borough of Brooklyn. Strategic military ground became a park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.
Originally known as Fort Putnam, after patriot officer Israel Putnam, the hillside that currently comprises Fort Greene Park in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn once protected General George Washington and his troops during the Battle of Long Island. The works on this land, started during March 1776, consisted of a series of entrenchments essential to prevent the port of New York from falling to the British.
One of Washington’s most capable officers, General Nathaniel Greene, took command of the defenses during May. The fort was situated to the eastern end of the defense line. The landscape became a significant portion of the battleground during August
.
British Prison Ships
The British leveled the defenses and took control of the port. Related action occurred in today’s Green-Wood Cemetery and Prospect Park, plus the land, now developed, that connects all three locations.
Upon seizing control of the area, the British placed patriot prisoners from this fight and other battles in warships anchored in Wallabout Bay, which separated Brooklyn from New York City. Any prisoner refusing to pledge loyalty to King George was left to rot on the disease plagued ships. For six years, more than 11,500 patriots died from disease or starvation.
The bodies of these patriots were unceremoniously buried in shallow graves along the then-swampy Brooklyn shoreline. As the remains became exposed due to the changing tides, citizens collected the bones and placed them in a vault on Hudson Street in Brooklyn.
Walt Whitman Wants Park
During 1812, Fort Putnam was rebuilt and renamed Fort Greene. Population growth on the farmland that surrounded the fortified hill led to the building of additional private homes, apartment buildings and commercial operations.
By 1846, Walt Whitman, the poet, editor of The Brooklyn Eagle and soon to be a Civil War nurse, wrote daily about the need for a park to serve as the “lung” that would provide the dense population with free circulation of air. He said the people needed to “spend a few grateful hours in the enjoyment of wholesome rest.” One year later, Washington Park was established on the site of Fort Greene.
Near the end of the Civil War and after the successful creation of Manhattan’s Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux were hired by Brooklyn to professionally design a series of parks. Their first assignment was Washington Park, later renamed Fort Greene Park. The designers incorporated a concept for a crypt within the park for the prison ship martyrs.
That monument became a reality during 1905 with the support of The Society of Old Brooklynites, The Daughters of the American Revolution and many other organizations. The prominent architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White, which soon after designed New York City’s Pennsylvania Station, was commissioned to design the Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial. The plan included a 100-foot wide granite stairway leading to a freestanding Doric column about 150 feet tall. The column was crowned by an eight-ton bronze urn. The remains of the lost patriots were placed in the crypt below.
Today, Fort Greene Park and the Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial are surrounded by the neighborhoods known as Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Wallabout. Unfortunately, few residents know about the history of the hallowed ground, its role in the fight for liberty, the importance of the memorial, or the sacrifice of those whose remains are within the tomb.
Sources
- New-York Historical Society
- The Brooklyn Historical Society
Exhibit Profiles the Iconic Designs From the Minds of Pratt University Alums
Betty Boop, the Chrysler Building, Heisman Trophy, Cuisinart and Spirit of St. Louis have a lot in common. They were designed by someone who attended Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute.
Arguably the nation’s top art and design school, Pratt is to Clinton Hill and New York City what Harvard is to Cambridge and Boston —not only the top international academic institution, but a college that has helped its neighborhood grow rather than dominate it physically and philosophically.
This month, Pratt Institute turned 125 years old. To celebrate, the Pratt community held a gala at the Waldorf-Astoria, assembled a special edition of its Prattfolio magazine, and named 125 of its alumni and faculty as icons for creating some of the most important designs the world has seen. WNET aired a PBS documentary, “Treasures of New York: Pratt Institute,” narrated by New York City writer and former Pratt student Pete Hamill.
"So many objects fundamentally important to how we live our lives came from the mind of a Pratt person,” says Todd Galitz, vice president for institutional advancement. “We thought, ‘What better way to teach people about Pratt than through the things that were made or invented or designed by the people who came though here?’ When we stared researching, we couldn’t believe the incredible body of work.”
To name a few — the Trimline telephone from AT&T, an improved Cuisinart, Scrabble board, Life magazine logo, the compact blow-dryer of the 1970s, no-ghost Ghostbuster logo, and the 1955 Ford Thunderbird. Oscar-winning actor Martin Landau went to Pratt to study illustration. Philip Johnson taught there.
The final 125 items in the Icons exhibition were decided by votes cast online by members of the Pratt community. The exhibition is free and open to the public, and will be on view Nov. 30 to Jan. 19 at Pratt Manhattan Gallery, 144 W. 14th St.
“When Charles Pratt opened the school in the 1880s he said, ‘Be true to your work, and your work will be true to you,’ ” says Galitz. “If you look at these people and objects, you can see that legacy still lasts.”
New York architect Annabelle Selldorf is a Pratt 125 Icon. She came to the school as a 19-year-old from Cologne, Germany, to study architecture. Her designs include the Sky Garage building in Chelsea, profiled here last week, and a contextual residential building off the High Line on 19th St.
“There was a tremendous amount of intellectual diversity at Pratt,” says Selldorf. “There was not a prescribed style or overt dogmatic approach to the study of architecture. Rather, students were allowed to explore many avenues of thought. I really appreciated this openness to new ideas. It allowed me to explore and develop my own personal expression, and find my voice as an architect. It is something that I continue to value in my practice today.”
In its 125 years of educating men and women, here are some of the things that came from the minds of people who discovered part of themselves at Pratt, in Brooklyn.
Arguably the nation’s top art and design school, Pratt is to Clinton Hill and New York City what Harvard is to Cambridge and Boston —not only the top international academic institution, but a college that has helped its neighborhood grow rather than dominate it physically and philosophically.
This month, Pratt Institute turned 125 years old. To celebrate, the Pratt community held a gala at the Waldorf-Astoria, assembled a special edition of its Prattfolio magazine, and named 125 of its alumni and faculty as icons for creating some of the most important designs the world has seen. WNET aired a PBS documentary, “Treasures of New York: Pratt Institute,” narrated by New York City writer and former Pratt student Pete Hamill.
"So many objects fundamentally important to how we live our lives came from the mind of a Pratt person,” says Todd Galitz, vice president for institutional advancement. “We thought, ‘What better way to teach people about Pratt than through the things that were made or invented or designed by the people who came though here?’ When we stared researching, we couldn’t believe the incredible body of work.”
To name a few — the Trimline telephone from AT&T, an improved Cuisinart, Scrabble board, Life magazine logo, the compact blow-dryer of the 1970s, no-ghost Ghostbuster logo, and the 1955 Ford Thunderbird. Oscar-winning actor Martin Landau went to Pratt to study illustration. Philip Johnson taught there.
The final 125 items in the Icons exhibition were decided by votes cast online by members of the Pratt community. The exhibition is free and open to the public, and will be on view Nov. 30 to Jan. 19 at Pratt Manhattan Gallery, 144 W. 14th St.
“When Charles Pratt opened the school in the 1880s he said, ‘Be true to your work, and your work will be true to you,’ ” says Galitz. “If you look at these people and objects, you can see that legacy still lasts.”
New York architect Annabelle Selldorf is a Pratt 125 Icon. She came to the school as a 19-year-old from Cologne, Germany, to study architecture. Her designs include the Sky Garage building in Chelsea, profiled here last week, and a contextual residential building off the High Line on 19th St.
“There was a tremendous amount of intellectual diversity at Pratt,” says Selldorf. “There was not a prescribed style or overt dogmatic approach to the study of architecture. Rather, students were allowed to explore many avenues of thought. I really appreciated this openness to new ideas. It allowed me to explore and develop my own personal expression, and find my voice as an architect. It is something that I continue to value in my practice today.”
In its 125 years of educating men and women, here are some of the things that came from the minds of people who discovered part of themselves at Pratt, in Brooklyn.
Prices Soar As Inventory Falls in Brooklyn and Queens
| 10/18/2012 | Source: New York Magazine | ||
| "The inventory is falling! The inventory is falling!" That's the cri de coeur of the outer borough real estate market this past quarter, according to third-quarter market reports released today. Analyst and appraiser Jonathan Miller, who prepared the report for Prudential Douglas Elliman, says inventory has been falling since 2010, but "now we're noticing it because it's becoming acute." Both Brooklyn and Queens saw the number of available apartments plummet (16.2 percent in Brooklyn and 12.2 percent in Queens), leaving buyers to scramble for what remains and driving prices upward. Any decent property with decent pricing "goes quickly and over asking," says Corcoran Goup's Frank Prescepe.Consequently, the median sale price in Brooklyn, $525,000, reflects an increase of 3 percent from 2011, the Corcoran Group survey found, and the average price per square foot in the borough leaped to $633, only 5 percent off its June 2008 apex. And in Queens, median sale price is up 1.8 percent to $356,382, according to Elliman, and the average price per square foot was up a whopping 20.6 percent to $346. Last year's number was $287. | ||
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